9. Shattered

When she was sixteen, she had the dragon dream again. There was a hollowness in her heart, and she needed to find out why, so she flew and flew, her wings straining, the sun glistening off her blue-white back. Finally, she found what she was looking for: the ship that had sailed away six years before, taking the boy of ice and the dragon's egg with it. The ship looked different when she found it. It had been painted blue, and although smoke still came from the smokestacks, it was lighter, less cloying, and didn't block out the sun.

She circled the ship, landing lightly on its deck. She saw the boy there, still a glacier, but no longer really a boy. He was a teenager, tall and majestic, and he stood at the captain's wheel. But something was missing. It took her a moment to work it out.

Where is your Egg?

He didn't answer; he just looked off across the deck. The Egg sat alone in a corner, and she could see that it had a small hairline crack, barely visible, but it broke her heart.

It had to be done, the boy said without saying, and she could feel the ice holding back something. Something huge and festering and full of decay.

What had to be done?

I dropped it.

She wanted to cry. The Egg was everything to him! It was an accident.

No. I dropped it on purpose.

She could not think, could not form any thought or feeling through the pain in her heart.

I had to drop it, don't you see? And she could feel how desperately he needed her to understand. I had to fight the monster controlling the ship. It was going to eat the Egg! I know it was! But to fight it, I needed both my hands. You can't fight a monster with only one hand. So I dropped it. And I kicked it away. And then I fought the monster. The monster is gone now, but the Egg is cracked.

She wept. Why didn't you call me? Fighting monsters is what I do. I could've fought the monster for you, and you wouldn't have needed to drop the Egg! Why didn't you call me?

There was no answer, and now she understood what the ice was holding back. It was fear. He was afraid. Afraid that he'd lost the Egg forever, that he didn't deserve it.

She stretched her neck down beside him, protecting him with her wings like she had that first time they had met ten years earlier. And then she felt something against her foot. Look!

He looked. It was the Egg. It had rolled back to him.

He looked down at it a long time, and she could feel how much he wanted to pick it up, to cradle it once more, but he was still afraid.

It's still your Egg, she reassured him. It always will be.

I know.

He bent down and scooped up the Egg, his arm becoming a wool scarf once more. She could see that the crack in the Egg did nothing to mar its beauty. If anything, it was all the more precious and rare for it.

It was only then that she noticed the crack in the ice that was the boy. It was exactly the same length and shape as the crack in the Egg, only it ran much, much deeper.


"All right, I've had enough, I'm gonna go find Mai and Serenity."

Joey was drumming his fingers restlessly on the table, and Yugi gave him a small smile as he tried to reassure his friend. "They're fine."

Joey, however, was in no mood to be reassured. "I'm not sitting here another minute while my sister and girlfriend get ogled by every duelist in the tournament. And I somehow don't think we'll be missed." He jerked his head toward the other end of the table where Duke, Cady, Paige, and Tristan sat.

Yugi had to agree that he and Joey would not likely be missed if they left the table. Cady had finally gotten Duke on a topic that didn't involve Duel Monsters, and Tristan had moved next to Paige, the two of them becoming more and more drawn into their own private conversation. Yugi was happy to see Tristan enjoying himself with someone; he had been grumbling for months that he felt like a fifth wheel now that Yugi and Téa and Joey and Mai had paired off. Yugi even feared Tristan was beginning to feel like Mai had supplanted him in their original foursome—a not entirely unwarranted complaint, Yugi had to admit. It probably was the main reason Tristan, Duke, and Serenity had gotten so close, even after the two guys' little contest over her had pretty much ended. And yet….

He glanced at Tristan and Paige. "I think you should just leave Mai and Serenity alone for a while."

"Why?"

"I dunno." Yugi shrugged, evasive. "Just seems like they wanted some girl time or whatever."

"That's what worries me." Joey slapped his hands down on the table. "C'mon Yuge. Let's go find 'em and then go rescue Téa from Pegasus's clutches."

"She has been gone a long time. I wish she'd get back."

"What time is it, anyway?"

Yugi looked at his watch. "Almost ten."

Joey whistled. "Geez. How long does Pegasus need to schedule a couple of tournaments?"

Yugi sighed. "You know Pegasus. He likes to hear himself talk."

"Yeah, but mostly to you or Kaiba, Yugi-boy."

Paige laughed at something Tristan said and took a drag from her cigarette. Joey shook his head, rising from his seat. "I'm serious, Yuge, I've had enough of the lovebirds over there. I'm finding Mai and Serenity and getting the hell outta here. You coming or not?"

Yugi tried to think of a way to stall him. "Lemme finish my beer."

"Are you kidding me? It's still mostly full! And it's all of what? Your second? We'll be here all night while you nurse that thing, you lightweight. Just take it with while we look for the girls."

There was no point in arguing anymore. "Okay, but I need to use the bathroom first."

Joey nodded, then slapped Tristan on the back as he rounded his end of the table. "We're gonna hit the head."

Tristan didn't even bother looking away from Paige. "Okay, good."

As Yugi followed in Joey's wake through the crowd, his left hand covering his pint glass so that it didn't slosh beer everywhere, he pondered Tristan and Paige. "Tristan seems to really like that girl."

"Ya think?" Joey looked back over his shoulder at Yugi with a broad grin. "Maybe now he'll leave Serenity alone."

