[Nano novel] Chapter Six: The Great Dragon.

The early morning sun warmed her face, and she awoke before opening her eyes.  A cool breeze caressed her face, and it suddenly occurred to her that she had fallen asleep in the woods last night, and stayed out there ALL NIGHT.  Her first thought was that she was going to be late for work, and she sprang to her feet in a panic - and then she remembered that, oh yes, she had gotten fired yesterday, so never mind anyway.  But still, she really ought to go back to her apartment - the television and lights and all that were still on and her food had sat out all night.  That was particularly disappointing, because she had a pet peeve about not eating food left out overnight, even if it was fully cooked and completely unlikely to spoil.

She got up and stretched, and decided that since she wasn't working today, or anytime in the foreseeable future unless she could find another job, she was not about to beat herself up over sleeping outside. If only she had brought some money, she could celebrate her first morning job-less by going out for coffee and french toast. Actually, coffee and french toast sounded so good that she was just going to go back to the apartment and get her money. Might as well spend all the rest, since there was no money more coming for a while.

As she left the circle of still-untouched grass - untouched except for the outline of a person indented on the blades, she became suddenly and startlingly aware of the lack of city noise.  No distant cars revving, no horns honking, no doors swinging open or clicking shut.  No keys jangling or people talking, no ambient noise at all.  This was odd in and of itself, but then she noticed that there was no fence.  In fact, the further she walked, the more it dawned on her that she was not in the park at all.  She was not even in the city.  She walked out of the trees then, and found herself at the top of the highest mountain she had ever seen.  It was so high, in fact, that she became immediately dizzy upon realizing that there were clouds below the ground she stood on, and she fell rather ungracefully when her knees got all rubbery and buckled underneath her.

Her head was spinning.  She had fallen asleep in the woods - she woke up on top of a mountain.  The incongruity of the whole thing was almost beyond her ability to process it, so she sat there in shocked silence, struggling to understand, and nearly gasping for breath.  She tried to get up again, but her knees were still shaky; she crawled closer to the edge, fascinated and horrified at the same time.  How far up was she?  Where was she?

After a few minutes, the world stopped spinning so badly, and she was able to carefully get on her feet again.  She faced the woods again, found the place she had exited.  Maybe if she went back in the same way, she could just get back home right now and not be stuck here.  Although... it was so peaceful up here.  She laughed at herself then.  How ironic, she had just been flipping out because she woke up in a strange new place, and now she was thinking it wasn't so bad.  Her mother would have a heyday with that classic example of Ava's contradictory nature.  Make up your mind!  her inner-voice mother said sternly.  And, of course you go back home.  Go RIGHT now, you foolish and headstrong girl!

Ava was certainly not one for doing what she was told, even when it was a voice in her own head that imitated her mother.  She deliberately walked past the opening in the trees where she had so recently come out, and walked instead along the edge of the small forest.  She could see now that it really was small - a stand of trees on top of a lonely mountain, just thick enough that you could not see from within the wood that you were, in fact, on top of a mountain.  Turning to face the startling vista again, she wondered (steadying herself against the bole of a tree) how far up she was.  Since she seemed to be having no trouble breathing, aside from the minor fit she had just minutes before, she couldn't be quite as high up as it seemed that she was.

Wondering what else was up here, she kept walking along the tree line, although it came into her mind now that she ought to be careful.  She might be letting her imagination run away with her now, but what other surprises - and not necessarily good ones - might be in store for her?  She walked as quietly as she could, avoiding small branches and trying to step around leaves.  It was because she was attempting to be so silent that she was able to get so close to the dragon before it saw her.

She noticed a long scaly thing in the ground that she at first thought was a snake, and then right after that realized it was attached to something much bigger and most definitely not a snake.  She followed it with her eyes, the lines of the thing, and let out a small scream when she had a name stored in her mind for what she was seeing.  Dragon.  A real dragon.  The dragon's head, which was nearly as big as a small car, swung around at her scream and two huge glowing golden eyes, eyes that were so large that it was difficult to understand them as merely eyes, looked straight at her and caught her in their mesmerizing gaze.

