Finding my courage, I told them, “Then show me. No more of these meaningless answers.” I hoped that was the right thing to say, no more secrets. It’s what I’ve wanted all along.
Rylan looked around, I wasn't sure what he was looking for, not like anything was around, being the middle of nowhere and all. We were surrounded by trees, I could still see the lights from my house, my parents’ house. The sky was clear, except for a few stars that were out, the moon hung high, casting an eerie glow onto the ground. Rylan took off towards the tree line, Sila stayed quiet next to me, but did not follow. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to stay with her or follow Rylan into the trees. Curiosity won and I headed towards Rylan, but Sila stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. This was the first real contact I had with either Rylan or Sila. Her touch sent a shiver through my body.
“Stay here, open your senses and stay calm.”
Stay calm? Was a pack of werewolves or something going to fly out of the woods? I almost asked her as much, but held my tongue at the last minute, not wanting her to see that side of me. I could no longer see Rylan, what was he doing? Finally, I heard a rustling, like someone, I assume Rylan was coming towards us from the trees. I squinted towards them, but saw nothing. Sila looked down at me with a face of comfort and ease. She waited for me to see. See what, I wasn’t sure.
Finally giving up, I looked at Sila and asked, “Where did Rylan go?” I paused after my question, I realized that I had called Rylan by his name and not father, or dad, or whatever I was supposed to call him. No introductions were officially made yet.
Sila said nothing, but gestured with her hands for me to continue looking at the trees. What was it she had said to me? Open my senses? I concentrated on opening my senses, nothing seemed to be happening though. I turned back to Sila and she again gestured towards the trees. I growled in frustration. I looked back at the trees, squinting once again.
Sila’s voice echoed around me almost melodically, “Relax. Feel it, deep within you. I promise, my son, it’s there inside of you.”
I closed my eyes and took my millionth and one deep breath, then relaxed. I opened my eyes and looked out towards the trees. I felt different, more in touch, with what I wasn’t sure yet. I could also feel something within me, something I had never felt before, something no words could describe. I felt whole, like I had been missing something and never knew.
I continued to relax as I stood next to Sila in the dark, with nothing but the moon and a few stray stars for light. Out of nowhere, I saw something. It blended with the trees, like camouflage. It looked to be some kind of animal, but much larger than any animal I had ever seen. My eyes were playing games on me, what I thought I saw couldn’t exist. Didn’t exist, it was impossible. I started to shake, forgetting to relax and stay calm. It seemed Sila must have seen I was about to lose it.
“My son, it is alright. What you see is real, he would never hurt you. That my son, is your father.” She grabbed my shoulders, in what seemed to be an attempt to stop my shaking.
I knew it was Rylan the second my eyes landed on him. Somehow I knew, I felt it, but that didn’t take the fear away. If anything, it amplified it. If that thing was my father, then what was I? My eyes stayed on Rylan, “What is he?” I whispered, not wanting to startle Rylan.
I could feel Sila as she looked at me, I somehow sensed her energy towards me. “I think you know, my son. I need you to answer that question. Dig deep within you and do not be afraid. What is it you see?”
Of course she couldn’t just answer my question, why make anything easy for me. I blew out the breath I had been holding in and answered her hesitantly, “He...he is a dragon?” I questioned. Thinking it in my head and saying it out loud were two completely different things. Saying it out loud made it that much realer.
Sila squeezed my shoulders, I hadn’t realized she still held me, “You are correct. No need to question what your eyes see.” She let go of my shoulders and stepped to the side of me. She continued, “Your father, as am I, are green dragons, or Leslos as we call them in Ochana. We were born of fire and made with Earth, Leslos are the leaders of Ochana.” Sila turned towards Rylan.
Unbelievable. My parents were dragons. I continued to stare at Rylan, the dragon, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I guess that's what he’d meant by it being best to show me, there was no way I would have believed them otherwise. I hesitated a second as I attempted to get my thoughts straight. Questions raced through my head, I wasn’t sure where to start. I finally broke my eyes away from Rylan and turned to Sila.
