Chance Encounters

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Waxing gibbous moon,
Sun in the Northern Serpent,
Year 404,
Kreon's Era

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"If incompetence had a face, I am sure it would be yours, but much better maintained at that."

The human chieftain seemed to be more interested in Hesperion's feet than he was in the newborn fissure that had split the clifftop settlement into two.

"Oh stop it, darling, you're making my foreclaws blush," Hess remarked as he picked up a little trinket lying before him and examined it with the tips of his two talons. It was a three-layered necklace made from cowrie shells. His tail swayed as the anxious whispers of the humans suddenly rose.

He looked over his folded wings at the tribe of primates crowding behind him. The tallest of the lot like the chieftain came up to his calves. The ones with the greying hair on their heads and wrinkled skin stood a little closer to the dragon than the others. Behind them were the humans he had fished out of the chasm being tended to by their healers. All eyes seemed to be fixed on the object he twisted and turned between his claws.

The necklace was flung into their midst with a calculated flick of his digits. It landed at an elder's feet with a gentle clink and their murmurs subsided in a flurry of approving hums.

Hess turned to face the chieftain who was now blushing with what he presumed was embarrassment. It stood at odds with his blonde hair and the drab russet of his gryphon fur cloak. Hess almost felt bad for the poor human having to explain himself to a dragon ten times his size in front of his tribe. Then he remembered that this very responsible little ape had slept through an earthquake that nearly killed half their population instead of summoning the dragon whose territory it was.

The human's pitch was grating to the dragon's ears as was his beginner's grasp on the ancient reptilian tongue. Hess had to admit, the human did try his best to imitate a dragon right down to the inflections and the deep growls.

"Forgive, lord. Human should have informed you. Sent bird-orders for building clay from the temple on the One Pointy Headpiece-"

Hess observed the debris of several collapsed human nests caught between the jagged rocks lining its inner walls. Behind the chasm were a few more houses reduced to piles of straw, wood and clay.

He sighed, made a clicking sound and switched over to the human's native tongue.

"No. You will send another falcon and cancel the supply orders from the First Crown. You will make a list of whatever you would be needing to rebuild your settlement first. You will ask your people to prepare themselves to be relocated to Mons Sterne. You will attend to the needs of your people until I get back. Am I clear?"

"Yes, milord," replied the chieftain, his face turning the shade of summer beets as he reverted to his language.

"Oh, and you do not have to prove that you're a blockhead each time I task you with something important, little bird, try to surprise me once in a while."

The chief nodded as the dragon walked past him.

"It is my honour to have been chosen by you to speak the dragon tongue, milord."

"For someone so skilled with his language skills you are failing, I must admit, quite spectacularly at learning it."

With that, the dragon dove off the cliff with tucked wings and unfurled them as he fell, letting the air underneath their patagia carry him forward. The wind rippled through the silver mane scales of his head and neck like the torrents of a waterfall. The sea below welcomed him with a spray of saltwater as he steadied his wings to glide over its surface. Dipping one wing lower than the other, he flew close to the cliff face.

Hess maneuvered himself around the arching outcrops that overlooked the waters much to the wonder of the human hatchlings peeking from behind their parents' legs. The braver ones ran towards the edge of their little elevation to wave him goodbye. The dragon replied with a hearty roar that sent the children shrieking and chortling away from the edge of the cliff. He made a mental note to play with the human hatchlings once he had found them a safe residence. They seemed to be fond of building replicas of themselves from snow or hurling snowballs at each other and the cloud dragon was more than happy to provide the required materials with his breath organ.

Hess could see the highest, cloud-wreathed peaks of Aika's First Crown gleaming in the morning sun towards his right. The seaward-facing First Crown was imposing on its own but it was dwarfed by the towering ranges of Aika's Second Crown that lay beyond it. The snow-capped tips of his home peak in the Second Crown gazed down at him from behind its darker, younger geological siblings.

The dragon drew in a long breath and let the salt-laden sea breeze fill his lungs as he landed on the coastline. The green waves of the Cynthean Ocean had grown calmer and seemed to be more inviting than what they had been the night before, shimmering a rich gold in the rays of the rising sun.

The black sands of the beach sank under his weight and clumped between his pallid digits as he walked, embossing the outlines of his feet onto themselves before the breaking crests could wash them away. The shells of crustaceans and molluscs that lay scattered across the shore glistened in the likeness of stars. An occasional hermit crab skittered across his path in a rush to reach its hole before a patrolling seagull could notice it.

Hess's mind lingered on the cowrie shell necklace like the froth the waves left on the webbings of his feet. The clans of Thalassus had once revered the sea and considered all organisms to be lumps of mud that the primordial oceans had infused with life.

It had made more sense than whatever star dragon filled romances the traditionalist scholars loved to spew at their lectures at the Thalassine Archive. Hess scoffed and picked up the smooth pebbles that caught his eye.

Oh, how the traditionalist view was praised by the clerics at the temple in Mons Sterne. Then again the clerics probably believed that they would bleed light or molten gold when cut and not liquid, salty blood. It hadn't taken him long after to realise that the Thalassine Archives could boast of having the finest collection of imbeciles in the Korallion Archipelago.

The dragon laid down on the beach and stacked three pebbles he had picked up while walking one atop the next in a tower.

His eldest brother Gleyssier was right in saying that the island of Thalassus was going to the seagulls as was the Empire with its ageing Imperator and barren Imperatrix.

