Damsel
Chapter 13
At last, the Crusade got so
terrible that the Unicorn Archbishop Damascus put a ban on marriages. All virgins (there would have been a surplus)
were thus required to stand in long lines at sunrise, to take turns touching
the impromptu holy General. Now, before
too many jokes are made, one must remember that virgins squeeze a great deal of
power between their legs and, in the olden days, many poor damsels, and a few
tricked knights too, purely believed it was necessary to lean down and kiss a
Unicorn, right on its smirk, in order to empower it.
Modesty was the thing which
propelled Unicorns to pass miracles onto talented people so that they could
work their own miracles on the battlefield without a middle... Unicorn.
"Now,
Eve," Mother
Margarethe slapped another wool cloak round the woman's bowed shoulders
in the
chill doorway. Eve leaned on the knob
and insisted on escaping. However, the
gale outside pushed both women back and stung their faces with cold.
"Will you listen? Before you go off, one must remember that
virgins make a very noble sacrifice, and they are all even more
sensitive
nowadays, having waited for their entire lives, and still more because
of the
Second Crusade. Which you started--"
"Why do people always
say that virginity is a wait for your entire life, when no one comes directly
out of the womb wanting it? Or else,
don't you think a great deal more brothers would be fathers and--"
"That is most foul and
abhorrent, cease and desist before I sew your lips closed!"
Eve sighed.
"Alright then, let us
try this again. Good, young lady... Not
a soul survives mocking this new rule for a reason other than chapped-lipped,
love shorn hordes, Eve. And mind you
further, that confession lines are desperately slim again--"
"Which means people are
sinning at an alarming rate. I'll be
murdered before sunset strikes, should I fail to blunt my tongue, I
understand. Now let me go."
"How is Micco,
child?" Margarethe covered Eve's ears, and watched the sides of her face
blush rose. "What hope have
we? Has his halo slipped, do you
remember? There are some good monks here who are growing angry at the short
lines, and there are whispers... and you’ve been so quiet since speaking with
the King. Honestly, that’s why I’ve been fretting over you—but till now, that
awful behavior’s made me ashamed to admit my weakness… for your welfare… now
then?"
"Do they meet in
secret? Speak in code about quitting
chores?"
“But I asked you about King
Micco.”
“…I’d be so very wary of good
monks going bad, and for a good reason too. I’ve seen it.”
"My, is your face
serious. Are you actually being pensive,
dear? After all this being in heat for
Cymen business, I didn't think you capable.
Oh, me! Well, I’ll mind my tongue
now, I suppose."
Tight-lipped smile. She went
on, "Once upon a time, all the miners up in Brax got angry and quit their
picking. They stood outside of the
Baron's house and threatened to burn it down if their needs weren't met."
"And then?"
"What do you mean? He was able to get me as a child-bride, his
Lords carry on like taskmasters with actual whips... we lost work and earnings
that season, but Baron Braximus only brought in more villagers from more places
to do the work cheaper. The same as he
did when someone raised a fuss ten years earlier. How else do you think my mother came in, met
my father's shoes and got clean away with them?"
Margarethe whispered,
"So then... there is real cause for worry of a schism in the Chapel."
Eve went out. "I don't speak to Micco anymore."
Margarethe questioned it, but
Eve just prattled on, "...I am, really and truly, going to help. I don't understand about the Chapels, but for
right now, this is my fault."
It was either because Damascus
had been so desperate for relief, or because Eve had been so finally
deserving... Later, Eve resigned herself to believe, with learned humility,
that it was the former, that Archbishop Damascus did finally honor her
request. She arrived at the Chapel
Superior, with its giant-sized altar, and the silent shut double doors behind
which an Angel King was supposed to be sleeping. Damascus whisked his tail one
way, and that is the direction those waiting on him went. He and Eve walked off
in the other (his was a fast, hooved scamper) to chat.
"First of all, I am
going to kill your Captain Cymen Ruecross, so don't dare ask me about
that."
Eve scratched her head, then
quickly smoothed that patch of hair down, pinky lifted and ladylike. It was something Margarethe taught her, so
that she wouldn't seem dirty for scratching, even if she was. "I shall ask about... Sheik Vangvad
then. How does he fare?"
"Assassinated! Isn't that lovely? And now all his advisors--calling themselves
liberated, or the hired armies of sheik-loyal dissidents, have aroused people
in the holy city to the point of mad hungry vengeance, blaming it on none other
than Cymen and what he represents.
Really, you'd think that sort of thing would divide and ruin the city,
but, no, they've got some dastardly poets over there. Worse than even Vischte! Just like in the olden days, working round
the clock to get the people believing what those in charge would want."
"Shit. That isn't good. Erm, honored Archbishop."
"Oh no, that's the
proper term. I nearly gave into it, in
fact. Messed myself all over the
polished marble when I heard it. Ah, but Eve... it gets worse. The red dragon, Fanven is wide awake now, and
he is the one who's chased our army away from the city, to the brink of the
desert. He is like their war
machine."