A sound like thunder on a summer night, when purple lightning plays in the clouds and the air is still and hot, rumbled up out of the dragon's immense chest, and came out rather unexpectedly as speech.  Ava had expected to be incinerated, since this great dragon, with its huge liquidly golden eyes and shining covering of rainbow-shimmering scales, was like a perfect replication of every frightening fire-breathing beast she had ever imagined while reading fantasy books late at night.  Instead, the glorious and terrifying creature spoke to her.

"THE SMELL OF THE RAINBOW IS ALL AROUND YOU," it said.  The thundering of its voice was so deep that it felt like it had vibrated through every bone in her body.  She could understand that she had been spoken to, and that perhaps a response was expected, but she could not think of anything to say, and indeed she had nearly forgotten how to form words herself.  If she were to die right now, either because of the mere fact that she was beholding the awesome beauty of the dragon, or because she would soon be burned alive in its fire (for surely it breathed fire, all dragons did, right?), she could have no regrets.  In its eyes was contained all of life.

"COME CLOSE TO ME," the dragon thundered.  She walked toward it now, drowning in its magnificent eyes, powerless to withstand its all-encompassing presence.  Her feet carried her forward of their own volition, or perhaps more accurately, of the dragon's volition.  She stopped mere inches from its head; a long and powerful jaw opened directly in front of her, showing sharp ivory teeth and twin curving fangs.  It breathed on her then, and she was bathed in an exotic heat.  She was dizzy, light-headed.  The dragon's will kept her standing upright.  "IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME..." it rumbled, and its magnificent eyes closed.  In that instant, she regained herself somewhat, and she gasped and her knees buckled underneath her.  Falling onto her face, she covered her head with her arms and began to sob, quivering in the certain knowledge that she was about to be consumed by the great beast.

For several minutes, nothing happened, except that she could feel the hotness of its breath on her head and back each time it exhaled, which it did very slowly.  She willed herself to stop crying, and slowly raised her head and looked again at the dragon, although this time she avoided its eyes.  There was a mesmerizing power in its eyes that was strong, enticing... she would drown in them if she allowed herself to look into them again, while she had just a minute ago been completely swallowed up and controlled.  She looked instead at its body, barely seeing out of the corner of her eye that its eyes were still shut.  It breathed, regularly, and did not move.  She got to her feet, as silently as possible.  It still did not move.  She backed away, putting one foot behind the other carefully, not taking her eyes off the dragon's still form.  She was several yards away from its sharp fangs when she tripped and fell hard on a large rock.  Her ankle twisted as she fell, and she cried out in pain.  The dragon's eyes snapped open, and it shifted forward slightly and brought its head near her.  She screamed, helplessly.  "Please!" she cried.  "Please don't eat me!"

"IF I WAS GOING TO EAT YOU, HUMAN GIRL, I WOULD HAVE ALREADY DONE SO," said the dragon.  "YOU ARE INJURED.  CAN YOU WALK?"

Bewildered and in pain, she sobbed out, "How was I supposed to know you weren't going to eat me?  What are those teeth for, anyway?  And no, I can't walk!"  She kept crying, the tears stinging her eyes.  What a bizarre and entirely frightening turn of events.  If she had only listened to the voice in her head, maybe she could have been back home by now.

"LET ME HELP YOU," said the dragon.  Ava looked incredulously at it, still avoiding direct contact with its eyes.  "THEN WHEN YOU HAVE HEALED, YOU WILL HELP ME."

Her tears abated somewhat.  "Are you... making a deal with me?  What could I possibly do for you?"  She wiped her face with her sleeve.  What she wouldn't give for a tissue so she could blow her nose with minimal mess.

"WHEN THE TIME COMES, YOU WILL BE WILLING," the dragon replied cryptically.  "IF YOU CAN CLIMB ONTO MY BACK, I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN TO THE KING'S CITY, WHERE THE REST OF THE HUMANS DWELL."

