Hindsight

(This is the second story set in the kingdom of Wheir. This story stands on its own, but if you're a chronological purist, you can read "Bound" here.)

Three centuries ago, a wise king of men and an open-hearted sage among dragons came together in peace. They forged an enchanted contract to be enforced by the natural magic that touches all things. Now when a dragon and human meet, they are bound, unable to quit each others' company, until each has done a service for the other.

Their intent was unquestionably righteous. From time immemorial, humans and dragons have found themselves at odds, even at war, stemming from traits common to both their natures. Fear of the unknown. Self-preservation. Pride. Sometimes, plain old sadism. The two leaders created the contract in an effort to put conflict to rest. It worked, for the most part. There were plenty of awkward encounters that arose from the magical arrangement, but the more fatal varieties of conflict were all but forgotten for generations.

The lives of humans are short, and the lives of dragons are long, but neither of the wise elders lived to see the day the peace finally shattered. There were no witnesses, but rumor needs none. In a matter of weeks everyone knew that in order to circumvent the magic, one of "them" had killed one of "us". Our story begins on a night some forty years into the war.

---

Caroline lowered herself noiselessly from the bedroom window. She held her hand up in an "OK" sign, and the window clicked shut behind her. Kohei didn't watch her go. A month's allowance was enough to buy her brother's silence, and a cover-story if need be, but he still wanted to have some plausible deniability. Caroline wanted to point out there wasn't much plausible about it, but kept it to herself. She was on a mission.

She quickly made her way to the foliage at the edge of town. There, Alia was waiting for her, pressed as close to the ground as she could get. Caroline almost didn't see her, but the movement of the plant-life allowed the moonlight to catch the magenta scales atop her head. Being such a bright color made night-travel challenging, as she could be seen from a great distance away. To counteract this, Caroline had constructed a coat of wool dyed a dark heather that included a sleeve for Alia's tail. Her scaly body didn't feel the itch of the wool, but Alia wasn't fond of covering her head with the hood if she could help it.

Caroline climbed into the Groundling's back and they skittered away to the west, traveling in silence.

After an hour or so the pair arrived at the opening of a certain cave about two-thirds of the way up a rocky mountain. The girl and the dragon made their way inside, turning down a few familiar passages illuminated by crystal sconces throwing a soft blue glow. The little labyrinth opened into a library. It wasn't a grand repository, but neither was it a cozy corner for light reading. Long nights of study and experimentation were evidenced by scattered books and notes in some kind of organized chaos. Caroline cleared herself some space at a table and settled into the single human-sized chair to be found for miles.

"Well, you're here," said a voice that was simultaneously soft and gruff. A Groundling with lavender scales slithered down from a high shelf. Patchouli was Alia's older sister, and the library belonged to her. "You haven't changed your mind, then?"

Alia was busy trying to remove her coat. Her arms didn't really bend the right way to do so, but she was starting to get the hang of it. "We're not going to chicken out, if that's what you're getting at." She rolled over once thinking it might help, but it didn't.

Caroline hated to watch Alia struggle with the garment. She was going to rip it one of these days, but a busted seam would be easier to mend than Alia's busted pride. Caroline distracted herself by digging into the pockets of her own coat. She produced a small scroll and offered it to Patchouli with a timid bow.

Patchouli huffed quietly, taking a defiant moment for her dignity before acknowledging the gift. "I thank you, human." She carefully unrolled the parchment with delicate claws and scanned the text. "And what is this?"

"My grandmother's recipe for spiced pumpkin butter?" Caroline's voice rose sheepishly, turning her reply into a question.

Patchouli didn't waste her breath asking what Caroline expected a dragon to do with pumpkin butter. She filed the scroll away with the cookbooks in a rarely-visited corner of the library.

"You don't have to be a jerk about it," Alia hissed after her sister. She was finally free of her coat. "Or did you actually expect a 10-year-old human to get their hands on some..." Alia straightened and tried to sound Patchouli-ish, "hitherto unknown alchemical tome?"

"Shut it," Patchouli grumbled. She made her way to an empty patch of cave floor and began marking runes and other shapes with chalk. "Have you decided where, or, when you're going to?"

The two friends looked at each other. Alia was several decades older than Caroline, but in "dragon years" she was something like a teenager. Caroline often deferred to her judgment, but this time they simply disagreed. The human thought the dragon's strategy was too aggressive, too drastic a move. Alia insisted that Caroline was thinking "too small", but she couldn't ignore the uncharacteristic push-back the child was giving her. So, Alia spoke.

"We're going to the... the First Blood." That was the most diplomatic language anyone could use to describe the event that ignited the war. It was the thing you said in mixed company. Between friends (and on either side of the conflict), you might call it The Murder, The Slaying, The Atrocity, The Transgression or The Attack.

