I caught myself as my eyes snapped open. Bare rock inches from my face greeted me. Profoundly disoriented by the dregs of my latest dream, I glanced around to confirm that the last several days with a dragon weren't just another part of it. No such luck. She was still curled around me, and her gaze met mine as I looked at her head. "Sorry," she apologized. I blinked in confusion and sat up as Anea stood and began to stretch.
"Sorry for what?" I asked, pushing back against the guilt and anxiety the dream had left swirling in my gut.
"I didn't mean to wake you up like that," she explained, extending each leg and splaying the digits out in turn. "I just shifted a little bit, and you slipped off of my foreleg. Still, you're not hurt, and I need to go hunting anyway. So I guess it's just as well." I checked my watch and found it was about two o'clock in the afternoon.
"I'm actually glad you woke me," I admitted, aching to talk through what I'd just seen to try getting it out of my head, but not sure whether this dragon was the right person to confide in. Ever since that first long talk we'd had, I'd mostly avoided talking about anything to do with the military. I didn't want to risk pissing her off over that again. "I wasn't exactly getting restful sleep."
"No, you weren't," Anea agreed. She arched her back in one final stretch, then asked. "It must have been a very bad dream. I don't think I've seen you that distressed since we first met. Was that what you were dreaming about?"
"Uh," She'd never shown any interest in my dreams before. Why the sudden curiosity? "No. That wasn't it. And I don't really feel like talking about it." Anea blinked and abandoned her stretching to step alarmingly close to me.
"Liar," she declared, fixing me with a glare. "You just lied to me, Adrian." I stared back, confused about what she thought I'd lied about, until I realized she meant I'd just lied to her. As in, the last thing I said.
"Holy shit," I muttered, amazed. I guess she really can tell when I'm lying. How else could she catch me in a lie as small as that?
"I told you not to try lying to me," she began.
"Wait now-"
"And you haven't," she cut me off, stealing the wind from my forthcoming argument. "You've been very honest with me. But of all the things you could possibly try to hide from me, why lie over something as trivial as whether you want to talk about a dream?" Note to self number seven hundred thirty-two: lying to dragon only makes her extremely determined to dig into whatever I'm trying to avoid. DON'T DO IT!
"Fine, I do want to talk about it," I admitted. "But not yet. And probably not with you." Anea snorted and jerked her head back as her glare became much more indignant than accusing.
"Who else," she asked, sounding both affronted and genuinely confused, "do you think you'll be able to discuss this dream with? And since you want to talk about it, then why would you hesitate when I already offered to listen?"
"Well, first I'd like some time to think over it on my own and figure out if it means anything," I answered. That was true enough, except that the meaning already seemed pretty clear. I was hoping some time would allow perspective to dull the conviction I now bore. "And I know there's no one else to talk to about it. That's why I said I didn't feel like talking about it at all. Would have been a lot easier if you'd just bought it."
"No doubt," Anea agreed sarcastically. "Why are you so determined to not talk to me about it?" I don't need this right now!
"Why won't you leave me alone for a few minutes?" I snapped, sick of Anea's incessant prying. I needed to work things out for myself, and I couldn't do that and fend off her digging. "If you won't accept that I don't want to talk about it, then maybe you'll at least believe me when I say I won't tell you anything right now." Anea growled at my words, and I was struck by a sudden urge to stand and pace the cavern. "Fuck!" I swore quietly, frustration at my infirmity surging through me to join the swells of guilt, annoyance, and dread raging in my gut.
"Now what?!" Anea demanded, thoroughly vexed. "I'm just trying to help! Stop getting so angry! What is wrong with you?" I clenched my teeth together to hold back the storm of biting retorts gathering like a tight knot in my chest. I was too emotional to keep talking to Anea. I was about to start a fight with her. I was desperate to walk away and calm down, but that was impossible. After a few moments of silence, my pulsing vision cleared up, and I felt safe speaking again.
"A lot is wrong with me," I answered with deliberate control of each word. "I don't want to fight you, but you're digging your claws into wounds I just found myself." Anea snorted and began pacing as I was forced to just sit and watch her.
"I've never laid a claw on you!" She protested.
"Metaphorically!" I shouted back, before I clamped my jaws shut again. Breathe, then talk. Can't walk it off, much as that would help. Deal with it.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Anea asked after a moment of the silence I left hanging while trying to avoid saying the wrong thing again. "Truthfully, right now I'm much more concerned with why you won't do what you want than whatever you actually dreamed about. You want to talk about it. But you won't do it. Why are you denying yourself something you want?" What kind of question is that?
"Because I have some degree of self-control. I don't always get to do what I want." Anea shook her head.
"Of course you don't. No one does. That's not what I meant. You also want to leave, but you won't because we have a deal, and I would stop you if you tried anyway. But in this case, you are the only thing stopping yourself. Don't you realize what that can do to you? It sets one part of your mind against another, makes you get angry at yourself, confuses your ability to make decisions or even think straight, and sets you up for an endless struggle you can't win or lose. Internal conflict is dangerous and unpleasant, and it's probably why you're getting so upset. It's not something you should risk over something as trivial as this." I just sat quietly while she rambled, only half listening.
Now that she wasn't prying into my dream anymore, I'd started to calm down somewhat as well. I was finally able to assess what I felt and why. I found that I still wanted, needed her to go away. I needed some time to process the idea that I... that if my country was really at war at that moment, it might be my fault. I needed time alone with my thoughts, and since I was incapable of finding privacy on my own, Anea needed to leave. The longer she insisted on trying to help me, the more frustrated I became with her, and with my own injured body. By now, my frustration at my dysfunctional legs seemed to be at least as powerful as the guilt and distress my dream had inspired.
"I don't think it's that complicated," I muttered, thinking out loud. None of the bad feelings swirling inside me had gone anywhere, but I had enough control over them to talk again. "Honestly Anea, I'm always upset. I can't walk. Earlier, when you helped me stand up, I actually felt pretty good. I felt like I was making progress towards getting my life back. But... Dammit, nevermind." Out of long habit, I cut myself off before I could continue complaining. There were times to bitch about things you can't change, but you don't do it on mission. Since my mission was surviving living with a dragon, when was I not on mission?
"Oh no!" Anea barked, pacing again. "Whatever you're thinking, say it! I don't know what's making you try to keep things from me all of a sudden, but I don't like it." She paused for a moment, then laid down in front of me. When she spoke, the flaring anger in her voice had been doused by honest concern. "I don't like seeing others in pain. I just want to help."
"It's stupid," I berated myself. This wasn't going to stop until I gave Anea something. Refusing to talk to her wasn't going any better than I imagined a discussion about my job as a fighter pilot would. Might as well offer up the portion of the mess that had been eating at me the longest. At least I understood it. "I'm just... sick of being a useless cripple. I know you're doing your best," I rushed to add, glancing at Anea, afraid of offending her again. "But it's been weeks since I could just walk around. I'm not used to being an invalid or a burden on everyone around me. I hate it. I really fucking hate it. Then, throw in an awful dream that gets even worse when I wake up and think about it and yeah, it's a little more than I can keep to myself. You don't know how much I want to just take a walk to clear my damned head. Anea, I want to walk again so much it hurts." I stopped, taken aback by my own bitterness. I was even more surprised when Anea sighed sympathetically and answered:
"I know exactly how you feel." She stretched her neck out and laid her massive head on the floor just to my left. I stared into the closer fist-sized golden globe of an eye as it gazed through the far wall of the cave. The black slit of her pupil twitched as Anea glanced through her memories. "Once, when I was young," she paused and the eyes swiveled to lock onto me for a second, then resumed their unfocused wandering, "Actually, I was even younger than you and a great deal more foolish. Anyway, I did something stupid, and I broke one of my wings. Badly. I couldn't fly, and the pain was so bad I couldn't furl it properly to walk. Dragging it on the ground was even worse. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood there and wailed at the hurt. Lucky for me, my parents knew I was missing, and they were looking for me. My father heard me crying, and he found me and carried me home." She shuddered at the memory, and my arm twitched with an impulse to stroke her like I would to reassure an animal. Anea wasn't just an animal, and she might not welcome the gesture, so I compromised by lightly resting a hand on the side of her snout.
