Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology (25 page)

Well, there were worse ways to be remembered. Prince put his feet up on the dash and laughed.
 

He was still chuckling when the physical world suddenly vanished around him. He floated in the aetherworld, his body and the ship nothing more than insubstantial mist clouds around his consciousness.
 

The dragon had come back for him!

Well, either that, or he had just died.

They burst back into space-time. Heat slammed into him like Heather Jung's fist in his first year of pilot training. Everything was upside down and sideways. The fried sensors showed that he'd re-entered atmosphere, but in an uncontrollable spin.

Good news: he hadn't died. Bad news: he was about to.

“I get that you totally just saved my life,” he yelled at the dragon, which he still couldn't see, “but is it ungrateful to want to survive the rescue?”

You will
.

He didn't know where the sudden certainty came from, but it was comforting, anyway. He tightened his safety belt, clung to the armrests of his pilot chair, and surrendered to the fall.

* * *

Prince woke in a healing center. At least, he was fairly sure that's what it was, because there was an open case of medical equipment on a table next to his bed. But the floor was fragrant, gray-green moss, and the walls were heavy white cloth, rippling in a light breeze.

“Good afternoon, Pilot DeSanto,” said a pleasant female voice. “How are you feeling?”

He turned his head toward the healer. She was in her late thirties, wearing the pale blue robe of a Devote to the Halcyonite religion.
 

“Where am I?” His voice came out a croak. She helped him sit up and handed him a cup of water.

“This is the Avalys Refuge. Your starship crashed in our orchard,” the Devote said. “This dragon seems to have saved you. It won't leave your side.”

That was when he noticed the translucent form draped around the perimeter of his bed.

It was not the same dragon that had abandoned him. That one had been mostly blue-green hues; this one manifested as a faded sunset of violet-blue-pink.

Hi
, he said tentatively.

The dragon communicated that it was glad his physical form was not permanently damaged.

“This may be a stupid question,” he said, addressing the Devote again, “but … am I on Halcyon right now?”

“Of course. Where else?”

Well, he had given the other dragon the coordinates of Gila Spaceport near his dormitory on Esperanza, half a galaxy away. He'd sort of expected to end up there. Apparently this new dragon hadn't bothered waiting for coordinates. It had just gone ahead and taken him to Halcyon.

He wasn't even sure he was allowed to be here.

The Refuge Planet was known for its strict adherence to a moral code of peace, honesty, and empathy. People underwent careful background checks before they were even permitted to set foot on Halcyon soil. Anyone who lied, stole, or hurt others faced immediate deportation.
 

It was a haven for dragons, which shied away from turmoil and negativity. Perhaps that was why this dragon had decided to bring him here. Although crash-landing him into a Refuge—Halcyon's version of a religious temple—wasn't exactly avoiding turmoil.

“I'm sorry about your orchard,” he said.

“It's all right,” the Devote replied serenely. “You can help us replant it when you recover.”

“You want me to stay here?”

She smiled. “You are free to do as you wish, of course.”

“Uh … but I haven't, you know, done a background check or gone through immigration.”

The Devote reached out a hand to the dragon. Its colors faded shyly and her hand went right through its side. “If this creature brought you here, then you belong here,” she said.

* * *

The dragon wouldn't leave him alone.

Thanks to the healer's care, he was up and about by evening, with nothing but a bad sunburn and a few fading bruises. Avalys Refuge, it turned out, was located on the outskirts of a lovely coastal town. On one side, craggy cliffs and crashing waves made an impressive view; when he turned around, fruit trees and wind towers blanketed the rolling hills as far as he could see. Except for the Refuge's white pavilions, dwellings were hidden underground, leaving the planet's surface space for farms and leisure parks.

It was like those holo-documentaries he'd watched as a kid, during the history and geography segments of his Galactic Standard education program. It was too idyllic to be real. And the smell of the place! Damp, fresh ocean and flowering moss and citrus from the orchard. The only sounds were birds chirping and a cluster of Devotes singing as they washed a load of laundry
by hand
in a trough next to the well-pump.

