Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology (48 page)

As they drew closer, a shaft of light fell through the clouds between them, illuminating both of their faces. The silver-haired man on the bicycle swerved wildly, bespectacled eyes round as radishes as they locked on Win. Sighing, she mumbled a few words and flicked a finger out. A spark shot and rippled through the air, and man and bicycle were steered away just before driving into a drainage ditch.

“Hey, do you know where I can find this girl Ivy?” she called, trying to remain at least twenty feet from the man. “You probably know her. She has brown curly hair and this super annoying thing where she smiles constantly?”
 

“Ivy?” the man repeated, blinking in surprise. “Course I know her. I changed a few of her diapers when she was just a tot.”

Win growled into her scarf until raindrops began to vaporize as they hit her head. “Well that's a nice memory, but it doesn't really help me find her now, does it?”

“S'pose not,” the man agreed, scratching his bald spot. “She's a difficult one to pin down on a good day, but now she's runnin' herself ragged gettin' everyone ready for the storm.”

“What storm?”

As she said it, a gust of wind blew between them, and Win froze. On the surface, it was humid and heavy, but underneath it had a flavor, a scent. One Win knew well.
 

“Water magic,” she murmured.
 

She hadn't noticed it. How could she have missed it? Close enough to stretch its tentacles under her nose, and she hadn't noticed it.

Vaguely, she heard the man chattering about his tomato plants. She tuned him out and concentrated on the magic in the atmosphere, following the trail back to its source. It was mortifying how little effort it took once she quieted her tangled thoughts. Beyond the valley and hills, swelling clouds and currents of orphaned water magic drifted towards each other, colliding, sparking, no one bothering to control them. No one bothering to clean up their mess. It was a garbage heap, the air suffused with more water magic than it could absorb. Left alone, the energy festered, lost and angry, wandering blind. It fed on itself, disparate threads weaving into a whirling blur, faster and faster. Distantly, she felt the scrape of the road on her knees as she dropped, an unfamiliar hand gripping her shoulder. They were faint voices lost in the roar of magic, pushing and pulling her. It was all she could smell and taste, drowning her in it. She gasped, and for a second she thought she felt her lungs flood with water, until she realized she was choking on the foulest odor she had ever encountered.

“Ack—
blegh!
” Win sputtered, snapping back into her body and recoiling from the source of the stench. She buried her nose and mouth in her scarf, glaring watery eyes at the wrinkly brown fruit the bicycle man had thought it wise to shove under her nose. Win wondered if she should have let him ride into the drainage ditch after all.

“Err … sorry about that,” the man said, shoving the fruit back into his bag. “Morgueberries aren't everyone's cup o' tea, but it seemed like you were crashin' pretty hard.”
 

Brow creased with concern, he held out a hand to help her up. Win stared at it warily, but took it, letting herself be tugged to her feet.
 

“Hey now, you all right?” he said, nodding at their joined hands. Win looked down and saw her hands tremble, knuckles white. Her mouth welled up with saliva, the acrid taste of polluted water magic still on her tongue, and she had to fight the urge to spit it out. She wanted to run, like she had before. She could, too. Underground. Into the mountains, if she was quick enough. This town didn't have more than a day. Maybe not even that.

“Do you want me to find Ivy for you?” the man asked, delicately ignoring Win's nails digging into his hands. “She manages to be everywhere at once on a normal day, so I'm sure I'll find her.”

“Ivy?” she said, her voice thin and distant. She shook her head. “No.”

Her hands slackening in his, she pulled away and turned back up the road, feeling the threads of herself unravel.

* * *

Sunnydale was in chaos.
 

A week ago, it hadn't been worse than any typical Saturday at the height of apple season. Now, as the sky turned bruise green and crackled with lights like a million cameras flashing, Ivy was beginning to question her can-do attitude.
 

“Just grab what you can carry and get indoors,” she shouted over the shrieking winds. Half the town was running seemingly in circles through the streets with anything from a backpack full of heirloom seeds to three yowling cats and a wheel of cheddar.
 

