Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction ❯ Defying Gravity ❯ Learning to Live Again ( Chapter 3 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Kita and Subu-chan 
Anime/Manga: Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Romance / Horror / Drama | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 02.17.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 1.6K | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Romance / Horror / Drama | Type: Songfic | Uploaded On: 02.17.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 1.6K | Status: Work In Progress
Chapter Three: Learning to Live Again
A/N-Thank you's go out to Littlevamp and Luki (Hmm, where have we heard that name before, Subu-chan?) for the kind reviews. Hope you enjoy the next chapter as much as you enjoyed the others.
For a long time there was only darkness and warmth and a feeling of protection wrapped around him like a blanket. Slowly, he became aware of confinement and a desperate need to be out. He struggled, the formless shifting of a sleeper. Gentle thoughts touched his own and soothed his struggles. Rest, my egg. Soon. But it is not time to crack shell just yet. He returned to slumber, content and loved.
As awareness and self slowly returned, he started to struggle in earnest. The gentle brush of another mind encouraged him. The confines of his imprisonment buckled and he spilled out onto the cold stone, weak and blind. He was gently gathered up and cradled. Rough caresses from something warm and damp caused him to protest. It came out as a wordless squeak that did nothing to stop the treatment. Hush, my little one, and let me help you. The tone was a very gentle reprimand and he obeyed without thinking, letting himself be cosseted and gently buffeted by the strangely soothing caresses.
Open your eyes, my hatchling. It is time to see what you have become.
Memory returned in a rush and he jerked upright, only to sprawl as shaking limbs gave way. Gentle hands helped him untangle himself and set him on trembling legs. Now, open your eyes, my love.
He dragged reluctant eyes open and stared uncertainly at the creature before him. Wide blue eyes stared back out of a narrow head scaled in gold and crested with two stubby horns and a golden mane. Small ears swiveled to orient on him. Heavy, damp wings were drooping awkwardly behind the thin neck. It was only when a massive scarlet head looked at him over the creature’s shoulder did he realize that it was a reflection in a lake of black water.
He squeaked in shock and stumbled backwards, landing in an ungainly heap at the claws of the massive red dragon. Gentle black eyes regarded him with amusement. Is your new body so shocking, Leon Orcot? Is it not what you wished?
Leon struggled upright again and crept timidly toward the lake again. Now that he remembered, he was stunned by the creature he saw. Is that really me?
Yes. Nogard’s amused voice replied. You are the first of my kind born in thousands of years, my child. Are you satisfied?
Will I look human to everyone, or only to people like Chris?
Nogard regarded him sternly, reprimanding him with a soft hiss. You can disguise yourself, but not yet. First you have to learn to be a dragon, my hatchling.
Leon backed away from the water and tripped over his trailing wings. He sat down hard with a pained squeak. Oww! He complained. How do I get used to having wings, not to mention a tail?
Nogard nudged him back to his unsteady feet with an indulgent feeling. Do not try so hard, my hatchling. You are letting your memories of humanity get in the way. For now, trust in the instincts of your new body. When you go out among the humans, those memories will stand you in good stead, but for now push them to the back of your mind so they do not hinder you.
I’ll try. Leon did his best to do as she said. It was hard, but after a few minutes, he found himself able to untangle his drooping wings. The tail was bit harder, but as he let the natural instincts of his new body take over, it became easier.
Nogard nodded, satisfied, as he managed to awkwardly fold his wings so the tips did not drag the ground. Very good, my child. You have the way of it now. Do not try too hard and it will come naturally to you.
Leon managed a few unsteady steps, discovering just how hard it was to coordinate four legs, two wings and a tail. The second time he went nose over tail, he embarrassed himself by making a low cry of distress. Nogard swept out a wing and gathered him close. Hush, my child, and rest now. You are doing remarkably well for the newly-hatched. Give it time.
Leon wanted to protest being cuddled to her chest like an oversized teddy bear, but the comfort she exuded quelled his internal struggle. He relaxed in her hold and watched in fascination as she darted her massive head into the lake and came up with a massive albino fish in her jaws. She pinned it beneath her claws and ripped a strip of pale white flesh free.
