Chapter 3

Wind beat upon Amy’s brow, the moon shone above her, hung in the sky like fruit from a tree. The clouds beneath on this overcast night, would have prevented this view, but Amy was atop a dragon. The sky was clear, the stars were bright, and the number of which were plenty. The purple wings stretched out behind her. Occasionally she would feel her body pressed upon the scales as Glyn would flap her wings and they would rise.

“We’re near”, Ian announced as they were flying over the forest and mountains.

Amy had begun to express herself more freely with those present, the flight, the new experience, had opened up the flood gates of adrenaline for Amy, causing her tongue to loosen in anxious energy. A thought popped into her head and her loosened lips couldn’t restrain her question like her usual behavior.

“It’s amazing you can hear me in this wind”, she said to Glyn.

Glyn giggled, “Not only do we have keen eyesight, but we are an intelligent species who rely on spoken words for communication, in the howling of the wind we have greater hearing as well to gleam words from the breeze. As a matter of fact all of humanity's language comes from dragons”.

“Ahhh, Understand”, Amy mentally chided herself as her English words clumsily left her lips.

Her major in college was biology and she was interested in the different peculiarities of different species. They had now descended from their lofty heights to beneath the clouds nearing the forest top. Now they were scraping the trees as they followed the terrain, bumping over the hill giving way to the vast valley hidden below nestled in the embrace of the mountains. In the middle of the valley a clearing away from the dense forest. Amy felt a change in the energy from the air, suddenly there was a tall tower where before there was nothing but air. Amy gasped, the tower stood tall, towering; further into the sky it reached, as they came ever nearer. It was beige stone, with a golden roof. It had a light to it that made its rich colors clearly visible in the darkness of the clouded night.

“The Magic tower of Arbell”, Liam said as he craned his serpentine neck back towards Amy with a smile on his face revealing deadly fangs the length of Amy’s whole stature, “Let’s go I can’t wait to go back to school”.

Then Amy realized a little of Liam’s nature, jovial, charming, and outgoing, yet his true thoughts were serious and keen. Amy had the serious thoughts, but timid as she was, she was lacking in her interactions. Amy reflected that she was quiet, but she was diligent and never shirked her responsibilities, out of all her siblings she felt the weight of obligation most. It was the reason she was in college; she wanted to get a good job with her biology degree, and further her education so she could get a good job to take care of her mother. After Jeremy left, she felt a lone, not wanting to depend on anyone she spent her mind and energy on being studious and hard working. Study, read, and work those were the only things she did, further and further she burrowed into those activities in an attempt to fill the space left in her heart after Jeremy excused himself from her presence abruptly and completely. Amy was a very intelligent woman, but she worked to be ignored, so she could be left alone. After Jeremy Amy tried to hide more than usual. Sometimes she would think about changing her name to the nameless invisible forgettable student. Little did she know that she would not be able to hide her talent any further; although, she really felt and believed that she was lacking talent, and instead had to persevere in order to get the same results her classmates achieved with their lesser efforts.

The thoughts clouding her vision cleared as Glyn spoke, “Hold on tight Amy!”.

“I’ll get there first sis!!”, Sean proclaimed and dove deeper and faster than others in the party.

“Slow down you insufferable fool!”, William bellowed and shot after Sean.

“Challenge accepted future loser!!”, Glyn said loudly, defiantly.

Glyn got nearer to the trees, faster she moved towards the tower, and the beating of her wings caused Amy turbulence from atop her perch. Amy’s heart was beating, faster, faster the speed increased, as her heart accelerated. Despite Amy’s focus on holding on to the small spindles protruding from Glyn’s horns, she occasionally looked up to behold the reach of the tower, which the height and breadth thereof grew greater as they barreled towards it. The ground was rushing towards them, the wind was rushing towards her, the tower majestic in its splendor was rushing towards them ever nearer.

“Too slow”, Ian said nonchalantly, as Liam led him by a few meters as they zoomed past everyone, like bullets from a gun.

Amy’s footing shifted as the turbulence from Liam and Ian shook the dragon she was riding; then that dragon Glyn grunted, “Hupp”, as she spread her wings right before Amy thought they would explode into a mist of red remnants, tokens of remembrance of their former whole healthy self against the unmoving tower. Then the massive walnut door creaked, then groaned as it shot open. Glyn wrangled the air down with her far-reaching wings giving them tremendous lift. Once again Amy could feel the sudden weight of gravity press down upon her on their ascent, concentrating on her feet making them tingle from the pressure.

