Rescuer

He came to the Suncliff Lair, a young hatchling, knowing he would become the matriarch's consort. He was too young to understand what that meant, but he knew it was important. He had been chosen, they told him, because of his colors and genes. He would grow up to be handsome, everyone told him. He would grace the clan with beautiful children, they said.

He was special.

Perhaps that's why he grew up to be such a pampered jerkface. But he doesn't really care; he's special. Kikitt thinks so, and so should everyone else.

# # #

It was during his early wanderings, trying to get the lay of the Lair, that the Consort first saw Serena, the lovely black-and-white skydancer. When he saw her, all elegance and refinement, bedecked in sky-blue silks... she was a poem. A vision. He had never wanted for anything, and as the matriarch's consort, every comfort had always been provided him. And so when he saw the young Serena, for the first time in his life he desired something.

He asked to have her sent to him, so that he could meet her. She was brought. He had refreshment served. She was so lovely in taking her repast. He took her by the hand and flattered her, as he thought a young dragoness might appreciate. Her face reddened underneath her scales, and she made some excuses and left.

Her scent lingered in the room, and The Consort breathed deeply of it and pondered her departure. At last, he decided that the delicacy of her feelings must make her modest, which only made her more desirable. He smiled. He may be the matriarch's consort, to give the Suncliff Lair beautiful children... but she wouldn't mind if betimes he turned his attentions elsewhere.

Serena would be grateful, he was sure. Who wouldn't be?

# # #

That blasted tundra, the Consort thought to himself. Where did he come from? And why does Serena even give him the time of day, let alone spend every waking moment with him?

The Consort bitterly observed them through Fossy's whole stay. Several things were made clear to him, including the contrast between Serena's warm intimacy with Fossy and her cool, polite treatment of the Consort, whenever he encountered her.

It baffled him, that an elegant Skydancer would prefer that fuzzy monstrosity to a glorious Imperial.

Then they had the gall to produce a 5-egg nest together, flaunting their fecundity for the whole clan. During the celebration, the Consort held back, gritting his teeth, plotting. He would hopefully reach his full growth soon; maybe his size could influence Serena. Or he could use Fossy's absence to his advantage. Or maybe...

# # #

Kikitt guided him through his first experience at nest, and it was all he could have hoped for... save the company, for Kikitt was hard to converse with. The Consort supposed he should educate himself, in order to be a compatible companion for her. But together they managed to create three eggs, a respectable number. The hatchlings themselves were satisfactory, though not glorious... bringing the matriarch glorious children would come in time, he expected.

And he could use what he learned from the nest-experienced Kikitt to bring the most pleasure possible to his other partners, he was sure.

# # #

It was a long month, watching the glorious Serena from afar. She buried herself in activity. It made his talking to her very difficult. And her friends seemed to always be in the way; the Consort could never get her alone. When her egg time came, he thought he might have the opportunity... but no. His own egg time and Kikitt's came as well, and he was called to do his duty to the matriarch. They made more children -- still not the glorious offspring he had hoped for. So... disappointing.

And now that dratted tundra Fossy was back. He was not likely to leave Serena's side through his whole visit. So the Consort had only to wait.

# # #

It was not that the Consort did not try to appeal to Serena's better judgement. He appealed through flattery. He appealed to her sense of duty to the clan. (She openly scoffed at that!) He tried to appeal to her stomach, but no amount of the finest delicacies opened her feminine heart to his advances. (And she always insisted on bringing her friends.)

If he could but get her alone...

# # #

In the week of the Crystaline Gala, Kikitt's egg time came... and instead of summoning the Consort, she took another to nest. The Consort felt his chance had come. If the matriarch would not need him this time, and he could spend his services as stud elsewhere. Of course, there was only one he wanted to consider -- whether or not Serena herself was willing was another matter.

It was useless asking her; but perhaps if he caught her at the right time... for she often lingered near the nesting grounds, and her last nest had been long enough ago... she should be egg-ready. She should welcome his attentions. He could please her, he was sure. So he waited... and she came. And from the shadows, he advanced on her.

He started with soft words, coaxing words. He flattered her, praised her. She backed directly into the nesting cave behind her, and within him anticipation soared. He pursued her inside. He bore down upon her, and then--

In the begetting, in the blind passion, suddenly there was pain -- everywhere his scales touched hers, it burned. He backed away, bewildered and roaring -- but he couldn't evade it. She -- she. She looked up at him, her Plague-red eyes gleaming, her face written in pain and rage, her teeth bared... and some blight from the Plaguemother had erupted all over her, grotesque and clawing.

He would have snarled at her, but his own pain overwhelmed him, his own beautiful hide breaking out in its own boils. He backed out of the cave keening his distress. Others were coming in answer to his alarm, but he couldn't let them see him...! He floundered away, his keening dying in his throat. He couldn't be seen like this, he couldn't! His beautiful hide! That thrice-deuced seductress from the Plaguemother!

# # #

"He's too valuable to be exalted," said a voice.

"But how can we keep him here, after what he's done? He's not to be trusted," said another.

The Consort couldn't quite understand what was being said, or what it was about. He couldn't move, but the yawning oblivion of sleep beckoned and he didn't want to move. Still the voices continued around him.

