Chapter 9: A Transylvanian Legend

Having slain anger, one sleeps soundly;Having slain anger, one does not sorrow;The killing of anger,With its poisoned root and honeyed tip:This is the killing the noble ones praise,For having slain that, one does not sorrow. - Buddha, "The Connected Discourses of the Buddha"

Zere’maya woke, looking into Zash’s deep, concerned eyes. “Jaqueline? Am I home?”

“No, dear, it’s Zash, you’re in the caravan, we’re far enough from the city so it’s safe for the rest of us to wake you up. We’re stopped at a beautiful, friendly campsite. Everyone’s breathing easier now.” Said Zash. She watched Zere’maya carefully. Would she react like a Giorgio, still angry, or would she react like a Gypsy woman?

Zere’maya looked around their vardo. Karl was not there. It was early yet; she set out to search for him. She thanked Zash, and slipped out the forge door like a fish sliding out a waterfall.

Like a Gypsy, then. Past is past. That didn’t mean that she would allow herself to be put under again, thought Zash. What a strange creature – sometimes familiar, sometimes not – unpredictable which sort of thinking about the world she would do, and in what situation she would choose which. Probably part of why the outsiders were not permitted to marry into Gypsy lines – one –person, in both groups and in fact made into a third, strange thing.

It doesn't take long to find someone in a gypsy caravan. Karl was playing with/training/enjoying the little pulis. Most every caravan Zere’maya had ever seen had had working dogs among them, and usually either crossbreeds, or hurlers, or pulis. Here there were only pulis, the smartest dogs of all.

Karl had them running across the backs of the horses, springing up, turning all kinds of tricks. These dogs were willful and full of mischief, loving, and very practical dogs. Pulis are dogs that laugh; they are also dogs that learn well from each other. Train an older dog and that dog will give the others an understanding of what to do. Each Puli dog was more like having another man in the tribe, a small, bouncy, cheerful man, made up of many cords, like a soft mop of felted cords.

The cleanliness of gypsy life could easily be seen by the pulis -- even one flea would cause them to scratch away their dread locked beauty.

Karl was sweating, and laughing, and ready to sit down by the time Zere’maya found him.

"'Puli' my hair for me, will you please?" Asked Zere’maya. It had been an ongoing back and forth with them -- Zere’maya's hair broke so easily that in Karl's mind it would be easier for her to have it felted like the dogs. After a lot of convincing Karl had been allowed to have his way. Karl sat down on the grass, spread his legs, and Zere’maya sat down between them. She leaned her head forward slightly and Zere’maya could feel Karl's hands working, rolling and rubbing her hair into tiny, fuzzy strands. They had had endless conversations about how big each strand could be and what Karl could work into them. He had been carrying around a pocketful of wide holed beads, collecting them as they had traveled from town to town together. He also had been carrying around a tin can of dressing, always hopeful, happy to be waiting. He started with the back of her neck, and even this early, up where no one would ever see them, she could feel the cold, slick feeling of the first glass bead.

"You see Zere’maya dear, it's just easier to let hair do what it is going to do." Pssshhhwhaaa, his hands rubbing together making quick work of the job. "You can try hard to do what you want or you can do what your hair wants" Pssssshhhwhaaaa "But with style, my dear, with style!"

"The problem," laughed Zere’maya, "Is it's hard to unlock hair once you've started the project, I'll have to have my head shaved if I want to go back again."

Pssssshhhwaaaaaa "Don't mess me up here, I'm on a roll. Yup, this is going to be good. All the women and girls will come to me and I will give them Puli hair, and they will be free to swing their strands around while they dance, and their beads will sparkle in the firelight, you'll see. And besides, you're the woman who untangles human bodies twisted together. If you can coax one flippery twenty-toed leg into two, why in the world do you worry about untangling hair?" He asked, coaxing her into laughter. They both heard the distant sound of the songs around the campfire, and they sang the song together of the kindness of good Queen of Romania, who loved the gypsies so that she gave each family a house, and land and animals. The song became better still as the verses progressed, and the gypsies sold the land, ate the animals, and lived in the houses only sometimes.

"Let me tell you a story," said Karl. I know lots of dragon stories. I collect them. This isn't my story, just ~a~ story, because the rulers of the land are dragons. I don't know how long I was in the egg. Presumably a very, very long time."

