My name is Flairyon, and I am like no creature on earth. Miranda did some research--she says I’m a little like a chamrosh in Persain mythology, though she still insists on calling me a birddog. But my wings have flames, my feet are eagle-like talons, and beneath my chestnut feathers is the hardest skin anyone has ever felt. I can fly fast enough to catch lightning. I can hear others’ minds and project my thoughts into theirs. I can fly in space.
I have no idea where I come from. I can’t remember anything from before two years ago.
Today I’m awakened by the smell of smoke in my nostrils. More than usual, I mean. Then, with a yelp, I withdraw my front foot into the safety of my nonflammable nest. I’ve accidentally lit part of the carpet on fire. Oh well. Miranda doesn’t mind that much. Her room is full of small burn marks from earlier mishaps. I blow on the flames to put them out.
I had another dream last night--the kind where I’m running, hunting, chasing something. A forgotten memory? Or a reflection of my missing past?
Miranda sprawls on her bed a few feet away, wrapping her mattress in a tight embrace. Her ginger hair cascades over her dog-themed pajama shirt--mostly long enough to touch the center of her back, except for the part with singed, uneven edges, which only hits her shoulder. I may or may not have completely accidentally burned part of her hair once. If she had cared that much about her hair, then she wouldn’t have been so careless with it.
She’s still sound asleep, but I’m done with my nest. I carefully lift the feathers on my feet and gingerly set them on the ground one by one, picking my wayout. I let myself out into the backyard and sit, staring into the forest beyond. The sun rises in front of me.
And then--a flash of fire, a flare of golden wings. I snap to my feet, standing ridgid and poised. Like a shot, I’m off, tearing into the woods.
Nothing is there but green. Ferns rustle in the breeze; birds twitter overhead. The shadows creeping between the trunks are empty. I frown around, disappointed, before returning home much slower than before.
Miranda is up in the dining room, eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. “Good morning,” she greets me. “How’s life?”
“Good, I think.” I take the thought and project it into her mind, the way I’ve always communicated with her. “But Miranda...I saw someone like me out there.”
Miranda pauses her vigorous cereal killing, her spoon hovering in midair. “You saw another birddog?”
“Whatever we’re called,” I inform her, “I’m sure it’s a lot cooler and more creative than ‘birddogs’. But yes. One of those.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“No. She disappeared before I could.”
“Huh.” I can tell Miranda’s thinking what I’m thinking. What if she was searching for me? What if my kind is close by, wondering if I’m even alive?
It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I’m just fine now! I don’t need them! And besides, I’ll probably never see them again.
Except, I just did.
But if that other birddog was truly hunting for me, then why did she run away? Surely she felt my mind, as I felt hers?
But her mind felt strange and dark, as though a cold mist had fallen over it. Maybe she’s weird. Maybe I’m weird.
I press back against the very agitated something fluttering against the back of my mind. “Maybe we’ll come across her on our baskilisk hunt today,” Miranda suggests.
“Sure.”
Oh, yeah, I should probably mention: Mirandaand I are baskilisk hunters. She started about a year before I arrived on the scene, when one of the beasts appeared on a school playground and attacked her best friend. As Miranda tells the story, she defeated it using a venomous fang, which she plucked from its own mouth. Miranda exaggerates sometimes, but to this I can testify: she really does have a genuine baskilisk fang, about the size of a small sword.
Right now she’s pulling out a petri dish from her pocket, containing a single tiny baskilisk scale. It’s drawn to any baskilisk nearby, so we use it as a makeshift compass. “It’ll be a big one today,” she notes. "I have never seen it do this before." She holds it out to me, and I see neon blue flecks flickering in and out of existance on the scale's dark red surface.
Mrs. Flametarod comes into the dining room. “So you two are going baskilisk hunting after school?” she asks cheerfully. She still believes that this whole thing is a game, and we like to keep it that way. I don’t think she even realizes that baskilisks are real, even though she sees me, another magical creature, every day.
“Yep,” Miranda replies, ever the cheerful liar.
Mrs. Flametarod’s eyes narrow. “After school,” she repeats firmly. “No sluffing. I swear I’ll be calling your teacher every class period today.”
“Go ahead,” says Miranda. “They’ll all be very boring phone calls. See ya, mom.” She grabs her flame-patterned backpack and skips out the door.
“I’ll walk her to the bus stop,” I tell her mom. She always lets me because of the high violent crime rate around here. No one attacks a twelve-year-old with a flaming canine at her side.
Nonetheless, suspicion thrums through her brain as I let myself out the door.
Miranda is standing overthe flowerbed, rooting around under the lilac. “I’m not sure they’ll let you into school with your fang,” I comment.
Miranda pulls her weapon out from the tangled roots. “We aren’t going to school.”
“I’m shocked. Don’t you think it can wait? The more you skip school, the harder it becomes to be available when we’re really needed.”
Miranda frowns. “We’re always needed. The baskilisks won’t wait for us.” She pulls out her compass. “The scale wants to go northeast. That’s where those hikers went missing a few nights ago.”
“Let’s act like we’re going to the bus stop,” I suggest. “Your mom will be watching.”
And so we strut briskly down the street, feeling Mrs. Flametarod’s hard stare on our backs as we round the corner. Once we’re out of sight, I say, “hop on,” and she swings her leg up over my back. With infinite caution, she settles herself exactly between my wings and the flame that lives between my neck and shoulder blades. We’ve mastered this delicate art over the years, but in the beginning there were more than a few skin burns and singed pockets.
Summoning my unnatural reserves of strength, I flare my wings and lift off into the sky.
Puma’s Maw Mountain Trail snakes under tangled tree branches and draping Virginia creeper. There are rumors that cougars reside here, occasionally devouring stray hikers. There are a few here, but they aren’t the ones doing the devouring. The deep forests and vast crevices here are prime baskilisk territory.
“Nothing,” Miranda growls, slipping out of another crevice. “Flairyon, are you sure you can’t sense anything?”
“I’m trying,” I assure her, feeling her wary anxiety prickle like a tangle of briars. “I smell smoke,” I note a minute later. “Something might be burning nearby.”
“Something is burning nearby.” Miranda taps me on the head.
“You know what Imean.”
A clearing opens up ahead. Miranda and I stop dead in our tracks.
It appears that a large swathe of forest has been burned, perhaps a few days ago. In front of us, a cave opens up into the sloping hillside. Miranda unsheathes her fang. Together, we venture inside. It’s dark and deep.
Suddenly I freeze. Slowly turn my head. But I don’t need my eyes to see what’s there. I can already feel her with my mind alone.
The other birddog glares down at us from across the clearing.
Miranda notices my pause, but as her mouth opens I clamp down on her brain, preventing her from speaking, and direct her attention to our new friend.
“Who are you?” I call out to the other birddog. “Who are you?”
The other birddog narrows her eyes. “Leave,” her thoughts hiss, sounding eerie and sinister. “You have no business here. No business killing baskilisks.”
“I’m sorry. Are you fond of them? Because they’re kind of killing lots of people right now. So you’re mistaken--we do have business here.”
“Leave!” The other birddog demands again, lunging. We collide in midair, tussling. The other birddog clamps her jaws shut around my neck, and I can’t shake her.
Something rushes past my head. Miranda’s fang penetrates the other birddog’s eye and she lets go, her pain shooting through both of our minds.
I hit the ground running. “Hurry!” I shout to Miranda with my mind. “We have to get out of here!”
She’s lunging for the other birddog, retrieving her prized fang. Claws swipe inches from her face.
I lower my head and charge between her legs. With a yelp, she jolts herself into position, batting out the small new fires on her pants. The scent of burning cotton fills my nostrils as I leap into the sky. The sound of our agonized new enemy fadesinto the distance.
“What happened to your pants?!” is the first thing out of Mrs. Flametarod’s mouth when we get home. Miranda stumbles off of me. “We were attacked,” she gasps. “Almost kidnapped. Flairyon helped me escape. I rode her home.”
“Go change,” Mrs. Flametarod says brusquely. To me, she thinks, “Is that true?”
“All of it,” I assure her, twisting to lick the spot where Miranda sat. It always stings a little when she rides me, because water, even in small amounts, can be very dangerous to me. I do seem to have developed a mild tolerance over the years.
Mrs. Flametarod raises an eyebrow. “Is it?”
I pause, and that’s all she needs. “I’m going to have a little talk with Miranda,” she thinks, mostly to herself.