"He is bound," said a third. That... that was Kikitt. Her voice sounded hard, like judgement. "He will not leave this cave. It will take him a long time to recover, anyway. Let a guard be posted -- Silas, perhaps; someone who can match his weight -- and send for Shadow, once he's done treating Serena and can be spared. He has experience in treating Plague-spawned maladies, so hopefully this one can be kept whole. Mostly."

The Consort wondered what kind of dream this was... then oblivion took him again.

# # #

The Consort's health returned in time -- but to his great indignation, he was detained in the cave for days and days beyond. Silas refused to let him out, and the Consort's strength had not returned sufficient to challenge his guard. Food was brought to him, though those who brought it never listened to his preferences and requests.

At last Kikitt herself came to him, to proclaim justice on him for the "wrong" he had done to Serena. Wrong! What about her attack on him? What about his own pocked hide, victim of the seductress's plague?

Thus Kikitt pronounced on him sentence: that for each egg he bore on Serena, he would go to nest with a dragoness of her choosing, to create children for the glory of the Lair. This was his obligation to her, as the Lair matron, for his misconduct -- if such it was. For did he not do the same with Serena that Kikitt now required of others on him?

Oh, he would meet his obligation... but then he would be free of this Lair, its tyrannical matron and his own humiliation at Serena's hands.

***

It was surprisingly easy to steal away. It was as if no one in the lair wanted to look at him: he had been shunned, was best forgotten. It infuriated him. Ignore him? The beautiful, the consort, the chosen one? Even the females who came to him for the sentence didn't so much as look at him while he labored for them.

He refused to suffer this insult for any longer. When the first opportunity came, he slipped his bonds and left. Let them see how they got on without him. Even the children he created for the Lightweaver's armies had been more glorious than the children planned by the breeding pairs in anxious hopes that they would sell. They didn't! Because they weren't children born of the consort!

Let them suffer. They would beg for his return soon enough. Even Serena, Plaguemother rot her to blood and broken bone. They would beg.

***

For a long time, Consort wandered. He stayed in the Lightweaver's lands, spying on his former clan, waiting for them to realize he was gone. So many frustrating days and nights, scrutinizing the clan's patrol patterns, studying the activities of everyone else while flying high, so high the air was thin in his throat... and yet, he did not see what he longed to see: the evidence of their repentance. Obviously, he hadn't been gone long enough.

It was while looking for food by the shore--for of course, only seafood would do for him, nothing more common--that he happened onto the gathering party from the Lair by the Sea. Listening to the tundra talk to him, his eyes lost their focus. Lair by the Sea. Lair by the--

--this was Fossy's other birth clan.

Oh yes. How horrible would it be for Fossy to come home and discover that the Consort had been taken in by his family? Loved by them? Oh yes.

'So if you need a place to stay,' the tundra was finishing.

'I'd be honored.'

***

It was surprisingly easy to ingratiate himself to the Lair by the Sea. Knowing that his position would have to be very secure in order for them to take his part against Fossy, whom they already knew and presumably respected, the Consort resigned himself to the necessity of chores and put himself to work. He helped with the gathering parties. He sorted scavenged items for resale at the Dragon Markets. He hauled rocks for the snapper who was digging out more caverns. He gave his sage advice on how to prepare seafood. If there was an opportunity for him to be useful, he put himself forward.

It was not long before he was regarded as one of the most friendly dragons in the lair, and the most generous. Having long been admired for his beauty, Consort found this change... unsettling. It wasn't until he saw himself in one of the clan's mirrors that he realized why.

He wasn't the beauty he'd been. Healed, certainly. But no longer gleaming and sleek. Serena had marred his hide permanently.

'What's wrong?' a skydancer asked him.

To say 'I'm ugly...' How could he? Shame burnished his cheeks, the insides of his ears.

She padded closer, sat alongside him. They had similar colors, but her sock patterning was a less than perfect shadowy purple that made the rest of her look awkward. Or it should have, but she carried herself with such confidence that one hardly noticed. 'I know what you're thinking.' When he glanced at her, she continued, 'You wish you were prettier. I know because I used to see that look on my face all the time.'

It seemed useless to disagree. 'But... not anymore?'

'No,' she said. 'Not since I came here and they showed me that I wasn't so ugly as I thought. You're not either, you know. You're actually quite handsome.'

Consort lowered his head to hide his expression from her. 'I used to be, but my skin...'

'Nonsense! All you need to do is to dress like someone who cares about himself, and you'll be surprised what that does for you. Come with me!'

A reluctant Consort allowed himself to be lured into the clan's cave of adornments. He struggled with her characterization--since when had he not cared about himself! All he ever did was care about himself!--but he also realized she was right. He hated to look at himself. Even before the Lair's mirrors had showed him in excruciating detail just how poorly he'd healed, he hadn't wanted to glance at his arms or legs or brush his mane with more than a few desultory swipes. There had been a time when he'd done nothing but stare at his beautiful sides for hours. Now he could barely look at himself for long enough to wash.

'You just need some jewelry that matches your eyes,' the skydancer was saying, hooking things onto his tail, 'And some silks, and ooh, this paint magic will look amazing on you!'

Meekly, Consort let her decorate him and pull him back to the mirror.

'There!' she said. 'Look now.'

