Nettle
"It's very..." Mist said and faltered staring at Chris' painting again.
Kain and I said nothing. It was very good as far as I could judge. Too good. It was at the same time abstract with large swathes of sheer colors and very realistic. We were clearly visible, sitting on a blue sofa, that Chris dragged to his workroom from some flea market in order to recreate, how he saw us that night. Kain sat in the middle with me and Mist flanking him. We looked beautiful and strange formed of random spots and stains, that shouldn't be able to show high level of detail and color accuracy but it did. But the worst part was our shadows. The lighting was most intense on Mist making her hair and skin look almost white, then Kain and me were bathed in softer light. Behind us was a corner of the room and, if one looked from the corner of one's eye, the brightly lit area and our distorted shadows formed a white, a gray and a black dragon. But it was too fleeting and vague to confront him about it! Every time I looked away I doubted what I have seen, but tense lines around Mist's and Kain's mouth told me, that they saw something there too.
Chris didn't say anything just smiled his dreamy smile, while he wiped a brush with a paint stained cloth. He wouldn't let us peek on his work while it was in progress. We sat on this sofa for eight hours the first time. Chris took care of delicious treats and refreshing drinks and he entertained us relentlessly, so when he finally said.
"Okay guys my hand is completely numb. When can you come again?" We were surprised that an evening and half of the night have passed already.
Next time he only needed one of us and Mist was to sit for him first. We took shorter sessions and often came all of us, even though only one was in focus. Suddenly I felt a strange stab of regret, that I would never sit on the blue sofa again and chat easily with Chris.
"Chris! I have an uncle, who would love to see this. If it's okay with you." Kain said suddenly and we both looked at him surprised. He didn't have an uncle. And he was in such a big trouble for telling Molly about us. I could understand his eagerness to put Felix revelations to the test, but choosing Wes sister was so wrong. I suspected he enjoyed hours at Chris' because we couldn't pester him about it in front of the human.
"Sure, give him my number and we'll figure it out." Chris said finishing to clean his brushes and palettes.
***
"What an intriguing... technique." Felix said after scrutinizing the painting. "Tell me, would you accept a commission?" He asked Chris.
To my surprise Chris hesitated.
"It depends on the commission..." He said.
"Me and my lady, clothes on, nothing fancy." Felix clarified winking.
Chris smiled.
"More beautiful people? I'm afraid to get a defined type so early on in my career, but okay." He smiled to Calista who contemplated the painting in silence.
"Is the sofa to your liking?" He asked.
For a moment Felix seemed confused before he laughed.
"Oh no." He said taking in a tiny room in a tiny apartment, that Chris shared with another artist, who thankfully hardly ever was home, as she had a boyfriend living in much more comfortable place and spend a lot of time with him.
"I would like you to paint us in my home." Felix clarified and continued with details of what he had in mind.
***
"So, nephew." Felix said after we left Chris place and stopped by his outrageously opulent house in the city.
"I have heard that you got a young girl in trouble. Have you not heard, that utter secrecy is crucial for our existence?" He frowned his brow comically at Kain, who sat on a firm brown leather sofa between me and Mist and for once seemed cowed. We each cradled a mug of exquisite hot chocolate, that Felix claimed, was exclusive to his house.
"I did, what I felt for at the moment. Molly's brother worked for Talon and rogues, he knows a lot about dragons..." Kain trailed off probably seeing flaws in his reasoning.
Felix rolled his eyes.
"You know, it's on you really. I am not bread by Talon. I will not tell you off or punish you. Anything going against this world's magic gets suppressed and rejected, I have warned you. It's not true, that if the world learns about one dragon, humans will hunt and kill all of us. They will forget or suppress anything that exceeds, what is possible to be true here. But the ones directly involved with us have harder to forget. They get mad, they risk getting rejected themselves." The last sentence sounded more like a true warning but then Felix continued in a same detached and humorous way.
"You can be as wicked as you like with your little friend. I don't care." He said and seeing my shocked expression he continued addressing me.
