Snakes and Ladders-36

Chapter 36

*Wren…

It’s really important to me when I catch Shaya in those moments. Dysphoria is a damned horrible thing to live with and to have the social stigma that comes with that and all her own cultural stuff and pressure and then the abuse.

I have my own stuff, growing up and into someone that was the size of a Bear and so not feeling any of that well it was all sorts of hell and finding yourself in the midst of all of it is really hard.

But I really get the whole thing that just smacked Shaya and I’ll even go so far as to say it could be like post-fight related too when the adrenaline wears off and everything and the blood cools down but the mind is still in sort of fight mode or semi-fight mode and that kind of stuff still messes with your head.

I knew a lot of vets from driving truck there’s a lot of people that I knew that were really messed up.

Shaya’s my sweet angel but she’s still really messed up and she’s really still serving.

Bhlaze… ~You never really stop serving Wren, Shaya’s guilt from the wrongs would have eaten her alive long before now if she hadn’t taken service with me. ~

We’re actually all ready to fly but we’re just walking through the streets of The Holy city right now and I’m getting more and more used to doing things while mentally doing other things like talking.

~You each haven’t said how you and she happened. ~

~We can’t that’s sealed between ourselves a rider’s bond is a sacred thing and I’d prefer to keep it so. ~

I look at him and reach over and scratch some of the back of the jaw-hinge scales which I know he likes. ~I can respect that. ~

~Good, you’ll have to. ~

Okay it’s kind of neat and kind of strange that I can feel/hear the sarcasm in his reply through my link with him and Shaya.

~So, you know where we’re going? ~

Bhlaze wuffle-chuff’s. ~Of course I do I have been here so many times Erendae that if you added it all together I will have been here longer than you have been alive.~

~Wow, so you make old feel grey. ~

He nose bumps my butt and sends me in this little hop push like into the air and three feet ahead. “Hey!”

~Is for herd animals you deserved that you silly human. ~

I laugh and we are getting some looks anyways and I’m smiling and walking backwards now looking at him which is making me smile all the more too since it’s been a long while in my old life since I could actually do that.

~So Shaya and I were sort of sharing and apparently according to Ilisa my people and your people have met before? ~

~Well your people and The Sylvan’s have and I would have to say to some degree too with dragon kind too although it’s nothing within my memories. ~

~Okay well does your kind have like histories and the like of it? ~

~We must but I am not nearly old, nor wise, nor powerful enough to be considered an Elder Dragon and have access to The Keepings.~

~The Keepings? ~

~It’s like our library and it’s located deep in our homeland. ~

~You have a homeland? I mean like of course you would but all of the legends with Dragons and the like sort of never really talk about such a place. ~

~Not many of my kind really speak much of it, it’s a legend of our own actually and because of our powers it is invitation only. ~

~So like a retirement thing? ~

~Much-like yes and for those of us not exiled like the dark dragons and Shai-Tan when we die our bodies are pulled there from wherever they have fallen by the powers of home returned.~

He stops and he looks at me and the link gets bigger, more powerful and I’m suddenly not there in the city but I’m with him and there’s some huge battle that had just gone on and there’s dead Trolls everywhere and Goblins too and there’s things burning and it’s snowing and there’s fog?

~Dragon’s battled here, Frost and Fire and Storm…this is what you’re seeing, leftovers of that…but here look. This was Fayine…she was a brave dragoness and when the Troll Warlord G’vassh raised an army and used the blackest of powers to bring over a beast from the hell-planes Fayine battled the demon tooth and claw and frost and snow and she saved The Fortress of Shining-Star from being overrun by darkness and saved so very, very many lives. ~

I see part of the battle in a flash…she was silvery white scaled like pearls and ivory and she was fighting this creature that was covered in what looked like natural plate armor if it was made from flesh and bone and leather and volcanic rock and it was huge…and I mean huge twice the size of all of the troll and they rolled and rolled and blocked and bit and tore into each other and the demon tried to escape but it wasn’t fleeing it wanted free of the battle to feed…feed on this castle and the little walled town surrounding it.

And she wasn’t allowing it… and part of me wants to cry and scream and my mind is freaking out because this is real, he was there and demons are real.

Which is a bit of something…yeah it’s hurting my head and my heart to know this now and she’s losing.

Every time it gets away from her it hammers on her with even greater anger and hate and somehow time after time she recovers.

She even does this sort of jump like we do to travel but she flash-jump tackles it.

Twice…no three times and that last time she pins it down and there’s this surge?

~What? ~

~Ice magic, some of the very most powerful ice magic where cold borders of flames in how the aspects of control can happen.~

~Aspect’s like how fire magic can control temperature? ~

~Aye, almost all magics are interconnected at their highest masteries. ~

~Oh… Well I’m glad I got that right. ~

I have no idea what I’m seeing but I see her build this energy in her mouth and it seems to spread within her and there’s this huge, huge explosion.

It’s white and silver and blue, it’s burning so blue.

~What? ~

~Shaya’s brother Brennan called it Cold Fusion. It was the only way she could win. ~

~Oh Holy cheese…~

~That’s a few blocks over. ~

The scene shifts and I’m back looking at the aftermath and her broken body the only thing that’s there and I think that’s just because of her having so much resistance to what happened. Then I see this light…it’s like a halo of light but it’s the same color as that vibrant electric-blue incandescence that happens when we jump.

