Alicja
"So you're back," said the dragon behind me.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bother you," I said, feeling weak and powerless.
Stretched out in front me was the vista view of my waking world. Men were standing around, ready to kill — as soon as they figured out what needed to be killed.
I was running and hiding from them, under things like books and flower vases.
"The furies are on me," I whispered.
"I don't recall you committing parricide," the dragon mused.
"I don't either," I said. "But they are on me, and I'm losing."
I was trying to get under the bed, with the men awkwardly trying to keep me from doing so. It was kind of comical, in a burlesque way — the way I clawed at the ground and then at my blouse.
The men suddenly stood up and Victor came through the door. He rushes to me. He's so terribly concerned. Kind of handsome though, and kind of romantic... I mean, if I wasn't screaming and clawing at my hair.
I meet his eyes, and I stop. I stop screaming, and clawing. Like I've been turned off. My body is tense, straining, vibrating with madness. But I'm not willing to look away from him. I've found him. My anchor. If he will stay, I can stop this.
I trust him.
He said he would come, and there he is.
I trust him.
"Bond is strong," the dragon said, behind me.
"Is this the change, or is this me?" I asked.
"I believe, the question you ask is the reason you are like this. Being unable to know the difference. How could you know if you were now the one changed?"
I nodded, "It's a rabbit hole."
"Wonderland," the dragon agreed.
"But I don't want to go among mad people..." I quoted in a whisper.
"Most of the change is acclimation," the dragon said, as it shifted a bit on its ledge.
"Sure," I agreed, my voice becoming academic. "...because this world is different. And the energy comes from this world. From a dragon of this world," I reasoned, building a premise.
"Dragons are symbols, and hold more than actual power, they hold cultural power," the dragon added in the same tone I used, adding to the premise.
"But do they?" I asked, beginning to pace. "Are they the source or the storage of these cultural consistencies and changes?"
"Ah," he reasoned, "but what is it to be both?"
"If that were the case, and the power of the dragon bond were actually handed down, rather than evolved, i.e. derived from a mutation of the human genome, then that would suggest the acclimation you claimed would also include memories and cultural lessons."
The dragon showed agreement, "What Jung would have called..."
"The collective unconscious..." I finished.
"A collection of information which would acclimate you into what you needed to be, in order to live here."
"It's not replacing me, it's adding to me..." I whispered.
In the room, still locked in an eye to eye struggle with Victor, my body relaxes and dreams begin. New information, gathered from the day begins to shape and sort and connect to my previous information, making connections, and lines of memories. I'm asleep. Asleep and dreaming normal dreams.
Back, way in back, behind my dreams I see a fluttering. It's banging around back there, whacking it's little bright self against memory lines and metaphors.
"It's been doing that for a while, but it won't come forward," I said.
"It can't breathe here yet. It can barely breathe back there. You are not acclimated yet," the dragon said.
"Oh," I said. "Then it's going to be doing that until then, is it?"
The dragon chuckled, "That, I can't help you with."
I looked at it back there, bouncing and banging against one thing or another. An idea? Something I might not have given the attention to that it deserved?
"What is the Morrigan?" I asked, turning around to face the dragon. It was large. Shockingly large. Immense. Huge. It took a moment for the fear of it to drain from me. I marveled that it drained at all. After all, the dragon was still here. But drain it did, leaving me in a state of sober awe.
"I mean," I stammered, "if you don't mind me asking."
"The Morrigan," it mused, as if not sure the memory was pleasant or troubling. "is best described as another power, I would think. A power injected into the original source, which occasionally adds to the acclimation."
"But requires a definite vessel to manifest," I recited, having no idea where that came from.
"Yes, but I can not help further, because I don't know what the requirements for that vessel are. They are also at the cellular level. But she signed her work fairly. Perhaps a boast, more than a signature."
I paced with slow, even steps along the edge of the ledge looking out at my dreams. I was having a particularly interesting dream with Victor involved.
"Do you know where the bond comes from? Who ... What performs the choosing?" I asked, "If I can be so bold as to ask."
"Is it not enough to know the bond exists?" it asked.
I gave that serious consideration. Did I need to know, to accept the choice? Looking at my dream, it didn't look like it. He was handsome, and I trusted him. I liked him as well. He was... a good man.
