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Chapter 10
nameless
As expected, Killed the Sea Serpent stepped to my side the next morning during responsibility assignments. "Teacher!"
I jolted upright and swiveled towards her, mouth partly open in shock. No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to keep a joyful bounce out of my feet.
It wasn't caretaking—but it was the next closest thing!
She chuckled upon seeing my obvious excitement. "I had a feeling you'd like this."
Much fewer of our flockmates joined us on this less-exciting responsibility, which was completely okay. The nameless male stayed, plodding over with a lot of huffing and sighing.
"Teaching?" he moaned. "What do you even do?"
"If you don't even know that, then it's proof you're well overdue," Killed the Sea Serpent admonished. "All nameless dragons should try out each responsibility, even if they don't like it."
"I agree," another dragon piped up, joining our ranks. Fought the Leader pressed her side against mine for a brief moment.
I tried to force myself not to flinch away, my body bracing for a spine-sting from her tailfins, but it was hard. My whole body went stiff in a tight jolt, like I'd stepped on something sharp and unexpected.
Fought the Leader's teal eyes were soft and gentle. She took a step away from me and I relaxed. "I'm sure you'll find it very rewarding," she said as if nothing had happened.
A cautious smile crept across my muzzle. "I think I will be good at it," I said softly.
When everyone was done picking responsibilities, our group was very small: Killed the Sea Serpent, Fought the Leader, Saved the Swimlings, the nameless male, and myself. I tried to subtly creep away from Saved the Swimlings, keeping closer to the two female named dragons in our group. He seemed determined to act as if nothing had happened only a few days ago between the two of us, down in the Under.
For some reason, that bothered me. It wasn't so much that he had hurt me Under—that, I was well used to— but that he didn't even acknowledge it. Like it was the most casual thing.
I shook the feeling off. I had learned long ago to accept what I couldn't control; to become angry would only bring trouble back to myself.
Killed the Sea Serpent called out and led us away. We took flight and began a slow descent through the Shell. Brilliant pillars of stone and crystal pierced into the heavens. All of them were covered in trees, foliage, flowers, and vines. Glowing mushrooms grew as well, although they were much more numerous in the lower levels of the Shell, where it became cool and dark, where night-time bugs were awake all of the time. I wrinkled my nose once I caught the tell-tale sting-smell of mushrooms.
We swerved around a stone pillar adorned with sheets of blossoming vines. The sun dipped away in its shadow, and by the time we had spiraled back around, we were so deep in the Shell that it did not come back. The sounds around us became close and thick , an eerie quiet that made anything I could hear seem disproportionately loud. Glowing mushrooms and crystals of all colors speckled the deep blue-green ferns and shrubbery. Fire-bugs flickered in and out of sight.
Below, the sting-smell was overpowering. I gagged. My nose and lungs recoiled, my nose itched, and I began to sneeze in fits. It burned, lighting an ache in my chest that zipped down my spine and limbs like lightning.
Thankfully, the flightlings were old enough that they weren't nestled on the very bottom of the Shell. We found them on a cliff that jutted out several wingbeats above the thick foliage below. A cave entrance yawned wide in the stone, burrowing deep into the rock. Crystal veins wove in streams through its walls, tracing a path deep into the tunnelwork.
Inside were the four flightlings. They perked up at our approach and squawked happily, tumbling over each other and out towards the cliff to greet us. Despite the pain, I couldn't help but smile and pick up my pace.
I was the first to land. The others dropped after me.
All of the flightlings ran to me. I sniffed each of them, purring as I took in the familiar scents. I had been caretaker to all of them many times.
"It's you! It's you!" they marveled, weaving between my legs and climbing over me. They were still very small, but so was I—which meant that they were quite heavy for me when they all got on at once.
My headache worsened, as did the sharp-fire stings running through my body.
"Oh!" I gasped, holding out my wings and planting my feet to try and hold them up. Voice tight and strained, I wheezed, "You…remember me?"
"You told the best stories!" the male with rain-scent said. He jumped off of my head, landing in front of me, and lifted up on his hind legs to get a little closer. "Will you tell us another?"
"She can," Fought the Leader laughed, stepping up to my side and nosing the flightlings off of my now-aching back. "But only after we get up to that pillar."
