Misha and Birdie

PART ONE

When Misha was three years old, they would cut her hair short and dress her in blue. They told her she asked too many questions, she sang too sweetly, and she cried too much. Misha was crying when we first met. When I heard that desperate, grating sound, it saved my life.

That afternoon, her mother had pushed her stroller to the park, a quiet spot in the shade, away from the other parents, and the other children. She had a business call with one of her clients, and her pacing and gesticulating was so great that she didn’t notice little Misha wriggling out of her harness and onto the dirt.

Little Misha was free! Free to run across the leaves, to root around in the dirt, looking for bugs. She was completely consumed by her newfound freedom, and so she missed her mother unlocking the stroller and continuing back up the path.

It was only after gathering several flowers and bringing them over that Misha realized her mother wasn’t there to receive the fresh bouquet. So she sat herself down in the dirt and began to cry.

The day had shifted into late afternoon, and the other families had long since made their way home for dinner and television and bedtime. There was no one to hear her, no one except me.

I had been asleep for a few hundred years, as dragons are wont to do, and so I had missed the colonization of the Americas, the industrial revolution, and the invention of the intelligent phone, but for whatever reason, amidst all the noise of construction and war, nothing had stirred me from my slumber until I heard Misha.

Emerging from my dragon pod, what people all this time had taken to be a small hill, I shook sod and leaves from my wings. After such a long sleep, I was admittedly grumpy, perhaps not my best self, and I found myself stomping over to the source of the noise to investigate.

When I saw Misha sitting there, her blue overalls caked in dirt, face red from crying, we both stopped. I had seen humans before, but never one so open. The spark of magic that exists in all humans was stronger in her than I’d seen in ages. Shocked, I suppose, by my enormous stature, she stood up then immediately sat back down. Her mouth was agape.

“Birdie!” she said, pointing, and a silver-blue warmth spread through me that I hadn’t felt in millennia.

You are lost, little one? I spoke to her in the way only dragons can, through the vibrations in the air. What is your name?

Her eyes widened at me, but she didn’t seem afraid, only surprised.

“Misha,” she replied. “You Birdie?”

Yes, I answered. In a way, I am like a bird.

She nodded, satisfied. “You pretty!”

You are pretty as well.

We sat there for a long moment on the path, just the two of us, softly looking into each other’s eyes. Her eyes reminded me of my own daughter, the one I had lost centuries ago. I had lost so many, but looking into Misha’s eyes reminded me to hope.

The sun had set, and the last light of the day fell around us in sweet orange tones.

Do you need help getting home? I asked her, and Misha frowned, just then remembering why she was upset, how she got to this place.

Before she could reply, I stepped gracefully towards her, and set my head down in the dirt. She was no bigger than my eye socket, but she seemed to understand that I wished her no harm. I turned the top of my head to her and vibrated softly. Get on.

Then we were flying, my first time in hundreds of years. The wind on my face felt amazing, and behind me, Misha’s yellow-red joy burn brighter than any flame I had consumed or spit out. As she screamed in delight, I lost my loneliness up there among the clouds.

I found in her memories the place she called home, a small hovel, with an even smaller alleyway, but we dragons have ways of fitting into small places, and so I landed smoothly under her window. A raccoon digging through a trash can looked up at me with scared, glowing eyes.

From in the house I heard voices. “He’s not down here. Is he upstairs?” “Calm down, he’s still asleep in his stroller!” “The stroller’s empty.” “...What?!” A string of curses came from the two parents, ones that I wasn’t sure Misha would understand, but that she was definitely too young to hear. She giggled above me as I lifted my head into the second story window, depositing her in her soft bed.

They call you he, I reflected to Misha as she settled into her pillow. They do not yet know?

“Birdie,” she answered, yawning. We dragons have a way of seeing the true nature of things. A hard life awaited her, but for now, an easy night of sleep.

“I see you again soon?” Misha began to blink heavily until she nodded off. 

