Odd Cases

I didn’t show any magekal gifts until I was fifteen. Most mages learn at least five spells by the age of ten.

Since my family assumed me a lack-magek, they would leave me alone to attend the house while my mother and brother helped maintain the border against Avalon, still mad we were no longer their territory. My father was just as absent on Spirit King business, the kind he would never explain because even the dead deserve privacy.

To say I was lonely at that time would be an understatement. It is a horrible thing to be half-abandoned, when your family is never around for reasons you can’t argue. I resent it more now than I did then.

I was fourteen and working on the garden near our house, as I had cleaned the whole place, and already stripped its books of all their knowledge. It wasn’t a well kept garden, but it kept me busy. It also put me in the perfect position to see a boy walking toward the house.

“No one’s here,” I told him, continuing my work.

“You’re here,” he said. He had auburn hair and freckles on his cheeks, with almost white eyes that I found hard to look away from.

After catching myself staring, I returned to my work more intently.

“As far as you are concerned,” I informed him, “I am no one.”

“I’m here to see Morgana,” he explained, ignoring my hints to leave.

“She’s defending the border, like most of our best mages.”

“Not that Morgana.”

I shared a name with my mother. My parents weren’t very inspired when I was born, apparently. I never considered it to be my name, really. Nobody referred to Morgana the daughter as someone of import.

“Which one, then?” I asked. Surely no one could be calling on me. I was a recluse unless I needed to barter.

“There’s supposed to be one that lives here all the time,” he said, “She helped a friend solve a problem.”

“What problem?” I asked. I occasionally offered assistance in exchange for food or whatever else I might need. You learn much while managing a house.

“Something was eating her garden.”

“So we built a fence,” I recalled.

“Ha! You are Morgana,” he accused.

I looked at him unimpressed.

“I knew that,” I said.

“But you were hiding it,” he said.

“I had no reason to tell you until now. What is your name, since we are exchanging?”

“Balendin,” he said.

“Well Balendin, what is your problem?”

Balendin worked for the dragon stables. They were a recent creation to make up for the lack of Feyries, as their absence left many dragons without caretakers. I’d heard mention of them through my neighbors, but I had never expected to enter them. Though I thought dragons beautiful, I’d never bonded to one as a rider.

We started in the water dragon stable. To call it a stable isn’t exactly the most accurate term, because these places are not built to house trained creatures, but rather to grant a home to those that might need it. The water dragon stable was a lake, with all the necessary items to take care of them. When Balendin and I stepped onto the lake, we didn’t sink, as neither of us were accepted caretakers for them. I could see some of them asleep at the bottom, which was a fantastic delight. They seemed to sleep woven together, as if to keep themselves from separating.

“It’s deeper than than most could endure,” Balendin admitted.

“Then how will I figure out what’s wrong with them?” I asked.

“They don’t wake up,” a woman answered to the side. There were runes on her uniform that marked her as one of the caretakers of them, “We can occasionally get them to eat, but otherwise they stay asleep.”

That didn’t make any sense.

“They tend to stay deep, but they’re rather active creatures, aren’t they?”

“Just so,” the woman said.

“They aren’t the only ones with a problem,” Balendin admitted.

He next took me to the fire dragon stables, where they similarly huddled together, though this time we could see some of the drakes nipping at the others.

“They’re also staying asleep?” I asked.

“Or they’re—”

The closest sound I can compare to the fire dragons’ whine is a warning siren, including volume, as plugging my ears did little to keep the sound from burning in my skull.

I watched them as they howled to the ceiling, and could see the exhausted expression on their caretakers’ faces.

Once their noise subsided, I had Balendin walk me around the room, which looked almost uncomfortably perfect, though it quickly became too hot for me to endure.

Next came the earth dragons, who I initially didn’t see, until one climbed out of the dirt as Balendin pulled me out of its path.

“What is wrong here?” I asked.

“They seem perfectly content actually,” Balendin said, “It’s difficult to keep track of them all, but we’re managing.”

“Then why bring me here?” I asked.