"Okay," she agreed, sniffling and wiping her face again.  "Just so long as you promise not to eat me," she added firmly.  Trying not to put any weight on her injured ankle, she limped back toward the dragon.  Its scales shimmered and glowed when it moved.  It reached around suddenly and grasped her around her waist, but before she could protest or scream again, it had deposited her on its back, in between two large ridges.

"HOLD TIGHT TO ME," it said.  "I FLY SWIFTLY AND I CANNOT CATCH YOU IF YOU FALL."

She clung to the ridge in front of her, which rose to almost a sharp point, as did the ridge behind her.  She turned her head to look behind her, and could see that the ridges continued all the way down the dragon's back and to the end of its tail, which seemed very far away.  This dragon was absolutely gigantic, and she was not sure whether to be elated at seeing and experiencing a real live dragon, or to be hysterical and start screaming again.  She decided against the latter; after all, it had just agreed not to eat her.  At least it wasn't going to eat her right now.

Wind whistled past her ears and she felt a lurch in her stomach, the same that she got on roller coasters; the dragon had just launched itself into the air and was spiraling down around the mountain.  A sound came from its wings - a sort of humming noise, and the flapping of its great leathery wings layered additional sound on top of that.  The combined sound was almost enough to overwhelm her senses, but thankfully as they descended further, the sound receded a bit.  She found, to her surprise, that she was quite stable in her perch between the two ridges.  The dragon's center of gravity must be working in her favor; if only she remember something more of the physics class she had in high school, she might be able to venture an informed guess about it.  What mattered was that she was not about to fall off any time soon.

She leaned a little to one side, so that she could see below them.  The wind blew her hair all around her face and neck as soon as she leaned away from her protected spot, but she caught a glimpse of fast-approaching ground before she leaned back in, out of the gusts of wind.  The sensation now was the same as driving in a fast car over sloping roads - moving, but stable.  A friend of hers had once been on a large cruise ship, and had told her that its movement was barely noticeable most of the time on account of its vast size.  This must be the same kind of thing.

There was a bump and a jolt as the dragon landed.  Its wings folded slowly back into its body, and its head swung around to look not at her, but at two figures who were huddled in the road they had alighted near.

One of the figures, a frail old man with white hair, shouted something she didn't understand, and made signs in the air with his hands.  Sparks shot up around he and the young man that was with him, and they disappeared suddenly from view as if they had never been there.  The dragon shifted itself and she heard the sound of its breath.  It was breathing on the spot where the two men had been standing, and they reappeared, but seemed faded, as if surrounded by a fog or by smoke.  The old man looked positively offended, and turned to speak to his companion, who was obviously terrified.  Ava herself wondered why the old man did not behave in a more frightened manner, or why he did not begin walking toward the dragon's fanged mouth as she had, while under its sway.

She clambered down from between the dragon's ridges and promptly put too much weight on her sore ankle, and that was when the two men noticed here.  "Ow," she winced, and shifted her weight quickly to the other foot.  The old one was now shocked - he stopped in mid-sentence and his eyes were round as saucers.  He pointed at her wordlessly, and the young man was also shocked.  No, not shocked.  There was something in his face that she could not place at first... it was recognition.  He recognized her.  Now it was her turn to be disconcerted.  She stepped forward, trying not to use her injured ankle, closer to the dragon's head.  It was still holding the two men in its gaze, but was unmoving.  Its great jaws were shut, and its eyes were open and unblinking.

"Who are you?" she demanded of the two men, because she could think of nothing else to say to them.

The old man drew himself up and replied, "I am Tristan the Magician.  Who are you, who ride so securely on the back of the Great Dragon himself?"

The young man looked at her in bewilderment, then at the magician, then at the dragon, then at her again.  "I thought... I thought that dragons... eat people?" he asked the magician in a shaky voice.