I nodded my great head slowly.

Soon.

I dipped my head forward to kiss Misha on her cheek, leaving a small mark of dragon magic. Then her parents heard her fussing and came running upstairs, relieved.

I was gone, up into the night above, but I still felt an invisible string tying us together.

I had not forged a connection with a rider since the age before this one, an age full of dragons and riders, knights and sorcerers, whose memories have been lost forever to all but I. Being an extra-generational creature, I have always been reluctant to form attachments, but Misha was special. I couldn’t help myself. I would look out for this girl.

PART TWO

I had much to learn of this new age, one filled with constant vibrations. The noise was so great upon awakening, that I was tempted to go back to sleep. Sleep until this civilization fell and was replaced by another, gentler one. But when I closed my eyes, Misha’s eyes were all I could see.

She grew older, and when she was a teenager, told her parents that she was a girl, not a boy as they had been led to believe. How curious human beings are, that a difference in gender could cause such shouting, such hot, green vitriol. Dragons do not have gender.

I wanted to collect Misha at this time in her life, I wanted to protect her from the dull brown ache of her sadness, but I could not afford to cause a scene. I could not make my presence known to humans. They had grown in numbers, the air waves polluted with constant communication, and I knew any sighting of me would lead to my capture and possible death.

Besides, I could see her parents were good people, struggling to understand. So I kept to the shadows, my magic enshrouding me and protecting me from detection. And I began to plan our next meeting very carefully.

A year later, the conflict with her parents had subsided, and I found a moment to contact her. Misha had grown her hair long and was growing more confident in herself. She was staying out in the wilderness with others of her age. I believe humans call it “summer camp”.

Again, she was crying, but she did it so silently, no one would know it was happening at all.

I landed across the creek from where she sat, face in her hands.

Misha, I tried, gently. She looked out into the night, confused.

“Hello?” she asked, miserably.

Misha, I tried again. I’m here. It’s alright.

“Is this some kind of prank? This isn’t funny.”

I stepped into the creek, into the moonlight where she could see me, and I threw down any magical illusions that I had on me. She heard the sound first, squinting out into the darkness, then her eyes grew big as she turned her face up to look at me.

It’s me.

A flash then, in her eyes, between our minds, a memory. Her hand flew up to the mark on her cheek, almost unconsciously.

“Birdie.”

Her eyes drank me in. I knew that she had been drawing dragons since the day we first met, doodles turning more and more elaborate. But she had written me off as imaginary, as the overactive imagination of a child. Seeing me now, she had to accept that I was real.

She smiled, a playful white light, and my heart leapt over a thousand forests.

I crossed over to her in two bounds, and although she stepped back in alarm, her hand reached out towards me.

“We’ve met before,” she recalled. “When I was younger.”

Yes. I pressed my head into her hand and she gasped.

“I can’t believe this. You are real. Which means… you gave me this mark…”

The mark of the Dragonkissed. There used to be an entire civilization of people like you. Friends to dragons, who filled the skies like clouds.

“Where are the others?” she asked. I pulled away. Some truths are too hard to put into words. 

She nodded in understanding. “So it’s just you now.”

I am proud to represent the dragons, to defend the magic that still exists in this world. The magic that exists in you.

“Me? I’m not magic.“ She stopped. Maybe she could feel that was a lie. “I mean— I guess there’s no one else like me at my school. Or at camp.”

We share a loneliness deep as the ocean. It’s only traversable by others who understand.

The mark on her cheek swelled with refracted light.

Will you come with me? I asked her. The air trembled a bit, I was nervous. I will show you our ways.

She looked back at the groupings of small cabins where she was staying.

Then she shook her head. “I can’t.”

You shed tears because of them, yes? Why would you stay? I didn’t understand, or perhaps I did, and that’s what hurt most. Among your people, you are a matchstick. You have a stronger flame of magic than most, but any moment it could go out. With me, however, you become a torch.

