White Dragon w/Girl
Text from Dragons Among Us
Sweden-The Great Hall in the ice mountain
Volsung Odell trudged to his private chambers. He pushed the massive ice door open and slipped inside. The announcement in today’s gathering had elicited the expected response. Few members of the organization were full bloods. This inconvenient condition would prove dangerous to all if a solution were not found and soon.
Two-leggeds didn’t distinguish between true dragons and shape shifters. An oddity was to be yanked apart and studied as far as they were concerned. After all, they couldn’t coexist with just different skin colors let alone different life forms. Their unthinkable treatment of lesser animals was proof of their egomaniacal attitudes.
He moved to the viewing platform. From here, he could see the meeting chamber floor and outlying hallways. The ice rooftop of the restaurant let him know how many were inside but not who. It was the brainchild of his deputy, Magnus; the most suspicious being Volsung had encountered. However, the veiled balcony gave the leader a view of those whose fates rested on his decisions.
He narrowed his eyes. There was a couple standing together and Volsung could see a cloud of fear surrounding them. There was a mix of turquoise and lavender… lavender!
He quickly stepped back into his living room. He moved to the wall and pushed a button on the intercom set in the granite face.
“Magnus.”
He heard the fear in his own voice, and closing his eyes, pulled in a deep breath. He couldn’t show any emotion—it was the curse of his position.
“Sir?” the baritone voice wrapped around Volsung’s ears.
Volsung hesitated, controlling his heartbeat and breathing before answering.
“Magnus, I need to you investigate the young shape shifter in the chamber below. It is imperative I know everything there is about him before the end of the day.”
“Both of them, sir?”
“No. Just the male.”
“Consider it done, sir.”
“Magnus?”
“Yes, sir?”
“As always, this is highly confidential.”
“Of course, sir.”
Volsung moved to the granite slab that served as a mantle over his fireplace. This place had been his home for as long as he could remember. It was only in the last few centuries the council deemed it necessary to convert the cave in an ice mountain to the luxurious abode he currently occupied. He ran a finger over a frame of the finest crystal in the land, refracted light sending tiny rainbows to the opposite grey wall. Inside the frame, unbeknownst to the owner of the pictured image, was his child. He knew, but didn’t think she did.
The worry lines around his burnished gold eyes softened. Her tiny form, perfect in all its features, amazed him. She had one outstanding feature most shape shifters didn’t share—long, blonde eyelashes. He stared at the enormous lavender eyes gazing adoringly at the camera. She’d not known, of course, of the camera taking her picture or that the Ancient leader was her father. Volsung couldn’t admit he had sired any offspring but this one’s mother… ah, Laila. Volsung allowed a smile to light his face.
Laila. Just the thought of the miniscule shape shifter set his scales to rustling. Volsung ambled to the balcony.
The little dragon stood trembling, lavender eyes pleading up at her companion. The male placed a delicate kiss on her forehead.
Volsung felt heat rise in his chest. You can’t interfere.
The two strolled away talons clasped tightly.
Volsung let his mind idly wonder about Laila. He placed his elbows on the railing of the balcony and fixed his gaze on the spot where he’d first run into the diminutive shape shifter.
~ * ~
“Laila! Will you please hurry up? We can’t afford to be late. I don’t want to be in this spooky old cave when everyone else is in the meeting.” Kerttu Heikkinen waved her friend forward. “Beside, the Ancient One is supposed to speak today and I, for one, don’t want a check by my name noting I was late. Annikki would love any excuse to get us banned from the meetings.”
Kerttu stopped and waited for her friend to catch up. “What’s your problem, today?”
Laila Hanssen dropped her head. “I just can’t get used to shape shifting. I’d rather stay in one form or the other. This changing just wears me out and if I forget; I’d be eaten here and killed out there. I hate it.” She sat on her tail. “Let Annikki mark off my name. Maybe I’ll just stay human.”
Laila watched Kerttu’s eyes narrow to thin slits and her mouth drop open.
“That would be a shame because you’re quite a lovely dragon.” The deep voice resonated against the granite walls of the hallway.
Laila turned to face the bold owner of the smooth voice. Looking up, her eyes beheld the tallest dragon she’d ever seen. His glistening, iridescent white scales glowed in the dark hallway. Eyes of burnished gold twinkled at the tiny amethyst-tinted dragon.