I creep down the staircase behind her, tailing her all the way to Miranda’s doorway. I hear Miranda sigh both externally and internally on the other side of the wall.
“Miranda,” says Mrs. Flametarod in a surprisingly gentle voice, “sit down.”
A pause, and then she complies.
“What is all this about? You’re not keeping up with your schoolwork. You keep skipping class. Are you really just sneaking off to play with Flairyon all day?”
I can feel Miranda’s resolve breaking. “The baskilisks, mom. I have to stop the baskilisks.”
“Oh, sweetie.” In her mind, Mrs. Flametarod is connecting Miranda’s words to the trauma she endured two-and-a-half years ago. “I know it’s hard after what happened to Elizabeth. But that was a rare incident. Most of us aren’t in danger from deadly snakes.”
But we are, mom! That wasn’t just any snake. Did you see the bite marks? It was huge! And there are more and more of them every day. If I don’t stop them all they’ll take over the whole world!”
“Miranda...I don’t think any baskilisks are going to take over theworld. I’m not even sure they exist.”
“They do. I can prove it, mom.” She pulls out her fang. “This is from a baskilisk. The baskilisk.”
Mrs. Flametarod’s breath catches in her throat. She lightly runs her hand along its length, trying to figure out what it actually is.
“This is it,” says Miranda softly. “It’s real, mom.”
Mrs. Flametarod’s mind is spinning. She’s half convinced. But she needs more. Another opinion.
“Flairyon!” She calls, stepping out of the room and nearly colliding with me. “Come into my room,” she says, beckoning.
“It’s really true,” I tell her as I sit by the foot of her armchair. “There are baskilisks. We’ve been sneaking off to fight them this whole time.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Flairyon. I know she’s your best friend and you just want to protect her.”
“No,” I say, looking into her eyes. “It’s the truth. Miranda’s stubborn but smart. Do you really think she’d go to such extreme measures to skip school if it weren’t for the greater good?”
“...Why has no one told me this before now?”
“We...didn’t want...to worry you?” We really don’t have that good of an excuse.
Mrs. Flametarod rubs her forehead. “I’m still having trouble believing all this. But...but at the same time, the fang...and you…”
“I’d better go check on Miranda.”
I cautiously enter Miranda’s room and find her packing her string bag. “Going somewhere?”
Miranda pulls her bag tightly shut. “We’re going after a baskilisk.”
“So soon?”
She glares at me. “Our compass was going wild in that cave. There’s definitely a baskilisk inside, but it might take days to find it. I did some research, and that cave hooks up to the Tunnels of Cena.”
“Okay.”
Miranda glances up at me. “Is something wrong?”
Something is fluttering madly against the edges of my consciousness, begging for my attention, as it has ever since the incidentwith the other birddog. “No...it’s just--”
“You’re worried about that other birddog,” Miranda interrupts. “You’re wondering why she wanted to kill you, and you’re afraid to go back there.”
“Yes,” I admit, lowering my head. Goodness, it’s like the mind reading goes both ways sometimes.
Miranda’s expression softens and she reaches out to rub my neck. “We...don’t have to go. There are other baskilisks to slay.”
But I can see in her head that she’s already caught on that particular baskilisk and the damage it might cause, and that the very thought of waiting, of putting off dealing with it, is killing her. That the longer we wait, the more likely someone is to share the fate of her old best friend. Seeing the flashbacks to the blood and venom and chaos, suddenly the last thing I want to do is hold her back.
“No,” I say. “You’re right. We’re going.”
And at that instant, Mrs. Flametarod enters the room. She pauses as she takes in the scene. Miranda challenges her with a silent glare.
She rubs her forehead again. “I believe you. About the baskilisks. I think.”
Miranda relaxes.
“But,” she continues, “this does not mean that I am okay with my twelve year old kid running off to fight dangerous monsters.”
“Mom. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ll be fine.”
“Look, you’re a very capable kid in lots of ways, but this is too dangerous.” Mrs. Flametarod folds her arms. “The answer is no.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do.”
They glower at each other, neither one lacking in willpower. Then Miranda, without breaking eye contact, pulls out her baskilisk compass and says, “I am the most experienced baskilisk fighter I know. I’ll prove to you that I can do this.”
“Wow.” Miranda’s mother stares at the bleeding, dead baskilisk in front of us. “Just wow.”
We had to search threeseparate neighborhoods to even get a signal and then hike a half hour over a barren plain, but we found one eventually. A young one, small and inexperienced, which we defeated easily, Miranda and I employing all our flashiest moves.
All right, so Mrs. Flametarod maybe helped a little by jabbing it with a stick between the scales. But it was mostly us, and I daresay we proved ourselves.
“Well?” snaps Miranda.
She sighs. “You’re just going to find a way to escape if I say no, won’t you?”
“I will,” Miranda promises.
“And you’ll have Flairyon to protect you…”
“I can contact you,” I told her. “From afar, if I need to.”
“I remember.” Mrs. Flametarod nods. “All right. Go on.” She embraces Miranda in a tight hug. “And come back soon.”
The caves are vast and empty. Darkness presses around us, kept at bay only by my flames and Miranda’s flashlight.
Until it doesn’t. The tunnels eventually bottleneck into a single massive cave, filled with towering stalagmite teeth and positively riddled with dark pits. “In case you’re wondering,” I inform Miranda, “you are not getting off of me anywhere in this cave.”
“I’ve read about this place,” says Miranda using only her thoughts (neither of us dare make an audible sound). “It’s called Central Jimothy. Only the most hard-core cave explorers have ever been here.”
I scan around us as we fly. I think I can feel the baskilisk in the distance--a big one, strong and smug, whose face I immediately want to rip off with my claws. Miranda has personal experience with what the monsters can do, but she isn’t the only one who hates them, and not just because I can read her mind. My rage runs deep, at the core of my core, and so I can only assume that I was bred to hate baskilisks.
SuddenlyI am filled with conviction that my kind and the giant snakes are mortal enemies, and have been for a while. Where did that thought come from?
Speaking of enemies, she is there too, a quarter hour behind, a bit below. Following us. Her mind is cold and reflective, so I can barely sense anything, except for her malice. The only thing we can do is keep going, keep going, and hope we don’t have to fight both of them at once.
But part of me doesn’t want to run. Part of me wants to stay put, wait for the other birddog to catch up. Talk to her. See what’s going on…
Crazy. Ridiculous. Why would I do that?
A whisper, a hint. A breath from my past.
But I shake it off. It’s crazy. Why would I put myself and Miranda in danger again?
What if the other birddog is in trouble?
Then it’s her fault for causing trouble. I am moving on from her, I am moving on from my kind. That part of my life is over. Irretrievable. Now my destiny is to be a baskilisk slayer with Miranda. I will not--
The air explodes with fire. I yell as pressure from below forces me into a barrel roll. I feel Miranda’s hands slip, the sweat from her palms stinging my neck as she loses her grip. And plummets into the nearest pit, the source of the fire.
I dive after her, flames pummeling my face. It feels good and soothes the sting on my neck. I feel refreshed and energized and alive. Fire is my element.
It’s not hers, though. My frantically reaching claws snag her shirt, and as soon I have her in all my front claws, I twist to hurtle skyward. Or cielingward, in this case.
Fires are spewing from every pit in the cave.I’ve never seen anything like it--not that I can remember, at least. I thrust myself at the other end of the cave, diving into a safe tunnel high in the wall.
Steam is rolling off of Miranda’s skin and what used to be her clothes as I set her down. She’s redder than a lobster; I’m surprised she’s still conscious, but she turns to me and rasps, “Well. I was not expecting that. Do you think it’s natural?”
“You are beyond lucky that I was there,” I inform her. “If you were here by yourself, you would now be a pile of ashes. If even that. Think about that.”
Miranda smiles weakly. “And I’m not a pile of ashes right now? Oh, Flairyon, don’t cry. I don’t think these burns are fatal.”
But I can’t help it. My eyes are blurring, and I feel something...liquid?...slide down my cheek.
What? This has never happened to me before, no matter how sad I’ve gotten.
A golden droplet drips past my nose, falling lightly through the steam to hit Miranda’s charred leg. She winces, hissing in pain--and then gasps. As do I.
The area around the teardrop glows, the light fading like an echo. And where the light touched...it’s almost gone. The wound.
“Oh,” Miranda breathes. “Healing...your tears have healing powers, like a pheonix.”
“How do I even have tears?” I wonder. I thought that liquid of any kind would kill me.
