Dragon Aster Trilogy

16: DANCING FLOWERS



Sybl was left to roam the Dragon Caverns alone, as Cirrus vanished on her again. Being her luck, she had wandered down a darker hallway that didn’t have the aeri-infused water flowing down its walls.

She sat down and decided to take a break in her exploring. But a light was to find her yet, and she looked the way she had come to the feeling of someone watching her. It ducked back around the corner before her eyes could catch it, only to send out a daisy in its place.

Sybl didn’t know what to do as the innocent white flower walked over to her on three roots, before sitting itself down beside her. If she didn’t believe in the impossibility of spirits being real already, it might have sent Sybl running in terror.

It lifted one of its roots and tapped her leg with it, then turned around and headed back the way it came. When she didn’t follow, it planted itself down and waited.

Sybl looked to where the Ancient peeked around the corner again and caught the outlines of a green dragon. She followed after the flower then, as it led her onwards with its soft white glow of aeri from its petals.

Everyone she encountered walked past her like she was a phasing ghost. Or unapproachable. When she nearly tripped over a kid, the look on the little pink-haired girl seemed to suggest a combination of both, before they simultaneously continued away from their staredown’s starting point.

If babysitting taught her anything, it was that the judgement of a five-year-old was the final truth. She was the freak here.

The flower had led her to a large wooden door, where it slipped under through the crack, losing one of its petals in the squeeze. She bent over and picked it up. The door opened and a tall dragoon with dark green hair stood before her. It was Lintrance. In his hands, he looked to be oiling a sword with a rag, before setting both in one hand and holding out his hand to her.

Sybl handed him the petal, having nothing else that he might have wanted.

“My Ancient is notorious for leaving a trail of flower petals where it goes. Come in,” he said as he opened the door wider.

Sybl did as told and ducked under his arm as he was tall enough to do just that, and looked about the large room and its light-brown, stone walls that were covered in weapons.

“So did you happen to have the true story to Cinderella?”

“Um... I don’t think it ever was a true story.”

“Really?” Lintrance replied disappointed, as he put down the sword on a beaten wood table and picked up another. “I always like that one.”

“What part?”

“The part where she lives happily ever after, of course. Why do you think she ran away from Heaven?”

“If you mean the ball she had to, or everyone would have found out who she was.”

“Well, this is where you humans become complicated.” Lintrance began to oil the short sword. “I could never understand what it is you seek when you have it already. It’s almost as if your god cuts the Threads of reasoning to your minds, only to set you back out into the chaos of trying to find your place in the world again. In all my years of studying humans, I’m still no closer to understanding why.”

“You sound like my second-last foster home. Shut up, stay still and just maybe the world won’t see you for who you truly are.”

“Just what are you running away from? No one is perfect. Your foster homes were anything but fun, but they served a purpose as well. Children left to fend for themselves on Aster don’t last very long. There is no system here aside from luck.”

“Do you have any kids?”

“I did, once. A baby girl.”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say the only thing that could happen, as I had my heart stolen by a mermaid.”

“That’s like the oldest story in the book...no offense.”

Lintrance smiled as he thought quietly back to his better days and lifted the sword before him, checking for any nicks in the steel.

“What happened to her?”

“Her mother took her away to the deeper reaches of the ocean. I haven’t seen her since, and while dragons command the skies, we can only reach so far into the deeper parts of the Eternal Waters.”

“I’m sure you will see them both again, one day.”

“Your optimism is inspiring,” Lintrance replied, without sarcasm. “Daorans are much simpler in thinking when it comes to happy endings, but they lack the stories that come with your world and your women.”

“Cecil mentioned a Serena earlier. Was she human as well?”

“She was.”

“How did she come here?”

“That is a very long story that starts on the other Continent. She started a search for her friend on Earth, and that led her to the Gates that are controlled by the Atrum.” He raised his hand to the nearest wall, and his Ancient vanished. A tight tangle of vines began to grow from it and across the room, before forming what looked like a snowman caught in the wrong season, in the center of the armory. When it had finished forming, the re-petaled daisy climbed up it and sat neatly on its head like a hat.

Sybl remembered when the demon had attacked her at the pond and the vines that had dragged it back and scared it off. “You were the one to save me?”

“Cirrus saved you, I simply found you after he had taken the beating of his life in doing so.”

“I owe you a thanks then.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Princess.”

Sybl walked around the bush as she studied its magic, trying to find the reasoning to how it worked, before it suddenly twitched and sent her with a jump back. “You call me a Princess and yet I feel like a mouse to the mercy of dragons and their creations.” The Leafman waved back and forth like a punching bag, taunting her to strike it.

“That’s your own fault for having too much energy to settle down in one spot for long.”

“I blame your water for that. And this tail,” Sybl added as she looked for his Ancient, only to find it no longer was near the wall. Instead, it looked down at her from the ceiling with its orange eyes. Fear of its new size set her to a sit to make more distance from it.

“An Ancient is an extension of one’s being. It’s like an extra set of senses.”

“And teeth?”

“When we somn, yes. From what the Texts teach us, we wake from sleep in our human forms or souls, so the first ones were the Ancients who carried us. Then they continue to watch us until we pass the Trial of Somn, where we then have the strength to host them from ourselves. We also give them a solid existence outside of their spirit forms, and we can utilize their abilities with the Threads. It’s a give and take kind of relationship.”