She pointed with her nose upwards. Though I wasn't sure where exactly she was indicating, I had a feeling it was only a few wingbeats above…for us. For the flightlings, it was their most dangerous trip yet. Judging by their gasps and whimpers, they knew it, too.
"Let's make it a game," I said, crouching down to their eye level. "Whoever gets there first wins!"
"And no cheating!" Killed the Sea Serpent said with an overdramatic, stern tone. "No climbing up those vines—you must fly the whole way!"
The flightlings still seemed apprehensive. I exchanged a look with the others.
"Whoever gets there first gets their own fish!" the nameless male said.
That sent them scrambling. Shouting and squealing, they began to leap unsuccessfully into the air, wings flapping in hummingbird-blurs and tails flailing.
"Well," Saved the Swimlings huffed. "I hope you have a whole fish for them, because I certainly don't."
"Um…can I go catch one?" the nameless male asked.
"No," Killed the Sea Serpent said. "You came here to teach, not hunt. Saved the Swimlings, you can go and catch us all some food."
He let out a sigh, making his discontentment clear. Then, with a dainty snort, he crouched and flew up into the green above. The flightlings all stopped their bickering to watch him, awed.
"Don't you want to be like him?" I cooed to the flightlings. When they all nodded exuberantly, I said, "Well, then you need to learn to fly up there!"
Since there were four adults and four flightlings, all of us paired off with each other. The flightlings all made a fuss over who got to work with me, much to my shock. I stared down at all four of their pleading faces, eyes wide and ears pinned, until Killed the Sea Serpent assigned them each to someone. Shooting her a grateful glance, I waved over my flightling—the little female who smelled of fern and salt—and took her a small distance away.
I specifically led her towards a section of the cliff where I could not see or smell mushrooms nearby.
"I'm glad you chose me!" she crowed, prancing along at my side with her head lifted and chubby tail sticking straight up.
"I didn't choose anyone," I hummed, keeping my steps slow and careful so that I wouldn't step on her. Sitting down near the edge of the cliff, I pawed at my head for a moment, trying to rub my headache-turning-migraine away. It didn't work. I sighed, tried to shake off the discomfort, and leaned down so that I could see her better. "Now, let's start with what you know!"
She leapt into disorganization, flapping her wings with them still half-shut, opening and closing her tailfins at random intervals, and waving her tail as if she were swimming. She strained her neck upwards and leaped several times into the air, but never managed to get any lift.
"…w-well," I began, struggling keep from bursting out into baffled laughter, "…let's…start with your wings, okay?"
I stretched my own out and showed her how to flap them properly. "All stretched out like this, see?" I murmured. "You see how the top of your wing curves, and the bottom is flat?"
"Oh, wow!" she gasped, gaping at her wings as if they had just sprouted.
"That's what helps make our species so good at flying," I explained. "When you jump into the air, the wind lifts you up. That's why dragons are part of all the elements, including the sky. We don't force our way into it; we ask it to hold us when we jump, and it carries us." I nosed her wings half-closed like she had arranged them before. "See how they can't let the air help anymore?"
She giggled with delight, stretching her wings out as I'd instructed and flapping them wildly.
"Together!" I chuckled. "Flap them together!"
"Oh!" the flightling said. She stopped, squinted with concentration, and began to slowly flap her wings together. With each stroke she grew more confident, straining them faster and faster, until…
"I'm flying! I'm flying!" she squealed as her paws lifted just off the ground. I flinched a little as her high-pitched shriek sent a wave of pain pulsing through my head. "I'm gonna get the—oof!"
She sat up, stared over her shoulders at her wings, and then looked at me with intense confusion.
"And now we can talk about your tail," I laughed, shaking my head to try to rid the pain. "Starting with: don't let it drag on the ground when you're trying to fly."
I taught her about tail placement, which she struggled with quite a bit; apparently, nobody had ever told her that she needed to hold it out, so her muscles were weak and easily fatigued. Luckily, once I explained to her how her tailfins worked like her wings—and helped lift her tail for her—she had much more luck.
It was impossible to tell time's passing this deep into the Shell. It must have been an hour, though, by the time that my little flightling was able to lift herself off the ground and tip herself forward into a clumsy glide.
