The Bird and The Dragon
All the Reasons to Love the Dragon: Part 1

07-343 Parisya

The dragon walked through the estate grounds when the last shadows spread on the garden like mourning veils. The cook preparing dough behind the kitchen windows didn’t see her, the gardener’s eyes didn’t notice her even if he walked on the same path. Her passing didn’t make flower petals to stir, the spiders didn’t hide from her and the light from the pale auroras coloring the sky didn’t cast her shadow.

Agiisha’s bare feet made no sound when she climbed the white stone stairs up the spa; the only noise was the soft rustle of her black robe against the steps. She stepped into the graceful building made from sand-colored stone, through the gate surrounded by wines, and to a paved terrace around a natural hot spring.

The air carried the scents of mineral-rich water. The flowering plants growing in pots had closed their petals for the dark; they would bloom again when sunlight colored the sky blue. The dragon stopped, she was an embodiment of darkness silhouetted against the wall, visible only because she chose it. Her blue eyes reflected the starlight, which scattered from something under the azure orbs’ surface creating kaleidoscopic images drawn in light.

Kvenrei was alone in the water, his eyes shut. Eighteen days had passed since his father and sister were murdered and the man was physically exhausted and emotionally empty. He walked through his days like in mist and only little Meina made him rise from the bed every morning. His heart was heavy like the air by the metal wells; there had been too many deaths in too short a time and the sorrow and the guilty were wrecking him apart.

Enidtha’s death had been an accident, but Jenet’s visit was not. The responsibilities Kvenrei had run away from for so long had finally caught him and tangled him into their net.

Kvenrei had wanted to be a good son but had messed it up. He had wanted to be a great big brother, but it hadn’t worked. Deep in his heart, Kvenrei wanted to be a good father. He just didn’t know how. All his mistakes played in his mind preventing sleep, and torturing him in his waking hours.

The kids were the only thing keeping Kvenrei away from the estate’s well-stocked alcohol storage. Alcohol abuse had been his escape for a long time. It had never worked, but the allure of escaping into a drunken stupor was still there. But he had kids, who had seen too much death and deserved something better.

Liida had taken it all seemingly lightly. The girl was content if the horses were there. Ayu had a dawning understanding of the political significance of the incident, and she was absorbing in chaotic order everything she should have learned from a good teacher in the past years. Tiago had become silent and fearful.

The dreams carrying Ikanji’s memories plagued the boy and yesterday had been the first night without them. Or at least Tiago had said nothing in the morning. He was ashamed of the adult man’s sexual memories and terrified of the strategej’s cruel upbringing in the academy, horrified about the bloodiness of the rebellion. The rebellion, the war: Ikanji’s memories had shown more to Tiago than to others. The only time the boy had smiled when talking about his dreams was after a memory of a concert in the old world.

The warm water relaxed Kvenrei’s naked body. His mind was empty while he soaked, shoulders below the water. This was the only way he found relaxation. It was not sleep and his mind was too crowded for meditation, but the water helped his body to relax.

Agiisha observed the man. He was as fragile as any mortal frame, but the dragon saw Kvenrei’s strong connection, him being a knot in the planet’s weak matrix. Years ago, this mortal had loved the dragon and Agiisha had enjoyed the absurdity of the situation, the fact that both sons of the unbending old strategej had voluntarily come seeking her. The woman -the dragon- sat down on the pavement and sent her aura to touch the man gently. It was like a warm wind kissing the flowers.

Kvenrei woke from his slumber feeling the presence. His eyes widened when he spotted Agiisha, who let herself be seen. The man raised his chin from the water sending ripples to the pool.

“Beautiful mistress Agiisha, you are welcome. Did you come to enjoy the water?”

Dragon’s expression was inscrutable, and the blue orbs of her eyes revealed nothing. “The non-physical qualities of substances are beyond my reach. I give my condolences, Ikanji was a remarkable man.”

“Thank you. Your visit is an honor as you were not friends.” Kvenrei was too tired to be surprised by anything. For him, this could have been a dream.

“I knew him.” Agiisha’s communication followed a different set of laws and Kvenrei had learned not to judge the dragon by human standards.

“How did you know to come here, o shadow of the night?”

“How did you know to be here?” Agiisha said. “You are not one to believe in the fate and the guidance of the gentle dragon gods, my dear Kvenrei, my sweet, frustratingly opinionated servant, the son to honor your father in all the good and particularly in all the evil he stood for.”

“I try to believe in myself. My magnificent mistress needs no mortal belief. O great one, did you sense Ikanji in your great matrix, when his soul dissolved there?”

“A true son of his father. Yes, Kvenrei. I felt him diving in and getting lost. Your sister was a quickly extinguished spark, but he burned like a comet.”

There were no more tears, they had dried and Kvenrei had no energy to rise to the dragon’s bait, if the words were a bait and not just an honest outcome from its algorithms.