"That far?"
"No, that near. Far nearer to us and the other kingdoms. I don't even think any of them realize what
is going on, when the Fringe successfully isolated itself from the
Rapture." Damascus let his long
horn bob down a little. He was tired,
and blinked one eye awake. "We lost
all our true kings and people have forgotten the names of their homelands and
those histories, for that matter. But
across the desert, Fringe-people have maintained their holy leaders, and
history. They remember well what the
Crusade accomplished before: absolutely
nothing, and now come against us voraciously."
"They can write their
own holy book about it afterward; whatever they want."
"How perceptive of
you. Yes, it will give them a sense of
accomplishment and right-witness like no one's been able to achieve before. And maybe Heaven will stop sleeping and
appeal to them for it, who knows? If I
were a bored angel, I might."
"Well, I worry about
Cymen--"
"I hear that you dated a
stallion once. Do you ever worry about
him?"
Eve was taken aback.
"Or, perhaps the pirate,
the king of thieves, the dragon? Was it
truly the dragon Axz, from the valley?"
"How do you know all
this? There was the trial, but…”
“I knew this before the
trial. Eheh… want to guess again? Do you think my gold horn here gets good
reception… the facts just come right up and receive me, or maybe it’s a very
flitting weathervane on people’s sins? Maybe yours are the worst, Eve, the most
sumptuous of the nasty sumptuous and so I knew it all that a long time ago?”
“Or, maybe I got drunk once and
told you.” She lowered eyes from him.
"Fine, don’t play with
me. It was Dan. Dan the drunk. We
decided to have a bit of fun with him during Confession last week. So then, is Cymen a singular obsession of
yours or are you broken for men all-around?
I actually dare to know how your little brain works. I am that, yes just that distressed, by this
whole situation."
Eve looked at him sideways,
now from the another shy cardinal vantage.
"I'm not... entirely sure that I really met the dragon of the
Valley of Axes."
"I thought as
much..."
"OH! But, Damascus, I wish it were real. We had such a fine conversation in my
hallucination, and he was the best gentleman to me... he is the only other
beau, or not-so-beau I've re-visited again in thought."
"Dragons are servants of
the Devil Queen, you do realize that.
Your falling for one is truly dreadful."
"...But Cymen is a man,
and so I focus on him now."
"So, before it was this mythical
creature?"
"Cymen is a holy man, as
I said." she insisted, "I've much improved."
Damascus stopped before a
flowing fountain and chewed his lower jaw, peering up at her with one black,
bulbous eye. "You don't want
Cymen. You have a deeper, spiritual
hunger. Be careful young woman, or you
may find yourself having gorged upon him completely before too long. I wish to know, however, how you flitted from
an animal sort of creature, and fire-breathing, to our very passive,
male-virgin? I imagine that, in your
fantasies," here, Damascus snorted laughter, "the males respect
you and offer all kinds of salacious acts in exchange for your painful
affection. Cymen is none of those
things, why fix on him... besides the spiritual snacks now and again?"
Eve clapped her hands
together once, wiggled fingers, then shrugged.
She didn't know.
"Well in either case, I
digress. Once upon a time, there were a
few kind, self-redeemed dragons. And I
had a slim hope your once-lover might be that sort, when I heard from Dan of
the romance's spectacular failure. It
takes a very sensible male, indeed, to turn down you and all the gnats of
trouble which buzz about your tangled head, Eve. Fanven the Red is formidable. Are you so sure that Axz was just a
dream-by-mushroom?"
"I'm afraid to do
anything but hope he isn't. I couldn't
ever dare ask."
"Ah, yes. Because he would eat you."
"No... only because then
Axz wouldn't be real. I told Cymen's
Knights earlier I shared the memory because I didn't want to seem a novice to
love, I wouldn't dare unravel what good estimation Cymen has for me now,
because of it!"
"Selfish woman. Eve."
"Yes?"
"No, it's an
insult. Your name is an insult, you are
an insult... all good dragons gone against the Devil-Queen already ascended to
Heaven, so there's no use calling on the ones I used to know. And we've got one bad angel--I
suspect--descended from Heaven, which is no good either. So then, we'll have to slay Fanven the
dragon. Oh, but Cymen is a virgin about
that too, regardless of how good his sword is."
Eve gave in to giggling. Damascus found a little smile at her, swished
his tail, and then asked the lady to escort him back to the workshop.
"Damascus, are you
hungry? Would you like for me to steal a
mincemeat pie for you?"
"Pick me some grass
shoots. I’ve been craving those the worst, in winter." and he began
wagging his lion's tail in such a way--it curled over once and everything--that
reminded her more of a pot-bellied barn pig.
Eve said so, and Damascus,
despite the conflict, summoned the energy to try and kick her. That evening, sister Margarethe was far less
impressed, to the point of disregarding the joke entirely.
