by Finley Aaron
So he found a good hiding spot among a tumble of boulders, and watched.
Near the top of the mountain, the men seemed to disappear into the snow. Only when he looked closer and watched carefully could Felix make out the entrance to a cave—a spot so well-camouflaged, he would never have found it if not for the men.
Whatever happened inside that cave, Felix couldn’t tell. But before long, the men returned without their eagles, climbed on their horses, and rode away, back in the direction of their village.
Felix stared at the cave opening. It was nearly evening by this time, and they were in an area of the mountains that was so remote, Felix had seen no sign of any human presence all day. As he sat in his hiding spot, pondering his next move, two human figures stepped out from the cave with the eagles fluttering about them.
The two people were dressed in minimal garments, though Felix observed from a distance that one appeared to be male, and the other female. While the eagles settled on perches on the surrounding rocks, the two individuals changed into dragons.
Felix felt his heart rate quicken and dip. He’d found them! He’d found dragons!
But if one was male and one female, were they husband and wife? If so, did they have children? But if they had children, where were the children?
Though he’d made a long journey hoping beyond hope for a moment such as this, Felix realized he wasn’t sure what to do next. Dragons weren’t supposed to be seen by humans.
Perhaps his best choice would be to change into a dragon and fly out to meet them. Yes, he might frighten them that way, but he’d frighten them if he arrived in human form, too. If he came as a dragon, they’d at least know he was their same kind.
By this time, the dragons were swooping down the mountainside with the eagles trialing behind them, a bit like an odd family of ducks taking their duckling out for a swim.
But this was no swim.
Fearing they might fly out of sight at any moment, Felix stripped off his outer clothes. He’d been carrying minimal weapons on his journey. Thanks to the mass-suicide of the yagi at the volcano, he had yet to encounter a single yagi on this trip, and so hadn’t needed his usual arsenal. He left his small sword and dagger with his clothes, then changed into a dragon, and flew after the other two dragons.
As he drew closer behind them, he swooped around wide, to their left, away from the mountainside, where they could see him without getting the impression he was chasing them down or trying to threaten them.
The two dragons were beautifully colored—one, a bright tiger orange, the other a rich, peacock blue. Being scarlet-red himself, Felix knew he would be easily seen. Indeed, he’d not yet even come up alongside them when the peacock-blue dragon seemed to catch sight of him out of the corner of her eye. Felix assumed this dragon to be female, having watched the human figure dressed as a female change into the blue dragon.
She turned her head, startled in the air, and then leapfrogged over the orange dragon.
This drew the attention of the orange dragon, which Felix assumed to be male. The orange dragon spread his wings and blew a quick burst of fire at Felix.
Having learned well the usefulness of vulnerability in peace-making operations, Felix did not blow fire or make any aggressive moves. Instead, he turned away from the two dragons and flew back in the direction of their cave.
The eagles, already lagging behind the others a bit and perhaps hoping to return to the cave or greet this newcomer, flew after Felix.
Feeling it might be considered hostile for him to land near the cave entrance, Felix picked a spot on the same mountain, about a stone’s throw from the cave entrance, where a ridge of rock game them all a decent place to land.
And then, still playing the advantage of vulnerability, Felix turned into a human.
The move was meant to put the two other dragons at ease. However, they circled him several times before landing a good twenty feet or more from him. They were almost halfway to their cave entrance, as though they felt they might need to run for shelter yet.
Finally, they changed back into human form, and Felix understood their reluctance to change.
Felix was tall, but not quite as tall as his brother Ram or their father, so that he often forgot how imposing he looked to outsiders. It hadn’t been so noticeable among the eagle hunters, since they were often on horseback, and many of them were powerfully built, besides bundling themselves in layers of clothing on their excursion to the snow-topped mountains.
But these two people were small. The woman, especially was hardly more than five feet tall. The man was taller, maybe five eight or five nine, but slender and wiry and almost fragile-looking as he shivered, clad only in a swath of fabric that hung from his waist.