“Maybe its magic cancels out the damage it would cause,” Miranda suggests. “Cry some more! Quick, should I step on your toe or something?”
She doesn’t have to, because the tears continue to flow until we’ve covered the last of Miranda’s burns. “Well, that was convenient,” she declares, rising to root through her singed pack to pull out some spare clothes. “Come on,” she says when she’s through changing.
At that moment, Iwhirl, fangs bared. Because halfway across the cavern, glaring with unblinking golden eyes, is the other birddog.
“What is your problem?” I demand telepathically. “For the last time! Who are you, and what do you want?!”
“To stop this mad snakehunt,” she hisses through the mist. The thought almost seems strained, somehow. “To destroy you both and avenge my kin.”
“Your kin? What have I ever done to my own kind?”
“I am amused, chamrosh. But not amused enough. This is your final warning, both of you: go home.”
Miranda thrusts her leg over my shoulders. As she settles herself, I whirl and bolt, spreading my wings to half-fly down the tunnel.
It takes a while, but we do eventually manage to get her off our trail. Rounding a corner, we’re both almost blinded by the crystalline glimmer of the cave beyond.
“Wow,” Miranda breathes. Before us is another vast cave, this one full of giant crystals. Near the center hangs something else, a heap of crumpling, papery snakeskin.
“The baskilisk’s been here,” I say, nudging her mind in its direction.
“It’s gone that way,” she says, pointing, after staring at it for a moment. She knows this because of the direction of the snakeskin’s head.
I spread my wings and fly briskly to the cave’s exit, feeling the other birddog begin to close in.
The baskilisk is always on the move, so by the end of the day, we still haven’t gotten much closer. We both need to rest, though. The question is, where? It has to be somewhere out of the way. Secluded. Small. Hidden. Because I am not sleeping out in the open like someone who wants to be mauled.
Miranda points out a small side tunnel. “Let’s go in there.”
“Won’t work for us. There’s a waterfall.”
An idea is glimmering in Miranda’s mind, so I let her slide offof my back and investigate the side tunnel. “There’s a cave behind the waterfall,” she announces upon returning. “So it’s safe from birddogs--unless said birddog has a friend who comes prepared.” She pulls a roll of plastic wrap from her pack.
“I don’t think that’s going to work. What are you going to do, wrap me up with it?”
“Even better.”
Inside the tunnel, I flinch away from several flying water droplets. “Ready?” Miranda asks from my back.
I stare at the shifting wall of pouring doom. “Ready,” I sigh.
Miranda holds the plastic roll horizontally in front of us. Unravelled plastic wrap settles over us, as gentle as snowflakes. Except snowflakes aren’t that gentle with me. I got huge, horrible blisters from a surprise flurry once, from only a few flakes. From then on, I stayed home unless it was sunny.
I charge forward, resisting the urge to flare my wings. With a roar, the waterfall collides with our plastic covering. The plastic presses against my flaming tail and I smell burning plastic. My front legs thrust out to hit the ground beyond. A few bounds away from the waterfall, with Miranda sliding off of me, I notice a sharp pain in my left foot. A small, elliptical section of golden feathers has darkened to brown. Clearly the plastic wrap was not 100% effective.
The two of us curl up next to each other and close our eyes. The back of my mind is active, buried memories stirring close to my consciousness. Even so, I do eventually manage to fall asleep.
I am standing in a world of mesmerizing colors, the likes of which I can’t recall ever seeing. Waves of them alternate, pulsate, expand outward, making me dizzy. It’s like…
“Like you’re standing in a nebula.” Someone is standing in front of me, blurred and flickering likea dying flame.
Another birddog. One who looks so familiar.
“You’re me,” I say.
The other’s voice crackles like fire and lightning inside my head. “Arguably. We’ve been separated for so long, though, it may no longer be true. I’m your missing memories, Flairyon. I’m who you used to be.”
A tornado of questions whirls through my mind. Finally I settle on, “Where have you been all this time?”
“In some ways, I’ve been with you the whole time, buried in the back of your mind. But you could say I never made it out of that wormhole.”
Wormhole.
“Remember? You were flying through space. You went through the dangerous one, and made it out--but I didn’t.”
“Then...how are you here now?”
“You’ve been summoning me all this time. Didn’t you realize you were doing it? But only once you saw Kindle was I able to reach you. I’m not even fully here yet. Listen, you’ve got to get back to work. The mission we were on still needs you.”
“But it’s been months! I can’t just abandon Miranda. Surely there isn’t a need anymore! What even was it, anyway?”
Other Me flickers more wildly as she tries to speak. “Y-you can’t...can’t abandon the others, either,” she finally manages. “The princess is still out there, still captured! And meanwhile, the baskilisks are spreading across the universe, invading planets and destroying whole ecosystems! As far as we know, the rest of us have already been destroyed!”
“All the more reason I should keep doing what I’m doing,” I counter.
Other Me’s eyes narrow dangerously. “This is far bigger than you realize, traitor. There is no way you and one human can extinguish a plague of monsters that have expanded their reach to all over the universe! You have to stand with the others! How could you abandon your nation? How could you forget abouther?!”
“I’m not going to risk leaving Miranda!”
Other Me opens her jaws and howls with frustration. Lightning shooting up and down her body. The colors pulse, flare, and explode into my eyes.
“Flairyon! Flairyon, wake up!” Miranda is shaking me. “Time to go. I can hear the baskilisk!”
I shake off the dreams, chase back the memories. I untangle the net of deja vu from my conscious mind, every whisper of my old life, and shove them into the basement. Even though a rush of thoughts gives me an idea of what Other Me wanted me to do. The world has moved on, right?
A flash of desperation, a blaze of urgency. Maybe if we go track down the other birddog, I’d have another spark.
I pause for a moment. Then I make a decision. “Yes,” I say. “Let’s go.”
We exit the same way we entered--with a majestic cape of billowing plastic. My water burns flare with pain, but right now I don’t care. Because we are going on a baskilisk hunt, just like we always have.
For hours we wind deeper into the caves, our hearts pounding with familiar excitement. Finally the slithering stops and we begin to catch up.
Suddenly we stop in our tracks. “Is that...fire?” Miranda breathes. The wall ahead of us flickers with golden light.
Together, we creep forward. There’s a ring of fire all around the cave. “It’s over there, right?” says Miranda.
I nod. “As soon as you step in there, dodge immediately to the right. Be ready to use your fang.”
Miranda nods, closing her eyes for a moment before stepping into the fire ring.
Immediately, a scaly head plunges from the darkness beyond. Miranda jabs at it as she steps out of range. At the same moment, I duck and throw myself into the beast’s lower jaw, getting a good bite inbefore its tail knocks me aside.
“Miranda,” a voice siezes our minds. “And Flairyon. I was hoping to take one of you out with that strike. I suppose that was hoping for too much, considering your reputation.”
“You speak,” says Miranda. “I didn’t know your kind was intelligent enough to do that.”
“Just what I’d expect from a genocidal, venom-tongued human child!” spits the baskilisk. Miranda dodges his poisonous saliva. “Powers of the mind, such as telepathy, are a learned skill among baskilisks, usually corresponding with age. Be warned, little girl--I brought my kin here so that they would be safe. And they will be.”
Danger simmers in Miranda’s thoughts. No one, no one, calls her a little girl and lives to tell the tale. “They won’t be,” she hisses quietly. “Here’s how this works: we’re going to fight you, you’re going to die, and your entire species will become extinct.”
Something icy and cold lunges into my brain, quickly securing a firm hold. Frantically, I fight back, but it’s too much, and I’m quickly overpowered.
“That was easier than I expected,” hisses the baskilisk. “My dear Miranda, I’m afraid that’s simply not how things will be. Rather--”
I turn, locking my gaze on Miranda, claws curling, wings flaring, but it isn’t me, it’s the monster inside of me.
“--it’ll be you against all of us,” the baskilisk finishes, infuriatingly smug.
“Flairyon,” says Miranda, fear trembling in her voice and mind. “Flairyon.”
The panic is so strong, if I were in control I’d have fainted. I feel myself lunging at her as the other birddog flashes into view behind her.
Miranda knocks me aside with her fang, whirling to keep the other birddog at bay. “It’s you,” she gasps. “You’re mindcontrolling them!”
I’m terrified for Miranda. The battle draws on, but she’s outnumbered, and her enemy is relentless. I try to talkto her, to help her, but my mind is trapped in a wall of ice, and even my thoughts are not my own.