"Do you mean to say,
that you know of a good dragon--there haven't been any about in hundreds of
years--but yet, you refuse to go and ask it for help in this conflict because
it might be sort of uncomfortable?"
"It's more that he might
eat me, Margarethe. Or, that he might
not be real, after all. And then I'd
have been afraid of being eaten or loved too well by an invisible dragon this
whole time and I'd feel incredibly stupid."
"It's purely on the
fault of a romantic indiscretion, or an awkward moment that you aren't going to
do a grand favor for the good of mankind!
In the interests of resolving a conflict you caused?"
Eve reached across the table
and took up the knitting Margarethe had abandoned at the start of this
conversation. Only, Eve had no idea how
to knit and it showed. "Oh, my,
what a fine sweater this is going to be..."
"It's meant to be an
afghan, how dare you call me so fat, and come here! We are going across the Sea to the Valley of
Axes."
"Margarethe, I thought
we were through with adventuring? Don't
you agree that it got very tiresome at the start of all this?"
She narrowed her eyes. The faint crow's feet sharpened into
something more sage, and sinister than the woman-monk's countenance usually
portrayed. Oh yes, it had always been
there, pinned back fast by the white veil.
"Service to one's community could never be tiresome. Don't you know, girl, that the true testament
of a civilization's success is how the poor and vulnerable are faring? We must see to this at once, before all of
White Wall is made so desperate in living conditions, or spirit."
"Surely, that is a joke
when, wherever I have been in my life, I have been the most poor, pathetic and
vulnerable creature there ever was, and not a man--ever--helped me up. And what are you doing with that yardstick,
coming down hard on me again now...?"
Sister Margarethe's plan was
explained to Archbishop Damascus on that same evening, though he was busy being
kissed by virgins even at that time of night.
Eve was not sure but she thought she saw him wink and smile, "My,
how I wonder how Margarethe got word of the scandalous affair, and even agreed
to help with such a task? Though, I am
grateful she wants to see to it, when I am too busy to leave this Grand and
Frivolous Effort to salvage mankind.
Here, this is juice saved up from at least fifty virgins tonight--don't
dare waste it when I can't spare a soldier to go with you--now grab hold."
He meant his long, bobbing
horn. Eve made a face, but Margarethe
seized her hand and then clamped a fist over it, so that the spiral of the
appendage put pain--in a pretty pattern--into Eve's palm.
The Archbishop said a fast
prayer. His words slowed as the ground
shifted beneath them. The grand Ruecross
in the window doubled, there was a thundering, and it merged again, now some
profane symbol by being layered ontop of itself. The East-West branches of it stretched and
pulled, like pulling apart a child's clay, until it seemed to melt--no, someone
was burning it from outside. Eve became
aware that Damascus' latest miracle had already passed, they were witnessing
the next in queue, persisting on another plane of existence, truly crystalline,
as Micco had explained. And Eve knelt
down to see Damascus below her, and then a sea of sand, upside down above
her. A horrid red claw pressed down,
wind scattering the print first. And on
impact it smoked gold, burned. A wild
savage cry pierced the top of her ears, moaning speared through the middle and
singed the very wax left there, and her earlobes itched, crusted and bled when
that ended in a gurgling, hot air everywhere.
A wall of flame burst up from the golden sand and obliterated the holy
words.
"Eve, come here, don't
stand in it!"
Eve hugged Margarethe when
she heard her voice. The woman-monk
cradled the younger woman and prayed a little in her wounded ear.
"Whatever possessed you
to linger in the miracle? That's
dangerous... though, I suppose if someone missed her lesson about
transubsisting spells, she might be tempted to try. Look over there, dear."
They were standing in a
canyon of noon-gold rock. The sunlight
barely caught on, gray rain clouds were drawing together overhead. It was coy, gaily ominous, in the way that a
child always remembered a rainbow was due after such a fast storm. But Margarethe meant the smoking line of
ground some paces away. It was swollen
at the point nearest them, but then raced in both directions to bisect the
basin and the innocent rock walls having their present temper-tantrum.
"Damascus' miracle
worked against the red dragon nearly happened here as well. It would be dangerous to drain his resources
like that. Or, worse, we could have
catapulted him into that reality, or Fanven into ours, by not moving fast
enough. Next time, hop into a miracle,
Eve, and then hop directly back out.
It's an instantaneous act of compassion, only fervent for one particular
purpose, in one pristine moment. Not
meant to be stretched when it's already bending reality, unless you like for
reality to tear." then Margarethe held sniffling Eve at arm's length and
looked her over. She handed her a
handkerchief. "You are going to be
alright... and, sadly, so is Fanven. I
didn't know dragons could call up fire like that, directly from Hell. All to break a holy ward laid down by a last
Unicorn..." she clucked her tongue.
Eve could only shiver and try
to recount what she had seen while Margarethe held an arm about her waist, and
helped her to climb up a path almost entirely covered by flickering stone
rubble. It began to rain.