“Everyone, this is not a normal storm. Please, we've bagged and boarded up as much as we can. It's going to hit any minute!” Her words were swallowed in the wind and the frantic chatter on the streets. Ivy scanned her clipboard. Her neatly organized evacuation checklist had fallen into disarray an hour ago. “What's the protocol for sparkly sea foam storms?”
 

“Will ya look at that!” a man cried next to her, stopping in the middle of the street to point skyward.

“Yes, we've all seen it, Frank,” Ivy said. “Will you get inside?”

“What
is
it?” a woman squinted. Three others stopped and joined her. Another held up his wheel of cheddar to shield them from the wind.
 

Ivy gawked at them. “Guys, we're not birdwatching here!”

Breaking into the front of the crowd, a little girl waved a chubby hand over her head. “Dragon! Dragon!”

Ivy's heart skipped and skidded. She turned and looked up at the looming storm, a funnel of blurred blue and silver making the air around it ripple.

And flying straight toward it was a dragon. Long as a cottage from nose to tail, its obsidian scales gleamed in its own light, wings encased in white-hot, diaphanous flames. It turned its head, and its eyes were strangely familiar, like warm honey or amber.
 

 
Ivy dropped her clipboard, pages flapping in the wind. “ … Win?”

The crowd was rooted to the spot, no longer caring about the debris swirling around them. Neighbors wandered out of their locked houses and shelters to join them, but Ivy just stood with her mouth hanging open as if to catch snowflakes. Overhead, the dragon beat its wings hard against the driving winds, straining forward what seemed only inches before being blown back. A streak of silver flew from the storm's edge and grazed the dragon's wing, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd. A rattling cry echoed across the sky between them, and with a final push, the dragon corkscrewed forward until the storm swallowed it completely.
 

The crowd broke into a cacophony of panicked voices, but Ivy barely heard it. Her eyes were fixed on the point where the dragon had disappeared, willing it to leap back through the angry whorl. Instead, the storm shuddered and growled, tearing wildly from side to side. Sparks flew in every direction as if it was trying to rip itself apart. Ivy wasn't sure she was breathing. Around her, people started murmuring, no doubt giving the dragon up for dead. They were probably right, Ivy knew. She should turn around and get people back inside. If only she could make her legs work.

If only that wasn't Win.

She stared up at the storm, looming, angry, otherworldly. “Give her back,” she said. As the words left her, a warm golden light flickered and flared deep in the belly of the storm.

At first, she thought she was imagining it, staring too long at the brilliant and terrible magic and seeing stars. The second time, it stayed and grew. Swelling, expanding, an explosion in slow motion. Ivy's eyes burned and welled with tears, but she didn't blink. The wall of the storm seemed to grow thin, the conflagration pressing against it until it cracked. Beneath her, the ground shuddered, and a blinding flash of light was all she saw before being knocked off her feet.
 

Seconds ticked by. Ivy sat hunched and huddled with the crowd, all of them still and silent, waiting for aftershocks. Now that she had turned away, she was afraid to look back and see what remained. Until she felt a warm droplet hit the back of her neck. Her head shot up, and another raindrop splashed on her cheek. Then another. The rest of the town began to unfurl around her, looking up and sighing as the scattered storm fell as gentle autumn rain as far as the eye could see.
 

Ivy stood on shaking legs, searching the skies until she caught the spread of dragon wings high on a hill's peak. Their blazing aura softened, they shrank and folded themselves into familiar shoulders behind long sheets of windswept black hair, and by the time two heavy boots touched down on the grass, they was gone.
 

* * *

The sun broke over the horizon the next morning, a long shadow stretching out from Ivy's feet as she reached the top of Bann Hill.
 

“I was wondering when you'd finally show up.”

Ivy froze, taking in the sight. Win sat on her front step, wrapped in a quilt and sipping from a chipped mug, several dragons clambering around her. She looked just like she always had to Ivy, which was the strangest part.

Win nodded toward the packages under Ivy's arms. “What's all that?”

Smiling crookedly, Ivy held out one of the boxes. “I wasn't sure what kind of medicine might be needed after battling a magical storm, so—”

“Pancakes,” Win finished. “Perfect.”

“Now this one.” Ivy handed over a large wrapped package. “Open it.”

Eyeing her with mock-suspicion, Win tore through the paper, drawing a quiet gasp.