Miranda trips, the baskilisk looking on with cold amusement. Like an attack dog, I am onto her, my claws slashing into her stomach. As she goes limp, the baskilisk lets me reel back, staring in horror at what I’ve done.
Then he forces me to turn, throwing myself with all my speed at the cavern wall.
Other Me is there, surrounded by a vortex of colors. I feel as if I’m floating.
Waves of horror and despair wash over me, mingling freely with the grief of Other Me.
“You should have listened to me,” she whispers. “We’re almost dead. The baskilisk used you to destroy the very thing you forsook your mission for. You should never have chosen Miranda.”
“It’s hardly my fault,” I snap. “Plus, I had no idea what my mission even was! How--”
“Yes,” Other Me said softly. “Yes, you did.”
I realize that she’s right. After the dream, the flow of memories gave me a clue. I would have remembered what to do if I had followed through with the first impulse. All it would have taken was a spark. A single spark.
I just hadn’t wanted to choose.
“You didn’t have to choose,” Other Me says. “Who’s to say you couldn’t do both? You could have taken Miranda with you to finish your old mission first.”
Another wave of grief. “Poor Kindle,” Other Me whispers. “I wonder what the baskilisk is going to do to her.”
To escape my grief, I open my mind to my surroundings, letting them pour in.
A tiny prick of life hits my thoughts. Could that be…? I hardly dare to hope.
But it’s true. Miranda is still there, her life force very weak but still alive. I feel the painin her wounds, the tendrils of horror that still cling to her like spiderwebs.
And suddenly, I will do anything, anything, to get to her. To complete my mission.
But how? I turn back, staring at Other Me. I reach out to her, fishing for something. For more memories.
And more come. “Birddogs are creatures of the mind,” Other Me tells me. “And your mental abilities are exceptionally strong. You already know you can read thoughts and speak through telepathy. You can also influence the minds of others, if you wish. The power is in you. Wake up, Flairyon. Wake up and save them.”
A surge of power, and I’m conscious again. Everything feels broken and I can hardly move. It’s dark, and the flames on my wings have been reduced to a soft smolder. I flare, flare, flare again, and they burst into real flames. Then, with significant effort, I turn my head and shed healing tears onto my wounds.
It’s still going into effect when I rise and stagger across the cave to Miranda. She’s been set on a pile of stones for safekeeping--baskilisks prefer to stash dead bodies underground for a while, eating them when they start rotting. The gash in her stomach from my claws is huge. How is she still alive? I summon tears, letting them roll down my snout.
Nothing.
But I won’t give up, and about two thousand teardrops and several desperate mind tugs later, she gasps and sits up. “Wha- I’ll kill you, kill you for what you did to--wait, it’s so dark--how long--”
“I don’t know.”
She fully comes to and huddles away from me, drawing her fang. “It’s okay,” I assure her, gently setting my talons on her shoulder. “It’s me.”
Miranda relaxes.
“Listen,” I say urgently, “my memories--they’re coming back. And I have a mission that needs to be completed rightnow.”
“How long have you known?”
“Ever since she first attacked us,” I confess.
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Miranda demands.
“I was afraid it would pull me away from you.”
“That is the dumbest--Flairyon, you know you can’t get rid of me, whether you want to or not. We quest together, period, the end.”
“But--”
“We quest together,” Miranda repeats. “Let’s go fulfill your mission. And kill a baskilisk.”
The look on the baskilisk’s face when we approach him is priceless.
“You’re dead.”
“Not as dead as you’re going to be.” Miranda flips her hair.
“And you--” the baskilisk turns to me-- “What’s the deal with you?”
I can feel his mind groping around the edges of mine, but he won’t get in this time. My shield is back and it’s stronger than ever.
The baskilisk hisses with frustration. “I can just hear my mother right now-- ‘What did I say about making sure your prey is dead? I swear, one day your carelessness will come back to BITE YOU.’ Well,” he looms over us, “I sure as Hades won’t be making that mistake again.”
“You won’t,” Miranda agrees, “because it will be the last mistake you ever make.” She feints forward, then dodges to the side, heading around to the back while I go for the eyes. He closes his nictictating membrane, but I use my wings to sear right through it.
As he screeches, Miranda leaps, thrusting her fang through his lower jaw. As she withdraws her weapon triumphantly, the other birddog hurtles into me. I catch her as we fall, reaching deep into the crevices of her mind. The baskilisk’s presence is there, encasing her in ice.
The baskilisk chortles as Miranda claws her way up his neck, stabbing with her fang. I focus as hard as I can, putting all my strength into breaking the ice while fending offslashing claws.
The baskilisk’s coil slams me against the wall. I immediately begin prying out his scales to get to the soft flesh beneath. But my windpipe is being crushed, and it’s all I can do just to hold on.
“Now you will die for real.” The baskilisk is bearing down on Miranda. “I never make the same mistake twice.” His jaws are closing around her.
At that moment, my strength overpowers his, and the mind control snaps. The other birddog immediately turns and thrusts herself into his eye.
The pain makes his coils loosen and I fling myself up to join them, attacking his face as Miranda heaves herself into his now gaping mouth.
The ensuing struggle is chaotic and dangerously bloody. It ends with Miranda climbing out from between limp jaws to retrieve her fang from the dead baskilisk’s throat.
The other birddog stares at her, at me. “Flairyon,” her mind gasps, “Flairyon,” and then she lunges for me again, not to attack this time, but for a tight embrace. “Of course it was you,” she whispers. “I knew it would be you who came to save me.”
Love blossoms in my chest, as strong as if it were for Miranda. “Of course I did,” I whisper back. “Kindle.”
That’s her name. It’s a beautiful name.
Kindle takes my head in her claws. “There’s something...different about you. Part of your mind feels...empty. Oh--you lost your memory.”
Other Me appears at the corner of my vision. We both turn. “I can help,” Kindle says. “Help speed the process along. I think you taught me once.”
She closes her eyes and reaches toward Other Me, who leans forward. Kindle’s quiet concentration thrums in my own mind. Other Me flickers, blurs, and slowly joins form with me, our minds merging.
I gasp and flare my wings. “What?” Miranda demands. “What’s happening?”
It’s impossible todescribe this rush of feverish clarity. I am Flairyon, and at the same time, I am Flairyon. All my memories are back, I remember my backstory and my world and my family, and who I used to be joins seamlessly with who I am now. We’re not so different after all.
And--
I glance at the dead baskilisk’s head leaning against the wall. The faint neon blue markings on his face. “Kindle,” I say, “isn’t this the baskilisk king?”
Kindle frowns at him. “It is! Flairyon...we’ve been trying to find this thing, to kill him for...for generations.”
We stare at each other and then burst out laughing. “I can’t believe it!" I cry. "We’re free! The baskilisks aren’t nearly as dangerous now!”
“Um,” Miranda interjects. “I hate to break it to you guys, but these things are still actually very capable of destruction and general mayhem.”
“Yes,” I explain, “but the king was special. He acted as the central mind, the control center for the entire baskilisk race. Without him, the baskilisks will be disorganized and our job will be much easier.”
Our job...suddenly I remember my family, my kind, my old world. They’re my mission now, as much as baskilisk hunting here ever was.
I look at Miranda, agonized. “I have to go home,” I tell her. “Help them. Make sure everyone’s okay.”
Miranda pauses, biting her lip. “I’m coming with you. We quest together, Flairyon. Maybe once you accept that, you’ll stop making stupid life choices.”
“Are you sure?” I feel like I have to warn her. “We’re going into space, Miranda. Intergalactic space. Through wormholes. My home is farther away than either of us can imagine, and there’s no guarantee we’ll have food or water, or find our way back to Earth again.”
“Food won’t be a problem,” Kindle interjects. “We can channel energy into her. And shecan touch baskilisk blood. That’s a valuable trait among birddogs.”
Miranda taps her bloodied fang. “This is my mission, Flairyon. Any chance to extinguish these monsters is worth the risk. Just...let’s go back home first. Check in with mom. At least say good-bye.”
I study her. “Hmmm...the thing is, I’m not sure it’s wise to bring you. You’re so soft and weak.”
“Hey!”
“And you don’t have wings or claws or fire--”
“Excuse me! I am extremely not weak! I’ve killed more oversized serpents than I can count, plus stabbing her in the eye!”
I nudge her playfully, and she scratches my head between the ears. Meanwhile Kindle rubs her wounded eye. “You’ve got a point there.”
