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Entry 171

Bronnie was miserable.

Cyrus had disappeared somewhere--she hadn't seen him in AGES. Mum was distracted from their lessons with Dana. Stupid goose. Well, she was pretty cute, but y'know.

She didn't like that train of thought. She was more mature than that, right?

Anyway. On top of it all, Bronnie was shedding. Big chunk of black skin were flaking off her, and she was more-or-less stuck in her dragon shape. So, of course, she was house-bound.

Itchy and miserable and lonely and housebound.

It sucked.

Bronwen slunk through the house on all fours, her wings folded. She paused at the top of the stairs to rub her shoulder against the corner of the wall to get a particularly nasty itch dealt with, and headed downstairs.

She flopped in the centre of the living room, and cautiously jammed at the television remote with a claw.

There wasn't even anything on today. Bronnie sighed mournfully.

"What's up with you?"

Bronnie peered behind her, and sighed. "Uncle Ray, there isn't anything for me to do. And I don't fit. I mean, Mum's busy with Dana, and I can't go out. And Amano's gone again, so I can't even see him."

"Well, I'm here." Ray crawled over the top of the couch and flopped on the ground next to his neice.

Bronnie growled. "I don't fit. I'm stuck like this and I don't want to be and I itch and there's this spot right in the middle of my back which I can't get--"

Ray scratched. She sighed in relief.

"Wanna play a round of Mario Party?"

"Yeah, okay." Bronnie peered doubtfully at her claws. "But you have to go easy on me."

"Like that's ever been an issue."

Entry 172

Bronnie blinked. Her mother was seated on the living room floor, and had just asked her to join her, in a strangely solemn voice. The lights were off, the curtains drawn, and it was dark except for a few flickering candles. It was very strange.

"Why?"

"Sit, Bronnie. Now."

Bronnie sat cross-legged opposite Sunny, confused.

"You came into this world, a child of Last Home, given the name of Bronwen. You have learned, grown, and changed under the guidance of the tribe." The candlelight gleamed oddly off of Sunny's glasses. "Now is the time to choose. Do you wish to remain a child in the eyes of the tribe, or move onto greater things, and become an adult?"

With her heart pounding in her throat, Bronnie whispered, "An adult." This couldn't be what she thought it was. She'd convinced herself that her mother had either forgotten or was pretending to have forgotten so as not to send her.

"The child has spoken." Sunny leaned over and kissed Bronnie formally on the forehead. "I, as a Singer of Last Home, oversee the child's transition into adulthood. Who of the family speaks for her?"

"I do." Bronnie turned to see her Uncle Ray waiting in the kitchen archway. He came and knelt with them. "I speak for Bronwen. I am--" He leaned his head back and warbled out an inhuman sound, which had as much relation to the sound of "Raynakre" as a mint Cadillac did to a child's rusty red wagon. "I am the clutchbrother of her mother."

"Do you believe Bronwen to be ready?"

"I do."

Bronnie chewed on her lip.

"Bronwen, do you believe you are ready for this challenge?"

"I... uh... I think so."

Sunny bowed her head. "Good. Bronwen, I--" and here she, as Uncle Ray had, lifted her face and sang out a chorus of throaty contralto birdsong that might, somehow, have been interpreted as "Bennali," and this time Bronnie saw her mother's throat shift disturbingly, rearranging internally to allow a human throat to make such a noice, "as Singer of Last Home, give you blessings to go out into the world. You will leave a child with one name, and you will return as an adult with two. Choose your name carefully, for you will carry it all your days. Learn who you are, for that is the greatest challenge in life."

Bronnie found herself staring. This was all so frightening. She opened her mouth to speak, and was interrupted by a sudden, frightened wail, interspersed with distraught peeping.

Sunny made a sheepish face, illuminated briefly before Ray blew out one of the candles. "Dana. I knew my luck couldn't hold. Ray, could you go get her? Bronnie." She embraced her daughter tightly. "Two days. Three days, tops. A few things we want to work out."

Bronnie couldn't manage to make a sound.

Entry 174

Bronnie ached.

