Bea’s Bearings

At the turn of the century, Bea learnt a valuable lesson. Three years chained in a cave can work wonders for your perspective.

Tucked away in an alcove under Olumo Rock, unable to transform or escape, unable to soar in the sunlight or drift soundlessly through the night, she withered away.

When the bright light burned through her chains and brought her freedom, she struggled to fly for months. Her muscles had atrophied, leaving her a leathery, pathetic husk.

Wyverns aren’t native to Nigeria. The two legged, essentially immortal cousin to the traditionally four legged dragon has always avoided the tropics.

Which brings us to Bea. Wereverns are rare enough to be thought non-existent, and usually smart enough to maintain the status quo. In human form, Bea was a woman of indeterminate origin and unfathomable beauty and strength. Her tight, meticulously crafted dreadlocks fell over olive skin with slightly upturned eyes and a tiny, tiny nose. Her lips were full and delightfully pink, her cheekbones just high enough to make people wonder.

Practically ageless, Bea learnt how to satisfy her appetites without drawing attention to herself. Godhood had been a marvellous grift, regular cooked meals, magnificent art and the finest women and men to feast her eyes and loins on.

The problem with being one of one is there isn’t a frame of reference. You can’t point to things other ones do and make decisions based on them, because there aren’t other ones. Bea had never met another werevern. Werewolves and wyverns, yes, and oh so many humans, but not a single other being quite like her.

At the turn of the century this became a serious problem.

She met a boy. He was a regular schmegular human boy, but he had a twinkle in his eye and sunlight in his smile and she met him. He owned a ship and he was going to sail to the Dark Continent to make his fortune and sell glass and guns for gold and spice and he told her this as she drank him under the table in a seedy little tavern that time has definitely forgotten by now.

He wove stories - fantastic stories that enthralled her and held her captive. He told stories of beings even she hadn’t seen, for at that time she hadn’t been further south than France.

He told her of the sunset skinned sirens of the south Atlantic coast, the ones who looked at a man and drove him wild with longing, so much that he would leave hearth and home to follow into he depths of the ocean and would never be seen again.

He spoke of Shettanma, the craven god of craving who was so good at sex that people literally lost their minds when he inevitably tired of them.

It never struck her as odd that most of his stories were of decadence and sex. After hundreds of years, she realised humans are defined by the sex and debauchery they try so hard to disavow. She didn’t believe a word he said, so the day before he was to sail she asked him take her along.

“It’s bad luck to have a woman aboard a ship,” he said when she broached the subject.

“It’s a good thing I’m not a woman then,” she replied.

He laughed in his drunken stupor at her fantastic joke, and his head hit the table moments later. She put his arm across her shoulder and walked him out. The barkeep winked conspiratorially at her, and she stuck her tongue out at him. She kept to the side roads and patiently made her way to the docks.

“She’s a magnificent ship, The Wanderlust” he’d proclaimed proudly earlier in the evening. She found it easily enough. There were shiphands carrying cargo onto it as she approched, so she took a running jump onto the ship. Anyone who saw her would have a difficult time getting anyone else to believe them, so she felt quite secure.

She lay him on a tarpaulin amidships, sidled down to the holds, found one with a large porthole, and sat quietly.

Now I just have to wait, she thought.