Modern Serpents Talk Things Through

by Jamie Brindle

  Somewhere in a still, calm part of her mind, Tina looked at herself and thought, well! Who would have thought I had it in me! I actually look almost fierce!

  But she couldn't stop herself, she couldn't hold back. Something had come unlocked in her mind, and her deep-rooted meekness, her mildness, her desperation to be small and unnoticed had withered away. It felt so good.

  Her therapist stayed still. In one claw, she was fingering the gold medallion that hung from her neck. She did not raise her voice, nor did she attempt to protest, which were the two responses Tina had expected. Instead she tilted her head slightly to one side and asked, "What am I thinking? Can you tell me?"

  She said it quite calmly, and there was no sense of a challenge issued, just genuine curiosity.

  "You're thinking that I'm a freak!" Tina shouted, her voice hoarse. "You're thinking that I'm some stupid loner who can't even find someone of the same species to fall in love with, and that so I've chosen some ... some animal instead! You think that I'm a monster."

  And on the last word her anger died away to nothing and her voice cracked and she was just small, mild Tina again. She burst into tears.

  She cried and she cried, and she felt as if she were alone in the room, alone in the world, and nothing mattered except for her grief and her shame and how good it felt as it rolled out of her body in her tears and flashed away as steam from her boiling skin.

  And when the tears slowed at last, when she looked up and remembered where she was, she saw her therapist was looking at her, kindly. She had tears in her eyes, too.

  "You are not a monster," her therapist said softly. "I'm not saying that if and when you decide to tell people, that no one will call you one. People can be scared. People can be small. But that's why it's so important the you know deep down that you are not."

  Then the therapist was shifting, and to Tina's surprise she was actually standing up and walking over to her. She lifted the gold medallion that hung around her neck. One of her claws pressed on a little catch, and suddenly the thing sprang open. The therapist held the splayed medallion out, and Tina took it curiously.

  Inside was a portrait, carefully executed in strokes of charcoal on a white parchment. It was of a man.

  "Oh," said Tina, catching her breath.

  The therapist moved closer. Now they were both looking at the portrait together. Tina felt the warmth of the older dragon next to her. It was comforting, somehow.

  "That was him, not long before the end," the therapist said softly. It was so unusual for her to be talking about her own life that Tina was scared to breathe unless she broke the moment. But she had to say something. Surely, some comment was needed ...

  "He's very ... very handsome," she said uncertainly.

  The therapist snorted, and when Tina snatched a glance at her, she saw a wry half-smile on her face.

  "He's very old," the therapist corrected. "He was handsome. He was very beautiful. I wish I had thought to have his portrait taken then. But in the beginning ... we thought there would be so much time. We thought we had forever."

  She shook her head sadly, then turned and looked at Tina kindly over the top of her spectacles.

  "We were half-right," she said, shrugging. "After all, we had a lifetime. We had his lifetime."

  Tina did not know what to say.

  The therapist reached out slowly, and took the medallion back from Tina, closed it carefully, and hung it back around her neck. Then she turned and carefully sat back in her seat.

  "We were very careful, you know," said the therapist, musingly, as if speaking to herself. "After all, I was terrified what might happen if anyone found out. Especially my mother or father. We had to snatch moments together, when I was certain that no one might catch us."

  She titled her head, her eyes clouded and distant.

  "Now, of course, I wish that I hadn't given a thought to all that," she said. "They are such ... such delicate creatures. Humans, I mean. They are like mayflies. I could see him ageing almost before my eyes. I remember when his hair changed. One day it was the colour of straw in the summer, the next it was white, pure white. That was when I realised. That was when I understood how little time we actually had. By then of course, it was almost too late. We had already wasted so much."

  The therapist looked back at Tina and smiled.

  "You shouldn't waste your time worrying about whether other people think you should feel guilty or not," she said. "You should live your life the way you want to live it, and not for anyone else. If you have the chance to be happy, however briefly, you should take it."

  Not long after that, Tina left. The clock hadn't chimed yet, but Tina knew there was somewhere else she wanted to be. Time was passing. She wasn't sure how much of it they had left.

  *~*~*

  Kate looked up at her, and her eyes were the same as ever, three beautiful circles, black within brown within white. They hadn't changed a shade, not a shade since they had first met.

  They were back in the meadow, but by now the sun had nearly vanished below the horizon, and the stars were starting to peek out from behind the vast curtain of purple darkness that had taken the Eastern sky. Kate was curled against her side, tiny and warm and frail. Tina stretched an arm around her, gently pulled her closer in, tucking her under her wing.

  "I didn't realise at first," Tina said softly. "And when I suspected, I didn't want to face it."

  She felt Kate shrug.

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "I knew from the beginning that I wanted to be with you. I don't regret spending my life this way."

  Tina looked down at Kate's hair. Already the black was giving way to grey, the grey turning white and wispy at her temples.

  "No more cages," Tina said softly. "No more pretending."

  Kate smiled up at her, the lines on her face making her look beautiful and wise.

  "No more living up to someone else's idea of what a dragon should be," she said.

  The darkness fell, and they were together, and they were themselves. They were happy.

  Fin

  About the Author

  Jamie was brought up by loving ex-hippy parents who sold boomerangs for a living and had a hedge maze in their back garden. He was home-educated until the age of fourteen, before being eased gently into the idea that the world, by and large, expects you to get up earlier than is really civilised for the majority of your life.

  Jamie trained as a biochemist at the University of Sussex. Following graduation, he realised he would find this deeply boring, and after a brief sojourn working in a school for deaf children (which he enjoyed much more than his home-educated prejudices had led him to believe), he studied medicine at the University of Warwick. He now works as a junior doctor, and writes science fiction mainly as a way to ground himself after long shifts in the bizarre fantasy world of the NHS.

  He writes mainly speculative fiction, and “Theft On New Year’s Eve” is his first attempt to write a romantic story, gay, straight, or otherwise.

  He has recently had his first novel, “The Fall of the Angel Nathalie,” published by Bedlam, an imprint of Necro Press. This is a dark fantasy/horror novel, more details of which can be found at:

  http://necropublications.myshopify.com/products/the-fall-of-the-angel-nathalie-by-jamie-brindle