Zephyr Dorsey

“Dragons in the Sky” from Rvwaa: The Rise of Mother Goose

Reporter Theece Erstahkay sat on a low stool inside the More Equal, a cup of nectar ringed by ter thin-fingered hands, the drink’s brown froth tickling the nostrils of ter long, sensitive nose.  Theece’s barstool was so low that ter pointy elbows, resting atop the bar, sat at the level of ter thin shoulders.  Ter orangish gold hair, cut in the bowlcut required for all hominids in Rvwaa, was beginning to feel slightly askew, as if ter brain had started to melt and ter scalp was sliding toward one of ter pointy ears. 

Theece was the only young Elf at the bar.  Actually, tee was the only Elf in the whole place.  In point of fact, tee was the only customer in the establishment at all, which was a little odd, but perhaps it was a holiday tee had forgotten-about.  Since the Advent of the Enlightened, the number of work-holidays had been steadily increasing.

Theece, like any non-ambitious news-reporter cynical beyond ter years, enjoyed a cup of nectar now and again, and sometimes again and again.  Ter favorite bar was the More Equal, mostly because the More Equal was the only bar in town, but also because tee liked the owner, Mancy, a large and beefy Pixie with the most adorable little non-working pink wings.  Being a Pixie meant that Mancy was a certain type of Fairfolk — specifically, the type of Fairfolk who could not fly.  No matter how hard tee tried.  Just something off with the wings. 

Theece stared down into the half-empty wooden cup in ter hands.  A few bite marks dotted one side of its rim, likely left by the small but sharp teeth of some overwrought Fairfolk trying unsuccessfully to drink-away ter Fairy angst.  Theece preferred to sink ter teeth into sweetcakes when tee got depressed, but hey, whatever gets you through. 

The Elf sat as straight-backed as possible, attempting to facilitate via gravity the burning percolation of the libation currently corkscrewing its way down through ter interior pipage.  Tee swirled ter tongue in ter narrow mouth and frowned.  The sensation left by the thick nectar on ter discerning Elfish tongue was something between road-tar and pond-scum.

Tee looked toward the heavy front door of the bar.  Tee knew that the sun had begun its decline by now and tee would need to be heading-over to the news-service building where Editor Muckl Raekr would be busily setting-up the bollo-leaf printing station.  Theece had no idea how the old Fairfolk stayed so cheerful about a job tee had been doing for longer than Theece had been alive, although tee suspected the fumes from the printing press may have had something to do with it.

Theece downed the rest of the nectar in ter cup and spit-out the grounds.  Funny, tee didn’t remember nectar having grounds.  Tee quickly set down the cup and tried not to think about muckrat feces.  Darn!  There it was.  Tee had just thought about muckrat feces.  Darn it!  Tee had just done it again.  Tee was finding it very difficult to remind ter self not to think about muckrat feces without thinking about muckrat feces.

Feeling nauseous now, Theece also began to hear voices inside ter head.  Not just voices, but hoots and hollers.  As if there was a party going-on inside ter body, and tee wasn’t invited.

Theece looked suspiciously at the wooden, bite-marked cup sitting not far beneath ter pale-rose colored nose.  Wait a minute…  Are those teethmarks mine?  How long have I been here?  How many nectars exactly have I had?  And why is there no one else in the bar?  What bar am I even in?

Theece shook ter head, which only seemed to make the nausea worse and the voices louder. 

Get a hold of yourself!  Everything is fine, and everyone is beautiful.  Isn’t that somewhere in Enlightened doctrine?  If not, it bloody well should be.  It’s quite reassuring. 

Theece took a deep breath.  Tee was feeling a little better.  Then tee heard the voices again.  Ecstatic shouts, rather.  Tee could not understand why some parts of ter self could sound so happy, while other parts were so sad. 

Something on the bar just under ter nose caught ter attention.  It was the cup.  It was beginning to tilt-over.  Actually, the whole bartop was beginning to lean to one side. 

A strong hand caught Theece by the shoulder just before tee tilted off the Fairy stool, and straightened tee up.

“Pretty strong batch this time, eh?” said Mancy, leaving Theece’s side and going behind the bar, carrying a keg over ter wide shoulder as if it were a loaf of kettlecorn bread.  Beneath the keg, the small orange, black-spotted wings swayed uselessly, no-where near the size required to lift the barkeep’s large frame. 

