“Ever going to tell me what you have in mind?”
“Just wanted a little treat for the dragon. A last candy.” Masaak wasn't sure why the dragon would want it. Did dragons have a sweet tooth? But he had to try. “Grandma said two young dragons carried a lot of the material for the greenhouse, back in the day. Fresh vegetables would still cost a fortune if it wasn't for them. I just want to say thank you.”
“I like it.”
She followed Masaak into the dome, staying a few meters behind and far from the hive when they reached it. He appreciated Semi's simple support—she couldn't be in the bees collecting honey with him, but made sure to be nearby, and let him know she agreed with his plan.
Masaak pulled out yesterday's frame again and set to work. The bees buzzed around him, a swarm of minuscule creatures enveloping him. His mind returned to the gigantic dragon, lying in the snow. It was so imposing, like a small mountain. In comparison the bees were nothing—literal insects to be squashed. But as Masaak gathered their honey, he realized both dragons and bees were essential to this world. Ancestral or common, huge or tiny, they were all needed. He smiled, slid the frame back inside its hive, then closed the little honey pot.
“Let's go out and create the first frozen treat of the season!”
Semi chuckled, then clapped her hands. “I'm almost jealous you're not giving it to me this time.”
“Jealous of a dragon. That's just like you, Semi.”
She laughed even more. Masaak stored the honey in a thermos, and they headed back out of the humid forest of the greenhouse, and into the dry cold of their village.
Masaak's fingers clung to his thermos despite the thick fur mitts as they hurried back to the dragon. What if something had gone wrong while he was gone? What if the sled had left? Or worse, what if the dragon had died? He pushed these thoughts away, slowing only as he spotted the mountain-sized creature ahead, its belly still rising. There was time.
Not a lot, however: the village's elders had climbed upon the sled. The two old women were the dragon's guides. They would be accompanied by their daughter, who was scratching the lead dog and speaking to it. Kariat always spoke with each husky on the team, and finished with the leader. Masaak burst into a sprint, pushing past the line of villagers.
“Wait, please! I have an offering!”
Someone grabbed his arm to stop him—his father, Masaak realized. He pouted a little, but waited.
“They're ready to leave. The chest is there.” Masaak's father pointed at the ornate chest destined for the shrine. “Put it with the others.”
“I can't. It's edible.”
Without any more explanation, Masaak shook off his father's grip and continued toward the dragon. He stopped at the edge of the naltak. They needed snow, not ice. Masaak settled down cross-legged on the ground, then pressed the heat button on his thermos. Semi sat in front of him, gathering heavy snow between them in a small rise without tapping it. They waited a few seconds, Semi's hand circling midair while Masaak stretched. Then he picked up the warmed honey, opened the beaker, and poured it on the snow.
A sweet scent rose as the honey cooled, making Masaak's mouth water. Semi slapped a wooden stick at one end of the line of honey and started rolling it, gathering the treat around it like a lollipop. When Semi handed him the final product, Masaak almost scoffed. It was so tiny, and the dragon so big! He still took it, and rose to his feet.
His back straight, his gait as solemn as he could manage, Masaak strode toward the mighty dragon's head. It must have sensed him coming, because it tilted its head farther to the side. Masaak's breath caught at the ponderous movement, and he almost stopped. Then he reminded himself that he'd climbed the creature's neck the previous day. There was nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. He finished the short walk to the dragon, and set a hand on its scaly snout.
“Dragon.”
He received a low rumble as an answer. Masaak took a deep breath. How was he supposed to explain this?
“My friend Semi and I, we wanted to thank you and your kind. So we made this honey treat?” He lifted it with an awkward laugh. “It's not much, but dragons helped us have these bees, and it's the first time this season I harvested honey.”
Masaak let the honey treat hover near the dragon's mouth, waiting for an answer. His heart hammered against his chest, and he felt ridiculous. What did an ancient dragon care about honey? It was about to die. Sweets must be the last thing on its mind. Masaak turned back toward Semi, asking for help in one desperate look. What kind of help, he didn't know, but everyone was staring at him.
