After a while, the intercom chimed, and the door opened on its own. Veralla entered the room.
"Hey!" she said brightly. "What are you doing?"
Airo lifted his head in surprise. The room's light had been discreetly dimmed, probably by Zuckeroff. According to his power armor's HUD, hours had passed. "I am... playing games," he said, blinking away the confusion.
"Oh! Games! Can I play too?"
"If you want to," Airo said patiently, and the dragonet hrrr-ed in joy. He moved to free the seat but Veralla jumped and landed straight in his lap.
"How do you play?" she asked, standing on her hind legs and watching the screen eagerly.
Airo, shocked, struggled to find his voice. "You use these buttons, and..."
"I know, I know," the dragonet said impatiently. "Kiana showed me how to use all kinds of interfaces, even a keyboard, if I had to. I ask how do I win?"
Airo explained the rules of the game. The dragonet began to play. She clicked the keys clumsily with her claws, eyes narrowed at the flatscreen, forked tongue flicking out in concentration. Airo watched her in stunned silence, paying no heed as her absently swaying tail batted him on the head. She was heavy for her small form, weighing about as much as a well-built adult human. He noticed she had grown a little since her hatching, though her body was still rotund and puffy-looking. Her limbs had become a bit longer and her wings, though now tightly tucked against her back, were visibly more developed.
He was about to say something, when Veralla's sinuous neck curved and she turned her head to him. "Are there any games with dragons in them?" she asked.
Airo winced, but nodded. "There are." He had found one entry earlier during his play. "Search the index directory for Soukou Zmei."
She did, and loaded the game. The intro played, and then a dragon with a human on its back began flying through grand ruins amidst a vast ocean and endless skies.
"Why I cannot turn around?" Veralla asked, frantically pressing keys.
"The only way is forward," Airo said. "You must control both the rider and the dragon."
Veralla grabbed the aiming sphere. The human avatar onscreen lifted his enchanted cannon, shooting a stream of glowing bolts. Enemies exploded in brilliant clouds of multi-colored lights. Epic symphony and haunting chimes flowed from the speakers. Veralla hrrr-ed, enthralled.
Airo checked surreptitiously his heads-up display for historical data about the game. He stared at the display in awe. The game was one of the recovered infoclusters from the Codex. It had been made in the time of the Ancients, before the Cataclysm. More than thirty millennia ago.
And yet, perfection reigned immortal.
Veralla played for a long time. Airo sat there, pinned by her, watching her, thinking... thinking nothing. He felt eerily relaxed, despite the fact he was in physical contact with a dragon. Veralla struggled with the controls. Without realizing what he was doing, Airo bent forward, and put his hand on her foreclaw, steadying her aim. The music sang in harmonic resonance, the levels scrolled through dozens of magical vistas, dragon and human united in their quest for good prevailing over evil. Airo guided Veralla...
...why he called her by name?...
...and together they finished the game when the early light of pre-dawn paled onto the wall. Airo hadn't realized this room had a window.
"This was so beautiful," Veralla said in a small voice.
Airo was silent. His tired mind was still going through the ramifications of what had happened, when Veralla suddenly turned, peering intently at him, the tip of her snout inches away from his face.
"What do you know about dragons?" she asked.
Caught off guard, he stared at her.
"Why are you asking me?" he said, forcing himself to speak.
"I want to know what dragons truly are," Veralla said earnestly. "I searched about them in the mesh, and read and read and read, but there is just so much! I found thousands of stories about dragons, and each describes them differently: some are small, like the dreyks in the geodesic dome; some are large and strong, like the statues around town; and some are... something strange, called 'symbol'. And here is this dragon," she added hastily, tapping the flatscreen, "who doesn't look like me at all." She looked back at him, downcast. "Am I the only dragon... here?"
"No," Airo said very quietly.
"Where are the others, then?"
His gaze drifted toward the ceiling. "I fought on a distant planet long ago," he whispered. "Dragons lived there. I imagine... they still do."
"You fought... dragons?" she asked, her purple eyes wide.
"Yes," he said, his voice oddly strained.
"Why?"
"They were... not like you. Different, as you say. Lost." Strength returned to his voice. "They attacked us. We attacked in return. Some of us tried to help the dragons. There was a war, and many died, both humans... and dragons."
"What happened to the dragons?" Veralla prodded.
"I do not know," he said honestly. His tone was bitter. "More than seven centuries have passed since."
"You do not remember what happened?" she gasped in awe.
"No. I was... away, for many years. I was told many things have changed during my absence."
"Oh," she said, relieved. "Then why have you not learned what has happened?"
Good question, Airo thought. Out loud he said, "Maybe I should."
"I can help you!" Veralla said. "We can use the Viirt! You can learn about anything in there! And if there is too much to learn, you can use virtual time-dilation, to use less time while you learn! Kiana showed me how to do that." She yawned widely. "I feel sleepy now. We can start tomorrow, yes?"