She'd never done any flying further than from home to Barton, which took about three quarters of an hour, depending on the weather, and usually glided for as much as she could. A trip into town and back wasn't too exerting.

She'd never done any flying for hours at a time, for several days in a row. She hurt.

She'd slept mostly curled up in dragon shape under sheltering trees; she didn't seem to feel the cool air of the fading summer quite so much that way, and she was comfortable. It was unnerving to have to strip naked outside, though, and she always peered around carefully to be sure it was all clear.

It always had been.

Bronnie wasn't sure where to go. She had to do something of note, she felt, but wasn't sure where to begin. It had been half an accident that she'd ended up here, at the glacial lake where she and her mother had gone camping that one time.

Her wings ached. A lot. So did her entire back, her arms, her legs.... well... everything.

She alighted on the shore, skidding slightly on the pebbles, and looked longingly at the water.

It would be cold, but it would feel very good.

She shrugged out of her clothes and waded in. It was like ice against her skin, but soothing. Bronnie shifted as she moved in, wincing against the pain. It never got any better, that was what got her. It still hurt a hell of a lot, and she'd been doing it a lot the past few days.

Maybe that had something to do with why she was so sore.

She ducked under, and paddled lazily around, her wings tightly folded against her back, and her eyes half-closed.

She had been enjoying the novelty of going wherever her mood took her, but she was getting sort of lonely. And bored. And she certainly wasn't any closer to naming herself like this.

But a swim was always good.

She was still debating on how to proceed with her rite of passage when she seemed to hear a peculiar popping noise above the lake. Bronnie opened her eyes and peered up, just in time to see a person falling out of the air.

He tumbled down, landed with a hard smack on the water about ten feet from her, and sank below.

"Oh no." Bronnie swam out to him as fast she could, grabbed in the water with her claws, caught him up by the sweater, and swam him back to shore.

Gasping and dripping, she dragged him up on the beach and put her head to his chest. His heart was beating, and he was breathing, which was good because Bronnie really didn't like the idea of doing ariticial respiration on him.

He was older than her, probably in his early to mid twenties. He was thin and brown, his hair dark. He was bleeding from a nasty scrape on his arm.

She had already shifted back to her human shape (for crying out loud, couldn't she get a break with this stuff?) to dig through her bag for the first aid kit when the young man sputtered and gave a low moan.

"Are you okay?" Bronnie asked.

"I'm not... I'm not your enemy!" The man's eyes opened wide.

She blinked. "Oh... kay. I didn't think you were."

His eyes focused, and he looked away, embarrassed; Bronnie looked down at herself and remembered, with sudden and painfully, that she was naked. She grabbed at a shirt and held it in front of her. "I was swimming," she said self-conciously. "And it's a good thing for you that I was, too."

"This wasn't where I was." He sat up slowly. "Where am I?"

"I don't know what the lake's called," Bronnie said, doubtful.

"There wasn't a lake here at all. I slipped off the cliff... and then... how did I get here?"

Bronnie peered up. There wasn't a cliff anywhere near, but there was a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Someone told me once," she said hesitantly, "that there's a, whatsit, a dimensional portal that comes out here. I think it's one-way."

"Oh, great." The man buried his face in his hands.

Entry 176

"Come sit down, Bronwen. But Ing tells me there's someone else outside?"

"Who're you?" Bronnie took a step away from the old man.

He smiled. "It has been a while. My name, Bronwen, is Eldila Suivin."

"... we thought you were dead! The house... it... exploded or something, and you were... you were--"

"Calm down." He smiled at her. "I'm alive. Ing and I have been rather happily here for some time. Who's outside?"

"Er." Bronnie peered at Eldila, and back towards the cave entrance. "His name is David... I think he just came through, the, uh, portal."

"Human?"

"Er, yes. He's all wet, 'cause he fell in the lake, and it's going to get cold."

Eldila nodded. "I understand. I'll lower the security, and you can bring him inside."

Bronnie's heart was pounding as she went back to fetch David, though she wasn't sure why. He was waiting, and shivering. "Come on in, it's safe."