Then he caught movement from the corner of his eye, and warm breath washed over him as the dragon opened its mouth. Teeth half as long as Masaak was tall lined it, sharp despite their age. Some had holes, but he didn't doubt for a second they would crush him. The open mouth gave out a fetid odor, and Masaak forced himself not to choke as he stretched his arm between two of the dragon's teeth. Part of him expected the creature to snap its jaws shut, tearing off his arm. Instead a great tongue caught the frozen honey, wooden stick included, and swallowed it.
Masaak stumbled back, stunned. His chest filled with pride as the dragon let out a satisfied huff, then rested its head back on the wooden sled. The two elders took up a low tribal song, the throaty sound reverberating through Masaak's bones. He knew the hymn, reserved for death in the village. Drones came to life, their whirring almost covering the elders' song, and the dogs barked with excitement. The dragon sled inched forward with a plaintive creak, sliding on the crystalline nivat.
They had been waiting on him, on the last offering. Masaak scrambled farther back, until he reached Semi.
“Good job,” she whispered.
He nodded. There was nothing else to say. The dragon's great form slowly made its way across the ice, resting on the largest sled in the world. Masaak had given the last offering. A token, really. Just a minuscule gift. Still, Masaak could only hope it had given the dragon one last moment of happiness before its final rest.
About Claudie Arseneault
I am a 26-year-old asexual writer from Quebec City, who loves science and squids more than is reasonable. I have previously published my first novel, Viral Airwaves, and its corresponding novella, The White Renegade, with Incandescent Phoenix Books. I also have a short story, “The Best Day”, in Vitality's first issue.
Community Outreach with Reluctant Neighbors
(alternatively, How to Avoid Cults)
by Kat Lerner
Ivy gnawed the end of her pencil, tuning in and out of the Center's late-morning chatter. Voices from the Exchange Room next door were steadily rising as neighbors defended the quality of their vegetables, debating the science and ethics of magical enhancement versus conventional fertilizer as they did every morning. The arrival of the ten o'clock You Can Pickle That! class had everyone in a twenty-foot radius trying to discreetly cover their noses, but Ivy just knocked her foot against her desk, eyes wandering the crowd.
She wasn't here, of course. “She's never here,” Ivy finished aloud.
“Who's never here?”
Ivy jerked at the voice next to her ear, toppling a stack of flower pots and thwacking the figure with the mangled tip of her pencil. She looked up to see her boss, Joe, holding a shapely gourd and rubbing his sleeve across his cheek.
“Sorry,” Ivy offered, along with her own clean handkerchief.
“What's nibblin' your cabbages today anyway?” Joe asked, scratching at the scraggly white hairs of his beard. “I've never known you to miss one of them angry pumpkin meetings.”
Ivy's eyes grew wide as she checked the clock. “I missed the Second Annual Squash the Competition fourth preliminary meeting?”
“'fraid so.” Joe leaned in, raising an eyebrow. “Myrna brought up her theory about Iko's winning courgettes last year being grown from black market magic seeds. I had to break them up before Iko lost any more of his hair.”
Joe raised his bushy brows expectantly, but for once, n
ot even competitive gourd-growing drama could hold her attention.
“Something strange happened yesterday,” she said. “How much do you know about the witch called Win?”
* * *
The day had begun as bright and possible as any other, Ivy running back and forth between the kindergarten class visiting the north gardens and supervising the Cooking with Enchanted Mushrooms workshop (legally required after last year's incident). The day couldn't get any better, she thought, until she read the note from Joe on her desk.
“I am … the Chosen One,” she whispered under her breath.
Or, as the note read: Bi-annual order came in from dragonwitch up on Bann Hill, but I've got an army of goblin slugs to settle a score with. List's in the envelope. Leave the stuff by the hawthorn tree and try not to get eaten or barbequed, ha ha. xoxo, Joe.
