Adner

After the Battle Fifth Sun-Peek

The following sun-peek, I emerged from the cave and glanced upward. Tankin was staring down.

“He wants to see me again?” I asked him in the sun-peek light.

He made the chittering sound he made before and disappeared above me. I flew a few twig-lengths to the top of the mountain. He sat there waiting for me. I assumed. He stayed motionless, staring at me.

“What is it?” I asked him.

Tankin tilted his head to one side and looked past me. I turned and saw something sitting on top of the red-colored mountain. There was more than one. The herd beasts leaped from the red peak and spread their small wings. The wings filled with air, and they glided to the peak of the Winged Dragon’s mountain. They did not pause there; they leaped again with their wings closed. When they were at their fullest height, they opened them again. The group of blue and green herd beasts landed on the mountain that no dragon claimed, but I was sure one season cycle a clan would.

The final leap and flight were to a mountain that was higher than the one they leaped from. I heard their hooves hit below and the sound of them as they raced to the top. When they appeared, Tankin transformed into the fairest female Spirit Dragon I had ever seen. She bore a black fin and eyes that glowed of the Pale Stream.

“Oisin has sent gifts. Some are for you to carry with you on your journey to your new ecosphere, as thanks for standing up to the ones who could not remain,” she said in a voice much like Udia’s.

The herd beasts laid a pink round stone at my feet along with a metal ring and a clear crystal.

“This is a pearl for the Water Dragons, a ring for the Fire Dragons, and a diamond for the Winged Dragons. They hold some of their magic. For your kind, he gives an opal.”

He laid an odd-looking stone that flashed with many colors before me. I picked it up and could feel the magic.

“He has two additional gifts, but they are not for you. The Water Dragons that will be staying behind have already been given one. They know where to place it. We will be giving you the second and ask you to take it into the tunnel, where you will find a place for it.”

Tankin placed an elegant sword on the ground before me with the other objects. He must have seen my surprise. My clan was done with war, and dragons had no use for two-legged beasts’ weapons.

“As I stated, they are not for you. These are for things in the future. They need to be placed by the paws of dragons to be recovered when the time for another war has arisen.”

I only nodded. They would not reveal the future to us. I already knew that. We do not warn of the distant future, for selected events are destined to happen. In these occurrences, we are not supposed to interfere. We give what we can and turn away.

“I will not see you again. We wish you well. Of all the creatures which roam Earth, none have suffered as dragons. Go in peace, live a calm existence, and be well.” They bowed as one, then Tankin turned into his true form and started his long walk home. The herd beasts ran to the mountain cliff and leaped. I watched them make their way back to the red mountain and disappear.

I returned to our cave with the gifts and descended into the tunnel I had seen the previous dark-cycle before. It was dry, and the only sound I perceived was the flapping of translucent wings. They flittered from one roost to another, surveying the area for a pleasant place to rest. I disturbed a few who had located a miniature spring. It splashed on the tunnel floor and wall. After I rounded a corner, I observed a column of light streaming through a small hole in a wide area in the tunnel. The light streaked through the tranquil air to an area that appeared to be a nice fit for the sword. I set the weapon in its place and stared at the sword. It was then that I noticed a spot on the hilt. I contemplated the opal which I set at the cave opening with the other gifts. I was certain the stone would fit there.

Would the two swords and other items given to me be used to defend dragons in the future, I wondered. The one given to the small Water Dragons, I assumed, had a spot similar to this one to hold the pearl. Answers to these questions, I figured out in my elder age, are not mine to know.

The corruption of the amazing Life Tree has not occurred, and the soul energy streams in our ecosphere maintain their natural balance. I have had horrifying visions of it, and we have passed it on to younglings. The need for my dragon kin will be immense if what I foresaw comes to pass, and many ecospheres must be saved including ours.

I heard singing up high in the tunnel and feared my sister might come searching for me, so I headed back up, keeping the knowledge of the sword to myself. We fight when we must and we kill when we must, but to brandish a two-legged beasts’ weapons, never. I decided this should be a burden I carried on my own. Whether my sister ever knew, she never let me know.

“We have received gifts for winning the war,” I told her when she looked at me with suspicion in her eyes.

“Gifts do not bring our dead back, and a peaceful place to live is gift enough.”

“They did not think so.”

Seemia followed me to where I placed the gifts and looked over the prizes. She touched each.

“Have you touched them?” she asked me.

“Only ours. I assumed the others felt similar.”