"But--"

"Come on," she insisted impatiently.

She took David by the hand and pulled him inside after her; he didn't protest this time, though he was very quiet. By the time they had reached the furnished, lit room, his eyes were glazed and he was nearly catatonic.

"David?"

"Bring him here," Eldila said, gently. Bronnie did. David stared blankly, his head lolling to one side. "There are many charms over this place. It's not a place for humans. He'll be fine, though he won't remember any of this." He waved his hand over the young man, and the damp clothes dried quickly. "Now, young man, you may go sit down near the fire and warm up. Bronwen and I have some things to discuss."

David bowed his head and went to sit down. Bronnie found that she was chewing on a claw, and forced herself to stop. "I... I don't understand."

The raven shifted its weight on the bedstand, and clacked at her. "Hush, Ing," Eldila told it crossly. "We're getting to that. Come sit down, here. Let me see you."

Bronnie took a deep breath and reminded herself that this was the tribal elder. He was also, her mum had said, some distant relative of hers. A great-great uncle once-removed or something along those lines. She sat down on a footstool nearby.

Eldila touched her face, his blind eyes staring somewhere over her shoulder. "You've grown so much since I last saw you. Do you shift, now, when you want?"

"Yes, mostly." Bronnie blushed, despite herself.

He chuckled. "Do you fly?"

"Lots."

"Do you breathe fire at all?"

Bronnie hesitated; Eldila tilted his head; Ing flapped his wings and croaked. "I, um. Not really."

"What do you mean, 'not really'?"

"I, er... I can make the shadows move. I can pick them up, and I can make them burn, or, um... something."

"Interesting. Transmutation of shadow to fire. Possible, though I don't think I've ever encountered it before." Eldila smiled. "Something from your father's side, I suppose?"

"I guess."

Eldila laughed dryly. "Bronwen, my dear, what brings you out here alone?"

"I'm, um... on my namequest."

"Really? Then you shouldn't be speaking to me at all, should you?"

Bronnie stammered for a moment before she realised he was teasing her. "Well, um."

"Relax." Eldila leaned back in his chair. "I suspect I'm not the tribal elder anymore, since I'm presumed dead. You can speak to me without breaking any traditions."

"What happened to you?"

He sighed. "I tried, you know, to send the slayer away, and defend with the use of lesser spells, but he was quite insistent. The spell I resorted to was a rather... extreme spell. It was, and I speak as one dragon mage to another, essentially the transformation of myself into many razor shards. It proved to be rather more destructive than I anticipated."

"You turned yourself into... pieces of..." She was horrified at the thought of this.

Eldila grimaced at her. "I didn't expect to survive, Bronwen. Believe me, very few people have ever done that and lived. I'm still surprised. As it was, I was so dazed by the experience I ended up wandering off into the woods. I'm still not entirely sure what I did for the month or two following. I eventually settled down here to keep an eye on the portal. I'm too old for that sort of thing."

"You can't be that old."

"I am six hundred and seventy five years old, give or take." Eldila grinned toothily. "I am old. There's no shame in it. I saw your mother and your uncle hatch, and I was already quite old then."

"How old is Mum?" Bronnie asked, rather daringly, she felt. Sunny had never given her a straight answer.

"One hundred fifty-two. Again, give or take." He smirked. "Although she has a tendency to claim to be older or younger, depending on her mood."

Bronnie wrinkled her nose. "You said that I was... a mage? That's not right... I can only do the one thing."

"You're a dragon, and you use magic instead of breathing fire. For all tribal purposes, you're a mage. Perhaps a limited one. Hm." Eldila tapped his cheek thoughtfully. "Something I'll have to think on." Ing gave a disgruntled cackle and scratched at the scraggly ruff of feathers at his throat. "Hush, Ing. It was just a thought."

Bronnie was perplexed. "What?"

"Nothing. Bronwen, you should stay here for the night. In the morning, you and your acquaintance should go do whatever you need to do. When you're finished with your name quest, come see me before you go home."

She nodded, though she didn't understand. "All right."

