Dragon's Playroom

A ray of light from the setting sun touched Alma's cheek, and she realized the door to her cage must be open. The young girl put down her sewing, crept over and poked the door outward, thus exposing the great room that made up the biggest part of the dragon clan's house. It was empty. She remembered her owner telling her about the Dance of Life, when the whole clan went off to the sky dance. They must have been in a rush and left her cage door open. Still, it would probably be safer not to go out.

Then again maybe no one would notice, just so long as she stayed in the house. The clan knew she was a pet, not a human who'd escaped from a meat ranch. On the planet she came from years ago, it wasn't unusual for humans to speak, or walk around freely, or have jobs. She'd never seen another human here -- not alive, anyway. The clan assured her humans didn't talk, or think, or mind being raised for meat. Doggie had brought her here by accident, and she was lucky to be his pet. He sometimes took her outside after he got home from school and showed her the stars. He taught her words, too.

That was it, she could come out to practice words. She opened the door a little more to check for dragons, and seeing none edged out.

A dome stretched above the smoky great room, allowing the dragons to fly rather than creep their many segments along the floor. The baby's playroom would be more her size.

Oddly, her clammy hand found it open too. Dragons typically shut every door, and only the right kind of claw could open one. As dragons aged, they grew more and more segments, and with each segment they grew a new pair of legs or arms. The claws on them each did something different, so that as dragons aged their abilities multiplied. One claw might open a door, another puncture metal, and another clean and sharpen their teeth. Doggie told her some claws had more fantastic uses still – refueling their bodies for fire breath or space flight, making curves in time, or tearing pathways in the fabric between universes. Alma found all of this hard to understand, but Doggie said dragons were Caretakers of the Multiverse. The way he said it made it sound awfully important.

Alma slipped in. Her skin, accustomed to dragonish heat and humidity, prickled in the thin, cool air. Her feet drifted up from the floor and she started to float around the room, through darkness and among the stars. The cavernous playroom housed a model of the galaxy, tiny stars and wisps of gas suspended in a spiral formation that filled the room. It was much easier to breathe than in real space – she remembered that much from her frightening trip to this planet on Doggie's back. A young dragon had much more wing in proportion to its body than adults, and liked to flap about in air. Alma tried using her arms to do the same thing, and though she didn't have much control over where she went, she managed to keep moving. She laughed as she tumbled through the spiral arms; stars plinked against her before scooting back into place. Purple gas drifting into her mouth tasted sweet, like fruit. She sampled a star, but it tasted nasty and she spit it out.

She reached the far wall and grasped a clawhold. A wheel jutted out nearby. She cranked it and the stars shrank away, while one planet surface grew until it pressed against her, a surface not quiet as firm as the ground outside. This must be a model of the planet, something to give the little dragon practice burrowing. Alma couldn't power through the dirt like a dragon, but she reached an arm in and wiggled her fingers. It hurt, so she cranked the wheel the other way. The planet receded, while stars appeared and then diminished. Soon even the galaxy she'd seen when she entered the room became small. Empty space stretched all around, and she felt what dragons must feel when they go into space, when wings no longer find anything to push against and their graviton jets take over.

When the door opened across the room Alma's body flooded with fear. But then she saw who it was – the blue and green scales that still had the flash of youth, the twelve segments, the pleasant face. Doggie stood on his hindmost segment and grinned, then pushed off from the wall and winged smoothly to her side. She could tell he was in a good mood by his mild and slightly metallic scent.

“Hi, Alma-pet. What are you doing here?”

“I-- come. Doors open.” As long as she'd been learning, she still found it difficult to imitate every hiss and hand signal of dragon speech. “You home see Alma-pet?”

He looked at her with those deep eyes, eyes the black of the universe. “Yes, but it's a secret. I wanted to show you the Dance of Life. Come with me outside.”

She pulled herself onto his warm back, and he flew out through the great room and into the night. They landed on a flat boulder, the kind dragons use as perches. Alma looked up and gasped. For on this night the stars didn't stay still, but moved about the blackness in leaps and spirals. Doggie pointed out nebulae and comets and star clusters, which wove through the writhing patterns.

Alma sensed joy, almost as if she were a dragon herself. “Doggie?”

“Hmmm?”

“Doggie, you grow up, keep Alma-pet?”

He turned to her and his eyes stopped reflecting the dance; they went misty instead. “Dragons live much longer than humans. By the time I grow up, you will already be dead. I'm sorry.”

“Ah.”

Alma purred a little song for him, and he stroked her hair.

(998 words)