human magic; dragon magic

"Did you fall?" Tara asked.

Serryah lowered her head, and said in a low growl, "Yes. It was the most difficult and wrenching thing I hope ever to endure. It only happened once, for I never completely lost the gift of flight as the other dragons did, but once was enough."

"Why were you different?" Tara asked.

"I had always been a little apart. Aloof, some might say. Some did say. As I told you , I never accepted a Rider until you. I lived my life in the sky, and in my own mind. Other dragons were getting closer and closer to the humans, hypnotized by their audacity, being lured to the earth just as the sky had somehow been lured. But I kept apart, watching from above but always more interested in above than below. The time that I fell was when I was thinkg the thoughts I just shared with you - that it seemed sky had met earth, and there was something magnificent in that. I became disoriented, unable to tell up from down, beating my wings but not sure if it was righting me or hastening my demise. Thankfully, I was not badly injured by the fall, but I was shaken and hid underground for some time, too afraid to try again lest I have to experience that terrible loss, the inescapable pull of gravity. Eventually though, I venture back out and made my way, laboriously, by foot to a place where I could not see the humans and their buildings like towns with their lights that eclipsed the stars. I went to a place where I could see the stars and for several days i simply staid on the ground, reacquainting myself with the sky through sight and thought and feel alone. When I thought that I knew it again, that I was once more a free creature of the air and not a miserable beast huddled on the ground and shackled to the earth" (a quick apologetic look at Tara, who only looked on, expectantly) "I ventured to fly again.

"Just as the fall was the worst of all memories, so was that first flight the best. I soared into the silent night air and once more felt I could touch the stars, that I floated somewhere in the universe just between earth and everywhere else, not just in teh pull of earth with everything else distant and unattainable. I vowed never to go back, never to gaze desirously at the humans' creations again. That was how I survived. I was in the air when all my kin perished, huddled underground."

"So, what now?"

Serryah had been standing, gazing tensely at the sky during hte monologue, but she now settled herself comfortably near Tara.

"Even alone with the sky and the stars, my magic was never as strong as it had been before. And when the Overlay hit, I felt the dragon magic drain from me as surely as if I bled from a thousand wounds. Those were the lives of my kin draining away, for we are only strong together. But in the last few years I have felt some magic returning, I feel the strange flickering of magic, like tiny bolts of lightning coursing through my body. I believe there are other dragons. I believe they are alive, somewhere inside this mountain. We must find them, and let them out into the air, and teach them to love the sky once more. I cannot do it myself, but I have seen you work the turbines. I have seen that you have a special way of coming at a problem that even other humans do not seem to have. I believe that you can work some human magic to help me release the dragon magic."