I sent her towards the stony wall next to the cave, trotting along her side as she laughed and shrieked with delight. She learned very quickly that by flapping her wings, she could maintain her altitude, keeping herself aloft.
She did not know, however, how else to move. So when she got too close to the stone wall, I shifted into a quick sprint ahead of her, reared up, and caught her in my front paws before she could crash.
"You did it!" I said, opening my paws and letting her drop.
"Again! Again!" she shouted, hopping in place and flapping her wings. She swiveled and raced back to where she'd started and, without waiting, leaped up towards me and began a glide-turned-flight.
I grinned, sight-sounding so I knew exactly where she was and resting upright on my haunches. She flew towards me much faster than before, and when I caught her, she let out another delighted shriek.
I flinched for real this time. Vibrant spots were starting to bloom in my vision.
Once I let go of her, the flightling crouched submissively. "Are you okay?" she whimpered. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No!" I gasped, shaking my head. "No, I just have a little headache. I'm sorry to worry you." I leaned down and gave her a comforting lick on the forehead. "Now, let's focus on getting you up to that pillar. It's straight ahead, so you won't need to turn, but you do need to learn how to fly higher. So that means you need to know how to climb in the air."
She bounced several times and scampered back to our starting point. My smile was thin now, but still real. As I walked back, I glanced over at the others and sight-sounded.
Killed the Sea Serpent was sitting next to her flightling, wings folded and tail wrapped neatly around her paws. She spoke in blunt orders: keep your wings together. Stop swinging your tail. You can do it, just try to focus.
Fought the Leader had taken on a teaching style similar to my own, showing her flightling the motions and then asking him to copy her. He was still trying to get off the ground.
The nameless male was…well…
…doing…his best?
"Just a moment," I told mine before padding over to him. Up close, I could see that the flightling had his head tilted all the way to the side in sheer confusion. The nameless male looked just as puzzled. He wasn't facing towards me, so didn't notice my approach.
"So, you see," he said to his flightling. "You just have to…you know. Flap your wings. Can't you try that?"
The poor flightling tried to, just as uncoordinated as mine had been. When nothing happened after several moments of struggling and a long, perplexed silence from the nameless male, he plopped to the ground, panting. His eyes settled on mine and lit with hope.
The nameless male turned, saw me, and jumped. "Woah!" he squeaked. Then, with a sheepish laugh, he said, "I don't think I'm very good at this."
"You have to show him," I murmured, flicking my eyes between his own and my paws. "Like this." I leaned down to the flightling's eye level and went through my explanation again. Halfway through, the female I was teaching stomped over and pushed at my legs.
"I want to be the first one up there!" she whined. She leered at her clutchmate, held onto my leg possessively, and said, "She's mine! Don't steal her!"
I reared my head back. Even through the ache deep in my bones, my whole body seemed lighter. Weightless. It felt like…
Longing tore through my heart once again. It was the same security as when I was in Killed the Sea Serpent's nest. The same warmth as when I had shared the bird I hunted with the nameless male and our leader. The same joy as when I had hunted underwater with my flockmates, all of us perfectly aligned with one another. It was what it felt like to be part of the flock.
It was an illusion of safety, a danger I always had to remind myself was there. Soon, they would graduate into young adults and learn what I was. Then these happy, carefree times with them would be gone forever. The rejection would only sting all the more, since I would have spent more time with them, having these moments of bonding with them.
"Hey, don't fight, now!" the nameless male teased the bickering flightlings. "Look how upset you're making her!"
Brought out of my stupor, I forced my expression into something that was hopefully happy. "No, no—I'm sorry, it's just a migraine. You didn't upset me."
They were too young to know when they were lied to, so both of them nodded with visible relief.
I finished showing the flightling how to lift off—and the nameless male how to teach. Then, much to my flightling's dismay, I invited them to work with us so that both flightlings could learn how to ascend at the same time.
At the suggestion, the nameless male nearly collapsed in relief. "Thank the Prebirth! I was so worried you would leave!"
With a thin smile, I nodded. "Can you show them the movements this time, please?"
"Of course!" he said…and immediately took off, disappearing into the dense green.
The flightlings and I stared after him, blinking.
