The nest was broad and low, nestled under the cat-tails in the driest place that she could find on this miserable and muddy lake shore. The three eggs within seemed to glimmer and glow with a magical light that transcended their bleak and humble surroundings. She had waited her entire life, living in the squalor of need and the loneliness of exile before laying them. Others of her kind thought her simple, dull and ignorant, utterly devoid of the special gifting occasionally openly manifesting itself in her kind. For the way of magic, once powerful in her breed had dimmed and dwindled until it was reduced now into something more akin to wishing than invoking deliberately. They used its meager influence to change their luck, causing hapless prey to walk right up to them for an easy meal or attracting the prime males of her species bringing them under their primitive spells of sexual enchantment, thus causing them to do their whimsical selfish bidding.

Candasar had lived alone, hunted her prey by only wit, jaw and claw and conserved every scrap of magical energy she could consciously control and diverting it into her ovaries. Her own self loathing of the fate of her kind bolstered by the strange tale of lost glory passed down to her by her grandfather. He was the one that had told her that their kind had once ruled the skies. Only she, of all the foolish impressionable young, had been gullible enough to believe him when he told her wild tales of their people many generations ago that had been able to fly.

Her grandfather Mo-rung had been born with what most of her people would have considered a severe birth defect. Instead of broad flat flippers to propel himself through the waters his feet ended in segmented pointed joints, bone like, but hard enough to scratch the very rocks over which he scrambled. His “defect” caused him to be almost useless to the other males as they swam swiftly and hunted their prey and he was forced to perform the work of the females in caring for the young while his mate did her meager diminished part in his stead.

Worse than the disfigured feet, were the torn imperfectly formed flaps of skin, that hung boneless and limp sticking out of his back near his shoulder blades Though he could rudimentary still swim, he was slow and likely to be spotted by the men that inhabited the shores at the far end of the loch. Even though he did not attempt travel on the lake often, he had been spotted a time or two. Because of this, the region had developed a mythical reputation for sea monsters and the tribe had been forced into deeper hiding, leaving behind many of their favorite more bountiful fishing areas.

He and Candasar’s family had suffered greatly for that while she was young. Though attractive enough, as a female of her kind she was ever deeply contemplative, and found few of her own age group of social interest. When he finally had died he had not been mourned, except by his strange and reclusive grand daughter. His death had severed something deep within her and she had grew more distant and distracted, spurning the advances of several of the larger, more powerful males, even if not magically provoked. Their humiliation and damaged pride caused several of them to begin telling lies about their conquests of her, lies she did not find credible enough to bother to deny.

Somehow these stories took hold and she often found herself the recipient of haughty looks from the females or worse yet, leering or suggestive physical contact from one of them if she happened to cross paths with them as she hunted her own food. Her once smooth flanks were scarred by gouges and teeth marks, souvenirs of her fending off their unwanted advances. Eventually as the prime age for the pairing of her kind was past, the unwanted attention faded to an angry sullen apathy toward her from all others, including her previously sympathetic and tolerant family. She swam and hunted the icy waters of the lake alone, biding her time dreaming at night of the star filled skies and silently stoking the magical fire burning deep within her body that defied everything she had been taught about her place in this world.

Then at last came the day that changed everything. While passing through a deep narrow underwater passageway, hidden from the eyes of men that her people used to remain unseen as they navigated the deep loch she caught the end of a conversation that she had waited far too long to hear. Two females, engaged in quick and furtive glances at her, spoke the words:

“His parents are so discouraged. The poor boy looks like that wretched creature that was Candasar’s grandfather”

After doing some careful investigation of her own, she learned that a distant relative had been found to have a defective child. They had hidden him from the elders for many years, and had been successful until the other child, a female, hatched at the same time had begun to speak. The news of her brother’s existence was soon forthcoming and the tribe had been called to meeting.

Far less tolerant of the weak was this council than those presiding over the generation of her grandfather, for because of their fear of discovery by man due to his inability to swim, the young male was banished to die, taken to the deepest part of the lake and left behind. As she watched from far out of sight in deepest shadow Candasar could hear the futile desperate splashing, his pointed claws unable to paddle and billowing leathery side flaps hissing and bubbling,with pockets of trapped air as he struggled to hold his head above the icy water, surely and swiftly sapping his strength and pulling him down towards the bottom.

She almost waited too long. The weak willed mother, although resigned to the fate of her offspring kept circling and swimming back toward him, as if to relent and save, but the stern voice of her husband and the elders kept her in line, until it was almost too late. At last, unable to watch, she turned and fled leaving Candasar to race toward the dying drowning male.

It was probably best that she reached him at the end of his strength, for the sharp talons of his strange feet cut deeply into her as he thrashed briefly at her approach. He sought in his desperation to climb upon her and out of the water but taking his slender neck in her jaws she bit down hard enough to temporarily choke him into unconsciousness. Then holding his head carefully out of the water she began the arduous task of towing his limp and lifeless looking body back to her cavern. Struggling to pull him, and herself across the lake she was grateful, in some respects for the hard and physical life of hunting and swiming she had endured. Her flipper ended feet thrashed deeply in the water and her long serpentine neck, unaccustomed to the added weight and discomfort of having to swim twisted to the rear shot silvery bolts of pain arcing through her brainstem.

