You must stop running. Even the most beautiful flowers have hidden thorns, and you were their rarest flower.
But hush.
We must not remember such things so directly.
---
There was always sunshine. The Lightweaver’s Eye is like warming fire on her back. There is one season in the Lightweaver’s domain: summer, complete with clear blue skies and perfect white clouds that never block out the sun. Here, right and wrong are as easy as light and shadow. The truth is there, if you choose to look for it.
She is born into this light as a glowing ember, all red-orange fiery brilliance. They adore her. Phoenix, they call her, Hearthfire. All the ancestral nicknames, passed down for generations, are lavished upon her. They’re all coatls like she is. Their line stretches back as far as they can remember. She listens to their songs around the fires at night. Home, home, this is home. We are your home.
She is the embodiment of all their memories of the red-orange lava of their homelands and the light they revel in now combined. She basks in their attention and grows like a sunflower. She will be warm and radiant, Flamecaller’s child in Lightweaver’s lands, they say. They teach her to be kind and generous, loving and true. They teach her the art of smithing; her very first set of armor makes them hum with pride.
There is no need to quarrel or fight, they say. We are all peaceful here. We understand each other. We know right from wrong and we all work hard. You’ll always have a place here.
All is well.
All is well, until the sickness comes.
---
The sickness is a light grey cloud. The sickness is unnatural. The sickness is a bad omen. The sickness will bring disaster on itself, and then on them. The sickness is not like them. The elders told them this. The elders always knew best. She is right to be afraid. See? The larders are empty. See? The hatchlings are sick. See? Just one day, and already…
It’s not right.
The sickness looks like a ragged bunch of feathers to her. But she does not question them when they tell her it’s for the best. If that is how things work, then they would know.
She does not ask when the thing is gone the next day.
She does not ask where a coatl with a broken wing could have gone.
---
And here is your darkness: you knew and did nothing at all.
---
There is sunshine and happiness afterwards. Why would there be anything else? The sickness is gone. It will not come again. We protect each other.
But something has changed. A veil has been thrown over the sun. Everything is tinted by that memory: the cloud of white feathers and her eyes, light green like a spring bud.
She doesn’t want to lose their love. She tries not to think too much.
She starts looking a little harder, though. She hears the whispered discussions between the elders when a child is born with splotches of white on its wings. She notices how quickly the child is apprenticed to another clan. When she asks about the child, the mother looks nervously over her shoulder.
Truth is a sickly venom; it won’t kill her, but it will roost in her guts forever. She cannot stop noticing.
This is Lightweaver’s dual-edged blessing. The truth is not always kind, but it is always the truth.
---
When she leaves, she smiles. All the clan is here to say goodbye. Their love is infectious. Her parents hold back tears and hum her many names. They touch her feathers and give her as many things as she can carry, for good luck. The other coatl’s face swims in front of her eyes.
This time her smile is forced.
“I’ll be back someday,” she says.
She won’t. But it’s a nice thing to say anyway. She sets out in dented armor and leaves her name behind. That’s one piece of herself she can leave with them. The rest must come with her.
---
It’s loud and chaotic in Wind, full of the kind of dragons she never saw as a child. She was tossed up here like detritus by a freak storm, but she doesn’t mind being lost. She doesn’t need an identity here, isn’t anything but herself. Besides, the riot of colors feels a little like home—like her home was supposed to be. The loss of her family is bittersweet; being here makes it ache a little less.
In Wind, she feels more like a Light dragon than ever. She learns from every traveler. There are so many—couriers departing at every second, travelers stopping for a bit of rest, entertainers trying to join Windsinger’s entourage… Every day is something new.
But there was one coatl traveler who she remembers best. She was going home to her birth lands, feathers grey with age, but her Earth-brown eyes were warm and friendly. They conversed happily in Coatl for a while about simple things—travel conditions, beastclan incursions, Windsinger’s latest venture—before the subject turned to superstition.
“Yeah, some say dull colors are a sign of bad luck or sickness with coatls. ‘specially if you’re born with them. It’s common in old families of coatls,” says the coatl, with a frown. “Never understood it myself.”
“Neither do I,” she answered, truthfully.
---
She learns how to fight and finds joy in practice. It’s nice to lose herself, sometimes. Besides, there’s something honest in building up a sweat. The feel of normalcy is grounding. She forges a new set of armor for herself, with materials imported from Earth. It’s a good set—nothing beautiful, but sturdy as stone. More than that, it’s entirely her own.
She thinks of the traveler as she makes it and hopes she got home safely. The other one flashes before her eyes and she turns back to her work with a heavy sigh.
---
The sunshine is bright and warm on the day she stumbles across the other coatl. At first, she thinks it’s fate: the broken-winged coatl has come home. It sends her reeling. She was a Wind dragon, wasn’t she? Yes...Light green eyes.
The other coatl turns around.
It isn’t her. Her eyes are the same, but this one is blueish white, like ice—the other was grey. How did she forget that? The ember coatl greets the stranger anyway, with a note of sadness in her voice so masked that no one but herself can hear.
“You seem lost. Are you alright?”
The stranger is afraid. She quivers on the edge of flight. And for a moment, the ember coatl thinks the stranger understands something about her. She reaches out and touches her shoulder. The stranger shudders.
Do better this time.
“What’s your name?”
“Isadora.”
“I’m…” She hesitates. She had always liked the name Nia. Why not?
“Niajarn. It’s nice to meet you. Won’t you walk with me a while?”
---
You can protect her, and maybe that’s enough. It won’t change your past, but it might change your future. You can make her happy. The way she looks at you when you find the coatl she loves feels like sunshine—the right kind.
“You found him! Nia, I can’t believe you found him!”
“Anything for you, Issy. You’re my best friend.”
Maybe it’s enough to have found this truth for yourself.
---
- Incredible story written by
Oceanas!
