Chapter 5: The Ears of an Aer

Sylph stopped mere inches behind her door and waited. Two minutes later, she pushed down the handle at the bottom and slipped back into the hallway. Walking on the softest parts of her paws, she stalked near soundlessly up to a certain spot on the wall three tail lengths down.

She pushed one of her ears against the wood paneling and listened. Nothing, a hollow nothing reached her mind. She moved forwards, ear still pressed to the wall until the hollow silence changed to a deeper, resonating silence. The massive wooden beam behind the paneling conducted sound extremely well.

Sylph closed her eyes and focused. Only her rhythmic breathing and the occasional grumble of her stomach cut through the silence. Seconds turned to minutes, and her ears adjusted themselves to even the faintest of sounds. The incoherent white background noise and deep silence turned into voices. Sylph slowed her breathing, stopped all her tiny movements until only the rushing of blood through her ears, her heartbeat and her mothers conversation downstairs remained.

Her limbs started to tingled as they fell asleep from being locked in place for this long, and she laid down in a more comfortable position. She moved slow as to not disturb her ears. In most dragons, the ears sat at the side of their head, narrow like a claw and ended in a sharp point. The ears of an Aer sat higher, slim and sharp when folded up; large and round when fully extended. Unlike other dragons, theirs could be moved and pivoted with utmost precision.

“-and then she sent her son to Koal. A Sol with two apprentices. That’s not right,” Oasis said.

“Tradition can’t keep up with the kingdom's demand for Sol smiths. Humans had more than one apprentice for generations and now they are missing qualified Sol,” Veria answered and Sylph let go of her held breath. They were not talking about her or her parents at all, at least not yet, or she had missed it.

Wooden bowls smashed against the counters, and the splashes of water made Sylph wonder how there was any left in the sink. It was safe to assume that Veria did the dishes today. The sound stopped. “We have to tell her at some point,” Oasis said. Sylph’s heart thumped heavy in her chest.

Veria stopped what she had been doing, as though she checked if Sylph stood around the corner. “We talked about this. She can not know about her.” Her? Sylph pressed her ear harder against the wall.

“Don’t you think she is old enough to understand?” Oasis asked. “She seems troubled. Maybe I should go talk to her.” The words filtered through several walls, which made it hard to hear any emotion. All conversation was dull and monotone up here.

“I wasn’t that harsh on the field, I only made her clean up the mess she made,” Veria answered.

“It’s not that. She showed her scar today. She tried to correct some storytellers again, didn’t she?”

“Good idea, they are idiots,” Veria held in for a second and continued, “She should let the story go, there is no stopping these morons from butchering it.”

Sylph readjusted against the wall. Don’t switch the topic again. Talk about my parents, she thought. A painfully long second of silence passed, then Oasis spoke. “Maybe the truth would clear up-”

“We all agreed on the story,” Veria interrupted her rather harshly. “It’s not about clearing things up. She is an Aer. It could end badly.” The kitchen fell into silence.

Because I am an Aer?! She was not fragile, Veria knew that. She could wrestle a Tira her size to the ground. What was Veria worried about? That her parents were more traditional? That maybe they lived on a dangerous cliff? And who were those all that agreed to the story?

“What would you say if your father hid such a truth from you?” Oasis asked.

A deep, hollow clang echoed through the kitchen. “My father was very vocal about my place in the world and my duty to keep our silver heritage alive.” Veria paused. “He didn’t remember my mother’s name, nor did we ever share a bond. He was a terrible Metia, and a worse father. All he ever did, served only one purpose and one person, himself.” Veria paused once again.

Oasis spoke first: “I might not feel the Metia bond as you do, but I can feel it is there. You are my silver hoard and I am your desert treasure.” They both went quiet, too quiet to hear, until Oasis raised her voice again. “She can not steal your bond, Veria.”

Veria seldom spoke about her bond. They remained a mysterious thing in Sylph’s head. The Metia bond; A deep connection shared by mates and family. An Aer like Sylph would never understand, could never understand. In turn, a Metia could never understand how it felt to have electricity crackle and pulse in your back. Different species, different sensations.

Veria spoke: “I know it’s unfair, but the truth would hurt Sylph the most. She’ll understand one day. I will not let her get anywhere near her mother or any slavers, even if I have to lie to her.” Veria sounded determined, even all the way through the wood and stones. She intended to keep the truth to herself.

She was right. It was unfair. They were her parents, her mother. If safety was the problem, Veria severely underestimated her. No slavers could lay a hand on her lest they wanted to lose it.

“Who left their book here, again?” Arastra’s hollow voice bounced through the hallway from the other side of the door. Sylph pulled her head away from the wall and jumped up, hoping the noise would be enough to close her ears to a less incriminating shape.

The first tendrils of silver mist seeped through the door. Arastra walked through the wood without as much as a sound or hint of tangibility. The silver blur of her figure hung in the dark hallway like a thick mist above morning dew. Keeping track of someone that made no sound was hard. Sylph recalled a few close calls. Arastra never knocked, and she instantly knew that dusty old history tome she gave you did not change the cover and lost a few pounds in the last hour you were supposed to be studying it. Sylph had been lucky today, and only because she forgot her own book this morning.

