"This power… a rock that reshapes reality itself... If serving him
is the price of having it, then it is a price I will gladly pay!"
-Archmage Lenora Thundercrier,
The First Emperor
You look at Axton and Lancel. They look back at you, neither speaking, just
staring.
Artemis… her reaction concerns you. You really should have seen this coming: she'd stared at you enough, and looking back you realize she'd
never called you manakete. Never thought that you weren't some form of human. You really should have realized that something strange was going on, but you'd just been so happy that someone was reaching out to you, someone wanted you around after Father and Mother died. Someone seemed to understand.
If near panic and fear is how
Artemis is reacting to you… you don't even what to think about how Axton and Lancel will take these revelations. Better to have Artemis on your side, fully, before you try to cross that air current.
"I'm sorry," you say, smiling and praying that they won't take this personally, will understand that you have to be certain, that you can't risk losing them forever by saying something wrong without even knowing it was wrong. "Could you… could you let Artemis and I talk first?"
Axton's eyes narrowed, but before he could open his mouth Lancel put a hand on his arm. "Of course, Ryza," he says, and you smile because he
remembered.
"Lancel-"
"Ryza has done nothing but help us this whole journey. She saved Lady Artemis when she had little reason to do so; saved us when she had even less reason. She's earned a little faith."
Axton's eyes snap to Lancel. "Robert also helped us and earned faith, and look what he did!"
Those words hang coldly in the air. Artemis's eyes narrow, and you don't dare to try and figure out why. Axton's openly glaring, and you can see his fingers drifting slowly to the knife at his side, and you realize just how close the two of you are, if he lunged you'd never get to Thunder's Cry in time and you'd have to transform which would just make everything worse but it'd be so easy you could already feel your stone in your pocket-
"Even though their names start with the same letter," Lancel says, and somehow his voice is nothing but dry. "I'm
reasonably certain that Ryza and Robert are not, in fact, the same person. I could be wrong, of course, but they don't look very much alike to me."
The sheer incongruity of the wry joke somehow makes it all the funnier, and you giggle nervously. This somehow sets Artemis off, who lets out a giggle of her own. Even Axton blinks, seemingly confused.
Lancel pushes his advantage. "I understand, Axton," he says seriously. "Believe me, I
understand. I'm nervous in the best of times, with the unknown staring me in the face like this, I get it. But I also know that it takes a level of cold-blooded malice to manipulate and betray someone on this level, for this long. Despite her oddities Ryza has given no signs of harboring that level of cruelty. We should give her the benefit of the doubt."
Slowly, Axton's hand falls to his side. As you look at him, you realize just how tired he looks. Even more so than Artemis when you first met her, there are dark bags under his eyes, his skin is pale. Just how much stress has he put himself worrying. A part of you wants to relent, to just tell him. Surely it wouldn't be that bad. Then you glance at Artemis, and you remember that you're worried, and more importantly she was worried enough to aggressively swear them both to secrecy.
"Please?" you ask.
Axton sighs. "Very well," he says, standing. "Lancel… is right. You have earned some trust. More than some." His eyes narrow. "That being said, let me make
myself clear: if you harm Lady Artemis, I do not care what you are. I will kill you or die trying." On that cheery note, he turns and walks back to his previous position. Lancel looks between the two of you for a moment before sighing himself.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I'll talk to him: he's not a bad man, he just…" Apparently, he doesn't know quite what Axton was, so he just trails off and follows after his fellow, leaving you and Artemis alone.
The two of you stare at each other for a moment before you carefully reach out. "I'm sorry," you say softly, hoping that Artemis will still let you take her hand. She does, though you notice her tense slightly, and she does not grip back as she used to.
Instead, she simply studies you. "For what?"
"… I don't know," you say. "For scaring you? For making you and Axton fight? For whatever I've done that makes you uncomfortable."
Artemis sighs. "Ryza… you don't have to apologize for being you," she says, finally giving your hand a little squeeze. "You shouldn't ever apologize for being yourself." She closes her eyes for a moment. "It's just… what you're talking about is
big. It's the sort of thing that nobody's ever prepared to have dropped on them."
"I'm-"
Artemis squeezes your hand. "Don't. Don't apologize, you didn't know. Couldn't know." Her other hand pinches the bridge of her nose. "But
spirits if this isn't a right mess. You need to know what's going on, why you need to be careful what you say and who you say it to, but if I could have I would have argued against you telling
me any of this." She chuckles bitterly. "Of course, I'm also the girl that just got betrayed and had her best friend murdered in front of her a few days ago, so I might not be the best person to talk to about trust."