Balendin shrugged.

“It was on the way.”

They were amazing with how they moved the earth. I had little concept what to do with myself until Balendin moved me finally to the night and moon dragon stable.

Night dragons and moon dragons have a symbiosis of sorts. As the largest creatures above land, night dragons are able to provide an easy defense to the moon dragons, who in turn give them knowledge of threats before they arrive. It made sense to have them share a stable, as having them separate would be cruelty.

Initially the stable seemed empty, until Balendin had me duck from the snapping jaws of a previously invisible night dragon.

“They’re hostile?” I asked.

“Aside from the riders, yes, they’re hostile to all intruders.”

“Has someone died?”

“Not yet,” Balendin said, quickly pulling me out of the building, “But that’s because normally no one else goes in there. They don’t attack mages who enter their caves, though.”

“Maybe they know something happened to the Fey,” I offered, “Which is turning them hostile.”

“Except the ones still in the caves are kind as ever,” he repeated.

“What?”

“The ones in the caves aren’t hostile in the slightest. I can even snuggle up to one of them and they won’t care. Night dragons aren’t predatory so much as defensive, and they agreed to come here, so there’s no reason to view us as a threat like they do.”

“If the caves are safe, can we go there?” I asked.

“What?”

“Perhaps we can find the solution for this built environment in the natural one.”

The main difference between the water dragons’ natural lake and their new one was that the water was murkier, as I couldn’t see any dragons initially.

Several kids our age were using the lake as something comparable to an ice rink, gliding and dancing alone and in groups. Every now and then one of the dragons would surface and soak everyone with water, snickering as it returned to its environment.

“What’s the difference between this water and the water in the stable?” I asked.

Balendin shrugged.

“We clean it more?”

“Maybe you should clean it less,” I offered.

The dragons even looked a little different here, their scales were smoother, and cleaner.

“You think it’s the water?” he asked.

“I don’t have much else to go on.”

These dragons were clearly happy, enjoying a relationship with the children.

“Maybe play with them more too.”

Fire dragons lived in a mostly inactive volcano. When the caretakers heard we would be going there, they gave us charms made from fire dragon scales with runes that would keep us from being burned alive, a valuable resource as it was sweltering even with the protection.

“That’s the first difference,” I said, “I think it should be warmer.”

“It was warm in the stable,” Balendin replied.

“We didn’t need charms to keep us cooler in the stable.”

The young ones flew in groups together, led by older members of the horde, who would switch with others as they grew tired.

“Do you have older dragons in the stable?” I asked.

“I can ask,” Balendin said, “How are you sure they’re older?”

I pointed out their slightly more dimmed scales and greater amount of scars, as well as longer beard scales. I’d also read enough about fire dragons to know the older ones were the primary caretakers of the drakes, while the younger adults managed hunting for the horde.

We watched the fire dragons until we couldn’t take the heat anymore, probably staying longer than we should have. I just found the whole group endearing.

Just before we left, a group came in with their catch through the top of the mountain. I took note of it as Balendin dragged me out.

The night and moon dragon cave system was a complex one, which had me holding tight to Balendin’s arm.

“Is the stable this complex?” I asked.

“That would be a nightmare,” Balendin said, “I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“It’s worth the attempt,” I said, “For the dragons’ sake.”

“Why don’t we actually watch the dragons before you draw your conclusions?”

I supposed that was an option.

Before we made it though, a creature swooped down on us. Quickly, Belendin pulled us out of its reach, keeping us down as a flock of its fellows followed its path.

“Cave blights,” Belendin explained, “Nasty buggers taking whatever they can grab.”

“They’re just trying to live,” I defended, “Though there’s probably a better way to go about it.”

He brought me to one of the alcoves where we were stopped by a night dragon’s snarl until it sniffed us and lifted its head back up.

“For something so large, it’s not slow,” I commented.

“Or it just disappeared in the meantime.”

Balendin wasn’t quite wrong as the room seemed to be empty the moment we stepped inside.