“They do. Why give us relics such as these?”

“I do not know. They said it was because we did not run.”

She studied me as if she thought I was lying.

“They are ours. They gave them to us because they are ours and, for whatever reason, they do not want to say where they came from.”

“Why?”

“Seemia, I do not know, but they are ours. You had to feel that when you touched the one they called an opal.”

She pointed to the opal.

“Yes, we are taking something of this ecosphere with us, after all.”

She nodded, realizing as I had that these items could not be forsaken. Seemia had used the right word. They were relics of our old life.

“Touch them, Adner, all of them,” Seemia said, her eyes staring at me unblinking.

I was hesitant, but I laid both paws on all four relics. The pictures were quick and silent.

“What did you see?” she asked me.

“An egg born of all, a two-leg with golden hair, a dragon of many colors, and a Darkness,” I told her.

The leaders of each kind came to our mountain and claimed their relics. I did not disclose to them which was theirs. They knew the moment they touched it. We took the Water Dragons’ to them. I informed each leader that we needed to scout the new ecosphere before we had everyone go through it. The Fire Dragons and Water Dragons could not join scouting because we had no clue what lay through the doorway, land, or water.

“I stand by that Adner should not be the one who goes with us. We require him here if things go bad,” Winark said at once.

“In that case, none of the leaders should go either,” I said, looking at him and Seemia. “We can pick out a few Winged Dragons and Spirit Dragons to go. Both kinds have dependable kin.”

Unpleased, Winark agreed, for no other purpose than to shield me from danger. We decided on two dragons from each kind, and Winark’s nose took us to the doorway. Winark addressed the scouts.

“I was informed this new ecosphere is a peaceful dwelling for us, so there should not be trouble, but if there is any sign, you are to return immediately.”

The four nodded. They were young and the strongest of our two kinds. One of the Spirit Dragons was female, Valtearia. Hanto was the male. Both Winged Dragons were male. Bortear was one, and I am confident if Glaciertin had not died during the battle with the two-legged beasts, he would have gone. Instead, Enlear stood with them. The four moved to the strange object before them and hesitated. We were asking them to do something no dragonkind had ever done. The unknown faced them, and they could, for all we knew, step into death.

Bortear glanced back at Winark, who nodded at him. The enormous dragon, who looked too big for the doorway, stepped into the whirling clear liquid. He stuck his head in first, and the doorway pulsed and grew enough to allow him entry. Before Bortear was fully through, he spread his wings and appeared to push off.

The remaining Winged Dragon followed when the other did not return, and no sound of distress surfaced from the enlarged, shifting doorway. This one did the same. Enlear shoved with his sturdy legs as if there was a plummet into the unknown ecosphere. The first Spirit Dragon flew through because the doorway was so enlarged. Valtearia slipped through the clear liquid and Hanto followed her.

The three of us who accompanied them stared at the doorway as it shrank to its normal size. We stepped away from it, making accommodations so if the scouts needed to make a hasty retreat, we would not hinder them.

“Do you think they will be over there long?” Seemia asked, her eyes never leaving the doorway.

“We should have given them a time limit,” Winark said, annoyed they had not thought of that.

“Nothing to be done now,” I said.

It goes slow when you are the one waiting. The three of us did not talk. We sat there, thinking of the horrors that could happen to our scouts. Winark shifted many times, then got up and paced around the doorway. It was clear he was not accustomed to remaining behind. I, on the other paw, as a Spirit Dragon male, was well-practiced. His pacing was getting to my sister, who turned her back on him.

“Please stop,” she said, because she could still hear him.

“I should have gone with them,” Winark said. “If they do not return, it will be because I did not go with them.”

“Do not be stupid,” Seemia growled. “You would be just dead with them.”

I sat there and hoped the scouts returned soon.

Winark started blowing his icy breath onto the leaves lying on the ground and crushing them.

The first dragon rushed through the doorway at high speed, startling all of us, but her laughter filled the forest.

“Sorry,” she said as she calmed herself. “The doorway is different in the other ecosphere.”

She stopped and panted.

“I took a run at it.”

The next dragon came then, not as fast, but quicker than when they departed.

“That direction is weird looking when you go through,” the Winged Dragon Enlear said.

The other two followed after.

“That silver does not look as if it would give, does it, and the way it folds in when someone goes through it…” Bortear said.

“Tell us what you saw over there,” Winark said in a commanding voice, his patience thinning at the four babbling to one another.