"Yes Naomi, all the rules-following and obedience bollocks is something utterly against dragon's nature. Under superficial similarities, we are each as different from another, that there's absolutely nothing that would make us stick together. I understand that Talon have used centuries of atrocious breeding to produce dragons with more... social instincts and more similar to one another. And what they've got in the end was you." He laughed shaking his head.
I then asked the question, that gnawed at me from the time we've met the strange dragon in the Sawtooth mountains.
"Why would Elder Wyrm do this?" I asked.
"I was thinking about it and have a theory." Felix answered quickly.
"The rider loophole is not as easy as it seems. When a dragon bonds with a human, they share some of their magic with them. Big part of it is granting the human magical protection. They'll still die if a car hits them, or someone murders them in a non-magical way. But if you ever turn on your rider or they turn on you and you kill them... Your magic with fight you and you will suffer an injury on your abilities. It will heal, but it can take hundreds to thousands of years, depending on how deep the bond was. And your invitation to use foreign magic within this world, the gift from human's magic, will expire immediately. I believe this dragon, that you call Elder Wyrm killed her rider and lost some of her magic. She wanted revenge or just needed to survive without her magic, so she convinced some dragons to join her in the folly of gaining control over human world. Such action is the first thing to get you floating in the void, unless you don't use magic, then all is good." He finished and took a sip of his tea.
Some of it made sense. Elder Wyrm hated humans with passion. Jade and Felix treated them with indifference except for some they liked.
"There are no older dragons in Talon." Mist said suddenly.
"They all died except for three Wyrms who fled the Elder Wyrm and let her do as she pleased in the organization. Breeders dragonells were... terminated after they've reached 400 years." She added quietly her eyes dark.
"Yeah." Felix said looking at her with unreadable expression.
"Dragonells are generally more magically potent than dragons, it's a long story. But an adult dragonel reaches a point, where she cannot easily be controlled, so killing them young was a security precaution." His voice was flat and if I didn't know better, I'd say he seemed sorrowful.
"And then there's Sallith'tahn issue." He added.
I have heard the word before, but it didn't mean anything to me. Mist frowned.
"What about Sallith'tahn?" She asked.
"It's the strongest dragon magic there is. When a dragonel reaches her full magical potential somewhere in one of the many universes a mate is created for her. Sometimes it's not that dramatic, and the dragon hatches just around the corner. But sometimes the dragon hatches millions of universes away and spends hundreds of thousands of years tearing through worlds looking for her. Imagine his sentiments if he came to find her in a cage." Felix bared his perfect teeth in a wince.
"This doesn't sound right Felix. Riley is Ember's Sallith'tahn and she's only a hatchling." Mist said.
"And she's rejected the bond..." She added less confidently.
Felix watched us for a while his perfect face a mask of pleasant politeness. Calista straightened up in her arm chair, tossing her hair over her shoulder with slight move of her head.
"What is it?" Kain asked.
"You cannot reject the Sallith'tahn bond. You are the bond." Calista said slowly, her rich smooth voice caressing and hypnotic. She was very efficient at seeking us out, when Felix asked her for that, but now she hardly ever talked, unless we were in a strictly social situation like sharing a meal. Then she would talk pleasantly with us and seemed interested in almost every topic. She's seen all the plays in last thirty years or so, she has travelled all of the world and back in time with Felix, when he "worked" finding lost things for his extremely affluent clients.
However she wouldn't talk just to talk and often remained silent, when Felix delivered his lectures.
"She is right you know. There's no rejection of the bond, the bond doesn't ask. Quite a few major extinction events in this world were caused by Sallith'tahn incessant mating." Felix supplied.
I was surprised with the news about Riley and Ember. They haven't announced it and even though there has been this strange tension between them there was not too much mating if any, Ember spent most of the time with Garret whom she seemed to prefer.
We've suspected that Garret was Ember's rider. He was exceptional, knew what Ember was and clearly loved her still. And she chose him... over her Sallith'tahn...
