Val crouched and rubbed her own blood between her fingers in thought. It had congealed into marbles of black, nestled in the ash that blanketed the clearing like snow. She followed the trail of the battle with experienced eyes, and eventually found her axe.

  You’re scared of Abrigale. Accused Fenris, sitting with his forepaws crossed, yellow eyes gleaming.

  Val straightened, brushing the ash and grime from her axe with her sleeve, “You’re the one who knew her.”

  Aye.

  Val adjusted the buckles of her harness, and returned the weight to her back, feeling significantly better with herself now she had a weapon again. “So, should I be?”

  Aye.

  Val hummed in acknowledgment and strayed closer to the remnants on her bonfire to inspect it. An entire day's worth of wood had been reduced to a few crumbling logs, black hearts coated with white ash. There was no memory of whatever magic was worked here, just the familiar drone of the living world around her. At its edges, the running silver wolves sent ripples through the web out of sight, mixed with the movement of birds and insects.

  “She seems unstable,” commented Val.

  Aye.

  If he didn’t want to talk with her she wasn’t going to force the wolf. She reached out to touch one log, curious how the dragon had silenced the magic so suddenly. There had been no drawn out tension, no stretching of the harmonics or the screech of energy as a thread was pulled taut. It was as if two forces had met, and then ceased.

  Thousands of years have passed for her in the blink of an eye. What is history like ancient memory to us, for her is still raw and fresh. But, she is the most powerful dragon that has likely ever lived and once she finds her feet, she will change the world.

  It was the only dragon, it didn’t really matter strong or weak, it changed the world by still existing as far as Val was concerned. But, the creature they had fought could flatten armies, and there would be no winning against it with fatigue or numbers or the cover of night. She had no doubt his warnings were valid. It seemed a mighty dangerous enemy to wake, and Val felt a lump in her throat at the thought they had been part of unleashing it upon the world.

  It was hard for her to think of the women who had cried, who remained still back at the cavern home where she had slept. The shape and sobbing of the human woman seemed at best a disguise, and at worst a trap. It had been for the better that Dorius was sent off, she disliked how quick he had been to trust and admire her.

  It had not been her main reason for sending him ahead of her. Something about the moment had felt right, in the shadow of her near death and the building revelations of the past few weeks. Now left to her quiet thoughts, and reflecting on it, she only grew certain the decision had been correct. Fenris, the winged horses, and the Laons seemed more at ease expressing their true natures with her, Dorius had been a barrier to her understanding what remained unsaid in her interactions with them.

  It felt like a moment in her life when ‘human’ had to be discarded to learn what this other half had to teach.

  By nature, she is predatory. She will seek power eventually. Warned the wolf.

  “Is seeking power a bad thing?” asked Val, thinking of Dorius still.

  Power was many things, she reflected, it was not just physical strength. Dorius had a power that came from money and resources, built on a foundation of analytical and personal strength. She had no idea what went into the complexities of the trade networks he had built jointly with the Southold Guild, but it granted him a growing wealth that solved problems no amount of physical strength could ever touch. And while he was proud, and a mess, and mostly incapable of caring for himself, he was a good person too. His resources included people who were loyal to him, and Val reflected that while his brotherhood with her was part of her reasons for her loyalty to him, she was certain she would choose to serve him without it.

  Power could be soft as well. Bastian’s strengths were his looks, his charm, his easy laughs and his confident manner. He walked as if he was always meant to be where he was, he listened as if every conversation was the most important thing to him at that moment. He was so invested and cared so deeply, that he could be relied upon to always think about the details, and even his frustrations and tempers came from good places.

  And power could be things that were not noticed - Val was certain that Dorius and Bastian were mostly oblivious to the power their human-ness granted them over her and in interactions with others. It was never overt, it was the way someone caught her eye but not another humans, it was the way doorways and roofs and furniture fit their shape and not hers. It was in the way they could ask for something simple and thoughtless from other humans that she never could.

  There were as many ways to seek power as there were types of power, it was intrinsic to the act of survival and living. The power Dorius sought had so far raised them from mere survival to reliable consistency.

  She finished her thoughts aloud, “I think it is abuse of power that is worth being cautious of?”

  All power, when accumulated, opens itself to abuse and reliance on the nature of those that wield it. Those without, no matter their nature, cannot abuse what they don’t have.

  And they will find other types of power to loose their abusive nature upon… That lesson Val knew.

  “So what nature is the dragon then?” she asked cautiously.

  The long black wolf face watched her, unmoving as it spoke mind words. A nature shaped by war and loss. A nature that won crowns through combat, and lost them through betrayal. A nature that was woken with only a deep hatred of the forces that created it.

  “You don’t trust her either then?”

  The wolf was silent. She had a feeling that his initial amusement at having guests had been coming to an end, as if the bluster and confidence had been a mask he wore around humans, and he was returning to a truer self and preparing to withdraw into the mountains again. She was surprised he was still here, and would not be shocked for him to disappear without a word.