“Who gave them the ability to do that?” he asked.

“Fey,” I answered, “With permission, old dragons were mutated into the five kinds we know today, which is why they can all interbreed. I wonder if there are more kinds back where the fey are.”

Balendin stared at me in a way I was far too used to.

“You meant that as a complaint, not a question.”

He nodded.

“My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a feyrie,” I explained, “He’s probably where the need to explain comes from, or at least that’s what he thought.”

I didn’t know where my grandfather was. I never would know. It made the subject a sore one to bring up, especially when I brought it up myself like a fool.

“I wondered why you were so short,” Balendin held a hand to his chest marking exactly my height.

“It’s not like you don’t have fey kin of your own to work with dragons.”

“But none so close on the family tree.” his tone changed a little as he pivoted to “Let’s search the caves like we came here for.”

As I hadn’t gotten a good look at the stables, I had little idea what was different between the two places, just that the night dragons were less anxious here than there. Balendin seemed the same, like he’d been out of his environment until now, when he was joking with me and complaining in a way I didn’t expect from someone hired for the stables.

He was right that you could just come and snuggle with any of them and they wouldn’t mind. They were far gentler creatures than previous interactions would make them seem.

He pulled me into a specific alcove, where a moon dragon was taking a nap. I immediately searched around for its guardian.

“Maybe we can ask it how to solve the problem,” he proposed.

I doubted it. Moon dragons don’t give easy to discern prophecies, not that oracles did either—but oracles spoke in a common language at least, moon dragons communicated directly to one’s thoughts with little context.

I let Balendin bring us closer though.

“Hello, Shim,” he said, offering it attention.

That’s why Balendin was so comfortable here, knowing the way and reporting on the night dragons in the caves. He was a rider, specifically of a moon dragon, this moon dragon.

The way he looked at it told me they were holding a conversation I would never hear, but I could make a guess since they kept looking at me.

“It sent you to me, didn’t it?” I asked.

“Well, it showed me your face. I had to draw it a few times to find someone who recognized you. My art skills are lacking.”

I was slightly insulted. He hadn’t found me through a friend, or because he knew anything of my skill, but rather because I was fated to solve the problem. I didn’t like fate, since someone wielding it for a curse had incensed us to this war that left me alone in the world.

But that wasn’t a problem dragons had to suffer for. I offered Shim some attention to help accept its prophecies.

“Do you have any advice for helping your kin and their companions?”

I felt destruction, saw the cave blight from before, then the opening at the top of fire dragons’ lair.

I had no idea what to do with the information, but it left me shaking.

“I’d like to go home now,” I asked.

“But—” Balendin started.

“Please.”

Then as now, I hated resting when there was a problem to be solved. Unlike now, I still had to sleep back then, which left me in fits of wakefulness as I stewed the problem in my head. I chose to ignore the prophecy after all. My opinions had been made from observation.

But we can rarely choose what our minds focus on.

Why the opening at the top of the lair? There were plenty of other entrances and exits, but that seemed to be the favored one of the hunters.

Why the cave blight? The dragons had treated them as nuisances at best, snapping at them whenever they came close.

Why destruction? That one was most concerning. Were these stables doing more harm than good? Was it better to leave the resident dragons taking up space that they likely didn’t have? Most of the ones in the stables had riders among the fey before they left. They needed keepers to keep them from panicking.

Panic.

The fire dragons stayed low to the ground in the stable. The night dragons checked those who entered their caves.

The water dragons just felt terrible, but that too could be resolved.

Balendin tried to keep me away from the night dragon stable. I understood his concern, but I needed to make my demonstration.

Eventually the keepers opened the gates for me as I guided them toward the wall and kicked as hard as I could.

A decision I immediately regretted as the pressure recoiled all the way up my leg. Balendin quickly grabbed me as a night dragon came after me.

“What was that supposed to show us?” he asked, “Other than the fact you felt like risking your life.”

“No one’s died yet,” I said.

“Yet,” he emphasized.

“I think I can show you better if we go to the fire dragon stable.”