“There were no remains to bury. You can say your goodbyes to his portrait.”

“I am not here for goodbyes, Kvenrei. I will hold the official ritual when it is needed. We will not yet acknowledge his death in public. I am here to tell you about your future.”

“I am listening, mistress.”

“Patrik is riding here with a small company of men. Officially they are patrolling the border, but he is here for Ikanji’s death.”

“Who told him?” Agiisha’s words were like cold water to Kvenrei. He didn’t want to meet his brother.

“The strategej understands the implication of his father’s memories.”

“Is he also seeing them?” Kvenrei was shocked. He had thought the memories were partly imagination. No, he hadn’t thought that much, of course, the memories were tied to the bloodline.

“Yes, he is,” the dragon said. “Now he will separate the New Freedom from the world, cut the trade, and force the southern countries to their knees, weakened from the war and lack of trade. This separation is not my wish, it is Anhava’s doing.”

“What this has to do with me?”

“Patrik wants the estate and the title to go with it. These lands guard the western border, Ikanji’s existence kept him wary, but now Patrik thinks he can lead the ainadu to Anhava’s plan. This is not my will.”

“Mistress could speak with her strategej and her commander?” Kvenrei said cautiously.

’“This will not happen thus.”

“But it would work. Patrik would never deny you. They would worship the land under your feet should you reveal yourself.”

“You truly don’t understand how extraordinary you are, my sweet Kvenrei. Patrik worships the idea of a dragon as it serves the ainadu. I am nothing to him. Anhava picks memories from the great matrix like flowers from a meadow thinking they will make him great. Your mortal minds will not hold such pressure, he is breaking down without understanding it.”

“You don’t speak to them.” Kvenrei said stunned.

“They don’t hear. That is why I speak to you, the son to resemble his father.”

“I am flattered, mistress.”

“My poet.” Dragon’s voice was soft.

Kvenrei still believed the dragon had liked his poems. He had never understood why, as the time had passed, the more embarrassing the poems had felt.

“Ikanji never trusted me, and one could say he hated me. It was very refreshing. He always listened to my words carefully, weighing them for the truth and meaning, just like you do.” Agiisha said.

Kvenrei was not afraid of the dragon; he accepted the possibility of instant death always present with Agiisha. Instead, the man thought about the dragon, the only of her kind on the planet. Surely anyone who understood the great matrix like Ikanji had been a welcome diversion and Ikanji had lived in the previous world, witnessed the other dragons.

A terrible premonition was forming in Kvenrei’s mind. It was no use to try to keep it secret. “What about Jenet of Ardara?”

“Jenet. Of Ardara. Was it her? She did it? It was her tracks?” the dragon smiled showing her glittering black teeth, the first recognizable expression on the face reflected from the water.

“Yes. His memory followed the rebellion inside a matrix. He wears a man’s body now and he killed Father and Jesrade.”

“Jenet was always the most loyal servant to Saa. I’ll need her. Yes. Bring her to me, Kvenrei.”

“What about Patrik, mistress?” Kvenrei asked solemnly. He was going to replace Jenet and would take him to the dragon, in a box, cut in pieces.

“I’ll need Jenet to control the young strategej. Find Jenet of Ardara. She served my brother well and will not search me, because of the rules she follows.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Kvenrei, I mean that. Alive, reasonably unharmed, her body, mind, and memories intact.”

“Mistress, he killed my father and my sister,” Kvenrei slipped deeper into the warm water.

“Very well, I’ll remove that memory.”

“No, you will not. Because you should remove it also from your great and magnificent matrix, where Ikanji’s memories spread it and you have no such power.” The guess seemed to hit the truth.

“The shards would return to you from time and again. I accept, your thirst for revenge is very human. You will get your payback after I have used Jenet.”

“I’ll hand you Jenet of Ardara,” the man lied as effortlessly as the dragon. “Do you have more requirements for me, mistress?”

“I am content with you and your family. Jenet was acting according to her faith, not my orders.”

“O blue-eyed beauty, if Patrik decides to capture the estate by force, could you provide some support?”

“I don’t meddle in things like that.”

“If I ask very pretty, please?”

The dragon rose with a liquid movement and pressed the big toe of her left foot to Kvenrei’s neck. The touch spread warm relaxation to his muscles, and the feeling flew to the top of his head and the bottom of his soles.

“You are insufferable. You have not eaten. You have not slept. Your stress levels are high, and your heart is tired. Sleep. Eat. Pull yourself together. Meet your brother in the afternoon. Bring me Jenet of Ardara alive.” Dragon’s touch sucked away the tiredness and pain. The headache dissolved like melting snow, the heaviness in the chest disappeared and the mind cleared.

“Yes mistress,” Kvenrei said, but the dragon had already gone leaving only the ghost of its touch lingering in his skin.