Eat now. She commanded as she offered the flesh to him. Leon should have been revolted, but the instincts of a hungry newborn overrode the protests of his human side. Ravenously, he bolted the strip of fish and the others that followed. In short order he had stripped the carcass bare. With an overfull stomach, the instincts of his body insisted he sleep and he collapsed in Nogard’s gentle hold, too weary to move. He was dimly aware of her curling around him as the darkness claimed him.
For an endless time, that was the pattern of his life. When he woke, Nogard would train him until he collapsed from exhaustion. Then she would feed him and he would sleep curled against her massive body. Time had no meaning, save as it related to his new schedule. Leon could not tell the difference in day or night without the sun. Soon, he found himself not caring.
Once, he woke before Nogard and was surprised to see just how much bigger he was. He was nearly half her size. She woke as he mentally compared them and lazily raised her head to regard him with amusement. You are growing well, my child. Soon it will be time to let you try your wings.
How? He asked, flexing the appendages in question. There’s not enough room in here to fly.
Patience. You already know how to fish, my child, so shall I teach you how to hunt today?
Leon raised his head. Hunt? How?
There are more creatures in these caverns than you imagine, my hatchling. Come. She rose and led the way deeper into the tunnels. Leon learned quickly how to stalk and kill the massive reptiles she called tunnel-crawlers. She also taught him how to catch the smaller and faster rodent-like creatures that also made the tunnels their homes.
Soon he slept less and grew restless. Even his dreams were troubled. Nogard seemed to sense this, for she was seated by the lake as he woke one evening (morning? Did it even matter?), staring into the waters like she was fishing, but her tail swirled back and forth through the cold waters.
Nogard? What is it?
She turned her head to regard him and he was surprised to see how thin her muzzle had become. But she offered him a toothy grin so full of happiness; he promptly knew something was up to make her that happy. What is it?
It is time for you to fly, my love.
But how?
The same way you wandered into my lair, through the black mirror of the moon. She told him with another grin.
The mirror wakens again, and we may pass out of the cavern. Out of my timeless prison! Her mental voice was a triumphant shout.
How?
Always before, the mirror only woke when someone sought entrance, but this time it shows only the endless sky! We may exit this forsaken place!
Leon looked down into the cold water of the lake and saw a night sky speckled with stars. This is the black mirror?
You do not remember how you can here, my child? You stepped through the black mirror into my prison.
Sort of. Leon shook his head, staring down into the dark water that now showed only stars and not the golden reflection he was becoming used to. This will let us leave, both of us?
Nogard’s head came up and her ears slanted forward. A fierce grin slid across her narrow muzzle. I dare it to try and stop me! There was exultation in her mental voice. There is very little that would dare to come between a mother dragon and her offspring. I do not think even he who imprisoned me here would risk it.
Offspring?
Her black eyes flickered and Nogard gently nudged his cheek. Of course. You are my flesh and blood now, Leon Orcot. I sheltered you in my womb and helped you crack shell, helped you find your feet for the first time. I comforted your dreams and fed you; taught you to hunt and all the skills you would need to be reborn as an eternal dragon. I am as much your mother as the human woman who bore you and your brother. Did you ever doubt that, my love?
Something swelled inside him and burst. What had he been thinking? She had done nothing but care for him since he had stepped into her cave. If he had still been human, he would have embraced her. Instead, he twined his neck with hers. No, Mother.
Joy lit her fathomless black eyes and she wrapped her scarlet wings around him. Let us go then, my son. She toppled them sideways into the water-
Which was not water at all, but the warm dust-scented night air. Leon felt grass give beneath his clawed feet and smelled the bruised green tang it gave to the air. Beside him, Nogard shook herself and sprang into the air with an exultant bugle. The downdraft flattened his ears to his skull as she climbed into the starry sky. Leon watched in awe as she dove and spun, weaving her scarlet body in loops and knots.
When at last she alighted, panting, she grinned at him. I will teach you how to do all that and more, my beloved child! I am free now!
