Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.
-Wernher von Braum
Chapter Two: Talk
Nergal honestly wished that someone could fix that dang window up in the garret. Stuck just an inch open, it let in all sorts of pesky bugs and just enough of a breeze to cause the pages of his book to fan out, losing his place. Now, a drizzle of rain pattered against the pane, and a few rogue droplets whipped in and struck his face.
The hatch opened, and Stella clambered in. "What are you doing?"
"Studying. Go away."
"You've been studying all day." Stella's voice rose to a whine. "I'm bored. Come down and do something."
Nergal shifted his position, turning on his side away from Stella. "No. Go down and visit Aly or something." He heard her stomp her foot in protest.
"Mother won't let me. Not unless you come." Nergal saw where this was going. "I had to do of all my chores while you were up here 'studying', and now, I have to just sit around and do nothing! That's not fair."
Nergal rolled his eyes. He did not want the coming screaming match, but his mother actually commissioned this report. The book, titled Dragon Kin, would hopefully reveal to him how to dragon-proof their home, and however silly that seemed, his mother was insistent on it being done, and done right.
He rolled back to face Stella. "Ten more minutes. Then I'll take you down to the Hudson's." Stella opened her mouth. "No fuss or else I won't do it. I'm doing very important stuff here." She immediately closed it and with a huff, clambered down the ladder.
For hours, Nergal had simply flipped through the pages, skimming the titles of each chapter. Anatomy, Habits, Mythology: none of which told him what he wanted to know. He finally just chose The Human Relationship and started reading.
Dragons and humans live mostly segregated. The only regions where Dragon and Human interaction could be considered common are the Desert Peninsula and the Illian Mountains; this has been noted as a matter of necessity. In these desolate areas of Elibe, the human and dragon clans have mostly disintegrated, and in many towns, whether the majority is fleshed or scaled, there are at least a few families of the other kind.
In most of Elibe, tensions between the two are tense. For example, in the heart of Elibe, humans blame the dragons for burning their fields, causing them to become fallow and barren. In the Wyvern Crags, dragons accuse humans of deforesting their homes and wrongfully domesticating their livestock. Such hostilities have raged on for centuries, and thus these areas are the source of the most physical conflict between the two.
Nergal heard Stella's voice screaming at him from below. His eyes scanned over the rest of the chapter, but it provided none of the information that he wanted and needed. Stella's calls grew more insistent, higher in volume and scratchier in tone. He slammed the book shut, tightened the laces on his boots, and swung down the ladder.
"Don't be so reckless," his mother hissed at him as she turned the ladle in the cooking stew. Stella bounced out the door, but Nergal's mother hooked her finger over his collar and yanked him back. "You watch out for those dragons. They must still be in the area. Never let her out of your sight." Nergal nodded. "By God, Nergal, swear it." He swore it, and she released him.
Stella waited outside, tapping her foot against the stoned walkway. Neither Nergal nor his mother told her about the event last night for she had apparently slept through it and they thought it best for her not to know. Stella did not even ask what kept him; she latched herself onto his arm and led him down the path and onto the dusty road.
The Hudson Farm was but a small distance east of their home. They were situated in the flatlands to the north of the Wyvern crags, near the Furtham Delta that split this land from the barbarians to the north. Dragons usually avoided this area, preferring the lofty mountains with their unintelligent brothers, the wyverns. And unlike the farmlands that surrounded the port Ostia to the west, no scourge had wasted their resources.
A little haven in this world, Nergal thought. Anybody living anywhere else to him was crazy. A human in the Wyvern Crags invited death into his hearth; the Illian Mountains could produce nothing; same with the Desert Peninsula; the City States were dying out; the barbaric tribes of the plains hunted any outsiders, human or dragon; and the Far West seemed too foreign.
However, the haven had been penetrated. Nergal constantly looked around, over his shoulder, towards the skies, for any sight of dragons. Stella laughed at his antics.
"Wyverns don't stray this far," she reminded him, skipping backwards to face him.
"I'm not worried about Wyverns," he said.
"What then? Flying thieves?" She giggled at the notion. Her arms stretched out to imitate the wings of birds gliding on the breeze.
"Nothing. I'm worried about nothing." He said this as he glanced upwards again. "The sky is just awfully pretty today." The sky was mottled with gray and black clouds, not a pretty sight at all. Stella paused and shielded her eyes with her palm so that she could scope out the sky. At first she shook her head, then her mouth fell open and she pointed to the distance.
