In The Dragons' Wake
Disclaimation Point! I don't profit from using Christopher Paolini's characters and concepts.
For those of you who are following my Harry Potter stories, sorry for the slow updates and this little unrelated bit of distraction! We listened to the Eragon audiobooks and they were honestly not that good: lots of violence and lots of plot/logic failures. The one thing I really liked about them was the dragons. Some dragons were wild, but some were "bonded" to hatch when they came in contact with a rider (humanoid being of some kind) that they wanted. As I typically do after finishing a series, I started imagining the second generation—I imagine these to be the next eggs to wake and choose riders. They had been waiting for a very long time to hatch while an evil king was ruling. Once the hero, Eragon, and his dragon defeated the evil king, these eggs were ready.
…
Mag woke. He wriggled, feeling that he had been in one position for far, far too long. He played with his tongue, licking each of his little teeth. He liked them! They were sharp! But what were they for? Biting? He brought a forepaw up to his mouth and bit it hard. His teeth punctured his scales and he felt pain. Mag curled tightly into a ball, wrapping a blanket-wing around his hurt paw. In the egg-fluid he tasted a drop of blood. It tasted good. But if it came from the pain, he did not want it.
He decided to ignore the pain, because he was interested in his tail. He swung it back and forth, kicking it between his two back feet. On his feet there were claws, which were sharp like his teeth, so he curled them in to avoid hurting his tail with them.
Mag felt something push against his head…but it wasn't actually on his head…it was on his chest. Or was it in his chest? No, it was his head. But it was inside, yet outside, separate. Mag kicked out in shock when he realized the sensation was coming from outside his egg! There was Something, separate from himself, outside his egg!
The Something brushed lightly against his head-mind, and Mag sent a barb of defensiveness out at it. Then the Something made a noise, and there were other noises. Mag writhed around, experimenting with the orientation of his ears—realizing they could sense the direction the noises came from. The Something put a physical pressure against the outside of the egg, and Mag curled up tightly, then swiped a paw at it.
If he got out, and bit the Something, would he feel the pain, or would it?
He wanted to bite the Something very much, but he felt like he needed to stay in his egg. There was something else he was waiting for, before he bit and clawed his way out. What was it, the something else he was waiting for? He let his curiosity reverberate and extend out of his head-mind-space, to the outside-egg-space.
He had not expected an answer.
Mag fought the intrusion into his mind, but a picture was thrust in on him, of a something. It had odd sticks coming out of it, like legs but not like legs. It had flat teeth. Then there was another picture of something big-grey-bumpy-spiky. Mag liked the spikes, and he thought the new picture was much nicer proportioned than the first. It reminded him of himself. Legs, teeth, tail, blanket-wings.
Mag wrenched the mind-picture from the weak control of the Something that made it, and showed the self-thing swallowing up the odd-thing in a single bite. Mag smiled.
The Something made a few more noises.
It sent another mind-picture of the self-thing (which Mag decided was a dragon, and indeed, himself) with an odd-thing sitting with two legs astride its shoulders. Mag tried to make the self-dragon shake it off and eat it again, but the Something was gently firm, and kept the picture of the odd-thing seated on the dragon. Then the dragon spread its blanket-wings, ran, beat the wings against the open-air-space, and soared up! Up! Up! The two-leg whooped and cheered and praised the dragon as they flew together.
Mag tried to spread his own wings. Oh, to fly. To fly! He sent his mind-feeling of approval to the Something outside. He wanted a rider…but not you! Mag made it clear to the something that his rider would be of his own choosing.
The Something agreed, no doubt because it did not want to be eaten.
The next mind-picture Mag received was of four different sizes of two-legs standing next to each other. There was a round-ear-straight-leg, a thin-bodied-pointy-ear, a short-stout-hairy-chin, and a curve-horn-grey-fist. They were all ugly, and Mag pictured the self-dragon knocking the row of them down with a swipe of his tail.
The Something made noises again.
It sent a mind-picture of many round-ear-straight-legs. There were tall ones, tiny ones, long-haired ones, with different colors of skin and all different styles of imitation scales. Mag thought some of the small ones seemed interesting...but no, they might get bigger. He pushed the mind-picture away.
The Something sent a picture of many short-stout-hairy-chins. They moved in clusters, tiny young ones playing and hiding behind the full sized ones. Mag had no interest in the hairiest ones with their hold-swing-hit hammers, but he considered the tiny ones, the smallest of the small two-legs. They were cute and vulnerable. He wanted to wrap one up in his blanket-wings to keep forever, and if anyone tried to hurt it or take it away, he knew he would fight to the death for his little one.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Arumque remembered a Mother. She remembered warmth, a soothe-rumbling voice, and mind-share-feelings of comfort and belonging. Sometimes there had been a Father-voice too, strong-noble and proud of his eggs. Then, high-pitched other-creature voices had sung a spell around her, making her want an other-creature companion. She had felt a tingle at the base of her neck, between her shoulder blades, and the disappearance of two of her all-along-neck-back ridges. She assumed it was to make a space for her companion, and therefore she supposed that the other-creatures must be very small. She was not sure if she wanted to be bound to someone fragile or helpless. However, she knew she would recognize her companion when the time came.