Only it’s there over her a few hundred feet up and her body begins to fade away and as it’s fading it’s breaking up or like maybe evaporating and there’s motes of magic or starlight itself and they’re all rising and flowing into that halo and they’re…I can feel it as much as he did.

They called her home.

He pulls out of my head or the deep link with me and I’m bawling because it was the scariest thing to learn and it was one of the most beautiful and spiritual things that I have ever seen in my…in both my lives actually and I can’t help but to walk right into his muzzle and hug his face.

It takes me a while before I can stop hugging him and shaking and being all emotional and I rub his face scales and let him go and he does the head lift and look at me like he’s bemused and that he’s happy that I felt this so strongly.

That I felt with him and for one of his so strongly.

We start walking again and we are still attracting looks and attention. Partly because it’s a walking dragon and that’s rare here and I’m getting a lot of looks myself.

And there’s some whispers of… “It’s her.”

And… “Human.”

It’s odd that here I’m the being from story and legends.

I don’t even really know what those stories and such really are but no one’s running from me screaming so that’s good I guess.

And Bhlaze is sort of mind nudging me with feeling of directions too as we go through the city and I suppose we could have just hop-flown to the places but I thought that’d seem rude and rushed and this is a truly amazing place.

Just considering The Great Tree alone…it’s huge, and by huge I mean it’s beyond scope to me. I can see the rising roots from here and on those roots there’s roads, not paths but roads and with those there’s buildings like spires and towers and some are old stone and some are what looks like clay or porcelain buildings and some are towers that are actually from little offshoot branches or parts of the tree that are growing up like those little sapling shoots at the base of some trees and these sapling-shoots are molded into towers or hold tree houses that are like whole buildings and barns..and they are five and six or more stories high.

You can see the shape of the canopy from here but not the actual details because of clouds and fog between the bottom of the canopy and the city.

It’s so high that it doesn’t really affect the sunshine, but it’s huge enough that it breaks and buffers all of the storms.

I’m told it’s a forest within a tree that it’s the home to rangers and druids and their kin and fae and all manner of beings.

And now place it by the shore of this huge flat crystalline lake and then surround it with a city on one third a side that is so old and lived in and care worn that it has this immense charm to it.

I inhale and I like it here.

Actually I love it here.

The streets are worn flag stones and they’re of this white slate. It’s actually a kind of slate or maybe a sort of shale but it’s white and it’s all over the city. The buildings are made of it too or the first floors for about half of them are with the rest being built of wood like ruins reclaimed and then there’s some of stone and mortar and others of bricks and tiles and all are old and worn some are exotic and yet been here for what feels like forever and it’s.

It’s Old Quarter New Orleans under the tree.

And the trees.

I mean there’s that tree sure but there’s trees here that are huge and old and some of them are some of the most amazing looking things I have ever seen.

Cherry trees and other fruits trees and something are in bloom always here.

Willow trees shaped to look like faces with hair sometimes.

Huge oaks and elms and others I don’t know.
Trees with little shrine archways in them and statues.

Trees in yards with shaped wood. Cupped divots and places for other plants to grow…I see an apple tree in a house yard and it had been full with apples and there had been so many strawberries in it’s planters and the runners had climbed through the tree that is was decorated with little red jewels.

It’s everywhere.

I’m in no hurry taking all of this stuff in. My new home and all this wonder and beauty and this being precious to Shaya and it’s becoming that way for me too.

And then well…well there’s shopping.

And Shaya’s not a shopper.

She’s never been brave enough to from what I feel. Get in get out don’t linger all her old life and that’s a habit now. She’s also a royal so most things she wanted others got or found or went for her….and she’s actually still very sort of shy and scared of her public now even after her change.

But I am better at it.

I buy food, I get some cheeses and some bread and some tomatoes and a few other odds and ends and I get some hard to find things like fae-fluffs.

This is what they call marshmallows and they’re wonderful and old school all cut to order and everything and I get those and I get a waxed paper package from a bakery and then I’m off to a few other shops where I get some blankets and a couple of nice quilts and I get a couple of bedrolls and everything is packed and tied up for me and Bhlaze.

I’m happy too… Blankets, and cozy things and yummy things and I think that we’re all set and I get us close to the lake and take in the view as I saddle up.

~This so reminds me of a song, of music from home and I can’t remember all of it. ~

~Oh? Know you not the dragonic cantrip for memories? ~

~Uhm no…I’m the bonded and not the Rider. ~

~Pfft matters not, you’re still linked to us and that’s enough. Now bring what you have on your mind and just channel power to it and you will remember the whole of it. ~

~I will? ~

~Yes.~

~And can I share this with you or Shaya? ~

~Aye.~

~Well then I want to be in the air for this and headed home are we do a fly around The Great Tree. ~

~Ha, you’re like Shaya you both love to circle the tree. ~

~It's amazing and the view with it and the lake and the city it’s just amazing. ~

~Yes it is!~ he launches into the sky and he does a dipping glide over the water gaining speed and them he’s climbing and we catch a thermal and we bank going with it and up and, and up and them we start to go around The Great Tree a little dragon like a bush plane in front of a literal mountain of a truck and we’re coming around it and leveling off and I take a breath and channel the power into the memory of a perfect song for this and we’re coming around the bend of the tree to get the lake into sight and the city after that and I’m replaying.

*Bonny Portmore* in my head as I’m flying back to my love on dragon back.