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Prologue: The Wish
She was eleven years old, or maybe twelve; her family was rich only in the number of children they had, and when you were, consequently, one of fourteen children, it was easy to lose track of exactly who was born when, or even who was named what. But while she hadn't started her monthlies yet, her shirts (handed down three times) were getting a bit tight across the chest, and not all because of her rib cage, so twelve seemed the likelier bet.
That day, she was working, having taken the sow and her piglets, all seventeen of them, out to the oak grove to root around for old acorns and mayhap find a few very valuable truffles into the bargain. You couldn't simply leave the piggies out there on their own, as they could stray off and get stolen or eaten, so she was keeping one eye on them while she dug for freshwater mussels in the brook. Anything for something more to eat, food being as scarce around their steading as one might expect when a family had sixteen to feed. She could build a tiny fire, use her metal pail as a pot, cook them with some pounded up wild garlic to add flavor, and have a little feast all by herself.
Then she heard the sounds of a creature in pain. Leaving the mussels where they were, she grabbed her switch and smacked a couple of piglets back toward the main group before she went to see what was making that noise. It turned out the be a half-grown bear cub in a thicket, one hind leg caught in a nasty old trap left over from the Bad Days when there was an Orlesian Moussir owning their lands and everything on them, including all the people. The trap looked to be half rust, but it clearly wasn't, because that cub was well and truly caught, its flesh torn and bleeding.
She knew what she ought to do. She ought to run and get her Da to come with the axe, and then there would be bear meat for the stew and a heavy fur hood for somebody's cape, maybe even hers. She knew what she ought to do, there was no place for sentimentality or squeamishness in a peasant's life, and yet—the bear glared at her with almost human eyes, proud and pathetic and appealing all at the same times, and it whimpered between growls.
"Um…all right. I'm going to try and get this trap off you, see? And it'll go better if you don't go clawing at me or biting me while I do it. All right?" And—this was the part that sent a shiver down her spine—it looked her in the eye and nodded. It did. It even held still and didn't move while she worked out how to pull the pins out of the hinge, since the spring was too strong for her to stretch out enough. When the trap fell away, the bear changed.
"Maker!" Facing her was another girl about her own age, with black hair and vivid yellow eyes, dressed in a wild assortment of rags sewn together randomly, some of which she ripped off.
"My thanks. T'was most vexing being caught so, the more so because my mother would not look for me until dark. You've a bucket there, I see—Fetch me some water."
"Where I come from, we say please when we want a favor," she retorted, "and if I don't hear that first, you can fetch it yourself." She would never have dared to speak so if the shapeshifter was older or male, but a girl her own age? She wasn't about to take guff from her.
"WhereI come from, we don't argue with people who can change themselves into bears. Please, then."
"All right," She hurried back to the brook, (rounding up a piglet along the way), filled her pail with water, and brought it back to the strange, wild girl.
The girl poured the water over her injured leg, hissing with pain as the blood sluiced away, then used her rags to dry and bind it. "I am Morrigan. May I know my rescuer's name?"
"Ca-Cauthrien."
"Ca-Ca-Cauthrien? Sounds like a crow. Well, Cauthrien, as you must have kenned by now, you have helped a witch, and it were best you held your tongue concerning it. Nevertheless—I do thank you. Goodbye."
Morrigan got up and limped off, leaving Cauthrien there holding the pail. That was a witch. Arealwitch. She was a bear and then she turned into a person. Any lingering sense of amazement (mingled with a certain quantity of terror, to be entirely honest) was interrupted by one of the piglets, who began squealing as if it were being gutted alive. It wasn't; it was only bitten by a horsefly, but it was a reminder that life was more about work than about magic and wonder, at least when you were the tenth (or was it the eleventh?) of fourteen children on a farm.
She was herding the pigs back across the far meadow once the light was turning golden and the shadows growing long when the dragon swooped down on her. Her first thought was Storm cloud? It didn't look like rain, as the immense darkness folded over her with a rush of wind and the smell of ozone. All the pigs screamed and scattered to the four corners of the earth, and then she looked up.
Scales. Teeth. Talons. An immense clawed hand slammed her down to the ground, pinning her there, and she covered her head with her arms, curling up as small as she could, hiding her face. I hope it doesn't hurt long… The thing's body warmth was hotter than the smith's forge at high summer.
"A little brown tangle-headed thing that smells like pigs, my Morrigan said," a woman's voice rasped, hoarse like she'd been breathing smoke for thirty years, "and you are the only little brown tangle-headed thing in the vicinity. I shall not comment on the smell. It would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. You are Cauthrien, are you not? You can stop cowering now, I'm not going to eat you. I owe you a debt, and I am very prompt about settling my debts. Had Morrigan lost a leg, it would have put quite a crimp in my plans."
Cauthrien rolled over and opened one eye. Instead of a giant dragon, a woman crouched over her, sitting on her haunches. She looked very ordinary, with grizzled hair and drab clothes.
"Ah, that's better," the woman said, her voice tinged with amusement. "Hmm. Little, brown and tangle-headed you may be, but by happy accident, you've quite good bone structure. Brow, cheekbones, chin—you'll be a beauty before long. Also by happy accident, you've a decent brain under all that hair. You're the odd one out in your brood, aren't you? Although you've learned to hide it... You dream of things other than pigs and harvests and babies. You don't want to be married at fifteen and old by thirty and dead before you're forty like your mother."
"My…mother? I'm sure my mother's more than forty. Ma'am," she added.
"And polite, too! At least to your elder. I understand you served Morrigan some of her own sauce. The woman you call your mother is actually your grandmother, child. You know the one who birthed you as your eldest sister—you were an unexpected gift left behind in her belly after a festival night. Did you never think to look in a mirror and wonder where you got your features, so unlike the rest?"
"We don't own a mirror, ma'am."
"My name is Flemeth, child. Forget what I said; your mother as you know her is your mother in all but birthing you. Now, how shall I reward you? I know. I shall grant you a wish. That's traditional, is it not?"
Cauthrien brightened up. "A wish? I'd like—."
"Not so fast. Humans are endless wish-generators. You wish it were noon so you could eat your lunch; you wish you were taller, you even wish you were dead, or you say you do. Every day of your life you wish for a hundred things. If wishes were golds, we'd all be richer than kings. You'll get your wish—one only, none of this business of three and certainly no wishing for more wishes. You'll get it, and it will get you your heart's desire, but you'll have to work for it!
"It must be an utterly unselfish wish, too, and you can't be aware you're making it. It won't come until you've forgotten about it, when years have passed over our heads, and this encounter is no more than a dim recollection of your last summer of childhood, when you've convinced yourself I and my daughter were no more than a daydream. That is my gift to you. I wish you well, Cauthrien—and I do not do that often."
Standing up, Flemeth changed again, this time into a more elegant and queenly version of herself, with silver hair swept up into horns and a reddish mail dress. "Goodbye. We will meet again—eventually."
Then she was once again a dragon, and with mighty wingbeats, leapt up into the air.
"Wait!" Cauthrien cried, "If my sister's my mother, then who's my fa—." The words were lost in a sudden crack of thunder, and fat cold drops of rain pelting down. "The pigs!" Again, real life intruded. The pigs had to be found, or there would be no meat that winter.
A/N: You can blame this plot bunny on Herebedragons66 and Dragonmactir. Thanks a lot! Grumblegrumble like I need any more ideas grumblewhinemoan.