As Candasar, near the last of her strength pulled the unconsciousness male up onto the muddy banks that formed the edge of her cavern lair, she saw for the first time the extent of his disfigurement. Though very young, the structures protruding from his shoulders were far larger than she expected and riddled through with veins and a cartilage structure far more extensive than that of his grandfather. As he groaned and rolled over, his eyes blinking groggily from his ordeal, a faint wisp of smoke trickled from one of his nostrils and she began to believe, for perhaps the first time, that her children would fly.

The algae on the cavern walls above the waterline glowed a steady green, throwing multifaceted reflections of softly shimmering light off the gentle swells in the water left over from Candasar’s vigorous efforts in towing the young male to safety. They provided the only light in the dank and dreary chamber that Candasar called her home. She had been lucky to find it, and luckier still to keep it hidden. Not that she normally had much social interaction with the rest of her kind. Now that she had broken tribal mandate and rescued the outcast, if they were found it would mean certain death for both of them. Because there was only room for one on the narrow ledge above water, she paddled slowly, treading water on her large flippers and waited again for his eyes to flutter open. She wasn’t that surprised when after they did, they began to cry.

“Mama, mama!” he called, loudly thrashing around so to as almost slide off the slippery edge, obviously mistaking her watery form for the mother that had eventually been the last to abandon him.

“Hush child!” she whispered urgently, “Lie still or you will fall in again! But I am not your mother.”

This stopped him suddenly and he swung his long neck toward her to get a better look in the dim light.

“Who..?”

She cut him off quickly

“I am Candasar” she said quietly. “an outcast such as yourself, but for different reasons”

Seeming to at last remember the ordeal and events that led up to his near drowning, his stubby wings fluttered reflexively and he cowered back as far as possible onto the shoreline ledge.

“Don’t look at me.” he groaned in anguish, seeming to cower even further. “I am ugly”

“What is your name?” she asked quietly, trying to sound soothing.

“Fundor” he replied at last after a lengthy pause.

“Well Fundor,” she began slowly, “Let me tell you a story about our ancestors of long ago. It is a story that was told to me by my Grandfather. Strangely enough, he looked a little little bit like you.”

Long ago our people were plentiful and strong and they filled the skies and lived in their mountaintop lairs without fear. Game was plentiful and they hunted, not cold slippery fish but fell like lightning from above on the great beasts of the forest, killing and eating warm red meat. Their claws, segmented and sharp, such as yours, tore flesh as they wished until once again their mighty wings lifted them again from the earth to hunt in lazy spirals of green, gold, red and blue. But in their power and arrogance they awoke an ancient enemy.

The elves of the land far to the North of our ancestors had made contact with the great dragons of the south infrequently through the years, using their own telepathic abilities to learn the dragon’s language by listening in on their unguarded mental conversations. And, as their territories grew more proximate in time, even shared in cordial conversations as elven scouts and far ranging fliers made more frequent contact with one another.

The elves, who used a deep magic, stemming from the true names of every rock, twig and physical force were fascinated with the dragons who seemed to possess huge untold amounts of this magical energy but lacked the vocabulary to harness it. The dragons seemed content to live out their lives in the realm of the unmatched physical prowess they possessed, little knowing, or even believing this short sightedness would lead to their undoing. For in their belief that one must only be strong enough to take what one wished the dragons seriously underestimated the power of Elven magic roused from its peaceful slumber in response to a serious mistake made by the dragons. For some of them had fallen from the sky to feed upon the southern settlements of the Elven folk and developed a twisted fondness for their flesh.

The elves, finding some of their homesteads missing, and sorting the grisly evidence, sent emissaries to the dragon rulers appealing for a cessation of the atrocity but met only arrogance, for the dragons were unused to having anything but their own way. Only one clan of the dragons stood against the rest of the race, appealing to the rest to consider the elves as peers and comrades, not to be fodder, but they were silenced.

The war that ensued was terrible and swift. The very magic that flooded the bloodstreams of the great dragons was turned against them and they were burned alive in the very fires of their own bellies as the glands that secreted the flames they could exhale were stoked from within to burn them from the inside out. The ones that survived were those that had less developed flame glands and took refuge in the water to quench their own internal fires. They were very few in number indeed.

The elves at last took pity on them and some were sorrowful for having had to slay thousands of the magnificent creatures, using a deep magic of change upon the dragons sheltering in the lake, changing the very nature of their shape, fusing their feet into flippers and stripping them of their great wings so that they no longer would be able to bring death upon the elves from above.

“Except, that being creatures of deep magic ourselves,” Candasar at last finished “The changes wrought by the elven magic have left a few gaps that look back towards that which we once were. “

Fundor had remained silent through the telling of her tale, but now his eyes widened in realization.