"What's that?"
Nergal's head snapped around to look. Nothing disturbed the clouded canvas, nothing he could see at least. His head swiveled on his neck looking all directions. Stella collapsed on the ground, laughing loudly. Grabbing her collar, Nergal forced her on.
"Come on, I see the farm in the distance- stop laughing!" His brow creased to match his frown. "It wasn't that funny."
"Yes- hee- it was- heh."
"No, it wasn't."
They reached the wooden fence that marked off the Hudson property. Nergal scrambled over it while Stella crawled on her hands and feet under the low-lying wooden bar. A forest of wheat sprouted up in front of them. Stella dove in first; Nergal chased after her.
The yellow stalks scraped against their faces, growing denser as they pushed through. They knew these fields well, and they could easily tell which direction to head towards. They popped out onto a muddy road that winded up to the mill. At this time of day, Aly would probably be found there.
They saw her hunched over a filled burlap bag. A new drizzle had begun, wetting her face with its tiny droplets and plastering the loose strands of her copper-colored hair to her forehead. She wore a plain brown frock that was frayed at the hems.
"Stella, look at you!" Aly abandoned her task as soon as she saw them. "You're all a fluster." Stella ran into her arms, flinging her own around Aly's robust build.
"Nergal's afraid of flying thieves," she said into Aly's stomach. Aly looked up at Nergal with an arched eyebrow.
"Flying thieves, huh? Well, if I had a sister as pretty as you, then I'd afraid that they'd come down and steal you too." Stella giggled and let go of Aly. "Stella, honey, run up to the house. My ma has something for your ma."
"Come with me." She tugged at Aly's sleeve.
"I have to finish up my chores here; I'll catch up in a second. Go along." Aly gestured her forward. Stella waited for a moment, crossed her arms, then, after realizing neither Nergal nor Aly would come with her, dashed down the path, disappearing around a bend of stalks.
"So you heard them too," said Aly, softly, after Stella left. "We've never known Wyverns to travel this far." She gulped and rubbed her arms.
"You think they're wyverns and not dragons?"
"Pa said something about their call is different, and that's how you can tell the difference. He's met Dragons before, and he's says they're too civilized to scream in the night like that." She shivered. Nergal stepped forward to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Unless, of course, you believe what's coming out of the western lands."
Conflicts between the two races frequented the news now more than ever, all the more frightening as they both knew that the "news" arrived in the flatlands a month or two after it first occurred. Humans scorched to death; dragons with swords plunged through their fiery hearts. Whole towns incinerated; dragon families captured one by one and tortured until they withered away.
"The world is a bleak place," said Nergal. "Only God can save us." He then added, "Besides, there's nothing here Dragons want. Not even many of our kind would chose to live here. We're safe for now."
"You're not," Aly pointed out. "You're leaving in a year to travel all the way to the Desert Peninsula. That's farther west than the Far West."
Remembering his reading, Nergal assured her by saying, "the conflicts aren't so bad there. I hear some even live in harmony. It's the city states I'll want to avoid; it's the places where they have little better to do than fight."
Aly squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember her geography the best she could. "But…but don't you have to pass through the city states before you reach the Desert?" Nergal's heart stopped. She was right. He had never thought of that. "What if you get killed on the way over!"
Nergal wove his arms around Aly, who was near tears. "I won't get killed. Those reports are exaggerated, Aly. Don't listen to them; I'll be fine." Those words also comforted him to an extent, but the worry now gnawed at him. Would he survive?
That thought still haunted him later that day. When the first fingers of dusk brushed the sky, Nergal pulled Stella home. Their mother scolded them for being late. She sent Stella out for a pail of water so her two children could wash up, then whispered to Nergal.
"Did you see any of them?"
Nergal shook his head. "Aly says they're wyverns, not dragons." His mother gasped. One hand flew to her mouth while the other smacked across her forehead.
"Wyverns! Those cursed beasts. At least dragons have shreds of intelligence; wyverns are nothing more than demons. Nothing can restrain them." The hands moved from her face to clap together in prayer. "Pray, boy, pray that we live out the fortnight!"