The night passed quickly as she taught him how to use his wings to defy gravity, how to angle them to catch thermals and how to use his serpentine body as a rudder. By the time dawn had lit the sky, he had managed two short, unsteady glides and a plummet that he had only just managed to pull out of before slamming into the unforgiving ground. As he tumbled to an exhausted halt, panting, Nogard preened his mane and told him it was time to rest. Leon was more than happy to agree, since his wings ached from shoulder to tip. In the dark ravine that housed the black mirror, they took shelter where it narrowed and the walls towered high above them. Leon settled down with a sigh, shifting and refolding his aching wings until they were tolerably comfortable.
But Nogard would not let him sleep yet. We are not sheltered by my prison now, my son. Human still fear us. We rest in our human guises. Remember your human body now, Leon Orcot. She dwindled until she was as he had first met her, an old woman seated on the dusty ground. “Trust in your memories of humanity and let it shape your form. It is not hard, my child.”
Leon settled himself and closed his eyes, remembering those days (how long ago now?) when he had been a cop. Remembered playing ball with his little brother and Tetsu; remembered drinking too-sweet tea in the inviting smell of incense, there in the pet shop.
“Well done, my love.”
Leon opened his eyes and blinked down at his hands. In his vision, they flickered between scaled, taloned fingers and pale, thin digits. Then they settled and he looked down at himself. Human again. It felt comfortable, like a well-worn shirt.
“Now you see why I taught you how to be a dragon first, Leon.” Nogard said with amusement. “If you had hidden yourself as human when still newly reborn, you would not have been able to transform back. But now that you are comfortable in your dragon form, you can willingly shift between the two.” She smiled tiredly. “Now, it has been a long and tiring day for both of us, my love. Let us sleep now.”
Nogard dropped into slumber swiftly, but Leon couldn’t. His wings still ached too much. It translated into a searing ache in the shoulders of his human guise. He rose and moved away from Nogard, wondering if there was a way to stretch his wings without shifting back to his dragon form. He concentrated and found he could manifest his wings while still in human shape. He made an odd picture; he was sure, a man with golden dragon wings moving lazily in the dawn air. Picture? Unconsciously, he felt for his picture, the drawing Chris had done; the one that had been the only thing in D’s case.
It was safe in his breast pocket. He pulled it out and studied it in the growing light of day. It was untouched. He didn’t want to think about how it had remained undamaged through his transformation. That it had was enough. He gently refolded it and returned it to his pocket.
“How long?” He mused aloud. How long had his transformation taken? How many years had he spent in Nogard’s cavern prison?
“Not so long as you would think, my love.” Nogard watched him with dark, concerned eyes from where she lay. “Time passed differently there. My prison was detached from the flow of time. What was years for you and I was merely days or months to the world at large.”
Leon felt a surge of relief. He hadn’t been gone so long that Chris was no longer… He cut that thought off there. He both had and hadn’t lost his little brother.
Nogard seemed to know what he was thinking. “He might not know you now, my son. You said yourself that when he regained his voice, he could no longer see the human forms of Count D’s pets. Whether he would recognize you or not…? I think it is a question best left unanswered.”
Leon considered and nodded slowly. “I know. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt, though.”
Nogard rose and enfolded him in a comforting embrace. “Hush now. Let us sleep, my son, and when night falls, I will help you learn to use your wings so you may find the one you came to find.”
Cradled by her loving embrace, Leon slipped into sleep easily. Nogard woke him as the sun slipped below the horizon and for the next two weeks trained him until he could duplicate every maneuver she had first displayed and more besides. The rocky arroyos that had hindered him as a human proved to be a wonderful training ground; a natural obstacle course as he learned how to fly with more and more precision and grace. Gravity was no longer his master as he soared the skies like no bird ever born.
“You are a natural flier, my son, to learn so well and quickly.” She told him one evening as she lay across from him. “You surpass me and you have only found the sky recently. I have nothing more I can teach you.”
“Nogard?”
She shifted back into her dragon form and smiled down at him. Her muzzle was thin and weariness grayed her dark eyes. It is time, my dragon son, for you to go. He is still out there, the reason you accepted my gift. It is time for him to find you.
“What?”
Amusement filled her voice. You are the first dragon born to the eternal clan in thousands of years. I have saved you the search, my son. There is no way that D could pass up finding such a rarity. He will come to you, I guarantee it.