He did. And gaped.

'Not so bad anymore, mmm?' she said, crest fluffing in pleasure.

'I... you... no.' He blushed again. 'Can I really wear this?'

'Sure!' she said. 'Those things are held in trust for all the clan. You can use any of them you want. And you should. You're a very handsome drake, you know. The dragonesses here don't just talk about you because you're kind and hard-working.' She grinned. 'I know I don't.'

And with that, she left him in the cave, and he... he couldn't move. He didn't know what to think. He was tired of digging and mending and selling and gathering and cooking and cleaning. But the idea that people might be saying nice things about him behind his back?

Consort stared at himself in the mirror and wondered what was happening to him.

***

After that, he started keeping an eye out for that skydancer. Her name, he discovered, was Arete, and she was well respected in the clan for her unusual expertise with the ecosystem of the abandoned laboratories. Consort edged closer to the clan's evening fire when someone prompted Arete to talk about her experiences with the crazed machines there and he tried to imagine her fighting them. She seemed so small and delicate! The idea of her being hurt by something made his ears flatten and his flanks tremble.

It was a stunning thought to realize that... that was bravery. What she'd done, surviving there.

For once, he was afraid of approaching a female. Serena had spurned his advances, had fought him when he'd tried to mate with her. Kikitt had turned from him too. He worried that if he expressed his interest to Arete, she too might reject him. And... he was no longer beautiful, to convince a female to mate with him just by flashing his glittering shoulders or spreading his sunrise wings. No matter what gauds Arete had hung on him, he was still the pock-marked cast-off of another clan, and while it still enraged him to think of them he was also scared.

Why had they hated him, in the end?

What had he done wrong?

How could he keep from doing wrong again!

So he did everything in his power to hide his interest from Arete. When she talked to him, he pretended to view her only as a kind clanmate who'd helped him in a moment of weakness. He found himself embarrassed and fretful in her presence, and when she left he often hid his face in his arms and moaned. What a mess he was making of this not-a-courtship! What did he know about courtship at all?

And Arete... he wouldn't have looked at her twice before. Those awkward socks! The strange colors and genes! But when she looked at him, she smiled, and her smile went all the way up into her eyes, and his heart would beat quicker and louder until he was sure she could hear it.

She had admired him for his generosity. That was the only thing he could think of. So he dedicated himself to doing the sorts of works he thought she'd admire. It was only weeks later that he realized that she was not the only dragon who smiled at him all the way into their eyes. His new clan... they liked him.

They liked him.

They liked him.

The old Consort would have sneered at this, saying the only reason these dragons were kind to him was because they could get something out of him. But... he was getting something out of them, too, wasn't he? The pleasure of seeing them happy. The knowledge that he'd helped them. The realization that for some things, they sought him first, because he was the best at it, or the most likely to keep at it until it was done. He liked being liked. It was... it was novel.

Arete found him lying by the sea several months after he'd joined the clan. She sat neatly alongside him, wrapping her tail around her feet and tucking her wings against her back. 'Looking for answers?' she asked.

Blushing, he said, 'What?'

She nodded her nose toward the sunset. 'Dragons don't usually go stare into space unless they're working through things.' She paused. 'Or unless they're mystics or mages. You don't seem the type, though.'

'I'm not,' Consort said, ears sagging. He'd met some of the clan's mages... they were far beyond anything he could accomplish with magic. And he was definitely not a priest. 'I just... I'm thinking about how much I like it here. I've never been with a clan that...'

'Cared about you?' Arete asked.

He winced. How he wanted to lie! She would like him better if he did! But he looked into the eyes of this skydancer, who had faced down enormous robots and killing machines with such courage, and couldn't back down from his own, personal challenge, particularly when it was so petty in compare. 'It's not that. If I'd been a good dragon, they would have. I think. But I was selfish, and lazy, and I think I was cruel.'

For a long time they said nothing, and in this silence Consort fought his anxiety, wondering if he'd poisoned himself forever in her eyes.

'You're not selfish, lazy, or cruel now,' Arete said.

'Maybe,' Consort said. 'But what... what if it's just a phase? What if I go back to being that way?'

She cocked her head. 'Do you want think you will?'

'I don't know!' he exclaimed. And then lowering his head. 'I don't think so. But... I'm not who I was, and that's confusing, and I spend most of the day afraid I'm doing everything wrong. And I hate feeling embarrassed and confused. It makes me resentful.'

Arete nodded. 'Nobody likes being embarrassed and confused. And most of us react badly to it.'

'But you... you mean...'

'Do I get angry and flustered?' She chuckled. 'Oh, Storms. Yes.'

Awed, Consort said, 'I can't imagine you being confused or afraid.'

'I am right now,' she said. 'Because I have someone I want to ask, and I'm not sure what you'll say.'

His ears sagged. He swallowed. 'You could say anything to me. I... I would never hurt you, Arete. At least, not on purpose! I'd do everything I could not to--'

She set a hand on his nose. 'I'd like a nest,' she said softly. 'Will you come with me?'

He squeaked around her fingers.

Lifting one, Arete asked, hesitant, 'Is that a yes?'

'--es!'

She took her hand back and brushed her nose against his instead. All the fur on his back stood on end.

