Chapter 2: Life is Short But the Years are Long

(Growing up Night Fury)

"Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy." - "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long"

Disclaimer: The usual. Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell came up with the basic characters. But the mother and the sisters are original characters (and they made me feed them lots of fish to be in this)

Also, no dragons were harmed in the writing of this chapter. Some were irritated by it, though.

Chapter quote is from Robert Heinlein

Fainting is highly overrated.

I came to, lying on the forbidden ground and realizing I was going to be here for a very long time. Like the rest of my life.

I growl-groaned and opened my eyes. The late afternoon sun lanced through the trees overhead and made my head hurt even more. My throat was dry, my sides itched, and I had an amazing feeling in my stomach like I could eat an entire shark and vomit it up in the same moment.

Sounds twitched against my ear sensors. Birds, insects, wind, water. WATER! At least this prison had a lake. My back legs did not seem to be working well. My guess is that when my aileron was torn off, my hip muscles got a pretty bad strain too. Lying in that trap for hours had probably not helped, either. I used my front legs to drag myself to the lake's edge and plunged my head in the water. Several minnows scattered away from me like silvery flames as I drank deeply. This water was clear and cold, probably fed by snow melt coming from the steep sides of this mountain island. It was just what I needed.

With a grunt I shoved myself into the chilly water and took a few rolls to loosen up the dried blood. Then I spent the next while lying in the sun, licking my hide clean. When I was satisfied that I was clean again, I let myself just rest, stretched out on my side so my back legs would not cramp even more. I still felt dizzy from this experience, and sleep seemed to be the only cure I had for the moment.

Since I will probably die here, this seemed to be a good time to record my memories. If one of the Lighting People finds my body, he or she can dig out my memory stone lodged in my brain between my ear sensors. Hopefully whatever clues I picked up on last night's raid will be helpful.

And, while I am at it, I might as well fill in my background. Then someone can let my family back home know what happened to me. We may live long distances from one another, but we try to stay connected how we can.

As you know by now, I am immigrant here, a very long way from home.

How do you get to my homeland? Easy. You fly into the direction of the rising sun until you meet yourself coming from the other direction. Turn north until you reach the State of Confusion where it intersects the Mountains of No Mercy. Proceed to ascend upwards, aiming for the Biome of Barrenness and there you are. My home. To the Firemakers of the region it is a place of high reaching glacial peaks where nothing can grow but bad thoughts. To us, it is Paradise! Where else would a Lightning Person be at home then a land of high cliffs, snowy peaks and an endless sky where lightning dances in the summer months. Volcanoes roar deep in the mountains, fueling hot springs that warm the ground for our People's eggs. Deep glacial lakes teem with schools of fish. We can even follow the spring snow melt down to the lower levels of the mountain to scoop migrating salmon out of the waters for a special treat. Rainbows seem to glint everywhere, winking in glacial ice and white water. Truly a lovely place for a Lightning Person to be born. And some of us get to live here for our whole lives. The land scape won't support many of us, so most of us wind up getting Called to use our talents in other parts of the world. But there is not a one of us who would not be grateful to come back here again.
The Firemakers call it this region, The Pamir, "The Roof of the World."

A few hardy Firemakers do live here, raising sheep in the few high mountain pastures. We Lightning People leave them alone. They seem to see us as divine beings, so different from what I know in the North Atlantic region where I now live. They leave us gifts of fish and colorful little ribbons, but we make sure never to show ourselves to them. Why push your luck?

We share the landscape with another species as elusive as we are: snow leopards. We look very much like them, except we Lightning People have bat-like wings and scales, plus round jaws with retractable teeth. Like our feline neighbors, we are shy, mysterious and deadly nocturnal hunters. We even are born the same color as they: a beautiful pewter gray with black stripes and freckles that help us blend in among the gray rocks of the Pamirs. Many of us, like my mother, remain this color all their lives. But many of us also turn darker as we get older.

So it was here, in a bed of sand warmed by a hot spring that I came into the world. I don't remember my hatching. Apparently I was the next to last egg my mother bore.