I felt her low, quiet growl resonating through her skull as she continued undisturbed, "That may have been the most painful experience I've ever endured. I couldn't fold it, so father flew slow and tried his best to shield my wing from the wind. But he could only do so much. The wind still found and fluttered my wing the whole way back to the nest. I... I never feared the air like I did that day. I'd dealt with unfriendly skies before but this? The air felt like a pack of wolves with their teeth already sunk into my wing. It kept shaking and ripping at my broken bones. I was sure my wing would tear itself in half before we landed. And if my father had accidently dropped me?" She shuddered again. "But we did make it. When we got home and my parents started to heal me, I thought the worst part was over. It wasn't.
"No, being grounded was the worst part of the whole ordeal. The pain of the flight back was awful, but it was also over quickly. The time I spent unable to fly though, that dragged on and on. I was itching to be back in the sky by the second day. After ten, I was considering jumping off a cliff just to feel the wind rushing past me again. I might have tried it if my parents had ever left me alone. At least one was always with me at the nest while I recovered. And I wasn't any fun to be around. I was bored and angry and bitter. And impatient beyond reason to fly again." My heart ached at that thought. "And at least I could walk." She looked at me again and slid her head sideways under my arm to press gently on my side. I ignored the weak instinct to shrink away. She wasn't being threatening; I needed to stop spurning her attempts to comfort me. Whether they helped me or not, it wouldn't hurt to humor her. I rested my forearm on top of her snout as she continued. "I thought this would be a problem for you. If you remember, this is why I changed my spell to direct more of your energy toward healing."
I nodded, absently running my fingers across the warm, enticingly smooth facial scales just under Anea's brow. "That's helped, I think. But sleeping through the problem isn't solving it. I wouldn't care so much if I could get around more or less upright in the meantime."
"And how do you plan on doing that," she asked, nudging me with a bit more force. "Don't you need both of your legs to walk?"
"Not if I had some crutches," I replied wearily. Anea retracted her head and held it in front me to look me in the eyes. As she pulled away, allowing my hand to run down her snout, a single green scale dislodged under my fingers and dropped silently to the floor.
"You used that term before. You said it was some tool you intended to make from my firewood. You didn't say it was supposed to help you walk."
"Crutches," I explained. "They're usually used in pairs. If I had some, I would stand up and rest my weight on them at my armpits." I stuck my hand under my left pit to demonstrate. "They would reach to the ground, and I would be able to balance on them and my left foot. My right foot wouldn't even have to touch the ground. I could walk with them by swinging forward and planting my good leg, then balancing on that leg while I bring the crutches forward."
Anea blinked. "So you can just make new legs?" she asked, sounding skeptical. "Then why didn't you?"
"I tried." I unzipped my right chest pocket and drew my pocket knife. As I opened it, Anea withdrew her head a bit, the spines on her back twitched, and her pupils narrowed slightly. "Don't worry- Wait. Are you afraid of this thing?" She snorted, miffed.
"No," she stated flatly as I stared her down. This time I could see the dragon was lying in her nervous shifting, her claws flexing against the stone, and her simple, one word denial. I let it slide.
"Well don't be. It's practically busted." I grabbed the knife by the blade and shook it so the loose hinge rattled loudly. I was startled when a sound like water flash-boiling on a hot stove top suddenly erupted, though I soon realized it was Anea hissing through her teeth.
"Stop that!" We both ordered in unison. "How can you stand to hold that thing by the sharp end?" Anea continued, ending her spine-chilling hiss to my great relief. "You don't even have scales; it could slice right through you!"
My brow furrowed as I obliged Anea and closed the knife. "It's a tool, Anea, not a monster," I chided gently as she seemed to relax a little. "Yes, it could cut my hand if I was careless. I wasn't. I'm not. I just wanted to show you why I can't use this knife for any serious wood carving. It's about ready to snap in half." Anea blinked once, bobbing her head slowly. Then she blinked twice rapidly and froze for a second, before her eyes widened in excitement.
"I know how to help you!" She announced, beaming. "You need another blade! And I know where to find one!" What? WHAT?! There's no way she really just suggested that!
"Uhh, wh... Where?" I almost asked 'why,' but I was worried I might accidentally talk Anea out of following through with this impulse.
"Don't you mean 'why?'" she asked smugly. So she is thinking it through. "I'll admit, I don't like the sight of an unnaturally sharp shard of metal getting waved around in my nest, but that's mostly instinctive. I let you keep that folding one, didn't I? I know you need a blade to survive. You are a tool-user, after all. It doesn't bother me that much if I stop to think about it, because you couldn't really hurt me with a blade that small even if you tried. And I don't think you'll try something like that anyway. So, if you think the dagger I took off you the day we met will help you walk again sooner, I might go and find it for you during my hunt this afternoon."
"Might?" I reluctantly asked, certain Anea was setting me up for something.
"Well, that clearing with the reflecting pool and the waterfall is a fair distance further than I planned to fly for my hunt today," Anea continued, meandering toward her point. "I'd be gone at least until the sun sets. That ought to be plenty of time for you to think through that dream of yours without me bothering you. Wouldn't you agree?" OK. There it is. That's why she's so pleased with herself. She gets to settle her conscience by helping me, and I have to tell her about my dream, unless I decide to just play stubborn. "I just want to help-"
"Stop it," I cut her off, defeated. "You do not just want to help. I'm not that naive; you also want to make sure that I'm not hiding something important from you. And I can't truthfully tell you it doesn't matter because it sure as hell does to me."
Even as I pointed this out, I realized that I had nothing to gain by further resistance on this. On one hand, if Anea was just a manipulative snake trying to squeeze information out of me, it was better to play along when she was offering an incentive than wait for her to start threatening me instead. On the other, far more likely hand (I hoped), if her concern was genuine, if mixed with other motivations, then I would only hurt myself with blunt refusals. Her sympathies were a resource I couldn't afford to waste if I ever wanted to leave this place with her consent. Knowingly or not, she'd completely outmaneuvered me this time.
"Alright," I conceded. "You win. If you go get that knife for me, I'll talk to you when you get back. About the dream," I added, sensing Anea wanted a specific promise. "I promise I'll talk to you about the dream I just had."
The dragon closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh, seeming to bask in her little victory. If she was gloating, at least she had decency to do it in silence. "Thank you," she said, opening her eyes. She stood again and looked over at the fire behind me, crackling away as ever. She strode to her messy wood pile and continued as she stacked several branches on top of the bed of glowing embers, "I wasn't exaggerating, by the way. I won't be back before nightfall, and I may not have anything for you to eat when I return. Probably won't," she corrected. "I hate flying in the dark, so I'm only hunting if there's prey at that clearing."
"Not a problem. I hate night flying too." I could go without fresh meat for a day. Actually, I still had leftovers from the night before, assuming they hadn't spoiled. Every time I ate the day-old meat, I half expected to get violently ill from food poisoning, but that hadn't happened yet. Anea was shaking her head.