Amy looked below, drawing further and further from them were grassy plains, long hills, an ocean preceded by cliffs, and white limestone blemishing the fields of emerald green. It was not Oregon that much she knew, now she had no point of reference to where she was, or how to where her mother and sisters were. As the flight became smoother, Amy straightened up looking up at the stars, scattered across the night sky like sparkling sand on a beach. She gasped not one, not two, but three moons were pinned upon the darkness of the night, as though they were bright white buttons. Other blue and purple dragons were circling widely in the air around them and above them. She was amazed that she could hear them whisper amongst themselves despite the wind and the hundreds of feet of distance from them. Although this would not help her as the language was of a tongue she had never heard before.

“Fal nar gwy aah thurin”, A purple dragon said.

Then amazingly to Amy the words became less foreign, and then she understood exactly what they were saying.

“Why is a pure human here?”, the female dragon continued; though the words she actually heard were, “ferllon nargwy aah thurin tufi?”.

Another dragon, his blue scales shimmering in the pure gentle light of the three moons said astonished like his accompaniment, “They should have no magic, yet she emanates a flickering energy. Not a like a candle going out no, like a small fire beginning to come alive”.

As she turned back to look back behind her, she could feel the curious gazes of the dragons in the skies. She was relieved to feel no hostility from them, just simple curiosity. Then she saw it, the wide gate she passed through. Amy thought she would see a massive door, but there was none, instead there was an arch of monolithic proportions. Shimmering white, two stones firmly rooted in the ground, capped by another white stone. Though from this distance already that they gained she could not ascertain the texture. However, she did see the masses of people leading to the arch on a wide dirt road.

“Where are we Glyn?”, Amy asked with a hint of anxiety to her voice.

Glyn giggled, the charm of which could ensnare swathes of men, “It sounds nice hearing you use my name so comfortably”.

Amy’s face began to turn red.

Liam narrowed his eyes in focus at Amy as he drew into a close formation with Glyn. Unbeknownst to her he had kept a vigilant watch over her, like a riddle solver looking at a difficult riddle.

“Fwyr yn gwy sylddarin?”, he asked.

And to the astonishment of her company, she responded meekly, then yawned, “A little”.

“Wow”, Sean said, “she understands our language”.

“How?!”, William said shocked.

Glyn was silent.

Amy was embarrassed to be the center of attention, even more so, she was baffled by their reactions.

“What”, she finally gathered the strength to ask, not wanting to look stupid.

“Hmmm”, Ian said as he flew in the lead of the wing of dragons looking straight, “What puzzles me more, is that this is connected to that wand you are holding”.

‘Wha, since when?’, Amy thought, she looked down and saw her pink sweater then the wand in her hand glowing a soft white; creating a soft ambient light in the cool night air.

“Curious indeed”, Liam said eyeing Amy’s posture, “standing firm like a tree rooted on Glyn’s neck”.

Glyn flew close to Liam and nibbled on his jaw, “Where are you looking?”, she asked coyly.

Liam flapped his wings in response, and broke himself awkwardly away from Glyn, as she giggled; the rumblings of which Amy could feel in the soles of her feet vibrating through the scales.

“I’ll go ahead, I’ve got some things to prepare”, Liam said as he banked sharply drawing away in a different direction. Amy noticed his flight suddenly became less elegant and majestic to more anxious and chaotic. She thought it was cute and smiled warmly. It struck her: as unrealistically giant as they were, their character and reactions were remarkably realistic and relatable.

“By the way lass”, Ian said, “you’ll be staying with Glyn tonight. She’s got a nice cozy lair, and it’s close to your new school. Oh, I’m sorry, you asked where we are. Welcome to the land of the Ddyllewech. I’ll refrain from bothering you with an info dump, and you’ll learn it at school soon enough anyways. But this is our home, you can think of it as a pocket dimension, like a secret cupboard containing a continent of vast seas, grass plains, mountains, and trees. If you can understand those terms. Although why it is that way with the seven towers we do not know”.

“There is more than just this single tower?”, Amy asked shocked, but also curious.

“Aye”, Glyn responded with confidence, “You’ll cover this in your history tutorials, but we know two things: our home is another world called Draegoch; and yet here we are for some reason beyond the time of our collective memory. We obviously know that some type of cataclysm in our own world that brought us here, but that history has long been lost”.