Throwing caution to the wind, you shift over and wrap your arms around Artemis's waist. "I trust you, Artemis," you say. "When we first met, when I was crying because I realized Father and Mother were gone, you didn't yell at me, didn't hurt me. You hugged me, and I remember that."
"Of course I did. I thought you were a child."
You flinch. "Do you not anymore?"
She giggles. "If for no other reason than I now know you're more than
five times my age, I'm finding it a bit difficult," she says. "But… spirits, it's also so hard to think of you as anything else when you're cuddling up against me like this." She wraps her arm around you. "Lancel's right, Ryza. You've been nothing but helpful, nothing but kind, ever since we met. Just because… just because I now have an answer to my questions doesn't mean everything else I've thought is untrue. I'm sorry if I upset you with my reaction, I was just surprised; I wasn't expecting to meet a dragon."
"Manakete," you sigh. Really, you
knew Artemis had better hearing than that.
Artemis rolls her eyes. "Right, right," she says. "You thought that scroll would help that make sense, let's give it a try."
You nod. "Okay," you say, somewhat reluctantly letting Artemis go to crawl back over and grab the scroll you left behind. Bringing it back, you sit next to Artemis, carefully unroll it, and start reading (skipping over the long but traditional declaration of qualification that all manakete authors began their work with. You don't think Artemis would really appreciate it.)
"You are your dragon, but your dragon is not you."
This seemingly paradoxical statement is in fact the core of our being as manakete. It, along with its sister-law, "you are your heart, but your heart is not you," express the ultimate truth of our nature: that we are a balance of multiple facets, that only when we are in harmony with ourselves and our duel legacies can we truly be considered whole.
This will likely confuse some of my readers, especially younger ones. After all, if their parents and tribes have raised them wisely, they have spent most if not all of their lives in their heart form. Even older manakete will typically spend the majority of their lives in their heart-forms. Surely, they would say, while our dragons are a part of us, they are a smaller, less important part of us, useful only in moments of crisis?
While this seems intuitive, history has shown time and again that something that is intuitive is not necessarily something that is true. We may look no further than the devastating consequences of the destruction of a manakete's dragonstone, the link to their draconic heritage, to recognize the error of this thinking. It is clear that even when we are small and soft-skinned, our dragon is always watching over us, an integral part of us. Unbending will, surety of purpose, a drive to succeed against all odds, these things are as much the legacy of the dragon as magic, scale and claw. These things do not leave us just because we have also been gifted a heart.
Therefore, it is imperative that, as young manakete mature and grow into productive members of their tribe and our shared species, that they learn how to properly balance their heart and dragon selves. A good place to begin…
You stop there: you don't think Artemis needs to hear more, though you make a mental note to go back and re-read this later.
Artemis was frowning, staring at the scroll. "So you're… some kind of half-dragon?" she asks.
You shake your head. "No, no," you say, holding back your frustration as best as you can. "I'm not half
anything. I am manakete." Scribbling in the dirt with your finger, you draw a big circle. "This is me," you say, before drawing a smaller circle inside the first. "This is my dragon." A third circle, barely overlapping the second but still fully within the first. "This is my heart. I'm my dragon, I'm my heart, but I'm also more than the sum of them. They build off each other, they feed into me, making me more than either could alone."
Artemis pinches the bridge of her nose again, sighing. "I get that you're trying to tell me something, Ryza," she says. "But I don't think I get what it is. There's something being lost in translation." She shakes her head. "So, were both your parents manakete too?"
You nod. "Of course," you say.
"And where there any dragons who weren't manakete?"
This gives you pause. "I… don't believe so," you say. "Not alive at any rate. The ancient stories say that, back at the dawn of time, the First Mother came to our ancestors and showed them a better way. She was the one who combined heart and dragon into manakete. I think the stories said that back then, dragons were just dragons, but that was thousands and thousands of years ago. Back before Father and Mother's time, before their parents and their parents' parents. I don't really remember all the details."
For some reason, Artemis flinches as you say this. "So dragons were all like you… all so kind, all with hearts?" she says.
"Well…. I mean, I've never met any others, not even the ones who came to talk to Mother just… just before," you say. "But we're all individuals, so I guess there are some who're mean and wanted to hurt people. Mother certainly had nothing good to say about Shyrlonay. But yes, every manakete has a heart-form, just like mine."
Artemis slowly slumps back, staring at you. "Oh spirits…" she whispers. "None? No pure dragons? Your scroll mentioned something about consequences of destroyed stones-"
"I don't think so," you say. "But I don't know for sure. It wouldn't be common, though." You look back at the scroll. "Although… maybe? I know that when a manakete transforms, their stone is somewhere on their body, so maybe if it got broken…" You shake your head irritably. "I'm sorry, I just don't know."
Artemis takes a deep breath. "So… did manakete ever interact with humans? Did you?"