"Flying humans," she muttered like a half-hearted curse. "I'm going to have to see that for myself someday." She looked over her fire once more, seemed to judge it adequate, then turned back to me. She looked like she wanted to say something, but after a few moments, she turned again and padded out of the cavern without another word. I listened as the telltale clicks of her claws striking stone echoed back through the tunnel. Relief bloomed in my chest as they faded to nothing. She's gone. Now I can- Dread swept through me like a gale, ripping my short-lived relief to ragged shreds. Now I have to deal with this.
I fired the first missile. I struck the first blow. I hadn't really considered what that meant until now. Hell, I couldn't say for sure if I'd even remembered exactly what had happened in that engagement until living through it again in my sleep. It felt like I'd somehow blocked myself from reflecting on those events while I had to focus on survival and couldn't afford to be distracted by guilt. But that was over, and now... I fired that first missile. And the second. Then my squad destroyed the rest of the bombers. Those J-20's attacked... The dogfight... I killed two, no three. That left three against three because Steel had already gone down. Just about an even fight. Jesus Christ... that could have gone either way, couldn't it?! Did I... did I get everyone killed?!
Tears sprang to my eyes as I recoiled from the thought. "NO!!" I shouted, unable to keep my thoughts silent. "I didn't know they were there! That wasn't my fault!"
But if you hadn't fired...
"They might have attacked anyway!"
Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn't change the fact that they only attacked after the bombers went down. After you fired the first shots. I slammed my fist into the floor, but only felt stupid for hurting myself. And what happened next? The train of thought careened onward, unbroken. That war you're so desperate to get back to? It probably didn't exist before you fired. I flung myself to the ground and grabbed my head in my hands like I could squeeze the condemning thoughts and memories out. You can't fix it, you know. If you started a war, you can't undo it any more than you can unburn a house.
"If I started a war," I argued aloud, "I only did it because I was following orders."
Really? Following orders? That's a good enough reason for starting World War Three? The others were hesitating. If you'd all disobeyed and let that squadron leave, you'd have been court martialed for sure, but that engagement might not have happened, and you'd know for sure that everyone was fine. The radiation symbol flashed yellow behind my eyes.
"I had a damned good reason to follow those orders! Those fuckers had nukes! NUKES!! In American airspace! If we hadn't intercepted them, god knows how many people they might have killed!"
And how are you so sure they had nuclear bombs on board? I froze for a second, thunderstruck by my own question.
Right then, I realized that I knew nothing about the pod that had been affixed to my plane that morning, other than an assurance that it wouldn't hinder my fighter's performance in any way. I did know my fighter had no built-in capability to detect nuclear material. When I saw the radiation alert, I assumed that it had to have come from the pod, and that the pod must contain some kind of long range radiation sensor. McAllister's orders to destroy the bombers had made perfect sense based on that assumption... But that was all circumstance and inference. My gut sank even lower, and my fingers and toes went cold and numb. Carver didn't have a radiation alert go off. None of them did. That's why they all hesitated. Why didn't McAllister tell them why we needed to shoot them down? Why did I have to tell them?
On some level I wondered if my guilt stricken mind was just looking to create a villain I could blame all of this on. Then I remembered something else. Q-5's. That's right. The planes were early Cold War, completely obsolete. Disposable. Why would the Chinese military put nukes on those planes and send them to violate our airspace? And send stealth fighters to escort them? Unless they expected to lose them... Ok, there is at least one thing I can be sure of. Whatever was happening with General McAllister and that pod, the Chinese were definitely hoping to provoke a fight. Soldiers don't start wars, Adrian, politicians do. They use their armies and economies like knights and bishops on a chessboard. If you started a war, you only did it because one or both sides wanted you to. Still... If I hadn't played the part, maybe I could have delayed it. Maybe it wouldn't have been me and my squad. My heart sank again. But I did play the soldier. I shot when I was ordered to. And Steel and I had been shot down in return.
I sat back up and rubbed my wet cheeks on my left sleeve. As I did, the patch on my shoulder caught my eye. Embroidered red, white, and blue bordered by a band of golden thread, fixed to the olive green background of the flight suit fabric. In the past, whenever I looked at the patch, I appreciated the way the contrasting colors drew the eyes to it, simply felt proud to display the American flag, or fretted that it was beginning to fray and needed replacing. Thanks to the abuse I'd put my uniform through over the past few weeks, the patch currently velcroed onto my shoulder actually had more brown than white, and the threads were unraveling in no less than four spots. And I found I didn't care one bit. I was emotionally spent, unable to muster any further feelings, good or bad. All that symbol inspired in me right then was confusion.
I remembered Captain Carver's question once more. What is the point of all this? What did we really stand to gain by fighting China? Why did they refuse to cooperate with us? I thought she must have been right. Any layman could see the road we were on led to disastrous war. Did those with power, Congress and the President, know something the rest of us didn't? Or were they so removed from reality that they didn't care? Hmm. Am I actually agreeing with Carver? I was a staunch patriot. Normally, my faith in our elected leaders was firm, because surely they wouldn't have gotten people to vote for and trust them if they didn't deserve to be trusted. And now, look where my faith had gotten me. Was this new perspective clarity or delusion? Delusion. I decided with a weak smile. I'm in a dragon's cave. I've definitely gone crazy. I sighed. If only. Why is Anea so much easier for me to accept than the possibility that my leaders are wrong?
I didn't sleep. I was tired, but I couldn't close my eyes. I kept seeing my squad's faces, laughing, smiling, serious, bored, or angry, then burnt, bloody, dead. I found the fire too hot, so I moved away. Then the draft made me cold, so I moved closer again. The rock of the cave floor was even more uncomfortable than usual, and I kept finding new pebbles sticking into me whenever I tried to get comfortable. I remembered when I first met Jerome. I had just arrived at the Air Force Academy and been assigned a room after spending the morning getting chased around by more angry people than I'd ever seen in my life. The trainer had told me to start organizing my issued gear and then left me alone. Just me and my new roommate. He was a prick. Was clearly taking all the stress way better than me, because he smiled, offered his hand, and introduced himself as Jerome. I instantly hated him for acting so calm while I was on the verge of freaking out. But I just tersely introduced myself and got to unpacking. I wouldn't have made it through the first week without his help. By that Christmas, we were friends. After we both made the aerial acrobatics team, we were also teammates. And when we made it through pilot training and both dropped F-35's, we became wingmen too. I didn't know if I'd ever see him again.
I rolled onto my other side and winced as yet another rock poked me. I grabbed at the offending pebble and aimed to toss it in the fire when a glint of light drew my eyes to it. I looked more closely at the disc pinched between my fingers and realized it wasn't a rock. It was one of Anea's scales. Probably the one I just saw her shed because I'd never seen them loose in the cave before. I turned it over and over, leaping at the chance to direct my attention outwards for a few moments.
It was about the size of a nickel and shaped kind of like a half-oval. I squinted and held it up to the fire light. Anea's scales varied in color, all green but grouped into patterns of lighter and darker greens. This one was a shade close to emerald, and one side shined iridescent, just like an actual gemstone. That had to be the underside, because Anea's hide definitely did not exhibit that kind of ostentatious sparkle. The other side was a half and half split between a very glossy shine and a matte green that hardly shined at all. The duller half included the rounded edge of the scale, which would be visible if it was still tucked in among all the other scales on her hide. In fact, looking closely, I could see where the edges of two other scales had rested on top of this one. The edge of the matte and gloss finishes followed a precise line where the two circular edges had met on top of this one, like half a figure eight. I flipped the scale over to the underside again. I vaguely recalled some part of a story describing dragons with hides covered in jewels. Angling the scale back and forth so the fractured fire light raced across its face, I thought I could see how that legend had started. I placed the scale in my palm and closed my fist around it.
