Free Friday Fiction from Wyldblood

This fine story’s been stuck behind a paywall until now – this is the first time it’s been published online for free. You can buy it in all its printed glory (with eight other excellent tales) in Wyldblood 12

Flying Takes Heart

Adrienne Canino

The dragon saw a ridge of mountains that plunged into icy ocean water. She decided this was the spot. Not too high up. Not too far down, either. Contrary to popular belief, she did not like heat much.

No one really noticed as she settled herself between ridges, over the cold, pebbly beach where her skin blended in instantly. At least, no one said anything. She stretched her talons into the earth, tail curled up like a cat, wings arching for a brief moment against the night sky.  Then she folded them up and laid her bones to rest among the new mountain range, neck extended just enough to watch the sunsets over the ocean.

Cruelly, her life continued. Quietly, she just watched it go by.

She laid for so long that little bits of earth gathered about her, the beach not caring about its new inhabitant. Water pooled in the niche her tail made against her side, a small pond that attracted beavers. Birds began to land on her back, scratching or nesting. Soon woodland creatures found their way there as well, with the porcupine perhaps knowing it was her underneath. She lay for so long that ferns and flowers began to sprout on her skin.

Still, the dragon refused to get up, waiting for the day her breath would go with the sunset.

And eventually trees and berries grew over the ferns and flowers. Larger and larger creatures made their home along her back. Her eyes dulled as decade after decade, she watched.

They all forgot there had ever been dragons.

#

One day people came to the mountain range.

They did not know it was a new mountain range, only that it looked like home. They scaled her sides and set up camps. They huddled in the lee between her forearms and made use of the pond her tail had collected.

The dragon remained, mute and motionless.

The people stayed for more than one moon. Then they stayed for more than two moons. The dragon lost count after that. The people grew older, but there came to be some young ones too, hatchlings with barely enough bones to stretch out their folds of skin.

One day, such a hatchling was playing precariously close to the ocean, under the guise of collecting driftwood. She puttered about just to the side of the dragon’s muzzle, meandering farther and farther onto the mudflats.

But this ocean was notoriously fickle. The dragon knew this, and had come to know a thing or two about hatchlings in her time, too. A bore tide came sweeping in, and none of the people saw the youth on the mudflats on the edge of danger.

So, for the first time in an age, the dragon moved.

As the tide came rippling through, she tipped the very edge of her muzzle, just enough pressure to push the water, disrupt the threatening tide, and knock over a tree. The hatchling scrambled along the tree, through the mud and up the slope, hair and tears streaming out behind, driftwood forgotten.

That evening, as the dragon watched the sunset, an eagle circled down and down and down to perch on that fallen tree.

“I saw that,” she said.

The dragon said nothing, still and silent as the sky.

“My mother told me stories about this place.  Stories her mother had told her. I had never really believed her,” the eagle added.

The dragon watched the glowing orange sun drop into the mirrored water.

The eagle flew away.

The people celebrated the hatchling’s close escape from the tide, praising the earth for the quake and leaving flower wreaths and shiny shells at the base of the fallen tree.

As if the earth had done the hard work.

#

That winter started early, and extra cloudy.  The mountaintops, then the top of the dragon’s body, then even the pond in the protected shelter of her tail, accumulated feet and feet of snowdrifts.

Some of the older people had a lot of trouble with that much snow. The dragon was a little older herself, so she could tell.

There was one avalanche that pushed the snow through the trees fencing it in, right over the path the people used to get to the glacier lake on the far side of her rump.  It was a narrow path between herself and another young mountain, and even though the snow could be packed down, the ice sheet on top was the true problem.

Going to ice fish on the lake was one of the ways some of those older people kept busy in this slower season, the younger ones on hunting expeditions or busy with the lumber work. The fishing was good for food, but better for their dignity, and the dragon saw this too.

So, she flicked her tiniest back talon, a little up and to the side.

Nearly a century had created a sizable accumulation of earth and scree about her resting place. The gravel she scattered into the air tumbled against the mountainside, and onto the path. It broke up the ice, and kept the surface from being too slick. If they were careful, the older people could just make it.

And they did, talking and laughing and making fun of themselves for needing their walking sticks. They passed carefully and safely along the gully to the lake, a blush of life on their faces.

The night before springrise, the eagle flew down to the dragon again.

“I saw that,” she said.

The dragon remained soundless as snowflakes.

“I wish they had shared some fish with me,” the eagle sighed, and settled in to watch the sunset.

#

That spring was busy. The people had been building boats all the time, all the seasons they had stayed with her. They were good boats, sometimes bark wrapped frames that looked frail but darted daringly, sometimes stout planks bent around a center mast with a giant sail, puffed up with wind and pride. There were enough boats to carry all the people.

Soon the entire village emptied out. Every person, young and old, paraded down to the coastline. The dragon knew a thing or two about leaving a home behind, so she understood that these people were not planning to come back. They loaded all their things and themselves into the boats on the rocky coastline.

Then, they turned back, looking up the jutty terrain that was the dragon’s back.

And they sang.

They sang of miracle earthquakes. They threw flowers. They praised the tiny pond and its busy beaver. They stomped their feet in dance. They recounted the hard winter and the good luck of gravel paths. They sang, and laughed, and wept, giving thanks to a place they had called home.

Giving thanks to the dragon.

Then, one by one, they lifted sail and oar and anchor, and waved goodbye. A high and strong tide arrived to pull them away.

So, the dragon took a deep breath.

It rumbled in her belly, and stretched her ribs, and curled the tongue in her mouth. Trees and dirt and gravel shook. The beaver dam sprung a leak. The animals, except the porcupine, skittered about.

She blew very, very gently, just enough to fill the sails and teeter the canoes, speeding the boats on their way into the sunset.

The people cheered and whooped and clapped.

The dragon was still watching them when the eagle drifted down to her familiar perch nearby.

“I know, I know,” the dragon whispered, the rumble shuddering through the stones on the beach. “You saw that.”

The eagle paused for a long while, pinks and purples coming into the sunset.

“My mother told me a story once,” she finally said. “But I think she was wrong.”

The dragon looked sideways at her friend.

“ I don’t think anyone who has that much love to give, has really given up on anything.”

The dragon grumbled so loudly that half the new spring buds on the trees burst into leaf.

“So,” the eagle continued slyly. “Do you remember how to fly?”

The dragon looked at the sunset, tiny dots of boats sailing along the brilliantly colored water.

And she smiled, stretching her wings in an earth slide the young mountains would never forget.

“My dear,“ she whispered. “I was born to fly.”

First published in Wyldblood 12

Adrienne Canino lives in south central Alaska and indulges in cozy winter habits most of the year. She has loved sci fi and fantasy since meeting the characters of Ellen Ripley and Diane Sarrasri in her youth, and probably even before. She escapes her day job wrangling research and technology by hiking and camping and writing and reading.

more stories here

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