He felt like he'd been transported back to Old Earth. Places like this didn't exist on Esperanza. He had only ever known crowded, noisy spaceports and crowded, noisy dormitories in crowded, noisy high-rise buildings. He struggled to think of the last time he'd seen a tree, let alone an orchard.

It would be too easy to let go of that life. Here he could start over. Be a farmer, maybe. Or a mechanic. He might be good at that.
 

If only that dragon would quit following him around.

What do you want?
he asked, watching it undulate with pleasure as the sea breeze tickled its skin.

It informed him that it was utterly content and wanted nothing more than to continue existing.

Dragons! You could never get a straight answer out of them.

He tried again.
Why are you following me?

Because he was interesting, it told him.

He supposed he should be flattered. Dragons usually couldn't even tell the difference between one humanoid and the next. Then again, most humanoids couldn't tell dragons apart, either.
 

This one was quite distinctive. Aside from its pastel-sunset coloring, it deviated from the basic flying-snake shape of most dragons. There was a fluttery frill behind its head-end, like a ruff or a cape. Or wings.

“Forget dragon,” he muttered. “You look more like some kind of fairy.”

The dragon caught the image of a fairy as it flitted through his mind and seized on it, comparing it to the ancient, mythical images of dragons. It informed him that it found the fairy image more aesthetically pleasing, and wondered how humans had ever looked at dragons' graceful forms and seen a likeness to a great scaly monster?
 

I dunno. Want me to call you Fairy instead?

It communicated pleasure at the idea.
 

* * *

The Devotes kept him busy for the next few days, loading broken bits of starship into a hovercar, then hauling them to the recycling center in the nearby town. He enjoyed working with them. They were always laughing or singing, and not a single one ever blamed him for flattening a quarter of their orange trees.

It turned out some of them knew Fairy by sight. She (he'd ended up giving her a gendered pronoun; somehow, calling her
it
felt wrong) had nested in the Refuge's outgoing portal for some time, offering her transportation abilities in exchange for a share of the Halcyonites' vibrant, positive energy. Now, she had been replaced by another dragon, and the Devotes had already accepted Fairy and Prince as a firm pair.

“That happens sometimes, you know,” said a young male Devote, helping Prince lift another chunk of starship into the back of the hovercar. “They just pick a humanoid and attach to them. You're lucky. It would be ace to have a dragon companion.”

Prince had heard of it happening, but it wasn't very common. Especially not among the pilots he'd known back on Esperanza. They were all quarkbrains. Most of them had to patch mood-stabilizing mind-alts to even get near a dragon.

Going into town with the scrap parts, he wasn't sure what to expect. The underground dwellings sounded cavelike and sinister, but they turned out to be the opposite: high ceilings, lots of artificial sunlight, with real potted plants growing everywhere. Fountains, waterfalls, and streams created a merry falling-water white noise behind the sounds of children playing, elderly citizens gossiping on benches, and bots doing routine maintenance.
 

Floating a hoverbarrow of parts through one corridor, he ran into a social group of five teenagers, who bumped into him and knocked several of the metal pieces to the ground. They actually
apologized
, helped him pick them up, and told him his dragon tattoo was ace.

Who were these people? This kind of continuous positivity wasn't
possible
.

The people down at the recycling plant were just as cheery. Apparently, sorting recycled trash and melting down raw materials was the best job ever, because they were genuinely excited when he dumped load after load of scrap metal on them.

“The only metals we ever get are busted maintenance bots!” said one guy, his fingers hovering over a piece of the starship's nose like it was a large, misshapen hunk of chocolate fudge.

“Well, enjoy it,” said Prince, baffled. “I've got more.”

What's with these people?
he asked Fairy as they headed back to the surface level.
Is the whole planet like this? Doesn't anyone ever get angry? Bored? How can they stand to act that happy all the time?

