Witch

Osthryn is grateful for the solitude that surrounds her in her small bedroom. The ordeal with that chief’s son that she relived today is not the most recent, but it stuck deepest in her mind. It happened nearly two hundred years ago, and was the first time that she had to begrudgingly admit that the Dragon elders of Bettramon were proven right.

Osthryn gazes down pensively at the small, hand-sewn effigy in her now decidedly human hands. She is seated on the edge of her bed, Silovar’s coat still resting over her shoulders. She traces the rough, uneven stitches on the surface of the doll with trembling fingers.

A gentle knock comes from the door. Osthryn looks up to see Silovar with a fresh mug of tea in his hands. "Are you okay?"

Osthryn manages a small smile, "Ġēse, if you must ask."

"So you are good at languages after all," Silovar hums gently, handing the mug to Osthryn. Osthryn shifts a little to the right, nodding her head to the space beside her as she takes the mug, the doll safely stowed in her lap. Silovar sits down slowly, almost gingerly, as if he is afraid that she would bolt at any second. Osthryn takes a sip, and suppresses a grimace. The tea is hot, and a little too sweet for her taste. Silovar must have added some sugar for the shock. She sets it down on top of the chest at the foot of her bed to cool.

Silovar looks at the effigy in Osthryn’s hands. It is nearly two centuries old, and had been repaired and darned so many times that if the threads defined its being, it would have long since ceased to exist. “Osthryn, about tonight ..."

Silovar trails off. Osthryn’s fingers tremble as they travel over the stitches again and again. He watches her in silence.

“All I did was heal a child. The elder Dragons said I should never heal completely, and I had seen what happened to even human witches in Bettramon that performed too well. But I did not care, I could not care about that. The girl was suffering. She was in so much pain. She was born with a crooked back, and her spine twisted further and further as she grew. I watched this child, with a human life already so short, live a life so plagued and lonely. I made a ‘potion’ of Glasswood bark and mint leaves. I told her parents to put her in a brace and feed her hotstone-cakes baked with charcoal in the dough each morning. I thought it would be enough to pass for ordinary folk-magic. The little girl was never looked at twice before, and now I was her frequent companion. She made me this doll, and told me it was an effigy of me, ‘the Healer’." Osthryn’s fingers pause their traversal over the threads.

She puts the doll back in her lap, folding her hands to still the trembling. “I grew impatient, and I healed her too quickly. I knew humans were fickle, but boy, did they turn. The chief and his son came for me. Fire was put in my hands to reveal my scales. They drove me with silver-tipped spears to a cliff and threw me over."

Silovar takes the doll from Osthryn’s lap, running his own fingers over the threads. “What happened tonight?"

Osthryn knows it is a double question. He might as well have asked her why she did not think to fly away.

"It was just too much," Osthryn admits, "I was already on edge. Then today I saw a fellow Dragon in their scales, and flying, for the first time in my life. Twice."

Osthryn blows out a slow breath. "Flight is anathema to us, Silovar. To fly is to betray your kin. To doom them to be hunted and rooted out just as you were. No matter how you are pushed, no matter how you are attacked, no matter how high the cliff you are thrown from, you will not fly. Ever." She levels her gaze at Silovar, his eyes watching her face intently. "My elders ensured that I would never try," she continues, "That instict was pressed out of me from the day I hatched. To me, flight means pain."

Silovar nods slowly. "That's why you came South, that's the something different you needed."

"Yes."

"And when I invited you to fly with me..."

"You just awakened centuries' worth of conditioning. You did nothing wrong," Osthryn insists. 

Silovar puts the doll behind him on the bed, and Osthryn allows him to take her hands from her lap. She looks down at his hands enveloping hers, and smiles when she sees silver scales traveling from his fingertips up to his elbows. She meets his eyes, shining with an inexplicably deep sadness as he watches her. She allows her own scales to appear in return. An exchange of trust.

“I have a question for you, Silovar."

“Ask away. I think I owe you all the answers to any question by now."

“How did you know I was a Dragon?”

“Well, from the start!" Silovar declares. “Dragons just, know. It’s like an aura. It was driving me mad that you couldn’t tell who I was."

 "So you decided to be a bit of a show-off then?" Osthryn teases, attempting to alleviate the seriousness of their conversation.

"Ach, Iċ bidde þē! I have to be a show-off if you are going to be so bloody dense," Silovar scoffs, allowing the scales to fade from his hands as he lets Osthryn's hands go. The momentary mirth of his expression mellows again, the coldness of the Dragon returning to his eyes.

“You fascinate me Osthryn. You are a Dragon with an aura so clear that I could see you from leagues away. Yet, you cannot speak your own language, you have a crippling fear of heights, you cannot fly, and you cannot even recognize your own kind. It is a tragedy, a crime committed against Dragonkind."

Osthryn smiles sadly. There is truth to what he said, but she feels that while the elder Dragons of Bettramon might have been extreme, they did have their reasons.

“Whether to the second sun, or beyond it to the first. Whether to the South, far from the lands of your birth. Whether a valley or a mountain you shall call your own, may your wings always carry you upon the Winds of Home... do you know that rhyme?" Silovar asks.

"I do, actually," Osthryn replies, "It was sung to me when I left Bettramon for good. They say it was sung to all Dragons that went South."

“The irony of that," Silovar shakes his head, smiling ruefully. The Dragon’s coldness dances dangerously close to anger for a moment. He slaps both hands on his knees and stands up to leave.

“Your coat?" Osthryn reminds him, reaching to pull it off her shoulders. Silovar puts up a hand to still her, shaking his head. “I will come fetch it another day."

Osthryn lets her hand fall back to her lap.

As Silovar makes his way out, he pauses with his hand on the door, ``G\=ode nihte, Osthryn. Thank you for your trust, and your forgiveness."

"Gōde nihte, Silovar. Though mind, I will forgive you only when you truly show me a fairy hill." Osthryn responds with a sly wink.

Silovar smiles, the familiar boisterousness returning to the cold steel eyes.


"Deal."