'Yes,' Consort breathed, softer. And added, hesitant... because he'd never used the word to a dragoness before. 'Please?'

Arete slipped a wing over his back and murmured, 'Let's go.'

***

When the Dream fell, Consort was stunned.

He knew no one personally on the great airship; in fact, he knew almost nothing about the airship at all. It was part of the Lair by the Sea's world in the same way the sun was, as a given. Every day Celerity went up to the ship, returned with mail and news; dragons were constantly passing back and forth between the clans, adults, striplings, and even hatchlings for fosterage. He was never involved with any of it, but like the rest of the clan he had taken for granted that the airship existed, and that it would always exist.

The scope of the tragedy was simply unbelievable. Because Arete was one of the first to reach the wreckage and begin help with the salvage, Consort went too. His lover put his much larger body and stronger arms to immediate use: 'There, oh, help me! I can't lift this, someone's trapped underneath!' And he would dive for the plank and haul it free while Arete burrowed under it to find the wounded, the dying, the already dead. The dead were somehow even more difficult to see than the injured: the poignancy of how they died, saving hatchlings but dying in the attempt, or struggling, or alone...

He was numb with it. With the realization that life was short and could be so brutally amputated. That things could be so normal one moment, and the next... completely changed. His own transformation from glorious and beautiful consort to unwanted, disfigured criminal hardly signified.

He had thought his own plight tremendous and tragic and terrible. He'd be wrong. This was tragedy. This was horror. Unlike these dragons, he still lived, had the use of all his body, had a home, had a chance.

Consort worked until he could no longer keep his eyes open. He napped alongside an exhausted Arete, and then woke when she nudged him and stumbled to his feet to resume helping with the excavation. Nor did it end there... they asked him to help clear a space for the refugees, and together with other teams he put up tents, dug cook-sites and firepits and latrines, dragged in nets full of fish.

Somehow not knowing any of the dragons involved with the Dream's fall didn't make any of it easier. It just meant he'd been exempted from weeping over the dead... and consigned to the guilt of being unable to share their grief.

Over a week later, Arete curled up in his forearms and sighed, resting her head against his. 'I think we did good,' she whispered.

'I don't think anyone could do enough good to do good here.'

She shook her head, crest sagging, and rubbed her cheek along his longer face. 'You can't think that way. It'll only steal your strength. And it's unkind, and untrue.'

'I hope you're right,' he murmured, and let her lure him to sleep. But his dreams were full of regret and shame, and he had so many reasons for both that he didn't know which to feel worse for first.

***

It was an exhausting few weeks. He and Arete had their eggs to tend while helping the clan settle the refugees from the cloudship. Consort knew he could have made excuses not to help, but the pathos of it drew him, unerringly, like a splinter to the foot. He'd joined the others to put up the tent city, and once it had been erected he found he had a good instinct for making these temporary shelters more comfortable. Living the itinerant life after being used to a clan's comforts... he knew how that went from his own wanders after sneaking away from Kikitt's clan. He remembered all the little things he missed: soap and brushes. Soft rushes or pillows to sleep on. Herbs to chew to help with toothaches. Rugs to keep rocks from digging into the more tender hands of the dragons who lacked leather pads on them. He would be napping alongside the eggs and pop awake, thinking, 'StarRaider needs a brush!' and then fret until he could get free to find one and bring it by.

Arete was no better at remaining idle, though she didn't have his uncanny sense for making the tents more livable. Instead she cooked. 'I'm not very good at it,' she told him with a lopsided smile. 'But fortunately I can follow a recipe and stir a cauldron.'

The eggs hatched and brought forth a clutch of awkward hatchlings with their mother's too-dark socks, and Consort found he loved them even though they were not beautiful. He feared they would languish, though, and was shocked and delighted when half of them found immediate homes with allied clans.

How many things had he been wrong about? And now this too? Beauty wasn't everything... thank the gods. He hated to think of his newest children suffering.

'You worry too much,' Arete said, tucking herself under his much larger wing.

'There's so much to worry about that I never knew,' he said. 'Maybe I'm just making up for lost time?'

She stifled a guffaw against his shoulder, and it was the first easy laugh he'd heard from her since the disaster. Maybe things would be better now. Maybe things would finally be okay.

***

Finding Fossy... it hadn't been his intention. What had his intention been? To come here and make it bad for the other drake. To make Fossy suffer for what Serena had done to him because she'd preferred Fossy to Consort.

He hadn't even been working at the remaining wreckage of the kiteship, because after all of the dragons and familiars had been rescued he'd been concentrating on getting them situated, by helping with the tents and making them comfortable. But he'd known that efforts on the derelict had been underway, and it was chance that he and Arete had been flying back to their nest at the Lair by the Sea when they'd heard the cries for help. Arete had scrambled to fetch someone the healers, leaving Consort to digging. He'd gotten very good at digging. And then he'd brought out the broken body of the victim and discovered...

'Thank you! Oh, gods, thank you--'

He said the only thing he could, and hoped he wouldn't get a faceful of claw for it. 'You're welcome. Fossy.'

'You!' Fossy choked. A bubble of blood burst at the corner of his mouth, and seeing it Consort thought of the other wounded that had been evacuated from the wreckage. His heart skipped.