His face was furious. I gave a sweet smile that didn’t convince him.

“I’d like to see her hurt herself again,” one of the night dragon keepers said.

Balendin relented, and we moved on.

“Do you want to let me in on your plan?” he asked.

“What did all three of our stables have in common?” I asked.

“Very little,” he answered.

“Except they were all missing something.”

“Missing what?” he asked. I didn’t answer, walking toward a ladder that would take me to the roof.

“What are you doing?”

I didn’t bother to check if they’d actually followed me as I kicked a hole in the roof to the stable. A simple task given it was a retractable screen.

“What are you doing?” One of the red dragon keepers asked from below.

I removed my foot and looked through the opening.

“Solving a problem!” I answered.

One of them was furious enough to open it on me. I ran to the edge, nearly falling from the momentum until Balendin grabbed me.

“Explain?” he demanded.

“The fire dragons hunt, they send the healthy out, then they return with food.”

“We feed them,” one of the keepers said.

“But they’re bored,” I said, “Which is why they keep whining. They leave, giving the young ones a chance to play, and when they return it’s easier for them to interact, not to mention they make use of the opening above them for light.”

“And kicking the wall in the night dragon stable?”

“Cave blights,” I said.

“Cave blights?”

“Night dragons are on alert to keep moon dragons safe, the blights give them enough occupation to relieve their stress, so without them, they attack any intruder. Even in the caves they check for familiarity before letting anyone in.”

“So we need something to occupy them like cave blights do?” the one who wanted to see me injure myself asked. I gave a nod.

“But I suspect it has to be random, if there’s a pattern, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, they’ll likely ignore it.”

“That’s often how the ones in the caves act,” Balendin corroborated. “What’s your solution for the water dragons?”

“Minerals in the water,” I said, “They help keep them clean and healthy. You may be able to connect it to the greater lake, or determine the makeup from—”

I was interrupted by the horde of fire dragons flying past me to hunt. Balendin held me again so I wouldn’t fall.

“You can determine the makeup by taking samples, then find a way to imitate it,” I finished.

“If this works,” one of them said, the rest turned to give them reverence, “Then we will owe you many thanks. How would that debt be repaid?”

That made me freeze. All I’d had in mind was solving the problem, nothing about what to do with gratitude.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked my brother, since he was home to recover from injury.

“Did it work?” he asked.

I nodded. It had worked weeks ago. Some of the dragons had even joined on the front lines since then, now that they were healthy.

“Why ask me?”

“Because you’re used to people being grateful.”

He laughed at that, until he noticed my expression.

“Thank you, Morgana, for having a welcome home when we have need of it.”

“What was that for?” I asked.

“For thinking we’re ungrateful,” he said, insulted, “You keep the house intact, and clean, and you take care of us when we need to recover.”

“I’m no healer,” I said.

“Healers are busy,” he said, then he tossed me a book, “I got it off a wizard trying to break the barrier.”

It was a potion book, filled with notes. I held it close to my chest.

“I always ask for something I think will help them in the long run,” he said, “Makes less labor for the next person.”

I nodded.

“Like asking for them to keep records of the dragons.”

“If you think it will work.”

I nodded. Then the awkwardness returned. My brother felt like a stranger sometimes, most times. Our lives only connected when he was injured, as it was with my mother, and my father only came to tell me about one of the problems he had to solve until he had a solution.

“So the moon dragon rider you mentioned,” he finally asked, “Has he called on you since you resolved his problem?”

“Yes,” I said, cheerfully, “Balendin’s brought a few books, and offered some in person lessons. I even got to ride on Shim with him once.”

He nodded.

“And where does he live?”

“A few places,” I said. Most dragon riders were somewhat nomadic.

“Should he ever hurt you, do let him know that Nox Umbra will find him.”

I rolled my eyes. My brother chose a new name only a year past, and though I wouldn’t deny having heard it on others’ tongues, I found it ridiculous. Years later I would discover I was in a minority. Years later I’d wish for him to use that name again.