Later that evening, Sonto decided to spend the night with me.
"Why'd you lie?"
"Those stories are true! You were there for all of them!"
"I meant about this being you first close encounter with humans. Should I remind you about Maricela and how she was your best friend. She fed you, befriended you, rode you, and loved you."
"Then her kind attacked ours and she helped." I'd never felt so betrayed and heartbroken as I did then. "She never loved me." I'd never felt so stupid and foolish. "But she was everything to me," I muttered, "How could I still be so foolish to miss her?" Nearly eight years ago.
"Because I know that even if she turned on us, a part of her will always love and miss you too. You can't let go of 12 years of friendship." I'd always tried to move on, but every time I thought of my mother….
"I'll never move on from it," I growled, my heart breaking all over again for my friend and my mother.
101010101010
It was the next day when I met another person who changed my life.
"Hi! My name is Bennta." I looked towards the door of my room and looked at a young girl who was no older than Maricela was when I had lost her and I was twelve almost thirteen. I understood, or at least got the gist, of what she was saying. She pulled out a trout from behind her back and approached me, one hand extended as if to pet me. Despite how old she looked she was definitely the runt of her age group. Her brown eyes sparkled with wisdom beyond her years, much like my brother's, and her face glowed with curiosity, reminiscent of my own. She slowly held the fish out for me to take, and I quickly snatched it from her so as not to give her time to pet me, but as I was swallowing she quickly started scratching behind my ear. I could so maybe this wasn't so bad. I could tolerate a human so long as no bond formed, and that's when I realized I was purring. That's when I pulled away as if I'd lost interest in her. She looked disappointed that she didn't get to pet me longer, but was then giddy again that she'd been able to pet me in the first place. She came by again the next day, this time with a fish, two bowls of water, and a bucket of red stuff. I swallowed the cod, drank some water, and watched curiously as she spread her hand in the red stuff.
"Watch this," she instructed. Maricela had said this when she wanted me to look at something. I watched intently as she put her hand on the wall, pressed it there, and took it off, leaving a print behind. I'd never seen anything like this. I stared at the wall and sniffed it cautiously.
"Want to try?" She pushed the red liquid towards me. I slowly dipped my paw into it and pressed it against the wall and smiled to myself after seeing my handiwork. Bennta giggled before scribbling lines under her hand print. I couldn't read her language, but I assumed it was her name.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said after washing my paw and her hand off with left over water. Then she left. I liked the red. It added color to the otherwise gray room.
Once I was sure my brain had gone numb from lying in a pile of hay, I, once again, hobbled out into the open. This time, not even the dragons who'd been spinning tales were here. Now what, now that I know there's no one to talk to? Sonto was probably out hunting or exploring. I looked beyond the farthest shelter, curious as to what lay behind it. I found houses and a dock and a gravelly beach but not much else. Nothing was dragon sized, so I assumed this was where the humans resided. Where was everyone, no dragons, no humans? This was boring. I wanted to explore, but it's been about two and a half weeks so my leg, I'd say, was roughly another two and a half weeks from being fully recovered.
I spotted a fire pit and ignited it, the blue-white flame slowly turning a radiant orange and gold. I curled up next to it letting the warmth dance across my scales, and I purred in slight contentment.
"What are you doing here?" The red haired boy I'd seen my day on this land asked. I glanced at him and tilted my head. His face was darkened with soot and glistening with sweat. His muscles visibly flexed and relaxed beneath his shirt as he moved, so it was obvious he did a lot of hard work and heavy lifting and much of it was associated with fire. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a pale streak across his forehead and a black streak on his hand. He wiped both his hands on his leather apron before sitting beside me and gazing into the fire. I rested my head on my forepaws, not minding his company, my eyes drooping slightly. The boy began to scratch behind my ear and I purred, enjoying the attention, and as he rubbed soothing circles on the crown of my head just between my antennae I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of my mother… and of Maricela.
~Mother and Maricela~
I'd had this dream many a time before, only to wake up in a dream. I was merely one month old and already flying and expecting to be an older sister. I lived in the canopy of the forest trees where my brother first taught me to glide while turning, yet I often enjoyed hunting on the ground, a useful skill when unable to fly. Now I wake up in a new dream, older but still a child, eight years old.
Walking through the forest, sniffing at the ground, I followed the strange prints left in the dampened earth left by a creature I'd never seen before. The wet season had just gone, life anew had sprung, and it was easy to be lost and for anything to easily be hunted. I was not to be out but I was, and that's when I saw my first human. She assessed me with frightened, dark brown eyes. I sniffed her curiously and she giggled, scratching me behind the ear. With my ears I heard it, but hers weren't as highly sensitive. So with one last glance I left, for my mother was calling me.
I fluttered my tiny wings and floated up to the nest and nestled next to the eggs, pressing my ear to one of the eggs to listen to the tiny heartbeat inside. My unborn siblings. I snuggled closer to my mother and Sonto. Mom licked the top of my head affectionately while I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.