“Why couldn’t I see him at first? Now that I see him, I don’t see how anyone could miss him.” He was gigantic, like a tyrannosaurs rex. He almost reached the tops of the old pine trees.
Sila ignored my question, “We need to leave, the only way we are going to make it back to Ochana tonight is if we hurry,” she walked towards Rylan.
I still didn’t know where Ochana was or how we planned on getting there. It seemed my questions were endless as of late, and wholly unanswered. I started to follow Sila across the road towards the trees where Rylan still stood as a Leslo, as Sila had called him. The closer we made it to Rylan, the more my eyes were able to pick up the details of the magnificent creature in front of me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Rylan was brilliant, a spectrum of glistening green hues radiated the sky dust around his figure, and even though the darkness made it almost impossible to see the exact shade of green he was, I could tell it was miraculous.
A thought popped into my head and before I could stop myself I blurted it out, “Wait, if you both are dragons, then what am I?” I halted in the middle of the road. Luckily this part of Clover was deserted, with just a few houses, miles between each other. The thought disturbed me for some reason. I mean if my parents were dragons, wouldn’t that make me one?
Sila paused ahead of me and turned slowly until she faced me. I could see the wheels as they turned in her head as she thought about her next words carefully. “My son, you are more than just a dragon.” She paused to read my expression on my face, then continued, “You are the son of two very powerful Leslos and our expectations for you are high. We have expectations for who and what you’ll be.”
After that last bit, she smiled like I should be happy about her declaration. I began to wonder if they had even picked up the right kid. I mean, I was just ordinary Cole. I was never good at anything, just a normal kid. As stated, Rylan and Sila had expectations for me, unrealistic ones at that. This scared me more than the dragon standing less than twenty feet away.
Chapter Four
We caught up to Rylan a few moments later. I was still confused as to what the plan was to get to Ochana without a mode of transportation. Sila and Rylan didn’t seem concerned at all. I watched as Sila walked behind Rylan. I began to follow, but got a huff from Rylan, which I assumed meant to stay put. Sila had left me alone with a massive green dragon, something that shouldn’t exist, that also happened to be my father. My mind raced over everything I had learned in the last five minutes. My mind covered every possible option of who my parents were and what they would be like the last two days, but I never even came close to reality.
Suddenly, another disconcerted presence jolted me from my internal thoughts. I looked up to see another green dragon, or Leslo that stood next to Rylan. Well, at least I knew where Sila had gone. They both gazed at me, waiting for something. I knew they couldn’t answer me, but I asked anyways, “Now what? How are we getting to Ochana?” I waited a few seconds for a response. Nothing. Not that I had expected one. I looked around, for what I didn’t know. All I saw were trees and a vacant road. I looked back up at Rylan and Sila, I waited in silence for some kind of signal as to what to do next.
Then, that lyrical voice from Sila echoed in my head, literally in my head. “Son, you’ll ride on your father’s back. There’s no other way to get to Ochana, but to fly. Unless, you’re able to shift into your dragon?”
Startled, I tried to process the fact that Sila’s voice was inside my head, then I thought about what she said. I had no idea how to turn myself into a dragon, I didn’t even know where to start. I walked as close to Rylan as I could. He bent down so I could climb onto his scaly back. The feeling was awkward, there wasn’t a saddle or harness. I positioned myself between two spikes, I’m sure there was a technical name for them, but I didn’t know it. I wrapped my arms around the one in front of me and sent a prayer up to my guardian angel that I wouldn’t fall. Rylan’s skin felt rugged and dry, not slimy like I had expected.
Rylan walked out into the middle of the road and spread his wings out. He was even bigger than I had first thought; his wings touched the trees on each side of the road. There was no way this wasn’t going to end without me falling to my death.
I tightened my hold around Rylan. My arms shook with the strength I was using to hold on and we hadn’t even left the ground yet. I heard a snort behind us and turned around in time to see Sila step behind Rylan and spread out her wings, just as Rylan had. The sight amazed me.