Guessing the pair to be his elders, Felix bowed deferentially, making friendly gestures as he’d learned from Yul, and explained himself in Chinese. “I have been searching for you.”
Fortunately, the two appeared to understand him. The man spoke first, also in Chinese. “Where do you hail from?”
“Azerbaijan. Beyond the Caspian Sea.” He pointed in a direction that was vaguely westward, and perhaps a bit south.
The male took a hesitant step toward him. “What is your name?”
“Felix. Felix Melikov. And yours?”
“I am Chen. This is Zhi. We have not seen another dragon in…” Chen looked at Zhi.
Zhi peeked up at Felix from behind Chen’s shoulder, and murmured something in a voice so quiet, Felix couldn’t hear.
“Over a century,” Chen concluded. “But it has been longer still since we saw many dragons. We feared we were the only ones left.”
“There are others. My family—grandfather, parents, three sisters, and brother. My brother has a wife who is also a dragon. One of my sisters has just married a dragon, as well.”
Chen and Zhi exchanged looks. Felix did not know them well, and could not read the look. Their faces appeared young, but there was a wisdom in their blue and orange eyes that hinted at a great age.
They had to be at least a hundred years old, based on what they’d said—and probably many centuries older than that.
But were they too old to have children? The general understanding among dragons was that females were only capable of laying eggs until about six or seven hundred years of age, but no one he knew had known any females of that age, with the possible exception of Eudora, who was mysterious on many levels and no help in answering the question of potential dragon fertility, as the rumors about her raised more questions than they answered.
Was Zhi too old to have dragon babies?
Given the way Chen phrased his statement about how long it had been since they’d seen any other dragons, it hinted that perhaps Zhi was hundreds of years old, maybe even too old to bear young.
And even if she wasn’t, she had Chen.
Felix fought against disappointment. He’d found dragons. That was something. Even if they couldn’t help regenerate the dragon population, nonetheless, they were his kind.
“Please, come inside. We would like to speak with you.”
Felix followed them into their cave. The eagles fluttered in after them and perched on stands around the room, while Zhi puttered about in a tiny kitchen around a flame-lit stove whose smoke curled away through an opening above it on the wall.
The cave was an odd, tunneled space, illumined in flickering, yellow light by flaming torches stuck into niches high on the walls. It was cozy, especially once Chen drew the curtain that closed off the wind from outside.
But it was a small space—in places, Felix had to duck to avoid knocking his head against rocky protrusions that extended from the ceiling or walls. He couldn’t imagine that the dragons would be able to assume their dragon form inside the cave. They’d have to go outside—a huge disadvantage should they ever find themselves attacked in the cave.
And an indication of the risk they were taking by inviting him in.
But then, he couldn’t turn into a dragon i
nside the cave, either.
Like the village homes Felix had visited, fur pelts provided rugs, cushions, and even tapestries on the walls, making the stone dwelling feel less cold.
Chen gestured to a few padded cushions around a low table, and invited Felix to take a seat.
Zhi served tea in small carved stone cups.
Once he’d sipped some tea, Chen spoke in an animated voice, telling Felix stories of the dragons of long ago, and the various ways they all been killed off over the centuries. Chen’s dialect was slightly different from the Chinese Felix had learned, and he had to listen carefully to understand.
While he was listening, he observed the two dragons. Zhi seemed entirely submissive, speaking only in whispers, and then only to Chen, and only when she was directly addressed. She didn’t look at Felix, but kept her eyes averted toward the floor when she was in his presence, though he caught her peeking at him from the kitchen now and then.
After growing up with three independent and outspoken sisters, and especially after his adventure with Nia, who didn’t hesitate to speak her mind, Felix wasn’t sure how to respond to Zhi’s behavior.
As Chen neared the end of his tales, he mentioned, in various ways, that he and Zhi had hoped to someday see dragons again, and would like to travel with Felix to meet his family.