"…well," I eventually said, turning to the stunned flightlings. "The important thing to notice was how he moved his wings. Did you see how he reached them forward to pull the air down? Have you tried moving your wing joints yet?"
So, while the nameless male took his time realizing he wasn't helping much anymore, I bent over and showed the flightlings that no, your wings are not stiff planes that can only move in one direction, and yes, isn't that amazing that each wing spine can move on its own? Soon they were bending each wing spine individually, contorting the membranes into tangled-looking folds.
"Think of it like your claws," I instructed them. I sniffed around, found a sweet-smelling flower among the sting-smell of mushrooms, and said, "Like this. Look at how I reach out with my claws…" I did just so, wrapping my claws around the puffy white flower just enough to pull it off its stem. "…and grab it." Turning to them, I sat and held the flower out for them to observe. They both rushed forward and sniffed it as if it was completely new. "Do that with the air in your wings. Reach forward, grab the air, and pull it down. If you make sure you keep your tails straight and your tailfins open, you'll be able to go up!"
Of course, without moving their tailfins, it would be a very slow, low-angled, clumsy climb. But that was a lesson for another day.
By that point, the nameless male had swept back over to us. He landed, realized that I had needed to move on, and ducked his head bashfully. "Oh—sorry about that," he said with a small, nervous laugh.
Despite the pain in my body and my thoughts warring with one another, I couldn't help but smile. "Maybe next time, you can make sure your flightlings are able to see you?" I suggested.
"Heh…yeah," he said. Then he straightened up. "Well, here! How about we try to get up to the pillar now?"
"Oh, I don't think—" I began.
"Yes! Yes!" the flightlings cried, hopping in the air in excitement.
My head pounded. I looked over to where I knew the pillar was, but couldn't even see it. What I did know from my sight-sounding, however, was that the plain we were on had a very steep drop. There was nothing below to cushion a fall.
"Alright!" the nameless male cheered. He crouched on the ground, wiggling his rum and opening his wings and tailfins. "Ready?"
The flightlings cheered. I grimaced, squeezing my eyes shut.
"No!" I commanded, louder than I had ever spoken before.
My eyes widened. I flinched low to the ground as if I could avoid my own harsh tone. The nameless male lurched in place, spinning to face me. The flightlings moaned in dismay.
"I…I'm—sorry," I stammered, my heart thundering in my chest. I grimaced and clenched my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable scolding, the white-hot tearing of claws against my scales.
Nobody said anything. There were no harsh shoves, snapping teeth, or spine-stings.
I squinted one eye open. Then the other.
They weren't…angry?
All of them crouched with lowered heads, ears pinned, eyes averted. It was a posture I had traced along every line of body, so much so that even the act of standing at my full height felt like an unjust rebellion.
To see them submitting to me was…was…wrong.
I forced breath back into my lungs and sat up. "I'm sorry," I repeated, my mouth dry. "I just don't want anyone to get hurt. I-I only want you two to practice more. If something goes wrong and you fall…"
The flightlings were close enough that I could see their imaginations fill in what I had left out. Both of them shuddered, eyes flicking towards each other.
"Yeah, that's probably a much better idea," the nameless male sighed with obvious disappointment. He shook himself off and lifted his head, taking in our environment. "There's a small ledge up the cliff. See there?"
I faced where he pointed with his nose and sight-sounded. There was an outcropping just above the cave's mouth. Even I couldn't stand on it, but the flightlings no doubt could. I considered it for a moment and nodded. "One of us can hover next to it, and the other can stand below."
So we had a plan. The nameless male chose to hover, leaving me with the duty of sight-sounding and catching falling flightlings.
Which, as it turned out, happened often.
After catching my flightling for the third time, I couldn't help but glance fearfully out towards the pillar. The flightlings could barely maintain a stable glide; when they attempted to keep their tailfins aligned while pushing upwards, they often tilted them just so and spiraled out of control. Not to mention if their tails weren't perfectly straight or drooped from muscle aches, they would simply lose the ability to stay in the air and plummet.
What if, first ones forbid, we had let them try to go for the cliff?
Shuddering at the thought, I leaned down to let my flightling off of my aching shoulders. "So," I said, "what do you think went wrong?"