Rylan took my distraction of Sila as an opportunity to scare the heck out of me. He hastily crouched his legs and hurled me into his front spike. I refastened my hands around it just in time as he pushed off the ground and climbed into the sky. I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in a breath, I’d never been more terrified then I was at that moment. I hoped my ride on the back of a dragon would be a short one.
We ascended into the sky for just a few minutes, then leveled off. I took a large breath and cracked open my eyes. I was shocked by the site that surrounded me; a dark sky with just the moon as our guide. I relaxed a bit around Rylan and started to look around more with ease. I had never been in an airplane, so seeing the ground from the air was all new to me. I could see the lights from the ground looking up at me just as the stars had looked down at me so many nights before.
The excitement began to wean and I felt exhausted. My adrenaline had worn off as the whole night finally caught up to me. The last thing I needed was to fall asleep and plummet to my death. I still had a lot of questions, seeing as Sila was able to answer me before in her Leslo form, I went for it. “Sila, how long until we arrive in Ochana?” My question was met with silence for a few minutes, maybe she couldn’t hear me. I thought animals had better hearing then humans, but I didn’t know anything about dragon hearing.
“We will arrive in about two hours son. You’ll find that our time is remarkably fast considering the distance we will be traveling.”
Two hours? It would be a struggle to keep my eyes open, but it was better than the alternative. It would give me the time to think through everything, maybe Sila would be open to answering some more of my questions since all we seemed to have was time.
“Where is Ochana located?” It was a question I had had for the last two days, not about Ochana, but about where my new home would be.
It took Sila a few minutes again to answer, “Ochana is high above the clouds, off the coast of Greenland.”
Wow, we planned to fly all the way to Greenland? Sila stated it would only take a few hours, I could only imagine the speed we were traveling at for that to be true. It felt like we were merely floating, not speeding through the air. My mind raced as to what it must be like there. My knowledge of Greenland was limited. I knew it was cold, like really cold but that was it. That thought made me wonder about my present situation. I should be cold now, but I wasn’t, if anything, I was warm.
Sila interrupted my thoughts, “Very good son, your thoughts are loud and clear. You aren’t cold because I don’t will you to be. You will learn about this will. We call it mahier. Mahier is an old Ochana word, it is what makes us dragons. You will learn later what that entails.”
Sila’s unexpected disruption only gave me more questions. She could read my thoughts? I’m sure she has gotten a real laugh out of all my inward jibber jabber since we met. I hoped I hadn’t completely embarrassed myself. Mahier, eh? It would take some time to be able to say it like Sila had, with her harmonious voice, but I wondered about it. Was it like magic? A few hours ago, something like magic would be laughable to me, but now anything was possible.
Since she was willing me to be warm, was she willing me to feel like we were floating as well? I wondered what else she was capable of. I had almost forgotten about Rylan, he didn’t seem to be able to talk to me while as a Leslo like Sila, or he didn’t want to talk to me, which could be a real possibility too.
I looked around at my new surroundings, we must have traveled quite far by now. Time was a concept I had no clue of while flying on the back of a dragon, and there was no way I was letting go of Rylan to check my watch. As I looked around, I noticed what looked like snow on the ground. I had seen little snow in my time in Texas, though I had always wanted to try snowmobiling or skiing, maybe with my new life, I finally could?
The ground grew closer, and Rylan had begun to descend. It astounded me how I could barely feel any of this. It looked like we were going to land in an empty field. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was snow. Surely this wasn’t Ochana?
Rylan’s clawed feet hit the ground with a quiet thud. I squeezed him tighter, afraid I would fall off from the impact. Thankfully I was able to hold on and stay put. Rylan leaned down as a signal for me to climb off. I leapt off and turned towards Sila, who had already transformed back into her human form. She really was stunning, it was hard to believe she was my mother. I was relieved to see she transformed back with clothes on, it must be part of the mahier she talked about earlier. She turned to me and beamed a knowing smile my way.
