Kirra

This is a story of two brothers.

They were as dissimilar as the elements themselves. The older brother was as water, cold and ever-changing, and he could not stay still. He had an affinity for magic and illusion, and oft did he employ it so that he could laugh at the expense of others.

The younger brother was said to have a heart of stone, so quiet and withdrawn was he – but it is under rock that volcanoes slumber, is it not? And there was a rare kindness in him that no sorrow could touch, which endeared him to all creatures he met. He was as unchanging as the older brother was mercurial.

They journeyed together for many a season, unburdened by responsibility or duty other than the loyalty they held for each other.

But fate had it so that there came a long winter – the harshest and fiercest of all the brothers had seen, and they fended off against the dangers of the cold with difficulty. One night, when the moon was high in the sky and shone bright on the snow, the forest glowing in its light, the brothers found a cave to rest. But the cave was not abandoned, and inside the brothers stumbled upon a phoenix – a creature of the tales of old even for dragons. Its feathers were not those of a true bird, but pure flame, licking at the air, and its eyes were the blue of the darkest depths of rivers.

The phoenix rose slowly, waves of fire rolling off of it. What matter is it that you have here? it thought at them. Name yourselves and your purpose.

The older brother did not answer, so entranced was he by the creature. “We are but travellers who seek aid from the cold,” the younger brother said, brave but afraid. “We did not mean to disturb your rest.”

The dead know no rest. There was laughter in the phoenix's mind, as if the comment was funny. Come. I have not had the chance to entertain guests for a long while. I shall give you shelter, and mayhaps you will feed me tales of the outside world. I wonder how it changed in my absence.

“We accept,” the younger brother said, and that was that.

Time passed and winter departed, yet the brothers did not. The three of them lived together as one, and their life was a joyful one.

But one night the older brother grew curious, as was his nature, and unrest came to gnaw at his mind, for the phoenix had told them many tales of its kin, but never spoke of why it was living alone in a landscape so desolate that snow could be heard falling.

“How is it that you live here all by your lonesome?” he asked. “We thought phoenixes to be legend. No one has seen one for ages, and yet here you are.”

The fire of the phoenix dimmed. There was a war. Many had died. And we found we could not recover what had been lost, or rebuild what remained to heal our grief, and then even more were driven mad with anger and sorrow, and dispersed to the seven winds, never to be seen again.

“What happened to the rest?” the younger brother asked.

The phoenix's thoughts became veiled with shame. I do not know. I was among those driven mad. It took many years until I saw beyond rage, and realised I was alone.

“Happens,” the older brother said, unconcerned. “You could seek them out now. I know I wouldn't be satisfied with being called the last of my kind, or even worse, extinct.”

I abandoned them when they needed me, the phoenix boomed. I was to lead them, and yet I fled. I do not think they survived. If they did, I do not think they would look upon me kindly. I am a traitor.

And the older brother grew furious. “You are a coward hiding from the past. You should seek to move forward, not wallow in despair like a child.”

You know nothing of my sorrow, the phoenix thought, then paused. You have not known sorrow at all.

The older brother answered not but for the strength of anger in his glare. In the dead of night, when the phoenix slumbered, he ventured outside and looked at the moon, barely visible in the sky. He set his wings to flight, and was about to depart, but he heard a hiss.

“What are you doing!” the younger brother said, running towards him. “It is too late to hunt.”

“I am not hunting. This place has served its purpose to me, and I plan to leave its rot behind,” the older brother said. “Along with the phoenix. Nothing grows where the dead live, and if it plans to stay dead, then I shall endeavor to live to the fullest.”

“Yours is a rash decision,” the younger brother said. “The phoenix gave us food and shelter for seasons, and we became friends. It does not do to leave in the dark of the night like thieves. We could convince it to come with us!”

“Us?” the older brother said, disgusted. “I don't need a dead legend to drag me down. When first I saw it, I thought it a miracle; now, I see but a corpse.” And he understood that his sibling's kindness was born of weakness, and he hated weakness above all.

“I will thank the phoenix for its welcome,” the younger brother said, somber but cheerful. “And then we shall travel together again.”

