The Displaced

Another first chapter in a long line of first chapters.

The wind ripped through the edged of my tunic as I rose higher into the air. I could hear Agatha’s reprimand from when I was younger lecturing me on why we wear tight fitting clothing while riding. “NO CAPES!” she would chortle to herself. Agatha was always quoting old movies that either no longer play in the archival museum theatre, or that she swears existed, but no one has ever dug up in the ancient burial heaps.  Today I didn’t have time for changing into the tighter riding gear probably balled up in the laundry basket anyway. I never have time to get things correct because I am either following the dopamine rush of my brain or the adrenaline rush that parenting a herd of 4 fledges brings.

Today my oldest fledge Ash spiked a fever that wasn’t breaking with the usual holistic methods. I had to call off my work at the protection office and head over the ridge to barter for medicine. Thankfully my bound, Sam, had only needed the muscular Drake for field work today. That left me with the short-winged dragon, Demi. Demi’s intrinsic had been Sam’s grandmother, a first generation. When Su had passed, Demi did not seek another intrinsic, but had stayed around. At first we thought it was grief, but then after a year, we stopped thinking about why she stayed and were grateful for the extra set of wings. So, for the last decades Demi had just been around. She still never did intrinsicicate with anyone, but would follow basic verbal commands when needed.

She had come quickly when I used the horn to call her back from hunting. Demi was always a fan of fledges and when they were sick, she knew not to go far just in case. The walk over the ridge would have taken days, but with Demi it took minutes. She plopped down in the landing field and told her I would be back. Normally we don’t do a lot of talking with dragons, so I always felt like the odd one out barking out audible commands at her. Getting the medicine was pretty easy. At least it was once I had convinced Jordi that they were the only pharm I would go to even though Janice, their sister, had just opened up her own pharm a few stalls down. Jordi was reliable and knew what they were doing, even though there was always a bit of dramatics. Today it was family drama that left him with a business rival instead of partner.

On any other day I would have stopped and let myself succumb to the allure of a good coffee from the townies. But today I knew Ash, while fine alone for a bit, would be wondering where I was at. I grabbed a round of cheese on my way out of the stall-lines for Demi. Demi and I lived side by side as strangers except for two things: The fledges and cheese. Dragons usually like to eat the cow itself, but Demi had always had a taste for cheese. She never devoured a pregnant or nursing cow. That would ruin her supply chain. Whenever I needed her for a ride, I always made sure to treat her well. Having two dragons around was handy and knowing she had the right to leave at anytime to find a new Intrinsic, I knew I had to keep her on my good side.

I found her glaring with a 7th gen who clearly had not yet mastered the art of landing and had apparently landed on Demi’s tail. I rolled my eyes at the 7^th Intrinsic and told him to pull back a littler earlier to avoid pissing off the older gens. I clicked at Demi to get her attention and nodded to the wheel of golden cheese under my arm. I swear I almost heard her maon with joy in my head before licking her lips. I knew this was not possible because typs (short for typicals) couldn’t hear dragons. We lacked the right brain structure to intrinsically bond with dragons. Besides, the displaced didn’t even get a chance to be scanned when we turn 13 like the rest of our fledges. Displaced kids aren’t given the same rights as Normies. We can be their kids, their siblings, their cousins… we can inherit their names, their lands, and their business, but not their dragons. We can’t be Intrinsics. Riding a dragon across the ridge and being an intrinsic were two different things. We are all taught to ride as kids. Agatha told me that was the educational law because her generation, the first gens, all started older and it had turned out to be a mess. So, just in case you were scanned at 13 and found to be in favor of intrinsicating, we all got to learn to ride.

“Eat up,” I say to Demi as I roll her the wheel. She licks it tenderly, throws it in the air with a flick of her tongue and then swallows it hole. She gives me a thank you nudge with her nose, “you’re welcome” I audibly reply. The 7^th generation who had landed on… I mean next to Demi, cocks their head to the side giving me that look I have become accustomed to getting when I talk out loud to a dragon. Being a displaced I shouldn’t be riding a dragon, much less talking to one. I roll my eyes, if only to myself, as I brush over my displaced marking that intermingles Demi, hearing my disenchantment with the 7^th Gen, lifts away into the air. See. We get each other a little bit for not being able to communicate clearly.

 Again, the tunic annoys me as it frantically flaps in the wind, pulling at my body we make our way back through the fog that never seems to fade from the ridge. Again, Agatha’s unimpressed face drifts into my memories.  Demi veers off course and arcs south. “Demi I don’t have time for this” I balk.  Her back writhes under the saddle and I sigh accepting that we’ve taken a typical Demi detour. We fly over the fields. I see Sam and the drake below working at the dense mud below. Demi flies another few lengths and suddenly I see why we’ve detoured. It’s lunchtime at the camp and the fledges are out playing during their break. Demi swoops down and immediately eyes our other three fledges who are not home sick today. The whole pack seem to see her at the same time. They all start running in the same direction as she slows to a hover above and lets the littles and fledges run their hands along her smooth underbelly. I shake my head as I wave to my own amongst the pack and blow them kisses.

Dragons never cease to bewilder me. As fierce as anything, but as protective of human fledges like the empty-headed dog Sam insists we keep to build character for the kids. Dorrius is useless, but trudges after the fledges as if they themselves had birthed him. They love him and his doofus face just as much as they love Demi.I personally think it is the fledges that keep her around. Not my cheese.

Demi’s anxieties satisfied and she banks back up just high enough to carry us home. We land and I roll off her upper thigh a bit upset at the detour because it has left my oldest alone for longer than I had anticipated. As a displaced, I am always worrying about my fledges. The practice of displacement has legally ended, but that will never ease my mind that my own could ended up shifted without warning. I still hear of shiftings happening around town once and awhile. The coup can’t patrol everything that happens, especially out here in the sidecounties, but usually it’s kin that take in the fledge and not what happened to me.

I jog inside to find Ash in the same place drooling onto the same screen. He is always falling asleep with his face in a book. I pick up the tab and see that the screen is open to a history book. “Of course” I chuckle to myself as I ready his medicine. Just like his mom. I plug the tab in and turn to wake Ash, but he is already propped up on one arm looking around in a fever dream. I slide next to him on the bed and help him sip down the medicine. He gives me a smile and drops back into sleep. God. I hate seeing my fledges sick. Navari and I talked a lot about how being a displaced makes us more protective of our own. I worry, but Navari takes worry to another level. She is like a hummingbird that never stops spiraling the head of her Jameson. Thankfully Jameson is still a little and appreciate his mom’s attentions. I am on my fourth and last little and no longer have the energy to form my worry into a spiral.

Now my worry stays packed and locked down inside and surfaces at night when I wander through the house shutting all the seams before I close in for the night. I cannot sleep until I have touched the faces of my Fledges and whispered protections over them. As Navari and I remind ourselves when we feel in disarray, “only the displaced know what it’s like to be shifted.” Thank the protectors I have her. After moving across the divide after being bound to Sam, I felt so alone not knowing anyone. No one warns you of that after the binding. Meeting Navari and then finding out she is also a displaced felt a bit like coming home. Or the closest I think coming home would feel like. Navari and I had never known our homes before our shiftings.  I close my eyes, letting my emotions sink away from my tense sides. I open them, lean over Ash, kiss his now cooler forehead and thank the protectors that he will never be at risk for being shifted. He will only know this home.