Laila narrowed her pupils to slits and glared at the handsome offender.
“You take liberties, sir. Our conversation was a private matter between two friends on their way to an important meeting.” She crossed delicately sculpted arms over her tiny form, lifting her graceful snout in a mock pout.
A low rumble began to fill the space and soon the impressive white dragon was chuckling aloud. He bowed deeply and swept a powerful, muscular arm in front of him.
“My lady is correct. I rudely interrupted a private conversation. Please accept my humblest apologies.” He rose to his full height mirth tweaking the corners of his mouth as he stood waiting to hear the verdict.
Laila relaxed her stance and, brushing imagined dust from her scales, lifted her snout in mock umbrage.
“Apologies accepted, sire. Now if you will excuse us, we must hurry so as not to be late to our meeting.”
“But, of course, my lady.”
The dragon swept an arm in front of him to allow her passage. He straightened and watched the tiny dragon and her friend hold their heads up, tails swaying enticingly, as they marched down the hallway to the meeting chamber.
Kerttu felt the eyes on her back. She whispered to Laila. “Do you know who that was?”
“A very rude, very tall dragon that seems quite full of himself. Why?”
Kerttu huffed a puff of smoke. “I swear Laila, you are so behind the times. That was Volsung.”
“Oh, please, Kerttu. You have such an unbelievable imagination. Why would the Ancient One be walking the hallways? I’m sure he has better things to do than traipse around the halls of the meeting chamber.”
The two dragons entered the large meeting area and slowed their gait. Towering torches lit the ice-encrusted walls giving off a warm glow that lit the massive room mimicking the sun streaming through the ceiling. The room buzzed with the sound of excited voices, shuffling talons, and dragon scales scraping across granite flooring. On the wall, hung reminders in the ancient language carved into wood planks that there was no flying within the meeting chamber and adjacent hallways.
Laila and Kerttu linked arms and worked their way toward the front of the hall, Laila needing to be in the front to see. A tall grey-green dragon set forth a roar quieting the crowd.
“He’s not from here.” Kerttu whispered to Laila.
“Shhh.” Laila frowned at her friend. “Obviously,” she whispered.
He started haltingly, uncomfortable with the Nordic language, but continued announcing the meeting would come to order. The Ancient One would be addressing the gathering with important news. The grey-green dragon stepped back.
Volsung stepped to the front of the stage and looked out at the gathering of dragons and sapien draconi in the large hall. His eye fell on the tiny dragon he’d encountered in the hallway. She stood in the front gazing up at the platform. He looked at the amethyst eyes wide with surprise and a tinge of fear and he tipped his head, ever so slightly, in her direction.
“My children, it is with great sorrow I announce to you the following: We must spend less time in the world we love. Man in his quest for progress has deemed our kind unnatural and unreal. Any dragon that walks in true form will face death by weapons we cannot beat without the use of extreme methods.
“If we use fire, we risk burning the forests and our own homes. If we fly, they have weapons of great metal that can kill at distances never known before.
“We must devise a method to live in this world without revealing ourselves to mankind. They will be the death of us all.
“It has now become the time of the shape shifters. Your ability to change will save you from the tortures of secrecy and lies. We must take care to watch out for each other. I know it is difficult, with our homes being so far apart, but we must take the best of the two-legged world and protect each other. Find ways to notify the shifters and dragons in your area when danger is near. Stay away from the two-leggeds at all costs.”
The Ancient One stopped. Silence blanketed the hall.
“I am truly sorry to bring this to you.”
Laila watched his shoulders droop.
“I’m afraid our world of freedom is at an end.” He straightened to his full height and squared his chin. “But we are neither defeated nor dead. We will quietly slip into the forests and mountains. We will wait. These two-leggeds are fragile beings living only 50 or 60 years. We will outlive them. Have faith, my people. We will overcome this human scourge.”
A great roar filled the cavern. Dragons and shifters alike raised their arms into the air and cheered. Laila and Kerttu clutched each other. The waves of anger mixed with fear undulated throughout. The two wended their way to the back of the room near the exit.
“I told you he was the Ancient One.” Kerttu shouted above the din.
“Now is not the time to gloat.” Laila glanced nervously at the exit. “The moment the meeting is dispersed we must head for home. I don’t wish to be out when the two-leggeds are awake; not in dragon form.”