It
was not necessary to climb
all the way out of the canyon. The
stones crumbled away from a tunnel entrance midway up. "Do you know
anything else about Dragons? Except that they don't kiss and tell?"
Eve dragged her feet. "I don't feel so good. Can't I lie down here, and sleep?"
"And dream all that holy
power away? That is not going to
happen. Damascus gave us enough to
defend ourselves, and then return home.
Unless you want to hitch a ride with your Commodore and hike through
Brax again."
Eve screamed, just thinking
about it. More rock shook loose beneath
their feet, clattered, and pitched over the side of the pile. "Quiet, girl!" Margarethe was smiling
though, she glanced into the darkness and leaned back out, looking
adventurous. "This is wonderful, I
think I am beginning to understand... though this half-covered over hole may
mean no one is presently at home. It's
not a canyon, it's what he dug out, and he went down here, and kept
digging. Our first evidence that the
dragon Axz does exist, oh mercy!
Come."
Eve
didn't want to go, but as
always, it never stopped the energetic woman-monk from yanking an arm.
Margarethe had guessed correctly. The large pile of stones spilled out
into the
other side of the cave. Its mouth was as
tall as the canyon itself. They were not
able to walk directly down. Margarethe
laughed, and told Eve to be ready to slide.
Then, she felt old knobby fingers clamp down hard on her shoulder and
they both lost their footing at the same time.
Well, Eve lost her footing because Margarethe kicked it out. The result
of which couldn't be anything less
than triumphant screaming.
They fell at the bottom and
knocked heads. Eve wailed that now she
had a headache.
"Well, it will teach you
to romance dragons."
"Ugh, I thought I was
here because my dragon lover might help us?"
"Ah, what was that? We will need some light. He's gone, certainly. Though, maybe we might encounter something
that can help us."
There was lichen growing
along the walls. Eve realized it because
Margarethe set it ablaze as they walked.
Oh, and it smelled something evil.
Eve clutched her
stomach. The air became more close, and
then it became clear that air itself was replaced by the pure essence of
dragon, which was acute.
"Oh, Lord, it smells of
sex all through here."
"Margarethe, you know it
by your nose?"
"Now don't you go
telling me that this doesn't smell like a man.
How can a dragon make that sort of smell... perhaps he captures people
and forces them to have orgies. While he
watches for entertainment. Oh, how
vile."
Eve leaned against the wall a
moment, her mind and stomach reeling with all the implications. "Margarethe... who are you?"
"Your best
teacher." a bloom of flame caught then, and raced in a jagged arc over
their heads. It took them a few more
courageous breaths and adjusting their eyes to new darkness before the beauty
of this final cavern became apparent.
Eve's heart lifted. Glittering pieces of the dragons hoard lay
out at the back of the den. She felt she
knew the swells and stacks of treasure by heart. There, was a ruby tiara, and here, nearby, a
white sculpture of angels making love.
Or, rather, back then, Eve thought they were but people, perhaps
drowning in a river of gold, reaching up out of it, clinging to one another,
mouths open to gasp final breaths.
Though, these were not splashes of water come up over their shoulders,
but wilted wings. So much like Micco's
when he'd fallen drunk-asleep on them.
And before, Cymen had explained about Vischte's art, and how it all held
some twisted message.
"There's Vischte all
around here!" she realized.
"Yes, the most precious
treasure in the world is art. And that
will always be." Margarethe smiled at a carved bust of a gorgeous young
man and set it upright. It was not in
the features, but somehow, the statue had a living spirit. The brow was set furrowed in eternal
consternation. The cheeks were round and
youthful, the lips soft, on the onset of uttering something profound about
life, but that such a new and healthy thing should think so hard, should feel
forced to confess the terrible secret of life to them all... Margarethe
prevented that, and kissed the quivering, tortured lips instead.
Eve slipped and found herself
easing down into a noisy pile of gold coins.
"Oh mercy, indeed."
"The Father will forgive
me for that, I think. I just couldn't
bear to see it suffer like that, could you?" And as she passed, more light
shone on the object and it became clear that the stone lips had been
rubbed. Once, long ago, quite a few
women felt a desperate need to kiss it silent.
What kind of artist could and would torture souls like that?
"Yes, he is a good
dragon, who would collect art."
It was a collection? Eve turned around too fast, and her stomach
lurched. "But he isn't here. Can we please take a bit to look at, and go
someplace else to put our feet up and rest?"
"Axz must have been
collecting all of this for some time... I am afraid that if we removed any, he
might know about it. Unless..."
"Oh no. No, no, no. I wasn't suggesting that. Let's not provoke any confrontation."
"Let's take a good lot
of it then." Margarethe hiked up the gold trinkets and coins in the same
hearty way she'd scaled rock rubble earlier.
She rolled up her skirts past her knees and bent over. "Oh no, we're just little women, aren't
we? I might could carry that
kissing-man, but you'd only be able to manage an armful gold perhaps. Darn!
