Chapter 32: Drifting on Clouds of Smoke

Sylph accompanied Nahana down the street and continued to ignore the ever-increasing attention they attracted. She should love this like she enjoyed the roaring crowd after correcting a storyteller, until the asparagus guy incident, of course. Instead, she felt exposed under all their gazes, as though they all judged her for how she walked and existed next to her mother.

It was simple to guess where Nahana lived. The palace right in front of them stretched three stories high and several houses wide. Like everything else, sandstone formed the base, but all the carved details and winding columns made you forget that this could just have been a square pile of bricks in a less capable architect’s hands. Sylph peeked into the foyer through the gate. It alone had space for twenty dragons.

The Metia guard opened the gate. “Welcome to my humble home,” Nahana said and gestured Sylph to head inside. “And now, your humble home, too.”

Humble was an understatement, pompous got close. A gigantic mosaic of a golden Sol reaching for the sun inlaid in the floor made sure of that. Only the finest wood, Sylph guessed, because it looked old but shiny, was used to construct the heavy set furniture surrounding a closed fireplace in the back. The foyer should impress visitors, the rest would look far less imposing and decadent, she hoped, otherwise she would worry about scratching tiles with every step she took. A swift glance at the floor beneath Nahana revealed she had all claws trimmed to be sharp, so scratching things should be no concern to Sylph.

Among all the splendor, one thing stood out. The doors and hallways leading deeper had all been widened and broke the otherwise perfectly crafted aesthetic. This palace had been designed for humans originally. Nahana shaped it to her own liking after taking over.

Sylph followed her mother up a winding staircase on the left. It opened to a large, carpeted hallway with numerous doors that ended on a large balcony. Sylph peeked over the thin, stomach high railing separating them from the two-story drop into the massive, bowl-shaped arena. Thousands of empty seats looked at the pit of sand in the middle. She recognized the familiar black spots of dried blood mixed with sand and the entrance gates for various contestants. Her mother had her very own arena at the back of her house. Veria would love it. Thousands of eyes staring down at her in the sand, trying her best against a capable opponent and snatching victory for herself. Somehow that thought set her dragonheart ablaze in anticipation, while walking and being stared at made her wish to hide. “This is amazing.” She imagined the fights by studying the signs of a struggle in the sand and something odd caught her attention; a thin but deep cut that stretched all over the walls and some tribunes. It looked as though someone had pressed a hot knife into butter. Judging by the large mats and size of all seats, perhaps it had been the strain of so many dragons instead of humans that cracked the stone.

“Judging by your stature, I should have guessed that dueling is a pastime of yours. Please, lay down.” While Sylph had surveyed the arena, Nahana had settled down on a large, oblong lounge with a perfect view of the spectacles below. The deep-red velvet cover flowed much like her wings and seemingly connected where they met. She pointed at another, slightly smaller and less impressive lounge to her left.

Sylph hopped up and laid down sideways, hind legs crossed in a dignified manner and front propped up; the same position as her mother. A feat more uncomfortable than it looked. Her legs went numb and her back protested until she turned to lie flat on her stomach instead. The silk below felt as smooth as a mirror. Her claws could not pierce the cloth. It snuggled up along the edges of the sharp tip like water.

A Sol with scales like trodden sand hurried down the corridor, the handle of a basket filled with fruit between his teeth. He placed it down on the table between them. Bananas, a melon and some berries, Sylph did not recognize the colorful rest at all. Her stomach however, groaned at the sight.

“We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?” Nahana smiled and picked up a large red fruit studded with pimples. “Suit yourself. Some fruits even taste like something.”

Sylph started at the beginning. Her time as a slave or pet in Linz, Void’s castle and what little she remembered of the war. Between parts of her monologue, she picked the same fruits Nahana picked, if only for the reason to figure out how you ate them, and nipped on some sweet wine.

“Veria?” Nahana’s head perked up as Sylph’s tale reached the end of the war and she had neared the bottom of her rather large bowl of wine as well. The hot numbness of alcohol spread out from her stomach. “You know her?”

Nahana nodded after a second and peeled a small brown and furry fruit. Kiwi, as Sylph remembered, although peeling them was new to her. “Well, I guess everyone knows at this point. But my version is right, no silly nonsense that Dalian married my mot-” The sentence got stuck, and she hiccuped. Veria was her mother, as was Oasis. But, now also Nahana. She was her genuine mother, a mother she had known for about two hours now. Instead of facing and solving the issue, she formed all sentences in a way that left out the word.

Nahana’s tail reached out for hers, but Sylph pulled away. “Your life has been filled with struggles. Struggles I should have been there for. I am sorry.”

