Ardea

She stood among the wreckage of shells , all that was left of her most recent clutch, and felt tears that would not fall.

This isn't right.

The pain was sharp and hot and curiously distant, almost as if it were happening to someone else. In her chest her heart pounded, but her eyes remained dry, her face impassive, her limbs too heavy to move.

There were dragons speaking over to her right, but their words barely touched her.

"...sent them to the Lightweaver as soon as they were hatched. Would've made a better profit if we had sold them, but she's such a freak......."

With enormous effort she moved away from the speakers.

This isn't right.

She took another step.

This can't be right.

One foot in front of the other she walked away from the clan she had lived in so long. No one came after her. She didn't look back.

*****

The Lightweaver, whom she had served since she came to this land, would have taken her, but it felt wrong. Ardea's innocent hatchlings were in her care, they did not need their freakish mother following them.

So she came to the dragon markets, for lack of any other ideas. The contract she drew up asked for a pitiful sum. She didn't care. If there was something out there for her she didn't want a price tag to get in the way. If there wasn't? What did it matter?

******

She was laying in the dust, her slow breathing the only evidence that she lived, when Matilda came across her. The coatl looked down at her, a strange mixture of emotions on her face.

"Did you lose your change?" she asked softly.

The guardian lifted her fiery eyes to not quite meet Matilda's. "Worse." She whispered in reply. "I am outcast and freak. I have never had a charge. The pull is twisted in me. It comes and goes and I..... don't know how to follow it, or even if I want to."

Matilda looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before she spoke.

"I was born a guardian."

Ardea cringed, thinking she knew the words that would come next.

"I was hatched from an abandoned egg. I grew to adulthood alone, save my mate who also hatched from a lost egg. I had no charge. Worse, I felt no need of one. Freak, they called me and I bore the pain of that for a very long time."

Ardea blinked, shocked and surprised at what she was hearing.

"Is that why you became a coatl?"

"No, and yes... I am myself. I have found where I belong. My clan is large and unusual and I delight in taking care of them. They are not the feverish obsession of a charge though. I became a coatl because it felt right.

I think.... I think if I ever had a charge it was simply to grow and change." She ended softly, a distant expression on her face.

Matilda and Ardea stood together for a long time. Thinking. Remembering.

At last Ardea spoke, "I think I would like to come with you, if you'll let me...."

Matilda smiled warmly. "I think that's a good idea.

*****

Ardea lived in the Ascent for a long time, learning to accept the friendship of dragons that did not look down on her.