He had humility.
"I so wish it was," I answered in a whisper.
The dragon adjusted its position and watched my dream with me for a time. Victor was being very aggressive with my clothing at the moment. I blushed, because it was a wonderful scene.
"We were going to have a drink," I said, softly, wannly, sadly. "At my place."
"And then?" the dragon asked.
"And then? It didn't matter," I said. "It was good to be asked by a handsome man, who appeared to honestly, just want to spend some time with me."
After several minutes of watching Victor kiss my dream-self, and rub her in all the right ways, the dragon said, "The bond is a calling. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It is as alive as you are. The bond is a crystallization of synchronicity. His need called to your need and the two of you answered. You needed to answer. You are both the question and it's resolve."
"My ... need? His...?" I murmured. It was plain speak, the dragon didn't mean it as a riddle. But I was going to need to unpack that answer. Since it was more than I could grasp at the time — but it felt rude to ask anything further.
"Thank you," I said, and gave it a bow, like Ocean performed for me that night. Poor Ocean. I didn't want to feel so rough against him, but he wounded me so deep. I don't think he knew exactly how much he hurt me.
"No, he doesn't," the dragon agreed.
"You can hear my thoughts?" I asked.
"I'm your dream," he chuckled.
...
My eyes came open.
Sunlight spilled in through windows on both sides of me. Bright and warm, yellow and something else... it was thicker maybe. Strange. I lifted my hand and studied my skin.
I was laying in bed, my head on a perfect pillow. I glanced and then looked to my left, and there was Victor. Laying on the pillow next to me, on top of the covers. All of his clothing on. Even his boots.
I was... naked?
"What? Who...? Victor!" I spat.
"What?" he said, coming awake and alert. He looked to me, and calmed down, sinking back again, smiling.
What the hell was he smiling about?
He said, "Ah, good to see you. I thought... never mind. How are you feeling?"
"Naked!" I said.
"Ah, well, that's at least true," he laughed with a gruff bark.
"Who took my clothes off?" I accused, pulling the covers up a bit, covers that were already to my neck.
"I did," he said, swinging his legs off the edge of the bed.
"Why?"
He turned with a relaxed expression, "We threw stones, I won."
"You what? Victor...!"
"You ripped them off yourself," he said, leaning toward me, his voice deepening to a more serious tone. "You don't remember? I only pulled the shreds and strips of material off you, and then put you in bed."
"Oh," I said, slightly cowed, but still feeling abused for some reason.
"I'll go see if they have new clothing for you yet," he said, but I grabbed his arm with my left hand.
"Don't, not yet. Please?" I asked, trying not too look weak. Failing, I'm sure.
He studied me, and then nodded his head and laid back down on his back like before.
He laid next to me, and I laid next to him, trying to remember something from my dream. It felt important. Then I felt that fluttering from last night, way in the back, like a memory of something or didn't pay attention enough to something ...?
"How are you feeling? Other than naked?" he asked.
I blushed and squirmed a little, "Better. That was an awful experience." Looking to him I asked, "How did you wind up here?"
"Oh, they called for me when you started screaming," he said.
"Not a doctor?" I asked. "Not a Cunning Woman?"
"No," he said. "We know it's the change. Remember? I told you I've heard them scream. I didn't know why, but ... well it happens." He turned and looked at me, "Nothing to do except make sure you don't hurt yourself, Uncle Max told me. So, that's what I did." He looked back at the ceiling.
I turned on my side, yanking up the sheet to cover me, pleased that he didn't leave. "Thank you."
He smirked, and glanced at me, "You're welcome."
I adjusted myself suddenly feeling slightly playful. "What do you want?"
He blinked, while staring at the ceiling, then his brow furrowed, "What? Like a wish?"
I toyed with that for a few moments and said, "Alright, yes, like a wish. At this moment, with all that has happened, what do you wish?"
"I wish..." he began, then his eyes darted around as if he were watching things or places go by, "I wish..."
"Victor? Are you awake?" Uncle Ben called in, after two raps of his knuckles on the door.
Victor glanced over to me, "I wish, we had more time..." he said, and smiled.
I gave him a smile in return, wishing the same thing.