“Go, then,” the older brother said. “Say your goodbyes. I shall wait here.”

“You better!”

But when the younger brother returned to the clearing, he found it empty. “Brother!” he cried, and cried again, but there was no response save for the echo among the trees.

And so the story of the two brothers ended.


This is a story of a dragon named Kirra.

He journeyed the world in search of kinship, and stayed with many a clan, but he found he belonged nowhere. Though his kindness had not dimmed, his optimism did, and he grew to trust nobody with the matters of his heart. He was loyal to the clans' leaders, but held no love for them. He searched for his brother, but had no hope of finding him, and asked nobody about him – as if it was a secret to have had a sibling so close, and now so far away.

Once, Kirra was walking along a creek. This was where he found a strange dragon.

“You are so big!” she trilled at him. She was small enough to fit on his head like a hat. “What are you doing here, mister?”

“Oh, uh,” Kirra stumbled, baffled by the young one's enthusiasm. “I am a traveller. It is in the nature of the traveller to see many places, you see.”

The hatchling seemed to muse on this idea. “I like it. When I grow up, I want to be a traveller too! Will you teach me?”

Kirra smiled at that, feeling weird for it. He had not smiled for some time. “I shall certainly try.”

“Great!” the hatchling grinned, sprinting about his legs. “My name is Dust! What's yours?”

“Kirra,” he said. Briefly, he remembered his brother's voice – Kirra! Where have you gone again? I've been looking for you the whole day, don't run off like that! – calling him when they were children. “I am Kirra.”

“I don't like it,” the hatchling said, frowning. “I will give you a better one!”

Kirra was perplexed. “Why don't you like it? It's a normal name.”

“Because you got sad when you said it,” she said, and Kirra's eyes went wide at that. “Come, now – I will show you my clan's lair!”

And Kirra went, because he found he couldn't not.


He spent ten seasons with Dust's clan.

Gradually, Kirra grew to love her clanmates as much as he loved her, and they found him helpful and resourceful. He was deemed a useful addition to the lair, appreciated for his friendship and assistance both, and nobody asked where he had come from, which Kirra was grateful for the most.

“You are the pillar of our clan,” the leader once told him, smiling. “Never change. Though even if you do, we will still be proud to call you brother.”

Kirra felt the strangest mix of fondness and hate when he heard those words. Brother. He thought nobody would call him that again. He hoped a familiar voice would. But this compromise – was not so terrible, he realised. He was content.

But still he felt hollow, and the emptiness gnawed at him, until he couldn't count a day when he felt no anger at the world. He would wander the territory for days, talking to no one, and he was quiet when he did return. He feared the sickness in him would spread, and destroy all he held dear.

Dust worried. “What's wrong?” she said.

Kirra had no answer for her. I am wrong, he thought. I must be, for why else would my brother have left me? and then he chided himself for self-pity. “I think it is time I travel again.”

Dust's eyes grew wide and amazed. “Then I will accompany you!” she proclaimed immediately. Then she paused, energy dimming. “But the leader and the others will be sad. Are you sure you have to?”

“I am,” Kirra said. He looked at her – so bright, so hopeful, so young – and felt chilled to his bones as understanding took him that he could not take her with him. He did not want her to witness his anger. He did not want to scare her with the fury growing inside him.

“We will leave tomorrow,” he said. He sounded certain. He hated how good a liar he had become.

He left in the night, just like his brother had before, and hated himself for it.



Kirra retreated to the Southern Icefield to continue in his solitude, hoping the cold would soothe his anger. The weather was harsh and the prey scarce – he had to focus all his efforts on survival, and had no energy to spare on lingering on the past.

He hunted in the plains, and retreated to the mountains for the night, where caves were aplenty, to avoid blizzards. There was no obvious course for his life to take that he saw, so he changed nothing, and existed. He felt calmer, but he knew not whether it was true serenity, or if he was simply frozen through to the core. He was neither sad nor angry. The matters of the past – his brother, his phoenix, his leaders, his Dust – lost their significance.