Ivy read the note twice more, afraid it was too good to be true. Finally accepting that her wishes had been granted, she grabbed two of the biggest shopping baskets they had and set out.
* * *
The wheels creaked and groaned in protest. Humming over the noise, Ivy shoved her shoulder against the back of the cart, the stacks of vegetable crates, baskets, and sacks teetering dangerously.
“A witch. A real, live witch,” Ivy mused, turning and digging her heels into the dirt road. “I wonder what she'll look like, what she'll sound like. Maybe she'll have a third eye that can see through time. That would really come in handy around here.”
Despite her reputation for being everywhere at once, Ivy had never met the Witch of Bann Hill. Then again, the only people in town who claimed to have seen her also had more colorful relationships with mind-altering substances. Not even Joe, who had always insisted on delivering her rare orders himself, had met her face to face.
Eventually, Ivy's mind wandered back to Joe's note and its somewhat indelicate warning. She knew that naturally, when people were left with a mystery and long hours alone with their vegetables, speculation is bound to grow limbs and run off with the hedge trimmers. One of the more popular theories was that her house was guarded by a fearsome, bloodthirsty dragon. Some claimed there were two or three of them living there, others that there was one with three heads. A few more creative theories, inspired by Nectar Night at the Village Green, stated the dragons were in fact her offspring from a union with a distant volcano god, or else transformed lovers who had jilted her.
Ivy didn't care about any of it. To her, Bann Hill was the final frontier, the last great unknown in Sunnydale city limits. Or as she'd said, it was the wild, untamed sea, and the witch her Moby Dick (and no amount of persuasion could move her from that metaphor).
All too soon, a gnarled hawthorn loomed over the path ahead. Ivy slowed her pace. She could at least pretend she had planned to stop.
“You know,” she began, tilting her head as if deep in thought, “there's been a sharp uptick in bogie sightings recently, at least three confirmed in the last six years. It'd be a shame if any of her goods were damaged, and of course we don't want to start attracting hordes of bogies.” She shrugged. “I might as well just take this the rest of the way to her house. It's probably right up ahead anyway.” Gripping the handle of the cart, she shoved forward. “Anything to help a neighbor.”
It took twenty minutes and two ripe blisters to reach the top of the hill and the crunchy gravel road leading to the witch's house.
“She'll sure be happy I took the initiative,” Ivy wheezed, throwing herself bodily against the cart to move it a foot farther along the path. “She could've hurt herself trying to move this all the way from that tree.”
The fact of the witch being able to use magic was sadly lost on Ivy.
Looking up, she took in the cottage perched atop a stack of crumbling steps, a roof cut like the crooked point of a witch's hat. Wind chimes made of white wood clinked and rattled hollowly over the door. Dark moss clung to the sides of the house like patches of fur, and the path ahead was bordered by vaguely threatening hedges.
“It could use a fresh coat of paint,” Ivy hummed, leaving the cart where it sat and tapping her chin. She drank in every detail, peering this way and that, scribbling mental notes. “No giant lizards as far as I can see.”
Combing her fingers through her hair, she summoned what she'd been told was her most charming smile and delivered three friendly knocks to the door.
Seconds ticked by. The wind chimes swayed and clacked uncomfortably.
“Helloooo. Ms. Witch? I've brought the things you ordered from town,” Ivy called, rapping harder on the door. “Um, some of it's perishable?”
Peering around, Ivy noticed the front window—though clouded with grime—had a hole in it the size of her fist, and through it spilled the green glow of an algae lamp.