Tristan the Magician ignored him, and turned his attention to the dragon.  "Never in the long ages of this world have I ever heard of a dragon consorting with a human... not even the lesser dragons.  For the Great Dragon, Cernunnos himself, to allow a human to ride on his back... this is a portent that things are changing.  The world is changing.  And these two - "

"I ALLOW NO MAN TO SPEAK MY NAME, FOOLISH MORTAL," thundered Cernunnos.  The air around his great body began to feel, to Ava, angry and shimmery at the same time.  As if the dragon was able to cause the very air that surrounded him to be subject to his will and emotion.  Tristan stepped back; he must be able to sense the same thing.  Taliesin just stood and shook a little.  So far Ava was quite unimpressed with him, already having forgotten her own terror at first meeting the dragon.

"My apologies, great one," said Tristan, and bowed.  "I meant merely to say that for a legend such as yourself to mingle and mix with humans is not only highly unusual, but world-shifting as well."  Cernunnos remained silent.  "The boy with me has been through the rainbow, and we are traveling to the city of the king.  I am sure that in your unfathomable wisdom you know why he must go there."

The dragon's eyes blinked once, and focused on Taliesin, who went white, then seemed to relax, and took a step towards the great beast's head, slowly.  Ava, fascinated and a little horrified, wondered if the dragon would eat him or just smell him.  She shifted a little nervously, forgetting about her injury, and winced again.  Cernunnos breathed in deeply through his nostrils, opening his jaws a little as well.  Taliesin just stood still, obviously under the spell of the dragon's eyes.  Cernunnos shut his eyes then, and Taliesin stumbled back and fell, his face once again a picture of fear.

"THEY SMELL THE SAME... YET DIFFERENT."  Cernunnos' eyes were still shut.  "THEIR FATES ARE INTERTWINED WITH ALL OUR FATES.  THEIR PURPOSES ARE OUR PURPOSES."  His eyes snapped open, and he looked directly at Tristan.  "YOU WILL LEAD THEM TO THE CITY AND THE BOY WILL BE CROWNED.  THE GIRL..." he paused for only a moment.  "THE GIRL WILL FULFILL HER PROMISE TO ME, BUT LATER.  NOW GO," he said, and in an instant he had gathered himself and flown off in a howl of wind and the sound of beating wings, disappearing into the horizon at an alarming rate of speed.

The three looked at each other.  The magician was, for once, at a loss for words.  Taliesin took a deep, shuddery breath, and sat down, putting his head in his hands. 

"I don't understand," said Ava plaintively.  She sat down too, carefully, because her ankle still hurt.  Tristan remained standing, and looked off into the distance, to the north, the direction of the city.  

After a few moments, he made a harrumph-ing sound, and waved at the two younger ones.  "Get up!  We must go."

"Where are we going?" asked Ava.  "And, in case you hadn't noticed, my ankle is twisted.  I don't think I can walk very far."

"To the city of the king, which is currently empty of a king.  Taliesin will carry you, as he is young and strong, and those days are far behind me."

Taliesin looked up, startled out of his reverie by those words.  "Did you just offer me to carry her on my back?" he asked, incredulous.  "I don't know if I can - "  he looked at Ava, and his face changed.  Again, she could see that he seemed to know her, because it showed in his eyes, which were very dark, almost black.  She was offended, but at the same time she was piqued at needing the help he was not actually obligated to give her, so she kept her mouth shut, which was no small feat for her.  You can't change, the voice in her head said, just like her mother, because you are stubborn.  Just like your father.

"I can change!" she shouted, then immediately turned red, because both of her new companions had a look of... what was that?  Pity?  Surprise?  Embarrassment?  "Never mind," she said hastily.  "I can try to walk if you really don't want to help me.  I mean, if you don't want to carry me."

"No, that's okay," said Taliesin slowly.  "Here," he said, and pulled her up gently, then helped her onto his back.  He looked small to her, slight and possibly scrawny; but his back was firm and strong, and his shoulders compact.  She leaned into him and put her arms around his shoulders, trying to keep her clasped hands away from his neck.  What an oddly intimate position to be in with a complete stranger.  Except that he had looked at her like he was familiar with her already.

The three of them set off on the road to the city, too busy in their own thoughts to talk to each other just now, and too preoccupied to worry about any more dragons.  Nothing could compare to the conversation they had just experienced with the Great Dragon, and his cryptic statements ran over and over in their heads.