8: Unknown and Unknowable

Looking up at the enormous dragon, last of his kind, newly transformed from a twelve year old boy, Alexandrie Aerith Vanessa Elamys Normaer Donadieu took a step back, but did not run or hide.

She had faced so much in her short years - Court, Edgewaters, Lizardfolk, Tallman, Genofeva, Vel’bla’dran… losing Vee…

She looked at the magnificent creature, and though she stepped back, her thoughts turned inward. She knew not to run. La Chanson said not to. Besides, she hadn’t got anywhere on this journey by running away. So she stood and looked at her feet. If she were to die, it would be quick and she didn’t need to watch death approach. If not, the size of the beast clouded her mind. Either way, looking at the ground was easier.

He spoke with a slow confidence as he told them he had been sent to protect Spider and her, and Alexa’s mind returned to Spider’s words the day or two before: 

“Look - the song sent you a new bodyguard.”

As if a dragon could even begin to compare to Vee.

The frustration, hurt, insult, disgust she felt at both the proclamation and the speed La Chanson had seemingly decided to replace her friend battled with the training her mother and grandmother had given her. So it was with tightly held calm that she told the creature, which had its own reasons to undertake whatever task it had been contracted to provide that she was neither impressed or interested in the service.

Alexandrie knew he had a job to do and would do it. She’d had bodyguards before. She knew they would carry out the task. Nowhere in their contract, however, did it state she must like or respect the entities involved in that contract - and perhaps that was part of Heofonræsele’s issue: she was not obliged to be impressed or excited by the fact that he was a dragon. She had only ever had two bodyguards - one, in fact, for Vee was family - who she had respected. The more self impressed they had been, the more concerted her effort to rid herself of them. Pranks, tantrums, hiding, running, climbing…all had been part of her childhood repertoire. 

A dragon and a twelve year old from a millennia ago? All it told her was that the boring practice of self-importance had existed for longer than she’d thought.

When Alexandrie spoke, it was with honesty and based on the facts. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she expected to be looked at. Yes, she was different. She did not, however, overstate those things. She spoke of leading trends because she did. She noted when people stared at her because she was trained to control the gazes of those around her, but she didn’t tell people she was a fighter when she first met them. She didn’t tell them she was good at anything she could not prove was true. Heofonræsele gave her no indication of his ability to do anything, and though he was indeed magnificent and beautiful looking, and yes she appreciated the gleam of his scales, the shine of his antlers, and how bright his teeth and claws were, he seemed to presume this was important when the task was not based on aesthetic. To Alexandrie, being unique was not, of itself, a reason to fawn over someone. No one had seen Chevalier before either, and they had not fawned over him - even though he was kind and gentle and thoughtful, qualities she had yet to see from this dragon, pretty or not.

Why, she asked, had La Chanson sent a protector when what she needed was a friend?

Her friend. Not Bodyguard 10.

The longer she travelled, the less she understood La Chanson, the less she understood what was happening and how much she could trust anything. Anyone. Everything was a meat trap in the dark, and perhaps it was because it had been so long since the sun had touched her face, but perhaps everything was a meat trap and she should be wary. And yet she couldn’t shake the sheer amount of responsibilities she felt weighing on her. What was she expected to do with the information she had been given?

Lucas had gone with the elf to wherever it was they were now.

Spider withheld something (Spider withheld everything) but wanted, more than anything, to be with his brother. She knew this.

Mysel and Heofonræsele wanted to return to the cycle of life after…after she couldn’t comprehend how long. They wanted to die? Was that what this meant? They wanted to complete whatever task they had to complete that involved her so they could…die? More death. Always more death. Always more endings and goodbyes. 

What point was there to growing used to anything? What benefit was there to leaning on others when they would do what they needed to do and for them - only them? Even talking to Shi had been in fear that someone Alexandrie was growing attached to would leave. Selfishness. Perhaps Shi should have left while she could. Alexandrie could tell that curiosity would hold the Ebon elf now, bind her to the party until it was too weak to contain the fear. Mala would do the job because it was what she was trained to do and seemed to be a response borne of instinct. Alexandrie could see that too. Having seen all these siblings, she was both jealous and disdainful of the understanding siblings seemed to share.

La Chanson on the other hand…La Chanson showed her…what? 

What did it show? 

Was it the future? 

Was it what would happen if she didn’t do as told? 

Would it happen even if she did? 

Was it a warning? 

A threat? 

A threat for who?

Be ready. For What?

What could she do against an army? Why did it advance? When was it? Was she to move toward the army or away from it? 

Why was there an army at all? 

For what nation? 

No matter.

Spider would want to save Lucas…had Lucas chosen to be there or was he forced? 

Why was he there? 

Would he want to leave? 

Would Spider join him? 

Was La Chanson with him now? 

Would it stay with him? 

Even as he advanced? 

Was he afraid?

Excited? 

Desperate? 

Would he be willing to harm them?

She knew Spider would happily harm her if it were necessary.

And a sly, quiet voice in the back of her mind whispered:

This is all your fault.

If she hadn’t forced him to learn how to use La Chanson, he wouldn’t have been a target. He and Spider were on a journey to see family. That was all. They wanted to find their grandfather. She had dragged them into this. Somehow.

Before she’d left home, she had planned to go entirely alone. But Vee had been there, things packed. Ready to leave.

And now he wasn’t - 

And everything had been so much easier before Genofeva had returned. Instinctively Alexandrie had known she wouldn’t be in the scene because Genofeva fought for Genofeva. She wanted everything. All of it. The entire scene. Dead.

La Chanson taken and Alexandrie’s death.

“Why me?” The unhelpful words slipped from her mouth quietly as the dragon and the boy went through the crackling slow process of conversing.

If she did not do as La Chanson asked

If she were not successful in what it asked

If she were killed before she could do what it asked…

Her eyes flicked to Mysel

The two would not be returned to the cycle.

Then to Spider

The two would not be reunited.

Then to Mala and Shi

The two would not be safe from whatever turmoil would be on the surface.

Then at her fingers, absently twisting and stroking the locket around her neck.

And nor would my family.

Had Grandmère faced an army?

How many faced an army and lived to speak of it?

How many faced an army, lived to speak of it, but chose not to?

A laugh bubbled up out of her throat to meet the darkness humourlessly. 

Just that morning she had sent a letter to Grandmère:

“I am lost.” It had read.

Well, at least now she wasn’t lost.

How could she be lost when the path lay carved out before her, thickly framed by dense thorny brambles, longer and sharper than those that grew outside her bedroom window back home? And just like home, there was no sneaking out. There was no way to other path to safety. 

Warning of what was to come or warning of what could happen if she didn’t do as told - wholesale fabrication or wholly true - it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all if anything La Chanson told her or showed her was true.

La Chanson needed her somewhere. The dragon from an untold past and the child so innocent it made her heart break would make sure she was there.

She no longer needed to trust anything or anyone. The requirement had been removed in favour of setting her on a path she must walk - or suffer the consequences.

Whatever Grandmère had chosen - whatever she'd done had led to this. La Chanson had left Grandmère and called to her.

An unknown, unknowable entity was part of her. Some part of her was unknown and unknowable in turn.

Fitting.

What if Lucas was right all along?

Don't trust La Chanson. Use it.
Her jaw clenched a little.
Use it: The way it uses me?
Perhaps.