“Sorry about that,” says Miranda sheepishly. I turn to Kindle and shed a couple of tears onto her eyeball.
Miranda hops on my back. “We quest together,” she says again.
“Together,” I agree, spreading my wings to fly the trail home.
I have no idea where I come from. I can’t remember anything from before two years ago.
Today I’m awakened by the smell of smoke in my nostrils. More than usual, I mean. Then, with a yelp, I withdraw my front foot into the safety of my nonflammable nest. I’ve accidentally lit part of the carpet on fire. Oh well. Miranda doesn’t mind that much. Her room is full of small burn marks from earlier mishaps. I blow on the flames to put them out.
I had another dream last night--the kind where I’m running, hunting, chasing something. A forgotten memory? Or a reflection of my missing past?
Miranda sprawls on her bed a few feet away, wrapping her mattress in a tight embrace. Her ginger hair cascades over her dog-themed pajama shirt--mostly long enough to touch the center of her back, except for the part with singed, uneven edges, which only hits her shoulder. I may or may not have completely accidentally burned part of her hair once. If she had cared that much about her hair, then she wouldn’t have been so careless with it.
She’s still sound asleep, but I’m done with my nest. I carefully lift the feathers on my feet and gingerly set them on the ground one by one, picking my wayout. I let myself out into the backyard and sit, staring into the forest beyond. The sun rises in front of me.
And then--a flash of fire, a flare of golden wings. I snap to my feet, standing ridgid and poised. Like a shot, I’m off, tearing into the woods.
Nothing is there but green. Ferns rustle in the breeze; birds twitter overhead. The shadows creeping between the trunks are empty. I frown around, disappointed, before returning home much slower than before.
Miranda is up in the dining room, eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. “Good morning,” she greets me. “How’s life?”
“Good, I think.” I take the thought and project it into her mind, the way I’ve always communicated with her. “But Miranda...I saw someone like me out there.”
Miranda pauses her vigorous cereal killing, her spoon hovering in midair. “You saw another birddog?”
“Whatever we’re called,” I inform her, “I’m sure it’s a lot cooler and more creative than ‘birddogs’. But yes. One of those.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“No. She disappeared before I could.”
“Huh.” I can tell Miranda’s thinking what I’m thinking. What if she was searching for me? What if my kind is close by, wondering if I’m even alive?
It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I’m just fine now! I don’t need them! And besides, I’ll probably never see them again.
Except, I just did.
But if that other birddog was truly hunting for me, then why did she run away? Surely she felt my mind, as I felt hers?
But her mind felt strange and dark, as though a cold mist had fallen over it. Maybe she’s weird. Maybe I’m weird.
I press back against the very agitated something fluttering against the back of my mind. “Maybe we’ll come across her on our baskilisk hunt today,” Miranda suggests.
“Sure.”
Oh, yeah, I should probably mention: Mirandaand I are baskilisk hunters. She started about a year before I arrived on the scene, when one of the beasts appeared on a school playground and attacked her best friend. As Miranda tells the story, she defeated it using a venomous fang, which she plucked from its own mouth. Miranda exaggerates sometimes, but to this I can testify: she really does have a genuine baskilisk fang, about the size of a small sword.
Right now she’s pulling out a petri dish from her pocket, containing a single tiny baskilisk scale. It’s drawn to any baskilisk nearby, so we use it as a makeshift compass. “It’ll be a big one today,” she notes. "I have never seen it do this before." She holds it out to me, and I see neon blue flecks flickering in and out of existance on the scale's dark red surface.
Mrs. Flametarod comes into the dining room. “So you two are going baskilisk hunting after school?” she asks cheerfully. She still believes that this whole thing is a game, and we like to keep it that way. I don’t think she even realizes that baskilisks are real, even though she sees me, another magical creature, every day.
“Yep,” Miranda replies, ever the cheerful liar.
Mrs. Flametarod’s eyes narrow. “After school,” she repeats firmly. “No sluffing. I swear I’ll be calling your teacher every class period today.”
“Go ahead,” says Miranda. “They’ll all be very boring phone calls. See ya, mom.” She grabs her flame-patterned backpack and skips out the door.
“I’ll walk her to the bus stop,” I tell her mom. She always lets me because of the high violent crime rate around here. No one attacks a twelve-year-old with a flaming canine at her side.
Nonetheless, suspicion thrums through her brain as I let myself out the door.
Miranda is standing overthe flowerbed, rooting around under the lilac. “I’m not sure they’ll let you into school with your fang,” I comment.
Miranda pulls her weapon out from the tangled roots. “We aren’t going to school.”
“I’m shocked. Don’t you think it can wait? The more you skip school, the harder it becomes to be available when we’re really needed.”
Miranda frowns. “We’re always needed. The baskilisks won’t wait for us.” She pulls out her compass. “The scale wants to go northeast. That’s where those hikers went missing a few nights ago.”
“Let’s act like we’re going to the bus stop,” I suggest. “Your mom will be watching.”
And so we strut briskly down the street, feeling Mrs. Flametarod’s hard stare on our backs as we round the corner. Once we’re out of sight, I say, “hop on,” and she swings her leg up over my back. With infinite caution, she settles herself exactly between my wings and the flame that lives between my neck and shoulder blades. We’ve mastered this delicate art over the years, but in the beginning there were more than a few skin burns and singed pockets.
Summoning my unnatural reserves of strength, I flare my wings and lift off into the sky.
Puma’s Maw Mountain Trail snakes under tangled tree branches and draping Virginia creeper. There are rumors that cougars reside here, occasionally devouring stray hikers. There are a few here, but they aren’t the ones doing the devouring. The deep forests and vast crevices here are prime baskilisk territory.
“Nothing,” Miranda growls, slipping out of another crevice. “Flairyon, are you sure you can’t sense anything?”
“I’m trying,” I assure her, feeling her wary anxiety prickle like a tangle of briars. “I smell smoke,” I note a minute later. “Something might be burning nearby.”
“Something is burning nearby.” Miranda taps me on the head.
“You know what Imean.”
A clearing opens up ahead. Miranda and I stop dead in our tracks.
It appears that a large swathe of forest has been burned, perhaps a few days ago. In front of us, a cave opens up into the sloping hillside. Miranda unsheathes her fang. Together, we venture inside. It’s dark and deep.
Suddenly I freeze. Slowly turn my head. But I don’t need my eyes to see what’s there. I can already feel her with my mind alone.
The other birddog glares down at us from across the clearing.
Miranda notices my pause, but as her mouth opens I clamp down on her brain, preventing her from speaking, and direct her attention to our new friend.
“Who are you?” I call out to the other birddog. “Who are you?”
The other birddog narrows her eyes. “Leave,” her thoughts hiss, sounding eerie and sinister. “You have no business here. No business killing baskilisks.”
“I’m sorry. Are you fond of them? Because they’re kind of killing lots of people right now. So you’re mistaken--we do have business here.”
“Leave!” The other birddog demands again, lunging. We collide in midair, tussling. The other birddog clamps her jaws shut around my neck, and I can’t shake her.
Something rushes past my head. Miranda’s fang penetrates the other birddog’s eye and she lets go, her pain shooting through both of our minds.
I hit the ground running. “Hurry!” I shout to Miranda with my mind. “We have to get out of here!”
She’s lunging for the other birddog, retrieving her prized fang. Claws swipe inches from her face.
I lower my head and charge between her legs. With a yelp, she jolts herself into position, batting out the small new fires on her pants. The scent of burning cotton fills my nostrils as I leap into the sky. The sound of our agonized new enemy fadesinto the distance.
“What happened to your pants?!” is the first thing out of Mrs. Flametarod’s mouth when we get home. Miranda stumbles off of me. “We were attacked,” she gasps. “Almost kidnapped. Flairyon helped me escape. I rode her home.”
“Go change,” Mrs. Flametarod says brusquely. To me, she thinks, “Is that true?”
“All of it,” I assure her, twisting to lick the spot where Miranda sat. It always stings a little when she rides me, because water, even in small amounts, can be very dangerous to me. I do seem to have developed a mild tolerance over the years.
Mrs. Flametarod raises an eyebrow. “Is it?”
I pause, and that’s all she needs. “I’m going to have a little talk with Miranda,” she thinks, mostly to herself.
I creep down the staircase behind her, tailing her all the way to Miranda’s doorway. I hear Miranda sigh both externally and internally on the other side of the wall.
“Miranda,” says Mrs. Flametarod in a surprisingly gentle voice, “sit down.”
