Esmeralda

She never asked to be a fortune teller. She never asked for the gods to whisper things to her, demanding she act as their messenger to the mortal realm. She’d have to be crazy to have asked for that. And yet, here she was, their bloody errand girl.

She had tried resisting it before. Had tried to ignore the whispers, carried on as though she couldn’t hear them. But instead of going away, the whispers became louder, more insistent, hour by hour, day by day until they were practically screaming in her head while the rest of the world’s sounds had faded into nothing.

If there was one thing Esmeralda couldn’t stand, it was not getting her way. As if the gods had known this, as if they wished to punish her for it, they had made it impossible for her to ignore them.

The unusual constraints of her situation demanded that upon receiving another dragon’s fortune, she must seek out that dragon and ask them one question:

“Do you want to hear your fortune?”

Most of the time, they said yes. There were always some who turned down her offer, and if they did, the whispers would stop in Esmeralda’s head and she could carry out her life as she wished until the next fortune arrived.

Over time, Esmeralda had come to accept her fate as a fortune teller, and had resigned herself to a solitary life, avoiding becoming too close with any dragon she met, for fear of being forced to ask them that one question.

But living alone was maddening, and so one day, despite the uneasiness lurking in the back of her mind, she had joined a clan. She developed many close bonds with her clanmates, even a romance with one of the clan’s males. But then, one fateful night, she had awoken in terror, overlapping voices whispering urgently in her ears. There was a voice for every member of the clan, and they all contained the same message.

As the sun rose the next day, the fortune teller was awake and waiting, opalescent tears streaming down her cheeks. Everyone in the clan agreed to hear their fortunes, if only to relieve Esmeralda of the burden of bearing them alone. With bowed heads and solemn expressions, they accepted their fate.

A week later, they were all dead.

Just as the voices had foretold, a terrible wildfire devoured the clan’s territory, moving too quickly and burning too powerfully to outrun. In the days before the fire, Esmeralda had done everything she could think of to prevent it, even enlisting the help of the Water flight to douse her clan’s home. It was a waste of time. Esmeralda had learned another lesson that day: once a fortune was revealed, there was no undoing it.

For days, the lone Skydancer had lain in the ash-covered field where her friends had passed, her tears falling like tiny pearls, leaving white tracks on her soot-covered face. She felt so powerless, so used. But mostly, she felt alone.

As if knowing she would be unable to handle the burden on her own, the gods sent her a familiar in the form of a small fish-like spirit. It didn’t speak to her, but it seemed to know that words were not necessary between them. She had enough words floating around in her head.

Esmeralda named her familiar Maharajah, and the pair quickly became inseparable. On that ashy plain, that final resting place of her beloved clan, PearlFlower made two solemn vows. One, to Sultan, to protect him with her life as long as she lived. The second vow she made to herself: She would be a slave to the gods no longer.

In the following weeks and months, Esmeralda began to unravel the mysteries of her “gift.” She traveled Sorneith learning as much information as she could, seeking the advice of other soothsayers and prophets, none of whose gifts were exactly like hers, but who all received some form of divine messages. The more she learned, the more she was able to control her gift. She practiced meditation for days on end, learned how to strengthen her mind, to manipulate the information she was given.

After years of dedication, Esmeralda’s stubbornness, her refusal to be a pawn in someone else’s game finally paid off. Instead of accepting the “gift” she’d been given, she had made her own. The whispers no longer existed.

She could still tell dragons their futures, but only if they sought her out themselves, only if they asked for the answers she possessed. If they did so (and many still did), she would not hide the truth from them. She would close her eyes, look deep within her mind, and find the information the gods had unsuspectingly hidden there.

Word spread of her unique abilities, and soon dragons from all flights traveled to learn their fate or merely to meet the famous fortune teller who had refused to accept her own.

One day, as Esmeralda was telling fortunes in a crowded marketplace in the Starfall Isles, a peculiar male Skydancer came to see her. He introduced himself as Casper and made it clear that he did not want to know his own fortune. Instead he asked,

“What is yours?”

Esmeralda blinked, taken aback at the bluntness of the question. While she considered fortune-telling to be part of her fate, she had never dared search her mind for her own explicit fortune. After telling so many others theirs, she had long ago decided she never wanted to know.

She explained all of this to the male standing before her. He paused to contemplate her words, his brow furrowing with concentration. Finally, he met her gaze again, his features relaxed, and gave a small nod, turning to leave her stall. At its entrance, however, he paused again, his face breaking into a sly smirk before he said with a wink,

“Coward.”

Esmeralda scoffed in response at his audacity, incredulous that any dragon dared to be so bold with someone as powerful as her. It was the first time anyone had challenged her, had dared to question her to her face. It was infuriating.

The next day, the Skydancer returned. Esmeralda was ready. When he asked if she knew her own fortune yet, she merely responded,

“No, but I know yours. Wouldn’t you like to hear?”

It was the first time she had lied. She didn’t actually know Casper’s fortune, since she considered it a violation of privacy to determine someone’s fortune if they did not ask for it themselves. Since Casper hadn’t asked, she would not know.

And Casper was aware of this unspoken rule too. He laughed, seemingly pleased with her answer, and the two soon found themselves lost in conversation, the topic of fortunes long forgotten.

It was the first time since losing her clan that Esmeralda felt herself drawing close to another dragon. It was terrifying. She knew things were different this time, knew that she had complete control over her mind, and yet, allowing herself to open up to another dragon, to reveal her vulnerabilities, her dreams, her hopes…. It was terrifying. And yet, at the same time, it was liberating.

Casper began to show up day after day, and each time, they never spoke of her gifts, never spoke of what she could do. Instead, Casper asked her about her travels, her favorite places to fly-- they even held lengthy philosophical debates on such mundane topics as whether grasshoppers tasted better than beetles. She told him everything. Everything she had longed to tell another living soul but had kept hidden out of fear. And gradually, day by day, they came to love one another a little bit more.

The day finally came when Casper asked Esmeralda to join his clan, knowing full well the pain and tragedy she had experienced in her past, knowing just how much the question meant to her.

With tears of joy, of hope, gathering in the corners of her eyes, PearlFlower said yes.


Written by @Xayxayx