“I am a throwback to our ancestors!” he said, another curl of vapor hissing and steaming from the tip of his soggy wet nose”

“I believe with all my heart” Candasar said slowly, ” That you are not an abnormality, “The rest of us are!”

—

Fundor woke the next morning alone. He lay on the muddy narrow shelf that made up the only relatively dry place the cavern provided. The events of the night before and the brutal treatment he had suffered at the whim of the clan elders was confusing to the young pseudo dragon. He felt betrayed and alone. He supposed Candasar was out hunting or something. He had never been able to swim but waded down the edge of the shore that sloped off into the subterranean pool. It was steep and slippery. He thrashed as he slipped in deeper than he intended, sputtering and spitting as he clawed his way back out of the water. He shivered miserably as he realized he was trapped in this cave, at least until Candasar came back for him.

When she at last did, she had fed and also brought a large fish for him. He devoured it quickly, looking about futility for more. Candasar, remembering the overpowering need for food brought on by growing at that age looked apologetically at him and said

“I’m sorry Fundor, that’s all I could get. I really am exhausted and haven’t slept at all since dragging you here”

Puzzled, he looked at her still treading water in the cavern and asked stupidly

“Why not?”

She seemed to smile slightly before answering quietly

“Because you are in my bed Idiot!”

Fundor almost lept from the ledge and waded into the water a few yards, despite his dislike of it

“Sorry,” he mumbled apologetically

He was horrified to see the deep bloody scratches that still oozed a red deep on her sides and upper legs as she groaned slightly and crawled out of the water

“Did I do that?” he gasped

“Yes, but don’t worry about it” she replied. “You didn’t mean to do it. You were just trying to save yourself from drowning by using me as an island.”

He looked away embarrassed and dismayed that he had done so much damage to the one that was trying to save him.

“It’s just that I swim like a rock” he said sadly, forcing himself to meet her eyes, hoping his expression showed at least some gratitude.

“I’m a little puzzled by that actually” she said with her eye lids already drooping. “My grandfather could swim enough to keep his head out of the water, but he had more time to practice. I seem to remember him moving the entire length of his body through the water instead of trying to paddle with those very sharp feet. Maybe you could give it a try while I try to sleep a little.”

Fundor nodded.

“I’ll try not to make too much noise.” he said softly but her eyes were already closed in sleep.

Intrigued by the possibility that he he might have been going about the swimming with a faulty plan, he waded deeper into the water of the cavern, raised his feet off the stony bottom and tried thrashing his body from side to side in the water. He sank immediately and came up coughing and sputtering. The water dragon on the shore stirred a little in her sleep but did not waken. Fundor looked again at the horrible red slashes and deep tears she bore on her body and wondered to himself why this stranger had bothered to save him. He tried again.

Eventually he found he could keep his head out of the water by holding his arms and legs straight back against his sides and violently thrashing his whole body like it was one great tail. It took a lot of energy but it would work in a pinch. Cold, tired and hungry he returned to the shallows and forced himself to sit quietly in the neck deep water until Candasar awoke. It was a long time. Eventually he saw one of her large green eyes quietly staring at him.

“Thank you” he said to her softly

“Did you learn to swim at all? Did my information help?” she asked hopefuly

“Yes it did, somewhat” he replied cautiously, “But I was thanking you for saving my life”

She only smiled at him, then pushing off the muddy shelf with her flippers she slid gracefully into the water.

“I will again hunt, but it is now midday and the big fish will be deep. I can make a good meal for myself out of many smaller ones, but to bring something back of any consequence I will need to catch a large one”

Funor nodded. He had been eating fish caught by others for his entire life. It was never enough.

Candasar looked at him thoughtfully and continued

“I bet the relative small size of our kind would be different if we ate the way our ancestors did. I wonder how big you could grow. We may soon have to find a way to supplement your diet”

Funor looked confused but nodded appreciatively. Food was good, the more the better. He climbed up onto the still warm shelf on which she had just lain to wait for her return, licking his lips in expectation. All that afternoon she hunted and each and every time, she returned with as much for him as she could carry. Each time, he finished every scrap.

“Didn’t your family feed you?” she asked at one point, trying not to laugh as the fish she had just arrived with disappeared as fast as she tossed it to him

“Mom tried, but my sister got jealous as soon as she was told to catch her own fish. She didn’t understand why she had to work for her own meals and I didn’t.”

“I suppose this sort of thing is hard to explain to a child” Candasar thought, but did not say aloud. “How am I going to teach him to hunt for bigger food? She said to herself.

That night they tried to share the small shelf. Funor pressed himself tightly against the rock wall, and Candasar laid as close as possible as she could to him while still leaving some space in between. Even so, most of her was in the water. There was an awkwardness in his eyes as she approached him that let her know it was far too soon to bring up the reason she had taken such an interest in the first place. She lay awake for a long time listening to his breathing as he dozed She almost thought she could feel the heat from his sleeping fire running down her body as she lay awake beside him. She turned her thoughts inward and guided the deep magic to work changes inside her, forming and repairing the deep places in her body that she dreamed would produce again creatures to rule the sky.

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