Why care when you can be one with the sky and the snow, and want for nothing, and fear nothing?

But the ice plains were not as desolate as Kirra thought. Once, when the sun hung high in the sky, he set out to hunt – and when he pounced on a bird sitting on a hill of snow, the hill moved, rolling away, and Kirra was thrown off to the side, falling to the ground.

“What the—” Kirra wheezed, dragging himself upright, watching in a daze as the hill stood up, shook its fur out, and turned out to be a dragon with a speckled brown hide. He was not much larger than Kirra, and he turned to him with a curious tilt of his head.

“Oh, hello there,” he said. “I am sorry to have interrupted your– uh, hunt? I'm betting it was a hunt. But I was sleeping in this pile of snow, you see.”

Kirra tried to get his bearings. “Why were you sleeping under the snow.”

The dragon was obviously taken aback. “It keeps me warm, of course.” Then he paused, and spoke again more quietly. “Actually – but don't tell no one! – I was observing the landscape. Many guests pass through our lands, and I like to watch them to see whether they need, like, help. Mostly they're just interesting to watch; sometimes I bring them to our mountain if they're really interesting.”

“So you hid under the snow,” Kirra said slowly to the strange apparition with dawning understanding. “And then you fell asleep.”

“Well, ha, yes,” the dragon laughed. He seemed self-conscious. “It seems so. But it is not often that I am caught slacking. I wish you told me your name, so that I might remember you better.”

“Kirra,” Kirra said. “Yours?”

“They call me the Watcher of the Wastes!” the dragon boasted. “When they are joking. Mostly they just call me Sharr.”

“Well then, Sharr,” Kirra said, “it seems now you've ruined my dinner.”

“No fair! You have ruined my sleep,” Sharr accused. He was closer now, Kirra realised, but did not feel like a threat. Kirra was suddenly reminded of his brother's playful taunting when they were children. “Will you agree the blame is to be shared if I invite you home? There is food there aplenty.”

“I thought nobody lived in the plains,” Kirra said, confused, even as he followed his strange companion. “And I didn't see a soul in the mountains.”

Sharr grinned as he walked. “Our place is a bit, uh, farther. The last mountain before the Fortress of Ends.”

Kirra's ears prickled with instinctual fear. He was brave, but even the mere sight of the Fortress on the horizon made him so uneasy that he turned his eyes from it. He could not fathom who would choose to make a living so close to it.

“You seem dubious,” Sharr said, “but before you make any choices, I'd like to add that our mountain is also a volcano.”

Kirra blinked.

“We don't know if it's active, though,” Sharr continued. “I hatched there, but I spent most of my time away, so I don't really know exactly why we settled there. I think in the beginning it was just Matsu who was crazy enough to just sit down and pick the single most dangerous mountain of the icefield for his home, but—”

Kirra's heart stopped, and at first he did not understand why. Words left him, and his breath came in short bursts that made him feel dizzy.

“—I mean, I don't really know, I'm just trying to make sure the place doesn't blow up,” Sharr finished with a flourish. He turned to gauge the response to his monologue, but his easy smile withered when he saw Kirra, who was having trouble standing. “Hey, you okay?” Sharr asked warily. “I didn't mean to make you scared, it's not really so horrible there, it's great–”

Kirra interrupted him. “That name. The name of your leader. What was it?”

Sharr blinked. “He's not really a leader. He doesn't really tell anyone what to do, and nobody knows where he came from, so I think he's as much of an outcast as the rest of us—“

“His name, Sharr. You said his name was Matsu.” Kirra had to swallow against the bile in his throat. “I had a– I used to have a brother with a name like that. A great user of magic. A tongue that cut sharper than claws, and eyes devoid of color.”

It couldn't be him.

Sharr eyed Kirra warily. “That'd be the one, yes. I never knew he had family, honestly.”

Kirra could not name the emotions within him. It felt like the dam he had built over the years out of rationalisation and despair finally came crashing down. He could not breathe. “He abandoned me. When we were children.”

“Oh,” Sharr said, and to Kirra his voice came from very far away.

