Free Dragonfriend by Marc Secchia Page B

studied the details of Shimyal’s stance, noting the slight vibration in her wings and the deep apricot tones visible in her eyes. Clearly, she had spoken the fire-promises in her third heart.
    That creature has bewitched your hearts, Flicker, said Shimyal.
    Flicker said, She is a Human and can never mean more to me than one of my kind.
    Truth did not dwell in his words. Shimyal knew it, for her talons clenched as though she intended to spring at him. Flicker would have welcomed a physical punishment. What Mother Lyrica intended would injure much more surely and profoundly, in places claw and talon could never reach.
    Shimyal spat, You must choose between the Human and me, Flicker.
    The sudden flare of her fire made him flinch. How could he choose? He was bound to the ways of dragonets as surely as he was born a dragonet.
    Lia is just a friend, Shimyal. She–
    Just a friend? cried the dragonet. You stupid null-brain! I’ve put up with seasons of nonsense, with your learning squiggles and watching the two-legged monsters in the world above, and listened to your perverse, twisting thoughts. Come back to us, Flicker! Be one of us.
    Be another obedient clone? That possibility had stepped out of his life when he shouldered aside the shards of his shell.
    Suddenly, understanding filled Flicker’s mind with dark flame. He would never be content in the hive-mind. He was an aberration, a threat to be excised like a cancer should be separated from the healthy flesh, burned up, and its ashes buried forever. Why could he not have been an egg like any other in the clutch? Was it the Great Dragon who had made him thus? And thereby, sealed his doom?
    Yet the moment he thought of the loneliness of tearing himself away from the warmth and companionship of the warren, a smiling image of the straw-headed Human entered his mind. His soul resumed its stillness, burning inside of him with a contentment that seemed neither warranted nor entirely sane. This was his fate. If he was to carry out the Ancient One’s will, what he knew to be right in every fibre and flame of his being, then let his wings flare with courage, and his paws be quick.
    Flicker’s spine spikes tingled with renewed resolve.
    Come, Shimyal, he said, softly. Come, and I will show you such wonders–
    She retreated, quivering with horror, tiny mewls of distress escaping her mouth. You’re mad, mad, mad …
    In his eagerness to follow her, Flicker stepped beyond the bounds of his confinement. Shimyal, my egg-sister, it doesn’t have to be–
    The dragonet stumbled away blindly, wailing the death-cry. It wounded him; Flicker knew he would bear the scars for the rest of his life. Muzzle lowered, he turned side-on to her, a gesture of apology.
    Movement troubled the periphery of his vision. Lyrica.
    An image of the warren-mother stood in the corridor just behind him, her expression bleak. So, you have chosen, Flicker.
    It is not a choice, he replied. Surely, a dragonet could both be friends with a Human, and true to his kind? Why did he have to give up either, or both?
    The Mother’s voice swelled with power. Even now your mind refuses to embrace the paths of goodness. You are blind, Flicker. Thus you have been since breaking the shell. Lyrica’s eyes grew hotter than the twin suns. This, I will not allow! Failure does not exist in this warren!
    No, he thought, failure was discarded like the shell-shards of a dragonet he had once seen born disabled, its wings too malformed to fly. The dragonet had been thrown off the edge of the cliff, the memory of that egg wiped out–except in those like him, who remembered more than the hive-mind would permit.
    Lyrica reached out with her thirteen-fold power, wrathfully immense, and struck him down. You dare, little one! I will teach you such a lesson … I will annihilate the old and remake you. And you will never disobey me again.
    Flicker’s world collapsed amidst dark, mocking tongues of fire.
    * * * *
    A girl, once a royal ward of