Arastra stopped and stared down at her with pupilless eyes. "Shouldn't you be asleep?" Maybe Arastra would tell me. She shook off that thought. Arastra would never betray anything they had agreed on beforehand. She was more stubborn about rules and honor than Veria. "Sylph?" Arastra lowered her head until they stood eye to eye.

“Couldn’t sleep and went looking for my book. I think I left it downstairs. Should I dare to go down there?” A smirk spread over her face. “Are they doing the dishes, each other, or both?”

Arastra coughed politely. Or rather, she pretended to via a semi correct but ultimately wrong noise. “So many traits you could’ve picked up from your mother, and you choose her horrid sense of humor.”

“You mean I improved it.”

Arastra closed her thin eyelids. Without an actual body, every motion was conscious; even the rhythmic raising and lowering of her chest. Sylph could not hear the air flow and wondered if it was all part of trying to fit back in. “Debatable, but they were cleaning when I arrived.” Arastra turned to look at the closed door behind her, ears perked. Sylph could barely make out the mess of noise that was Veria cleaning up, and doubted that Arastra could hear anything.

“Quite uncomfortable that this question has to be asked in this household. Remind me to thank Dalian again for separating us to this degree.” Arastra shook her head and left a silver afterimage in the air. She then turned to leave.

“I wouldn’t want my soul to be stuck to Veria either,” Sylph said as Arastra passed her, “seems very awkward.” She was not sure to what degree their connection remained. They refused to say. But Arastra seemed quite aware of what went on inside of Veria’s head at all times and was as far away as possible once her mothers decided to be lovely and embarrassing.

“You have no idea. I think your book might be just behind this door. Do learn to clean up after yourself.” She stopped mid-step. “And judging by how Veria feels right now-, better hurry to grab it.”

What Arastra did every night was a mystery. Sylph watched her pass through the wall and into the garden outside. After waiting to make sure Arastra had left, she concentrated on her mothers again, which turned out to be a mistake as Arastra had predicted. Sylph picked up her book “The Southern Tower” from the low-shelf next hallway to complete her alibi and vanished back into her room.

The white lightglobes from outside basked her room in a cool gray and sketched drawn out shadows from the window. As she went to close the curtains, she spotted another couple at the Embers statue. That crude thing had transformed into somewhat of a meeting point. Sylph could watch them from her room or balcony. By accident, of course, not intentionally.

Most of the time it was human couples that held hands or smacked their mouths together. Other times, dragons not older and often younger than her met there as well. They’d be all too lovely with their tails twined and wings laid to rest against each other, just like her mothers. To her disappointment, the world of love centered on touching each other. And after changing into a dragoness, she had been keenly made aware that she could not do the same.

Puberty, the change, starting the first bond or becoming an adult, the same thing had many names. Her mothers had made it sound like a strange nuisance that happened to you instead of the sheer terror and oddness that came with living through it. Being an Aer added more difficulty. Other species were born as dragon or dragoness and didn’t have to guess what they’d end up as.

Realizing that you can’t even touch anyone after that experience was about as pleasant as the stomach cramps during it. It was all full of contrivances. She didn’t want anybody too close to her, but her body disagreed. Maybe it was the other way around, who knew.

Sylph finally closed the curtain and with it her unruly train of thought. She stumbled to her nest in complete darkness, fumbled around in the general direction of the table to the side, and picked up the pair of earplugs. She squeezed the foam-like material into a small ball in her pfods and gently pushed them into her ears, where they expanded and dampened her hearing.

The big round mattress in the corner was still a few sizes too large to be considered a comfortable nest. A vast array of pillows along the edge left a smaller hollow in the middle to curl into. A picture of an adult Aer with gigantic wings that blocked out the sun sprung to life in her head. Veria had no qualms about knocking Sylph into the sand in a duel, but the truth about her parents was to be handled with utmost care.

But then something sparked inside her, and she sat back up. She didn’t need their answers. Veria and Dalian saved the world at her age. If they could do that, she could figure out who and where her parents were. Now awake, she pondered that thought. Linz, the place where it all began, her birthplace and her prison. Some answers must rest with the dead under a layer of snow. Thoughts overtook one another and filled her head with chaos. She could do this. She could visit Linz on her own.

An icy shiver crawled up her spine at the idea. She grabbed hold of the closest pillow and squeezed it tight. The destination was straight out of her nightmares, a very literal nightmare.

Maybe she didn’t need to go alone. She released the pillow from her stranglehold. Brandon wanted to head north for some sort of mineral powder. So why not combine the two and have a quick trip that conveniently brought her close to her answers and not all alone.

Sylph coiled her tail around herself and closed her eyes. It was a plan, she’d give her mothers one more chance tomorrow and if they didn’t answer her question she’d head out herself. She had planned to visit Brandon anyway, to tell him about the experiment.

After her thoughts had quieted, the exhaustion of the day finally took over and she fell asleep.