Robin Hobb - Dragon Haven

Deliberately Thymara splashed through the water until she stood directly in front of the incensed dragon. Sintara drew her head up to her full height, looked down on the girl, and slightly opened her wings. “What is wrong with you? There is little enough hunting here, and you have chased away every fish or frog in this reed bed!”

“You are what is wrong with me! What have you done to me?”

“I? I’ve done nothing to you!”

“Then what is this? What is this change in me?” Thymara stripped off her shirt angrily and presented her back to Sintara.

“Those. Oh. They’re not finished.”

“What is not finished? Sylve said it looked like I had fingers growing in gashes inside my back!”

“Fingers!” The dragon trumpeted her amusement. “Fingers? No. Wings. Here, let me see.”

Thymara was too shocked to move. Wings. Wings. The word was suddenly nonsense. It meant nothing to her. Wings. Wings on her back. “But I’m a human,” she said stupidly. She could feel the dragon’s breath on her bared skin.

“You are, for now. But when you have finished changing, you’ll be an Elderling. With wings. The first one ever, if my recollections are correct. They are still not mature, but … can you move them? Have you tried to move them at all?”

“Move them? I didn’t even know I had them!” She had cried herself out earlier; shed every tear she had over her sorrow at her disfigurement. What had it meant to her earlier this afternoon? That she was a freak and a monster. That she would never dare bare her body to any man; no, not before any person at all. Fingers growing on her back. But they weren’t fingers. They were wings. And the stupid dragon who had caused them to grow there without even asking her was now wondering if she could move them.

Tears threatened again, and she couldn’t say what kind they were. Fear? Anger? Her heart was leaping against her ribs.

“Try to move them,” Sintara insisted, and her voice was full not of concern but only curiosity. Thymara felt a puff of breath against her bare back and shivered, and suddenly felt the twitch of something on her back.

“What is that?” she cried, hunching away from her own body. But now it hurt, as if she had wrenched her back or sprained a finger joint. Something connected to her spine was cramped, jammed, and painful. She writhed, and with horror felt a trickle of warm fluid run down her back, and then a damp weight hung limply against her back.

“What is it?” she cried out. She dared not and yet she must. She reached over her shoulder and touched something that felt like sticks bundled in wet cloth. “NO!” she cried, and as her body jerked with shock, she felt the other wing break free of its concealment. “No!” she said more faintly. She started to cover her face with her hands and found herself staring at a coating of thin blood on her fingers. She shuddered. That was a mistake. The things on her back twitched and shook. They were part of her. Foreign and monstrous and part of her. She could feel the summer air on them, feel Sintara’s snort of amusement as she said, “Well. I’d expected better than that.”

“I didn’t expect them at all!” Thymara shouted at her. “How can you do this to me? Why would you do this to me?”

“I didn’t intend to!” the dragon admitted. For that moment, she sounded almost flustered. Then anger won as she said, “You did it to yourself, if you must know. You were careless. When you pulled the rasp snakes from me, my blood spattered on you. Some must have gone in your mouth. From that time on, I felt you more intensely. You must have felt that our shared awareness grew! How could you not?”

“I thought it was just … just what keepers and dragons felt. But why did you do this to me?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t want to change you then; I hadn’t planned to. Usually, a dragon is very selective in who she chooses to accept as an Elderling. Such a change is an honor reserved for the most devoted, the most loyal and intelligent of humans. In ancient times, humans vied for such attention granted by a dragon. They didn’t just fall into it by virtue of being given the care of a dragon as if it were a menial chore!”

“Then why did you do it? Why?” Tears were running down her face. Their voices had carried. She heard keeper voices lifted querulously, heard the rumble of dragons. She didn’t care, didn’t care if the others were watching from the deck of the Tarman, didn’t care if the other dragons were disturbed and drawing near to see what the fuss was. This was between her and Sintara, and she intended to have it out, once and for all.

“You began changing yourself! You dreamed of flying more than I did! I was not even thinking of changing you. When Mercor pointed out to me that you were changing, I took pity on you. That’s all. You should be grateful! They will be quite beautiful when they are finished, almost a mirror to my own. And I, I will have the first winged Elderling! No other dragon has ever created such a creature.”

Thymara craned her neck to try to look over her shoulder. The dragon sounded so pleased with herself. Were the wings actually beautiful? Should she feel herself honored rather than made monstrous? No matter how she twisted her head, all she could see was the wet tip of something that reminded her of a rain-soaked parasol. Timidly she reached back with both hands. Wings. She felt skin stretched over bone and cartilage, but strangest of all, when she touched them, she felt herself, just as she did when she touched her own hands.

She dared herself, took hold of them, and tried to stretch them out. No. No, that was like bending her fingers the wrong way. She twitched a shoulder and instinctively folded her wings back in tight to her back. Tight to her back, yes, but not concealed as they had been. Folded smooth to her body, even as Sintara’s wings or a bird’s wings fit flush to her back. “Will they … will they grow more?” She dared herself and then asked boldly, “Will I be able to fly some day?”

“Fly? Don’t be ridiculous. No. They’re much too small. But they will be lovely, as lovely as mine. All will envy you.”

“Why can’t they grow larger? Why couldn’t they grow large enough for me to fly? I want to fly!”

“Why are you daring to ask for more than you’ve been given?” The dragon had gone from being bemused at what she had created to being angry again. Thymara thought that perhaps the truth slipped out when Sintara demanded, “Why do you think you should be able to fly when I cannot?”

“Perhaps because it would only make sense to me that any changes you made in me would be useful to me!”

“You will be pretty! And interesting to other dragons. And that is enough for any Elderling, let alone a human!”

“Perhaps ‘pretty’ wings are enough for you, but if I must bear their weight and the inconvenience of having something growing out of my backbone, perhaps they should be useful. I have never understood why you don’t even try to use your wings. I see the other dragons stretching and working theirs. I’ve seen the silver almost lift himself from the water with his, and he began with a much more ungainly body and smaller wings than yours! You don’t try! I groom your wings and keep them clean. They’ve grown larger and stronger and you could try, but you don’t. All you do is tell me how lovely they are. And lovely they may be, but have you never considered trying to use them for what they are intended?”

She could see the dragon’s fury build. She’d dared to criticize her, and Sintara could not tolerate even the implication that she was lazy or self-pitying or perhaps even just a bit…“Stupid.”

Thymara said the word aloud. She had no idea what prompted her to do it. Perhaps simply to show Sintara that she’d gone too far and that her keeper would no longer be terrorized by her. How dare she put wings on her back when she could not even master the ones that had grown naturally on her own?