What am I going to tell Anea? She wants the truth, I guess. But dammit, how can I make her understand what happened? She'll hate me for it, I know it. I guess the best I can hope for is just surviving until tomorrow morning. I shook my head. You blithering idiot. Stop thinking of her as a monster. You know her. She'll hear you out if you talk to her. Explain it. Make her see how you saw it. If she still judges you harshly then, you probably deserve it. It was a plan. Maybe a poor plan, but at least it was a plan.
After a while, I settled down in the one spot in the cave where the angle was just right to see all the way through the crack in the ceiling to the sky above. It probably also let the rain in, but none had fallen since I got here. I just sat there and watched the tiny slice of blue sky while riding out the fits of guilt, regret, and fear tormenting me. They came and went at random, and since I could find no peace or resolution with the memories causing them, I could do nothing but endure. I kind of hoped that I'd be able to control myself when Anea returned, but I had enough to worry about without fretting over what a dragon might think of me being emotional. So, I sat and watched the sky, enjoying the occasional glimpse of white when clouds passed into view, as the blue smoldered into the fiery orange of sunset. When the light from above faded, the light from the fire became ever more pronounced, blackening the sliver of sky by its contrast. Not a single star was visible with the firelight obscuring my night vision. My stomach growled a bit, but the only thing I felt from it was some not so mild nausea. Anea still wasn't back, and I was finally starting to feel tired again. It would've been great to hide from my own thoughts behind the curtain of sleep, but I feared what my subconscious had in store if I dared to close my eyes and dream. All in all, I was a wreck. But at least I knew what I had to do.
The clacking of her claws announced Anea's return about an hour after night had fallen. I didn't smell any blood, so I doubted she had time to hunt. Soon, her head appeared at the bend in the entry passage, followed by her long neck and longer body. She was walking awkwardly on three legs, her left forepaw held off the ground and closed into a fist. I guessed she was carrying my knife in it.
"I'm back," she announced unnecessarily. She settled down in her preferred spot in the center of the chamber with a relieved sigh and let her furled wings sag wearily to the ground. Before she spoke, she stared at the ceiling to conjure another werelight to supplement the light from the fire and brighten up the darkening cavern. "I almost forgot why I hate night flying so much. I remember now." She kept her fist closed, making no move to offer me the knife.
"Did you find it?" I croaked, my voice hoarse from shouting at no one and everyone.
"I did," she confirmed, somewhat distantly. Is she distracted? I'd been working up the nerve to start spilling my story, but now I hesitated. Did she still care? I kind of hoped she did. After accepting that I had to tell Anea about the dogfight and what it meant, I'd started anticipating, almost looking forward to it. After all, she'd been right that I did need to talk about it. But should I if she no longer wanted to listen?
"Is, umm... Is everything alright?" I asked instead.
"Hmm?" she grunted, blinking. Then her foggy gaze snapped into focus and locked on me. "Yes. Well... Yes, nothing happened out there." She paused uncertainly, then continued, "There's something I need to tell you. It's important. But you need to go first. I-"
"Ok. Here's-" I cut myself off as I realized Anea had been about to say something else. "Sorry. Uh, you were saying..?"
She shook her head. "No. Please go ahead if you're ready. What has you so twisted up inside?"
"War," I answered softly. "War, Anea. I told you days ago, we're at war. What I didn't say is that it's just started. I..." All I could manage was a shaky whisper laced with horror. "I'm pretty damn sure I helped start it. I managed to avoid thinking much about this for a while; I couldn't afford to get this messed up while I had to focus on surviving. But I can't hide from my own actions anymore. And I don't know what's been happening since I crashed out here. My entire squad, my friends, could be dead. My family knows I'm missing. And for all I know, entire cities could be nothing but smoking holes by now."
"Slow down," Anea interrupted carefully, "What do you mean you helped start this war? And if it is less than a moon old, how could you possibly think that your cities are already in ruins? Surely your enemy couldn't invade and lay waste to your people so fast."
"They wouldn't have to invade to do it." I swallowed, tasting sour bile in my throat. "You aren't going to like this. I don't. I told you about airplanes, remember? Well," I continued as Anea just watched and listened, silent and still. "What I didn't say was how we armed them and used them for war. I fly a fighter. Fighters fight other planes."
"Appropriate name," Anea observed, dryly.
"Bombers," I continued, "Carry explosives to drop on ground targets. They're meant for use against combatants today, but they can and have been used to directly hit cities. It's a disgusting terror tactic against civilians. Dirty. We don't do that anymore. But the Chinese, the people I'm pretty sure we're at war with now, were threatening to do that. My squad and I intercepted their bombers and turned them back several times. Except the last time, things were different. Our general ordered us to shoot them down. I fired the first missile," I confessed with a cringe. "We destroyed all four of their bombers. Then some of their fighters came out of nowhere and surprised us. One of my wingmen, Steel, went down before we even knew what was happening. It was a mess after that. I think I tagged three, but then I took critical damage and limped all the way here to crash." I felt a great weight lifting off of me, talking about this with someone. Unfortunately, it was replaced by a gaping apprehension for the judgments Anea was sure to level against me. "Well that's it, I guess. That's what I was dreaming about."
"You were dreaming about the last battle you fought in?" she asked, bemused "That's what all of that was about earlier? Adrian, is something wrong... Of course it is," she answered her own question. "Alright, I understand. You're already hurting, you had a bad dream about your last battle, and you didn't want to talk to me about it because of the things I said about you warriors." She nodded, certain of her own logic. "Well, I am sorry to hear about your friends. Didn't you tell me warriors really fight for each other?" I nodded, accepting the sentiment without feeling much of anything. I'd pretty well emotionally drained myself earlier. "I imagine that forms a powerful bond between you. It must hurt terribly, not knowing if they're alright," she hesitated, then added, "And not to be insensitive, but you're sure that's everything you were trying to hide from me?"
"Of course," I replied, confused. "I started a war. You really think there's something worse than that?"
"Well, I was expecting something a little less obvious," Anea stated. "I know the mere possibility of losing your friends is excruciating for you, but I don't know why you were so afraid to tell me about it. Warriors kill and make war. I already knew that. And I already know you're a warrior; you told me yourself. What did you think-"
"No. I didn't," I said firmly. Good god. She has no idea what any of what I just said means. Anea blinked at my interruption and waited for me to elaborate. "That day, when you asked me if I was a warrior, I told you I serve in the military. You took that as a yes."
"What difference does that make?" She asked with a snort of agitation.
"A lot, apparently." Anea snorted again. "Especially since you have your own ideas about what a warrior is and what he does. And your assumptions don't fit me. If warriors just kill and make war, then I don't want you calling me one again. Call me a soldier, a fighter pilot, or a serviceman, but don't lump me in with your version of a warrior. That creature you described is a mindless barbarian who kills because it's fun. Does that sound like me?"
"You just told me you threw the first blow. You killed other humans. You said you started a war!" she accused. "If you try to tell me you aren't exactly what I just said, then I might get angry." I considered her warning for half a moment.