“What about you?”
I think I will rest awhile. Raising a child is a wearying job, but you are well worth it, my son. I am proud to have known you. She lowered her head and her scales assumed the grayish cast of the rocks she lay on. I think I will rest and dream for a few hundred years, before I try to discover what happened to the rest of my clan in the years of my imprisonment. You are the first eternal dragon to wing these skies in more years than the winds remember. I would find out why. Her eyes drifted closed. But first-I-think-I should like to-rest for a-bit.
Her skin went as cool and hard as the rock she lay on and in moments she was nothing more than an oddly-shaped stone outcropping. Leon knew she was gone past all recalling and he curled against the stony hide and wept as he had not done since he was a little child. He felt a gentle touch on his mind. Hush now. You could wake the rocks themselves with such noise. I am never so far as that, my beloved son.
Then she was gone, leaving only the echo of her love in his mind. The stone form he curled against was empty as the place in his mind. Leon sniffed and scrubbed the tears from his eyes with the back of one hand. How easily being human came back to him. Or rather, pretending to be human. But then, he had dealt with that every day as a cop. Monsters in human form, pretending to be the ‘nice young man from down the street’ or ‘such a quiet girl,’ even as they killed, raped or beat others.
But he was not one of the monsters, he thought determinedly, raising his head from the cool stone hide. He was a dragon now, last-born to the eternal clan, a proud lineage. Once he had asked Nogard if he had a dragon name, like in the stories his mother had read to him as a child. She had smiled her loving, toothy smile and replied. ‘I personally like your warrior’s name, my child. But if you must-let me see… You are Leon the golden, son of stone and a warrior born, out of Crimson Sky and Black Mirror. Is that to your liking?’
‘Is that your real name?’ He’d asked, enthralled. ‘Crimson Sky?’
Her mental laughter was rich and filled his head like an ocean of silver motes of amusement. ‘A fond nickname, given by doting parents, my child. Nogard suits me well enough, I think. It is only truth as viewed in a mirror.’
He’d had to think about that for a long moment before realizing what she meant. Nogard-Dragon spelled backwards. He wondered why he hadn’t seen it sooner.
Leon shook himself out of the memories and reverted to his dragon form, spreading his golden wings. If D was indeed searching for him, the least he could do was meet him halfway.
A/N-Thank you's go out to Littlevamp and Luki (Hmm, where have we heard that name before, Subu-chan?) for the kind reviews. Hope you enjoy the next chapter as much as you enjoyed the others.
For a long time there was only darkness and warmth and a feeling of protection wrapped around him like a blanket. Slowly, he became aware of confinement and a desperate need to be out. He struggled, the formless shifting of a sleeper. Gentle thoughts touched his own and soothed his struggles. Rest, my egg. Soon. But it is not time to crack shell just yet. He returned to slumber, content and loved.
As awareness and self slowly returned, he started to struggle in earnest. The gentle brush of another mind encouraged him. The confines of his imprisonment buckled and he spilled out onto the cold stone, weak and blind. He was gently gathered up and cradled. Rough caresses from something warm and damp caused him to protest. It came out as a wordless squeak that did nothing to stop the treatment. Hush, my little one, and let me help you. The tone was a very gentle reprimand and he obeyed without thinking, letting himself be cosseted and gently buffeted by the strangely soothing caresses.
Open your eyes, my hatchling. It is time to see what you have become.
Memory returned in a rush and he jerked upright, only to sprawl as shaking limbs gave way. Gentle hands helped him untangle himself and set him on trembling legs. Now, open your eyes, my love.
He dragged reluctant eyes open and stared uncertainly at the creature before him. Wide blue eyes stared back out of a narrow head scaled in gold and crested with two stubby horns and a golden mane. Small ears swiveled to orient on him. Heavy, damp wings were drooping awkwardly behind the thin neck. It was only when a massive scarlet head looked at him over the creature’s shoulder did he realize that it was a reflection in a lake of black water.
He squeaked in shock and stumbled backwards, landing in an ungainly heap at the claws of the massive red dragon. Gentle black eyes regarded him with amusement. Is your new body so shocking, Leon Orcot? Is it not what you wished?