Yugi wasn't sure what to say to that. He wanted to be unreservedly happy for Tristan, but he got the impression that Serenity didn't exactly want him to leave her alone, and Yugi felt conflicted. He wanted all his friends to be happy all the time, so the whole thing made him a little wobbly on his feet.

Either that, or it was the beer.

Joey noticed him swaying and put a hand out to steady him. "Whoa. Maybe one's enough after all. I don't think I've ever seen you drunk before, Yuge."

"I'm not drunk. Not much anyway."

"Oh man, Téa's gonna kill us all if you're hungover for the tournament tomorrow."

Yugi didn't feel like his speech was slurred or anything, he was just feeling a slight tinge of lightheadedness. "I'm fine. Just a little woozy, that's all."

But then he did feel something else, another sensation of wrongness, that something somewhere was not right. As if by instinct, he grabbed the new pendant he was wearing around his neck, the tiny little amethyst Dark Magician with a little emerald in the tip of its staff, as if by holding it, he could ward off whatever he was sensing.

"I hope so," Joey was saying as he walked ahead of him toward the sign that said TOILET, "'cause I don't wanna—"

Yugi never heard the rest of the sentence. His whole world went white as something cold and sharp and excruciating exploded through his heart like a jagged, rusting saw cutting him open. He clutched his chest, unable to cry out because it ripped through his lungs next, forcing all the air out of them. The pint glass slipped out of his fingers and hit the floor, spraying beer and shards of glass everywhere, but the pain was so consuming he didn't even hear it shatter as he collapsed to his knees amidst the broken glass and beer.


Joey groaned, putting a hand to his chest at a sudden twinge of indigestion, but it was forgotten immediately when a loud crash of breaking glass rang out behind him and he felt liquid and glass pepper his jeans. Startled, he turned around.

Yugi was kneeling on the floor in spilled beer and shards of glass from his dropped pint glass. He was hunched over, clutching his chest and seemed to be struggling to catch his breath.

Joey tried not to panic as he dropped to his knees beside his friend. "YUGI!"


Not long after she had the dream where they boy dropped the Egg, the dragon dreams started coming regularly. No longer quiet moments shared between her and the boy, they were always battles in strange shadowy places. He would call her and she would fight for him. She found she was good at fighting. Her white lightning, so ill-suited for keeping him warm, was a brilliant weapon, and she used it against all of his enemies. Usually, the boy carried the Egg under his arm, but sometimes it was gone and she understood that someone had taken it from him, and that they were fighting to get it back. That was when she fought her hardest.

Sometimes, the dreams were nightmares, like when strange cartoon monsters, including a hideous caricature of a white dragon like herself, had taken the Egg and were going to take the boy, too. They made her too ill to fight, and they attacked the boy. He disappeared, and she thought he might be lost forever. She awoke from that dream screaming, with her nightgown and hair sticking to her skin, soaked through with sweat. Her mother had been frantic, wanting to take her to the doctor, but the next dream the boy was back, and she was better again, so her mother forgot about the doctor.

Sometimes there were three of her, and the boy would combine all three of her back into one, making her into a giant three-headed dragon, and she was nearly unstoppable.

In many of her dreams, there was a wizard. He was tall and powerful, with magnificent purple robes, a tall pointed hat, and a staff with an exquisite green jewel set in its tip. Often she fought against the wizard, and she could feel the boy's need to triumph against it coming off him in waves. It didn't feel right, fighting this wizard, but she could deny the boy nothing. Sometimes, however, she fought alongside the wizard. She liked that better. There was something right about fighting with the wizard, like they belonged together, a team that complemented each other perfectly, united against the shadows. But even when the dreams were good, like when she was fighting beside the wizard, they were exhausting. She would wake up drained, as if she'd been fighting a real battle instead of sleeping.

It was right after she started university, during the second year of regularly dreaming she was a dragon, that she'd begun sleepwalking. The sleepwalking always came with the shadowy dragon dreams. She would wake up and find herself on the roof of her flat, or at the edge of the River Cam trying to find a boat, or at the train station. Once, she even found herself at the airport, though where she'd been planning to fly, she had no idea.

As the dreams progressed, she began to notice a change in the boy, who wasn't really a boy, but a man now. He was still made of ice, but the ice seemed different. Polished. Less like a glacier and more like a beautiful ice sculpture. Not fragile, the way an ice sculpture was, but clear. He was still ice, but whatever fetid thing the ice was holding back seemed to be gone. She knew, somehow, that the wizard had been responsible for this change, and it made her like the wizard all the more.

Then one cold December night, when she was in her second year at university, she had a dream that was unlike any of the others. In this dream, she was in ancient Egypt. And in this dream, she wasn't just a dragon, she was also a girl dressed in tattered sackcloth. The man was there, but he was different, too. Not only wasn't he made of ice, he was an ancient Egyptian priest of some sort, dressed in flowing robes and an elaborate headdress. When she was a girl, he saved her. When she was a dragon, she saved him. In the end, she became the three-headed dragon again, ridden by a black-armored knight, and together with lots of other creatures, including the wizard and three beings so powerful she knew they were gods, they defeated a monster worse than any they had ever faced. When she woke up, she felt at peace for the first time in nearly three years.

After that, as abruptly as the dragon dreams began, they ended. She no longer walked in her sleep and she no longer dreamed of being a dragon.

The shadows were gone.