"Fine," I conceded wearily. "Maybe I do fit that role now. But I wouldn't have two weeks ago. Anea, I was trained very thoroughly as a fighter pilot. I'm an expert flier and dogfighter. I developed those skills so I could use them exactly as I did. But would you believe that I've devoted years to this path, and then that the first time I've had to kill was in the battle I just told you about?" I swallowed on the nausea the memory conjured before it could really form. I didn't have time to get sick right now.
Anea blinked again. Then once more. Finally. I'm getting through to her. "You've been a warrior for years, but you never killed anyone until a few days before we met? Had you even fought in a battle before then?"
"Actually, no. That was my first real combat, period." Anea shook her head and blinked again.
"So you're more of an apprentice then?" she asked.
"Not really. What I'm trying to tell you is that things are different now than they were in your stories. Warfare has changed. There are still wars, Anea, but they're not what you probably think of. It's about ideas and causes now, not kings throwing fits over petty disagreements and committing subjects to die for their egos. And nations going to war with each other is pretty uncommon now. Most of the fighting happens inside national borders; the people living there trying to work out who should be governing them and how."
"Your kings don't fight with each other anymore?" Anea asked doubtfully. "I find it hard to imagine there are many humans who could rule with such restraint."
"Ha!" I laughed, genuinely amused.
"What?"
"You're right," I chuckled. Royalty. "They couldn't. That's why there aren't that many left. I don't think there's any royalty at all in the Americas."
"Stop," Anea said, holding up a paw. "You're joking. You must be. What is the name of your king?"
"I have no king, Anea." I said with a considerable amount of pride.
"Then who do your armies serve? Who leads your people? I know humans have to have someone in charge to keep them all working together." She was getting more and more curious. I never considered that she'd have any interest in politics.
"The United States military is headed by the President of the United States," I answered, trying to simplify everything I knew about how my government worked on the fly. I welcomed the turn in our conversation; it motivated me to remember something besides twining contrails and exploding planes. "But the members of the military don't swear personal loyalty to him. Our oath is to support and defend our constitution, er, our system of government. By extension, our loyalty is to the people as a whole. The President is the single most powerful person in my country, and he's the face and de facto leader of the government. But he's nowhere near as powerful as the kings you're probably thinking of. He is elected by popular vote and only serves for up to eight years. Then we choose a new leader."
"Your people chose a new leader every eight years?"
"Actually every four years. The president can serve two four year terms." Anea shook her head again. "That's just how the president gets his job. I haven't even touched on what he actually does, or the other two branches of our government who have power entirely separate from and equal to his."
"That all sounds," Anea paused, searching for a word.
"Complicated?" I offered.
"Horribly," she agreed. "Even if I couldn't sense when you lie, that all seems a little too twisted for even a human to make up on the spot. I don't know if I care about the details, but I do find it quite intriguing that you have a leader, but no king. What does any of that have to do with your nations not fighting each other anymore, though? Surely anyone with that much power would want to use it to gain more." I had to walk back through our conversation before I got the context of Anea's question. She was always better at keeping track of the point than I was whenever we talked like this.
"Right, I said something about kings and egos." I sighed and pondered the question for a moment. "Well it's about accountability and legitimacy... Anea, this is going to take a while. I'm trying to help you understand what happened in that battle and why it matters, but I have to start with basics I wouldn't even consider with another American. Everything I'm telling you is common knowledge, or at least common understanding where I come from. The battle is meaningless without context; I can see that just from how you brushed it off. But if you want to understand why it really matters, why it could lead to a very bad war, I have to help you see it like I do, like other people will."
"I understand that, Adrian. One thing I've learned from you is that you humans put a great deal of meaning into symbols. I see scratches on rock, you see words or pictures of flying machines or mathematical equations that can somehow tell you if I've brought enough pieces of paper to take ownership of your dwelling. Until you explained all that, I wouldn't have looked twice at those scratchings. So when you say I'm missing the symbolic meaning of a small fight between two rival groups of human warriors, I completely agree with you. If this ends up taking a long while, I just hope your battle truly is as monumental as you think it is. And then I have to tell you my little story."
"If you really understand what I set in motion when I'm done, I bet you'll wish you didn't," I commented before continuing. Then I walked Anea through the fundamentals of concepts like the inherent rights of individuals, social contracts, and the legitimacy and broad structures of democratically elected governments. I didn't use technical words like those because they wouldn't mean a thing to her, and I didn't expect her to have to explain these concepts to anyone else. The important thing was that when we moved on, she understood that having people choose their leaders, and having those leaders in turn treat them like people rather than subjects, made people happier, and happy people were generally less violent. In essence, she agreed that at least some of the principles my government ordered itself around made sense to her, thus elevating it above every other human nation she'd ever heard or dreamed of. Score one for America.
I also explained how democracies didn't fight each other often as long as both recognized the other as legitimate and hadn't been attacked first. At once, she understood that since leaders had to garner and maintain support from the people who'd actually fight the wars to stay in power, their own self-interest kept them from pursuing petty wars. She appreciated how we'd thought of a way to harness one of humanity's base instincts to actually work for the common good. She understood how we could keep from fighting each other, and why going to war with China was not something to brush off as a common occurrence. She didn't understand why such a war was so dangerous, however, when humans had been fighting with each other since before we first thought of throwing rocks. She would soon.
"There's no way around this. It's time for you to hear about the World Wars," I opened.
"I don't like this," Anea muttered, brow furrowed, head resting on the floor. "I think I already know too much about them. You told me tens of millions died in them. I gather from what you told me about your bombers that many of the dead weren't even warriors. Isn't that enough?"
"Almost, Anea, but not quite. We don't need to go into too much detail, but you need to understand those wars broadly because a lot of the rules that nations follow when they deal with each other exist to make sure those kinds of wars don't happen again."
"Fine," Anea huffed. "Go on."
"World War One," I began, "Was fought over pretty much nothing. Some politician in a third tier country with big friends got assassinated. That country declared war on another, then their allies declared war because they had promised that they would, and before you knew it, all of the major powers in Europe and their vast empires were fighting on two main sides. Europe," I quickly explained. "Is our name for some of the lands east of the ocean far to the east of us. Do you know any geography? I should just skip that part, right?"
"I believe I know the lands you speak of. My ancestors who crossed the eastern sea came from a land on the other side. I've never been there, of course."
"I haven't either. Well, you understand it's really far away, pretty much the other side of the world. And the war got so big that even my country had to get involved. Our side won, for whatever that's worth, but the important thing about that war was that it was the first time a lot of newer tech was used in large scale conflict. I'm talking about machine guns that can fire hundreds of bullets a minute, armored vehicles that can carry cannons and troops across any terrain, bombers and fighters, and even poisonous gasses that could choke thousands to death in minutes. It turned the battlefield into a meat-grinder that killed millions of young men. And civilians weren't safe either. Even away from the front, just having so many people taken out of society plunged those nations into turmoil. And the chaos hurt and killed plenty of people in its own ways. It was so bad, they called it The Great War and The War to End All Wars. It even got the major powers to all sit down together and try to figure out how to stop it from ever happening again."
"I'm guessing they failed," Anea muttered. "How long did it take for the second one to start?"
"Yeah, they failed. The idea of cooperating with foreigners was still too new, and most people in the world just wanted to deal with fixing their own countries. And since their attention was focused inward, they failed to notice the threat poisoning Germany." I was drastically oversimplifying history and I knew it, but I would only confuse Anea by going into greater detail. I looked into her slitted eyes, laser focused on me, and wondered what kinds of scenes her imagination was conjuring to accompany my story. I doubted they lived up to the true horror and tragedy I was glossing over.