A pause, and then she complies.
“What is all this about? You’re not keeping up with your schoolwork. You keep skipping class. Are you really just sneaking off to play with Flairyon all day?”
I can feel Miranda’s resolve breaking. “The baskilisks, mom. I have to stop the baskilisks.”
“Oh, sweetie.” In her mind, Mrs. Flametarod is connecting Miranda’s words to the trauma she endured two-and-a-half years ago. “I know it’s hard after what happened to Elizabeth. But that was a rare incident. Most of us aren’t in danger from deadly snakes.”
But we are, mom! That wasn’t just any snake. Did you see the bite marks? It was huge! And there are more and more of them every day. If I don’t stop them all they’ll take over the whole world!”
“Miranda...I don’t think any baskilisks are going to take over theworld. I’m not even sure they exist.”
“They do. I can prove it, mom.” She pulls out her fang. “This is from a baskilisk. The baskilisk.”
Mrs. Flametarod’s breath catches in her throat. She lightly runs her hand along its length, trying to figure out what it actually is.
“This is it,” says Miranda softly. “It’s real, mom.”
Mrs. Flametarod’s mind is spinning. She’s half convinced. But she needs more. Another opinion.
“Flairyon!” She calls, stepping out of the room and nearly colliding with me. “Come into my room,” she says, beckoning.
“It’s really true,” I tell her as I sit by the foot of her armchair. “There are baskilisks. We’ve been sneaking off to fight them this whole time.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Flairyon. I know she’s your best friend and you just want to protect her.”
“No,” I say, looking into her eyes. “It’s the truth. Miranda’s stubborn but smart. Do you really think she’d go to such extreme measures to skip school if it weren’t for the greater good?”
“...Why has no one told me this before now?”
“We...didn’t want...to worry you?” We really don’t have that good of an excuse.
Mrs. Flametarod rubs her forehead. “I’m still having trouble believing all this. But...but at the same time, the fang...and you…”
“I’d better go check on Miranda.”
I cautiously enter Miranda’s room and find her packing her string bag. “Going somewhere?”
Miranda pulls her bag tightly shut. “We’re going after a baskilisk.”
“So soon?”
She glares at me. “Our compass was going wild in that cave. There’s definitely a baskilisk inside, but it might take days to find it. I did some research, and that cave hooks up to the Tunnels of Cena.”
“Okay.”
Miranda glances up at me. “Is something wrong?”
Something is fluttering madly against the edges of my consciousness, begging for my attention, as it has ever since the incidentwith the other birddog. “No...it’s just--”
“You’re worried about that other birddog,” Miranda interrupts. “You’re wondering why she wanted to kill you, and you’re afraid to go back there.”
“Yes,” I admit, lowering my head. Goodness, it’s like the mind reading goes both ways sometimes.
Miranda’s expression softens and she reaches out to rub my neck. “We...don’t have to go. There are other baskilisks to slay.”
But I can see in her head that she’s already caught on that particular baskilisk and the damage it might cause, and that the very thought of waiting, of putting off dealing with it, is killing her. That the longer we wait, the more likely someone is to share the fate of her old best friend. Seeing the flashbacks to the blood and venom and chaos, suddenly the last thing I want to do is hold her back.
“No,” I say. “You’re right. We’re going.”
And at that instant, Mrs. Flametarod enters the room. She pauses as she takes in the scene. Miranda challenges her with a silent glare.
She rubs her forehead again. “I believe you. About the baskilisks. I think.”
Miranda relaxes.
“But,” she continues, “this does not mean that I am okay with my twelve year old kid running off to fight dangerous monsters.”
“Mom. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ll be fine.”
“Look, you’re a very capable kid in lots of ways, but this is too dangerous.” Mrs. Flametarod folds her arms. “The answer is no.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do.”
They glower at each other, neither one lacking in willpower. Then Miranda, without breaking eye contact, pulls out her baskilisk compass and says, “I am the most experienced baskilisk fighter I know. I’ll prove to you that I can do this.”
“Wow.” Miranda’s mother stares at the bleeding, dead baskilisk in front of us. “Just wow.”
We had to search threeseparate neighborhoods to even get a signal and then hike a half hour over a barren plain, but we found one eventually. A young one, small and inexperienced, which we defeated easily, Miranda and I employing all our flashiest moves.
All right, so Mrs. Flametarod maybe helped a little by jabbing it with a stick between the scales. But it was mostly us, and I daresay we proved ourselves.
“Well?” snaps Miranda.
She sighs. “You’re just going to find a way to escape if I say no, won’t you?”
“I will,” Miranda promises.
“And you’ll have Flairyon to protect you…”
“I can contact you,” I told her. “From afar, if I need to.”
“I remember.” Mrs. Flametarod nods. “All right. Go on.” She embraces Miranda in a tight hug. “And come back soon.”
The caves are vast and empty. Darkness presses around us, kept at bay only by my flames and Miranda’s flashlight.
Until it doesn’t. The tunnels eventually bottleneck into a single massive cave, filled with towering stalagmite teeth and positively riddled with dark pits. “In case you’re wondering,” I inform Miranda, “you are not getting off of me anywhere in this cave.”
“I’ve read about this place,” says Miranda using only her thoughts (neither of us dare make an audible sound). “It’s called Central Jimothy. Only the most hard-core cave explorers have ever been here.”
I scan around us as we fly. I think I can feel the baskilisk in the distance--a big one, strong and smug, whose face I immediately want to rip off with my claws. Miranda has personal experience with what the monsters can do, but she isn’t the only one who hates them, and not just because I can read her mind. My rage runs deep, at the core of my core, and so I can only assume that I was bred to hate baskilisks.
SuddenlyI am filled with conviction that my kind and the giant snakes are mortal enemies, and have been for a while. Where did that thought come from?
Speaking of enemies, she is there too, a quarter hour behind, a bit below. Following us. Her mind is cold and reflective, so I can barely sense anything, except for her malice. The only thing we can do is keep going, keep going, and hope we don’t have to fight both of them at once.
But part of me doesn’t want to run. Part of me wants to stay put, wait for the other birddog to catch up. Talk to her. See what’s going on…
Crazy. Ridiculous. Why would I do that?
A whisper, a hint. A breath from my past.
But I shake it off. It’s crazy. Why would I put myself and Miranda in danger again?
What if the other birddog is in trouble?
Then it’s her fault for causing trouble. I am moving on from her, I am moving on from my kind. That part of my life is over. Irretrievable. Now my destiny is to be a baskilisk slayer with Miranda. I will not--
The air explodes with fire. I yell as pressure from below forces me into a barrel roll. I feel Miranda’s hands slip, the sweat from her palms stinging my neck as she loses her grip. And plummets into the nearest pit, the source of the fire.
I dive after her, flames pummeling my face. It feels good and soothes the sting on my neck. I feel refreshed and energized and alive. Fire is my element.
It’s not hers, though. My frantically reaching claws snag her shirt, and as soon I have her in all my front claws, I twist to hurtle skyward. Or cielingward, in this case.
Fires are spewing from every pit in the cave.I’ve never seen anything like it--not that I can remember, at least. I thrust myself at the other end of the cave, diving into a safe tunnel high in the wall.
Steam is rolling off of Miranda’s skin and what used to be her clothes as I set her down. She’s redder than a lobster; I’m surprised she’s still conscious, but she turns to me and rasps, “Well. I was not expecting that. Do you think it’s natural?”
“You are beyond lucky that I was there,” I inform her. “If you were here by yourself, you would now be a pile of ashes. If even that. Think about that.”
Miranda smiles weakly. “And I’m not a pile of ashes right now? Oh, Flairyon, don’t cry. I don’t think these burns are fatal.”
But I can’t help it. My eyes are blurring, and I feel something...liquid?...slide down my cheek.
What? This has never happened to me before, no matter how sad I’ve gotten.
A golden droplet drips past my nose, falling lightly through the steam to hit Miranda’s charred leg. She winces, hissing in pain--and then gasps. As do I.
The area around the teardrop glows, the light fading like an echo. And where the light touched...it’s almost gone. The wound.
“Oh,” Miranda breathes. “Healing...your tears have healing powers, like a pheonix.”
“How do I even have tears?” I wonder. I thought that liquid of any kind would kill me.
“Maybe its magic cancels out the damage it would cause,” Miranda suggests. “Cry some more! Quick, should I step on your toe or something?”