While Sylph’s initial impression of Nahana had been a tad suspicious, how she acted now was how it was supposed to be. Perhaps being in privacy helped. While she kept her posture, the ruler emanating from every scale had calmed down until another servant brought a thing. Another hour later, a brown Sol brought another bowl filled with what looked like smoking coals. He placed it down next to the never emptying mountain of fruit. The earthy smell of a forest on fire entered her nose. It was kinda endearing, and she brought her face closer.

“Do be careful with that.” Nahana gently but firmly pushed Sylph’s head away by her horns. “Its effects are quite strong if you never caught a whiff of Smoke before.” She herself inhaled the swirling plumes coming off the burning substance directly, held it inside for a second and blew out the smoke through her nostrils.

Sylph remembered that word. Smoke was a drug, and Sylph would never use those. But her mother just inhaled several lungs full, so how bad could a small whiff be? She brought her nose closer, drawn in by the odors of sweetened fire, and cautiously sniffed the tendrils. The smell intensified, like shoving a burning flower up her nose all the way into her brain. The silk on her lounge dragged her backwards as though her body had distanced itself from her consciousness.

She broke out into snorting laughter at the sight of the curtains to the side both curving towards her. Nahana pulled the bowl away as she reached for it again. “Perhaps you should stick to wine for now. Let’s continue talking.” Her self snapped back into her body. Perhaps her mother was right.

Nahana’s face twisted the more Sylph talked about the recent events in Prina, masterfully skirting around the use of her ability to kill Tanno. Perhaps she already knew that Sylph did kill Tanno, but she did not push the point. Elliot died via claws in her tale. While she grew less suspicious about Nahana as time went on, her ability was a most dangerous weapon when unknown. And if Nahana was a pathwalker like expected, she should show Sylph first.

Hours went by, wine kept flowing and smoke kept filling the air. Their conversation had turned to things more pleasant than her past. Fighting, food, and music. Sylph had never quite gotten into music, and none of the tavern songs she knew prompted more than a disappointed sigh from her mother. Instead, she broke into song herself, a symphonic melody that melted in Sylph’s ears like butter on a wyvern wing. Another Aer accompanied Nahana’s melody on a harp. As far as Sylph was aware, they had appeared out of nothing with that harp thrice their size and when she spun around to watch; the world kept spinning for several hundred degrees more.

She vaguely recalled closing her eyes for a second to listen and when she opened them, they were gone, as was the bowl of fruit and large pitcher of sweet wine. “They will show you to your room now,” Nahana said. Two guards, small Metia, Metiasis instead of full Metia, had to flank her on both sides since the ground did not behave as it should have. It kept changing directions against her will.

After crossing the endless hallway of shifting carpet, the guards opened a door. She stumbled into the sizable room and only had eyes for the large and comfortable looking nest in the middle. The haze of smoke clinging to her mind made it look even more appealing with its wiggling blankets promising restful slumber.

She spotted Brandon standing to the side and giggled. “Hi.” He gave a quick wave back. Her mother said he was fine in the room and he was. Sylph fell face first into the nest and curled up, sinking deep into the soft feathers. “My mother is- large.” The words were aimed at Brandon, but he did not answer, perhaps due to the fact that he turned into a rack of bed clothes. The rack was a good listener, though. “It feels weird. Everything does. She is, like, also my mother, but I am not sure if I like that. We talked about things.” Her thoughts tumbled all over one another and made it to the front of her mouth as she drifted into dreamland in no particular order. “You know, I really like bananas. And wine, so much wine. I had so much wine.” She jolted awake with a sharp hiss as she became acutely aware of the rather large and urgently uncomfortable amount of liquid in her body. Her ability tried to help, but the balance was out of wack and fuzzier than a kiwi. A sickly warmth spread up her throat. “So, so much wine. My magic doesn’t want to right now.” She jumped out of bed, hit it sideways and struggled to get to her feet. “Be right back. The great nature is calling for me and my stomach’s painful.” The rack answered with silence.

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She burst through the door several minutes later. “I feel great now.” Sylph wiped her mouth of some remnant spit and nodded to the rack. The bunched bed clothes did nothing. “Hate throwing up. Anyway, the guards are so nice. And there is like, so much water in this desert. I like it here, ‘ts nice. They would not let me go look for actual, not cloth Brandon though. They said Nahana’s orders. Can you believe that?” She hiccuped and jumped into the soft feathers. Free of any unpleasant nuisances and tired as she could be, the soft mattress sucked her in like quicksand. “Good night.”