“Well, it’s actually blue or red and gray,” he said in the dream, if it was a dream. “We are all blue, but I chose the female color to represent your kind. Is that normal? It must be very confusing for you, always being called Red in a land called Red.”
“How about Purple dragons?” said Nyra. In the dream, this made sense.
“Purple?” he laughed. “Why, yes, of course! We are all purple dragons, really. Some make it seem like blue or red. But not all of us are that way. At least some Sperks are purple. I’m purple. Maybe Bristone is, I don’t know. Oh, how beautiful she’d be in purple! But not all of us are blue, that’s my point. Do you understand Nyra? Are you purple too?”
Then the image of Opalheart seared away in sunlight. Nyra’s eyes snapped open. Morning had come.
Chapter 5: Rumors and Reasons
Sunrises peeped upon the dragglings again and again, the punctual rays nipping their heels as they trekked to Fitzer’s Reservoir on the subsequent mornings. Nyra hated each more than the last. But get up she did, lolling from the den like a numbed tongue and with the knowledge that she would have to be awake and active for the next several hours.
The day after the Fuhorn incident, the Sperks ate as usual. Some thanked Thaydra upon picking up a catch at the fish pile; an uncommon gesture. A few took their meals skittishly, so quickly that Nyra barely had time to register their hesitant faces. Scrutinizing the Sperks became a welcome distraction for Nyra. It helped pass the time. After that initial adventure with Opalheart there’d been nothing more titillating than meal breaks. No outbursts, no thrills. Visits were always for Thaydra, and from Agrings.
At last, day ten arrived. Thank Quay, Nyra thought, opening her eyes that morning. Dragging up her sore limbs, she stretched her way out the den. The first sun stared across the east, daring her to count the hours. It would be the longest day, as the final day of anything awful always was.
Or so it seemed. For though it wore forgettable beginnings, it was a day Nyra would recall in the years to come. Here, in the unremarkable early autumn, began a vinegary tension in Nyra’s young veins, and it would not settle in her growing body until late winter.
And it all started with a catch.
“Nyra! You’re making it slip!”
Even if it lacked elegance.
“It’s slippery!”
Sloshing in cloudy muck, Blaze and Nyra clashed together as a piece of silver writhed between them. Nyra had pounced first. Blaze followed. The trout slipped over and over from their frantic claws, jumping skyward like a salmon up water currents.
SMACK! In a stroke of luck, Nyra and Blaze clapped their paws together. Their prize wriggled between them.
“Ha!” they shouted. Their first fish, just in time for the last day. Nyra’s chest swelled proudly. Blaze beamed.
“Here,” he said, spearing it with a stubby fang. Holding out the tail, he invited his sister to do likewise. Locked together by their trophy, the dragglings waddled shoreward as fast as they could to show Thaydra. She’d been moody today, the last few days in fact. This would cheer her up.
Mother was by the trout stack, speaking with another Agring. The other was partially hidden behind the pile. It was red, a female.
“Who is that?” sputtered Nyra through trout scales. Attached by the fish, she dragged Blaze’s gaze upward. Both suns hung in the east. It was still morning, much too early for Fuhorn.
“I don’t know,” said Blaze, holding a paw to his mouth so the fish wouldn’t slip off his fang. “I think it’s Tesset.”
“Tesset?” Nyra asked, slowing her pace. “Oh no.”
“Oh no is right,” said Blaze. “Last time they spoke Mum made us go to bed an hour early. Remember?”
“I can’t keep track,” Nyra admitted. Nary a full moon went by without Mother having a Tesset breakdown, usually followed by sniping at the dragglings.
They crept quietly, letting the water ripple noiselessly beneath them. Thaydra and Tesset’s gestures were violent, jarring.
“Oh, you’re blaming that on Darkmoon’s decision?” sneered Tesset. “Is that your explanation for everything?”
“He knows!” spat Thaydra, squeezing a fish in her talons. Grainy ooze squirted from its abdomen. “The whole thing would be less obvious without you flouncing around.”
“Do you think him blind?” said Tesset. “He’s known! It’s been obvious for almost twelve years. That he’s calling our breeding-bluff now has nothing to do with me.”