If only I'd brought my thread-and-needle, we could sew some of it into
our skirts..."
There was a crash and
rumble. Eve dropped everything she'd
gathered and crouched. "Oh no...
Margarethe, that came from outside."
Margarethe let her rump plop
down on a loose pile of gold-change and then willfully slid, holding her ankles
and revealing white bloomers, back to the ground. Then she raced to catch Eve and stash her
behind a statue of a corpulent, bejeweled woman feasting on a leg of
mutton. At first, there was nothing
more. Perhaps it was just the
thunderstorm? It was a silly notion and
Eve pinched Margarethe for being so greedy as to chance their health and so try
to think it. They were chattering, thus,
when suddenly a trail of red smoke floated through the flat center of the
room. The veins of lichen along the
walls were still burning, but they were not creating that sort of controlled
mist. With the help of such oddly pretty
green light, Margarethe and Eve followed the rose trail to the entrance of the
cavern, where they had come in. The red
smoke flickered with real, floating embers of ash, twisted and twined, then
twinned abruptly. It was only when the
smooth snout moved to breathe, that they spied it properly. It would have been large enough to miss,
without the lichen-light, easily mistaken for a boulder. A red boulder! The dragon flattened its nostrils, then
peeked its head in further. Clearly,
it'd formed a similar opinion about the unique aroma of the place.
"Go on, ask him to help
us!" Margarethe shoved Eve. Eve
raced back into their hiding place and clamped a hand over Margarethe's
mouth. "But it's red, like
Fanven."
"No, it's gold like Axz,
didn't you say...?"
A low growling built up and
reverberated against the walls and into their bones. Eve felt her own teeth chatter by force of
it. Margarethe chanced a whisper that it
was the ironic leg of a man the fat statue-woman was feasting upon. They were both gazing at that fact, from
underneath the woman's forceful bicep which held the meat firm in her grasp,
when they realized the dragon was eyeing the very statue too, from the other
side. Then the woman's bulbous ass
moved, pressed them up against the slimy wall, when the dragon launched teeth
into the woman's meal, to test it. They saw, where a long canine gripped over
her stone shoulder, that the dragon's snout was not red. Nor was it exactly yellow. Margarethe made a sign in every cardinal
direction when they both determined it was, in fact, neither. They'd nearly thrown their lives away for
orange!
"What kind of
artist," the dragon emerged and hissed, refusing to open its clenched
teeth, "could and would make a statue solely to torture dragons. Axz?!
Where are you, I know it was you— who woke me up!" The dragon had a short neck, and big
shoulders that jutted out. It was
crouching and crawling along its belly to fit in the cavern, like a cat. It had a big, swelling chest, that expanded
with every breath. Something about the
serpentine, split-tongued creature was playful though, in that it was, even
underneath the curved bull horns, the color of a fruit.
It nosed into the gold, tried
another statue with its teeth--this one was a fat dairy cow choking on the heel
and toe of a man--then raised up suddenly and bumped its head.
"Oh, disgusting! Oh, what a beast Axz is... you damned fool,
it's a sin for a reason, damsels and dragons!
Ugh, the smell and look of it... and when I thought we couldn't be more
damned than we are..." and then struggled to pull himself out, one
shoulder barely wedged backward at just the right angle. This dragon was larger than the den's owner,
clearly. He could not comfortably get
inside, nor could he get back out easily.
What kind of cruel dragon could and would craft a cavern to catch
intruders!
"Oh Saint Antony, find
us please, if this creature gets stuck and we can't ever get back out..."
Margarethe snatched up her rosary.
The orange dragon grunted,
snarled, got distracted and tried for their shield and statue again, the
leg-haunch, then found, in that stretch, it could finally withdraw at such an
angle. It went dragging one tensed claw
before its nose. "I suppose,"
the voice simmered and echoed, "He's gone East with the rest..."
They waited forever for it to
be deathly silent again.
"We are so very
fortunate! Thank you, Saint
Antony!"
Eve could not stop crying,
though the danger seemed to have passed.
Margarethe pushed trinkets into the woman's arms and Margarethe had
several statuettes of posing male nudes, then chewed her lip and dropped them
all for the kissing-bust. "It's
just that, it's placed prominently, and Axz is sure to miss it the most."
The lichen was burnt dead by
now, and so there was no enchanting green light to lead them back out of the
cave. But the fresher air was of use,
and the five-clawed rut the orange dragon had left, as he twisted and pulled
himself from the cave, helped their toes to find the way too.
Eve was disappointed to find,
later, that she in fact did not have a good memory of where the Harbringer's
Folly was.
"Well, it's best in that
case, if they ran you out of there with pitchforks, Eve."
"No, it's just that it
was an inn, any inn... and I am desperately hungry, sick, and tired. Altogether, they're three terrible states of
being. I did everything you forced me to
do, Margarethe, oh great teacher, best teacher.
Can we please return to Gafe now?"
"Oh, imagine, that when
you passed through here last, you hated to think you were going to Gafe."