Entry 177

Ringring, ringring.

"Hello?"

"Mum! Hi!"

"Bronnie? Oh, thank the ancestors... why didn't you call, like you said you would?"

"I wasn't near a phone, Mum. I'm sorry."

"You're all right, then?"

"I'm fine. Is Uncle Ray around?"

"I'm on the other line."

"Ray!"

Laughter. "You don't really think I'm so dense as that, Ali?"

"Happy birthday, Mum, Uncle Ray. I'm sorry I've missed it."

"It's okay. We'll have a cake when you get back."

"We already had a cake."

"If you don't like it, you don't get any."

"I'm in Durem, now. And I had to walk. That's why I couldn't call."

"You had to-- never mind. You can tell me about when you get home."

"Bye, Mum. Bye, Uncle Ray."

"Careful, Bronnie."

"That's my line, Rayray. Bye, Bronnie. I love you."

"I love you too, Mum."

Click.

Entry 179

David was not okay.

A moment or two ago, he had been happily chatting about dinosaurs, but now he was striding through the streets of Durem fast enough that Bronnie had to run to keep up.

And she was following, though she wasn't sure why. It's not like she really knew David, but something was definitely wrong with him, and if it was her fault it had happened... which was silly. She hadn't done anything.

She followed him anyway.

David was no longer speaking, though occassionally he'd look back to be sure she was still there, and he'd giggle in a high falsetto, which was unlike anything he'd done in the time she'd known him.

She followed him for a good hour, and she was gasping for breath by the time he stopped; once out of Durem she'd followed him by air, but she was still quite exhausted.

David wasn't even sweating.

They were somewhere north of Durem. Bronnie watched David crest a small rise and disappear.

She hurried to where he had been, and discovered that she stood on the edge of a pit ringed with stone. It looked like the foundation to a house, but nothing remained but some overgrown stone walls and some unstable stairs into the basement.

David gave that unearthly giggle from down below. Bronnie gritted her teeth and followed him down.

It was dark, and in the growing twilight the shadows underground were long. Bronnie could see fine, of course, but it was not a comfortable place.

David was slumped over in the corner, gasping for breath; Bronnie hurried over to him. "What's going on?"

He stared at her, uncomprehending. His eyes were brown.

"Green is here," shrilled a voice. It wasn't really male or female, but high and immensely pleased with itself.

"Blue has done well!" another voice whispered.

"It is frightened. They both are. They don't understand," said a third voice, and then laughed, as though this were a colossal joke. Three other voices laughed, too.

"We should show ourselves. We should. Green will understand then."

With a cacophony of tittering, forms grew out of the shadows. They were still unmistakeably shadows, but they moved and flickered.

Four pairs of eyes blinked into view.

Entry 181

Bronnie sputtered. "I... what are you?"

"I am Blue. That is Yellow, and Purple, and Red."

"But what are you?"

There was some confusion over this. "Red is youngest. Does it still remember?"

"I remember," Red said thoughtfully. "A little. Before I was Red I was... I was a man!" It sounded very proud of itself for remembering this. "I had many many books. About, um, magic. And then I met Blue and Yellow and Purple and Green."

"Green found you! I remember it!" Purple bubbled, and the others hushed it.

"This is Red's story."

"Old Green told me that they lost Red, and they needed a new Red, and they made me be Red." A shadowy shape that might've been a head tilted to one side.

"Why me, though?" Bronnie was getting frustrated with the flighty way these creatures seemed to think. "Why you?"

"Um. Um. Um. There was... um. Demon in me! I remember! Just a little bit of demon and I didn't even know!" Red giggled. "And I could do magic and that made me a good New Red."

"You're the best New Green ever," Yellow purred. "You're lots of demon, and already shadowy and like us, and already green."

She took a step back, trembling. "I'm a dragon," Bronnie protested. "Not a demon."

"You're a little bit demon! That's better than being all demon or no demon. And we never had a dragon before, I don't think. Maybe a really really long time ago before any of us. You're the most perfect new One ever."

"What are you?"

"We're us. That's all.""