"Ember is a clone. A copy of Elder Wyrm. Could this have... confused the Sallith'tahn magic?" Kain mused.
Felix and Calista exchanged one of their private looks.
"We cannot answer this as there has never been a dragon clone before." Calista said calmly.
"Usually it goes down one way. When Sallith'tahn meet, they mate for several consecutive decades or centuries depending on their respective powers. They forge a number of eggs and once they're done reproducing they stay together for the rest of eternity or until one of them dies. Legged says all dragons in this world come from a clutch of a couple of Sallith'tahn who crashed into this world approximately sixty five millions years ago. They wrecked havoc for hundreds of years and left twelve offspring before they continued on to wherever. Dragons can breed forcibly without the bond, we are magical. And magic can achieve a lot of things. But Sallith'tahn offspring is different. They're endlessly more powerful and full of raw magic. Magic that can become anything. While backyard breeding produces offspring at expense of parent's magic, weaker and weaker leading both previous and next generations to deteriorate." Calista's cultured voice kept us mesmerized. I snapped out of it suddenly realizing all the implications of her story. What it meant for breeders and all of us, the clutch of Talon. My throat clenched with anger, why would Elder Wyrm do this to us?!
"Let's not break it to Riley, shall we? Bastard is moody enough as it is." Kain said, but his expression was grave. Because if Riley was both Ember's and Elder Wyrm's Sallith'tahn... This was too crazy.
"I'm sorry kids." Calista said soothingly. We sat quietly for a while in a whirlwind of silent questions, before Mist said patting Kain's knee which was usually a prompt for him to stand up.
"I think we need some time to process all you've told us." She said.
"Yes. Thank you for the chocolate." I said rising to say my goodbyes.
***
I offered to help Chris setting up his workshop in the ballroom. He chose the location after strolling through each and every room in Felix House. The light and space were perfect, so I was spreading cardboard where Chris easel was to stand one cloudy morning.
"Why do you hang out with white folk all the time?" Chris asked me suddenly.
I did not know what to answer really. I liked him and wanted to lie as little as possible. On the other hand the question suggested a deep going follow up.
"They've raised me." I started carefully taping pieces of cardboard together.
"Both my parents... were part of this kind of a mob. And when they died, a horrible fate was awaiting me. But then I've met Riley a guy who used to be part of this... organization and left and fought to get kids out." It was all truth, just not the parts I did not say. I sighed moving on to cover cardboard with plastic.
"Riley stole me from them and placed me in foster care with another kid..." My voice broke and I felt tears choking me.
"God Nettle. I'm so sorry." Only now I've noticed Chris horrified expression. This was apparently not what he's expected. He kneeled beside me and put his arm around my shoulder and I froze, the urge to cry receding, replaced by strange numbness. Chris must have sensed something because he removed his arm.
"This makes so much sense, that you guys would be like this." He said.
"Like what?" I asked suspiciously.
"May I be frank? You are like never fully present, always either deep in your head or excessively cheerful. Kain is always in one character or another and cannot really talk about anything but theatre. Mist tries to fuck every guy she meets." He said.
"It has gotten much better with Mist." I said defensively.
"I don't judge that! It's just, that I get it better now. That's all." Chris answered quickly and an awkward pause ensued.
"What happened to your foster brother? Is it Kain?" He asked softly.
"No, yes. Kain and Mist escaped the organization too. But Remy... Remy is dead and it was my fault." I said flatly.
Chris took the foil roll from me and held my hand.
"I know this sounds hollow and probably doesn't mean much to you, but I'm pretty sure it was not your fault. When your childhood is hard and people treat you badly, you learn to feel like everything is your fault. But in truth nothing is." He said seriously squeezing my hand and looking into my eyes. I cast my gaze down.