And so Felix invited them. Two days passed before they could make the trip—Chen and Zhi had to train the eagles and return them to the villagers, besides making other preparations to travel. During this time, Felix resigned himself to the fact that Zhi was not a viable mate for him. While he felt disappointed not to have found a mate, nonetheless, he was somewhat relieved that Zhi had Chen, because, to his dismay, Zhi did not appeal to him.
She seemed kind enough. That wasn’t the problem. And she was lovely in both human and dragon form. Perhaps it was the way she followed after Chen like a lost dog, and never spoke above a whisper. Or maybe it was something deeper, something about her that felt so very old, that Felix found himself thinking of her as more of a grandmother figure than a potential date.
Which was strange, since he’d never known either of his grandmothers. But Zhi puttered in such a grandmotherly way, setting the cave in order, everything precisely in its place, that Felix was often taken aback to look at her and see that she didn’t look any older than he was.
Once the eagles were returned, the three of them left in the late afternoon and flew through the night to Azerbaijan. Chen and Zhi knew the mountains well, and so they were able to travel without detection until it grew dark out. By flying quickly, they made the trip, following the moon on its course, and reaching the Caspian Sea at daybreak.
From there, Felix was able to use his knowledge of the region, as well as the low-lying cloud cover, to reach his home village in time for lunch.
The two newcomers generated much excitement, which was slightly awkward since they, like many dragons, were quite shy of human attention. Also, they needed Felix with them constantly, since he was the only person who could understand them, and then not terribly well.
While he’d felt slightly annoyed with Zhi’s refusal to speak directly to him back at the cave, now that he was acting as translator, it created an infuriatingly unnecessary additional step, since Zhi would have to first whisper to Chen, who would then try to explain to Felix, who had to pass everything along to everyone else.
He grew to rather resent Zhi, which made it all the more awkward when a few hours into their visit, Chen made a comment about his sister.
“You have a sister?” Felix clarified, putting stress on the Chinese word and adding for clarification, “Daughter of your same parents?”
Chen looked completely confused and put his arm around Zhi. “My sister,” he repeated. “Hatched two days apart.”
Everyone else in the room had gone silent, awaiting explanation. Ram and Nia were still away on their honeymoon, and Nia who was the only person who knew much Chinese, so there was no one else present to clarify. But Felix didn’t dare translate until he was sure he understood. “Zhi is not your wife?”
“No. Neither of us are married—we have never met other dragons to marry. They were hunted from before the time we were born. When we were young, those we knew were killed. Our mother died when we were two years old. It was a great loss, as she and my father had hoped to have more children. We stayed close to home, but even still, dragon hunters killed our father when Zhi and I were fifteen. He had gone in search of other dragons to arrange marriages for us. His guide and translator brought back the news. They had found no other dragons, and my father was killed. We have been in hiding, in fear for our lives, ever since. This was a little over a century ago.”
Felix listened to the story with a heavy heart. He felt bad for Chen and Zhi and all they’d lost—but more than that, he realized Zhi was an eligible bride.
He’d always wanted a bride.
But he didn’t even like Zhi.
*
Felix was glad that everyone wanted to ask questions of the dragons. He thought perhaps his sisters Rilla or Zilpha would take an interest in Chen, but instead, Rilla took the first opportunity to pull him aside while Chen and Zhi were busy eating.
“We’ve had a call from Ed and Wren.”
Something in her tone sent concern shooting through Felix. “Is everything okay?”
“I guess. They’re doing great, but they’ve found something.”
“What?”
“You remember that Ed knew our grandmother Faye long ago, before she met grandfather Elmir, and laid mom’s egg and died, and all that.”
“Yes.”
“Ed didn’t know until Wren told him, that Grandma Faye was dead. She’d gone off and never returned, and he searched the world looking for her, but he never knew what happened to her.”
“I think I knew most of that.”
