dragon

Hatching a human from an egg is wretched, in that it makes one retch, as she could attest after meeting her younger brother. They couldn’t well be called ‘human’, really, but as with ‘princess’, the people wouldn’t compromise on that inaccuracy (at least, with her).

She liked it. She liked being called human and she didn’t know why. ‘Sophont’ was perfectly fine, if imprecise. It ate her up whenever the question of her humanity came up, and she didn’t know why.

They had to crack her egg and insert all manner of tubes and cloth to ensure proper disposal of waste and transfer of nutrients. Her mom still kept her eggshells. Quincy had supplied ‘placenta’ and ‘womb’ as options of metaphor. “Cracked wombshells.” She had declared she “hated metaphor”.

Her mom was immensely joyous of her and Hendrik’s existence. She didn’t reciprocate. She was indifferent.

“Were you always a—” Quincy had once started, and never finished.

Yes. She had been, was, and always will be, a ‘—’.

She lived in the castle for 12 years, alongside many of her half-siblings. The education there was serviceable, if disorganized, with a rotating cast of a series of domains. Her mother had been ecstatic of her going to Northpoint, so she went:

Sordid, base pornography, thought Anisa. Required reading for Saxle 102 at Northpoint, despite not originally being Saxle. ‘Ilthusian’, a language she’d never heard of before.

She was 12.

Callister had been the one to make it a requirement, so she complained directly to him, haphazardly floating in, on scheduled time to the second, opening her mouth to his back as he continued playing fortepiano: “Dean, what example do you intend to set with ‘Reflection’? We must accurately utilize language, yes, and I understand the techniques the writer is using, and I understand how we can use these in our own writings and speeches; however, I question the telos of such emotional displays. What does it tell the students if they believe emotion and attachments are a valid way to convey information? Should we not be promoting an objective basis from which to reason?”

Half paying attention, he stopped playing, swung his head around, and gave her four parts disappointment, three parts surprise, and two parts annoyance. “I take it you disliked it, then.”

“Quite. That father continues to support this academy is a marvel.” It wasn’t. The academy was nearly as old as the first Bythrusian steps on the island. But, she was in a rather sour mood, and that she was aware of this soured her further.

“When you go back home, young lady, and you’re given your royal duties, how do you intend to compel your people if you don’t speak to their humanity?”

“I don’t,” she said. “I will gather information and statistics, I will speak the truth, and I will execute. I will not be compelled by arbitrary whims. A princess must exist above everything, and feel nothing, lest her rule be arbitrary and tyrannical.” If she repeated it enough, it would be true.

Callister was failing to hide his disdain, but he was attempting it, which was respectable. “Do you hate everything about this academy?”

Unexpected. Obviously, he wanted her to say no, and though she so wanted to say yes, needing to read stupid words from a stupid girl from a stupid land, saying yes would be a lie. The academy had good food, and there were some good books, and… “No. The academy has good food, and there are some good books, and some of the teachers are quite good. And I’ve learned a lot, and I feel a lot more confident in my ability to manage people. And it’s fun to write.”

He smiled. “I’d like to show you something.”

He led her down the hall, into The Plot That Was Always Hot, unlocked a door, opened a hatch, and climbed down a ladder, as she floated behind. Down, down, down the ladder, and hotter, down a hall of brick to the sides and a bronze arch on the roof, there was a pane of glass. There was a door to its side. Through the glass, down another hall, past another door with a window, there was the face of a woman missing half her head, though it was hard to see much more than that. It may have been a painting immediately behind the door, a ‘memento mori’. Or, perhaps a zombie head on an unseen shelf.

“What is that,” stated Anisa, flatly, though not unkindly, and not as a question.

“The writer of ‘Reflection’,” said Callister, focused on the head. “She’s the reason this academy exists at all. She inspired its creation. You don’t have to like her writing, of course, but understand that one is not compelled to action by statements of fact or statistics. Regardless if you act on truth or lies, edicts without humanity, without compassion, will lead to tyranny.”

Apparently, her mother and father trusted this man enough that he could proselytize to their children. Or, they didn’t care. She would need to be ever more guarded from future dogmatic possession.

“You didn’t have to show me a dead head to tell me that,” she said. Yet, there was something moving past the glass, some sort of worm twitching around, in some foggy fluid. Perhaps it was in a jar.

“She’s very much alive,” said Callister.

“What’s an edict?” said Anisa.

“A governmental order,” said Callister.

They stared at the head for a while.

“That’s disgusting,” said Anisa.

“Yes, it is,” said Callister. “But anyways. When you become a big important queen, don’t forget we’re all people too, okay?”

She didn’t get past the title and attribution. She ripped the paper apart, and carried it around until she found a large enough body of water. She strangled the pieces, drowned them, and let the water assimilate the ink.

It took her 20 minutes to write that. The title and attribution were quick. The first line was a few minutes. She froze between ‘a’ and ‘hot’ for 15.

She again let the water eat the ink.

She did so much writing throughout the day, normally. There were many pieces of information one had to memorize to be regal, writing it down helped. History, cryptozoology, physics.

But, there was Saxle class, where it was claimed regality didn’t only maintain what came before, but that it generated. Asinine feelings and thoughts had to be analyzed, interrogated, interpreted, reflected, rearranged, agreed with, disagreed with, torn apart, ignored.

He — Callister — didn’t teach the class himself, but he would often stop in and read student analyses.

Could she really be brought to hating her mother? Pointless, stupid poems! Mom had to be ignorant that this was what they were being taught! Yes, the Day Vanguard had subjugated her, but was it not her immutable nature to recognize violence as the ultimate determinant? She would not want her daughter reading poems! One needs to know how the world is. One does not need to know what is happening inside a peasant’s head to have them till a field for you.

Here was Callister, peering over her shoulder, whipping a slave into recognizing that there is more to the world than masters and slaves.

And again, it was drowned.

20 minutes.

She tore it up, and stood above the water. Her hands balled, her face whipped by wind, she stood, and she stood, and she stood.

It was in thin ribbons, but it was from a single piece of paper, it could easily be reconstructed, should it not deteriorate further.

30 minutes.

If he didn’t have a name, and didn’t understand any languages, how could—

How could what?

Mmm. Okay.

She managed to dissolve this one, though had a pang of nothing after doing so.

What was the point of this? She just needed to get good enough at writing, and build up enough tolerance for sappiness, that neither she nor Callister would lambast the other in Saxle class.

She was physically struggling to continue. Her arm had seized. Ink dripped down from the quill as it hovered above the paper.

It wasn’t interesting. Either a dragon trivially lives and kills everyone, or a city of elves trivially live in happiness.

3 hours straight. It was very late.

Why was she crying? 12 was too old to cry for a human, and a dragon shouldn’t cry at any age.

She looked to the pile of writings she’d accumulated over the past few days, conspicuously unripped and undissolved.

She ripped them up, and she ripped the one she had just written up. She couldn’t leave her room this late to find water, as people may ask what she was doing, so she swallowed it all.