Epilogue
“Mommy, can we go flying?”
“Mommy can’t fly,” Aria reminded Vilka. He was a bright boy, growing swiftly thanks to his father’s genes. Dragons grew and matured much more quickly than human offspring, and remained healthy and vital for much longer as adults. Aria was incredibly proud of Vilka. She had never contemplated motherhood back on Earth, but she would not have changed it for the world now. His dark hair tinged with red streaks marked him out as his father’s son. He had her eyes though, and her love for the sky.
Vilka frowned, looking so much like his father in that moment. “It’s not fair that you can’t,” he said simply.
“Well, it’s just…”
“You’re right, boy,” Vyktor interjected, striding through the door of their new clifftop home. They had moved there after Vilka’s birth. It was the perfect place to raise a dragonling, lots of safe space to fly and plenty of others to play with. Aria smiled at her mate as he came forward and wrapped his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“Come, pet,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”
He still called her pet. Though the initial meaning of the term had long since faded, Aria enjoyed the way it made her feel. Safe, protected, cherished.
Leaving Vilka to play at the house of a friend, Aria and Vyktor walked through the narrow winding passageways of the city to a great big warehouse carved deep into a crag at the top of the mountain. The land in front of it was flat and straight for several miles in a way that most of the dragon lands were not. It was almost as if it had been specially cut out for some purpose.
She gave Vyktor a curious look, but did not ask him what they were doing. She was sure that would be apparent soon enough. It usually was with Vyktor.
“I’ve had something made for you,” he said. “It’s something I know you miss. It won’t be the same as the way it was on Earth, but…”
He pushed open the great doors, several times taller than Aria, with no apparent effort. Peering into the darkness, Aria tried to make out what the surprise was. As the dragon sun hit gleaming struts and props, she let out a scream of pure excitement.
“Oh, my god!” she screamed at Vyktor. “It’s beautiful!”
Vyktor had fashioned her a plane! Not a plane like those she had flown on Earth, but an elegant mechanism designed after their dragon flight forms. The wings were large and folded, scaled and scooped just like a dragon’s wings would be. They gleamed emerald and gold, shining in the light of the bright sun. The body of the machine was a very light bone-hued scaffolding with a seat, pedals, and a control stick. It was one of the most beautiful things Aria had ever laid eyes on. Every part of it had been crafted not just for function, but for form. Vyktor had not merely made her a plane, he had made her a body with which to take to the air.
“I had our craftsman working on this from the day you arrived so that you could return to the skies,” Vyktor said, kissing her. “I know you have missed them. I am only sorry it took so long, but this is a complex machine.”
Aria kissed him quickly and returned to inspecting the plane, walking around every inch of it, touching every part of it. Unlike a plane, there were no engines, and she could not see any source of power.
“Is it a glider? Are you going to tow me?”
“No, you will not need me to fly this,” Vyktor said. “It will take you wherever you please.”
Aria frowned out of confusion. “How is it powered?”
“The scales draw radiation and transform it to lift through the wings,” he explained. “You can retract the wings if you want to dive, or spread them out to rise or glide. There may be some teething issues as you learn to use it, so I want you to use it with me for now, so I can catch you if you fall.”
“I’ll always want to fly with you,” she said. “I’ve flown alone long enough.”
She fell into his arms, and his kiss. Vyktor had given her his heart, his world, and the sky.
“Come, pet,” he said. “Let us see how it works.”
Aria climbed up into the pilot’s seat, strapped herself in and checked the controls. Most of them were based on the planes she was used to, though there were no meters and gauges. Nothing to tell her how high she was, or what distance she had flown. She felt quite naked without her instruments, but simply sitting inside a flight craft again brought her a brilliant joy.
She urged her new wings from the hangar, set her sights on the end of the runway, and opened the throttle. It was very strange to feel herself begin to move without the throbbing of a heavy engine. Aria was not expecting much from the machine, maybe a slow rumbling run up and then a glide into the sky. To her utter surprise and delight, it shot forward at the lightest touch and bore her up into the sky with a flick of the flight stick. In seconds, she was airborne, crying out with glee as Vyktor’s heavier form rose up beside her to fly alongside, his wings beating much like the mechanical wings of her dragon plane.
Sailing through the dragon skies, Aria could not wipe the grin from her face. Her mechanical winged plane flew with an alacrity and a joy that reflected the capacities of its designer. Vyktor had not made her a plane just to replace what she had lost on Earth; he had given her something that enabled her to feel what it was to be a dragon, to flick the tip of a wing and roll in the sky, to wheel high in sinuous curves and to fly low over the scudding ocean.
So Aria finally found happiness in the realm she adored, with the man she loved and the son she was more proud of than anything. From that day forth, three forms could take to the skies. The dragon, the woman, and their son.
* * *
Twenty Dragon Years (Two Human Years) Later…
“That boy will be the death of me,” Vyktor growled as a hurtling human form fell past their bedroom window. They heard the fwomp of great wings opening just before he hit the water, and the shouts of the young warriors their son led in his acts of daring.
His hair was beginning to gray at the temples. Aria’s had started to silver as well. It was not that they were of terrible advanced age so much as that their son had been running them ragged for the better part of two human decades.
“He’s not a boy anymore, dear,” Aria reminded him. “He’s a man.”
“He’s not a man, he’s a brat. Like his mother. You make too many excuses for him, pet.”
“He’s young,” Aria said. “This is how young human men behave. It’s healthy.”
“It is not how my son behaves,” Vyktor growled at her.
“Apparently it is!” She stuck her tongue out at him and giggled at his scowl.
“I will deal with you once I have dealt with him,” he promised in dire tones that seemed to have less effect on her than ever.
“Please do,” Aria laughed as Vyktor went to find his son.
Vyktor was worried about his boy. Vilka was not like the other dragons. He had grown a little more slowly than them, which had served to make him more determined to prove his strength. His dragon form was just as strong however, and he had inherited his mother’s willfulness and his father’s prowess. He was already beginning to challenge the order of their little seaside village.
“Vilka!” he bellowed out the window. “Come here!”
Minutes later, Vilka appeared in Vyktor’s office. He was eighteen years of age now, well-muscled and handsome. He was a perfect blend of his mother and father, though in that moment he simply looked annoyed and rebellious at having been called away from his inane activities. Vyktor did not care. The boy was his son and he was made for greater things than wasting his days away on the cliffs.
“You should be training,” he said. “Not flying off.”
“I trained yesterday,” Vilka said, tossing his head and narrowing his eyes. “I can’t train all the time, Father.”
“A time may come when you will wish you had trained harder,” Vyktor growled. “Remember that.”
“Oh, sure, like what? All the portals are closed…”
“And they will stay closed,” Vyktor ground out.
“I think we should open one,” Vilka said. “I want to see where I came from. Well, where half of me came from.”
They had engaged in this argument many times before, from as soon as Vilka was old enough to realize that he and his mother were not quite like the other dragons. His curiosity about humans was extreme—and extremely dangerous.
“The portal stays closed,” Vyktor informed his rebellious son.
“But they’re just… they don’t have wings. They’re not as strong as us! They can’t be dangerous.”
“You have little idea of what humans are capable of, boy,” Vyktor growled at him. “As long as I draw breath, this portal stays closed. I say that not as your father, but as your general. Now go to the training grounds. One day you will have men to lead, and they will not respect a slacker.”
With a curled lip, Vilka gave a petulant bow and left Vyktor’s presence.
Vyktor watched his son go with a sense of trepidation. One day he would be gone, and one day, that boy would unleash hell on Earth. He knew it, and there was little he could do to stop it.
The End