Mancy set the full keg on the reinforced countertop running along the wall and slid it back a handspan from the front edge of the shelf, making sure to forward-face the tap.  Tee turned and looked at Theece, wiping ter blond bowlcut away from the sides of ter pale face with both hands, ter permanently droopy lids half-veiling ter green, whiteless eyes. 

“You got the dregs in that cup, comrade,” said Mancy.  “The nectar’s always more powerful at the bottom.  But no extra charge for friends.” 

Mancy wiped a smudge-mark away from the light-blue, beltless smock which hung from ter expansive shoulders straight down to ter wide calves.

“Oh,” said Theece, ter dark-blue eyes twitching right and left over the rim of ter cup.  “Thanks.” 

Dreg-drink, is it?, tee thought.  Perfect.  Dreg-drink is exactly the proper libation for washing down my life right now.  In the last few decadays, I have ruined my career, gotten my boss beaten-up by a gang of thugs, accidentally turned an anti-Enlightened terrorist into a folk hero, and completely forgot about “all-you-can-eat-and-keep-down” day at the roadhouse.  It just ain’t been my year.  Again. 

Theece wasn’t sure whose years they were that tee kept accumulating, but tee wished that whoever they belonged-to would come and take them back and stop leaving such stinking, steaming piles of days lying-around for other people to step-in.    

“Reckon where everyone is?” asked Mancy.

“Shh!” said Theece.  Tee was hearing voices again.  Whatever they were doing inside ter head, they were having a blast.

Mancy crossed ter thick arms and narrowed ter all-green eyes until the drooping upper-lids almost met the lower ones.  Tee stared a warning question at the Elfish reporter, the question being something like, “Perhaps you’d care to rephrase that?  Unless, that is, you want me to introduce one side of your face to the other?”

Normally, such a look of menace aimed directly at Theece from someone as big and tough-looking as Mancy would have caused the anxious Elf to drop a few spots before running home for a change of trousers.  But because Theece was preoccupied with the voices — not to mention drunk as maeterfly drowning in a pitcher of nectar — tee remained unaware of the harsh look, and blithely showed Mancy ter pale-rose colored palm and stood-up from the Fairfolk-perching stool tee had been sitting-on.

Even standing, the golden-haired Elf was still towered-over by the huge Pixie. 

Theece did not bother attempting to straighten-out ter dark-brown tunic, which was several days past being wrinkled.  The coarse overshirt hung down over much of the length of ter light-brown knee-length trousers and covered the writing-slats Theece kept tucked into the back of ter waistband.

The young Elf detected sounds coming from just outside the tavern.  Maybe the voices weren’t coming from inside ter head after all!  At least, not all of them.

Tee began moving toward the door, frustrated somewhat by the room’s sudden decision to start spinning.

“What’s up, comrade?” asked Mancy, coming around the bar.  “Those pointy ears of yours hear something outside?  Maybe we should go check it out.” 

Mancy was accustomed to dealing with nectar-nips, and tee had found that it was best to help those who were a bit sidewise to find their way outside before anything that they had recently put down decided to come back up again.

Theece grabbed the front door’s metal handle, worn smooth by years of passing patrons, and pulled.  A cacophony of screams and bangs and violent splinterings accosted ter ultra-perceptive ears.  Tee saw large shadows passing over the streets and buildings, and looked up to see dark forms moving across the purple sky above.

“Dragons!” tee exclaimed, although the syllables emerged only as a whisper.

Theece stepped into the street.  The dragons above were merely circling at the moment, not diving.  Perplexingly, the people in the street seemed little concerned with the flying death-deliverers above.  Hominids of all types — from Elfs to Centaurs to Maevas to hominidian sub-types so rare in some countries that they were considered merely mythological — were running around, their arms full of clothing or foodstuffs or other merchandise.  Not until tee noticed the freshy vandalized storefronts did Theece realize that tee was witnessing a mass looting.