'Don't try to talk,' Consort said. 'You're badly hurt. The faster we get you to a healer...' He craned his head, spotted Arete on the wing with Aspasia and Calla flying beside her. 'Help is almost here.'

'This doesn't change anything,' Fossy hissed.

'I know,' Consort said, closing his eyes briefly. But he held Fossy gently until the healers arrived, and handed the skydancer to them. By then his nemesis had fainted.

'Come on,' Arete said. 'There's nothing we can do now.'

'I know,' Consort said again, and let her nudge him into the air. But all the way home, he wondered what Fossy would do when he woke. He would tell everyone about Consort, of course. News like that would spread like lightning. Would Arete leave him? What about the rest of the clan? Would he be driven away? Or forced into a cave to serve stud duty again, the way he had for Kikitt's clan?

Worse, he wondered... did he deserve it?

'You're so sad tonight,' Arete whispered, rubbing her cheek against his. 'What's wrong? Is it about the hatchlings?'

'No,' he said. 'I just... I hate to see anyone hurt.'

The shocking thing about it was... he was telling the truth.

'Everything will be fine,' Arete promised, and he didn't argue. This might be one of the last times she looked on him with affection, and if it was... he didn't want to spoil it with a fight.

Leaving Arete was the worst part. It was worse than his uncertainty about Fossy keeping his promise not to tell the clan about his past. Consort wouldn't blame him for doing so; if some criminal had come to the Lair by the Sea and tried to redeem himself there, where he might harm Arete and Consort's friends and his hatchlings if he lapsed, Consort thought he might have warned Reina about him no matter what promise he'd made to make the criminal leave. Did that make him a hypocrite? Or was that just the way of the world?

But he couldn't leave without a note. And if she was going to hear about his past, he wanted her to learn it from him. It wouldn't matter if she repudiated him anyway... he'd be gone. Where he couldn't hurt her anymore. Because what if Fossy was right? What if that selfish, violent drake was still hidden in his heart somewhere? What if he was just waiting on the right circumstances for it to burst free once more?

Consort shuddered. No. Maybe Fossy was doing them all a favor.

He left that night and tried not to look back, or think about where he was going. It didn't matter, really.

***
Dear Arete,

I'm sorry that all I have to leave you is this letter. There's a drake from my former clan... you know him, Fossy. He's told me to leave because I don't deserve to live here, where civilized dragons live, and he's right. We're both from Kikitt's lair. I was bought for their clan leader, and I grew up thinking... that I was going to be King to her Queen. That's not how it worked out, and I was bitter and angry. I turned my eye from her to another dragoness, and I tried to woo her... but when she wouldn't have me, I waited until she was in season and then I forced her.

The worst part was that I wasn't sorry that I'd hurt her, even after I'd hurt her. I was sorry that she'd used her magic to defend herself, and made me hurt, and made me ugly.

There are no excuses for my behavior. Sometimes, I still think the same way I did when I was there. That everydragon owes me something because I am smart and beautiful and strong. I'm frightened that that's really who I am; that all the things I've done since coming to the Lair by the Sea are some... some ploy I've been using to get dragons to like me so I can have my way again. Fossy's right. I am a danger to everyone I meet, and I don't deserve to be here, and I really don't deserve you.

I'm sorry, Arete. I hope I've never hurt or upset you. I love you--at least, I don't know what else to call what I feel for you. Maybe it's all a fake too and I just don't know it. But it's better for you and the clan if I go, the way Fossy asked me to, so I have.

Be well, my dearest,
Consort

*

Consort took to the air for his departure, gliding away along the river that ran beside the Sunbeam Ruins in order to use the cliffs for cover. At one point, he spotted a sleek shape overhead, with Arete's silhouette. He hid under the lee of the cliff, not wanting to confront her. Was she angry? She looked angry. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe she was angry for what he'd confessed to, or that he had said nothing sooner, or that he'd left without speaking to her, or ...

It didn't matter now.

It was tempting to ask Cloudkeeper for a space in her lair. Her refugee camp, set up next to the Lair by the Sea. The two clans had always been close, and while he didn't know any of the dragons well, he'd met many of them. He'd helped after the Fall. They'd thanked him for that. He'd still be keeping his promise to Fossy -- he wouldn't be *at* the Lair by the Sea, technically. And he'd be close to Arete.

Consort waited until Arete turned to search a different direction, and flew on. As he neared the edge of the Lightweaver's lands, he left the river to veer north for the shelter of the trees. He'd hide in the Tangled Wood. Surely the Shadowbinder's lands would be a good place to lose himself.

*

The Shadowbinder's wood was a very good place to lose oneself: Consort was thoroughly lost within an hour of entering the Tangled Wood. Tall, thin trees rose all around him, their canopy blocking out the sky. A thick mist entwined their trunks, reducing the world to a grey twilight with a visibility range of only a handful of yards. It suited his frame of mind well enough.

Consort had been ignoring his growing hunger for some time, too sunk in mental anguish to care. But eventually he turned to seek out the river again so he could catch some fish. He could hear a soft sussuration that he took for rushing water, but every time the sussuration grew louder, it was drowned out by laughter, and the rustling of branches as shadowy revellers fled giggling when he tried to seek them out. Then he'd hear the river-sounds again and set out once more. Consort didn't realize he'd been chasing the sound in circles until he recognized his own claw marks in a tree he'd slashed at hours ago, in frustration at the laughter.