Many animals compare us to reptiles because of our scales and jaws and teeth, but we Lightning People actually are more closely related to birds. We are hatched blind and helpless, and we need our parents to protect us. They vomit up partially digested fish to feed us and teach us to fly, to shoot our plasma bolts and to survive on our own. That means small litters and a very long child hood.

I do not have clear memories of my first few days as a blind and mewling kitten, but I do remember a lot of playing and napping and sucking up lovely vomited fish. My mother would clean us with her tongue, instilling in us the importance of good grooming. My father was also around for a while, helping bring us food and keep us warm in the den while my mother rested. I remember sometimes he would croon and purr us to sleep with some of the old memory songs that we use to teach our history. He had a lovely purr. But he was not Called to be here, so he eventually flew back to the area where he worked as a signaler.

As I got older, I did begin to realize I was very special among my siblings (I was the only male in the clutch). I was a young dragon who was shadowed by Destiny (my younger sister, Destiny, was fascinated by me and kept following me wherever I went). My older sisters must have sensed my uniqueness, because they were always teasing me, bullying me and harassing me (after they recovered from the practical jokes I played on them.) In other words, I was lucky enough to grow up in a happy, loving family. Since we Lightning People live solitary adult lives except for the few of us who become parents, we need to have a loving kitten hood. Our wings will take us to far away places, but as my mom would say, we need to have a firm rock of memories from which to launch ourselves. No matter where we go, we carry the love of our families in our memory stones.

I also realize now that I've never told you my name. I'm not sure I can explain it easily since we People are creatures of senses, not words. Our names are sights, smells, sounds and feelings. My mother, for example, has the name that is the light and smell of the longest day of winter. My little sister's name is the emotion one feels when he or she is Called. My father´s name is the brilliant blue power of a flame´s center. And my name is that thrill of excitement you get just before a summer thunderstorm.
I remember our mother first teaching us our Commandments as we lounged around a fire in our den, sharing some lovely barfed up salmon (ah, the lost days of youth).

I. Never steal food from a Firemaker.

II. Good grooming is essential.

III. There is no honor in an unfair fight.

IV. Avoid the ground or you will never leave the ground.

V. Never, ever get within range of a Firemaker's front paws.

When it was dark and most Firemakers slept, my mother sometimes took us to the stone temples where Firemakers had left fish for us so we would carry their prayers to the heavens. We could eat this fish since it was given, not stolen, and we were doing it in the name of religion. In gratitude, we always remembered to vomit part of the fish and leave it on the temple steps so the Firemakers could share in our pleasure.

The Firemakers where I grew up were a quiet people- small and with the lungs to live in this high altitude. Their hides were a lovely burnished gold. Most had reddish brown or black hair and almond shaped eyes that tended towards being light brown or grey. Some of them also dressed in red or gold robes and lived their whole lives in deep thought and chanting strange rhythmic prayers that echoed in our mountains. I found these cloaked Firemakers fascinating. But I still kept my distance.

I remember the day my mother pulled me aside to have The Lesson that all parents must teach their young about the facts of life.

In order to fly you have to learn how to fall. Once you take your first fall, hit the ground and learn you are still alive in spite of it, you suddenly know exactly how to fly. I don't know why that is. But we are not alone: since moving to the North Atlantic region, I know now young puffins cannot fly until they have seen the ocean. Life is strange.

And then I learned how to shoot my unique, plasma-like flames, which meant I had to learn how to retract my teeth first. I'd gladly explain to you how it works but it is complex. Let's just say there I start with a thickened acetone mass, lightly seasoned with very fine potassium nitrate crystals that is set alight with an acetylene-oxygen flame that explodes its target on impact. The mass is a semi solid matter but when it combines with oxygen (that's why I take a breath before I let loose), then it becomes an indigo flame that I shoot out. Please, do not try this at home.