Trying ter best to avoid the swift, crowd-startled movements of the city’s large population of stray animals, Theece began walking deeper into the mayhem.  One of the first things tee noticed, besides all the swag-mad looters, was that several individuals wearing the medallions of Neighborhood Arbitrators were nailing objects to the fronts of some of the businesses.  Soon after that, tee saw that the stores being pilfered were having their inventories placed on the street, not by looters, but by government agents wearing the identifying bracelets of Scarlet Agents. 

As stunning as all this was, Theece was more stunned when tee was almost knocked to the ground by a short but stocky figure wearing a purple kilt and a wide-brimmed purple hat.  Looking down as the hat tilted back, Theece perceived the squarish face of a Leprechaun. 

“Mikka?” said the Elf. 

“Me predicted this,” said  Mikka excitedly.  “Me predicted this.”

“Predicted what?” said Theece, “A bunch of Rvwaains running around like idiots?  I could have predicted that.”

“No, no comrade.  This be the government-crackdown me predicted via the derivative function of the repressive-State model combined with an ignorance-of-history multiplier — filtered through a moronic oscillator, of course.”

“Of course,” said Theece.  “But, uhm… what’s happening here?”  

Mikka stared up at the reporter a moment, as if trying to decipher what tee had asked.  Then suddenly, ter brown eyes lit-up beneath ter red brows. 

“Ah!” tee said.  “This.”  Mikka, with some difficulty, opened-up the large book tee was carrying, resting its base upon ter abdomen and its spine upon one of ter short forearms.  With ter free hand, tee flipped quickly through the pages.  After a few trices tee poked a stubby finger at a page full of scribbles.  “Here!  Government leader incites mob violence,” tee read.  “Missed by a wee two days, me did!”  Tee then slammed the book shut and held it again tightly to ter breast. 

Theece remained confused.

Mikka stuck one of ter dirty fingers way too far into ter squarish mouth and pulled it back out slimed with Leprechaun saliva and held it aloft.  Theece grimaced, thankful that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. 

“Sorry, comrade, the weather be changin’,” said Mikka, hugging ter book.  “Must factor that in.”

Ter quick Leprechaun strides quickly carried Mikka to the next intersection, where Theece watched tee squat down and feel the dirt between ter fingers and, with a satisfied look, make a note in ter book — all the while oblivious to the other hominids, many twice ter size, tramping past tee on all sides. 

Theece pulled-out ter writing-slats.  Tee knew that, as a reporter, tee should start taking notes and attempting to interview a few people.  And tee had questions already forming.  Questions such as, why was the government facilitating the looting?  And, what did Mikka mean when tee said that a government leader had incited mob violence?  And, why is the roadhouse the only restaurant offering all-you-can-eat buffets? 

Ah, here’s help, thought Theece when tee saw Skinner the go-cart driver pull-up.  Skinner was also a Leprechaun, but a good bit older than Mikka.  Ter clothes were always rumpled and dust-covered, and ter red bowlcut was always to be found in various stages of knottiness, depending up what time of day you caught tee and how badly the wind was blowing. 

“Good health, Skinner,” said Theece, raising a hand as the six blue-skinned hominids pulling the cart stopped and put their hands to their knees and bent over to catch their breaths and relax their backs. 

“Good health, Comrade Theece,” responded Skinner from the driver’s bench of the open cart, the reins slack in ter hands.  Tee was hunched forward, elbows on ter thighs.  Skinner made a decent living transporting people over the main island in ter hominid-drawn go-cart, although at the moment, the wagon behind tee was empty.   

“What’s happening here?” asked Theece.

“The Arbies be nailin’ crystal stakes into the doorframes of businesses owned by Oppressors.”

“Why are they doing that?”

“The stakes show the Scarlet Bureau which inventories to seize.”

“So, Medusa’s shutting down Oppressor businesses?”

“That be about the size of it, aye.”

“Well… that should do wonders for the economy,” mumbled Theece as tee made notes on one of ter slats.

“What economy?” asked Skinner.  Tee gave ter reins a flick, and the pullers straightened-up in their harnesses.  “Well, me best be gettin’-on.  Me pullers be grumblin’ for lunch.”

“Yeah,” said one of the harnessed blue-skinned Sylvans turning toward the wagon.  “And something hot today, Skinner.  Not that cold porridge muck again.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Skinner, “you be gettin’ what’s comin’ to ya, Robbin, that be for certain.”

The old Leprechaun struck the gong at the front of ter cart, and the pullers began towing the cart forward. 