"But... what do other people call you?"

"Shadows!" Red said suddenly, remembering. "That's what the real demons call us sometimes."

"They don't like us much. Sometimes they call us mongrels or halfies or other things."

"It's supposed to be mean, but we don't really mind."

"We're more than just sort-of-demons, anyway. We're... we're US. And we're not like anything else ever. And we've been around a long time."

"Well, the Old Ones anyway," Yellow tittered.

"Sometimes I think I can almost remember before I was Purple. I'm older than Red but younger than the others. But it's hard."

"You are so lucky, Purple."

"And you are so nice."

"Now, what you have to do, is you have to... um..."

"I remember! I remember!" Yellow was curled silkily around Bronnie's shoulders, petting her hair. "She has to help us kill something with a body, so she can start losing hers."

"That's why he's here!" Blue crowed, and all four giggled.

"David?" Bronnie peered at him; he stared dully at her; his eyes were faintly glowing blue; Blue must still have had a slight hold on him to keep him from acting. "But..."

"It's even better if you use your talent to help us. Besides, I Saw your talent, with my Talent, but I want them to see it too!"

They cheered. Bronnie shook her head. "I'm... I'm not... I can't kill him!"

"Oh, come on. Why not? He's just a human. Boooooooring."

"We want you to be our new Green. And then there will be five of us again, like there's supposed to be, and we can do all the fun things we did with Old Green."

"You get lots stronger when you become one of us. Lots and lots stronger. And you live lots longer."

"And it will be so much fun."

"I... I won't." Bronnie tried to remove the clinging shadows from her; they had been poking and petting her as they held on, and seemed to have no desire to stop. "I won't become Green. I won't hurt David."

The four looked at each other, and one of them--she wasn't sure which--made a sad noise.

"I get to use my talent, then?"

"I guess you have to. We'll have to find a new Green somewhere else. It's such a... a... shame."

"What is your talent?" The shadows were moving to the other side of the ruined basement, making sad, clucking noises.

"Blue possesses, Purple is a seer."

"Red does our remembering--Red can even read!"

"Yellow can touch things. We can all touch you, cause you're practically like us. Only it can touch other things, though, and it can kill, if it has to."

"This is so sad! It would have been the most perfect Green for us, and we would have had so much fun with it. I don't like it when there's only four of us. We're supposed to be Five."

"Five shadows, always," Purple mumbled.

Bronnie knelt to the floor. "David. David, come on, wake up." She didn't think she could lift him, if it came to that. She was on the tall side, and she was strong, but... he was just too big.

The blue glow faded from his eyes. "Bronnie? Where are we?"

Bronwen was very relieved. He'd be okay, if they could just get away. "I'll explain later. We have to get out of here."

Yellow gave a shriek. "Blue, you let it go!"

"I was tired." Blue sounded hurt.

"Oh. I'm sorry I yelled."

"That's okay. I still love you."

"I love you, too, Blue."

"Me too! Me too!"

"We love Purple, too."

"And Red!"

"I love you. But... but..."

"Oh, sorry, Yellow. You can use your talent now."

Bronwen was helping David to his feet as Yellow began to elongate, like a spear, its eyes gleaming yellow on either side of its javelin-head. The other three were cheering softly, barely able to hold in their excitement without bubbling over again into how much they loved each other.

Yellow was going to leap at them.

Entry 183

Once in the light and the open air, Bronwen ignored David's hysterical questions, and swiped at a handful of shadow under a tree branch as she passed it. She willed it to reshape itself, and it did, but unbearably slowly. She pulled a wing around to shelter it from the light, and it sped up a little, forming into the shape of small key.

She tossed it away, and it seemed to dissolve in the air. In the dark, she could do such things. In the light, her powers were weaker and slower. There was a certain logic to it.

"What were those things?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

"What are you?"

Bronwen stared at David, and sighed. "Half dragon, like I said. But, well, the other half is... um... I think the phrase is 'demon-tainted human.' I'm not sure what that means."

"You never said you could do that... shadow-weaving... thing."

She shrugged. "I didn't know."