Fairy responded that of course they were not happy all the time. She sent him a complicated series of images from people's lives she had observed: a Devote sobbing when her sister living offplanet was murdered. A young man struggling to control his anger. A girl feeling lonely and isolated because she didn't enjoy the same things her social group liked.

Yet each image had a happy ending. The Devote, praying through her tears, found comfort that her sister's soul lived on in the aetherworld. The man channeled his anger into amazing works of art. The girl found friends on the g-web that she could talk to about her interests.

Feeling negative was not a choice, Fairy seemed to be telling him, but people could choose what they did with those feelings.

She sent him one more image. A young man with maroon hair and a bright pink tattoo on his arm, trapped in a dying starship. Pain and fear overwhelming him. And then, despite everything, he began to laugh.

That's why you saved me?

She informed him that he belonged on Halcyon, whether he knew it or not. She had merely seen to it that he got there in one piece.

* * *

He had been at the Refuge for three days when his audio earring chimed an alert for an incoming call. It surprised him so much that he answered without thinking. “Yes?”

“DeSanto, where the blazes are you?”

Prince made a face. It was Jeann Elkin, the owner of the taxi company for whom he had been due to start work this week.

“It's a long story,” he replied.

“Oh, I bet! Can't wait to hear your excuse, I'm sure it's fascinating. Did you get locked in some Monroe courtesan's room and couldn't find your way out? OD on mind-alts? Lose a limb? Well, you're not dead, DeSanto, so you'd better pay the hooker, strap on a bionic arm, and show up tomorrow.”

“Elkin, I'm sorry, but don't think that's going to be possible.”

“Do I have to remind you that I bought out your debt from the training school?” she shouted into his ear. He winced and adjusted the volume on his audio earring. “You owe me at least five years of your life, DeSanto. You can't just
quit
. Be here tomorrow, or I'm calling the authorities and having you arrested.”

She ended the call, and Prince slumped against the hovercar, dazed. What was he supposed to do now? If he stayed here, he'd be cheating someone to whom he owed a debt—a deportable offense. Halcyon officials would probably hand him right over when the Imperial authorities came looking to arrest him. And if he went back, the Greenjackets would just kidnap him again—or worse, set up a nice convenient “accident” to get him out of the way.

Fairy reached out to him, her colors rippling in distress. Why, she asked, had he suddenly gotten so upset? Everything was as it should be. He was here on Halcyon. He was with her.

“It's not that simple, Fairy,” he snapped. His outburst startled a pair of male Devotes into dropping the large piece of starship they were carrying.

But worse than that, it upset Fairy.

Most dragons would vanish instantly when a human offended them. Fairy stayed, but her displeasure was clearly visible. Her colors became brighter, her movements sharper and faster, like a fish darting away from a child playing in the brook. He could feel her confusion inside his head.

Fairy, I can't stay here on Halcyon. I have to go back. It's the right thing to do
.
 

She insisted that he was supposed to stay here. That this was where he belonged.

If I don't do my job, I won't deserve to stay here. I'm sorry. I promise I'll come back if I survive
.

She queried what exactly he meant by that, since she would obviously be coming with him.

No, Fairy, trust me, you really won't like Esperanza. It's the opposite of Halcyon. No one there is ever happy
.

Apparently she did not care. She had done things she disliked for him before, she reminded him. She'd saved him when he was injured and unstable. She'd portaled him without waiting for consent. She'd caused a crash that could have been fatal.

She had broken every rule for him. She would do so again. She'd follow him into a void if that was where he wanted to go.

“Fairy,” Prince protested weakly, but he couldn't bring himself to push her away. Against his better judgment, he was starting to like having her around.

Fairy was fading back to neutral now, her movements less whirlwind and more zephyr. Her coloring calmed to pastel. She told Prince that he should go say farewell to the Devotes. She would accompany him to the spaceport as soon as he was ready.

* * *

When Prince showed up for work the next morning, Elkin smirked at him. “Still waiting to hear that great excuse, DeSanto,” she muttered snidely. Then she assigned him a ship number and told him to get moving.