"It's our best chance," Caroline chimed in. "Whatever misunderstanding they had, it may be a third party is all they need to clear it up."

Patchouli tilted her head on her slender neck in approximation of a shrug. "It's no scales off my nose. You could turn the whole of magic on its head and I would still have it mastered by the time you come back." She finished her preparations and beckoned them into the circle.

"Thanks for this, Patchy," Caroline whispered. The room filled with pale light. Alia offered the anxious Caroline a claw to squeeze and turned to her sister one last time. She spoke in the growling language of dragons:

"I'll bring them back. Wait and see."

---

When the light faded, Caroline and Alia found themselves at the edge of a forest. It was a clear but chilly autumn day. Caroline instinctively tried to rub her arms to warm herself, but it didn't work. The two of them had projected into the past, bodies safely under Patchouli's care.

"Patchouli was able to get us pretty close to the place the bodies were found." She swallowed. That sentence didn't feel great coming out of her mouth. "It should be a five minute walk into the woods from here."

They walked as quietly as they could manage, but they both felt as though their hearts were giving them away to anything with ears. The girls were completely unsure what they would find. It was exciting, knowing they would witness one of the most significant events in recent history, but they couldn't forget for a moment that it was a matter of life and death. Many lives, and many deaths.

A few minutes in, a yellow-green hill appeared in the distance. Another minute, and Caroline gasped at the realization: that hill was a dragon - a huge one. Alia's expression didn't change. Every dragon alive knew of him. In the dragon language his name means Mossy Stone. He was an Earth Dragon, a large, lumbering sort of dragon whose ancestors were said to have emerged from ground at the beginning of time. Caroline had never seen one before. As they drew closer, she thought he seemed like the dragon equivalent of a tortoise. His massive body rose and fell with infrequent breaths. Alia put her clawed hand to his hide as they made their way around to his front. She was touching the scales of history.

They came around a curve and stopped. There was the man: a round face, a dark complexion, commoners' clothes. He sat on the ground leaning back against Mossy Stone, his face pointed to the sky. History didn't know his name. All they knew is that he was found dead with the dragon. Here they both were, alive, for the moment. The man turned his head to face the girls.

"What's this?" His voice was hoarse.

"Oh, you know," began Alia, hesitantly, "just two kids running around in the woods." Her answer was met with silence and a blank stare.

"How about you?" asked Caroline.

A twitch of a smile briefly distorted his blank expression."I see. Angels of death; one for me, and one for my friend here." His head lolled away from them again.

Alia studied the face of the dragon the towered above them. "What... is wrong with Mossy Stone?"

"Beats me. Hasn't said a word since I found him here." He swallowed dryly.

Caroline sensed her friend's unease. "What?"

"It's unusual for an Earth dragon to just... die of old age." Alia was pacing a little. "It's like he's not even there."

As if to answer her, two great plumes of purple-black smoke spewed from Mossy Stone's nostrils.

"He breathes fire?" Caroline perked up at the sign of life.

Alia's face fell even further. "He's not supposed to."

Caroline approached the man. "Hey, um..."

"Name's Ansel."

"Ansel, how long have you been here?"

He coughed as he chuckled, "three days."

The girls didn't need, or want, to ask any more. With Mossy Stone incapacitated, Ansel was doomed from the moment he approached. Whatever ailed the dragon, he was far beyond human help. Even if Ansel could have fulfilled the contract by aiding Mossy Stone, the old dragon was helpless to reciprocate. Any attempt the man made to leave the area was rendered futile by the natural magic.

Caroline fought back tears as she turned the reality around and around in her mind, searching for the next best thing she could do or say. Ansel read her face.

"It don't hurt anymore, so don't cry." He paused to draw breath. "It's enough that you're here." He tapped his head against the dragon's scales. "And you."

A weak puff of acrid smoke left Mossy Stone's nose with a rumble. Alia curled up on the ground next to the humans. "He says 'the feeling's mutual'."

---

"Well?" Patchouli's familiar voice brought them back to the present.

Caroline felt as though she'd been holding her breath for hours. All at once, she sank to the cave floor and dissolved into sobs.

Patchouli swore in her native tongue, showing an uncharacteristic level of concern. She gave Alia a frantic look and waved her arms in the human's general direction.

"There was nothing we could do," said Alia as she held and petted her soft-hearted friend.

"Plan B, then." Patchouli took up her chalk and began making adjustments to the magic symbols on the floor.

"I don't wanna go!" wailed Caroline, "Take me home!"

The dragons waited for her to calm down. Alia soothed her with the gentle purr dragons use with their young, recalling her mother. Patchouli busied herself with books in a corner of the room removed from the noise.