“Good fortune, comrade,” called Skinner.  “See ya, soon, if’n ye don’t run-off afore me return.”

“Good fortune.  I’ll be here,” returned Theece.

At that moment, Theece’s sharp sense of smell detected the acrid aroma of smoke.  Looking for its source, tee discerned a dark gray cloud billowing-up from across the street.  Seeking the source of the cloud, tee followed the smoke and found ter self staring down a narrow alley running between two retail stores, both of which were currently being gutted to their floorboards by ecstatic looters. 

In the alley was a young Fairfolk covered in black soot, kneeling behind a steaming cauldron and ladling a gleaming liquid from the cauldron into a small earthenware jar.  Tee had drawn over tee the cloak of the Fairfolk, a kind of hooded overcoat that provided protection from the elements while leaving their Fairy wings uncovered and free to move.  Despite the cloak’s drawn hood, when the young face turned toward Theece, tee recognized the Fairfolk easily.  It was ter own editor’s Needer, Jay-Lee Jonnr, a Fairfolk a few years younger than ter self.  Jay-Lee was fresh out of Finishing School and had obtained a job with ter Feeder’s major competitor, the Social Posts.   

“What do you have there, Jay-Lee?” Theece asked, attempting to sound as non-worried as possible.  “You wouldn’t be messing-around with any Urth Magic, would ya?”

“Propaganda of the deed,” Jay-Lee answered sweetly, ter sooty face aglow with delight.

Theece was considering investigating closer when Jay-Lee flapped ter white and pale-blue wings and flew past the orange-haired Elf and out of the alley and around the corner, the narrow earthenware jar in ter pale hand.  

Theece trailed after the young Fairfolk, finding tee hovering just off the street in front of one of the retail stores.  There, Jay-Lee raised the corked jar over ter head and tossed it forward.  Theece watched the jar arc through the air and fly through a storefront window pretty as you please.  The next moment, flames began to rise inside the store. 

Cute little Jay-Lee Jonnr had just committed arson! 

The Fairfolk giggled endearingly and flew back toward the alley and ter cauldron.

Theece felt ter self quickly sobering-up — but apparently not as much as tee thought.  When tee tried to chase Jay-Lee into the alley, tee lost ter balance and tripped and wound-up with a mouth full of road muck.  Tee lay there a long moment, watching the dragons circling overhead and wondering how long until they started attacking.  

After a moment of debate as to whether tee should bother getting up at all, tee began to struggle to ter feet — and felt someone grabbing tee by the arm.

“Comrade Theece!  Are you alright?”

Theece tried to focus ter dark-blue eyes on the person who had grabbed tee.  It was Muckl, ter editor at the news-service.  Tee was hovering in front of tee, ter pink and white wings flapping just enough to keep tee about half a bodylength off the street.  Ter flat-blue, whiteless eyes stared at Theece from under thick blond eyebrows.  Ter blond bowlcut, starting to thin a little, fluttered slightly with every beat of ter wings. 

“I’m fine,” Theece managed to say.  

“You better take cover, comrade.  Those dragons could start attacking at any moment.”

Theece nodded, shivering at the mere thought of it.

“I had to end the play early,” said Muckl.  As the editor for the officially sanctioned news-service of the main island, Muckl was in charge of putting-on the government’s stage-plays each week.  “The audience decided it was more fun to loot than to watch a play.  Too bad, too.  Kugga had written a real tearjerker.  About how losers are winners, too.”

“I’m sure,” Theece replied. 

“Course, we were missing our star.  Eyunn’s Feeder yanked tee out of the play at the last moment.  Said tee needed Eyunn to do more work around the house or something.  Such a shame.  Eyunn is our best actor.”

Not that much of a shame, thought Theece.  Tee had seen Eyunn “act,” if that’s what one wished to call it.  Not only was the teenaged Lycurgan’s physical performance bad, but the audience couldn’t understand a word the kid said due to ter thick Lycurgan accent

“I don’t mean to trouble you, comrade, but have you seen either of my Needers?” asked Muckl.  “I worry about them whenever the Exploited are exercising their undeniable right of redistributive justice.”