She hung her head with disappointment. "I don't know…my tailfins?"
I had been sight-sounding at her so rapidly that I had perceived just the slightest tilting of her base-fins compared to her tailtip-fins. In doing so, the air moving beneath her clashed, and she was so small that it had been enough to knock her over. I told her so.
She listened with her ears sticking straight up, green eyes intense as she focused. "Okay!" she said. "I think I'll get it next time!"
"First, it's your clutchmate's turn," I reminded her. She threw her head back and groaned. With a small laugh, I nudged her rump forward. "Come on! Why don't you explain to him what went wrong, so he doesn't make the same mistake?"
She stomped over to the male flightling. "Alright, listen closely, because I'm only going to say this once!" she declared in her tiny voice.
The nameless male sidled up to me as she dove into an overdramatic retelling of what had just happened. "I think you should keep that one," he snickered.
"Oh, she's just excited," I whispered back. Another zing of pain went through my body from head to tailtip. I rubbed at my head with a paw, trying to soothe the tension there.
"Well, anyways, I wanted to say thank you," he said.
I stopped, paw still lifted, eyes wide and ears sticking up.
He looked away shyly. "If we had done as I said, then they could have gotten hurt…and in front of Killed the Sea Serpent, of all dragons!"
I glanced over to the dragon in question and sight-sounded. She was sitting off to the side and watching everyone. Saved the Swimlings had returned at some point, smelling of sea-salt and ocean winds, and had taken over for her. Fought the Leader was still working alone with her flightling, who seemed to be struggling to glide.
"I think she's watching us," the nameless male whispered much too loudly.
"Shh!" I hissed, turning away from her watchful posture.
"Is everything going alright, everyone?" Killed the Sea Serpent shouted. I could hear just the slightest hint of a smile in her voice.
"Yes!" the nameless male and I called at once. We turned away secretively, the both of us shaking with barely-held-back giggles.
"Sorry," he snickered. "I'll try not to get us in trouble, again."
I frowned, straightening my posture. "It wasn't your fault, though."
He set me with a flat look. "You know, if you keep this up, you're going to be named something like Took All the Blame."
I grimaced. That was a very bad name. But…
Looking down at my paws, I murmured, "I like you. But it's dangerous to be around me. That's why I want you to stay away."
Whatever he wanted to say in response, he never had a chance. The flightlings, too impatient to wait for us to signal to go, both decided to jump towards the ledge.
At the same time.
"Flightlings!" I gasped, leaping to my feet. The nameless male reacted much the same, tumbling into flight after them.
Keeping pace beneath them, I sight-sounded in a mad ferver, ears straining to listen to the wind under their wings and the tell-tale rustling of wings blown astray. Straining my useless eyes on the silver-blue smudges above, my whole world came into pinpoint focus on the two young dragons who I had assumed care of—and then ignored.
I ran. They flew.
Then, darkness.
I skidded to a halt, blinking and sight-sounding in confusion. My heart thudded in my chest, sending waves of sharp, shooting pain through my body with each frantic beat.
A true smile crossed my lips. I bounded out of the cave, skidded around, and sight-sounded at the ledge.
"Look! We made it! We made it!" my little flightling cried. "Thank you! Thank you!"
"You did!" I laughed in joy and relief as all of the tension left my body. "You flew all on your own!"
The flightlings leapt off of the ledge, gliding down towards me. They both thumped gracelessly to the ground and scampered about my feet.
"Well done, both of you!" I congratulated them. Another thud to my right announced the nameless male's arrival. "And thank you, for flying after them," I said as he walked over.
He rolled his amber eyes with a grin. "Yeah, that was a lot of work." His expression turned impish. "Do you think they're ready for the pillar?"
I paused. If I had my way, I'd make them practice here until tomorrow. Killed the Sea Serpent had instructed them to fly to the pillar, though.
"With us below them, yes," I said.
The flightlings erupted into cheers. Those being tended to by the other adults also began shouting, but in dismay. My headache panged, sending spots of darkness across my vision.
"Alright, alright!" I said. "Let's line up. You two in front, and us two in the back—yes, just like that. Are you ready?"
"Yes!" both flightlings cried, crouching and wiggling.