Leon struggled upright again and crept timidly toward the lake again. Now that he remembered, he was stunned by the creature he saw. Is that really me?
Yes. Nogard’s amused voice replied. You are the first of my kind born in thousands of years, my child. Are you satisfied?
Will I look human to everyone, or only to people like Chris?
Nogard regarded him sternly, reprimanding him with a soft hiss. You can disguise yourself, but not yet. First you have to learn to be a dragon, my hatchling.
Leon backed away from the water and tripped over his trailing wings. He sat down hard with a pained squeak. Oww! He complained. How do I get used to having wings, not to mention a tail?
Nogard nudged him back to his unsteady feet with an indulgent feeling. Do not try so hard, my hatchling. You are letting your memories of humanity get in the way. For now, trust in the instincts of your new body. When you go out among the humans, those memories will stand you in good stead, but for now push them to the back of your mind so they do not hinder you.
I’ll try. Leon did his best to do as she said. It was hard, but after a few minutes, he found himself able to untangle his drooping wings. The tail was bit harder, but as he let the natural instincts of his new body take over, it became easier.
Nogard nodded, satisfied, as he managed to awkwardly fold his wings so the tips did not drag the ground. Very good, my child. You have the way of it now. Do not try too hard and it will come naturally to you.
Leon managed a few unsteady steps, discovering just how hard it was to coordinate four legs, two wings and a tail. The second time he went nose over tail, he embarrassed himself by making a low cry of distress. Nogard swept out a wing and gathered him close. Hush, my child, and rest now. You are doing remarkably well for the newly-hatched. Give it time.
Leon wanted to protest being cuddled to her chest like an oversized teddy bear, but the comfort she exuded quelled his internal struggle. He relaxed in her hold and watched in fascination as she darted her massive head into the lake and came up with a massive albino fish in her jaws. She pinned it beneath her claws and ripped a strip of pale white flesh free.
Eat now. She commanded as she offered the flesh to him. Leon should have been revolted, but the instincts of a hungry newborn overrode the protests of his human side. Ravenously, he bolted the strip of fish and the others that followed. In short order he had stripped the carcass bare. With an overfull stomach, the instincts of his body insisted he sleep and he collapsed in Nogard’s gentle hold, too weary to move. He was dimly aware of her curling around him as the darkness claimed him.
For an endless time, that was the pattern of his life. When he woke, Nogard would train him until he collapsed from exhaustion. Then she would feed him and he would sleep curled against her massive body. Time had no meaning, save as it related to his new schedule. Leon could not tell the difference in day or night without the sun. Soon, he found himself not caring.
Once, he woke before Nogard and was surprised to see just how much bigger he was. He was nearly half her size. She woke as he mentally compared them and lazily raised her head to regard him with amusement. You are growing well, my child. Soon it will be time to let you try your wings.
How? He asked, flexing the appendages in question. There’s not enough room in here to fly.
Patience. You already know how to fish, my child, so shall I teach you how to hunt today?
Leon raised his head. Hunt? How?
There are more creatures in these caverns than you imagine, my hatchling. Come. She rose and led the way deeper into the tunnels. Leon learned quickly how to stalk and kill the massive reptiles she called tunnel-crawlers. She also taught him how to catch the smaller and faster rodent-like creatures that also made the tunnels their homes.
Soon he slept less and grew restless. Even his dreams were troubled. Nogard seemed to sense this, for she was seated by the lake as he woke one evening (morning? Did it even matter?), staring into the waters like she was fishing, but her tail swirled back and forth through the cold waters.
Nogard? What is it?
She turned her head to regard him and he was surprised to see how thin her muzzle had become. But she offered him a toothy grin so full of happiness; he promptly knew something was up to make her that happy. What is it?
It is time for you to fly, my love.
But how?
The same way you wandered into my lair, through the black mirror of the moon. She told him with another grin.
The mirror wakens again, and we may pass out of the cavern. Out of my timeless prison! Her mental voice was a triumphant shout.
How?
Always before, the mirror only woke when someone sought entrance, but this time it shows only the endless sky! We may exit this forsaken place!
Leon looked down into the cold water of the lake and saw a night sky speckled with stars. This is the black mirror?