Blaze inhaled sharply. “Breeding!” he breathed. “I was just talking about that–”
“Shush,” said Nyra. She tugged Blaze off to the side until the fish pile blocked the dragglings from their mother’s view.
“But it is!” Thaydra retaliated. “You restricted our mating options, our odds of procreation. It stares Darkmoon in the face.”
“It does not!” said Tesset. Her tail blades snapped dangerously. She pointed them at Thaydra. “It’s completely disconnected from the issue.”
“Is it?” threatened Thaydra, her tail rising.
“I’ve had two mates, so be it.” Tesset spoke low and slow, shaking each word out in vehemence. “Some of us are related where we would otherwise not be. Fine. But that has nothing to do with the entire herd not reproducing, and you know it.” She trembled. “You manage to tie my leaving Rovavik into every setback since the twins were born.”
Thaydra thwacked Tesset’s tail blades away with her own, making a clang so loud that Nyra’s fang nearly slipped out of the fish.
“You’d bring it up too, if you cared,” growled Thaydra. Her eyes fumed a hot yellow. “If you saw his hurt, saw what you’ve done to him. Fidelity means nothing to you. You take everything on a whim.”
Tesset’s tail was back up. “And would you have been so different?”
“Different?” said Thaydra.
“Would you have betrayed Crimson had he not perished? Would you have left him for Shadow in due time?”
Nyra peered around the pile. Thaydra seethed with vitriol, her tongue whipping fast as fire. Tesset did not flinch. Thaydra’s lone wing opening.
“Leave,” she mouthed over clenched teeth.
“What is this?” said Tesset, bemused. “Not immune to accusations? Surprising for one so full of them.” She twirled in her spot, holding a paw out to the trees across the Reservoir. “We can tell the shrubs and birds all about my affairs, but nothing of yours? Nothing to share about Thaydra? The adolescent beauty? The temptress? The heartbreaker of every gray Agring on the Nor—“
“LEAVE!”
Jumping back, Tesset noticed the dragglings. Nyra jerked down to the water’s surface, trying to dive under. But the fish at her teeth held firm, and Blaze did not move with her.
Tesset ran up the hillside. Halfway up she stopped, glowering down at Thaydra.
“Keep yourself at peace, Thaydra,” she panted. “Thirty sunsets will pass sooner than you think. Will you still be searching for enemies then?”
Nyra waited for an answer. But before Thaydra could respond, Tesset ran to the top, spread her wings, and took off.
Thaydra watched the take-off spot furiously, as if her foe had not yet left. Quaking breaths coursed in and out of her. If she sensed the dragglings, she paid them no heed.
In a few careful steps Blaze came up the bank, dragging Nyra with him.
“Mum?” he said.
Thaydra’s eyes closed. She stopped shaking. “Yes?”
“We caught something.” Blaze spoke softly, with-drawing the trout from his teeth. “Our first fish.” Nyra could tell that he regretted every word he said, yet the heat of sweltering silence was too much.
“Oh!” Thaydra exclaimed. She sniffed the catch. Blaze tore it from Nyra’s fang. She shook her head freely.
At first Thaydra appeared pleased. But then the arches of her brow eclipsed her eyes, darkening the yellow irises to violent green. Her tongue flicked curtly, and her claws clenched.
“Then you eat it!” she cri
ed. Blaze and Nyra shrank. Mother looked like a bird recovering from a crash landing, anxiety blotching her face to mauve.
They ran to a far shore where they gobbled the fish in two swallows. It pasted to a mesh inside their bellies, mulching aside the triumphant sentiments they’d forgotten to savor.
They whispered all the way back to their fishing spot.
“Tesset brought up breeding,” said Blaze.
“I have ears, I heard,” said Nyra.
“What sort of coincidence is it that Tesset mentions breeding now? After I mentioned it just a few days ago?”
Nyra reflected, playing that conversation with Blaze in her head in search of a clue.
“Well, you brought up breeding because of what Mum said before the Gathering. About younger dragons,” replied Nyra. “Maybe Mum brought up the younger dragon-thing with Tesset just now, and it triggered the argument.”
