“It takes forever,” Kahhe said with feeling, when I inquired about the process. “The stairs are so narrow. And if you are at the back of the crowd, all the best food is gone by the time you get downstairs.”
I appreciated her perspective, for it humanized the Draconeans for me—if that word is not inappropriate in this context. By then I was accustomed to thinking of my three hostesses in such terms, but I suspected I might lose hold of that thought when I was surrounded by a mob that was angry, frightened, or both.
At dawn on the day of waking, I went outside one last time, tipping my face up to the thin spring sun. We had agreed that it was best not to surprise a group of sleepy Draconeans with an unexpected human; rather we would allow them a few days to resume their normal lives before the sisters presented me. But that meant I would be confined to the house for the intervening time, and I was not looking forward to the wait.
In fact it was every bit as bad as I had feared. Although the weather had improved enough for the Draconeans to wake, it was still quite cold outside; one could reasonably expect that I would be glad of a reason to take refuge in the warmth of the sisters’ house. After so much time spent out-of-doors, however, my enforced seclusion was positively suffocating. I missed the fresh air, and I missed the sunlight even more, weak though it still was.
My fretfulness grew with the onset of noise outside. Each village had a local ceremony to mark the return from hibernation; I did not dare peer out the exterior door to watch Imsali’s, but the sound of drums, flutes, and singing came through regardless. Draconeans chattered as they went to and fro, asking what had happened to the yak barn, and the sounds produced both yearning and fear in me. Yearning because I had gone for such a long time with no company apart from the sisters—I was overwhelmed by a surge of loneliness and homesickness. My habit had been to keep such things at bay by focusing upon the challenges before me … but waiting in the house, listening to the community outside, I missed my own with a longing so profound it was almost a physical pain. And thinking of the challenges that remained was no help, for that only brought on the fear.
I had more than enough fears to keep me occupied. Fear that someone would come inside, looking for one of the sisters, and I would not hide myself in time. Fear that Ruzt’s optimism was misplaced, and her fellows would tear me limb from limb on sight: I have faced danger many a time, but it is always the most frightening to me when it comes from thinking, rational creatures.
Above all loomed the fear that I would fail the sisters who had saved my life. I would not win over their kin; or I would succeed there, and fail among my own kind.
I had agreed to three days’ wait, but a part of me would gladly have run out the door and flung myself before the Draconeans with no warning whatsoever, simply to end the unbearable tension.
Instead I waited. For while I may not be a patient woman, I am quite good at pigheaded determination. I had agreed to three days. And so we passed the time, myself, Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam, waiting for the world to change.
*
“Are you ready?” Ruzt inquired.
“That may be the most absurd question anyone has ever asked me,” I said. In Akhian, which meant she understood very little of it; but my tone was clear enough.
I was dressed in clothing we had made during the winter—for you must not imagine my mountaineering garb would have survived a whole season’s wear without suffering quite a bit, and I would need it when I left the Sanctuary. We had debated the merits of dressing me in my own clothing for this occasion, but ultimately Kahhe’s argument had prevailed, that I would be less intimidating if clad in the familiar furs and yak wool of their own people. My body was sweltering inside the layers, for it was warm inside the house, but my hands and feet were cold with apprehension.
Zam had brought the word just a little while before: the council of elders was in Imsali. Ruzt had gone to speak with the temple caretakers more than a week ago, begging the council’s presence today; the message was given to them when they woke, and it seemed they had complied. Nine elderly female Draconeans waited for me outside, all without knowing what they waited for.
Nine elderly female Draconeans—and the entire population of Imsali, who must be wondering what the sisters were up to.
I forced my thoughts into the Draconean tongue. “Waiting will not make me more ready.”
Ruzt nodded. I found myself noting her posture and body language, filing it away under “nervousness, Draconean, signs of.” Such things are soothing to me, at moments like that.
Ruzt opened the door and led me outside.
Sunlight and cold air came in from the exterior door. Through the gap I could see a crowd of Draconeans, tall and small, waiting. One of them—a juvenile, judging by size—spotted me as I passed through the darkness of the antechamber, and tapped at an adult’s thigh in an unmistakable gesture. Though I could not hear the words through the roaring in my ears, I knew what they must be: “Mama, what’s that?” Or at least the Draconean equivalent.
I stepped into view, and the world went silent.
My imagination supplied a thousand Draconeans. In truth, there were less than a hundred. But when every last eye is upon you, the number seems far greater; and then, like a blow, I heard someone hiss a recognizable Draconean word: “Human.”
Silence broke, and pandemonium reigned.
*
The sisters bracketed me in a triangle. They had anticipated the rush of bodies that would occur, as the more energetic and warlike of their kin leapt to defend the council from my small, winter-starved self. Zam, who had once seized me and thrown me across the temple, bodily checked another Draconean who seemed bent on doing the same. Ruzt was shouting, her wings furled and her hands raised high. Kahhe stood ready to hurl me back through the doorway if necessary, where they could more easily guard me against attack.
But it was not necessary. One of the elders snapped her wings open, then another; the rest followed suit in short order. As if that were a gavel pounded upon a judge’s bench, the crowd fell into a muttering hush, and then quiet. A crisp order from one of the elders sent the various Draconeans back to their places, restoring the empty space that had surrounded my entrance.
I judged this the right time to speak. I had no wings to wrap around my body, but I performed the human approximation, laying both my hands atop my breast in the Draconean gesture of respect. Raising my voice, I spoke the words I had painstakingly rehearsed with the sisters. Only a faint tremor marred them.