Stella reappeared in the door, lugging a pail. She poured the water into a basin by the stove, all the while oblivious to her mother fevered mutterings of salvation. Nergal watched her as she dipped her hands in and washed away the grime between her fingers. He knelt down next to her.
"Something's wrong, isn't it?" she asked.
Nergal shook his head. "No, nothing at all. Times are just tough."
Stella dried her hands on her skirt. She did not face Nergal but rather stared at the calming ripples in the basin. "I don't believe you."
At that moment, a brisk knock sounded at the door. Nergal's mother scurried to open it, revealing a somber Cadfael.
He gave a slight incline of the head. "Hello madam. May I speak with you for a moment?" Nergal's mother stiffly nodded. "Outside, ma'am. I believe these matters are a bit private." Her eyes widened. With a glance thrown over her shoulder towards Nergal and Stella, she stepped outside and closed the door.
The door did not quite fit the frame though, and it remained opened a crack. Nergal sidled up to it, pressed his finger to his lips to silence Stella's giggles, and eavesdropped on the conversation.
"Radek is quite impatient," said Cadfael solemnly. "He feels that we have already given you too much time and that we are being too lenient. He is not sympathetic to your situation, I'm afraid. After we parted yesterday, he changed his mind." He paused and cleared his throat, but even then, he hesitated and fumbled for his words. "Two weeks. That's all we'll give you now."
"What!" His mother's shrill voice rang out so loudly that even Stella turned her head. "That's not nearly enough time."
"Listen, ma'am. Times haven't so been so easy on us either. As much as I would like to give you more time, I'm afraid Radek is right. We'll be back within the fortnight."
Nergal heard the scuffling of feet as Cadfael walked away, and he quickly moved from the door. His mother stormed in, eyes brimming with ire but face pale. Her lip trembled as she took a seat at the table.
"S-Stella, dear, fetch me a hot drink, and finish setting the table." Stella hurried to comply. Nergal stood behind her waiting for her to address him. He inched forward a little until he was bowing over her, one hand on her shoulder to comfort her, the other tightly wound in hers. "Nergal, my sweet boy-"
"Yes?"
"Go out to the garden. We need carrots for the stew."
Nergal pulled away with an irritated sigh. He rolled his sleeves as he stepped out into their garden and walked among the cabbages, the rosemary, the tomatoes, until he reached their carrots. Before he could crouch down to pull the roots out of the ground, a strange flapping noise met his ears. No, not quite flapping, more of whlap, whlap. No bird he knew of could make such a sound; these wings, if indeed the sound did source from wings, had to come from a broader span.
Nergal looked up to the sky. Twinkling stars and a half moon shone down on him, undisturbed save for the hazy clouds. Then, something black cut through the cloud cover. As it passed over the moon, blanking out its ethereal light, Nergal saw for certain that this was no bird.
Glints of silver caught its scaly wings and bone-tipped claws. Two glistening points served as eyes, menacing and cold. It swooped lower in the sky, and Nergal fell to his stomach, hidden among the plants. He looked up after a second. The creature had regained its former altitude and ignored him completely. It was so high in the sky that Nergal began to wonder if it could even see him down here.
He sat up on his knees, watching the creature as it flew off into the distance, until it disappeared completely, leaving Nergal left with only a mere memory of it. His entire body shook. Hastily, he pulled out a few carrots and retreated to the stoop, where he once again glanced up for the sight of it. Nothing. Still quailing, he entered his home.
The question lingered though: was that a dragon, or, worse yet, a wyvern?
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Author's Note: Next chapter is going to be fun. A little name dropping and some fun interactions are in place. Until then, this too was interesting to write. Some unintentional foreshadowing, and I set up some of the geography. Since the countries weren't founded exactly until after the Scouring, I played around with it. Some of them are obvious; others aren't. I'll list them. If you look at a map of Elibe, you'll get a better idea.
Wyvern Crags: the mountains of Bern.
Illian Mountains: Ilia
Desert Peninsula: Nabata (well, it's a desert and it's a peninsula. Thought it was catchy.)
City States: Lycia
No-name land of the barbarians: Sacae
Far West: Etruria (it's like the Far East except West)
If you look at river between Sacae and Bern, that's around where Nergal lives.
I went though the script of FE6, and tried to find things on pre-Scouring life, and found just about nothing, so that's another aspect I'm going to have some fun with.
Extra thanks to JSB for betaing! Review!
