Divinitas

036 - The Dragon\'s Curse

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\"My Father is a high school music teacher. I attended the school he taught at before coming here. He was the one who taught me music, and I\'m quite competent with the piano and writing my own music. He had dark blond hair and hazel eyes. The one word I would describe him as is… normal. We weren\'t very close, but we got along well… And we shared the love for music.

\"My Mother…\" Draco breathed, smiling distantly. \"My Mother was… very different. She had the same physical attributes as I do. Raven hair and sapphire eyes. And… She was anything but normal. To be honest, I can\'t really understand how she and my Father came together.

\"Ever since I can remember, she and I always understood each other. She was my confident and I hers. She didn\'t really treat me like a child, but rather as a very close friend. She told me things about herself that even my Father did not know. The most important was that she had the gift of seeing the future.

\"It wasn\'t fine tuned, and she could never command it. But sometimes she would see flashes. And they were always accurate.

\"There was one thing about my Mother that always bothered me, and which still does, even though my chances for asking her have long passed. Sometimes she would look at me. Look beyond me. Like she was looking at a self within me I could not see or even begin to comprehend. Her eyes would always be so sad, on the verge of crying. I could never understand why.\"

Draco paused and looked around at his captivated audience. He had to smile just a little at how closely they listened to him. Even Ari and Aether.

\"Then about two years ago, this school sent me their scholarship offer. When I showed it to my mother, she looked at it and said with a tender smile that I should defer it and travel with her and my Father around the world for one year first. When I asked her why, she said almost cryptically, \'One should always see the world before following his destiny.\'

\"I didn\'t understand what she meant by that then. Having come here though, it made sense. Bec my my destiny is here.\"

At this point, Draco paused and looked directly at Aether, who only stared back at the sapphire eyed boy with a concealed violet gaze.

\"In any case… Both my Father and I took the year off from school. We travelled all around the world, visited the well known tourist destinations as well as those that are more remote. It was in this year that I learnt about toasting marshmallows,\" he revealed with a smile and glance at Phoenix.

\"There was one night, when we were camping out in the wilderness, very much like this, and toasting marshmallows over our fire, that I asked would it be alright if I rejected the scholarship altogether. I asked this because I was very content with my life and myself just then. My most precious memories are with my family, and that night, the last thing I wanted was to leave them to go to a boarding school.

\"I was very surprised when my Mother said no.

\"I had expected she would say \'Do what you believe you need to do,\' as this is what she has always told me whenever I have asked her questions of this nature before. But this time, she said \'No.\'

\"She told me, \'we can never run away from our destinies, and your\'s has been waiting for a very, very long time.\' She just smiled comfortingly at me when I looked back at her uncomprehending, and tucked a few loose strands of my hair back behind my ear in a motherly fashion. \'When you go to the School of Genesis, you will find what you\'ve always been searching for.\' Of course, this just made me more confused. I wasn\'t searching for anything as far as I was aware of. As I said before… I was rather content with my life as it was just then.\" The raven hair boy gave a small shrug of his shoulders and smiled sadly.

\"But I think she knew, even after saying those things to me, I had no intention of coming here. We never talked about it again after that.

\"The last place we stayed at before the end of our \'tour of the world\' was at a lakeside resort. It was one of those lakes that in calm weather looked like a perfect mirror set into the ground. This one reflected the mountains beyond it and the sky above it perfectly.

\"Our last night there… Still seems a dream to me. It didn\'t seem real. My Mother came into my room to say goodnight, which in itself was nothing unusual. She always did, for as long as I can remember. But on this night, she said one phrase I have never heard spoken from her mouth before.

\"She said, \'If you lose your dreams everything is over,\' just before she closed the door with a smile.

\"Perhaps if I had not been so happy then, I might have questioned what she said, and the way in which she said it. But by then, I was on the verge of sleep and I was too naive and trustful of her to notice anything wrong.

\"That night, I dreamed. It wasn\'t like any of the dreams I\'ve had before, and the realism of it was almost frightening to me, despite the fact I was unconscious. The dream was of the lake along side which we slept. The full moon was just rising over the mountains, the light and angle was just right to form a perfect Staircase to the Moon across the water, right to the resort.

\"I was standing on the shore of the lake, right upon where the Staircase to the Moon touched the solid ground. And out in the middle of the lake, walking on the water along the path of light, was my Mother.

\"I think I called out to her, only there was no sound. Yet she turned around and smiled at me, and then lifted her arm and pointed towards the moon. She spoke then, and despite the distance that separated us, I heard the words as if she had whispered them into my ear.

\" \'Take you place in Heaven. Discard your mortality and your ties to humanity, and take your place in Heaven. Your white haired angel awaits you.\' \" Draco stopped here and laughed softly. \"It\'s strange for her… Even a hallucination of her, to say anything about Heaven or angels. She was never religious, and I don\'t think she liked the concept of one omnipotent God. Actually, my entire family, and myself included, was atheistic. Both my Mother and I were more interested in the Ancient Gods, Myths and Legends.