“So, I may have taken a few liberties with your order,” she said loudly, leaning over to speak into the hole. She didn't look in, of course. She had some standards. “I just figured since you don't come into town a lot, you should be well stocked up here. It's a pretty good walk up that hill. Not that I minded, of course! Actually, it was great to get out of the gardens for a while and, you know, get some fresh air.” Ivy shook her head. “Speaking of which, we have an amazing autumn lineup of events and programs that you might be interested in. Fall color zip lining, workshops on non-violent communication with fae folk—led by a certified instructor—and of course our second annual gourd-raising contest, Squash the Competition. Though, that can get a bit rough, so you might not want to make that your first event. You could join us for Pancakes through the Realms tomorrow morning though. We meet every Saturday. ”
Ivy leaned closer to the window, listening for footsteps. Not a shuffle, patter, or creak. She chewed her lip, trying to stop herself from looking directly into the window crack. Thankfully, before she could inch any closer, she was struck by an idea. “Hey, you know, I think I have an annual program catalogue in the cart. Let me just—”
As she turned, the sound of a metal lock being pulled echoed through the door. Ivy spun back around, running nearly teeth-first into the rusted barrel of an old rifle.
“What is this thing?” Ivy asked, grabbing the metal neck and peering into it, moving it this way and that. She spotted a gnarled oak wand tied to the left side of the barrel. “Oh. Oh!” Her head shot up, grinning widely. “Good morning.”
Clutching the improvised weapon was a young woman no older than Ivy, hidden under a lumpy knit cap with ear flaps and a heavy wool coat that was three sizes too big. Her brow was furrowed over amber eyes, fixed in a frown as she took Ivy in from head to toe.
“Who …” she started. “Who are you? You're not that old man with the white beard.” Scowling, she lifted the wand-rifle higher as if Ivy would argue.
“Very perceptive,” Ivy agreed and held out a hand. “Actually, my name is Ivy Stokes. I don't think I caught your name.”
“That's because I didn't give it.”
Ivy hummed. “I'll just call you Ms. Witch, then?”
The girl groaned as if struck with indigestion. “Call me Win,” she said through gritted teeth.
“A name for success,” Ivy nodded, smoothly pulling out the wad of pamphlets she'd stuffed in her back pocket on her way out of the Center. “Well, Win, I'm the director of operations and community outreach at the Sunnydale Community Cooperative Center. If you have a few minutes, I'd love to talk to you about how you can get involved in some of our programs. We have events happening almost every day! Of course, our schedule always has room for new things, especially from people with special or … unusual skills.”
She tried not to angle too obviously. While she may have jotted down ten or fifteen rough ideas for classes and workshops she and the witch could co-facilitate, she didn't want to scare her off before she'd even been added to the general volunteer roster.
“Hold on.” Win lowered her rifle, propping it at her side. “Are you the one responsible for clearing out all that putrid rot-bush from the highland roads last summe
r?”
“Oh, you noticed that?” Ivy shrugged bashfully. “I guess, yeah. I mean, I smelled like a year-old corpse for a solid two weeks, but it was worth it.”
Win's eyes narrowed to slits. “You know, I used the buds of the rot-bush for potpourri. Now my house smells like the lavender you planted. It's disgusting.”
Before the smile had time to slide off Ivy's face, Win stepped back into the house and slammed the door behind her. Ivy stared ahead in shock, jaw slack, eyes fixed on the door as if the wood grain would spell out an explanation. She heard the whine and clunk of the lock sliding back into place, followed by a chain she hadn't heard before.
“Also,” Win called out the cracked window, “I'm not paying for the stuff I didn't order.”
* * *
Joe chuckled heartily. “Well, no wonder your string beans are in a tangle. Might as well be the popular kid getting turned down for the spring dance by … well, by the witch.”
“It just doesn't make any sense. Who turns down free weekly pancakes?”
Joe set his gourd on the desk and patted her shoulder. “Try not to take it personally, little thing. Some people are different and have different interests. Nothing you can do about that.”
“That's it!” Ivy cried, jabbing the still-slobbery pencil towards her boss. “Joe, you're a genius.”
“Err …” He frowned, backing out of arm's reach.
“I just need to show her we can relate to her interests.” Eyes darting around in thought, Ivy ignored Joe's protests in favor of grabbing an eclectic stack of flyers and racing towards the door. “I'm taking my lunch break,” she called over her shoulder.
Shaking his head, Joe plucked a stringy carrot from Ivy's pencil mug and bit into it. “Why don't we all just do that?”
Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology Page 35