"Okay," Airo said, glad this awkward situation was resolving itself. Veralla hopped off him and climbed on the couch, where she curled upon herself and promptly closed her eyes.
He left her to sleep, and went outside. He sat on one of the observation terraces, the tables around empty in the early morning. He watched the rising suns for a few minutes, fighting his urge to keel over from exhaustion.
Finally, he got his tired body under control. "SAI... Yeoman Cloud," he called.
"Yes, Commander?" the power armor speakers responded at once.
"Does this armor support time-dilation interfacing?"
"Of course, Commander. All Orion-class PPGs are equipped with an advanced MMI suite enabling the wearer to modify their sensorial perceptions and stimuli, even in the absence of physical access sockets or implanted wetware."
"Right... Put me into the slowest subjective time state. Collect all historical information for the last seven centuries in the available databases, and prepare the thirty-seconds version for each major event. And give me something to juice me up."
"At once, Commander!" Yeoman Cloud boomed with zest.
With the SAI's assistance, Airo began the daunting task of catching up on seven centuries of history and progress.
He read about the Supremacy Wars, and how they had led to the rise of the Galactic Stellar Consortium and the Union of True Humanity. He learned about the wonders of the Æther Age, and studied the Axiom Crusades which followed in the wake of the first Conduits. His eyebrows rose when he read about the Order of the Radiant Knights, and went even higher when he got to the Dragon Independence War. Finally, he reached the brutal conclusion of the Restoration Era's first millennium: the Starblaze, an event even this hyper-advanced galaxy described as supernatural, making mentions of demons and angels and superversal dimensions. At the same time, he explored all the marvels science had uncovered throughout this time: harnessed gravitonics, transcendence of the body, mind over matter, aethertech, dark energy manipulation, quantum leaps in FTL travel and starship technologies, creation of new life in the forms of true AIs and uplimals, and clinical immortality.
However, some periods of history were strangely unknown to this modern information-laden society. He found almost nothing about his own time, or the years before, or about the Transhuman Order, the forerunner of the current galactic civilizations. Records regarding Utopia Draconis, the homeworld of the dragons, were also scarce, to the point it seemed as if there had been deliberate omissions in the archives.
In the end, his search for knowledge was satisfied despite these historical blank spots, and he had no desire to delve into the past more than necessary.
He had only one database query left: Ferrtau.
He keyed in the name, and read the results.
Tungust Ferrtau was a Radiant Knight. He had been part of the Radiant Order since its founding. He was cited as one of the greatest Conduits to have ever lived, and his reputation was on such a legendary level practically every source called him by the sobriquet he had earned: The Lightbringer.
Throughout the long centuries while Airo had been tormented in the dark limbo of cryostasis, Ferrtau had participated in every major galactic event. He had freed their common homeworld of Arceria during the Supremacy Wars, protecting the then-backward colony from any interstellar harm. He had acted as a mediator during the Axiom Crusades, traveling around the galaxy, promoting peace and defending the weak, abiding by the values of justice, honor, enlightenment, and the tenets of the Radiant Order. And in the end, he had become a hero to all by playing a key role in ending the terrible ragnarok known as the Starblaze.
And during all this time his companion, Kalessia – whom future-past archivists referred to as the Firstborn – had been at his side, equally devoted to those same ideals of the highest caliber.
Airo saw their picture at some public event centuries ago, and the revelation staggered him. He stared at the image of Kalessia, and suddenly saw Veralla in a completely new light.
If cosmic irony was a physical force, Airo would have been falling into the depths of a black hole right now.
After what was probably more than a day in time-dilation, Airo emerged from virtual space. The stimulants Yeoman Cloud had given him through the power armor had worn off, leaving him utterly fatigued, and he went back to Zuckeroff's old room. Barely an hour had passed in real-time, and Veralla still slept on the couch. Airo silently contemplated her peaceful slumber.
After a while, he left, and went to his assigned room, the one given by the town council when he, Kiana, and Zuckeroff had arrived at Dragon Retreat so many days ago.
And Veralla. She had come, too.
Airo collapsed on the bed, not bothering to remove the power armor.
He slept.
He was awakened hours later by a sharp noise. He propped himself, and looked around sourly. Veralla was in his room, and she was making strange, high-pitched screeches, flapping her wings and swinging her tail in stilted, rigid unison.
"What are you doing?" Airo demanded.
"Oh, I am trying to imitate the dragon from the game," Veralla explained enthusiastically. "Do you think this is how it speaks?"
"Hardly," Airo said, getting up. He rubbed his neck, but his gauntleted hand felt only the outer layer of reinforced composites. "The game was made by the Ancients, long before dragons were thought to be real. And if your kind developed language at any point, I am not aware of it."
"Yes, I forgot! We had to interface the Viirt, and learn more about history!"
"I already did," he said, looking at her and thinking about what he had found.
Veralla made a small sound in her throat, equally surprised and pleased. "Can you tell me more about dragons now?" she asked eagerly.
Airo took a deep breath, and gave an exasperated sigh.