"Germany was one of the countries that lost, and its people hit really hard times because they were forced to pay war reparations. Basically, they had to give a lot of money to the winners. That put enormous strain on them and bred a lot of anger and resentment. And then one man, Adolf Hitler, took advantage of all that unrest and used it to propel himself onto Germany's throne. Then, he set about making his people strong again with promises of revenge and conquest. And he also turned their anger inward to start something truly evil.
"Well, long story short, the rest of the world failed to appreciate how dangerous Hitler truly was until he started toppling neighboring countries with invasions that took less than a month each. He conquered almost all of Europe until only the United Kingdom stood against him. Fortunately, as evil and power-crazed as he was, Hitler was also a moron, militarily speaking. He was entirely too enamored with his country's technologies, and he squandered his advantages. Germany had spread its forces thin across the lands they'd conquered, and they thought their Air Forces alone could finish off the United Kingdom. Hitler tried to bomb them into submission with prolonged attacks on their cities and military bases. But the Brits were a lot more stubborn and resolved than he counted on. They held out and kept hitting back whenever they could while also doing everything they could to get my country to come to their aid."
"Again? The humans in this land wanted to fight in a war across an ocean again?!" The dragon looked like she was ready to launch into a glorious rant about bloodthirsty human warriors, but I stopped her.
"Absolutely not. The people still remembered how bad World War One had been, and they hated the idea of another one. Fortunately for the British, we found our own reason to get involved soon enough. One of Germany's allies, Japan, an island nation on the other side of the western ocean, launched a surprise attack on one of our most important naval bases and killed several thousand. So we declared war on Japan and Germany and set about fighting two wars at once.
"The fighting went on for four more years after that. Once the troops on my side began their counter invasion into Europe and Germany, they started to uncover the evil that Hitler and his Nazis had been up to. Invasions and war? In a terrible way, that's still just politics. Bombing cities is cruel, even evil in its own right, but it still serves an objective. You can argue that it demoralizes your enemy and cuts his ability to make weapons. But what our troops found in Europe was the worst kind of pointless evil. They found the concentration camps. Places, factories more like, devoted to the systematic collection, torture, and extermination of people the Nazis considered too unlike them to be human." I spat on the floor.
"My parents weren't even born then, and the stories still enrage me. I can't even begin to describe how bad those places were, or what the people sent there went through. Men and women. Children and elderly. Locked in giant ovens and cooked alive, shot for sport, slowly cut to pieces with surgical tools, worked and starved to death, packed into tiny, pitch black rooms and left to rot in their own filth... OK, I can begin to describe it, but nothing I say can really..." I shook my head, unable to continue for a moment. "I'll put it this way. Every bad thing you ever heard about humans doing to dragons and far worse happened in those camps. And it happened to well over six million people. Finding those camps and hearing the stories from the survivors changed what the war was about. We were fighting evil incarnate, so we could not lose. But it turned out there was some evil at work on both sides.
"We won the war in Europe, but my country was still fighting Japan two oceans away, and we were doing it mostly alone. In a war, both sides constantly delve into science to find better weapons and more effective means of delivering destruction, and my country had just finished its masterpiece. We had been pursuing it because we knew Germany was following the same trail, and we wanted to make sure we could answer if they found it first. By the time the weapon was ready, the war in Europe was pretty much over, but like I said, Japan was still fighting. So we used it on them." I took a breath, then in a voice dripping with dread, I revealed the greatest power and worst nightmare of humanity. "It was called the atom bomb. We only used two. Two weapons. Two cities utterly destroyed. And a brave, proud, warrior culture surrendered unconditionally." Anea stared at me as I fell silent. I think she was waiting for me to say a punchline, or to hear some tiny deception in my words. As reality dawned on her, her pupils gradually widened into discs and every single spine running down her back stood straight up.
"Oh," she said simply.
"Oh," I agreed with a nod. I wasn't mocking her. I was acknowledging and sharing the horror that was new and terrifyingly foreign to her, but a lifelong companion to me. She shivered and scratched at the rock floor.
"I don't like this," she growled. "I really, really do not like this. You're telling me that your nation created a weapon that can destroy an entire human city in an instant?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Why?" she snarled, growing angry. "Your race keeps on pursuing ever more spectacular engines of death! When will it be enough? Gods and devils, I can't believe you wield that kind of power now. How many cities full of your own kind have you destroyed like that?!"
"Two." Anea blinked and paused, still vibrating. "I told you, those weapons brought Japan to its knees and that was the end of the war. Anea, remember the things I told you about how humans live now. Many of us have thrown off subjugation and tyranny. We're more than willing to fight and die to keep our freedom, but that doesn't mean we like war. And the Second World War was the worst war ever. People were terrified and desperate for anything that could end the war on our terms sooner. Remember what we were fighting. Not just tyranny, but the absolute worst evils humans are capable of, unleashed. To fight the ultimate evil, we forged the ultimate sword. When our enemy fell before the weapon was ready, we turned it on our other enemy to end their fight as well."
"And then what?" she demanded. "Don't tell me that that was the last time humans fought each other. Or did your people use this new power to conquer all others before that could happen?"
"No, that's not how... Once we got peace, we were sick of fighting. And before anyone in my nation seriously considered pressing our advantage, a rival nation of ours developed their own version of the atom bomb. That started an arms race and a lot of testing and research went into the new weapons. And what we discovered was that a war fought with these bombs would bring destruction like the world had never seen, even after two world wars. It made war not worth the cost. Eventually, we learned that such a war could mean the end of humanity as a species." I stopped and just breathed for a minute, my heart pounding and my stomach twisting again.
"I keep waiting to hear you exaggerate," Anea muttered. "I want to hear the lie, because what you are saying just seems too awful to be true."
"It's true, Anea. And before you ask, yes we have tried to think of ways to get rid of them. But we aren't willing to be threatened by those weapons if we can't respond with a threat of our own. The stalemate is preferable. One good thing came from all of this though."
"What? What good could possibly come from humans possessing that kind of power?" She kept shaking her head.
"Well, there hasn't been a war between top level nations since then. Even bitter enemies can't afford to fight when total destruction for both is a likely outcome. Do you get why?" I couldn't tell if she was still listening.
"Sorry, not really. This all is a bit much for me." She went still and stared at me, listless.
"Ok, um," I tried to think of a simple way to explain mutually assured destruction. "Magic," I decided out loud, snapping my fingers. "Anea, I can explain this with a kind of game. Pretend there were two powerful wizards who found a spell that would kill ten seconds after they said a certain word. Both wizards hate each other, love themselves, and know the word. How could one defeat the other without both of them getting killed in the end?" She thought for a moment.
"Oh, that's easy," she answered with confidence, some life trickling back into her eyes. "If the first wizard gags the second before saying the word, he wins." Smartass.
"That's not allowed. They can't stop each other from speaking."
"Hey!" She protested indignantly. "That's not fair! You can't change the rules after I already won!"
"It's not about winning. It's about the point I'm trying to make." She squinted at me and thought for another, longer moment.
"In that case," she huffed. "I don't see a way for one to beat the other. Even if they agreed to a duel without using their word, if one was about to lose, he'd probably risk saying the word. They'd probably be forced to just not fight at all. Ok, I think I see how you've survived with those weapons. And I also understand exactly what you've done by breaking the peace between your people and this 'China.' You certainly put forth a lot of effort just to make sure I do. Why?" She demanded with a piercing glare. Oh. That... is a good point.
"I guess... I couldn't stand the guilt on my own. You got me to say it, but you had no idea why it was as bad as it was. That felt so wrong. I don't know, I guess I just couldn't leave you ignorant."
