Land of Dragons 5 : interlude

The air above Darkhen is getting heavy. Hearts are fearful and lungs are suffocating. The city feels like a cooking pot and fire is brewing under it. The night is shaping up and a full moon is nigh. Something is going on below the surface.

Idir is walking back home. His encounter with Manong and Freda lingering in his mind. He did not believe in the existence of such people. Such incredibly powerful people with supernatural prowess. He is a soldier of the common folk. He was taught to reject such ideas and trust in tangible gunpowder. But now he saw, and what he saw changed him. 

He enters his house and finds his grandmother sitting at the table, praying. He sits facing her and they exchange looks. She can read his eyes and see faith. 

"You saw something" she says, and smiles with a tired face. 

He does not reply. He was not listening as his heart is elsewhere. He can not shake it off. This feeling that something big is cooking. A permanent change in the power dynamics of his city

"Times, they are a-changing"

Mao and Freda are sitting together inside the cell. Freda was captured but seems not too bothered by it. She is writing something on goat-skin parchment. An old encantation. Mao is sitting immobile in the bench facing her, sleeping. The guards looking at them fearfully. They are not sure if they are the captives or the prison guards. Two dragons sitting this calmly brings dread to the hearts of men. 

Freda looks at one of the guards " You are one of us" she says. 

He does not reply and looks at his mate for reassurance. He does not find it. His colleague is looking down.   

"You are one of us" she repeated. "When the time comes, release us" She says, with striking directness and sincerity.  

"What is scarier than a roaring lion? a lion that doesn’t need to roar"

Manong is lying in a sofa, laying his head gently on his hand. Viola is sitting on the ground, preparing a pipe and giving it to him. He smiles at her gently, as if remembering long-lost memories. They have known each other far longer than it might seem, and she has been nothing but good to him. He kisses her gently on the forehead. She starting preparing another pipe, this time for herself.

Nile is laying on a bed next to them, under puppy mist and in a trance of his own.  

He puts his mouth on the pipe, takes a deep, long breath and plunges deep into his thoughts. 

"Inhale"

The dragonfolk reigned over this land for almost a hundred years. Then they suffered. They were colonised, enslaved, killed and, most of all, domesticated. Their wings clipped and their identity burried. The dragon was no more than fairy dust to the people of Ghentii.

A hundred years they suffered, but their suffering must come to an end. Such is the will of Pangea. Such is the holy cycle. Ghentii seems to agree. Nights are colder than usual and animals are instinctively taking shelter. These are very promising times for the dragonfolk. 

"Exhale"

Chi is walking alone under the moonlight. He is tall and thin, like a leafless tree branch. A shadow of a dragon follows him. His forefathers on his back and Ghentii on his mind.  He sees a group of kids running around, flying dragon kites and paper planes. Dragons filling the night sky and flying to the moon. 

He has been popping up here and there in the surroundings of Darkhen and all-around Ghentii. An opium dream, a fleeting presence, wreaking havoc in the Red army's strongholds, and reminding the dragonfolk of who they were under Khen. Who they truly are, deep down under the weight of hundred years of servitude. These sentiments seem to be infectious, airborne, and memories seem to be resurging quickly. Darkhen almost has a mind of its own,

  

As he enters the central square, the cold breeze tickles his grizzly chin playfully. He looks up at the altar and smiles back at Darkhen, the city of the dragon. 

"What a time to be alive!"