Keiki

I have a secret.

My birth clan carries and weaves a Song to guard the world from Shadow beasts, warned as we were and guided from the start by the White Dragon. We first began with our lair, and over time, we have shared foundlings and our own children with other nearby Clans so that they too would know the means to protect themselves.

I was young when I was told the story of that first battle against the Shadows, and listened with perked ears and stilled wings. Though I longed to do my part, it broke my heart when I was told that I was to be sent to the Auction House. Those vast rows of other children and children who grew up on those blocks. Nearly all of them more brilliant and shimmering than my plain self.

I huddled and waited in my berth, filed among other hatchlings of lackluster color, watching as they would be lifted up, examined and rejected. Too many times I was passed over with a forlorn comment about the color of my wings. How could I help not having wings and body the same color? Others were critical of my lack of genes, neither my mother or father had genes, but that made them no less to me. But again and again I was picked up and held at arm's length, inspected and put aside. So many times... And still, I heard the faint tinkle of the Song. My destiny, such that it was, seemed destined to wither in this stinking auction house.

I barely looked up when a cat's paw paused at my block, some weeks later, and did not realize that my price was being paid until I heard the jingle of coin being passed over my head and I was being bundled up for the flight to my new home.

I was first asked to be a warrior and given a warrior's name. I took up the role as best I could, but even the Guide of this Clan soon realized that I was a different sort of dragon, and I have been allowed to follow my own arcane paths.

I have grown up here, and while I miss by birthclan, I do now love my home, and subtly in the night, I weave the beginning strands of magic to keep them safe from the Shadows of endless night. I have had lovely children with my two mates, and to my joy, my first has begun to hear the Song, though she does not yet know what it means. I believe we will be able to keep our Clan safe, and spread the Song through the ranks of Wind as well.


The only other Pearlcatcher I had known in my wyrmlinghood, had held his silence as an aid to his casting. His mouth bound shut in pure white linen. Only now do I realize that that might not have been by his choice.

I never knew I wasn't supposed to love her. She was the new tender of the Clan's familiars, taking the place of the former tender when she moved on to immortal service. Her wings held a shimmer of warmth, the illusion of the heat waves of fire and her body was patterned in delicate scattered petals of dappled sunshine. And in the speckles I saw secret poetry.

She was shy of me, when we met, and I had thought that was because I was so much larger than her, because I was so dark that I blotted out her glow. Because sometimes the air around me would crackle as though I was of the lightning clan. She kept her distance from me, taking her rambra and rasa to graze, of wading into streams with her pearl held in her delicate jaws while the streaks and flights fished, keeping the longnecks company and holding things for them while they repaired the clan's fabrics and apparel with their nimble hooved hands.

But I watched her still, and brought her things from the gathering, a ring for her ear, scraps of cloth and precious metals for her longnecks to toy with, woven watercress on pinwheel paddy cookies. She took them politely, graciously even, but held me as afar as ever. But I watched her still, read the poetry in the patterns between her shoulders, in the secrets that rippled down her thigh at every stride. At the time I thought it would be eternally unrequited, as is a common penalty for guardians of deep, world-encompassing problems, the Song called, and I watched her during the day and answered it at night.


I thought she would be pleased when I forgot to bring her her day's treasures from the field, exhausted as I was by a long night's casting and an early morning's hunting. I lay in a nook of shade, the long length of me folded twice over to fit, my eyes half-closed, for a move was soon and while I would not be left behind, it was nice to not be at the rear of the wave.

I saw a faint blur of sunshine and fire from the corner of one eye, I did not move, I held my breath as I looked at her. The sun was at her back and lit her in a halo, her eyes glowed sea-green against the darkness.

"You did not bring me anything today." She said.

"I am sorry." I replied, because I was, "I did not find anything I thought you would like today." A white lie, if I had been able to think a little faster that morning I would have brought her something for certain.

"That is all right." She said and hesitated, for just a second. "May I share the shade with you?"

"Of course," I said, and moved, coiling my tail thrice and pulling back to let her have the coolest spot, thinking her being so very literal. To my amazement and joy she stepped past the cool spot into the circle of my forelegs. She tucked her pearl into the curve of her tail and leaned against the crook of my chest and elbow.

Not wishing to ruin things by speaking, I lowered my head again, the grass made a sweeter pillow for the company I now had. I released the breath I had been keeping in my chest in a contented sigh, and dreamed pleasant warm dreams when she reached out and stroked my whiskers.


I never knew I wasn't supposed to love my daughter, who hears the Song as I do, who is a pearlcatcher vibrantly warm like her mother, whom I love. We work our wards across the Windsinger's domain, father and daughter together.

So it was to my dismay when other Imperials arrived in the Clan, and regarded me and my family with the deepest scorn when they saw us curled together.

A gossip they called my Kourin, because she spoke to the Awakened familiars that had recently been in their care and now were in hers. My daughter, my Sekishi, my red child, they refused to acknowledge. Shamed, I went to the second Shirei, who would have me, if only to illustrate a point. I bred her firmly, to prove that I still could, but the children soon departed to other lairs and other lives and still the scorn remained.

Something snapped in me that day, when Brice left and Shirei came home with that callow drake at her heel, panting after her every step, and her pretending to ignore his infatuation. I stopped lying to myself that day and wound myself around my dear Kourin, who had taken the snubs with far better grace than I, who forgave the fool that I was. Ignoring the muttering and dark looks, she released her pearl to me and I held it gently, carefully between my teeth as she stroked my face with both of her hands, our whiskers twined together forever.

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