We Lightning People often refer to our firepower as being plasma bolts since they do look like lightning, and, of course, that is why we got our name. In reality, we are not shooting electric based but chemical based firepower, just like most other dragons. So, when you hear me mention "plasma bolts," just remind yourself it only LOOKS like plasma. It's easier to do that than and takes less than time than to keep mentioning that I shoot a semi-solid mass, alight with an acetylene-oxygen flame.

When I learned to flame, I learned my life's purpose: Target Practice! Many happy hours were spent blowing up stones and making pebbles dance across the ground. It was especially fun when I could sneak up behind one of my sleeping sisters and blow up a stone to wake her.

My mother had other opinions. After I had to sweep out the den and pull the most unpleasant night watch hours for six months I learned my lesson. Now I only did Target Practice when my family was not watching (I have a feeling that was not exactly what my mother intended).

My mother probably sounds like a real dragon lady and, technically, she was. She could be really hard on us, but she also was very kind and liked to take us to explore the land around our cave. I think I got my snarky sense of humor from her. She seemed to like that I constantly asked annoying questions. Most of the time she did not answer me outright but had me figure out the answers, tossing a clue to me here and there. I later learned that, after she grounded me once for almost blowing up our cave (I honestly did not know you are not supposed to combine sodium rocks and water and plasma bolts), my mother had to fly away after scolding me so she could burst out laughing. She had done the exact thing when she was a kitten.

The last and hardest thing to learn was how to use our sensors. This is what connects us to People around us. We are always aware of others, even if we don't see them. My mother was the Signaler for this area, so on foggy days and nights she would take us up to her signal stone to have us watch how she would direct other People to make sure they did not slam into the mountain cliffs. I'd watch her ears twitch and she would make a purring call, sending a mental image of the direction to go. We'd hear a call come back and the process would start again. I was able to pick up on it pretty fast, too. My mother purred in pride that, when I was just thirteen, I was able to direct my first Person around our mountain peak unaided, (It almost made up for when I tried to bring a pet cobra into the cave that day).

It was during one of those sessions on a misty summer evening of my 14th year that my mother got a different sort of message. She flicked her ears back in wonder and then looked at me with her huge gold-flecked green eyes.

::You're going west, son.::

I snorted back in surprise. She gestured for me to open my senses more. I closed my eyes, let my awareness sink deeper than I ever had and, suddenly, I felt it. A pull- a beautiful tugging sense. I wanted nothing more than launch myself into the sky and fly in that direction.

I was being Called.

And then my mother had grabbed my tail gently in her tooth retracted mouth and was pulling me gently back to the Signal Stone.

::Not yet, not yet!:: she laughed, ::At least let the weather clear up!::

The message was from the Lightning Person who worked the nearest Signal Stone to to ours. He had been relaying a message passed from Person to Person over the miles. My father wanted to take me as his apprentice in the North Atlantic sector. I would finally get a chance to see him as an adult and work with him! We'd be partners, taking turns signaling in the region. When it was time for him to retire, I would take over for him so he could come here and be with my mom.

::You know you're ready for it.:: My mother said, nudging for me to lift up my wings. I did so, spreading them out. My legs and shoulders and haunches were still thin as fish bones, but my wings would support me in flight. And, for the first time, I saw along my wings that the pewter grey was beginning to shadow to a darker blue-gray just one thought shy of black. I was getting my adult coloration.

I would have a very long journey to make, but that was part of the challenge a potential apprentice faces. You have to get to your master's Signal Stone on your own.

To my relief, my mother and sisters did not make a big deal out of it. They knew we would all one day head out on our own. My mother was actually very proud I was going to one of the most dangerous sectors out there. Still, it was a hard day when I flew with my family up to the signal stone for the last time. We all touched noses together, realizing this was the last moment we would be a complete family. But we would carry each others' memories in our mind stones.

Then I turned to look at the mountains ringing my homeland. I memorized the beauty, the scent of the snow and the wildflowers struggling to cling to the cliff faces.

I took a deep breath and launched into the air, orienting myself for the west.

Behind me my mother and sisters all roared a farewell, sending their last wishes with me.

::Fair winds and fly well!::

I never saw them again.