Dragon's Den

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.