like a dragon

There's a part of me that lingers in the past; that hovers in the overworld which lies silent, across the river, begging nothing and promising everything.

This part of me doesn't know how to jump, to fly, to flourish. This part of me is an anchor that I don't yet know how to toss into any meaningful order of depth. This part of me has arms but hardly even knows how to use them, to flail in the current and let myself be taken, without caring, only complaining, only silently subsisting, brisking and wetter than wry.

This part of me might as well not be part of me, for all it has ever done for anyone. I think I could learn to regrow what about me it would subtract, which isn't very much.

Not that it's nothing. Not that I'm so sure of the part of me that stands here, in the present, across the river, on this side. I think I could find a better model upon which myself to base, and gird myself for what's to come like the world that turns to light.

It was a journey of foolhardy, fruitless exploration, up until the point at which I crossed the river rising before me. I did as I was told; I did what was needed, for those who needed me, which wasn't very much. It doesn't feel like it was very much. Maybe it was; it feels so long ago, by now.

But I was not so patient. I was impetuous, uncareful. I hardly thought at all. I didn't want to believe in change, which could come and take me so swiftly, dress me down as the river rushed on.

Perhaps we could say that I was complacent. Maybe that's too formal a word; merely self-satisfied, except that I wasn't satisfied, and I didn't know why.

I wasn't looking for anything so great as a dragon. I wasn't anything so proud as you, like a diligent spirit, like a noble goddess, like a dragon.

By the joining of your curiosity, my impulsiveness, you'd been rendered as a prisoner, strange traveler, to a time that wasn't your own, without me and my tendency to fall, after you and in absence of a guardian to guide.

A sword in your skull. A ghost in your gut. Defying every natural order, to be imprisoned by the loss of any identity but that of the stone, the weighted stone.

Most dragons dive through the depths, at some point or another, and betray their routines in order to guard the domain to which they have been assigned.

But you are stronger, strung higher, strapped to a more stringent oath.

Is this who you really are, then? How could I be so arrogant as to will you back to me, when I am so small, so insignificant, so afterthought to your immortal reign?

But we're not so different. If we were, I would have known it so. You're not so good at hiding - or maybe you are, but you probably aren't, and neither am I.

(I'm not because I've never been so motivated. It's a miracle, what you've done to me.)

Would you have done it if you didn't have to? Maybe you hid everything you needed to, and I'm just the only one who wasn't too blind to see.

Is it possible that you enjoyed being human? Pretending to be so?

Even I, just so recently, didn't enjoy it. Hated it, most of the time. Always so confused, so shunned and silenced for no reason, so forgotten and so forgettable.

So disconnected from everything I was supposed to love. So unsure when I ever had loved it.

You showed your truth to me. You showed your truth for me, to protect me. You eschewed any chance you ever had of being protected, of being cherished, of being fragile.

Fragile. Imagine you, fragile. Imagine you, china-keen. I will protect you as a spirit protects the soul of the sun, the mask of the moon, which need no stewarding in their ultimate power, their perfect wisdom, their unknowable courage, to the end of all ends and all futures.

Maybe it's useless. Maybe it's foolish. Maybe it's human in a way I never bothered to be, before.

But I would fall a thousand feet farther, further into time I can't get back from the shadows, if I meant I got to hold you, to hold onto you and protect you as you protected me. When everything I've seen has been a phantasm, a threatening thought that indemnifies me from inside out, there is nothing so real as you; as the blood on your scales that I can sponge away, as the knots in your hair that I can claw-brush smooth.

My soles, upon your forehead. My forearm, within your mouth.

Your throat, which has not screamed but lowed, mourned, determined, disgraced and dishonored against the order of the world, for what you were forced to do, for what you have found the only possible course to follow, forward in time, to preserve the past within the ongoing present and prevent the oncoming future from souring on the dismal threat of a rotten charm.

My trust, lodged in your heart like a stone, stronger and sterner than any sigil, cutting with a sword sharper than all the shikigami of an army.

Others have told me what they thought they saw, what they thought I should see, what foolishness it is to believe as I believe. And I didn't correct them. Why should I?

We are only the two of us, tied across time, washed in the waters of the river, soaring in the seasong of the sky. We are only the two of us, twining spirits, one falling into one falling into another, and another, and another.

We are like a dragon, tusked and writhing, tied and binding, spirit winding and ever-minding that we have known each other forever, and forever, and forever, coursing on.