Misha sniffled. “I can’t just like, run away with a dragon. Magic or not, I want a normal life!”

In my excitement, I had perhaps pushed too hard. I lowered my head, embarrassed. The choice is yours when you’re ready to make it.

“I’m sorry, I’m just not ready yet.”

That’s when things went wrong.

A man ran up behind Misha, pulling her behind him protectively. “Misha, get inside!” he shouted. “What– What is that thing?!”

He was an adult, whose aura wasn’t violent, but which flared intensely. Worst of all, he had seen me. He could report my existence and in a matter of hours, the forest would be full of people searching out my magic. They would come for Misha. I couldn’t allow that to happen.

I reared back, flapping my wings once, which sent a concussive blast directly at him.

He collapsed, still breathing, but with his memories of the last day shattered. I turned to go, before noticing Misha swaying where she stood. Air vibrations are hard to control, and the edges of my concussive strike must have hit Misha too.

I lurched forward, catching her small figure before she could hit the ground. Her eyes were glazed over, unfocused, and her mark of the Dragonkissed went dark. There was nothing else I could do. She would forget me again, and I would have to wait until she was ready.

PART THREE

Several years passed, like blinks of a tired eye. Misha found a group of friends in high school doing theater, and I snuck in to watch a performance from the rafters, cloaking myself more thickly than ever. She was happy onstage, trembling like a blue flame.

Her family took trips, and when she would travel, I would too, staying close enough guiding their giant metal dragon safely through unpredictable pockets of air. She never once experienced turbulence, I made sure of that.

She went to college across the country, in New York City, a place I had trouble navigating due to the high levels of signal interference in the air. That much communication vibrated the air so tightly that my magic could barely permeate it at all, and I was forced to travel on foot, underground, only in the deepest dark of night.

We grew further apart, the city necessitated such a distance, but every day I felt along the invisible string that connected us, listening.

I could feel her sense of self strengthening, a strong maroon hue, in the years after college, as she navigated relationships and jobs that kept her moving throughout the city, delivering packages. I did my best to watch out for her, but at this point, she could protect herself. That hurt too.

Eventually, she took a job in a tall metal and glass tower where she spent entire days. Nights too, on occasion. That’s when our connection weakened. At nights, I visited her window and caught visions, glimpses of her days as she dreamt, her boss who would berate her, her coworkers who would pull her down. This city was hard on my magic, and whether the humans knew it or not, it wore down the little bits of magic they had as well.

One day, something finally snapped. I was hunting for food in the wilderness north of the city, but I could feel the band of our connection pull taut, the colors going dark as ash.

I flew high up towards the city, shedding layers of magic. I didn’t care if I would be seen, Misha was in trouble, she was– I could see her in my visions. Sobbing in the stairwell, those bitter tears that drained her of hope. Then climbing, climbing up to the roof. All was greyscale up there on the edge, and the day was windy. As I weaved through the pockets of air, propelling with all my strength, she grew still, her long hair whipping around her as she stood with her arms out.

Then she dropped.

We were together, falling, I was falling towards her, she was falling towards me, and for a moment, I feared we would both hit concrete.

We met in the air, then she gripped onto me, choosing life, and her memories of me flooded back. “Birdie!” she gasped.

Misha. I resonated within her.

We flew up, into the clouds. You will be alright, I told her, and she nodded.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Her voice was raw, her aura a sickly pink.

There was no thanks needed. Those twenty years ago, when we met in the park, she shook me out of my own darkness and gave me hope for a new life, one filled with flight, beaming with love. I was simply returning the favor.

With my remaining strength, I ignited our connection, exploding out in every hue on the light spectrum, and I could feel her finally relax. I flew us over the entire city, magic pouring from us, cutting through the dense vibrations in the air. No one fought that night, and everyone dreamt peacefully. It was just a first taste of the magic we would bring to the world. Together, Misha and Birdie.