Dragonsapien (8 page)

Then they would
be hard, dry, firm and demanding more.

They could be
parted, the breath exhaled hot, excited.

Then they could
close, pout, tickle, their coolness tingling and
delicious.

His would
tenderly envelop her bottom lip.

Then hers would
wrap around and teasingly, joyously nibble at his upper
lip.

Their lips came
and blended perfectly together in so many ways, ways Celly couldn’t
have imagined less than a day ago.

How does that
work? she might think.

How is that
possible? she might wonder.

But she needed
to neither think nor wonder.

It just
was
.

And it was all
so perfect.

*

Cocooned within
Celly’s enveloping wings, bathed in her own volcanic light, Jake
felt as if they were one and the same thing; he was a part of her,
she a part of him, blending, absorbing one into the
other.

The shimmering
light of golden flashes and silver threads played over them,
bringing them together, making their differences imperceptible and
unimportant, merging them as if it were some ancient, alchemical
process.

And she felt so
light! So incredibly, unbelievably light!

As light as he
felt once more. So light he could almost believe they could soar up
into the heavens, his physical body left behind, his spiritual
nature freed.

It was the
cocoon that creates the butterfly.

The womb that
you emerge from refreshed, reborn.

He was no longer
purely Jake.

He was no one,
nobody, without the part of him that was now Celly.

*

There was a
blaze of emerald light.

As if caught up
in an explosion of jewels, both Jake and Celly were wrenched up off
their feet. Awkwardly stumbling, they toppled, at last coming apart
as they ungainly fell into the sand.

Celly’s wings
unfurled, releasing Jake so that he spilled out across the ground,
making him blink confusedly in the sudden brightness of the
sun.

‘Leon! What do
you think you’re doing?’ Celly demanded furiously.

Leon was
standing over them, the sun reflecting off of him as a radiant fire
of phosphorous and copper.

‘What do you
think
you’re
doing?’ Leon spat back at Celly. ‘You and
this…this…’

He glowered down
at Jake in unspeakable disgust.

Stepping
forwards, he bent down, roughly grabbing the bewildered Jake by an
arm, pulling him aggressively to his feet.

‘We
don’t
mix!’ he snarled, his fists clenched as if readying them to strike.
‘Our species
don’t
mix!’

Celly was back
on her feet, pushing herself between them.

‘Leon! You have
no
right to–’

‘Oh, don’t I?
And so what do you think your mother and father will think of this
when I tell them, eh?’

‘You
wouldn’t!’

‘You’re right!
There’s a
better
way of solving this!’

Pushing her
aside, he grabbed hold of Jake once more, but this time firmly by
both arms.

Then, with a
powerful beat of his fully outstretched wings, he soared upwards –
taking the unwilling and petrified Jake with him.

*

With a flap of
her own massive wings, Celly immediately followed Leon, keeping up
with his rapid ascent into the air.

‘Don’t harm him
Leon!’ she cried after him angrily, adding more worriedly,
‘
Please
don’t harm him!’

‘You care for
him more than you do me!’

Leon abruptly
spun around in mid-air, the unfortunate Jake hanging beneath him
jerking violently, his arms wrenching painfully, his legs flailing
uselessly like a rag doll’s.

‘He’s
the
one in danger!’ Celly hissed, drawing up alongside Leon. ‘Not
you!’

‘I meant I could
tell
before
now! When you were showing me around the island!
I could tell you didn’t feel about me the way I couldn’t help but
feel about you!’

‘That’s hardly
my
fault, Leon! I was asked to
fly
with you around
the island!’

‘You must have
known the effect you would have on me! You should have
refused!’

Jake wished they
would have their argument somewhere else; preferably somewhere on
the ground, and preferably not involving him.

He felt
powerless, petrified. The ground was sickeningly far
away.

‘How could I
have refused?’ Celly snapped. ‘How was I to know you weren’t
already committed to someone else?’

‘As I suppose
you already are! Going by the way you remain unaffected by my
display!’