“Here’s what you don’t know.” Rilla squeezed his hand as if to physically impress upon him the importance of what she was about to reveal. “Long before Grandma Faye even left Scotland, she’d given Ed a key to her apartment in Edinburgh. It was automatically paid through a trust. Ed called the building and the apartment is still registered in her name. It hasn’t been touched since before she left Scotland.”
“How long has that been? Forty years?” He did the math in his head. Their mother had only just turned forty—but she was hatched after Faye died, after she’d been rescued from Eudora’s dungeon, after she’d left Edinburgh, even longer before that.
“Forty-one years, give or take. But here’s the best part, Felix. Grandma Faye was a social butterfly. She kept correspondence with friends throughout the world.”
“Friends? People friends—or dragons?”
“Most of the dragons had been killed off by that time, but Ed remembers her mentioning a dragon who lived in France.”
“Male or female?”
“Female.”
Eagerness kicked Felix in the heart, sending his pulse stumbling forward unsteadily. “A female dragon.” He glanced at Zhi, who was sitting next to his grandfather Elmir in a set of arm chairs. Zhi was drinking her tea and casting subtle glances at Elmir. “Are they going to investigate?”
“They’re leaving in the morning for Edinburgh to go through the apartment. Someone needs to go through Grandma’s things, regardless. But if they find something, some clue that might lead them to this other dragon...”
“It could be a mate for me.” He squeezed Rilla’s hands in return.
Her robin’s-egg blue eyes shot a glance toward Zhi, then back to him.
Felix inhaled patiently. “I know she’s a dragon. She’s my species. But I don’t think she’s my type. I hate to reject her, but the thought of marrying her,” he suppressed a shudder. “If there’s another female, though, that will make it easier on Zhi, won’t it? To know there was someone else, and not that I just couldn’t stand—”
Rilla squeezed his hands again. “It would be best. Wren and Ed wanted to know if anyone was i
nterested in flying up and going through the apartment with them.”
“I could rest through the afternoon and leave tonight. I’d have to sleep tomorrow, halfway there, but—”
“It will take them more than a day to go through everything in the apartment. Ed was talking about driving his truck down to move her things back, and terminating the rental agreement.”
“That makes sense.”
“They won’t even get to Edinburgh until lunch time.”
“Perfect.” Felix gave his sisters’ hands a final squeeze before letting go. “Do you think it would be too rude for me to head off to bed?” He looked back at Chen and Zhi.
Zhi was giggling at something Elmir said. It was almost like they could communicate. But as far as Felix knew, his grandfather didn’t know more than ten words in Chinese.
“How’s that possible?” Felix murmured.
“I don’t know how,” Zilpha whispered back, “but those two appear to be communicating just fine.”
*
Felix explained his intentions briefly to Chen and Zhi. Then he went to bed and slept through the afternoon, into the evening time. When he awoke, he went to the kitchen so he could eat a big meal before setting out on what would be a taxing trip. He’d need all the energy he could eat.
Several of his family members were there, along with Zhi and Chen, who immediately approached him. “We want to go with you.”
“We?” Felix still felt a little groggy from sleep, and wanted to make sure he understood.
“Zhi and I want to accompany you on your journey.”
“It’s going to be a hard, fast flight. You’ll want to stay here, among other dragons.”
“You are the only one we can talk to. Besides, your grandfather says he’s going.” Chen cast a pointed look at Elmir, who once again was sitting next to Zhi. Like all dragons, Felix’s grandfather Elmir hadn’t aged visibly beyond the point of maturity, so he still looked like any college student.
As did Zhi.
In fact, they made a cozy couple.
Felix swallowed. His grandfather had been a widower ever since Grandma Faye died, forty years before. Of course Elmir would want to be there, to help go through his deceased wife’s apartment, even if it dated to the time before he’d met her. And it wouldn’t hurt for Zhi to join them on the trip. Felix hadn’t thought of his grandfather as an eligible bachelor, but now that he considered the idea, it made sense.