Besides Jay-Lee, Muckl was also the Feeder of Pye-Jinn, a wingless Pixie who just happened to be the island’s most enthusiastic — and therefore most feared — Scarlet Agent.

Theece, not wanting to worry Muckl about ter youngest Needer’s pyrotechnic proclivities, thought it best to keep that information to ter self, and peered through the smoke-filled air (or perhaps ter eyes were just bleary from the dreg-drink) as if tee were earnestly looking for the two siblings. 

“Have you, ah, tried the flagstation?” tee asked while visoring ter narrow eyes with a hand.

The flagstation was where Jay-Lee assisted the Guru of the Social Posts, Hephestal Tarkin.  Pye-Jinn also frequented the Posts, checking the flag-messages there for any leads on non-Enlightened heretics.

“Good idea,” said Muckl.  “I’ll try there.”

After Muckl began toward the Social Posts, Theece re-visited the alley, but Jay-Lee had already vanished, cauldron and all. 

Flipping to a clean writing slat, Theece looked around for a mark — that is, for a likely candidate to interview for a news-story.  Although most everyone was excitedly running around with their hands full of merchandise, a few people lolled in front of the trashed businesses, grief and bewilderment on their faces.  Theece knew that these people, mostly Sylvan, were the owner-Oppressors of the businesses being marked for redistributive justice by the crystal stakes of the Neighborhood Arbitrators. 

Theece’s reporter instincts impelled tee toward the Sylvans for an interview.  Their emotions and thoughts would make for some good quotations for the inevitable news-article tee would need to write about the day’s catastrophic events.  Tee also knew that tee should try to interview a few of the looters as well, although tee suspected that everything they said would be banal.  After a couple of years of reporting, Theece had found that tee had grown tired of listening to the shallow rationalizations of the groupthinking mobposses stirred-up by the Social Posts and government propaganda. 

At just that moment, a couple of Scarlet Agents began toward Theece in a vaguely threatening manner.  Immediately, tee gave-up the idea of trying to get to the Sylvans, and began walking in the opposite direction. 

That was when the first dragon struck.  It plunged down through the purple skies at incredible speed, slamming into the top of one of the buildings, causing chunks of debris to fly in all directions and half the top-floor of the structure, itself, to fall into the street.

Eager ransacking turned instantly into frightened running, with screams emerging from all sides.  Some people lost their composure to such an extent that they dropped the plunder from their arms and bolted for the nearest cellar or the outskirts of town.

Theece, ter self, was tucking ter writing-slats into the back of ter trousers and making ready to scram post haste, when tee felt a tap on ter shoulder.  Tee turned to see a tall figure dressed in a brown cloak with a brown, hooded mask over ter head and face.  Ter heart dropped. 

A Brownhood. 

“Arnchoo da porter wrighta bow mudder gooz?”

The Brownhood spoke in the easily recognizable accent of the unassimilated Lycurgans who had immigrated to the islands in large numbers since the Advent of the Enlightened.  Most Lycurgans chose never to learn the commontongue of the archipelago, their species preferring to remain insular and aloof from the host society that they so much despised.

Brownhoods had long been rumored to be comprised predominantly of Lycurgans.  This particular Brownhood had at least bothered to learn some of the commontongue, although ter pronunciation was atrocious.  To the best of Theece’s comprehension, which admittedly wasn’t all that great after knocking back a few cuppas at Mancy’s, the Brownhood had just asked if tee was the reporter who wrote about Mother Goose.

“Why yes, yes I am,” said Theece proudly, straightening ter posture.  “Would you like an autograph?”

Theece’s excellent Elfish eyes saw the fist approaching ter angular face as if it were moving in slow-motion.  Unfortunately, ter nectar-numbed arms had barely begun their journey up to block said slow-moving, inward bound fist when the blow landed.

As the rumor is true, and most Elfs really do have glass jaws (that being a boxing metaphor and not to be taken literally), Theece was unsurprisingly knocked completely off ter feet.

A moment later, Theece was bouncing along and looking at a world turned upside-down — that being meant to be taken both literally and metaphorically, as (1) Theece had been thrown over the Brownhood’s shoulder, and (2) Rvwaa, or at least the main island, seemed to be going through some sort of apocalypse.

The last thought the Elf had before passing-out was the hope that tee would not puke because it would run straight into ter hair.