“Why do the Ancients do this?”

“Because just as we are vulnerable in our human-like forms, they are vulnerable in their spirit ones as there is always a bigger and more dangerous Ancient or Eminor. Hence why they are never far away and as we protect our children, we also protect their still-separate spirits with those who have passed the Trial.”

“So do you actually change shape?”

“When we somn, or fall into sleep,” Lintrance said as he crossed his right leg over the other, “we switch places with our Ancients, and they awaken and become the flesh, us the spirits. When we unsomn, or wake up, we become flesh and blood again, and they become the spirits. It’s all a manipulation of the Great Dragon’s Animus Thread that leads to his one mind and dreaming state. But we don’t ever actually lose consciousness, as it’s impossible to manipulate our Ancient to do what we need it to that way.”

“Why?”

“They don’t see the world as we do and I can only assume that’s because they are connected to Aragmoth in a way we are not. My Ancient there for instance sees you as...” Lintrance paused as he looked up to see just that from his own extension of his eyes. “A very bright blue light.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all I can make of it.”

“What if it doesn’t let you see what’s going on?”

“If it takes control like that, it has to force your soul and sight completely unconscious, and it goes berserk. Nine out of ten incidents you have to be killed.”

“So you never really sleep?”

“If sleep is a time to rejuvenate some strength and refresh one’s thoughts and so forth, then every time we somn we are doing just that. Humans sleep a lot differently.”

“But how do you dream then?”

“Dreamwalking is forbidden as it’s very dangerous to split our psis from our bodies that kind of distance. It leaves both our Ancient and soul vulnerable.”

“Where does my psi go when I dream?”

“Where does it go?” Lintrance asked curiously.

Sybl stopped to think on it. “I don’t know. I forget after I wake up.”

“But not all the time. Like how you remembered my tampering with the story of Cinderella. Humans don’t have an anchor like our Ancients, and I can only assume that once you return to your mind, you can’t decipher all that you saw while you were Dreaming without one. So your mind simply forgets it as useless information. But enough talk, time for some practice. There is your target, now choose your weapon.”

Sybl blinked at the Leafman, before looking around the room at the countless choices. She went for her first choice, which was a powerful-looking broadsword. But it was too heavy to lift. “Okay something smaller,” she said as she started to follow the wall. Sybl pulled off a short sword from the wall, before setting her sights on a wave-shaped staff, that held half-moon blades in its opposite curves. She put the short sword back and pulled down the staff.

“A Caelestis’ choice for a Princess.”

“What is it?”

“We call it a festra. Now if you can hit the Leafman over there, I’ll let you keep it.”

Sybl looked over the beautiful weapon as if she had been handed the most awesome thing ever, as she made out the carved details along its wood and crystal handle. It was almost as long as her but weighed next to nothing. “I just have to hit it?”

“Yes.”

She took a firm grip of its center handle in her right hand and walked over to the target. “Alright time to meet your,” she took a swipe at it, but just as she did, the vined-tail lowered in a duck, “maker?” She swiped at it again, this time with weapon in her left hand and once again, it dodged. “How in blazes can something that big move this fast? It’s rigged!” she said in frustration and looked back at the dragoon who seemed entertained by her effort from where he sat on the bench. When she looked up, the Ancient hid its head of the giant size it had expanded to in the ceiling overhead, leaving her imagination to guess that it too was laughing it out in a higher room.

“You’re doing fine. You should be able to wear it out by winter at your current rate.” Lintrance laughed, unable not to anymore.

“I don’t suppose I can just put it in the fridge or freezer to cool it slower?”

He shook his head. “If you want to make it into this Snowman you’re thinking of, that could prove difficult as we don’t have winter anymore than we do rain or snow. We don’t have seasons or changes in weather unless the Great Dragon breathes it on us.”

“What happens when he gets angry?”

“He hasn’t been for the last three hundred years since the Aur storms tore the one Continent of Aster into three.”

“After the Last War, right?”

“Good to see Cirrus actually listened to some of my teachings.”

Sybl took another shot for the Leafman, but the tail of his Ancient simply lifted to dodge the attack.

Deciding to try a different approach, she walked back over to Lintrance and swung the festra at him. He raised his arms in defense, but mid-strike she turned and hurled the weapon at the bush like a boomerang. It effectively beheaded the Leafman with its force. “Woot! You see that?” Sybl said as she pointed at her victory. “That’s what we call mad skillz on Earth.”

Lintrance rubbed his neck to check if it were still attached. “Nice distraction for my Ancient. I must be getting old.”

Sybl picked up the festra that had hit the other wall after going through the target, then looked at the daisy as it reattached the Leafman’s head by weaving the vines through it like a sewing needle. Then it completed it as its hat once again. “How long do dragons live for?”

“It depends on our blood line usually. A descendant of Moon can easily go strong for a couple hundred years or more, whereas one of Solar averages at about a hundred and fifty.”

“What bloodline is Cirrus of? Or you for that matter, as you’re his cousin right?”

“Moon, but for Cirrus I wouldn’t give him a month if you weren’t here to settle him down a bit.”

“I heard that,” Cirrus said as he opened the armory’s door and entered the room.

“Good,” Lintrance replied as he looked his way. “Why did you leave her alone like that? Sybl was lost in this maze of a mountain while you were out looking for mermaids!”

Cirrus only dropped his head in futility.