“There is fresh red water for as far as you can see,” Hanto told them.

“And four islands,” said Bortear.

“Ice, snow, and mountains cover one of them,” said Enlear.

“There is another one covered in lava and one is a beautiful garden,” Valtearia said.

“What is the fourth one?” Seemia asked.

“It is bare. No life, no plants or beasts, unless there was a lifecycle under the soil that we could not perceive.”

“What is at the doorway?” I asked.

“Water, nothing but water. The islands are quite far from it. That is the reason it took us a while.”

I looked at Seemia to find her staring at me.

“How are we going to transport the Fire Dragons to the lava island? They cannot swim.”

“We will have to carry them like we have been doing with the Water Dragons,” Winark said.

“There are a lot more than five Fire Dragons and, by ill fortune, fewer Winged Dragons are with us,” Seemia reminded him.

“What choice do we have? They cannot fly or swim.”

“Even if the Fire Dragons could swim, the island is a vast distance. The only ones who could swim that far are the Water Dragons, and the lava goes into the water, and they do not handle heat well. Neither do we,” Bortear reported.

“Great, we were supposed to be leaving,” Winark said with an edge to his voice.

“We will,” Seemia told him.

“How are your kind going to fly them?”

“You know we cannot,” she growled.

“Yes, we know.”

“We must think of something,” Seemia said.

“We need what the two-legged beasts operated to get here, only on a larger scale,” I interjected into the argument between the two. “If they can assemble one, so can we.”

Winark glared at me, as if considering using anything the two-legged beasts used disgusted him.

“I am not talking about using theirs. Just build one of our own.”

“How do we do that?” Seemia said, cutting off whatever remark Winark had on his beak.

“I will study them. We can change it for our use.” I left, and Winark followed.

Nothing was spoken during the trip to the river. When we landed in the water, he let me know why he had come.

“What is your sister doing?”

“She is taking the leadership role she has always been meant to have,” I told him.

“I thought you would take on the leadership role.”

“I told you before that it was to be my sister.”

“Yes, but with everything that has happened, I figured that your kind might change that.”

“Why? Males of our kind cannot lead. Our females have always made and done the hard things,” I said, thinking of my mother.

“But the stuff you…”

“I have never ended a life cycle,” I said.

“And your sister has?” he questioned.

“Yes, she has,” I told him.

“What, she is so young?”

“She is older than I,” I said. “Seemia was young when it happened. She stood with the females of our clan, spear in paw, and did a job I never could have. Just as I never could have been on the battlefield with you, Winark. Death would have claimed me on these riverbanks. As so many of the male Spirit Dragons did. The females fight. We have visions, and we heal. That is all we do.” I looked at him and observed that he still did not understand. “Our connection is vast, and we feel too abundantly. It makes it hard to end a life cycle even if necessary.”

Winark stayed quiet, thinking over my words. I approached one of the floating vessels. Material from dead trees made them. They floated well. I stepped onto one and it sank into the water, but it held me.

“Winark, come here, and get into it.”

“No,” he said, “I will use nothing two-legged beasts made.”

“You do not have to use it. I want to know if it will hold your weight,” I said, becoming frustrated with him. “I need to see our options. If it holds you, a Fire Dragon will be fine.”

He did as I asked and smiled when it sank.

“Guess the two-legged vessel is not an option,” he said and flew away.

I watched him go and was glad of it. I had to figure out how these vessels operated. After moving the vessels and seeing how the two-legged beasts bound them together and the materials used to keep the water from seeping through, I heard a sound behind me. In the moments it took me to turn, my mind filled with visions of two-legged beasts who had hidden and slipped from the forest to kill the stupid tiny dragon who found himself alone.

To my relief, my eyes fell on a peaceful two-legged. He came around me and pointed to the vessel.

“tʃu?” he asked in his language and pointed to me.

I did not understand the words and only stared at him.

He spoke the same word. He pointed at the vessel and then at me.

I nodded and then spread my limbs wide.

“Bigger,” I said, “for Fire Dragons.”

“Dragon tʃu?” he asked in his language and pointed to me.

I understood the first word. I gestured at the vessel.

“tʃu.”

The colonist nodded.

“Dragon tʃu,” I said with my limbs wide.

He moved his paws around and said, “ʔondi hõɬ’a.”

“You make Dragon tʃu,” I said, pointing at him and then the vessel.

He nodded his head.

“ʔondi hõɬ’a Dragon tʃu.”