"There was this... another mob. They were our enemies but then we've found out, that our former organization planned a massive simultaneous attack on them and us, fugitives. They called us rogues and traitors. There was this young girl Em, who just escaped and she didn't want to run or hide. She said allying with the enemy and fighting was our best chance at survival. Riley was against it. We all have certain fighting abilities but most were very untried. So Riley said no and I stood up and said, that I was tired of hiding and would go with Em. And then Remy joined me and one by one all of us decided to go." I stopped and we sat in silence for a while pain blossoming in my chest.
"It was hell. In the end the ground was littered by corpses. Remy amongst them." I said. We won that night but it surely did not feel that way.
I drifted into my own thoughts of that night and the aftermath. All the hatchlings and breeders who have never made it until now. To experience freedom and peace...
"You'll find out that many people of color here walked away from corpses of their families and friends too." Chris said suddenly shocking me.
"We can understand you. We help one another." He continued slowly watching me carefully.
"My grandpa walked to here all the way from Africa. It started with some local skirmish between neighboring peoples. One night he woke up as his mother dragged him out of their bed in a mud hut. She's pushed him out of a small window on the back and tossed him his younger brother and sister telling them to run. He held their hands and run as he heard a riffle firing and his sister twitched and fell. He ran all he could dragging his toddler brother along. Bullets rained around them, some made pieces of stone and dirt dig into skin of his legs but none hit them. They run and then walked, away from the dead bodies of everyone they've ever known. Through several refugee camps, where they needed to hide from persecution by the members of the tribe that attacked their village and then got misplaced by the war themselves. He held his little brother's hand and they went through abuse and horrors of refugee camps. In the end many years later they were granted refugee status by United Nations and came here. You have to walk away from dead bodies, they'd have wanted you to." He said as tears started wetting my cheeks.
"Good, cry. Cry for my grandpa if you cannot cry for Remy and yourself yet." Chris said rubbing my arm.
It felt at the same time great and horrible. My heart bled for his grandpa and grand uncle. But was I worthy of his comparison? I wasn't a girl who suffered through a lot. I was a dragon. A monster. Would Chris still have told me this story if he knew, that mine was nothing like this? I felt shamed by the trust and compassion that I might not have been worthy of. But I let Chris hug me as the sky darkened and rain rattled the large panes of the empty ballroom.
***
It was an early morning couple of weeks later. We were up and eating a self prepared English breakfast as have become our habit, since Kain started his course at Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and I started to hang out with Chris at Felix.
We were discussing magic and riders and Sallith'tahn as we've often have recently. Felix and Calista answered our questions gladly, but every time we stumbled upon things we just forgot to ask about.
"I'm pretty sure that this Garret douche is Ember's rider with their magic as entwined as their bodies." Kain stated and added."And Wes is Riley's."
"What about his sister?" Mist asked flatly.
But Kain never managed to answer because Mist's phone started to vibrate.
She put it on speaker saying.
"Hello?"
"Mist?" Riley's voice sounded strangely.
"Yes, and Nettle and Kain. How do you do?" Came Mist's teasingly polite answer.
"I do fucking terribly. Ember have sent vessels to destroy the Order of St George, I have just survived fucking vessel attack. Nobody's died, thanks for asking. She's kept me... from leaving, but I'm free now and need your help to bust these eggs out." He said and we all stopped eating.
***
"So Ember is an Elder Wyrm psycho-clone and now she holds Autumn and others captive?! And we've followed her to battle!" Kain exclaimed and I felt a stab even though he didn't look at me at all. He just yelled at Mist's phone.
"Shut up Kain! I need to talk to Mist. " Riley spat through Mist's phone.
"And you've mated with the bitch after she's betrayed us?!" Kain continued as if nothing happened. Mist grabbed the phone and her cup and retreated to her bedroom.
Kain's face was red but despite what he just shouted at Riley he seemed more afraid than angry.
I reached out my hand to take his, unease spreading fast through my body and mind. Kain accepted my hand and squeezed back and I was surprised to see tears in his eyes. Before I decided what to de he spoke in choked voice.