“How do you feel? Your first flight seemed successful.” She winked at me and gave a slight chuckle.
Well, I didn’t fall so I would call that a success. “I’m starting to feel tired, are we there?” I looked every which way to see something that would tell me where we were, but there was nothing except sheets of snow everywhere I looked.
Rylan stepped towards me. He was back in his human form, also clothed. “We’re close,” Rylan assured. “This is Ellesmere Island, Canada. We’re resting for a bit, we have traveled quite a distance.”
Geography was something I never paid much attention to, and all I knew about Canada was that it was in the North. I regretted not paying more attention in school.
“However, we need to get you in touch with your dragon in order to continue our trip and enter Ochana.”
I should’ve guessed it wouldn’t be as easy as just hitching a ride on the back of a dragon. How was I supposed to get in touch with my dragon? I didn’t even know if there really was a dragon to get in touch with. I looked at Rylan and Sila with an expression that I hoped showed my true distress on this matter.
Rylan chuckled, “Relax son, you’ve already proven your strength to us. You’re able to control our mahier. It’s how you were able to take control back of your being after your mother ordered you to leave at the house.” Rylan nodded toward Sila as he said ‘mother.’ He continued, “Only a very strong dragon, especially one with no experience, could accomplish that.”
Rylan’s revelation didn’t make me feel any better. I wasn’t thinking about dragons and mahier, or much of anything back at the house. My only concern then was not wanting to leave. How would I explain to Rylan that I wasn’t as strong as he thought I was, that it was just a mistake? Something I never had control over.
Sila grabbed my shoulders, much like she did when I first saw Rylan as a Leslo. Her green eyes pierced into my brown, “But you are strong son, I can feel it. When we landed at your house tonight, your father and I were both in our Leslo forms, it is why your body reacted the way it did. You haven’t been in the presence of such power since you were a baby. Your body was recalling that power, the mahier. You will find your dragon. I can promise you that.” Sila dropped her arms from me and walked towards Rylan.
He had walked about two hundred yards from us to set up some kind of makeshift camp. Where did he find all th
ose supplies? Sila angled herself towards me and mouthed the word “mahier.” I would have to remember that Sila could read my thoughts. It was definitely something I would have to get used to.
As I got closer to Rylan, I noticed he had set up two tents and started a fire, and was already cooking something over it. I was impressed, he had set up camp in the middle of a frozen desert. I hoped they were right about me, I’d love to be able to do the things they were able to. I took a seat next to Sila in a chair that seemed to appear from thin air, I peered over the fire as Rylan cooked.
“Where do I start? I mean, with finding my dragon, how do I do that?” I wasn’t asking either of them in particular, I just hoped one of them would answer.
“It’s different for everyone. Everyone has a unique relationship with their dragon. It also depends on your type of dragon. Rylan and I are Leslos, but there are other types. Each type has its own responsibilities and purpose.” Sila took a breath and looked at me, “Just concentrate son. Reach out towards your dragon. Let him know you’re ready to accept him. He will appear, in one form or another.”
Concentrate on my dragon. It seemed much easier than it was. Once I found my dragon, would I just shift into it? I’ll be honest, I was terrified, and I bet it hurt a whole lot to shift. I wondered what it would feel like, would we be separate or become one? I was so confused, my focus was not on finding my dragon, my mind was scattered in thoughts.
Rylan waved a plate of food in front of me. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, some sort of meat that smelled delicious. I grabbed the plate from him. Rylan sat back down and started to eat, I stared at him in wonder. He had already scarfed down more food than I eat in a whole day, and he didn’t seem to be slowing down. If he always ate this way, I had no idea how he was in such good shape.
A chuckle came from beside me, “It takes a lot to shift son, and your father is not only feeding himself, but his dragon. Usually we would feed while in our Leslo forms, but we didn’t have the time tonight to do so. Now eat, you will need your strength, then we will leave you alone to connect with your dragon. Your father will need about an hour to rest and gain all his mahier back.”
The Keeper of Dragons: The Prince Returns Page 3