Before I could respond, he raced to his colony, and we had a tʃu being crafted.

I took to my wings to find Seemia and found her arguing with Winark.

“Flying the Fire Dragons will not work,” she growled in a tone that I did not know Seemia possessed.

“The peaceful two-leggeds are going to help.” I landed in between them.

“What are you talking about?” Winark growled.

Seemia moved to say something, and I raised my paw.

“A two-legged saw me looking at the tʃu…”

“tʃu, what is a tʃu?” Winark asked.

“That is what they call the floating vessels. The colony will make us one big enough for the Fire Dragons.”

“I told you we do not need—”

Seemia interrupted him.

“We will use what we need to so we can transport everyone to their island,” Seemia growled.

We did not realize it then, but the giant clan was starting to fracture. The Winged Dragons are a proud dragonkind, and they were not accustomed to being given orders.

“Winark, this option is the best. If your kind can get them on the tʃu and the Water Dragons can pull them as close as possible, then our kind can finish the journey,” I told him in a way that I hoped smoothed ruffled feathers.

He laughed as if the thought of the Spirit Dragons doing anything physical was a joke.

“We can finish the journey.” Genuine anger filled my voice for the first time since this journey started. “We as a whole will pull the tʃu.”

I felt a paw touch me when I glanced to my left to see that the leader of the Fire Dragons had arrived. Flamnor came because it was his kind’s future that was being decided.

“I trust Adner. If you think you can do it, then I say we use the tʃu,” Flamnor said.

“Then you do it without us. We will carry the Water Dragons, but after that, my kind will go to their new land,” Winark said, looking at us all.

“We will require help to get the tʃu up the mountain. It will be large,” I said.

“Then you will have fun.”

Winark said no more. He took flight and left.

“What are we going to do?” Seemia asked.

“The best we can,” I told them, but I did not know how we were going to accomplish transporting the vessel.

The tʃu was going to be massive, but trees crowded the mountain. How were we to drag it up the mountain, for the Spirit Dragons could not lift it alone? The Fire Dragons could push it to the doorway. I was confident of that. The mountain was steep as well. One thing that I knew was the Water Dragons were the first ones to cross over, and someone needed to talk to them concerning it.

“We must talk to the Water Dragons. Four of them, I am certain, will be happy to hear the time to leave for their new home has come, but I am not sure the fifth will.”

“You stay here and get a little rest. I will talk to her,” Seemia said.

I was grateful to give the chore over to her. Telling Mothers, it was time to say goodbye to their younglings was never easy.

I found shelter and solitude in the cave and closed my eyes. Sleep came within beats.

I floated in nothing for several beats when a light started to fill my mind. After the nothingness, it was hard to see, but soon my eyes focused. In front of me stood a magnificent tree. I walked around it and felt I had seen it somewhere. It was not the one from our mountain, but it sat on a peak. The Earth Dragon Mountain was what I had come to consider it.

Why was I here?

What need could it have for me?

Or

What need could I have for it?

“Why am I here?”

I asked it, but like all trees, it had no words to give.

I looked up into its branches and saw a knot high on one limb. On the limbs, the tulp flowers were bigger than any I had seen before. I could only imagine the size of the thorns each held.

“If I come here when awake, will I obtain the answers I need?”

The knot above pulsed with light.

I lay under the tree and slipped into the nothingness again. I rested in peace until someone started shaking me.

“What are you doing here?”

It was Seemia, and she sounded scared. I did my best to shake off the sleep that wanted to keep me.

“What do you mean?”

As I forced my eyes open, I shut them because of the light. A few beats passed before my foggy brain registered that no light should be shining on me.

“Where?”

“You are on the empty mountain,” she said.

“It is not empty. It is the Earth Dragon Mountain. Remember, you told me about them.”

She stared at me bewildered.

“You said you had a dream about new dragons that could make plants grow.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Yes, you did,” I argued with her.

“Adner, I would remember something like that. Let us go. We must figure something out concerning the Fire Dragons.”

“We have the tʃu.” I glared at her, feeling as if something was wrong. “How did I get here?”

“I do not know. I have been looking everywhere for you.”

“How did things go with Water Mother?” I asked, growing wary.

“Fine. They are ready to leave whenever we want to go get them.”

Seemia gazed past me as if not daring to look me in the eye. Then stretched her paw out to me.

“Come,” she said. “You still look tired. You need more rest.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am not skilled at this, am I?” the entity attempting to be Seemia said.