Blaze shook his head. “Can’t be. Someone else triggered it first. Tesset said as much. ‘That he’s calling our breeding-bluff now has nothing to do with me. He called it. But when?”
“Wait, who’s he?” asked Nyra.
“Who do you think?”
Nyra felt stupid for asking.
Blaze began muttering to himself, when’s and why’s frequenting the chatter. Nyra couldn’t take it.
“Alright, stop, stop,” she insisted, holding up a paw. “Let’s think about what’s happened between then and now,” she said. “Between when you brought up breeding and now. Let’s see what’s out of the ordinary.”
“I was just doing that,” Blaze said irritably.
“Well, do it out loud!” Nyra snapped. “How does Darkmoon tie into this? Did he mention breeding first? Where does it start? What’s been abnormal lately?” Nyra realized that she’d asked more questions than she could retain.
Blaze licked his fangs pensively, and answered her last question (a lucky thing, as it was the one she remembered most). “We’ve been punished. The day I mentioned breeding was on day one. Tesset speaks of it now, on day ten, the last day.”
“Fine,” said Nyra. She didn’t find this significant, and judging by the dismissive shake of Blaze’s head, he didn’t either.
“What else?” she asked.
Blaze looked across the Reservoir. “Mum’s been out of sorts.”
Nyra was about to clout his theory when she found Mother on the far shore, fixed furiously upon the water. Clearly, she was still disgruntled by Tesset.
But did this unhappiness start just now? Nyra played the last few days back, remembered Mother’s recent moodiness. Indeed, Mother had laughed at fewer jokes and engaged in fewer games. Yet at the same time, this had been Working-Mother. Perhaps Working-Mother was a whole different entity from the evening dragon with which Nyra was most accustomed. Mood was a volatile thing, just as Nyra’s temperament shifted from cranky to bearable as the mornings grew older.
“Mum’s been somber since the first day of our punishment,” Nyra concluded. That was when their schedule changed, and Working-Mother had taken center stage.
“Yes,” affirmed Blaze.
“So what about it?”
His eyes widened knowingly. “Think,” he told her. “What happened on that first day?”
Everything abnormal, thought Nyra. They’d met Opal-heart. And Bristone. Two unprecedented events. Even so, one particular event was even stranger.
“You think it has something to do with Fuhorn getting into it with Darkmoon,” said Nyra.
“Yes!” cried Blaze. “We don’t know why or how it upset her. Mum hasn’t said what Fuhorn and Darkmoon talked about.”
“We haven’t asked,” said Nyra.
“Of course not,” said Blaze. “With her temper? I’m not stupid enough to bring it up. But given what Tesset said, I’d bet my tail it has to do with–”
Blaze’s body suddenly went black under a shadow. Nyra whirled around to see the suns blotted out by a bulky mass, beating out heavy winds with each bend of its wings.
“Stupid enough to bring what up?” called Opalheart from above.
“Uh oh,” chimed the dragglings as air buffeted them flat against the water surface. The Sperk barreled down full force, splashing in the deep. Cold waves swallowed Nyra up to her snout, stinging her nostrils.
“Hey!” gasped Blaze as the torrent passed, shaking water from his ears. Nyra tensed, her legs bending forward as the water reformed.
“Oh, you’ll say anything to change the subject,” Opalheart said, standing unperturbed in the swishing Reservoir.
“What subject?” sputtered Nyra.
The blue dragon shook his head in mock disappointment. “I would not have come down here unless the gossip was especially interesting. I hope you’ll make it worth my while.”
Nyra was lost.
“She hasn’t said what what was about?” the Sperk prompted.
Grimacing, Blaze spat up a river reed. “It’s Mum,” he coughed. “She’s upset about the Fuhorn-Darkmoon incident.”
Opalheart dipped his high-hanged head to the dragglings’ level. “Well, wouldn’t you be upset?”
“I guess,” said Blaze, wiping water from his forehead. “But we don’t know why specifically. We don’t know what ‘what’ is.”
“What what?” said Opalheart.
Blaze cocked his head, confused.