\"I can laugh about it now… But back then, when I heard those words in my dream, I felt they were very important. I felt they would define my destiny. Yet in analysing them, they make no sense even with my current knowledge. Certainly none in reference to what I know about myself and my destiny. But I\'m wandering off the track, aren\'t I?

\"When those words passed through me, the water around her shimmered and exploded upwards in great spikes that reached high into the night sky. Everything was glowing a brilliant blue, the light seeming to come from the water itself. I think I tried to reach out to her. I know I had a look of shock and horror on my face. But I couldn\'t step into the water. I just couldn\'t. All I could do was watch.

\"A dragon formed from the water, a great glowing deep blue beast, and prowled around above the lake, circling the unmoving form of my Mother. I stared at it in awe, and at one point, the dragon looked at me and nodded its great head before beginning to move vertically upwards.

\"It reached the apex of its path and doubled back on itself, falling from the sky like a great waterfall. It wasn\'t until it was crashing down upon my Mother that I knew what the beast had meant to do… It swallowed my Mother with a great thunderous splash.\"

Draloselosed his eyes, clasping his hand together between his knees. \"That was a dream…\" he whispered, more to himself than as a statement to the others. \"A dream… But it had looked and felt so real. I had felt the spray of water from the dragon\'s splash hit my bare skin and drench my clothing. Its coldness, and the way it formed rivulets to run down my arms and legs.\" The ebony haired boy forced a smile to appear on his lips and opened his dark blue eyes again.

\"I woke up then. And it was morning. Everything was warm and comfortable. The sunlight was streaming in through the window and glittering off the lake. Of course, after the initial shock, I discarded the whole dream sequence. There were more important things to do that morning, since we had to leave straight after breakfast to catch the flight back home.\"

Soft laughter escaped from Draco\'s lips as he let his hand drift upwards to shadow his sapphire eyes, hiding them from view. \"I think I thought I was still dreaming… When I heard the first words my Father said to me.

\"He was sitting alone in the small lounge room of our suite. And I remember thinking that his face was very drawn and pale. There was a look of disbelief in his demeanour. Of one who could not accept the facts.

\" \'Your Mother is dead.\'

\"Those were the first words he said to me when his glazed eyes looked up and saw me standing in the doorway to my room.\"

The sapphire eyes were averted from the gazes that watched him, a bitter smile twisting the usually serene lips. No one said anything. Too dumbstruck perhaps, or simply because there was nothing to say, and the tale yet to be concluded.

\"You would think that people would know to be more discreet when disclosing such sensitive information. But my Father said it just like that. No warning. Just that she was simply dead.

\"My Father didn\'t speak to me for a long time after those four initial words. I found out from the police that my Mother had drowned in the lake… You can see why I thought I was still dreaming.

\"They said it was an accident. That she had taken a row boat out by herself without wearing a lifejacket. The boat had then capsized, and without the lifejacket, her clothing had weighed her down and drowned her.

\"Even at her funeral, her death did not seem real to me. I was still walking in a dream, and though I kept on telling myself this was reality, and my Mother was dead… It didn\'t seem real.

\"What finally woke me from that dream was also the deciding factor in my coming here. After my Father had recovered himself from his break down over losing my Mother, he started dating othomenomen immediately… He started doing this within two months of the funeral.

\"Seeing my Father do this… I realised my Mother was truly gone. And if she was not, then it would be better for her to be than see my Father lose himself.

\"That is why I came here. Not so much because of what my Mother said, regarding my destiny, but because I couldn\'t stand to be near my old home and Father without my Mother there. Because it seemed alien and cold, and because I too wanted a fresh start.

\"When I look back at it… The dream and the reality that followed it… I have to wonder if the dream was a premonition. Though I have never had any hint of my Mother\'s gift, it seems the only likely explanation… The link between the dream and my Mother\'s death.\" Draco looked up at the group finally, his sapphire eyes glazed, sealing in the sadness and the tears. A pale smile masked his features. \"Well, that is the story of my past. I\'ve never shared it with anyone until now.\"

Draco\'s audience remained silent, unwilling to speak or move.

The smile on Draco\'s lips widened a touch. \"Perhaps I should have warned you it would have a sad ending? But they say a good story teller never reveals the ending until he reaches it.\" The tall raven haired boy stood up and straightened his clothing. \"It\'s getting late. It would be best if we turned in now. We have to reach the checking point tomorrow if we\'re to make it back to school within the three day time limit.\"

Aether stood up, giving a nod in agreement. \"Let\'s go to bed, shall we, Phoenix?\" the golden haired boy asked, pulling Phoenix to his feet without waiting for an affirmative.

Phoenix let himself be moved by Aether, finding it hard to tear his eyes away from Draco. Somehow… He felt very angry. Hearing the story of Draco\'s past made him very, very angry. It was all he could to keep himself from trembling. His clenched fists were proof of his immense silent rage. Something he could not quite explain, even to himself.

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