"I wish I'd made you. I assume you had a damned good reason for attacking when you know what the stakes for your race are."
"I thought I did," I replied wearily. "Now I'm not so sure. I had reason to believe the bombers were carrying nukes - that's what we call atom bombs now - and the bombers were headed toward one of our cities. My squad got orders to attack. So at the time, I thought I was justified."
"And now?"
I shook my head. "I've thought it through, and it just doesn't add up. Those bombers were ancient, nothing anyone would expect to stand a chance of reaching their target, so they might have been bait. I also made assumptions about my equipment and acted on those assumptions; but now I realize I can't be sure I actually had good information. Those bombers may or may not have had nukes for all I really know."
"But you thought they did," I breathed a sigh of mixed relief and guilt. If she was trying to rationalize my actions, it meant she still didn't want to hate me. But maybe I deserved to be hated. "And you had orders that you had to follow. I understand that warriors- I mean soldiers, have to follow orders. You didn't have a choice." She was offering me an out, but I couldn't accept it.
"I had a choice. I could have disobeyed and taken the consequences. I could have at least waited to see what my squad leader would do. The rest of my squad did. But I was so angry at the threat. I mean who, the fuck were they to bring shit like that into my skies?! But now," I continued after my pulse of rage faded. "Looking back with a cool head, I don't see many ways I could have screwed up worse."
Anea thought for a moment, her tail twitching. "What would have happened to you if you hadn't followed your orders to attack?"
"To me?" I shrugged. "Anea you know what the stakes are now. If there's even a chance that disobeying could have changed what happened, then who cares what would have happened to me?
"I do. That's why I asked." She proceeded to answer her own question. "Your leaders would have killed you, wouldn't they?"
I sighed and nodded. "That, or imprisoned me for life."
"Just as bad as death," she stated definitively, nodding to herself. I wasn't quite so sure about that. "Anyway, what's done is done. What you'd do if you could do it over doesn't actually matter. What counts is what you do with each new choice you're given. I think you know you did what you thought was right at the time. Can you really ask more of yourself?"
"Of course. That way next time, I can make a better choice." She considered that for a moment.
"Granted. But you've tortured yourself enough over this. I mean it," she added, her eyes flashing fiercely. "Stop. If you wanted me to judge you as good or evil, then I still think you were trying to do the right thing. You thought your people and your family were being threatened, and you did what you had to to protect them. It's clear you take no pleasure in what you did. I stand by what I said before; you have a good heart. Nothing you've told me tonight makes me doubt that. That's all I can say. I'm not a human, and I can't tell you what other humans would think of what happened. But as for this notion of you starting a war? I think you're overestimating your own importance. You don't know what happened after you crashed here. For all you know, your leaders came to their senses and called their armies back to avoid making a rash decision. After everything you just said about the power humans now wield, do you really think they are willing to risk total destruction over what happened?"
I wanted to believe in Anea's version of events, but I couldn't. I knew in my gut that if cooler heads were going to prevail, that battle would never have happened in the first place. Someone wants a war, or at least escalated tensions. It's the only thing that makes sense. Still, I guess she's right that I don't know for sure.
"Why the sudden confidence in human restraint?" I asked when I realized Anea was waiting for a response.
She shrugged with her wings. "I don't really have a choice anymore. Unless you're just crazy, humans have more power than I ever imagined, and yet you've managed to avoid using it to destroy each other - and it sounds like vast stretches of the world - for several decades. Since there's nothing I can do to stop humans on my own, having faith is the only option left." She reached forward and rested her head against my side again. "You've also shown me time and again that there's more to humans than I ever dreamed. It makes it a little easier to believe in the lot of you." Her near eye flicked to mine and held my gaze. "You've told me your story now. Is there anything else you feel compelled to add?"
I thought for a moment. There was plenty more to say; many more ways to look at that battle and its potential consequences, but nothing that demanded immediate attention. Maybe Anea's right. Maybe all this speculation is just me torturing myself. "I guess not. The rest can wait." My thoughts flashed back to my squad again, this time bringing loneliness instead of grief. They made it through that mess. I don't have any proof otherwise. Until I do, they made it.
"Alright. Because I have a confession of my own to make." She took a deep, steadying breath, and let it out in a smooth jet of steamy air that half scalded my back. "You know the most important reason I had for bringing you here was to find out why you are not blinded by the Veil. I said I needed to find out what made you special before I could consider letting you go." I nodded. This was about as old as old news got. "We've talked about a lot of possibilities over the past several days. I haven't been satisfied by any of them. But there is one idea I've had from the beginning that I never shared with you. It's one I feared, and I wanted to try and explore any possible alternative before investigating it. That hasn't really worked because I've still been thinking and worrying about it this entire time." Her eye didn't move, but its gaze now held great concern. Maybe even a little fear. "I told you once that the most likely reason you can see through the Veil is that someone gave you that ability. What I didn't say at the time was that I already suspected someone in particular. Adrian, this is my last explanation for what you are, and also my first. I'm the one who broke the Veil's hold on you. And I did it the night before we first met."
A wave of confused anger rippled through me at her admission, and she must have felt it because she flinched away and watched me nervously from out of reach. "You did this?" I asked in a voice much more calm than I felt.
Anea dipped her head. "It's the only explanation I have that fits. Every way I can think of, it fits."
I leaned forward, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose. "If you knew this was your fault-"
"I didn't know!" She protested, cutting me off. "It was my first thought, but it shouldn't have happened like that. My spell was a minor one! It shouldn't have broken the Veil!"
"Anea," I cut in, looking back up at her. "Now you need to slow down. You've lost me. I'm not mad," Yet. "Just tell me what happened. What spell?"
Anea took another deep breath to try and calm herself, and her spines relaxed a bit. "Ok. You first saw me at the clearing with the pool and the waterfall, right?"
"Right," I confirmed, but with a tiny tug of protest from deep in my gut. Hmm? What was that?
"Well, that wasn't the first time I saw you. I'd been tracking you for a day and a half, since I found a wrecked machine, which I now guess was your aircraft, burning at the edge of my territory. I found you, and I approached late in the night."
"Why were you tracking me?" A chill ran down my spine as my instincts screamed the obvious answer between my ears.
"Not for prey," she sighed, exasperated. "Are you ever going to stop worrying about that? How many times must I tell you? No thinking creature with any sense of decency hunts another for food. I was curious what a lone human was doing so deep in the wilderness, and I thought you might have something to do with the machine I found. Heh," she chuckled once. "I guess I was right about that. Anyway when I got close, I smelled blood, and I knew you were injured. I waited for nightfall and approached when I hoped you'd be asleep. When I saw how badly you were hurt, I pitied you. But I didn't know what to do. While I was standing there, staring at you and thinking, your lungs began to fail. I realized you were dying, and I saved you. I drained your lungs and suppressed their healing enough to stop them from trying to drown you. It wasn't something I thought about; I just did it because I could, and because it felt like the right thing to do. Then I left. I didn't expect to ever see you again. Then you found me. I'm confident you remember what happened next."
"Of course. I'll remember that as long as I live." I thought for a few moments about Anea's story as she watched nervously. She'd said the Veil didn't work well in close proximity, but she was curious enough about me to break that rule, it seemed. And apparently my lungs were filling up with fluids when she found me that night. I must have been unconscious, not just asleep like I thought. At least, if she was telling the truth. The way she said it, like she was confessing to a sin, made her sound credible to me at first, except for the part where she was 'confessing' to saving my life. Could she be just trying to convince me that I owed her even more? Could she prove anything she just said? As I weighed her words in my mind, distorted, half remembered flashes from a dream I might have had that night danced at the edges of my mind. An enormous creature, larger than the mountains coming to chase away a shadow. The shadow. I saw it that night. The instant I remembered that, I was convinced. "Thank you," I stated at last.