Kerttu concurred. “You’re right. We must get to our village as quickly as we can. We’ll make a plan then. If it is dark, we can fly. That should save us much time and keep us away from the humans.”
Feet shuffling, bodies beginning to surge towards the exits and voices raised in discussion, letting the two shape shifters know the meeting had ended. They made their departure to their village.
~ * ~
Volsung recalled it had taken him, actually Magnus, six months to locate the village of the tiny shifter named Laila. Tampere was in southwestern Finland across the Gulf of Bothnia. She was so close, and yet, Volsung hadn’t wanted to command her to come to him. It had taken another six months of courting to get the tiny shifter back to his domicile. She’d arrived in her human form and had shocked Volsung with her audacity. He knew she’d stolen his heart. The one dragon in the land who wasn’t supposed to be emotional had fallen head over tail in love with a tiny shape shifter whose temper and nerve rivaled his own.
They had been inseparable for a year when she decided she needed to go back home and set her affairs in order. She’d never returned.
Volsung had dragged about the compound carrying on the daily affairs of his office, but he was distraught, unfocused, and downright irascible. Magnus had taken it upon himself to find out why the little shape shifter had abandoned the Ancient Leader.
He’d returned with mixed news. He brought word Laila had given birth, the human way, of a girl child. During a period of extreme pain, she had spoken the dragon tongue. The assistant to the midwife in the village had run screaming from the room directly to the priest. He’d come scurrying to the hut and demanded the midwife stop her ministrations until the heathen denounced her devil ways. The midwife, Kerttu, pushed him out of the way and tried to attend to Laila but the priest, crazed with his mission to convert the mother before the child was born, kept interfering.
The little girl was born, wrapped, and set in the cradle. Laila, in her human form, had lost so much blood due to the priest’s interruptions she expired in her bed. The priest, feeling vindicated, immediately baptized the little girl, and announced all had been for the glory of God.
Kerttu spirited the child away from the crazed priest and took her to her home to raise the child in the ways of the old Norse. The villager’s burned Laila’s home and belongings to the ground.
Volsung shook when he’d received the news. He would have flown to the village and torched every building, but being bound by his station, could do nothing. It was, after all, not acceptable for the Leader of the Artic Circle of Dragons, and one of the remaining Ancient ones, to be in love. He arranged education for the shifter child in the old ways of dragon-shape shifter and saw to every item the child needed. When the time came that photos were easily available, he made sure he had one taken every six months to track the young woman’s progress. Volsung may not have been physically in the picture of his child, but he made sure she never wanted for anything.
And Petra Hanssen would never want. Not then—not now.
He would learn who this young shifter was that courted his daughter.
“Sir?” The disembodied voice drifted through the intercom speaker.
“Yes, Magnus?”
“I know the identity of the young male shifter.”
“So soon?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s not play a game of word tennis. Who is the young man?”
“Dagmar Nelsson.”
Volsung pulled up to his full height. He realized he’d been staring into the empty meeting hall. Turning around, he sauntered to his living room.
“Repeat that name.”
“Dagmar Nelsson.”
“Is he…”
“Yes, sir. Branstock’s son.”
A smile began to form on the Ancient One’s lips. His daughter was smart as well as pretty. “Well, well.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Magnus, have the report on my desk as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Volsung moved to the framed picture. “This is better than if I’d arranged it myself. Good going, Petra. You’ve entered a good match.”
His smile soon faded. The recent rash of unexpected shiftings would hurt not only his daughter but everyone else in his realm. There had to be a solution and a cause for the problems. In earlier days, there had been an occasional unplanned change, but upon investigation, one could find several witches and wizards in the area. Volsung shook his head. One didn’t anger mages.
As time rushed toward the end of the millennium and magic and its practitioners camouflaged themselves, the shiftings began to occur more frequently.
Volsung, sitting at his work desk and gazing at the computer screen, tilted his head.
Could this have to do with the introduction of machinery? The simplicity of the answer shook him. He maneuvered his way to the spreadsheet set up for him by Magnus. His deputy’s attraction for all things new had served Volsung well. Magnus embraced and adapted to the changes made through the centuries with ease. While it took Volsung a bit more time, he eventually learned to adjust to new technology as well.
Tomorrow is the last peek at the Scandinavian Dragons. I hope you've enjoyed sharing your day with us.
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