She doesn’t have to, because the tears continue to flow until we’ve covered the last of Miranda’s burns. “Well, that was convenient,” she declares, rising to root through her singed pack to pull out some spare clothes. “Come on,” she says when she’s through changing.
At that moment, Iwhirl, fangs bared. Because halfway across the cavern, glaring with unblinking golden eyes, is the other birddog.
“What is your problem?” I demand telepathically. “For the last time! Who are you, and what do you want?!”
“To stop this mad snakehunt,” she hisses through the mist. The thought almost seems strained, somehow. “To destroy you both and avenge my kin.”
“Your kin? What have I ever done to my own kind?”
“I am amused, chamrosh. But not amused enough. This is your final warning, both of you: go home.”
Miranda thrusts her leg over my shoulders. As she settles herself, I whirl and bolt, spreading my wings to half-fly down the tunnel.
It takes a while, but we do eventually manage to get her off our trail. Rounding a corner, we’re both almost blinded by the crystalline glimmer of the cave beyond.
“Wow,” Miranda breathes. Before us is another vast cave, this one full of giant crystals. Near the center hangs something else, a heap of crumpling, papery snakeskin.
“The baskilisk’s been here,” I say, nudging her mind in its direction.
“It’s gone that way,” she says, pointing, after staring at it for a moment. She knows this because of the direction of the snakeskin’s head.
I spread my wings and fly briskly to the cave’s exit, feeling the other birddog begin to close in.
The baskilisk is always on the move, so by the end of the day, we still haven’t gotten much closer. We both need to rest, though. The question is, where? It has to be somewhere out of the way. Secluded. Small. Hidden. Because I am not sleeping out in the open like someone who wants to be mauled.
Miranda points out a small side tunnel. “Let’s go in there.”
“Won’t work for us. There’s a waterfall.”
An idea is glimmering in Miranda’s mind, so I let her slide offof my back and investigate the side tunnel. “There’s a cave behind the waterfall,” she announces upon returning. “So it’s safe from birddogs--unless said birddog has a friend who comes prepared.” She pulls a roll of plastic wrap from her pack.
“I don’t think that’s going to work. What are you going to do, wrap me up with it?”
“Even better.”
Inside the tunnel, I flinch away from several flying water droplets. “Ready?” Miranda asks from my back.
I stare at the shifting wall of pouring doom. “Ready,” I sigh.
Miranda holds the plastic roll horizontally in front of us. Unravelled plastic wrap settles over us, as gentle as snowflakes. Except snowflakes aren’t that gentle with me. I got huge, horrible blisters from a surprise flurry once, from only a few flakes. From then on, I stayed home unless it was sunny.
I charge forward, resisting the urge to flare my wings. With a roar, the waterfall collides with our plastic covering. The plastic presses against my flaming tail and I smell burning plastic. My front legs thrust out to hit the ground beyond. A few bounds away from the waterfall, with Miranda sliding off of me, I notice a sharp pain in my left foot. A small, elliptical section of golden feathers has darkened to brown. Clearly the plastic wrap was not 100% effective.
The two of us curl up next to each other and close our eyes. The back of my mind is active, buried memories stirring close to my consciousness. Even so, I do eventually manage to fall asleep.
I am standing in a world of mesmerizing colors, the likes of which I can’t recall ever seeing. Waves of them alternate, pulsate, expand outward, making me dizzy. It’s like…
“Like you’re standing in a nebula.” Someone is standing in front of me, blurred and flickering likea dying flame.
Another birddog. One who looks so familiar.
“You’re me,” I say.
The other’s voice crackles like fire and lightning inside my head. “Arguably. We’ve been separated for so long, though, it may no longer be true. I’m your missing memories, Flairyon. I’m who you used to be.”
A tornado of questions whirls through my mind. Finally I settle on, “Where have you been all this time?”
“In some ways, I’ve been with you the whole time, buried in the back of your mind. But you could say I never made it out of that wormhole.”
Wormhole.
“Remember? You were flying through space. You went through the dangerous one, and made it out--but I didn’t.”
“Then...how are you here now?”
“You’ve been summoning me all this time. Didn’t you realize you were doing it? But only once you saw Kindle was I able to reach you. I’m not even fully here yet. Listen, you’ve got to get back to work. The mission we were on still needs you.”
“But it’s been months! I can’t just abandon Miranda. Surely there isn’t a need anymore! What even was it, anyway?”
Other Me flickers more wildly as she tries to speak. “Y-you can’t...can’t abandon the others, either,” she finally manages. “The princess is still out there, still captured! And meanwhile, the baskilisks are spreading across the universe, invading planets and destroying whole ecosystems! As far as we know, the rest of us have already been destroyed!”
“All the more reason I should keep doing what I’m doing,” I counter.
Other Me’s eyes narrow dangerously. “This is far bigger than you realize, traitor. There is no way you and one human can extinguish a plague of monsters that have expanded their reach to all over the universe! You have to stand with the others! How could you abandon your nation? How could you forget abouther?!”
“I’m not going to risk leaving Miranda!”
Other Me opens her jaws and howls with frustration. Lightning shooting up and down her body. The colors pulse, flare, and explode into my eyes.
“Flairyon! Flairyon, wake up!” Miranda is shaking me. “Time to go. I can hear the baskilisk!”
I shake off the dreams, chase back the memories. I untangle the net of deja vu from my conscious mind, every whisper of my old life, and shove them into the basement. Even though a rush of thoughts gives me an idea of what Other Me wanted me to do. The world has moved on, right?
A flash of desperation, a blaze of urgency. Maybe if we go track down the other birddog, I’d have another spark.
I pause for a moment. Then I make a decision. “Yes,” I say. “Let’s go.”
We exit the same way we entered--with a majestic cape of billowing plastic. My water burns flare with pain, but right now I don’t care. Because we are going on a baskilisk hunt, just like we always have.
For hours we wind deeper into the caves, our hearts pounding with familiar excitement. Finally the slithering stops and we begin to catch up.
Suddenly we stop in our tracks. “Is that...fire?” Miranda breathes. The wall ahead of us flickers with golden light.
Together, we creep forward. There’s a ring of fire all around the cave. “It’s over there, right?” says Miranda.
I nod. “As soon as you step in there, dodge immediately to the right. Be ready to use your fang.”
Miranda nods, closing her eyes for a moment before stepping into the fire ring.
Immediately, a scaly head plunges from the darkness beyond. Miranda jabs at it as she steps out of range. At the same moment, I duck and throw myself into the beast’s lower jaw, getting a good bite inbefore its tail knocks me aside.
“Miranda,” a voice siezes our minds. “And Flairyon. I was hoping to take one of you out with that strike. I suppose that was hoping for too much, considering your reputation.”
“You speak,” says Miranda. “I didn’t know your kind was intelligent enough to do that.”
“Just what I’d expect from a genocidal, venom-tongued human child!” spits the baskilisk. Miranda dodges his poisonous saliva. “Powers of the mind, such as telepathy, are a learned skill among baskilisks, usually corresponding with age. Be warned, little girl--I brought my kin here so that they would be safe. And they will be.”
Danger simmers in Miranda’s thoughts. No one, no one, calls her a little girl and lives to tell the tale. “They won’t be,” she hisses quietly. “Here’s how this works: we’re going to fight you, you’re going to die, and your entire species will become extinct.”
Something icy and cold lunges into my brain, quickly securing a firm hold. Frantically, I fight back, but it’s too much, and I’m quickly overpowered.
“That was easier than I expected,” hisses the baskilisk. “My dear Miranda, I’m afraid that’s simply not how things will be. Rather--”
I turn, locking my gaze on Miranda, claws curling, wings flaring, but it isn’t me, it’s the monster inside of me.
“--it’ll be you against all of us,” the baskilisk finishes, infuriatingly smug.
“Flairyon,” says Miranda, fear trembling in her voice and mind. “Flairyon.”
The panic is so strong, if I were in control I’d have fainted. I feel myself lunging at her as the other birddog flashes into view behind her.
Miranda knocks me aside with her fang, whirling to keep the other birddog at bay. “It’s you,” she gasps. “You’re mindcontrolling them!”
I’m terrified for Miranda. The battle draws on, but she’s outnumbered, and her enemy is relentless. I try to talkto her, to help her, but my mind is trapped in a wall of ice, and even my thoughts are not my own.
Miranda trips, the baskilisk looking on with cold amusement. Like an attack dog, I am onto her, my claws slashing into her stomach. As she goes limp, the baskilisk lets me reel back, staring in horror at what I’ve done.