"Thank... For what?" she asked blankly.
A weak smile tugged at my cheeks. "You saved my life. My lungs collapsed when I crashed. Then I spent an entire day working my ass off to try and find a clearing. I must have overdone it. If you hadn't been there, I'd be dead. Thank you." Something strange happened to Anea's scales as I spoke. A shimmer of reflected light, fiery orange and brilliant white shattered against gleaming green, ran down her neck and body, then up and down again. It was stunning, like the facet of a diamond catching sunlight. I was so mesmerized, I barely noticed her reaching forward until she already had my flight suit secured between her teeth. She deftly lifted me off the ground and deposited me at her left side so that I was leaning on her again.
"Adrian," she said, her voice thick with emotion as she looked down at me. "I've wondered and worried so many times about what you'd do if I told you about this. I never imagined you'd be anything but angry. I can't even say how surprised and glad I am that that was the first thing you focused on." I raised my left hand and she pressed her muzzle against it. Warmth bloomed in my chest and I struggled with indecision over whether to welcome or squash it. We're not friends. As long as you're going to keep me trapped here, we are not friends. But it's not like I hate you. If only... God, I wish we could be friends.
"Anea, I don't care about the Veil. It's not why I crashed here, and it's not why I'm hurt. I don't care that whatever you did to me might have broken it. But you do. You knew what might happen, and you helped me anyway, without any idea who I was or expecting me to even know you'd done it. I can't believe how lucky I was to crash into your forest of all places. But," I said as I lowered my hand and thought about what she'd said again. "You didn't bring this up to hear me say that."
"No," she agreed. "I'm happy you said it, but no, you're right. We need to examine this together, like all my other ideas." She shook her head vigorously. "Although, I've been working through it over and over on my own since we met, and it's only gotten more likely from my perspective."
"Ok. Let's start with the basics. How could you doing whatever magic you did to save me break the Veil?"
"Oh, you mean that basic," she muttered. "Well for all its power, the Veil is still just a spell. An active spell. And a basic rule of magic is that two active spells can interfere with each other. The more different the spells and casters are from each other, the more interference can happen. The Veil is a Sylvan spell, and I'm a dragon. Spending time with you has taught me that sylvan are even more dissimilar to dragons than humans are. And my spell was also working at a cross purpose from the Veil."
"Your spell was to save me," I pointed out. "The Veil doesn't hurt humans. Do you really think they're opposed?" Anea shook her head again.
"You need to broaden your thinking. The Veil may not hurt humans directly, but it does disadvantage you. It doesn't protect you from those it conceals. The only thing that saves you is its imperfections. I've done a lot of thinking about this, and I can't help but wonder if the Sylvan originally wanted it to be their ultimate weapon against humans. If it didn't start to fail when those it conceals get too close, it would have rendered humans helpless against them. As it is, it's cut humans off from all examples of magic, and you no longer believe it exists. The Veil does harm humans, the Sylvan know it, and they probably intend it. My spell was meant purely to help you. They were completely opposed; the only difference between them was subtlety."
"Alright," I nodded. "If you think it makes sense, then I've got no argument. But why did you say it shouldn't have happened?"
"Assumptions," Anea admitted, shrugging her wings. "I believe the Sylvan would know not to count on no one ever trying to cast a spell on a human. I would have thought that they'd have taken steps to make the Veil robust enough to restore itself if it was disrupted. It's a logical precaution for any persistent spell, so I can't imagine they'd overlook it for a spell as colossal and important as the Veil. I don't see any way my little healing spell could have done anything to permanently weaken the Veil's hold on you, let alone totally break it. But I'm out of alternatives. The only thing that makes sense is that your immunity is my fault." I perked up a bit at that. At long last, Anea was settling on an explanation! But it still didn't quite satisfy her. I have to help her pick apart her doubts.
"Hey, don't sound so depressed. This is a good thing, isn't it? No human conspiracies to fear, no obscure Sylvan relations to try and trace. Just an unexpected consequence of you helping me when I needed it."
"I suppose," she muttered. "It's kind of frustrating, thinking that I've had the answer this entire time. And I still don't like it. Not," she quickly added, "because I don't want to take responsibility for you. It's because I still don't think it quite fits." She laid her head down by her side and curled her tail around. "It's getting too late to continue this," she yawned, glancing up at the ceiling to extinguish her werelight. "We should sleep on it and try again tomorrow. But first," she shifted her body to expose her left paw and opened it, offering my survival knife to me. I gladly accepted it and tried to examine the blade, only to be stymied by the diminished lighting. I settled for wiping the blade clean with my sleeve as Anea continued, then returning it to its sheath. "I hope you're able to make your walking sticks. I'd hate to think all of that effort was for nothing." Her eyes blinked shut for a moment, then opened again. "You're absolutely sure you never noticed anything particularly odd anytime before the night I helped heal you?" My gut twinged again as I opened my mouth to say 'no,' and it hit me. I heard the roar again. I'd had no clue what it was at the time, but I'd heard it since. A dragon's roar of triumph.
"Hoe. Lee. Shit," I swore, suddenly wide awake. "Anea, you can stop blaming yourself. You went hunting that evening, didn't you?"
"Well, yes. I hadn't eaten for a few days and I was getting hungry- Wait!" Her head jerked back up off the floor, and she swiveled it to stare at me. "I never mentioned that! How do you know I did?!"
"Because I heard you. Whatever you caught screamed, then went silent. Then you roared louder than anything I'd ever heard before. I didn't know what I was hearing then, but looking back, you made the exact same sound the first time I understood something you said to me," Well, shit. That pretty much ruins this theory then, doesn't it. "I heard you. Would that have happened if the Veil had been working on me?"
"No. It obscures any sense that could reveal those it hides. It only breaks down in close proximity," she heaved a sigh that inflated her chest, jostling me a bit. "Well, that's a relief. It wasn't my fault after all. That just leaves..." she trailed off for a moment and went very still. "That leaves nothing. I don't have a clue why the Veil doesn't affect you." I blinked a few times as she stared at me.
"What does that mean?" For our agreement. For you letting me go. What's your plan now?
"I don't know. I didn't expect this. It was supposed to be my fault if I ran out of ideas. I don't know where to start looking now. I suppose it's a good thing that we've eliminated another possibility, but now I have no idea where to look next." I waited, barely breathing while Anea thought. "I still don't have my answer," she finally decided. My heart plummeted. No! You should have admitted defeat! Just say you'll let me go, and I can stop fighting you! Please! Don't drive me into this! I didn't voice any of my thoughts. I just swallowed against the lump in my throat and turned away from her as she finished, "It means I still need to keep you here."
"I see," I muttered coldly. It meant there was no way Anea would let me go when I was healed, barring some miraculous revelation over the next week. It meant I'd be forced to continue thinking of her as an adversary, even while my heart screamed that she was anything but. And it meant that eventually, I'd have to hurt her. After tonight, I had no doubt that Anea already saw me as a friend. She cared about how I felt and what I thought of her, and she couldn't help being affectionate. And because she refused to respect my priorities, I'd be forced to take advantage of her feelings to enable my own escape. I'd never forgive myself, but someday soon, I would have to betray her.