Sassafras
(#45705804)
Level 7 Tundra
Familiar
Silky Webwing
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 50/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Earth.
Female Tundra
This dragon is hibernating.
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
4.23 m
Wingspan
2.57 m
Weight
336.11 kg
Genetics
Chartreuse
Tapir
Tapir
Tan
Saturn
Saturn
Chocolate
Ringlets
Ringlets
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 7 Tundra
EXP: 150 / 11881
STR
7
AGI
6
DEF
7
QCK
7
INT
6
VIT
7
MND
6
Lineage
Parents
- none
Offspring
- none
Biography
She speaks in the language of flowers, and the world has yet to understand.
It’s as if her tongue is made of iris petals, so delicate and slim. When she opens her mouth, the irises escape on the wind, leaving no sound in their wake. There is nothing but silence and a stifled heart.
If she thinks about how much she hates it, the tang of geraniums fills her mouth and mind, a bitter wave. The flowers ache to be understood, as does she, but who will make the effort?
She has. The language of dragons is so restrictive, a word for everything, even those ephemeral feelings that slide in and out of existence. It is so specific, so unlike the chains of flowers that twirl through her mind, all-encompassing and yet so unique with each passing. Nonetheless, she has learned it. In some ways, there is sense in the way most dragons speak; though it may not be as free and light as the language of flowers, it has its own merits. It is articulate in curious ways, full of tone and life.
But it is not enough to understand it. If you cannot speak it, then it is all for naught. You are for naught.
She is for naught.
On a ridge above a river, where water runs gentle and cool, she watches hatchlings splash in the current. They call for one another in high, tittering voices, their words like music on the breeze, and sometimes their mother calls back, mellifluous in her own right.
Her heartstrings ache at the sounds below, played so tenderly by the thorny stem of a rose.
In the language of dragons, this would be known as loneliness.
___________
There is no cure for a hole in one’s heart, but the warmth of summer and the soft buzz of the world comes close. She lies in the grass when the skies are cloudless and blue, letting the blades tickle her spine, enjoying the feeling of their gentle brush against her wings. In these times, she is free of the heavy burden that is her winter coat, free of the itching and scratching and the weight constantly holding her down. The breeze reaches her without obstacle now, and the world is alive again instead of freezing to death beneath a layer of ice.
Beside her, a butterfly rests in the grass with its shimmering wings spread to catch the sun’s rays. It shifts now and again, faint as a breath, and she finds herself doing the same, crouching beside it and extending her wings slowly. Together, she and the butterfly flutter their wings, and the heat of the day warms them both.
They are alive, and it is nice to truly feel that way.
But the butterfly does not stay. She supposes it’s to be expected; there are other meadows, ones with more flowers, brighter blooms, but it stings nonetheless. The rose thorn fiddles at her heart again, and she can almost feel the texture of a velvet rose petal on her tongue accompanying it: loneliness once more.
And then shivering reeds and the crackle of dry scrub catching fire explode around her. Anticipation. Fear. They belong to her, so suddenly, as she stumbles back and stares at the brilliant beam of light in the sky. It lances toward the earth, the holiest thing she’s ever seen, and even though her eyes water, she stares, because it is not just light. It is light with something inside, something tangled and dark and loose, something plummeting to earth at blistering speed.
She tastes smoke, but it reeks of wet earth and rain and the bulb of a plant that never blessed her with its name. Fear, still, but something else. Most dragons, she thinks, call this determination, but that is not specific enough, not for this.
Her staff bounces at her hip, her mask makes her face warm as she bounds through the tall grass. This is not empty determination that pushes her forward. It is guided, it is focused on a goal. It is, above all else, protective. She has seen life in danger, like the nameless bulb dried within an inch of its life, in need of a second chance.
It may not be a plant that has fallen, but that makes no difference in the end. She cannot stay away, not until she knows there is nothing more she can do.
___________
He is unharmed, she thinks. Certainly his many eyes must come from before the tumble. Has she ever heard of a dragon possessing extra eyes after an injury? No, only losing them; even if she can’t remember a specific instance, it doesn’t seem right that a fall like that could add eyes.
But there is something slick at the corners of his mouth, something he guards when she eases over the lip of the crater his impact has created. One clawed paw comes up to cover his teeth, and his eyes blink and blink and blink out of sync, refocusing on something distant, something he seems to see through her.
She waits for him, staring back, and wonders of gouges in willow bark and dew dripping off an orchid, steady and slow.
Injury. Disorientation. Even if she tries to form the words in the language of dragons, to ask after his health, they do not come to her. Only the language of flowers remains.
He tips his head, shakes it. Too many eyelids flicker at once, but when he stills, every eye is centered on her, a multi-fold mirror to her own unblinking stare. “I fell,” he croaks. His voice sounds like the fire that erupted when she first saw him sink through the sky. Rough, crackling, dry. It fills her heart again, only for a moment.
“Was there a fire?” he goes on, swiping at the corners of his mouth with one paw. A dark, sticky fluid clings to his scales. Not blood; she knows the smell of blood, hates the way it overpowers anything floral. Instead, the goo smells like curls of birch bark clawed from the trunk, fresh and aching not to be stripped away, not to die.
She does not know how to answer him, not when he stares at her, through her, beyond her. He’s unlike anyone she’s ever met, and when she takes a tentative step toward him, there is a whispering in the air. Not the language of flowers, nor that of dragons. Something else entirely.