His unseen mockers laughed louder when he cursed them aloud. "You think this is funny?" he yelled, angry, resentful, and humiliated. "Well, I've been hungry before. This isn't the first time." It'd been a long time between lairs before he'd come home to the Lair by the Sea, too. The woods here were full of bioluminscent mushrooms: THOSE were easy to find, and he was pretty sure that tundra ate them. They tasted terrible, with a bland spongy texture and a bitter aftertaste, but he ate them anyway, resenting Fossy with every bite. Everything was Fossy's fault. That cursed dragon had probably poisoned Serena against him in the first place, and now he'd poison Arete and everyone at the Lair by the Sea against him too.

So maybe I made a mistake with Serena, Consort thought, and felt guilty about the 'maybe'. Yes, I made a mistake then. But that was a long time ago! I'm not a monster. Not ... really. The whole Lair by the Sea liked me! They wouldn't've if I was a monster. What, am I supposed to suffer forever for ONE MISTAKE? Haven't I been scarred, and treated like a pariah, and exiled already? Haven't I been punished enough?

'No', a little voice inside whispered, and Consort resented it too.

Even if it was right.

Especially if it was right.

He gathered more of the nasty mushroom, swallowing them in single bites so he didn't have to taste as much. A voice giggled over his head, and he ignored it.

"Look at the mighty imperial, rooting for mushrooms like a plentiful!" the voice above him mocked. "Don't you dine on fresh-caught fish, brought by your faithful servitors, m'lord dragon? Can grubby mushrooms be good enough for you?"

Consort lifted his last mushroom. The darkness around him was almost as black as night without the mushrooms to light it. He thought about throwing it at his unseen tormentor, and sighed instead. He put it down. "It's better than I deserve."

The voice didn't answer, and Consort curled up beside a tree.

"Does the mighty imperial sleep in the dirt, too? No silk cushions, no fire-warmed cave? All alone with only the shadows for company?"

Consort curled up tighter, missing Arete. "This is better than I deserve, too," he said, giving voice to that hated, resented internal one. Maybe if he said it, someone would contradict it. Maybe if he admited to being a monster, he could stop. I'm not a monster. This isn't fair!

What difference did it make?

Consort fell asleep, waiting for the shadows to mock him further. But when he woke, there was still no laughter. Only a cloak of shadows, wrapped around him like a blanket while he slept.

*

Consort hadn't meant to go all the way back to Kadenlord's lair with him, but the younger imperial was so oblivious. Consort was sure he'd just get in more trouble if left on his own. But the boy was so insistent that he come in, and the light glowing from every window of the Renewed Library was so warm and welcoming.

And he'd been on his own for so long.

The library looked at first glance as if it had grown out of the cliff facing the river front. In fact, it had been excavated from it: raised straight out of the ground by Earth magic. It had originally been built by more than dragon hands: an ancient alliance of dragon, dryad, centaur, naga, and maren clans had once come together in this place, twenty or twenty-five generations ago. It had been an elysium then, a place where conflict was set aside in the name of learning, lore, and study.

The lowest floor was enormous, divided into multiple chambers large enough to be the meeting halls for a clan of guardians and imperials. The primary social chamber was tall enough that even standing on his hind legs and stretching, Consort's head barely reached the arched ceiling. It had a mezzanine balcony level that ringed it, supported by columns, with a double row of bookcases, one against the wall and one on the edge of the balcony, between the columns. The outer bookcases had a clever swivel point, so that large dragons could turn them and reach to the inner ones, while smaller dragons could walk or fly between the two rows. Nests of cushions were scattered about the inner space, making convenient spaces to read or converse with friends. Kadenlord fetched food for them from an enormous spread laid out at the center of the chamber, then introduced him to his friends: Dreamlord, Quickstrike, Athene, Illusia, Charm, a few others whose names Consort didn't catch.

Like Kadenlord, they wanted to know his name. Consort still didn't want to give it. It had been a long time since anyone had called him "Consort", and the name didn't fit him now. Whose consort was he? Certainly no clan leader's mate, no one of status in any lair, not for his genes or colors or any thing else. It was a name that reeked of the privileges he'd once thought were his.

Had they ever been? Had he ever mattered at all?

Athene mistook his reticience. "You haven't chosen a permanent name yet? That's all right. We can give you a use name."

"Stranger?" Charm suggested.

Athene made a face. "No! That makes it sounds like he doesn't belong. We should call him Hero."

Consort shuddered. "I'm no hero," he said, gruffily.

"You did rescue me, though," Kadenlord said.

"Kaysrescuer?" Charm said.

"Too much of a mouthful." This from an ice-crystal nocturne whose own name Consort hadn't caught. "Just Rescuer is good."

Everyone else nodded, satisfied. Consort didn't object. It didn't really matter what they called him, not when he couldn't be staying long.

*

He'd never meant to stay so long.