His brother – alive, here. His brother, whom Kirra no longer searched for, because he had abandoned hope of finding him. His brother, vanished in the night, never to be seen again.

His brother, who had not kept his promise– who had not waited, as he had said he would—

Kirra wanted to scream, but there was no air in his lungs.

“Oy, hey, stay with me,” Sharr said, and he sounded sharper. Kirra didn't understand why he sounded so frightened. There was something warm on his forehead. “Just breathe. In, out. Innnnnn— and out. That's it. Come on.”

Kirra suddenly felt much lighter. The dark spots dancing before his eyes went away. He looked up to see Sharr staring at him – no, not staring, just looking. Was he concerned?

“I'm. I apologize,” Kirra said. He took a deep breath, then another. He crossed his eyes to look at the weird something on his head, but he couldn't see it. “What did you do?”

Sharr suddenly seemed abashed. “Just a rune of calm,” he said, turning his eyes away. He made a complicated gesture in the air, and the warmth went away.

“I have never heard of such a rune,” Kirra said. “And I've been many places.”

“I made it. It's nothing special,” Sharr answered. “Just a hobby. More importantly, are you okay?”

Kirra exhaled. He wanted to convince himself he wasn't still shaking. “No,” he said. “But thank you. Take me to your home, please.”

Take me to my brother. I want to talk to my past.

Sharr nodded. “Okay. But we are not flying. I don't trust you not to veer off and fall down into the sea.”

“Agreed,” Kirra said, and they set out. Sharr led the way, and every once in a while he turned to see whether Kirra had fallen behind, but Kirra was determined, and with each step he walked stronger. Sharr talked to him about many things, and told him of other inhabitants of his mountain – Rakraēt it was called, Kirra had learned, and he couldn't help but snort – but never once asked about Kirra's story.

And as they drew closer to Rakraēt, Kirra grew to appreciate Sharr's soft company. He did not want to face his past alone – he did not know what he would do with the answer.

They walked in silence for a while, but Sharr broke it. “I don't know what passed between you and Matsu,” he said, and a ready objection rose on Kirra's tongue, “but even if he tells you to get lost, don't take it to heart. He treats the mountain like it is his, and we are all but guests, but in truth he cannot tell you whether you are free to stay or not. That is your choice,” Sharr added in a serious tone, but then paused, and a smile creeped into his voice. “And I vow to protect you from him regardless!”

Kirra was floored. “Why? You don't know me.”

“I know Matsu enough to know how little he cares sometimes when he should care more,” Sharr said. “He has never found anybody's feelings but his own significant.”

That is not true, Kirra thought. He has always thought everything is significant. But maybe Kirra didn't know him anymore.

“And I could use a friend,” Sharr continued, seemingly indifferent to Kirra's internal strife. “Would you be so kind as to volunteer? You seem like the type to not mind discussions about science that run until dawn, and I've been missing a companion for that, since Kieran's and Aule's interests run in a slightly different alley than runes.”

“I am no scientist,” Kirra said, thinking about his own abandoned talent for magic, and feeling ashamed. “I doubt I would have anything of substance to offer in return.”

“Nonsense,” Sharr said immediately. “You are smart. I can see it – I have a talent for spotting that, you could say.” He grinned broader, shooting Kirra a wink above his wing. “And if all else fails, you can just feed me blackmail material on your brother. I assume you have plenty.”

It would be so easy to say yes to such a friendship. And yet— “I would not want to– There are days when I get angry. I don't—“ Kirra paused, took a breath. “I don't think I'm made right. Not anymore.”

Sharr looked at him with something that resembled sympathy, but wasn't. Before Kirra could pin it down, Sharr smiled again. “I've always loved a challenge.”

“Then I will not apologize,” Kirra said, because he didn't understand how Sharr could see – because he saw, he had been there when Kirra broke down just moments ago – Kirra's desperation, and misery, and remain so maddeningly calm, and not turn away.

Perhaps there were some friends yet to be made that could be trusted with more truths than others. Kirra felt suddenly bold, and smiled back. “I accept your offer of friendship.”

And Sharr grinned at him so brightly as if he was the Sun itself.