Ivy shrugged. “You're not the only one who can be full of surprises.”

Amber eyes aglow, Win shifted the frame until the stained glass panels caught the morning sun, glittering jewel tones through the black outline of a dragon suspended in flight.
 

“I just thought you might want a little extra privacy once people figure out
you're
the infamous giant dragon of Bann Hill, to whom they owe the integrity of their homes and possibly their lives.” Ivy raised her brows, daring her to deny it.

Sinking a little deeper into her bundle of blankets, Win picked at the chipped rim of her cup, not meeting her gaze. “I probably couldn't have done it without you.”

“Me?” Ivy barked out a laugh. “Win, I have many skills, and I'll admit some of the things I've pulled off in the name of community organizing may
seem
like magic, but the truth is I have about as much magical ability as a wet mop.”

The corners of Win's mouth twitched as they had many times before, but now it seemed she didn't have the strength to control them as a full-blown grin spread across her face. Ivy stared. It was such a strange sight. She seemed younger somehow, lighter, like she'd shed a few layers even while still wrapped up in blankets.
 

Win laughed at Ivy's open gaping. “I meant the roof, dummy.”

Ivy blinked, feeling foggy and ten steps behind. Win rolled her eyes.

“I'm a fire witch,” she said. “Our ultimate source is the sun.”

Mind whirling, Ivy shook her head. “So let me get this straight. You turned into a dragon, plugged yourself into your solar roof—which apparently is much more efficient after all—and flew off like a juiced-up battery to fight a magical storm?”

“Actually, I plugged in before I turned into a dragon. No opposable thumbs in that form.” She laughed weakly, wiggling her fingers, but Ivy could feel her wanting to curl back in on herself like a gnawing hole in her own stomach.

“That was why you moved out here, wasn't it?” Ivy asked. “Not just for your dragons, but for you.”

Win shrugged a shoulder. “If they didn't like my cat-sized strays, how do you think they reacted when they saw me turn the first time?”

“Sunnydale won't be like that,” Ivy said, wanting to wrap the words around her like another blanket. “Win, they already love you. They want to organize a festival in your honor, and it wasn't even my idea. I heard talk of building a statue in the middle of the Village Green.”

Win's eyes widened in horror, and Ivy couldn't help but laugh.
 

“I told them a stained glass window would probably be more to your taste.”

Cheeks coloring, Win nodded gratefully.

 
Ivy gestured toward the broken window. “Good thing I did, too. Some people might be pushy enough to try to talk to you through that.”

The corners of Win's mouth quirked up. “Mm, that could be a problem.”

“That's what I was thinking.” Walking the last few paces, Ivy lifted a corner of the blanket and tucked herself under it. Win felt like embers, flames calmed to a gentle glow, indulging the hands stretched closer for warmth.

Still, Win raised an eyebrow.
 

“It's chilly out here,” Ivy shivered, looking over. “Are you going to eat all those pancakes?”

About Kat Lerner

Kat Lerner sends her warm salutations from the far corner of the room, otherwise the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She's a bit distracted and typing furiously, either writing, editing for her students or peers, or reacting strongly to videos of interspecies friendships. She also enjoys long walks on cold, drizzly beaches and being taller than someone (she is 5'1, so this is a rare joy). One may dig up bits of her short fiction and poetry of varied quality at
Apeiron Review
,
Rose Red Review
,
Bartleby Snopes
, and others.
 

Wanderer's Dream

by Maura Lydon

Oriole leaned back in her harness, watching the dull smudge of red that would eventually resolve into cliffs. She could feel the airship lifting higher as the sun rose and the algae powering the envelope started their day's work. She was in the middle of cleaning their clear plastic coating, so maybe now wasn't the best time to be woolgathering.
 

“Hey, Birdy!” Her friend Alek, almost always on the same duties as she was, shouted from the other side of the ship. “Bet you three chocolate crèmes I can finish before you do!”
 

Oriole could see the challenging way he would waggle his eyebrows and grin at her. It drove the girls on the crew crazy, but she'd grown up with Alek, and couldn't take him seriously. Besides, she'd given up thinking she was attracted to boys a long time ago.