You do not remember how you can here, my child? You stepped through the black mirror into my prison.
Sort of. Leon shook his head, staring down into the dark water that now showed only stars and not the golden reflection he was becoming used to. This will let us leave, both of us?
Nogard’s head came up and her ears slanted forward. A fierce grin slid across her narrow muzzle. I dare it to try and stop me! There was exultation in her mental voice. There is very little that would dare to come between a mother dragon and her offspring. I do not think even he who imprisoned me here would risk it.
Offspring?
Her black eyes flickered and Nogard gently nudged his cheek. Of course. You are my flesh and blood now, Leon Orcot. I sheltered you in my womb and helped you crack shell, helped you find your feet for the first time. I comforted your dreams and fed you; taught you to hunt and all the skills you would need to be reborn as an eternal dragon. I am as much your mother as the human woman who bore you and your brother. Did you ever doubt that, my love?
Something swelled inside him and burst. What had he been thinking? She had done nothing but care for him since he had stepped into her cave. If he had still been human, he would have embraced her. Instead, he twined his neck with hers. No, Mother.
Joy lit her fathomless black eyes and she wrapped her scarlet wings around him. Let us go then, my son. She toppled them sideways into the water-
Which was not water at all, but the warm dust-scented night air. Leon felt grass give beneath his clawed feet and smelled the bruised green tang it gave to the air. Beside him, Nogard shook herself and sprang into the air with an exultant bugle. The downdraft flattened his ears to his skull as she climbed into the starry sky. Leon watched in awe as she dove and spun, weaving her scarlet body in loops and knots.
When at last she alighted, panting, she grinned at him. I will teach you how to do all that and more, my beloved child! I am free now!
The night passed quickly as she taught him how to use his wings to defy gravity, how to angle them to catch thermals and how to use his serpentine body as a rudder. By the time dawn had lit the sky, he had managed two short, unsteady glides and a plummet that he had only just managed to pull out of before slamming into the unforgiving ground. As he tumbled to an exhausted halt, panting, Nogard preened his mane and told him it was time to rest. Leon was more than happy to agree, since his wings ached from shoulder to tip. In the dark ravine that housed the black mirror, they took shelter where it narrowed and the walls towered high above them. Leon settled down with a sigh, shifting and refolding his aching wings until they were tolerably comfortable.
But Nogard would not let him sleep yet. We are not sheltered by my prison now, my son. Human still fear us. We rest in our human guises. Remember your human body now, Leon Orcot. She dwindled until she was as he had first met her, an old woman seated on the dusty ground. “Trust in your memories of humanity and let it shape your form. It is not hard, my child.”
Leon settled himself and closed his eyes, remembering those days (how long ago now?) when he had been a cop. Remembered playing ball with his little brother and Tetsu; remembered drinking too-sweet tea in the inviting smell of incense, there in the pet shop.
“Well done, my love.”
Leon opened his eyes and blinked down at his hands. In his vision, they flickered between scaled, taloned fingers and pale, thin digits. Then they settled and he looked down at himself. Human again. It felt comfortable, like a well-worn shirt.
“Now you see why I taught you how to be a dragon first, Leon.” Nogard said with amusement. “If you had hidden yourself as human when still newly reborn, you would not have been able to transform back. But now that you are comfortable in your dragon form, you can willingly shift between the two.” She smiled tiredly. “Now, it has been a long and tiring day for both of us, my love. Let us sleep now.”
Nogard dropped into slumber swiftly, but Leon couldn’t. His wings still ached too much. It translated into a searing ache in the shoulders of his human guise. He rose and moved away from Nogard, wondering if there was a way to stretch his wings without shifting back to his dragon form. He concentrated and found he could manifest his wings while still in human shape. He made an odd picture; he was sure, a man with golden dragon wings moving lazily in the dawn air. Picture? Unconsciously, he felt for his picture, the drawing Chris had done; the one that had been the only thing in D’s case.
It was safe in his breast pocket. He pulled it out and studied it in the growing light of day. It was untouched. He didn’t want to think about how it had remained undamaged through his transformation. That it had was enough. He gently refolded it and returned it to his pocket.