“Who are you?”

“Someone you were not meant to meet but who wanted to meet you,” her voice changed, and, in a way, it reminded me of Oisin, for it was the voice of many, only it was female.

“Were you attempting to get me back to the life tree? Oisin stated I was not to come back.”

“Oisin says a lot.” Her appearance started changing. She was becoming a two-legged, and I backed away. Her skin was dissimilar to any two-legged I had ever seen. It was not one pigment. It changed as she moved. Her hair was the shade of many. “Do not be afraid, he told me you would. I am not a two-legged beast you fear. I am like Oisin. My name is Udia.”

“You are a Guardian?”

“Yes, of another Earth.”

“Why did you want to meet me?” I asked her.

“We will need your help one day. My friend, who is the great turtle, will need your assistance the most. It must be the Spirit Dragons who venture to him. If you promise to help him, I will help you.”

“How will you help me?” I asked, still feeling uneasy.

“You need your vessels up the mountains. I can give you a way to move them,” Udia said.

“How can you do that?” I started thinking I might have found hope.

“I can speak to the creatures who originated from the Life Tree, and most will do what we ask of them.”

“Most?”

“They have free will, as do all living beings. There are foul creatures here who were born from the Life Tree you visited, but do not come from the Pale Stream. They listen to no one.”

I inquired no more, for I knew of whom she spoke. Two kinds of soul energy flow in this ecosphere, and both have their individual sources.

“Your kind will have to get the vessels up the mountain, but there will be a path for you. This I can do. If you promise to help my friend.”

“My kin will do what they can.”

Udia moved close to me, and in that movement, I found beauty in her. Her movements were not of a two-legged; she flowed with the grace of a creature who dwells among the four-legged. She touched my cheek.

“Live free always. Protect what is yours and sleep well.”

At these words, I found myself in nothingness again. When I woke, I was in the cave. Nearby, Seemia sat watching me.

“To whom were you talking?” she asked.

“A Guardian,” I told her.

“Did she do that?” Seemia pointed at the cave entrance.

I peered out at the mountains beyond. One of the mountains below had a small cleared path and large beasts of varied sizes were continuing to make the trail. The only trees still standing were the trees I called tulp trees. The path was not huge. I figured the tʃu would hardly fit, but it was a start.

Some beasts I recognized from the ones who stood with us at the river. The ones with large antlers and others with long noses were a few. There was one I had not seen before. He had long, thick claws on his front feet and a short, thick tail. The last one I glimpsed, who certainly was a predator, was brown and huge, with black claws. All around us was the sound of dying trees, screaming out their last protest, desperate to understand why they had to die for us. I shivered, remembering my words on top of our mountain.

I do not want any additional trees to be sacrificed, even if they are willing.

These were not tulp trees, but they were lives. Did we have the right?

“Yes, she did,” I told my sister.

“Is it for the tʃu?”

“Yes.”

“Did you promise something in return?” she asked me. “You had to have. They would not be killing the lives they protect for nothing.”

“They do not protect the tree, but the energy within it,” I told her.

“Do not,” she growled.

I cringed more at the dying than at her anger.

“I promised our help to a friend of hers one season cycle if we could.”

“What help?”

“If it was what Oisin was talking about, it will be a kind of corruption.”

“What have you got us into?”

“I do not know, but wherever the promise takes us, it is our own to bear, and we will bear it. We always have. Right now, we have a way to get the Fire Dragons to their island, and that is what matters.”

I faced Seemia. She glared at me with a warning. I had bound what was not mine to bind.

“I know it was not my place, but done is done now,” I retorted. Choices like these had been mine to make for several moon-cycles. Just because she desired to step up did not mean my cycle was finished. “How did the Water Mother receive the news?”

“She was not happy. She talked about staying. The other Water Dragons and I tried to talk to her, but it was her daughter who finally got through to her. They all will be coming with us.”

“Good.” I looked down.

My sister touched me.

“I know you did what you thought was best, and I do not know what else we could have done.”

“Thank you. I am going to see what the peaceful two-legged have accomplished.”

“Very well. There is not much else to do until the tʃu is done.”

I left the cave and proceeded to the colony. There I watched as the peaceful two-legged put the tʃu together. It was going to resemble the ones the two-legged beasts used to reach us. It was larger on the bottom. When the sides started being formed, it became clear that numerous could sit on it and the colony was making two. Behind me, I could hear the path continuing to be built.