Chapter Five
For weeks he persisted with the letters, sending that anxious new maid to deliver them. It was to the point that I personally designed and pieced together a new dress for her as an apology, in a far more attractive lilac color. Yet, I found my time being taken up by someone far more worthy of my attention.
Aurora was a natural with her wings and took to the skies like a bird. It wasn’t long before she was fully transforming while mid-free diving. Taking the time to teach her how to fly safely and to always acknowledge her form when in tight spaces had been easy enough. Though, having to be pulled away every time a new message came from the throne above us had my resentment growing for the older dragon by each piece of parchment brought to me.
“Huri!” a gleeful shriek came from above my head and I looked up in time to witness her go from a glittering dragon to a small human child and caught her before she fell to the ground. She continued to shriek with laughter. “You caught me! You caught me!”
“Of course I caught you, my sweet little Sun. I will always be there to catch you. That’s what older siblings do for their little siblings.” The corners of my lips curled up as she embraced me tightly. One day she was going to grow up and holding her like this wasn’t going to be the same anymore, but I would take all the moments that I was given.
After our lesson I brought her to the special play area set up for all the children. It had accommodations for their newly discovered wings and abilities, with most of the equipment being near indestructible. Not all had an affinity for fire. Some would accidentally spew noxious gas from their mouths or turn an occasional tail into an icicle. Aurora had been established as a fire-user, which was not surprising given our genetics, but I was certain her curtains would have preferred to have been turned to ice rather than shriveled up and turned to ash.
That day the play area was quite full, with most of the children being around her age, if not a few years older. Of course, for those children, parents tended to bring them in hopes of socializing. To have a sibling was rare, and those that did saw age gaps so great that the older sibling had already left and began their own lives. I never left home though - at least never permanently. But rather than be the older sibling, I found myself in a role that I had never envisioned. I was a parent in every meaning of the word except for the title. I sat with the other parents, spoke to them about disliked behaviors, and took advice on how to raise a child who had met their milestones.
And Aurora, so far, had met every milestone expected of her. Unlike me, she even had a permanent self before her second birthday. Part of me, admittedly a spiteful part, had wished she hadn’t gone through the change on time - just for no other reason than to piss my father off. Though, watching her play, I knew that I wouldn’t change anything about her.
“She’s grown so much, Huri,” one mother gushed in my direction.
“Yes, she has,” I smiled in return.
“I heard that her scales are golden, like your mother’s. Is that true?” another parent inquired, one who was more like me but still reproduced. It wasn’t uncommon for us without a permanent self to have children, though it was an interesting conversation as to how they decided to go about it.
“Almost,” I began, keeping my eyes on her as she played with a young boy on the slide. “They have a pinkish hue to them and her membranes are a vibrant pink, but they are beautiful nonetheless. When she is older and takes to the skies, I feel as though even the Sun will bow to her.”
Am I being too prideful? Though when I looked over at the other guardians, they all seemed more intrigued by my prediction rather than put off.
The yawn was the first sign that it was time to leave. The second was the careless fall from layered bars that sent her to the ground with a scraped knee and bumped head. Though, she didn’t cry. If anything, she seemed more angry at the betrayal of the bars than her own clumsiness. Lifting her in my arms, I brought her home and cleaned her up before making dinner myself.
Many of the workers in the palace would give me disapproving glances each time they caught me in the kitchen, but I didn’t care. The fact was that I enjoyed making her food and sharing our meals together. It was something that my mother had done when I was small and I wanted Aurora to have a piece of that experience.
“Huri?”
I looked up from the small dining table set up in her room as her eyes cast downwards in what seemed like embarrassment. I started to wonder if she had done something wrong while we were out that day. Perhaps harmed another child, but as I thought back on the day I couldn’t recall any child around her crying.
“Yes, my little Sun,” I responded lightly.
“Umm… I was just wondering…” she began to fidget in her seat.
“Yes?”
“Why are you not a boy like Dedrick, or a girl like me?” her cheeks flushed and I bit back a laugh at how much easier of a question it was than some of the others she had posed to me.
“Well, it’s simple. You went through a full change that made you happy. I was stubborn and I didn’t want to.”
“Oh… so can you not change anymore?” she continued.
Rather than explain it to her, it was clear that seeing was believing. My usual short gold hair grew down to my shoulders, I didn’t want too much to cut later. Softening my features, I gave myself more of a feminine front. Her mouth dropped at my subtle changes.
“You look just like Mommy!” she said in excitement and ran over to her night stand to pull out a small heart-shaped locket that held our mother’s portrait. She would look at it every night before falling asleep, something I began with her the day after she was born.
“No,” I shook my head as she brought the portrait over. “You look like Mommy. I just look like me, which sometimes changes from day to day. If I want to put on a ballgown and find a prince to dance with, then I have a look. If I want to appear big, strong, and mean, I have a look for that as well.”
I lifted her in my lap before continuing.
“You see, my little Sun, some may think that I don’t know what I want in life and that’s why I have never settled on a permanent self, though I like being this way. I like the ability to change myself based on how I’m feeling any given day. Though some say I’m indecisive, I look at it as me knowing exactly what I want.” Then I bowed my forehead to rest it on hers. “But no one’s opinion matters to me other than yours. So, I’ll ask you a question. How would you rather me look?”
She pushed herself back in my grasp as her eyes scanned my features and roamed over my hair. Tiny fingers twirled the ends near my shoulder before her eyes returned to my face.
“I just want you to look like you.”
So innocent, I thought and hugged her close before having her finish her dinner. And although she was still only a toddler, a smart toddler, it was clear I would never be the leader that she could be to our people.
Exhaling slowly as I entered my room, I went over to my night stand and pulled out a pair of scissors before standing before the mirror.
Why do some of us not make the change? Is it biological or psychological? I never put much thought into how I appeared to others. Being a decent amount of others who shared the same ability as myself, it’s not something I thought important to fret about. But… why? When most dragons reach the age of two they retain the ability to alter their appearance yet not their sex. Did I choose this or was it chosen for me?
Oh, well, I thought to myself with a shrug. It didn’t really matter.