Then he forces me to turn, throwing myself with all my speed at the cavern wall.
Other Me is there, surrounded by a vortex of colors. I feel as if I’m floating.
Waves of horror and despair wash over me, mingling freely with the grief of Other Me.
“You should have listened to me,” she whispers. “We’re almost dead. The baskilisk used you to destroy the very thing you forsook your mission for. You should never have chosen Miranda.”
“It’s hardly my fault,” I snap. “Plus, I had no idea what my mission even was! How--”
“Yes,” Other Me said softly. “Yes, you did.”
I realize that she’s right. After the dream, the flow of memories gave me a clue. I would have remembered what to do if I had followed through with the first impulse. All it would have taken was a spark. A single spark.
I just hadn’t wanted to choose.
“You didn’t have to choose,” Other Me says. “Who’s to say you couldn’t do both? You could have taken Miranda with you to finish your old mission first.”
Another wave of grief. “Poor Kindle,” Other Me whispers. “I wonder what the baskilisk is going to do to her.”
To escape my grief, I open my mind to my surroundings, letting them pour in.
A tiny prick of life hits my thoughts. Could that be…? I hardly dare to hope.
But it’s true. Miranda is still there, her life force very weak but still alive. I feel the painin her wounds, the tendrils of horror that still cling to her like spiderwebs.
And suddenly, I will do anything, anything, to get to her. To complete my mission.
But how? I turn back, staring at Other Me. I reach out to her, fishing for something. For more memories.
And more come. “Birddogs are creatures of the mind,” Other Me tells me. “And your mental abilities are exceptionally strong. You already know you can read thoughts and speak through telepathy. You can also influence the minds of others, if you wish. The power is in you. Wake up, Flairyon. Wake up and save them.”
A surge of power, and I’m conscious again. Everything feels broken and I can hardly move. It’s dark, and the flames on my wings have been reduced to a soft smolder. I flare, flare, flare again, and they burst into real flames. Then, with significant effort, I turn my head and shed healing tears onto my wounds.
It’s still going into effect when I rise and stagger across the cave to Miranda. She’s been set on a pile of stones for safekeeping--baskilisks prefer to stash dead bodies underground for a while, eating them when they start rotting. The gash in her stomach from my claws is huge. How is she still alive? I summon tears, letting them roll down my snout.
Nothing.
But I won’t give up, and about two thousand teardrops and several desperate mind tugs later, she gasps and sits up. “Wha- I’ll kill you, kill you for what you did to--wait, it’s so dark--how long--”
“I don’t know.”
She fully comes to and huddles away from me, drawing her fang. “It’s okay,” I assure her, gently setting my talons on her shoulder. “It’s me.”
Miranda relaxes.
“Listen,” I say urgently, “my memories--they’re coming back. And I have a mission that needs to be completed rightnow.”
“How long have you known?”
“Ever since she first attacked us,” I confess.
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Miranda demands.
“I was afraid it would pull me away from you.”
“That is the dumbest--Flairyon, you know you can’t get rid of me, whether you want to or not. We quest together, period, the end.”
“But--”
“We quest together,” Miranda repeats. “Let’s go fulfill your mission. And kill a baskilisk.”
The look on the baskilisk’s face when we approach him is priceless.
“You’re dead.”
“Not as dead as you’re going to be.” Miranda flips her hair.
“And you--” the baskilisk turns to me-- “What’s the deal with you?”
I can feel his mind groping around the edges of mine, but he won’t get in this time. My shield is back and it’s stronger than ever.
The baskilisk hisses with frustration. “I can just hear my mother right now-- ‘What did I say about making sure your prey is dead? I swear, one day your carelessness will come back to BITE YOU.’ Well,” he looms over us, “I sure as Hades won’t be making that mistake again.”
“You won’t,” Miranda agrees, “because it will be the last mistake you ever make.” She feints forward, then dodges to the side, heading around to the back while I go for the eyes. He closes his nictictating membrane, but I use my wings to sear right through it.
As he screeches, Miranda leaps, thrusting her fang through his lower jaw. As she withdraws her weapon triumphantly, the other birddog hurtles into me. I catch her as we fall, reaching deep into the crevices of her mind. The baskilisk’s presence is there, encasing her in ice.
The baskilisk chortles as Miranda claws her way up his neck, stabbing with her fang. I focus as hard as I can, putting all my strength into breaking the ice while fending offslashing claws.
The baskilisk’s coil slams me against the wall. I immediately begin prying out his scales to get to the soft flesh beneath. But my windpipe is being crushed, and it’s all I can do just to hold on.
“Now you will die for real.” The baskilisk is bearing down on Miranda. “I never make the same mistake twice.” His jaws are closing around her.
At that moment, my strength overpowers his, and the mind control snaps. The other birddog immediately turns and thrusts herself into his eye.
The pain makes his coils loosen and I fling myself up to join them, attacking his face as Miranda heaves herself into his now gaping mouth.
The ensuing struggle is chaotic and dangerously bloody. It ends with Miranda climbing out from between limp jaws to retrieve her fang from the dead baskilisk’s throat.
The other birddog stares at her, at me. “Flairyon,” her mind gasps, “Flairyon,” and then she lunges for me again, not to attack this time, but for a tight embrace. “Of course it was you,” she whispers. “I knew it would be you who came to save me.”
Love blossoms in my chest, as strong as if it were for Miranda. “Of course I did,” I whisper back. “Kindle.”
That’s her name. It’s a beautiful name.
Kindle takes my head in her claws. “There’s something...different about you. Part of your mind feels...empty. Oh--you lost your memory.”
Other Me appears at the corner of my vision. We both turn. “I can help,” Kindle says. “Help speed the process along. I think you taught me once.”
She closes her eyes and reaches toward Other Me, who leans forward. Kindle’s quiet concentration thrums in my own mind. Other Me flickers, blurs, and slowly joins form with me, our minds merging.
I gasp and flare my wings. “What?” Miranda demands. “What’s happening?”
It’s impossible todescribe this rush of feverish clarity. I am Flairyon, and at the same time, I am Flairyon. All my memories are back, I remember my backstory and my world and my family, and who I used to be joins seamlessly with who I am now. We’re not so different after all.
And--
I glance at the dead baskilisk’s head leaning against the wall. The faint neon blue markings on his face. “Kindle,” I say, “isn’t this the baskilisk king?”
Kindle frowns at him. “It is! Flairyon...we’ve been trying to find this thing, to kill him for...for generations.”
We stare at each other and then burst out laughing. “I can’t believe it!" I cry. "We’re free! The baskilisks aren’t nearly as dangerous now!”
“Um,” Miranda interjects. “I hate to break it to you guys, but these things are still actually very capable of destruction and general mayhem.”
“Yes,” I explain, “but the king was special. He acted as the central mind, the control center for the entire baskilisk race. Without him, the baskilisks will be disorganized and our job will be much easier.”
Our job...suddenly I remember my family, my kind, my old world. They’re my mission now, as much as baskilisk hunting here ever was.
I look at Miranda, agonized. “I have to go home,” I tell her. “Help them. Make sure everyone’s okay.”
Miranda pauses, biting her lip. “I’m coming with you. We quest together, Flairyon. Maybe once you accept that, you’ll stop making stupid life choices.”
“Are you sure?” I feel like I have to warn her. “We’re going into space, Miranda. Intergalactic space. Through wormholes. My home is farther away than either of us can imagine, and there’s no guarantee we’ll have food or water, or find our way back to Earth again.”
“Food won’t be a problem,” Kindle interjects. “We can channel energy into her. And shecan touch baskilisk blood. That’s a valuable trait among birddogs.”
Miranda taps her bloodied fang. “This is my mission, Flairyon. Any chance to extinguish these monsters is worth the risk. Just...let’s go back home first. Check in with mom. At least say good-bye.”
I study her. “Hmmm...the thing is, I’m not sure it’s wise to bring you. You’re so soft and weak.”
“Hey!”
“And you don’t have wings or claws or fire--”
“Excuse me! I am extremely not weak! I’ve killed more oversized serpents than I can count, plus stabbing her in the eye!”
I nudge her playfully, and she scratches my head between the ears. Meanwhile Kindle rubs her wounded eye. “You’ve got a point there.”
“Sorry about that,” says Miranda sheepishly. I turn to Kindle and shed a couple of tears onto her eyeball.
Miranda hops on my back. “We quest together,” she says again.
“Together,” I agree, spreading my wings to fly the trail home.
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