Margarethe stumbled down through the trees and settled her kissing-bust near a
stream. Eve pushed when she saw the
water, and gladly exchanged all her heavy statuettes for it. "I suppose those might as well wash
down-stream, when Axz isn't coming."
Eve revived a little, and
wondered a great deal many things. Why
did they want to anger this dragon and force an encounter anyways? How was it that they came down here, on this
ridiculous errand, got into a dragon's lair unscathed, and then came back out
with no trouble either? She could not
settle on whether or not it was the facility of the journey which made no
sense, or the fruitless difficulty they'd endured for nothing, save exercise.
"I rather thought you'd
ask," Margarethe sat herself against a tree, and folded hands across her
white apron, "What made that orange dragon escape so fervently from the
cave? And he didn't take a trinket with
him either, though they all seemed fine."
Eve was cross-legged next to
the kissing bust, and felt very ruddy-cheeked and drawn in, until...
"Dragons aren't born,
from what I know, so then how did its seed get all over the place?"
Eve just leaned over and got
sick.
"Oh, child, I thought
you were a lusty sort, who understood how these things work?"
"Don't you tease
me." Eve cried, over ragged coughing.
"You tortured me, dragged me out here on this errand. This was to teach me never to love again, is
that it? Well I'm with you
completely! This is all so disgusting. And why, did you make us take these!"
Eve kicked over the kissing-bust. It
should have fallen on the base of its skull, but wobbled over by some hand of
fate, and enjoyed a smooch with fresh soil instead.
Margarethe walked her some
paces upwind, then had another seat, smiled.
"Damascus nor myself would ever play games in a time of war. But I did make up my mind," and she
hugged one of the male statues close, with a yawn, "that if the very
improbable search and rescue for Axz the dragon were to be fruitless, then at
the least, I should either improve you, or make you suffer. The Archbishop is so depressed these
days. And what good can a non-virgin and
a woman given completely over to the Father do, behind the White Wall? Not much."
"This had better not be
because of me and Micco, or me and Damascus, or me and Cymen or WHOMEVER!"
Eve snatched up fistfuls of dirt and swatted them--she didn't have the courage
to aim--just askew of Margarethe's face.
But the woman had fallen asleep, laughing. If Eve had known how to use miracle-work to
get herself back home, or use the powers Damascus had given, which were making
her ever-lightheaded, she would have left that woman-monk. But, once again, it sounded like there was a
golden dragon about. Eve decided that,
at least, she would wander away from the stolen statues...
When Eve awakened, there were trees everywhere. Not that there were so many of them, but
those few around her were so massive.
The ancient pines made her feel so very small that she was afraid to
move. And the place was so still and
quiet she feared they might move, if only to break the oppressive silence. She craned her neck to look for the canopy,
but it was so far off that all she could enjoy of it was verdant, emerald
thick. So green, so very green. A sudden fear that she might go blind
occurred to her, and she rubbed her eyes.
Perhaps,
that is why Eve
found Axz. Because the perfection of
creation at last offended her senses.
His gold, spined back and folded wings faced her. The upright ridges
were each sharp and equal
in size, running along the curvature of his spine, because he sat with
legs
splayed, and his bulk leaned against an old, fallen tree trunk. The
tail nearly touched her, it was so long
that she did not expect it to get near.
It was only when he lifted it, with sudden agitation or interest like a
cat, did Eve realize it had been so closeby all along. The monster had
bent his glowing neck, was
very interested in something he held in one claw, while he leaned up on
his
other arm. One haunch of his suddenly
opened, the hindleg stretched out, and he dug a clawed heel into
upturned
earth. The ground was flustered all
around him, and there were scrapes enough to imply that he'd tried
resting in
many different positions before finding this one. Eve got a strange
feeling. Axz felt too familiar, somehow. She'd seen all this before.
The way he sat, worked his neck in a
constant, eager bob and swallowed, the elbow--and now she, poor curious
thing,
turned to see also the forearm working back and forth rapidly. She
thought of Margarthe's horrid comment,
and her own blushing thighs at once, and so hated that there was still
part of
her compelled to go see it!
Axz stopped. Eve held her knees, leaned over and laughed
very hard. He was so very intensely
interested in an enormous fallen wooden log.
His handsome claws were dug in, scratching an incredible blush of red
wood into some kind of shape.
"Why do you look like
that?" he went back to carving, as if the forest was their sitting-room.
"I haven't seen you...
in so very log. I mean, long. That's a very long log you have."
"You flatter me,"
he teased a forked tongue out at her. So
large in comparison, that it made an audible whip through the air. "...when you've seen my toy before."
Eve was torn between feeling
so ignored after so long, or trying to understand what he was doing to the poor
tree. They were each equally perplexing.
"I've decided that no,
it's not too late to make my own art."