When the wails had turned to sniffles, Alia spoke. "Still want to go home?"

"Not without Mom and Dad." The new grief compounded on the old, renewing her resolve. She wiped her face on her sleeve.

Patchouli returned. "Squishy kid. If I leaked that much water from my face, I'd shrivel up." Caroline stuck out her tongue at the lavender dragon. Alia smirked, suspecting the effect was intended.

The prepared the spell for the second time.

---

They opened their eyes to serene, spring-green meadow. The sun was bright and hot. Patchouli wasn't able to get them quite so close this time. The girls raced in the direction of the sun. Somewhere in the distance, a wise king and a dragon sage were preparing a spell of their own.

King Domnall the Mage, not yet called "the Wise", muttered to himself as he checked and re-checked calculations. It was a noise that the dragon sage Torygrinn (as the humans had fondly named him) tuned out, with effort, to discern the sound of company approaching, curiously absent of footsteps. "Hold, my fellow," said Torygrinn, "We have visitors." The waited patiently while the youngsters stumbled to a halt and caught their breath.

"Hello," Domnall began, "How interesting! Projecting at such a young age. Marvelous."

"Please don't make the contract!" blurted a panting Caroline.

Torygrinn made a sound close to a "hmm". "What do you know about it? I do not believe we have discussed our plans at length with anybody. Dom?" A slight tilt of the head suggested that if Torygrinn possessed eyebrows, he would be raising one at the man.

"If I had to guess," said the king, "we may be so fortunate as to receive some foresight from two who are viewing us in hindsight."

Alia snorted. This man spoke as if he didn't feel the weight of the deed he was about to commit.

Her irritation was not lost on Torygrinn. He addressed Alia directly. "What troubles you, little one? Has the spell gone wrong?"

At time same time Alia said, "Yes," Caroline said, "No." Alia shot her a look.

"Well, not the spell itself," Caroline finished.

The girls explained as calmly as they could how the years of peace had been shattered by a war that began before they were born, and the explosive rumors that arose from the deaths of Ansel and Mossy Stone. The old men gave their full attention, sobered by the sincerity of the emotions behind their words.

At last, Domnall spoke. "I'm afraid that is to be expected."

"Excuse me?" Alia was incredulous.

"We could not hope to achieve a permanent end to conflict by this or any other spell," Torygrinn explained. "What we do is to encourage cooperation and kinship. It is for the people to make peace, or war."

"It isn't all bad, is it?" said Domnall to lighten the mood. "Look at the two of you and what you've accomplished in such a future."

"Enough!" Alia sprang at the king. Her projected body had almost no weight and her claws no point, but she pinned Domnall to the grass all the same. Her magenta scales gleamed hot and her eyes blazed as she unbottled her fury in the language of dragons.

Caroline didn't need to understand the words to know what was said. She'd heard this outburst a time or two before. Besides, half of the story, and half of the pain, was her own. She looked to Torygrinn. He bowed his head to Caroline in silent acknowledgement of all she had been through in her ten years of life.

Eventually, Alia wore herself out and released the king. She didn't apologize, and no one asked her to. Dejected, she turned away from the men. "Let's go home."

"We are truly sorry, little ones," said Torygrinn. "For what it is worth, we will take some more time to consider the methods of the contract. You have given us much to think about."

"Yes, I wasn't kidding about that insight," added Domnall with a warm smile, "What you've done today is, in a word, monumental, regardless of the outcome."

Caroline returned the king's smile and waved goodbye before catching up with her friend.

---

The three girls stood silent in the library. Two of them were too exhausted to speak.

"Considering the lack of parents, I'm guessing you didn't have any success." Patchouli's blunt assessment gave away her disappointment. "It's not your fault. It was always going to be a long shot."

"Can we talk about this later? I still need to run this human back to her bedroom." Alia began the struggle to get back into her coat. Caroline sank into the chair to rest while Alia sorted herself out.

"Ah, yes," Patchouli mused, "With those little legs, she would need the speed of Ansel to get herself home before sunrise."

Alia froze and Caroline snapped to attention. "What?"

"You know, Ansel? The little human man who crossed the province in a single night to save, oh," she mimed snapping her fingers while she tried to recall the human-name. "Was it 'mossy hill' or something like that?" She pronounced the dragon name to Alia.

"Mossy Stone," Alia breathed.

"And... Did he live, the dragon?" asked Caroline.

Patchouli rolled her eyes. "Of course he did! Do either of you pay attention to your history lessons?"

Caroline felt tears in her eyes again. "Apparently not," she sniffled, "I'll ask Grandma Merrie to refresh my memory in the morning."