"Where is Remy Nettle? Where is Isaac, Serah, and Finn and Siobhan? All these deaths for nothing. Nothing! We are back to square one. Out to fight again. Who is going to die this time?" The last sentence was a whisper and I suddenly felt like crying too. But it passed fast as Mist stormed back to the room.
"Finished already?" Kain asked bitterly.
"I... understand that you are angry with Riley but these dragonells, these eggs need help. And I will help them." Mist said.
"I know." Kain said looking at our hands. "I will help too. It's just. You know we might not come back? We could have kept on doing play-dinner-dancing forever..." He was sad and Mist looked sad too.
We have never had a choice before. We had to flee from Talon and the Order of St George our entire lives, but now. Once we tasted what life could be like, it was even harder to give up. Now it wasn't only about fear of death. I wanted to live.
"I have told Riley that we need to deliberate. He asked that we hurry." Mist said. "The Order of St George will help us..." Kain swore nastily. But Mist just continued.
"They've just been under attack, that have destroyed their chapterhouse. They want to relocate to the Order's HQ here in London. But it's difficult for twenty undocumented men..."
"No! I'm not flying bastards over the ocean! I'm fucking going to drop them." Kain said.
Garret have used his birth certificate to get all required documents, but most soldiers of St George still didn't exist in any register.
"Then don't come. They need our help too. Remember that it wasn't them, who betrayed us." Mist was starting to lose her patience.
"The plan is to come in contact with dragonells and teach them to jump through time and space. It took us a couple of hours, so should be possible. If not we must let them ride us. The hardest part will be getting to the eggs. These were the only things really guarded last time Riley was to the facility. So the Order is going to create diversion while we steal the eggs and jump to London with them. Then we come back and take soldiers." Mist said gloomily, this wasn't the best plan. We knew too little about the facility now, about the dragonells we haven't contacted in months!
"You knew!" Kain looked at Mist.
"Yes. I thought Riley was working to get them out. He has promised me that..."
"And now he does as he has promised." I cut in, not wanting negativity to dominate us too much.
"I need to say goodbye." Kain said suddenly.
"What?" I asked.
"To Molly. And Felix and Wes and their parents. Request leave from my classes. I cannot just disappear." He said.
"You should maybe say goodbye to Chris. This is serious Nettle. They won't hesitate to kill us." He said and this time even Mist looked sad. But she recovered quickly, already her game face on.
"How long do you need?" She asked.
"Couple of hours." Kain said suddenly resolved propping his scrambled eggs into his mouth all at once at pushing them deeper in with a sausage. I ate fast too, the severity of current situation dawning on me. There was no time to lose.
"Fine. I'll go meet with him now. You can follow me to there once you're ready." She said and went back to her room. No long goodbyes for her. She was almost her old basilisk self again.
We could follow her. It was difficult to understand sometimes, but magic was very much like an additional sense. The more we used it the more we could sense it and everyone had different flavor. We examined Mist's Viper suit and learned the dust and parchment flavor of the Archivist's magic. We could follow Mist through the no-time-space to the Order's chapterhouse if we left in couple of hours.
***
"What are you going to tell them?" I asked Kain after Mist left.
"What? Truth obviously." Kain spat eying me with disdain.
I couldn't tell that to Chris. I picked him up my phone, called him and waited until voice mail answered.
"Hi Chris. It's Nettle. I need to go back to the States for a couple of days. Urgent matter. I'll call you when I'm back." I rattled out while Kain watched me with sad eyes.
"Do you want these to be the last words you say to him?" Kain asked and I have got enough.
"Stop it! Stop it Kain. I don't need it right now. Say goodbye from me to Felix I cannot see Chris now." I burst.
"Sorry." Kain rubbed his face. "Sorry. This is just some deep shit. And this time we know. We cannot fly to battle like for the first time. Carefree and full of enthusiasm. I'm afraid." He said and I understood that very well.
I stepped closer and put my arms around him. He hugged me back and for a while the shittiness of this moment was dispersed by solid warmth of his body and steady beating of his heart. I released him first and said.
"Let's do it, shall we?"