He was so easy with her, and
the heavy aroma of pine was so romantic, it wasn't difficult to decide what to
do with him. "Aren't you sweet,
Axz. A pleasant hobby. Of course, a good dragon would have a
pleasant hobby. So, what is this going
to be?"
"A doll."
Eve was confused again.
"With moving parts and
changeable outfits. I really can't
wait."
"And so now you've deviated
incredibly far away from manly to the extreme."
Axz shrugged his jutting
shoulders and appeared, again, strikingly human. "Darling, if that's happened on its own,
then I suppose my sense was correct when I first left you on the ground,
unravaged. I apologize in advance, for
not being in the mood tonight."
Eve had been around the
bushes far too much to need to ask what 'the mood' was.
"I... we certainly never
went that far."
"Sure we have, plenty of
times." another flirtatious flicker of his tongue. "I woke up once, when I thought I heard
you coming through the valley... but the remainder of these last five years has
been bliss. Aren't you delicious when
you're coy? Perhaps I should threaten to
eat you again." Axz brought his working hand around, to rest elbow to
haunch. A quiet moment passed, and Eve
went to scratch at her leg, only to find the end of his tail there, lifting the
back of her skirt.
"Oh, you devil."
"There is something
different about you tonight, love." Even the irises of Axz's eyes were
like molten metal. They passed over her,
then studied his handiwork briefly.
"Or maybe you're the same lovely absent vision you always were, and
I'm just particularly depressed that the world is ending again. Whose foolish idea was it to wake up
Fanven?"
"Fanven! Excuse me, but I did that."
Axz leaned in, attempting to
press a long snout up against his carved-out tree. Except, it required the flat face of a man to
achieve such distinctive perception. He
rubbed the underside of his fifth claw along something, it worked nearly like a
thumb.
"You adorable
mess..." he grabbed the log, turned it out of the way of the lady, then
blew out dust and shards of wood-chips.
The hot air nearly caught fire and he swore a little. "Of course
you would. Of course, I would like
it. Mmm..."
Eve rushed up close, when she
realized what he was carving. Axz waited
with his claw on the piece, for her to get a good look before he went back to
work. The head and torso of a man.
"Why did I think you would
craft a woman-doll?"
"Oh, that's just
naughty." he snapped all his teeth at her, and Eve was compelled to run
away, a little bit. She hadn't heard him
do it, but she turned back around to see Axz on all fours and crouched behind
her, for the kill. Then, he lay down on
his belly and smiled. "What, no cat
and mouse?"
She knelt and kissed the tip
of his curved gold beak. Axz
purred. She felt it in her bones, but it
was as if her entire body was being rubbed warm and entreated to relax at once.
"You're sad."
"I haven't seen you in
forever, is why."
"All these games... no,
my sweet. You really are sad, despite
everything--" Axz snorted hot air right through her clothes. Eve yelped.
"Hallowed shit! It really is
you, sad in my dreams. How did you get
in here? And more importantly, why did
you never call!"
"Hrm?"
"I should pluck you up
right now," and Axz began to rise, Eve found herself hanging onto a lone
nostril, and so hefted herself over the tip of his beak. She held on with ankles and arms to keep from
falling. "I knew you were a bitch
and a witch but not that you had the power to trespass on a dragon's
dreams."
"This is your
dream?"
"I came out here to
carve and fell asleep. You have to be
asleep too, for this to work."
"How do you know?"
Axz sputtered. "Well other dragons dream too...
sometimes, they cross and we end up embarrassing or waking one another--you
were the one who trespassed into my cave!
I thought I'd been robbed, but now want my kissing-bust back."
"Well, it was Margarethe's
idea. And there was this whole other
dragon."
"What color was
he?"
"How do you know it
wasn't a she? And you surely didn't
smell me having been in there, if you returned afterward... your den
reeks." Eve was petulant.
"There are no female
dragons." Axz seemed to answer both questions.
"Orange."
"Hound-rind. But I wasn't there. I suppose he went East, too."
Axz picked Eve up and held
her in one palm. Then, he thought better
of that, got very comfortable by curling up into a circle, and placed his fist
at the center of that. "Did you
really start that war?"
"I just wanted Cymen
back."
Axz snorted. "Fee... Fi... Fo... Fum. I smell the blood of a virgin man."
"Do you know him?"
"I know that I hate
him."
"Just because I love
him?"
"Oh," he rolled a
large eye up skyward. "This is old
and trifling. Give me one good reason
why I shouldn't fling you across this forest and into the Mists. You started a war, for a man? That man?"
Eve pushed his big thumb
away, and sat more comfortably.
"Cymen once told me that a beautiful artist, Vischte, started a war
over art."
A long, needy quiet passed
between them. Axz curled his tail up
around his fist too. "I wish I
could kiss you."
She blew him one.
"What happens when
Fanven eats Cymen in that war?"
"That will not
happen."
"Yes it will. When that man dies, what then? Will you come back to me?"
"We aren't the same,
Axz, as I said so long ago, when you gave me the necklace. Have you ever been to White Wall?"
