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“What do you mean?”
“A leader needs to have a lot of faith, a lot of belief. Even when things seem bleak, a leader has to believe that there is a way forward. He has to inspire confidence and hope in despairing hearts, and that is something I am incapable of doing. I am far too pragmatic for that. I can’t turn away from what I think is the realistic outcome, even if it does seem devoid of hope. At the moment, for example, it seems as though we’re all doomed. The chances of us defeating Ilvar are small, even with your help. I can’t pretend that I see a way out of this.”
“Oh,” Kadie said in a small voice.
“But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way,” I said hurriedly, hoping that she would not see me as a depressing presence. “It just means that I’m predisposed to look at the reality of a situation and prepare for the worst.”
She walked with her hands clasped behind her back. The wind tugged at her hair and her dress. Her strides were small, and I slowed my pace to match hers. From this vantage point, I could look down upon her. I enjoyed the delicate angle of her nose, the soft swell of her lips, and the gentle curves of her body. There was no part of her that seemed anything less than perfect. It had been a long time since I had opened myself up to the possibility of romance. Was I being a deluded fool for doing so now?
“And how should we prepare for the worst?”
“When the worst is the destruction of the world, I’m not sure what preparation there can be. If what you say about Ilvar is true, then no part of the world will be left untouched.”
“No,” Kadie sighed.
“Perhaps you should have thought twice about leaving. Do you think you will be able to get passage with them if they’re successful?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t go back even if I could. I couldn’t live, not knowing what it cost. I don’t know how the rest of them can. I always thought they were better than this.”
“It’s funny what people can believe when they’re told in the right way. I’m sure none of them would say outright that they would be willing to sacrifice the world for passage back to Drakon, but when someone else can drive them into a frenzy to believe it, then why not? I’m just surprised that Ilvar thinks he can return there. We don’t even know if it’s waiting for us.”
“Would you go back if you had a chance?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I suppose I have always been curious about what it was like. I would like to taste the same air as our ancestors, to soar through the valley of kings, and look down on the crystal sea, gazing at my reflection, snapping up the fish that jump out of the water. And I would like to gaze at the suns and the purple sky, and, perhaps, I would feel at peace. We have long called this place home, but I think we know that it is not really our true home. We can feel it in our blood, at least I can. We will always be interlopers here, but that is better than being dead.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Drakon is in the past. We have to put it behind us, otherwise we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes that our ancestors made.”
“You believe in the tale of war then?” I asked.
“What else could have happened? I don’t know why else we would have been driven away.”
“I’ve always believed it was because we ruined the planet, just as the humans are ruining theirs now,” I said.
“Perhaps both things happened.”
“Perhaps more than those things happened,” I said sadly. “We can never know though, but if Ilvar thinks he can just return to Drakon and have things go back to the way things were then he is gravely mistaken.”
“Maybe you should try telling him that and all this can be averted,” Kadie said. It took me a moment to realize that she was joking. It was good to hear her laugh. We found a mossy area and I sat down. I opened my palm to indicate that she should join me. She smoothed her dress under her legs and curled them underneath her.
“You’re not like what I imagined,” she said, the tone of her voice sounding surprised.
“And what did you imagine?” I asked.
“Have you not heard the stories about you?”
“I can imagine how they would go, but I’d be interested in hearing them from you.”
She blushed, and it was clear that they weren’t going to be complimentary. “Well, obviously I didn’t believe them, and I never spread them myself.”
“Of course,” I said with a knowing smile.
“But people spoke of your kind as cowards. They said that you were the fastest dragons alive because you could always run away from a fight, and people believed that you had died out because you were afraid to engage the humans in any kind of conflict. They joked that you would end up living among them, losing your dragon heritage as you assimilated into their civilization. They even toasted your demise.”
“Charming,” I said dryly.
“Did you ever think about it? Joining the human world?”
I shook my head. “Some of us have in the past. I think they thought it was easier to forget about the people they had been and forge a new identity. I even thought Buck might go that far, although he seemed to hold onto the dragon inside. It’s not something that most of us are interested in though. Our dragons are too important to us. The thing is that there really isn’t much difference between your thunder and ours. We both came here at the same time. We both left Drakon for the same reasons. It’s just that one thunder wasn’t able to settle here and forget about what came before.”