“Never mind,” said Opalheart, frowning. “So you mean to say you don’t know what the conversation entailed?”
“Yes,” answered Blaze. “We saw Fuhorn get very cross at the fish pile. Then she and Darkmoon disappeared.”
Opalheart began fiddling with his wing tip. “Oh. Is that all?”
“Yes,” confirmed Blaze slowly. His brow furrowed in the way it did when making a speculation.
The Sperk licked his wing claw, scratching away at a patch of mud caked in the membranes. “Well that’s not very interesting. I was hoping you’d do better with gossip.”
“What’s not interesting?” asked Blaze.
“The incident, as you called it. It’s not that scandalous.”
Blaze mouth parted slightly, and his eyes darted hither thither. Then he returned focus to the Sperk.
“Oh, Mother just hasn’t bothered to tell us yet,” said Blaze offhandedly. “She hasn’t said anything because she’s been in a foul mood. She asked us to have Aunt Dewep tell the story, or some other grownup. But we haven’t gotten around to it.”
Nyra gaped at her brother. Mother had said no such thing. But even stranger, Blaze was lying directly to a Sperk. Nyra closed her mouth and tried to look as passive as possible. Whatever Blaze was trying to extract, Nyra would surely ruin if she tried to participate.
“She’s out of sorts with Tesset or something,” Blaze said indifferently. “Nothing out of the ordinary.” A feeble excuse, and one omitting the fact that Thaydra’s deportment with Tesset was perpetual.
But Opalheart nodded and shrugged. “Darkmoon was just confronting Fuhorn on something a long time coming. He asked why the Agrings haven’t borne offspring in twelve years.”
Blaze twitched, and Nyra knew that he wanted to look at her. But he gave Opalheart his undivided attention. Nyra followed the example, feeling her sibling at her side like a pulsing heat.
“Everyone is too related,” Opalheart continued. “And with only thirty-two Agrings, and just a fraction at optimal breeding age, there are not many mates to choose from. Those who have mates have borne what they’ve wanted. But this is old news. It’s just out in the open now, that’s all.”
Blaze pressed on. “What did Darkmoon say? When Fuhorn explained that to him?”
“Well, all that Fuhorn said made good sense. Nevertheless,” he looked around, “he wasn’t convinced. What she said seemed true, but he suspected more. And so he threatened her.”
On the distant shore Casstooth, the guard, came to snatch a fish. Worry crept over Opalheart’s features as he watched her take off.
Nyra figured his nonchalance was running short. F
orgetting her resolve to let Blaze do the work, she spoke. “How did he threaten her?”
Blaze nodded approvingly.
“I’m not sure.” Opalheart’s mouth pulled to one side. “But I’ve heard two things. Darkmoon said he would enslave another herd if Fuhorn feared breeding so much. Nammock isn’t the only herd out there, the Northern Coast is large. That’s one rumor. The second was a death threat. Or torture. You know, the fun stuff.”
Nyra become rigid.
“You dragglings can’t see humor when it dangles over your face!” said Opalheart, breaking into his favorite grin. “He won’t do that, torture or death, I mean. Agrings are too valuable, especially since you aren’t replenishing.” He treated it so lightly. In other circumstances, Nyra might have been offended, or in the least, insulted on behalf of her family. But to stop him now would be foolish.
Opalheart became serious again as he shot a quick glance at Thaydra, smacking a fish dead on the Reservoir bank. “You know, you should really hear this from your mother, not me.”
“Nah,” Blaze said, waving a paw. “She’ll be glad you told us. Saves her the bother.”
The lie must have been good enough for Opalheart because he went on. Nyra found herself losing respect for the Sperk. Not just for his insensitivity, but his garrulousness. Kind though he was, intelligence clearly wasn’t his strong suit.
“So basically,” said Opalheart. “Darkmoon said that if the Agrings won’t procreate, they aren’t being perfectly useful.”
“But that’s not true!” objected Blaze, his mask of apathy dropping off with an almost-audible thud. “Fuhorn, Tega… they can’t have dragglings any more than we can, but they still hunt. They’re useful–-”
The Waters of Nyra- Volume I Page 9