  —

  Val returned to the cavern to find Abrigardius hunched over a fire, hands within it sizzling with the smell of cooking meat. As she withdrew them, the shimmer in the air began to knit together the blisters and raw red to pale skin again. Val cast her a sideways glance as she moved past to retrieve her pack and prepare her own departure.

  “I knew a Laon once, an Alate.”

  Val paused cautiously, then turned to look at the god.

  “She taught me to fight. Her fire singing was very poor. Yours is unusually pure, even for back then, but very crude.”

  Val waited, Fenris came wandering in, naked with only his odd leather belt and chains. “Still brooding in the dark!” he quipped, interrupting the conversation, “Any plans to leave?”

  “I slept here for hundreds of years, I’m within my rights to wait another few days,” snapped Abrigardius in return.

  “So you are leaving!? Good.”

  Val shrunk back into the shadows, not keen to be caught in the exchange.

  “Where did my grandson go?”

  Val blinked, “Prince Dorius?” She began laying out the supplies in her pack as she spoke, re-evaluating that she had everything she expected and arranging the order to her preference. She planned to be gone by that afternoon and leave this god as hopefully a memory.

  “Grandson is stretching the term,” mused Fenris, coming to sit by the fire and crossing his ankles.

  “He returned to his retinue,” replied Val, hesitant to give her too many details if she did not need to.

  “Aren’t you his retinue? What is the state of his rule?”

  Val glanced at Fenris, the wolf-boy did not meet her eyes and instead seemed more interested in rotating his body by the fire to warm his behind. She drew a steady breath, “Why?”

  “It is my right to be interested in my grandson, he spoke of his people proudly,” replied the god, watching Val with an expression she could not read. It had the haughty edge of expectations to be obeyed.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Val drew to her full height, standing a full two heads over both Abrigardius and shorter Fenris in their human forms. She knew she was not intimidating to them, but she had no intention to let them think they could take advantage of her either. “The Prince has his own urgent business.”

  “What are you to him? I remember you fighting valiantly, if in vain. He begged for your life,” said Abrigardius, eyes narrowing.

  “I am his bodyguard, and his sister,” replied Val.

  Abrigardius laughed suddenly, “His sister? Has my line mixed with Fae, I didn’t even know it was possible?”

  Val resisted showing irritation, “Not biologically. His mother named me, I was raised by his father’s brother - your bloodline,” she added.

  “You didn’t grow up with your colony? Has there been a change in how Alates are raised?”

  “No. My understanding is that I am unusual.”

  “Hmm,” There was no motion, and the harmonics of the fire snapped out suddenly, leaving them in the pale blue light of the cavern. The coals within the fire were black, all life sapped from them.

  Curious, Val tested a question, “How do you do that?”

  In the darkness it was hard to see the expression the god gave her in return. “Put the fire out?”

  “Yes, you did it when I… challenged you with my fire.”

  “Challenged?!” Abrigardius laughed again, “Sure, we’ll call it that. Who taught you to fire sing?”

  “No one.”

  That elicited a pause, “You are not apprenticed?”

  Val let a bitter grumble enter her voice, “I do not know what you think has happened in your sleep, but there is no one to apprentice to.”

  “She’s right, deaf, the lot of them,” added Fenris.

  “Do you wish to apprentice to me?”

  Val sucked in her breath carefully. Every sense told her the question was a trap. “I would not presume…”

  The fire flared to life again, eliciting a yelp from Fenris who had his buttocks too close where he’d been crouched before it was extinguished.

  “Careful!” he snapped.

  “You can’t feel it,” snapped Abrigardius dismissively and turned her attention back to Val, “I will answer your first question. You focus too much on fire as you see it, as you feel it. But those are not the senses of magic - you must listen and sing, and understand the notes and melodies of magic as it is. If you understand what you can hear, you can create harmonies that are the opposite. Where they meet, they cancel to nothing.”

  She extinguished the fire again to make her point, and Val felt the sensation she remembered as they faced each other on the mountain. The harmonics reaching out, and ceasing at the point they met smothering the web to silent stillness.

  “I will try it out,” she replied mildly. She did not want to return to packing until she felt the tension of the current moment ease.

  As if on cue, Fenris stretched his legs and yawned dramatically, “Put the fire back on, I never get to enjoy them. Cold as fuck up here most of the time.”

  “You could make one the normal way,” commented Val, crouching to her pack again and keeping an eye on Abrigardius.

  “Ugh, no. You think I run around this mountain as a naked little boy when I don’t have guests? What am I meant to do with paws?”

  “Your pups seem to like chasing sticks? Put them to work.”

  Fenris cackled at the comment, “They’ll chase anything that moves.”

  Val cautiously returned to her packing, “Couldn’t you take a different human shape?”

  “The shape is an outer wrapping, the energies it contains are still intrinsic to you. We are who we are, no matter the shell. Otherwise any idiot could give themselves a natural crown,” said Abrigardius darkly.