"I wonder if you were a little human baby in there, all alone." said Zere’maya.

"I think humanity comes as a gift from other people, even if I looked human I was a dragon then. I don't think the same now. I especially don't think the same now that I'm with you, Zere’maya." He leaned in, hugged her.

"Well, that's what I'm supposed to be, so it makes sense. I'm being who I am supposed to be even if I seem to have lost my avocation." said Zere’maya. "That's something."

Karl looked at her sternly "Do you want to hear my story or not?" Zere’maya nodded and said "Mmmmmm."

Karl's story.

"Well, in our land before we became ruled by the dragons, but were ruled by people there was a queen who wanted children, but she had been married so many years she was ready to despair. She went to the temple and they rejoiced -- they had just the answer. They gave her two magic ears of sweet corn, right from the inner garden, daubed her with pollen and promised her that the first time she lay with her husband after she ate, she would have beautiful twin babies and her heart would be full. They warned her, though, that the corn had to be roasted in the hearth at home, in the shucks, cooked by her own hands, alone.

The queen hurried home with the corn, which smelled delicious. She walked along, but finally could not stand it any more, she peeled back the corn husks and ate a few of the kernels raw. They were like bubbles of sugar, the most delicious food she had ever tasted. Before she knew what she was doing she had eaten one of the ears of corn leaving nothing but the husk.

Ashamed, she threw the husk into the bushes and took the other home and roasted and ate the other ear.

The temple's magic corn worked; she became pregnant and her pregnancy was easy.

When her time came she gave birth first to a beautiful baby boy, small and skinny but healthy and squalling. The second child born was slender too -- and green, scaly -- a baby dragon encased in a soft, leathery shell. She screamed and threw the monster out of the window. It cried and hung around the castle gate, until the very stones wept in pity. The baby boy wept when the dragon wept and could not be consoled.

The dragon child was a daughter, and her brother adored her and protected her -- under his protection and love the twins grew up strong -- and grew up together. When he went to classes, she came along with him. When he went riding she ran along. When she discovered that her wings could carry her into the air, her brother rode along below her screaming with delight. As they grew, he became the first man to ride a dragon, and the dragon princess loved her brother and would not be parted from him. She may have been a monster, but she was known to be wise, and kind, and loyal beyond the nature of humankind. She could not speak but she could write on a wax slate with her great, pointed tongue, and loved to read as much as she loved to fly. She was her brother's most trusted counselor and though their happiness was of a kind never before known, the brother and sister had known no other life and were content to share their kingdom between each other.

When their parents found out that the human brother wished to share his throne with his monster sister, the queen was distraught. The queen returned to the temple. She and her husband could not love their dragon offspring, and begged the temple for a cure.

"You brought this on yourself," said the oracle. 'There is no cure, she will remain as she is, growing stronger and more powerful and all will fear her -- unless you can find a man brave enough to marry her, willing to do so, who loves her as any man would love his human wife."

Grieving, the queen came home and told the prince and the dragon princess. The dragon princess wept because up to then she had never dreamed that it could be possible that she could be human, and now, presented with such an impossible cure she wailed with despair.

No longer a tiny baby dragon, she kept the townspeople back from the castle with her distress; only those who had known the great beast most closely dared to come inside the circle of bellows and shaking ground, deprived of her content, but not her power.

The prince, angry, went to the temple and cursed the oracle. "First that you have brought us to being, now that you have caused us to despise who we are, I demand that you tell us how to please my sister! Is there no other way? And if so, on the love I feel for her tell me how to heal her broken heart. She sulks and cries and now cannot be happy unless she can be human like the rest of us."

The oracle smiled an ugly smile like a muscle twitch, like drying meat. "It is true -- even a prince may not marry his twin sister. But -- with this talisman you can give your love of your sister to any man who will willingly marry her as she is now and allow you free her."

The prince took the talisman and looked him in the eyes. There was hatred there, deep and thick and cold. "Your gifts have been evil and incomplete. Tell me what else is needed for this to be done properly or I swear by my throne that I will level your temple and drive your people from our lands, and let your Goddess do as she likes to me, I lay my life back to her. Your Goddess gave me to my mother -- so let her take me as a thing of her own creation!"

