Dragon Song (Part 2)

In the south of Kelinor, near the wooded slopes of the western Militherin mountains, a mere ten leagues north of where Gaeris gathered the dragonless keepers, a small farm sat quietly in the late summer sun. Quiet, that is, except for the small, fiery middle-aged woman with silver-streaked dark hair leaning out of the small cottage door yelling, "Mirassah!" She waited for a response before storming off, slamming the door behind her with the latch clicking loudly as she stomped off.

The dark, short-haired girl was wandering east of the farm amongst the woods. She scouted back and forth, kicking leaves and rocks out of the way, looking in cracks and crevices in the rock as though looking for something she had lost. Diligently she searched, stopping now and again to listen with her eyes closed before rushing to nearby objects, small boulders and fallen trees; she lifted them with one hand to search underneath them as though they weighed nothing. Her mother's repeated calls finally broke her from her obsession. "Mirassah!" Her mother was closer now.

The girl dropped a boulder and put her hands on her hips, waiting impatiently for her mother, who was marching up the hill to her. The woman, Anaias, called out after her daughter, "Girl!" Mirassah wiped her hair from her forehead and dried her hands on her deerskin trousers. There was no breeze, and her linen shirt showed the effort she had put into her task as sweat rolled down her bare neck.

"What, Mother?" She called back. Anaias stopped immediately and ground her fists into her hips, huffing, but glaring at the girl. Mirassah's eyes fell to the ground, "Don't you 'what' me!"

Mirassah sighed and walked down to meet her mother. "Sorry, Mother. I just… I just feel like I am so close."

The woman's furrowed brow softened, and her expression turned to one of empathy as her daughter came down to meet her. She studied her daughter's dark, fierce eyes that matched her own. Dark though they may be, they sparkled with something otherworldly from deep within as the girl stared into the distance, an increasingly common occurrence. The woman brushed her daughter's hair back over her ear as she looked at the child, bringing Mirassah's gaze back to her mother. "I know. It is the time of your Attunement." She said with a heavy heart.

"Surely they're still out there. I can hear him." Mirassah relayed her point of view, the hope beyond hope that the dragon she was born to tune to was still hidden among the forest and hills of the Militherin mountains.

"Honey, I agree with you, but it has also been twenty years… before you were born, since we heard tale of a keeper finding their dragon." Anaias explained, "Come, let us head back to the house. It is your birthday after all, unless you have forgotten that."

The girl's expression changed in an instant, "You mean…" She skipped beside her mother, "I get to go on my Attunement?"

"What?" Her mother scowled. "No, it's your birthday, which means I have a present for you."

"But Mother…" Mirassah argued, "I am sixteen now. I am of age to leave and find my dragon. The song, I can hear it so clearly, it goes…" She started to hum something, then stopped, "No wait… I mean… it goes…" She tried to hum again, stopped, and started over, stopped, and shook her head; she kept trying as they walked, and her mother's expression was saddened. The girl stopped and threw her hands down. "It was right there!" She growled, then sighed and started walking again. "It's just so frustrating."

Anaias put her arm around her daughter and pulled her close to kiss the side of her head, but disgust came across her face as she wiped her daughter's sweat from her lips, but then said, "Listen, dear, you will know when the time is right."

"But how do you know that?" Her daughter complained. "You are not a keeper, and Father never found his dragon."

It was Anaias’ turn to stop, and she grabbed her daughter’s shoulders and faced the girl, "Your Father's song was taken from him while he was on his Attunement. That was no fault of his, and he had to live with that for his entire life." Her tone was low, and she looked deep into Mirassah's eyes. "Don't let anyone tell you your father was less than another keeper, and don't you think for a second that if you can't find your dragon, that you are not of value." She sighed and looked down, then toward their farm; it was near. She looked back at her daughter and pulled her along with a smile, "Come, you will always have a place here, and you can go back to searching for your dragon tomorrow near our home. One day you will need to leave on your search, but it's not today."

The two walked back to the cottage with the heat of the day bearing down on them, and soon they arrived home. Inside the quaint abode were just a couple of rooms that Mirassah's father, Thatius, had built many years ago when he and Anaias had gotten married. They had desired to have a family, but they were only given one child, which was the risk they took, Anaias not being a dragon keeper. It was rare for a dragon keeper to marry, and altogether unheard of for them to marry outside their own kind, primarily due to the length of lives they lived. For dragon keepers lived as long as their dragons, which could be between one hundred fifty and three hundred years. The king himself had recently celebrated his two hundred and fiftieth birthday. It was for this, among many reasons, that Mirassah's existence was special, though she had yet to comprehend to what degree. No one had.

"There." Anaias pointed to a large trunk visible through her bedroom door, squarely planted at the end of the bed. She sat down in a chair near the stone fireplace, which had a small pile of coal and ash glowing on the hearth.

Mirassah looked into her mother's bedroom. "What? The trunk?" She looked quizzically at it. Her mother nodded. "But you said never to open it."

"No." Her mother corrected her, "I said that I could never open it." She grinned, "Bring it out here."

Mirassah's eyes lit up, "But this was father's trunk. What's in it?" she asked excitedly as she skipped across the room and into the bedroom." Anaias continued to grin. Mirassah called back from the bedroom, "It's… It's heavy."

Her mother laughed out loud, "Why do you think I've never moved it in all the years of spring cleaning since your Father…" She paused, the sad realization of her husband's death washing over her a moment, but she brushed it away quickly, "in the past few years." She finished.

Mirassah lifted the large trunk awkwardly but had to set it down and push it through the door, making a wretched scraping sound on the flagstone that Anaias only barely endured with her hands over her ears. "Ok!" She shouted over the noise. "That's good enough." Mirassah stopped with the trunk just outside the door of the bedroom and stared at the large trunk. It was made of wooden planks, fastened with iron, and secured by a large iron lock.

Mirassah looked up, "Do you have the key?"

Anaias shook her head, "You're the key. Open it." Mirassah looked at her mother like she was mad. "Your Father ripped the trees from the ground with his bare hands. This was all woodland where our farm sits. If he could do that, you can open this trunk." Anaias explained. Mirassah rolled her eyes at the reminder that she was born into what her mother often reminded her of, "strength and responsibility."

The girl looked down at the lock and took firm hold of it in one hand, bracing the other against the trunk. A quick downward jerk, a loud snapping sound, and the iron lock crumpled in the girl’s hand. It was an odd sight given that she was barely more than a hard and a half tall, small but strong and fit, yet the lock that was larger than a man's hand, was crushed by Mirassah's small fingers. Immediately upon ripping the lock off, Mirassah felt something. The trunk's seal had not been cracked open since before the girl was born, yet something about it was familiar to her, the hairs on her arms raised as she removed the latch.

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What did Mirassah find? What had been waiting for her in her dead father's trunk for so many years?

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