You shake your head again. "Nope. I never met a human before you, the only reason I knew you were one was because you had a bow: manakete never bothered with weapons like that. We don't need them. I think I remember Mother saying she ran into some when she was out hunting once or twice, but from what she said everyone just avoided each other and went on their way. She said she didn't want to scare them."
"Did humans never come to… I don't know, ask for things? Try to steal from your hoard?"
"I don't think so. I'd never met any, and I think I would have if they were coming to talk to us. As for stealing… well, if any had come to try and hurt us, that wouldn't have ended very well for them. Mother was very protective of Father and I." You cock your head. "Why are you asking me all these questions?"
Artemis stares at you, but this is a different type of staring. This is the staring that Father did when you ask him a question that he knew the answer to, but for whatever reason he wasn't sure he should answer it. You meet her gaze as calmly as you can: you wanted to know, but pleading and wheedling had never helped you much.
Finally, she sighs and puts her face in her hands. "You need to know," she says. "Spirits, you
deserve to know, but how do I say this…" You wait quietly, and finally she lifts her head. "Ryza… I'm… I'm going to say some things that will probably upset you, but please, please don't do anything rash. Promise me, okay?"
That was ominous. "I promise," you say.
Still, Artemis considers for a long time before speaking. "Humans have… have very different stories, when it comes to dragons," she says. "And we have no stories of manakete, at least none that I've heard. But I've heard a lot of stories about dragons…" She starts sketching in the dirt, and a moment later the map to Agrithe reappears. "Further down the Narrow River, in the east of Agrithe, there's a lake called the Lake of Pillars," she says, extending the line and drawing a circle further on. "It's said there was once a great city on that lake. A floating city that stretched from one shore to the other. It was a wealthy city, and a proud one, the jewel of the southeast."
"Was?" you ask.
"Yes, Ryza, was. That city is gone; all that's left are a few of the stone pillars that they used to support their grand structures. That's where the lake gets its name." She gives you a serious look.
"It is said that, during the time of the Fell War, a mighty and terrible dragon burned the entire city to the waterline in a night."
Those words hit you like a punch to the gut. "Wha-Why? Why did-"
"Nobody knows, though everyone has their theories. Some say that the dragon was simply envious, that it hated that humans had built such a grand place within its sight. Others say that it had demanded tribute, and that the people had refused to pay. The version I first heard claimed that the mayor's daughter was a woman of unparalleled beauty and that the dragon wished to take her for itself, but I always thought that was a little ridiculous." She grimaces. "Whatever the reason, everyone agrees that the dragon came, and that the city burned, scattering the few survivors to the winds."
You shake your head. "That's not right! There has to be more to the story!" you say. "The manakete… did anyone ask the manakete why she did what she did?!"
"Ryza, all over the continent, there have been stories like this. Stories of destruction, of wrath brought down on humanity by dragonkind. There are precious few tales where dragons have even been acknowledged as
rational, let alone describe attempts to communicate with them."
"No! No that's not right! Something had to have happened…" You scan the map. "Where did this manakete come from? Maybe I can go and talk to her, see if I can-"
Artemis puts a hand on your shoulder. "There's no point, Ryza," she says sadly. "The dra… the manakete is long gone. This story happened a thousand years ago. Probably around the same time you went to sleep."
"Then her tribe! Surely there are some who still live there, maybe I can find-"
"Ryza!" You jerk in Artemis's grip. "Please… please just listen to me. This all happened during the Fell War; according to most chroniclers Emperor Wyrmblood arrived less than a decade later. I've mentioned the Empire before, right? They're the ones who are descended from Wyrmblood; and the reason they have a claim to legitimacy is because they defeated the Fell Dragon and saved humanity from dragons."
"That doesn't make any
sense!" you cry. "Why would humans need saving, we never… I never…" You stare at her. "Is that why you're scared of me?! Do you think I'm going to… to burn down…"
"No," Artemis says firmly. "Maybe I would have been, but Lancel is right; you're not nearly cruel enough to do anything like that. I'm not scared
of you, Ryza, I'm scared
for you."
"Ryza… there is no good way to say this. The Empire saved humanity from the dragons by
destroying them. No dragon has been seen for a thousand years."
Your breath leaves you in a rush. "No…" you hear yourself whisper, almost against your will, and Artemis's pitying gaze swims before your eyes. "No… that's not true…" You think you try to stand, you're not sure, but the next thing you know you're wrapped up in Artemis's arms, sobbing into her chest as she rubs your back.
Gone.
All gone.
Just like Father.
Just like Mother.
You're all alone.
[] "Why… why would they do that…"
[] "There has… has to be someone…"
[] "Please… no more… not now…"
[] Write-in