The ground shook and the altar trembled. The oracle looked to his Goddess and fear plunged into his heart. He gave the young prince a knife and whispered instructions into his ear.

The man nodded, and left the temple.

The young man was as small and insignificant a man as his sister was huge and magnificent, but his heart was gentle and warm. He had no lack of friends, even friends as good as this. He traveled to each of his most beloved friends and, in love and trust of the prince one friend agreed to marry the dragon princess. He worried, but even granted his beloved friend entrance into their wedding chamber, hiding in the wardrobe.

The bride towered over her small brother, eyes tightened in confusion. "I cannot marry you my brother."

"I love you, my sister, my spouse, and only by my hand may you be freed. I have searched long for your wedding gift and your husband holds your husk in his hands. As he peels away the layers one by one, I who have always loved you, will prepare you for him. Close your eyes and trust in my love, my sister, my spouse!"

The man in the wardrobe peeled off a leaf and called out. The prince took out the dagger and cut into the dragon, peeling off a great, horny layer of dragon skin. Again and again the man peeled, the prince cut, and the dragon became smaller and smaller.

At the last leaf the bridegroom begged to be released from the wardrobe. He would not fear; he wanted to be there to see his princess, the sister of his beloved friend, the being he had known in monster form. The prince warned him that he must not interfere, and the bridegroom came out.

He gasped in horror as he peeled off the final corn skin. The princess was strong, and beautiful, still marked with scales here and there but the bridegroom fell in love with his princess, loving her. The talisman the temple gave burned him -- he could not bear the weight of his double love, so ripped off the amulet and stomped on it. Realizing his error the bridegroom screamed as the princess knelt before her brother, trembling. He ran to her side to hold her as the prince, once again filled with his love for his sister, made the final plunge, burying the dagger in her neck to the hilt. The bridegroom wept and held her body while the prince peeled off the final dragon skin.

Under the final skin was a woman with hair like corn silk, with skin as smooth and sweet and tender as corn in the milk, the color of the red sweet corn from which her magic came.

The brother and sister embraced as children do, for the first and last time, wetting each others' skin with their tears until the bridegroom dried them both and gently guided his beloved friend and lord out.

The dragon princess showed herself on the balcony with her bridegroom in front of all the people, and those whom had turned down the begging of her brother were as sincerely sorry as human beings can be.

Her husband loved her as a man should love his wife, and his wedding gift to her besides what he had done were her dragon skins, kept safe in the wardrobe, protected from all harm. She could be dragon or woman as she chose, ride the sky with her brother as she desired, and he would stay by her side for all of her days.

Their days were filled with tenderness and love, and all of our dragonkind count their descent from the dragon princess, her twin, and her bridegroom".

Zere’maya looked to Karl with wonder. "That's a beautiful story."
"Thank you," said Karl. "I wonder if it's true, like they say -- that the dragons used to be humans until magic from the temple interfered."

Zere’maya considered that. "A world where Magic works is like having a world where the rules of nature are debatable. Some can be bent, others can be broken. With words, you can change how everything works, and the better you can use words, the further you can change the rules. I have never been in a world where one species can change into another. It would take a massively powerful, very dangerous spell and a user -- most likely a whole collection of users -- of enormous power even on a world where magic flows with ease. Here? I don't see it. It's --- possible. I guess."

"Then in a world where the rules can't be rewritten?" asked Karl. Zere’maya shook her head. 'It's like having a locked room where all the dangerous things are when you are a child. It means that -- the people aren't ready to help with creation enough to make the rules we live by. It's reality, but I try to unlock the locked doors, and prevent doors from being locked. Most of the time I remove the unsafe rule rewriters. Sometimes the people who try to help lose. But whether we can change them or not, the rules are always behind everything. "In the beginning there was the Word and the word was God".

"Why did God make me a dragon who can't be?", asked Karl. Zere’maya shook her head. "Maybe God had a hand with the rules that made you, just like the queen had a hand with having her babies."

They had not noticed one of the young boys sitting next to them.

'I know that you were supposed to be what you are.", he said with finality. "You two are our little monsters. One misbegotten undead vampire woman and one dragon."

Another little girl came up, eyes shining. "Two little monsters sitting in the breeze, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!"
"We want you to be with us forever-and-ever!” the young girl said, dancing around. Zere’maya smiled. "No such thing as alone in caravan, of course."