Sere

I had finished my afternoon chores a little early, and dropped by the library to pick up a pack of cards before anyone else could grab them. I was hoping there would be time before dinner to meet Kaas and Bex, the new guy from our partner clan over in the Viridian Labyrinth, and hang out and play a quick game. Kaas has started acting like she’s too grown-up to hang out with a younger dragon anymore, but Bex is always nice to me. But when I went down towards the kitchen, I met a loud exclamation coming the other way.

“Why shouldn’t our school have an arts program?”

It was Sere’s voice. He had been following Strid around all day in between his regular duties, pleading his case to his mate. Normally I wouldn’t have listened to other dragons’ conversations, but when skydancers argue, they argue passionately. Naturally the thread would have picked up again when they saw each other at dinner.

I paused in the doorway. The half-dozen dragons already in there were sitting quietly and staring down at whatever they were doing.

Strid turned to him, exasperated. “Because it’s not – we aren’t – it’s not something we need to focus on right now!”

“Oh, really? And when should we focus on art, and not on some kind of paranoid assumption that everything’s out to get us?”

Bex and Kaas came in together and stopped behind me. “What’s going on?” Bex asked, peering over my shoulder.

I jumped a little bit when his elbow brushed against my fur, but Kaas came up and poked her head between us before I could say anything. “Is Sere going on about that arts apprenticeship again?” she asked.

In the kitchen, Strid had raised her voice. “Of course not everything’s out to get us, but we can’t just sit around making daisy chains and being surprised when misfortune catches us off-guard! Now could you please back off so we can all enjoy a meal?”

The air was heavy that dinnertime. I mostly wondered what kind of ‘arts’ Sere was talking about, since he hadn’t yet specified. He’s the kind of dragon who pronounces “The Arts” with capital letters, and I’ve got a vague idea that The Arts mean more than the patterns Liur weaves into baskets or the shapes Danerah carves into the wood he works.

I came out of this line of thought and realized that Kaas and Bex were leaving. “Hey, wait up!” I said as I hurried after them, which was stupid. Littlings say stuff like “Hey, wait up.” But Bex turned back anyway.

“We’re going to the yoga thing after dinner. Want to come?”

Kaas turned away again, rolling her eyes, but that didn’t matter so much to me anymore. “Yeah!”

I didn’t know what yoga thing Bex was referring to, but he had invited me to something so I went along anyway. We went out the newly rebuilt south exit, which comes out upstream of the riverbend, right at the bottom of the landslide area. From there we turned to the thin little trail that goes up the valley wall where the cliff breaks down into a gentler slope, and we climbed up to the headland.

I felt exposed in this area of heather and short grasses, but Kaas and Bex seemed to know what they were going, so I followed them down to a rounded hilltop above the sea. There were other dragons here: Beta Constant, Lawen, Vayne, Eos, and there was also Charisa, who I only noticed because Eos was right next to her, talking to her as we arrived.

Finally Sere glided down and landed on the very tip of the cape, with his back to the water. The edge of the cliff was right behind him. “Apologies. I’m late,” he said to everyone. “Let’s get started right away to make up for the time I’ve lost us.”

I looked around as everyone shuffled into some kind of prearranged formation. “What are we doing?” I hissed to Bex, who was stretching next to me.

“Yoga therapy.”

I followed along a second behind everyone else as Sere talked the group through a series of slow movements into new poses. Then, about halfway through, I saw Eos wobble in her pose. She steadied herself quickly, but if the graceful Eos can wobble, then surely it’s okay if I’m not too good at it. The wind dropped a little, and I started paying more attention to Sere’s calm voice.

When it was over, we sat in our places and did a group meditation, which Sere led us through. At first we focused on what we could hear, smell, and so on, but eventually Sere told us to think about whatever came to mind.

The wind dropped. All the skydancers in the group shivered. I felt my hackles start to rise and wondered if their emotional sensitivity could go both ways, because I could tell everyone was thinking about the landslide. Charisa squeezed her eyes shut; Connie had tear trails down her cheeks. I suddenly recalled the feeling of the tiny wing I stepped on in the dark, and recoiled.

“Does anyone want to say anything?” Sere asked the group.

At first it was quiet, but then Connie said, “The cold on my side woke me again this morning. I’ve been adjusting to not having Carson next to me, but it comes back still.”

We all shuffled in sympathy.

“I’ve started seeing a nightmare,” Charisa said sullenly. She glanced up at those of us who had looked at her. “Not the dream kind.”

Sere’s antennae trembled. “Thank you for telling us.”

“I’ve seen it for four nights, now,” she continued. “It won’t leave me alone.”

Sere readjusted his elbows and crossed one forearm over the other. “Azurelle warned us all that something like this might happen,” he said. “It can’t harm you. You know that.”

“I know, but it bothers me.” She scratched a spiral in the dirt. “It reminds me.”

“It might be here to tell you that the slide affected you more deeply than you thought,” Sere told her. “They don’t appear for no reason, or indeed, to just anyone.”

Vayne breathed a long sigh – she lost hatchlings in the slide, too young to be named – but she didn’t say anything. The wind picked up again. The sun showed itself under the cloud layer and glanced harshly off the sea. Eventually, Sere raised his head. “Thank you all for coming, as always,” he said, but Tau stood up.

“No,” he said, “thank you, for doing this.”

Everyone went back to the valley singly, or in pairs, but not talking. I almost forgot that I’d followed Bex and Kaas up here, but I spotted them going towards the path we came up and decided I might as well go that way too. I hung back as we returned, not really wanting to talk; I wasn’t even paying attention, only following, and when I came out of my thoughts I realized I was following them up to Strid, who was supervising night prep. I peeled off and went a different direction, but not before I heard them talking to her. They were asking if her school could include a yoga class.