Not long after Kadenlord had brought him to Cloudkeeper's lair, Jocasta visited him. "To say hello," she said. They spoke, briefly, of his time in the shadowlands, and even less of his previous clans. He answered her in monosyllables, and followed up her every question with one of his own. She spoke freely of her life and experiences, laughing over tales of her siblings and her childhood, smiling about her children. Jocasta hesitated when it came to speaking of her former mate, but even that she divulged: how she'd thought they were meant to be together forever, but that it turned out she'd never been anything but a dalliance to him. "Stupid of me, how much it took to make me realize what was in front of me all along," she said, regretfully.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," he advised, thinking, I've done far worse. At least he consented to that tryst with you.

He could tell she wasn't actually interrogating him by the ease with which she let him distract. Eventually, she mentioned her profession as a scale-painter. "If you ever want yours done, just let me know." When he asked about price, she waved it off. "Oh, there's no charge for clanmates."

"I am not of your clan," he said.

Jocasta laughed. "Of course you are."

Later, he took her up on the offer, letting her paint every visible scale the color of bronzed stone, like a statue. He'd stopped being proud of his colors and genes long ago, and they just made him more recognizable. He still went about cloaked and hooded, out of habit.

But he stayed.

*


"Look, Rescuer! Come look what I did!" Jocasta stood in the Great Hall outside his room in the Renewed Library, with her wings spread wide for him to see. She swooped in a tight circle as he watched, the butterfly-panes of her wings glinting in the sunlight from the skylight that comprised the hall's new roof. "What do you think? Is it too much?"

"It is exactly enough," he said with a smile.

"All right!" She landed before him and took his wing. "Your turn now!"

"My what?!" He braced his feet as she tugged.

"To be adorned! You said I could paint you how I wanted if I got Butterfly, and I did!" She pouted at him.

The cloaked dragon still hesitated, then sighed. "So I did." He couldn't quite regret the bargain, not after her face lit at his agreement.

Jocasta bounced down the long half and to her studio, where the library stacks along the walls were devoted to oversized books of art, full of woodcuts and lavish illustrations. She showed him a stack of design ideas she'd made as she made him scrub off every trace of the bronze she'd painted him with before. She teased him with threats of rainbow-colored locks and fluorescent pink wings. In the end, she settled on a beautiful design for his wings, crisp white lines like a circuitry pattern complimented by gleaming blue hues that she blended carefully with his natural coloring. "There!" she said when she was done, positioning her full-length mirror so he could see. "Don't you like that?"

It did look spectacular. Like something from a previous life. From a time when he'd been proud.

Self-centered.

Cruel.

He closed his eyes. I am not that person any more

You cannot stop being yourself, a voice inside whispered in response.

Yes I can, he told it, knowing it wasn't true. He tried again. Fine. I'll always be the dragon who ***** Serena. The dragon exiled by Fossy. The dragon who deserted Arete with only a note. But that doesn't mean I have to be a dragon who would do those things now.. "Thank you, Jocasta," he said to his ... friend? Of course she was his friend. "You honor me with your work." He started to dress in his tattered old cloak and hood.

"Oh no." Jocasta's crest fell. "You're not going to wear that horrible ancient thing, are you? I mean ... no one will even be able to see your wings under that."

He glanced at her expression and involuntarily smiled. "I suppose that would be unkind, after you put so much work into it. What should I wear instead?"

Jocasta clapped her forefeet together with glee, and led him to the clan's massive hoard of clothing in the basement. They sorted through this and that, with Rescuer trying on giant face masks that no one in the clan had ever worn while Jocasta laughed, and elaborate headresses, and every other absurdity.

In the end, he choose simple clothing, but in good condition, and a fancy belt that complimented the new design. "Better?" he asked Jocasta.

"Much," she said, and giggled. "No one'll even recognize you!"

I hope not, he thought, glancing in the mirror. He looked more like his old self than he'd had in generations. Maybe it will be all right. Just so long as I don't act like my old self.

*

He'd forgotten what it was like to be admired for his appearance. Or perhaps it was that it was different for him now, than it had been in his first lair, when he was vain, or in his second, when he'd felt scarred and ugly for a long time before he saw through Arete's eyes that he could be handsome still. Or perhaps it was both?

Yes. Both.

Rescuer'd spent many generations deliberately concealing himself: first in the depths of Shadow, and then beneath paint and ragged, voluminous layers of clothing. Jocasta was right: other dragons didn't recognize him, in ordinary clothing and with his true colors showing. (My true colors? Is this what they are?)

Dragonesses flirted with him from time to time. Soleste made a pragmatic, unsentimental offer to nest with him, and was unperturbed when he declined.

It was the Wind festival, and Rescuer went with several others from the clan to dig for artifacts among the plateaus. The chore made him think of the past, a subject he always avoided. Fossy had lived in Wind, once. Why did Serena have to prefer you to me? My whole life would've been different if only she'd loved me.

... I am so sick of thoughts like this.

"Hey there, handsome." Bendystraw settled on the mesa next to him. She was a tundra, fluffy and charcoal with bright wings and plain genes. An ordinary plentiful, and beloved by the whole clan. "You're lookin' good. But still the same Rescuer, I see." She smiled at him, but the words made him look away with a suppressed shudder. "Hey there, nothing wrong with being you."

"Yes there is." Consort stalked to another dig site and tore into the dirt. "There's everything wrong with being the same old me."

"Sugar?" She followed him, and put a furry paw on his shoulder. "Wassamatter?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Forget I said anything. I'm sorry."