~Mother and Maricela~
10101010101010
I awoke to the sound of guffawing men, the smell of fish and lamb, and the feel of the crackling fire I fell asleep next to warming my scales.
"She awakens!" One of the men next to me boomed. Across from me was Toothless lying next to the red-haired boy. I stood and stretched, listening to my bones pop into place.
"Here ya go," said one of the men, tossing a still raw fish at me. I caught it and swallowed it, licking my lips. The sky was dark and dotted with stars. When was the last time I really looked at them and admired them? The last day that Maricela and I could be considered friends I suppose.
Toothless eyed me warily. True, he knew I held some grudge against humans, and true, I wasn't on my best behavior when we met, but I can behave but for now, I was comparing and contrasting our eyes. I looked at the edges of the green and watched as they faded to a far lighter shade in the middle. My eyes were a far darker green around the edges but the changed, morphing into amber then gold. Toothless stared right back at me.
"Something you like, eh, Toothless?" A large dark-haired man boomed while his friends exploded with laughter that carried across the village.
"What are doing out here?" Bennta rushed towards me and began petting me while I purred, or at least pretended to, but her mom was calling and she left.
The hours ticked by and the men continued chattering, but I was tired. I hefted myself off the ground and hobbled back to the "dragon section" of the village, Toothless trailing slightly behind me.
"Why exactly did you have a grudge against humans?" Toothless asked, breaking the silence that had settled around us.
"It's not humans but rather human, and I don't want to talk about it." He left it at that, and we went our separate ways.
I settled into the pile of hay, staring at the prints on the wall until my eyes closed.
~Maricela's Dream~
Maricela and I were thick as thieves. We lay by a small lagoon not too far from where her kind were settling. I did not know if she would be staying, for others had tried to settle here but never stayed. I had certainly hoped she could stay.
'You and I are going to be best friends forever, Maricela. Even if you leave,' I would think whenever I rested my head and forepaws in her lap. I began to get the gist of what she said in the two months she'd been on Terra Muerte, the longest time of habitation for any of her kind according to the unnecessarily worried more elderly dragons on the island, my mom included. Maricela would tell me about her day while absently stroking my head.
"One day," she began, "I'm going to be super rich and buy a castle. I'm going to marry a prince charming and you're going to be the baby. Sound good, Angel?"
'I think it'd be better if it were just you and me. A male will slow us down and so will mating and hatchlings. We don't need that,' I thought, my obstinate attitude toward a shared lifetime showing early at my young age.
"Whatever my dream is, you'll be in it, my precious Angel."
~Maricela's Dream~
Bennta came in at the usual time with a basket full of fish. She began to rub small circles in the side of my neck as I ate.
"What am I going to name you? I've been thinking about names for a long time. How about Angel?" I growled.
'No! I'll never be called that again!' I thought viciously.
"Yeah, you're right, too sugar sweet. What about Bennta II?" I gave her a skeptical look. "Fine, fine. How about wisp? Because of these wispy things?" She pointed to my antennae. Wisp? I could live with that. "I like that. Wisp…. I'll see you tomorrow, Wisp!" And with that she picked up the empty basket and left. I stared out the window, looking at azure sky, daydreaming, remembering…
~First Flight~
"Alright. Are you ready for this?" Maricela asked. I nodded vigorously. I barely heard her heart pounding with nervousness over my own which was pounding with excitement. I jumped and she screamed and we flew. Her scream turned to laughter, my joy became euphoria, and our friendship reached its peak. We swerved through the tree trunks, freefell alongside waterfalls, and glided along the surface of the clouds. We landed at night at our lagoon.
'Best friends forever,' I thought.
"Mom! Mom!" I couldn't find her. She wasn't in the nest, and I was having trouble finding her scent in the air. It was the sound of her roar that led me to her. My brother was at my side instantly, rushing to find out the issue as I was.
It wasn't just my mom. She was just part of it. It was a battlefield with the blood and corpses of both human and dragon lying on the ground, staining it red. Scattered limbs, bloodied scales and weapons, severed claws, and heads littered the area the humans had wanted to call their own, and my mom was in the middle of it all alongside other dragons fighting for the land we knew was rightfully ours. I charged through it all, knocking over the man who was trying to kill my mother, and my mother finished him. I turned and saw Maricela, and relief rushed through me. But then she charged, sword in hand, and cut my shoulder. More than hurt, I was confused. What had I done? While I stood in shock, my mother stood up to defend me.
"Run, Whisper, run! Run away!" My mother urged me. My brother grabbed me by the nape of my neck and flew me to a high tree branch, but my eyes were glued to the scene before me. Fires began to run wild, giving us dragons the advantage over the blinded and suffocating humans. Maricela swung a sword around blindly, slashing my mother across her throat. A pain-filled screech erupted in my ears and I realized the screech was my own. Why, Maricela? What did I do wrong?
~First Flight~