  “So you can turn into a human, but you have no control over what it looks like?”

  “I’d turn into a woman if I could,” snarked Fenris, “Or an old man with a long spindly bead. I’d wrap it around my waist and take wearing my own fur to a new level!”

  “What would you do as a woman?” hissed Abrigardius in reprimand.

  “Dunno, see what tits feel like.”

  Abrigardius flared the fire up again, sending a tendril of flame jumping to whip Fenris in the backside. The red mark immediately began to shimmer and he rubbed himself with a cheeky grin over his shoulder at her. “I wouldn’t do anything with ‘em, just want to know what they feel like,” he replied.

  “Yeah sure.”

  Val shoved down the last of her belongings, and slung the pack up over her shoulders. She was ready as she could be to depart from the cavern and return back down the mountain.

  Fenris raised an eyebrow to her as he noticed her preparations, “Where are you going?”

  “Return to High Haven, I was thinking of stopping by the Laons on the way down,” replied Val casually.

  “I’ll join you, you won’t find their entrances without me,” Fenris rose to his feet and stepped away from the fire.

  “You’re leaving?” asked Abrigardius, her question more for Fenris than Val.

  Fenris gave her a wink, “I will if you won’t. Gotta learn to leave the nest.”

  “What am I meant to do?” there was the strangled edge to her voice that foreboded her return to mourning.

  Fenris sighed and put his hands on his hips, “There is no meant. You can do whatever you want. Start with the little Dragon Prince’s suggestions and go see the world, you’ve missed a lot.”

  Val pursed her lips, the idea of this creature walking freely made her nervous.

  Abrigardius sniffed dismissively, “And what will I find? Nations built by my traitorous council? Humes deaf and ignorant of what they were?”

  Val shifted, “I definitely don’t recommend using magic around them…”

  “Your opinion is nothing to me!” Val flinched at the unexpected anger of the response. She placed a hand behind her back to her axe.

  “She’s right,” replied Fenris, his mildness indicating he felt no threat, “You’ll scare them shitless in the streets.”

  “The Vigil would take you in?” suggested Val. She hoped her movements to loosen her buckles were not obvious enough to catch the god’s eye.

  “The Vigil? I have no desire to hear what they think the Watcher says to them. I have been an image on their walls for thousands of years before I even existed. I refuse to be what they think I am.”

  Fenris snapped his jaws, Val did not even notice him unfolding into his giant black wolf form.

  You have always been what they think you are. You were made and forged by thousands of chances before you, bloodlines mixing for generations to make the ultimate dragon, a symbol of everything the world could have been but is no longer. You are the result of weaving threads strung at the start of time beyond your control. And now you are free, freer than you have ever been, welcome to having to make your own choices! Fenris punctuated his words with a rising growl in his throat.

  Abrigardius gave a strangled scream that began as a human’s and unfolded to a roar as her body burst forth from it walls, unrolling into a dragon that filled the whole cavern. Her jaw was open, white teeth gleaming, and tongue curling as she finished the roar directly in Fenris’ face, spittle flying to dot the wolf’s fur.

  You will not speak to me that way. I have made choices my whole life. I know what I am better than you.

  Fenris bristled the fur on his hackles, standing on the very tips of his toes as he growled back. Val kept her hand on her axe, cautious to make a move that would draw the dragon’s attention.

  Do you? These have not been the words of someone who knows what they are.

  The entire cavern trembled as the dragon growled. Its talons dislodged rocks from the walls as it crawled forward, using the sides of the cavern as much as the ground, the long spines of its wings tucked close to its torso.

  Why wake me if you will not help me?! Her mind voice screamed at Fenris, an edge of pleading mixed with rage and sadness.

  I never woke you. I have sheltered you… the Mountain God has sheltered you in its valley many times, but we owe you nothing. Make a choice now, the first truly free choice of your life. There are no responsibilities now, no logical first steps, no web of others around you to influence you. I will not shelter you like a babe from the reality of true choice.

  The dragon’s growl crescendoed, shaking dirt from the ceiling, and with a snap of its jaws it surged past and over them. Val tucked herself against a dip in the wall as huge talons scrambled by thankfully not piercing her as they passed. As the tail slithered past, tipped with barbs of bronzed gold like the spines down her neck, Val raced after it and just caught sight of the dragon unfurling its wings and leaping into the sky. It climbed vertically, and within moments disappeared within the clouds. From out of sight the white winged stallion swooped after, trailing it.

  She remained watching as Fenris padded to her side, his head above her own almost as if he was going to rest it on her.

  “You could have been gentler with her?” said Val softly.

  Fenris curled his lips above her, the black edges stark against his white teeth. What for? She’s a grown woman.

  “It may not be the best idea to have her roaming, as unstable and emotional as she is?”

  She looked over her shoulder and saw Fenris held his tail in a straight line behind him as if he were tailing prey. Change is coming.

  Val shouldered her pack, hummed a non-answer and began to march towards the direction she remembered separating with the Laons when they crossed the peaks.