Then, there had been a great worry in the minds of her Mother and Father, and a bump-rolling-gathering into a cool-dark place. Her Mother-voice was gone, and her Father-voice changed, no more throat-rumbling, but only heart-mind-sharing with other old-hearts in the cool-dark place. There was something she admired about the old-hearts. They seemed to know things. Before she fell asleep, Arumque committed to remember her beginning. After all, what was more valuable than the wisdom of memory? She slept: a long-long-sleep.
The old-hearts stirred. Arumque's Father led them as they reached out to help. Whom or what they were helping, Arumque did not know, but after a time there was an other-creature voice in the cool-dark place, which spoke to Father, and the old-hearts went away with it. It did not seem long, however, before they returned, and there was another bump-rolling-gathering, but this time it seemed full of joy and promise.
From within her egg, Arumque sensed a travel of distance. They came to a warmer-place and she heard other-creature voices more often. They consulted with Father, always seeming busy and excited. They seemed to care for her, but none were her companion.
A time came when the leader of the other-creatures, the one that had brought her out of the cool-dark, came to speak with Father and the old-hearts. They were making a momentous decision, Arumque thought. She wished she understood their mind-sharing-word-sounds. Then the leader extended his mind to the eggs, and Arumque also felt his warm-physical-touch outside her shell. She stretched her neck and bumped her nose against his touch. Then she opened her mind to him with a wordless question as to why he was touching her. He exclaimed, and Father's voice agreed with pride and pleasure.
Then, the leader sent her a blinding-light-image! A picture! At first, Arumque did not know what to think of the mass of color and sensation, but then she discerned that there was blue above, and green below, and something white-gold moving in the middle. The white-gold had arms and legs under it that Arumque recognized as similar to her own little limbs. It had all-along-neck-back ridges with a space between the shoulders, and a long neck and tail like her own. Its wrap-around blankets were like hers, but spread out above it, not keeping it warm, but catching the air in the great-open-space!
Arumque allowed the leader-creature to feel her thrill as she realized that the white-gold-glittering-gleaming thing was a dragon—it was herself! She sent back a picture of the dragon blinking its bright golden eyes, swishing its magnificent tail, and licking its perfect scales. Surely, there could not be anything more beautiful in the world.
The leader-creature laughed.
Arumque felt that there was something missing. She needed a companion; if she was the most gorgeous thing in existence, she needed someone to follow her, to constantly admire her, to escort her, to ride her.
The leader agreed. Then, he added more figments to the picture. They were scrawny things on two legs, some with pink skin, some with brown skin, wearing bright colored cloths to attempt to hide and protect themselves. They had rounded ears and many lengths of thin-whispy hair. Some of them dug in the dirt, some put sticks or cloths together, some hammered, and others walked about speaking to each other and trading things. Arumque was not interested, and she made her feelings known.
The leader-creature seemed slightly disappointed, but took the creatures out of the picture and replaced them with longer-legged, pointy-eared two-legs that danced, sang flowers to grow, or sat in meditation. Although they were better looking than the first group, Arumque still found them boring.
Third, he showed her smaller two-legs with a great deal of hair. They chiseled stone and polished bright gems that might be as bright as dragon scales, but could never move on their own. These little ones moved with a stomp-shuffle that Arumque thought was funny, but hardly impressive. The leader-creature tried to show a small two-leg approaching the white-gold dragon, but he allowed Arumque to influence the picture as well. Arumque made the dragon figment grow larger and rear up on its hind legs, and the little one backed away.
Finally, the mind-picture showed two-legged creatures that were very different from the others. They had thick-twisting horns above their ears, and carried long metal-claw-tools. They made little effort to clothe themselves, which Arumque thought logical, since their coarse grey skin was almost like scales itself. These creatures wrestled with each other, hunted, sang and talked around fires, and pounded on things. In their gnarled muscles, Arumque saw energy and power. In their faces, she thought she saw something…it stirred her sympathy and curiosity. Was it wariness? Fear?
Arumque, in her egg, had little experience and no language to explain what she saw in the horned-creatures' bearing, but she wondered if life was harder for them, being so different from the other two-legs. Suddenly, desparately, she felt a desire to understand. She took one of the horned figures from the leader's mind-share-picture, imagined it walking up to the beautiful white-gold dragon, and set it upon the dragon's shoulders—her own shoulders.
Notes:
It it was interesting to write this; the stream-of-consciousness of characters that don't yet have language. A challenge.
Review if you would like chapters about the dwarf and urgal that become Mag's and Arumque's riders, and/or the next pair of eggs to hatch (for an elf and a human).