"No, though the image is
familiar... I choose not to apologize, however.
If I knew you were coming, then... I would not have."
She clapped angrily at his
laughter. "You can be so abominably
hideous... Axz, I've grown and felt things behind White Wall that I never knew
before."
"No, you've just found
religion." he yawned, and Eve wondered why she felt an urge to crawl into
his mouth. "Eve, you are too tiny
and distressed to find religion, you know.
You could break like an egg."
"But
this is real. It's not a story, or made up. And they have
rules that make you feel good when you follow them, and sacraments.
It's strange, but I feel that I can relate to
the monks, too. Men and women monks,
Axz, and if you care to believe, they know all about sex, and sin, and
whatnot. They're normal people, but also
find room in their hearts to work towards the greater good. I never
felt more safe or welcomed. And the Archbishop is a perverted old
Unicorn, Ha!"
"More hallowed
shit. I was hoping the Great Grands
would have all died out by now."
"Please don't say
that. Clearly, you're just jealous of me
and my new love for humanity."
"No, what I want to know
is why you've been having a party with the male Hymen, and that old goat
Damascus, and... is... what is her name? Why can't I remember it? I swear that if I can't, and you have, then I
might just have to kill you."
"Giselle?" Who else would try and hasten death but Eve?
Axz spread out his claws,
perhaps, because he was so afraid that he'd grip and crush them together, with
Eve inside. He put her down. "The Mist Maven herself is there too? Why in Hell is she bothering with those
idiots? And I was thinking of my mother,
but I suppose the Rapture was, as intended, selective."
"Giselle is married to
Archbishop Damascus."
Axz groaned loud and
heartbroken. "That fat, donkey's
ass is having sex on a regular basis and I'm not? I have half a mind to fly over there right
now and extinct him! And of all the
mis-matched creatures in the world, those two are supposed to hate each
other. The Great Grand, the Father's
first stubborn Unicorn and the Mist Maven?
Never!" then, Axz lay flat on his back and spread out his
arms. "Ah yes, the world is ending,
afterall. I believe it. Do you hear me! I believe!" Axz shouted to the sky. His breath blew apart the trees above, and
blinding light made them both wince and bury their faces. "I apologize for that. But I just can't, for the life of me,
understand why I wasn't invited to this party?
A hundred years, I've been bored and alone."
"It's hardly a party, if
you've ever met Sister Margarethe. Have
you?"
"Some stuffy
woman-monk? No, she's not of my
generation..." Axz didn't finish.
"But how is that blunder Cymen still alive?"
"What of King
Miccolangiolo?"
"Depends, what's he the
king of?"
"He is an angel. I think he fell from Heaven, and he named the
land he crushed the Grand and Frivolous Effort."
Axz shut his eyes and
smiled. "Oh, this is
wonderful. Finally, we have
justice. Haha! I like this Micco... but not the real General
of Heaven, of course not, when this sort of angel would go around pissing on
creation like that."
"Axz... would you like
to come back to Gafe with me? Damascus
sent Margarethe and I to find you, in fact.
We're losing the war."
"The second Crusades, do
you mean? Yes, Arusalem would not let
you win that again. Good for them. Put all the money in my hoard on the
Fringe."
"Oh, how wrong of
you."
"How wrong of you. I haven't seen you in five years, you're
running around with other men, talking to all my old connections, but not
to me, of course not me. I'm only a
spectacular dragon, the most handsome one--I've checked--I actually have the
knowledge to polish these magnificent claws, only eat peasants who aren't from
that silly town you came from... and the only reason you want me back in your
life is because the world is ending! So
typical of humanity!"
Axz turned his back.
"Don't you want to help
save lives? I admit, I was skeptical
too, at first, but it all comes down to suffering, preventing suffering. We can be good to one another, Axz, and end
it forever."
"I'm an artist; I am not
the kind of dragon who dives out of the sky to take on Fanven. And no other dragon in this life ever
would. We don't work like that."
"So then, you are all
selfish, arrogant morons, indulging your own personal Hell?"
"Yes, actually."
"Axz, the next time you
want to see me, go ahead and try, but I hope you remember that the real Eve is
willing very hard for your cock to wilt!"
He rolled over on all lashing
fours to snarl at her, but Eve was gone.
When Margarethe found Eve,
poor thing, her story meant precious little because it was told, in addition to
the neo-classical priestess, to an audience of mushrooms.
"He exists, Eve, but
only in your imagination, with the help of mushrooms. He doesn't love you. Accept this so that we can all move on."
Eve rubbed her finger on the
underside of a particularly large orange toadstool in the soft patch, and
watched the spores stain her hand red, then blue, then green, and all these
spots floated with her gaze, as she looked up and saw the maternal anger in her
teacher's face.
"Yes, Sister
Margarethe. I suppose I shall try very
hard, to do better for myself next time."
But Eve's tongue felt so thick with hurt, she wasn't sure if Margarethe heard
it.