The wet mud underneath his belly felt soothing to his tired muscles. Soon he found his jaw resting on the ground with his cold breaths creating snowflakes from the seaspray on his muzzle. His nictitating membranes swept the salt into the corners of his eyes as he watched the hawks and gulls hover in the search for breakfast in the cerulean, cream and saffron sky. Water had always found a way to heal him, be it through the cool condensation that trickled down his horns, spikes and mane scales when he flew through the clouds or through the warmth of the ocean depths that cradled him with each dive.

For a little while, the storm of thoughts within him died down, muted by the songs of the shore.

A yawn left his muzzle when he remembered the tedious work that awaited him at Mons Sterne. The wings lying folded on his back were spread and shaken to rid them of the grains stuck in their nooks.

He toppled the pebbles over with a claw and watched them slide off each other as he rose from the sands.

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"Tasteful, are they not?" asked the cleric escorting him to where his humans had been temporarily relocated to.

Hess wasn't pleased at the speed with which his request had been processed earlier that day but he was too tired to argue.

The thumb talon of her left wing gently picked a spherical glass ornament he had been eyeing off its hook on the corridor wall. The amethyst peonies they had on them were beautiful and delicately crafted, he had to admit, it must have taken its fire-breathing artisan ages to perfect. The pattern and style kept pecking at his brain for some reason.

"Thermidorian," Hess said, the artist's name suddenly coming to him as he examined the orb.

Of all the fine glassmakers in this vast Archipelago, they had to call that insufferable snob to craft the decorations, Hess thought, biting down the temptation to dash the orb to the stone floor and returning it to the cleric.

"Impressive, Lord Aleunor," replied the cleric with a nod of her head. She waved the talon of her other wing, "I presume you know who designed and constructed these corridors as well."

Hesperion tilted his head and bared the tips of his fangs at the cleric, as if to ask her the purpose of questioning him on temple architecture.

"Do you really want me to lecture you on Lord Atreyes and Lady Melisse, cleric, or would you rather do you what you're assigned and take me to where my humans are?"

The cleric clicked her tongue and let out a admirational trill from her throat.

"The Lord Aleunor knows his architecture well. Do tell me, why do you need the Head Cleric's help to build the humans a settlement?"

"The stretch of land I plan to raise my humans a new settlement on happens to be temple property and I cannot just annex it like I were Imperator Pharoan."

The cleric's eyes went so wide that for a moment, Hesperion suspected that she was mocking him. The cleric however was quick to lower her gaze, letting the dragon know that she wasn't challenging him. She seemed naive but she knew her place well.

"Well, I suppose not. This path leads to the Sanctum Sanctorum and to the human residential areas. The Head Cleric shall meet you there."

The temple of Mons Sterne was dug into the mountain side by the earth and fire elemental architects from the southern islands of the Archipelago. The flame and mineral acids from their breath organs had made the long winding stone corridors, domed prayer halls to remind believers of their time as embryos nestled within their eggs and pillars that stood like untouched redwood trees.

Within the Sanctum Sanctorum of the temple stood a sculpture of the First Light Quersis, gigantic even by dragon standards, made from obsidian and studded with diamonds cut to form her scales, head spikes and twin horns. Serpentine in form unlike her draconian children, she held a large golden orb representing the universe in her talons and wrapped the rest of her body around the temple's columns, making it seem like she was holding up the dome and looking down at her children from her seat in heaven. The light seeping in through the circular glass window behind her head gave her a halo and as it passed through the crystals forming her branching horns and mane scales, it scattered to speckle the Sanctum Sanctorum with the colours of the rainbow.

Hesperion dipped his head in reverence not to Quersis but to the old masters who had sculpted her idol as he walked past the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

The glimpse of a familiar figure made him retrace his steps to the Sanctum.

"Why is Her Imperial Majesty here?" Hess asked the cleric in hushed tones as he hid behind the entrance and peeked in. He counted seventeen Imperial guards, beasts of war trained to rip off a dragon head in less than three bites, watching over the Imperatrix as she chanted hymn after hymn in praise of Quersis. The fire breathers among her attendants puffed out incense through their nostrils as they slowly melted the lumps of frankincense and myrhh they had placed on their tongues.

"To pray," stated the cleric with the bluntness of the rounded dome standing above the glittering Imperial entourage. "We are needed elsewhere, Lord Aleunor, let us not tarry."

"Is that all? She seems to be reciting the Hymn of the Garden, cleric, doesn't that seem odd to you?"

"No, not at all."

"The Imperatrix currently reciting a hymn for safe gestation was declared to be infertile from irreversible damage to her reproductive organs by the Imperial physicians. I'd be more worried about Her Majesty's mental state if I were you," Hesperion said as he turned to face the cleric.

Crack, he urged as he held eye-contact, let something slip. The Imperatrix has no reason to be on Thalassus today.

The dragon however sported a stoic visage and a rigid body, even her tail stood completely still giving nothing away.

Hess coiled his tail, released it and looked at the Imperatrix again. Her grey-striped white hide seemed to glow with health, her limb muscles had grown toned and strong from being utterly famished the last time he had seen her at the Capitol. Her silver mane-scales had grown long and luscious, studded with dozens of mother-of-pearl flowers bearing red coral styles. When she was done, she seemed to be in high spirits, freely laughing and joking with her attendants as she made her way outside.

The moment the Imperatrix's eyes met Hesperion's, all the joy seemed to drain from her body. She waded through the crowd with head held high to meet a son of the Imperator's mistress- the eleventh hatchling from their one of their many illicit unions.