Life Support #wattys2015

Chapter 15: Mary

Mary’s face ached and felt tender to the touch, so she didn’t touch it. Instead, she reveled in the moment that she had been able to knock down Rex. She was so grateful of the self-defense courses her parents had made her take, though they’d seemed redundant at the time. She couldn’t stop replaying the scene in her mind—of watching Rex squirm on the floor like a baby. Mary didn’t usually like to see pain, but justice was the exception. The Dyns seemed like nice people—until someone did something wrong. No wonder Fai was so…broken. Not that she would ever call him that, of course. Especially not when she was riding his dragon.

She held its horns, seeing the sky for all its beauty, all its gradients—there were so many more color schemes possible, that high in the sky—all its amorphous clouds…she never saw such beauty from behind Fai’s back She didn’t recognize the islands that passed, but she rarely recognized anything, even in the world she knew. She always became too distracted by the sky above to focus on the landmarks below—plus, everything had looked similar in her world. Everything was so new—she wanted to stay there forever, but she knew she couldn’t.  After all, she didn’t know how to guide the dragon, though she suspected that dragons couldn’t be guided at all, instead going where they knew their masters pleased. She still wanted to stay there forever.

She knew she didn’t have forever, though. And she didn’t particularly want it—she didn’t want to see her loved ones die. So, she appreciated the beauty while she could, while Fai allowed her front seat.

If anyone needed to see beauty, it was Fai. He sat behind her, his hands gripping her waist too tightly, biting into the skin under her jacket. She reached one hand back and rested it on Fai’s, slowly uncurling his fingers until they were loose, mostly so that she could breathe without his fingers stabbing her. Instead of simply loosening his fingers, however, he gripped hers tightly in his hand. There was desperation in his grip—what did he fear would happen if he let her go? The wind took her words away before she could voice her question. She didn’t scold him—he was only worried about her, after all—but instead silently prayed for him. She didn’t understand why such things would happen to a good person like Fai (and he was good, even if he pretended not to be), but it had to have a purpose. Perhaps he was meant to save the world, like he believed.

 The dragon glanced back at her, its golden eyes focusing on her face for a moment before returning to the sky. She scratched its head, flattered by its concern, and relaxed. The dragon would take her where she was meant to go.

The scales on the dragon grew progressively warmer, like a sun was being born under its scales. The dragon had traveled further than perhaps it was used to, so it was becoming too warm, the way that humans sweated when they exercised. Mary had never been told this, but she’d realized it after watching Ardor after each flight.

The dragon glanced back at her one more time, then started diving gently, moving downwards to a jagged speck of an island, barely more than a boulder. A tree grew on it, but the tree appeared to be made of stone, not any organic substance. It was in the center of the island, with stone roots curving around a boulder-looking stone, leaving the edge rugged. The island was the color of peonies.

Once Ardor landed gently on the island, Mary saw that it wasn’t only the color of peonies, but that the flowers had taken over the entire island. She almost didn’t want to walk, for fear of crushing the small blossoms.

Ardor avoided touching the flowers by wrapping its thick tail around a branch of the tree as soon as it reached the island, its body hanging off the edge, but the tree holding it up, keeping Ardor connected to them. Mary gave the dragon a smile and whispered, “Thank you,” before sitting down, resting her head against the tree. Isaac sat on the other side, and his head nodded soon after landing. A moment later, he was snoring softly.