"And what do you need to remember?" I asked them.
Both of them shouted two completely different things—but I did hear the words 'tail', 'tailfins', and also 'flower', so I assumed that was good.
"Alright," I said, glancing at the nameless male, who looked just as excited as them. "Let's go!"
The flightlings tore ahead, wings open and flapping, and leapt off of the safety of the cliff and towards the pillar. The nameless male and I followed right at their tails. As I reached the cliff, I allowed myself to slip downwards and drop, waiting to snap open my wings until I heard the hummingbird-rapid wingbeats of the flightlings above me. A bustle of air filling wings to my left signaled the nameless male had done the same.
Trusting the nameless male to warn me if I was about to fly into something, I lifted my head to the little blue-gray smudges amongst the greens, blues, and glowing colors of the lower Shell and began sight-sounding. The nameless male ducked just ahead of me, which allowed me to follow him more from the air currents swirling from his wings than just the sound of his passage. I shot a grateful look in his direction before returning my attention to the flightlings.
Their ascent was wobbly and uncertain. They both still struggled to maintain a proper tailfin posture, causing them to dip and swerve ever-so-slightly. I remembered struggling with the same problem as a flightling, always over-correcting and sending myself spiraling in my desperate attempts to right myself. My chest tightened, but I didn't intervene just yet.
One of the flightlings dipped suddenly to the left and flapped their wings in a wild blur to stay upright. Fear-scent traced his path. I swooped beneath him just as he let out a shriek that pierced through my skull. By the grace of the first ones, he managed to right himself.
"Don't worry!" the nameless male encouraged him. "We'll catch you if you fall!"
"Good correction!" I said between sight-sounds. The flightling hurried ahead, more confident now, and I returned to my spot just behind the nameless male.
"We're almost there!" my flightling shouted in delight. "I can almost see the top!"
The sheer joy in her voice brought a soft smile to my lips. "Go on, then!" I said. "But be careful!"
The flightlings began flapping even faster, speeding up their ponderous ascent only a little. They were both laughing now, fear of falling forgotten, each one betting the other who would get there first. The nameless male laughed along with them. I continued my breakneck-fast sight-sounds; I would not let my guard down until both of them were safely landed.
I could make out the blurry shape of the pillar now; it was dappled with vibrant colors. The flightlings lifted up, up, up…!
They crested the pillar, tucked their wings in, and thumped to the surface. The nameless male crowed with delight, flinging himself upwards just in time to avoid a collision himself.
"Well done!" I cried, tilting my wings and shooting above the pillar. "Very well done!" With a brief bout of sight-sounds, I found a spot to land. "Both of you did—"
The moment my paws made contact with the ground, mushroom spores exploded upwards, enveloping me in a vibrant mist.
Pain. Sting-smell. Fire. Confusion.
My migraine erupted beneath my eyes, my skull, my ears like it was going to burst out of me. I choked as my lungs collapsed, my heart exploded, my blood roiled. The world dissolved. I couldn't sight-sound in the nothingness. I couldn't breathe!
Everything was gone, everything but the endless, gnawing pain, like something had crawled inside me and begun a feeding-frenzy, gorging on my heart, my blood, my bones!
My limbs contorted as the thing wrenched through my every vessel and muscle, leaving a horrible nothingness in its wake, like I had been lifted from my body and expulsed into this formless torture. It wasn't burning me—it was consuming me, like an ember creeping along the edge of a leaf, leaving nothing behind in its slow, relentless hunger.
And through it all, through this twisted death, because surely I was dying, surely something had come upon me to swallow my very essence, like the curse I was that could never be suffered to live and thrive in this Shell where I had never belonged, confusion and grief were all that accompanied me.
Why?!
I'm sorry! I tried to beg for my life. I don't know what I did! I'm sorry!
I must have screamed.
Then, nothing.
o.O.o
…voices…
Muffled, echoing, angry. Fear-scent, chalky smoke, the acrid zing of unlit gas. Confusion. All so far away. As if…
Was I Under?
Dread came upon me at the thought—unexpected, unwelcome, impossible.
And I knew, in that in-between place, when my last refuge faded from my grasp, that something terrible had changed, and nothing would be the same ever again.