“How long?” He mused aloud. How long had his transformation taken? How many years had he spent in Nogard’s cavern prison?
“Not so long as you would think, my love.” Nogard watched him with dark, concerned eyes from where she lay. “Time passed differently there. My prison was detached from the flow of time. What was years for you and I was merely days or months to the world at large.”
Leon felt a surge of relief. He hadn’t been gone so long that Chris was no longer… He cut that thought off there. He both had and hadn’t lost his little brother.
Nogard seemed to know what he was thinking. “He might not know you now, my son. You said yourself that when he regained his voice, he could no longer see the human forms of Count D’s pets. Whether he would recognize you or not…? I think it is a question best left unanswered.”
Leon considered and nodded slowly. “I know. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt, though.”
Nogard rose and enfolded him in a comforting embrace. “Hush now. Let us sleep, my son, and when night falls, I will help you learn to use your wings so you may find the one you came to find.”
Cradled by her loving embrace, Leon slipped into sleep easily. Nogard woke him as the sun slipped below the horizon and for the next two weeks trained him until he could duplicate every maneuver she had first displayed and more besides. The rocky arroyos that had hindered him as a human proved to be a wonderful training ground; a natural obstacle course as he learned how to fly with more and more precision and grace. Gravity was no longer his master as he soared the skies like no bird ever born.
“You are a natural flier, my son, to learn so well and quickly.” She told him one evening as she lay across from him. “You surpass me and you have only found the sky recently. I have nothing more I can teach you.”
“Nogard?”
She shifted back into her dragon form and smiled down at him. Her muzzle was thin and weariness grayed her dark eyes. It is time, my dragon son, for you to go. He is still out there, the reason you accepted my gift. It is time for him to find you.
“What?”
Amusement filled her voice. You are the first dragon born to the eternal clan in thousands of years. I have saved you the search, my son. There is no way that D could pass up finding such a rarity. He will come to you, I guarantee it.
“What about you?”
I think I will rest awhile. Raising a child is a wearying job, but you are well worth it, my son. I am proud to have known you. She lowered her head and her scales assumed the grayish cast of the rocks she lay on. I think I will rest and dream for a few hundred years, before I try to discover what happened to the rest of my clan in the years of my imprisonment. You are the first eternal dragon to wing these skies in more years than the winds remember. I would find out why. Her eyes drifted closed. But first-I-think-I should like to-rest for a-bit.
Her skin went as cool and hard as the rock she lay on and in moments she was nothing more than an oddly-shaped stone outcropping. Leon knew she was gone past all recalling and he curled against the stony hide and wept as he had not done since he was a little child. He felt a gentle touch on his mind. Hush now. You could wake the rocks themselves with such noise. I am never so far as that, my beloved son.
Then she was gone, leaving only the echo of her love in his mind. The stone form he curled against was empty as the place in his mind. Leon sniffed and scrubbed the tears from his eyes with the back of one hand. How easily being human came back to him. Or rather, pretending to be human. But then, he had dealt with that every day as a cop. Monsters in human form, pretending to be the ‘nice young man from down the street’ or ‘such a quiet girl,’ even as they killed, raped or beat others.
But he was not one of the monsters, he thought determinedly, raising his head from the cool stone hide. He was a dragon now, last-born to the eternal clan, a proud lineage. Once he had asked Nogard if he had a dragon name, like in the stories his mother had read to him as a child. She had smiled her loving, toothy smile and replied. ‘I personally like your warrior’s name, my child. But if you must-let me see… You are Leon the golden, son of stone and a warrior born, out of Crimson Sky and Black Mirror. Is that to your liking?’
‘Is that your real name?’ He’d asked, enthralled. ‘Crimson Sky?’
Her mental laughter was rich and filled his head like an ocean of silver motes of amusement. ‘A fond nickname, given by doting parents, my child. Nogard suits me well enough, I think. It is only truth as viewed in a mirror.’
He’d had to think about that for a long moment before realizing what she meant. Nogard-Dragon spelled backwards. He wondered why he hadn’t seen it sooner.
Leon shook himself out of the memories and reverted to his dragon form, spreading his golden wings. If D was indeed searching for him, the least he could do was meet him halfway.