“Sorry wee lass”, William said looking at Amy with a look of regret and sympathy, a look Amy did not know a dragon could make, “We wished we could have been gentler, smoother with your transition from your normal life up until this point, but the circumstances were so bizarre and puzzling. We could not leave you alone when you were attacked by a foul beast, the likes of which we did not know existed until a few days ago. We could not leave you be, there must be something at work here, and we predicted that you would be gobbled up like the last piece of bread in a feast, in whatever workings, schemings, devisings, that have been activated if you were left alone”.

“hmm”, Ian said reflectively, arching up to gaze upon the myriad of foreign stars in the night sky with his powerful neck, “I talked with Liam and every time we feel we get close to an answer about the whithertos and the whyfors it slips away. It’s maddening”.

“Agreed”, William muttered, then spoke in a positive tone, “but fear not lass, we will be amongst us. Indeed, there is no safer place than a city of dragons!”.

They were nearing Glyn’s lair. Ian and William had since departed off to their concerns, cares, and burdens. Glyn thought of Amy sitting on her neck. Amy was silent yet again, the little thing was very, very, very stingy with her words. Yet still Glyn felt a stirring warmth in her dragon heart. Glyn saw her as charming and adorable. Smooth slightly tanned oriental skin. Shoulder length black hair, with a styling that was neither plain nor expressive. The occasional grammatical mistakes, and the slight crook in her back from scoliosis, helped raise her charm. It was clear that she was constantly thinking, constantly making greater efforts than her peers, yet while restraining herself with her suppressed mentality. Amy was a girl who shrunk from the world and hid. However, in the process of hiding, she had bound her potential with knot and cord. Glyn knew that Amy thought she had nothing to offer the world so she decided to hide from it, because she did not want to disappoint herself and her family.

Glyn felt a connection with Amy, as she was like that in her early youth. But in her twenties and thirties Liam had helped her find her personality, and to know her strengths and be confident in the world. He was really the definition of a llwenyn, a clan older brother. His serious and earnest disposition, that he rarely showed moved her heart. That was why she favored his presence more than others. She snorted in the air, smoke pouring from her nostrils as the feelings of annoyance at her two brothers who deemed her affections as nothing more than the fantasies of a young naïve youth. They did not know that her feelings were born from a deeper connection and not trivial fleeting emotions. Ian, he said nothing, however he did not chide her nor did he support her, the only favor he showed was a whimsical look in his eyes, and a slight crook at the edges of his mouth. ‘Hmmph, I’ll show them’, she thought. She smirked at the thought of Liam’s embarrassed expression. He knew the wiles of females, and easily dealt with them, but she was the only one that could embarrass him. She hummed to herself in approval.

“Pfft, go ahead and wander in your dreams sis, I got a neat spell to work on, I’ll see you tomorrow”, Sean said as he drew away.

“Do me a favor and don’t show up”, Glyn snapped back, to which Sean laughed as the sound thereof grew dimmer as he drew away. Indeed, siblings were the same no matter the manner of creature they were.

She looked down below at the city, her city. The white spires lingering above in the bustling landscape of the metropolis, the lower buildings and dwellings hewn from beige rock and beige stone. Drawing upon the spire she flapped her reaching wings, steadied her approach and grabbed the bar of her perch with her lower quarters, Dun, dun she let her front feet hit the floor of her perch as she stomped lazily on the ground releasing some of her tension from her brother’s snide remark.

Arriving at her lair, Glyn let out a long sigh of relaxation. Curling her tail to reach Amy she gently, carefully hoisted her to the ground. She watched affectionately as Amy gained her footing again after riding for so long. She looked at Amy admiring the entrance to her lair with widened eyes: a spacious smooth cavernous entrance hewn into the spiral. Behind Amy without a sound or disturbance her stature diminished rapidly and her appearance changed into a human. Walking forward without a gaze as she trod sluggishly towards her wooden door at the depth of the cavern.

“Girl talk?”, she said as she passed Amy, her only current aspirations to reach her threshold and get inside. She emerged from her washroom without a thought in her head as feelings of sloth and slumber poured over her. Four soft white balls of light floated above in the room cut deep into the stone. She was pleased with the amenities of her abode, the magical options she chose were for comfort and a resting mood. Like most dragons she dearly wanted to linger in her cave, and sought to include every comfort. The light lit up the soft blue blouse she wore to sleep, Amy had changed into pink pajamas and was looking for a place to occupy. Glyn grabbed her hand and drew her to her bed. They stayed up till the late hours of the night, conversing. Amy’s comments revolved around one man, without mentioning said individual, as did Glyn’s. As they talked more slumber began to creep upon them.

Glyn a straightforward person muttered, “So this is what it’s like to have a sister”, as she grabbed Amy like a pillow and promptly closed her eyes.