She thinks of brambles, knotted over on themselves, and the impossibility of finding beginning or end among them. Confusion, this is called; fitting for this unknown language floating beneath the breeze. And as she thinks it, the other dragon jolts as if catching on thorns, and his many eyes refocus once more, boring a hole straight into her heart.
Then he is gone. With a flap of his many wings, he staggers into the sky, his skinny, undulating body tracing a loose pattern until he crests the horizon and vanishes.
The rose and its thorns return, and she wants to tear them out at the roots until she feels them no more.
___________
She teeters for so long on the edge of sunflowers turned to catch the morning light, leaves curling from the heat. Hope, with a touch of disappointment, because she wants him to come back, but knows better than to trust he will.
He makes her curious. When curiosity takes hold, it comes in the shape of chrysanthemums. The array of their petals reminds her of his clustering eyes, so many, but so organized. And so yellow, too. It is all she remembers with total clarity so long after the rest of the memory has dissipated like smoke. His eyes are yellow, luminous, and clustered like chrysanthemums.
It is how she recognizes him the second time they meet. That, and the whispering just out of reach.
“I am sorry,” he says, landing opposite the glade she sunbathes in. “And I am Iyr.” He cocks his head at her, and she can feel him trying to read the way she stands and stares. It makes her throat tight with words that will never bloom; unless he speaks in the language of flowers, he cannot hope to communicate with her.
“Iyr is my name,” he goes on. She can feel it. He has misread her stiffness as confusion, puzzlement. It’s a matter of ferns curling inward in the dark, though, of morning glories closing without the sun’s light to coax them forth. It’s reticence, caution. It’s guarding her heart and keeping the withering sunflower leaves far away.
And it falls to pieces when he blinks at her, all his eyes in chorus, and asks, “Do I smell chrysanthemums?”
The world swirls over in golden light, filtered through flower petals, and Iyr reels in time with her. It’s a shared feeling, the curiosity blooming in them both, and she swears that if it grows any stronger, the world will burst into life beneath her feet, turning glade into garden before their eyes.
This is a sign, and the sunflowers bloom too, a field of hope springing up in her chest. Iyr hears the flowers, and that is a start. So few can, or if they do, they show no sign of it. But he has listened, and he has asked, and there is a world of firsts that could unfurl if only she has the courage. She doesn’t need words, not if he listens, not if he understands.
Pushing down lavender springs and lilies of the valley and the fresh wave of sunflowers vying for control, she thinks instead of leaves like a Wildclaw’s foot, but with three toes instead of four. She inhales the steam from the tea that they make, and lets the scent sink deep into her bones.
When she snaps her eyes open and scrutinizes him from behind the mask, he has settled into a looping pile, with a chain of grass forming between his agile claws. “I smell sassafras,” he says. No question this time, only statement.
She is nothing but summer and sunflowers and open sky over the field. He listens, and now, he knows her name.
___________
They don’t spend all their time together. When he tries to follow her around, asking question after question after question, she feels sawgrass pricking at the pads of her feet, and the itch of poison ivy crawling up her throat. It’s too much, too much, and she sprints away, shaking her wings out as she runs. Not flying, no, because the cool evening air would be equally too much if she takes to the winds. Just a run, to feel the wind tangle in her wings, and to peel away the discomfort of his questions and his voice and the constant, endless whispering that lies underneath.
They still meet, though; it’s even enjoyable in small doses. He likes to bring blackberries, and as she learns more about him, the curious chrysanthemums are replaced by heaps of the fruit, juicy and sweet and still in clusters like his eyes.
He’s learning, too. He knows her name is Sassafras, finally figured out what she meant when she thought about herself with all her might, and he knows now that he is Iyr of the Blackberries in her mind. It only took one occasion of forgetting the berries, one burst of brambles among the fruit, to get the point across. Since then, he has been consistent as the sun rising each day.
He learns fast, and it brings her the smell of forest after a soft summer storm. Comfort, she thinks it’s called in the language of dragons. The notion seems right, because what else could his presence be? It isn’t the same as the dragons she’s seen joined at the hip, making doe eyes at one another as they close off the world, making time for nothing but themselves. That’s something entirely different, love in the language of dragons, and perhaps a shower of cherry blossoms in the language of flowers, a hazy notion she feels no need to explore. Not with Iyr of the Blackberries, at least.
No, he is what dragons call a friend, because he talks to her without expecting an answer, and he tries his hardest to tease apart the meaning when he gets one. He knows some of the flowers now, has even tried thinking them back to her (it doesn’t work, though not to their surprise), and when he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t pretend to. He’s honest, like a daisy. Plain, but pleasant, agreeable.
And even with him, sometimes she still feels the rose thorn dragging across her heart. Maybe it’s inevitable. Maybe it never goes away. Maybe it’s because out of so many dragons in the world, so far, he’s the only one who’s ever bothered, ever come close. It hurts, in a way.
Still, his company eases the thorn’s touch, softens it entirely. His brief visits are something new, something special. Best of all, they’re something she can share for the first time in her unsteady memory.
Soon, she thinks, she’s going to start bringing blackberries to give to him. Repayment, or perhaps a gift. They mean Iyr, but she’s starting to believe they mean “thank you” as well.
-by Tues
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