"Ya know we all like ya, right? You're a good dragon."

His shoulders tensed, talons clawing at the earth mechanically. He tried to hold the words back, but couldn't. "You don't even know me! None of you know anything about me, except what I've told you!"

Bendystraw cocked her head to one side. "Well, that an', y'know, you rescuing Kadenlord, and helping out Jocasta, and pitching in for the festival gathering, and fighting to save the hatchlings during the Plague dragon attack, and, y'know, everything else you've done during many generations of living here. But that aside, sure, we hardly know ya at all. So what's your terrible dark secret, sugar?"

"You don't wanna know," he growled.

"Sugar, I've been around longer 'n Cloudkeeper. Lived in four different lairs, an' watched three of 'em go dormant forever. I've seen some ****. Ain't nothin' you've done gonna shock me."

He stopped digging and stood still, staring at the ocean in the distance. "This would."

"Hmph. You kill some hatchling?"

"What? No!"

"Then it ain't as bad as it could be, is it? Ya can tell me."

Rescuer hesitated. There wasn't any reason to tell her. What good could it accomplish? It wouldn't change what he'd done. What'd happened. It'd alienate him from another lair. Maybe he deserved that. He'd spent his whole life not talking about what he'd done.

Maybe it was time to tell someone.

So he told her.

Words poured out of him in a rush, once he'd begun. There was so much. He still found himself trying to justify his actions, and didn't know how to explain it without doing so. Part of him was still bitter at having been reviled, over his two exiles, over the course of a life warped. I brought this on myself. If they didn't want me to be vain they shouldn't have coddled me. Someone should have told me I was wrong. Someone should have stopped me. I should have stopped myself.

Bendystraw listened, wide-eyed and attentive, encouraging him with quiet questions when he came to a stop, nonjudgemental. When he finally finished and there was nothing more to say, she exhaled. "That's some story, sugar."

"Now do you understand?" he asked. "That there's something wrong with me. With being me."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Mm. Yeah. You're not quite done making excuses for yourself, are ya?"

He stared at her, and then threw back his head and laughed. Rescuer ran the talons of one forefoot through his mane, pushing it back. "No. I guess not. It's like, I know it was my fault, now. I do. I'm not that stupid. But I can't stand the idea of it being my fault. I just want none of it to ever have happened. I want to go back and do everything differently. But I can't. And how do I get past that? How do I get from '******' to 'good dragon'? I can't ever be anyone but the dragon who ***** Serena. How do I ever get anywhere, when I'll always be that?"

"Huh. Yeah, that's hard. But you'll always be the dragon who saved Kadenlord, too. And Fossy, for that matter."

Rescuer snorted and shook his head. "Someone else would've found them, if I hadn't. And it doesn't cancel out. It's not like 'do 10 good deeds and we erase the '******' from your slate'. It'll always be there."

Bendystraw nodded. "Yeah. So. Didja ever apologize to Serena?"

He blinked. "... no. I mean. For a long time I was still mad at her, and then I was just trying to put it behind me, and then Fossy told me to stay away forever, so." He shrugged.

"You could write it down."

"What's the point? Wouldn't I just be reminding her of something she wants to forget too?"

Bendystraw shrugged her wings. "Maybe. But if ya want to make reparations for what ya did wrong, well. Serena's the one ya wronged. Not Fossy. Not your lair. Serena. Probably she won't forgive ya. I wouldn't. Sorry, sugar. But still, she's the one ya owe. If ya want to start, start with her."

To start? Haven't I already been trying to make up for it forever? But she was right. Exile wasn't repentence.

Maybe it was time to start.

*

Rescuer wrote and re-wrote the letter carefully, to expunge all trace of bitterness, resentment and anger out of it. If he couldn't quite stop feeling those things, no matter how unjustified, at least he didn't have to share them.

For Serena, of the Suncliff Lair:

I am sorry.

That is all there is to say, but it is not nearly enough. So I will add more anyway. I don't know if you will read this. I do not fault you if you won't.

When I lived at the Suncliff Lair, I was known as Consort. I was a vain, proud, selfish creature. I harassed you with unwanted attentions. I refused to accept your clear and repeated rejections. I ***** you. And the Plaguemother retaliated against me for that, but even a god's intervention was not enough to make me recognize my wrongness. I blamed you. I blamed Fossy. I blamed the Suncliff Lair. I blamed everyone but the dragon at fault: myself.

But I did, eventually, after generations in other lands and other lairs, come to realize that I was the criminal, and that I alone was at fault for my crimes.

And I am truly sorry, truly remorseful for the horror I inflicted upon you. I wish I could go back and change things, make my past self understand how terrible his actions are, stop myself from ever having done it.

I can't do that.

I don't know if there's anything I can do to make restitution for my wrongs against you. But I want to at least ask you. If there's anything. If there is something I can do, and you would tell me what it is, I will be most grateful to attempt it.

You don't owe me anything: not forgiveness, not answer, not even a curse. Not even the time spent reading this. I hope you know that already; I just want to be sure you know that I know it, too. I have no desire to cause you more pain, and if the thing that causes you least pain is to ignore me forever, please, do that.

With apologies,
Rescuer of the Library Reclaimed