‘That’s just how
these things can unfortunately happen Leon, you know that! You were
just too late–’

‘Just
too
late?’

Leon spat out
the words as if he were completely disgusted by what he had
heard.

He shook Jake
carelessly, angrily. His grip agonisingly tightened around Jake’s
arms.

‘To
him
?’
Leon asked incredulously. ‘You mean you’re committed to
him
?
How is that
possible
?’

‘I don’t
know
!’ Celly wailed hopelessly. ‘It just happened that way,
that’s all!’

Jake frowned,
puzzled by Celly’s reply. She made it sound as if – well, as if
what?

As if their
being together was all some incredible mistake?

‘Then there’s
only one way to release you!’ Leon declared resolutely.

And with that,
he let Jake go.

*

Jake didn’t
scream.

He couldn’t; the
shock of the abrupt drop took his breath away, froze his
throat.

The air rushed
past him, rippling his skin, even his facial muscles.

He was
plummeting towards the rocks below. Even if he hit the water, from
this height it would be like landing on a sheet of immovable
iron.

The light, the
sun, flashed around him once more, the rays blinding and
disorientating in their intensity.

He felt the wind
grabbing at him all the harder, all the more confusedly, as it
snatched at him uselessly first here and then there.

It grasped like
fingers at his shoulders, finally managing at last to take a firm
hold.

Then, suddenly,
Celly was alongside him, using her hold on his shoulders to curl
her body and draw it beneath his.

To either side
of them, her wings beat furiously at the air, struggling to gain
the lift necessary to slow his plummeting fall.

Her arms wrapped
along his waist. Her wings flailed frantically.

They fell like
the fall of angels.

*

Celly had slowed
and redirected their fall, but not enough to stop them striking the
sand with a hard, jarring crump.

Celly, being the
one underneath, took the worst of it. Even so, Jake, almost knocked
unconscious, drifted swiftly in and out of a painful
daze.

He was only
dimly aware of Celly’s wings crumpling around them, enveloping them
once more in their peaceful cocoon.

With a start,
with a sharp stab of horror, he realised that Celly was beneath
him.

That she had
shielded him from the worst of the fall.

That he had
effectively landed on her, making things even worse for
her.

That her arms
were no longer wrapped around him.

He moved
carefully, fearful of hurting her, turning slightly to face
her.

Her eyes were
closed.

Her breathing
was weak, irregular, virtually non-existent.

‘Celly!’ he
cried.

*

Even as Jake
tenderly moved a wing aside and carefully lifted himself clear of
Celly, he heard the heavy fluttering of wings signalling the
arrival of her family.

‘Celly!’ Perisa
wailed anxiously, immediately rushing to her daughter’s side. ‘What
have you
done
to her Jake?’ she screamed accusingly,
whirling on him as soon as she saw that Celly was unresponsive and
deathly still.

‘Me?’

Jake was still
dazed from the fall. He frowned, shook his head in an attempt to
clear the confusion he felt in his mind.

What had
happened?

He couldn’t
remember exactly.

‘I told Celly
she shouldn’t try and fly with him,’ Leon insisted innocently,
taking advantage of Jake’s bewilderment.

Is that what had
happened?

Again, Jake
couldn’t be sure.

It didn’t
seem
like it could be true. He had never asked, let alone
insisted, that Celly should fly with him.

But,
undoubtedly, he could remember that he and Celly had
fallen.

And
Leon?

He had been
there too, hadn’t he?

Had he gone for
help when he had seen them fall?

Jake shook his
head again; he couldn’t recall everything that had
happened.

Celly’s father
Erdwin was now also kneeling beside her, carefully inspecting every
inch of her body.

‘We shouldn’t
move her until we’re sure we won’t make her injuries worse.’ He
turned to the apprehensively waiting Hincheley and Mary. ‘Put
together a stretcher of some kind, quickly,’ he
commanded.

As they rushed
off, Perisa broke off from her anxious caressing of Celly to
furiously glare at Jake once more.

‘What were you
doing, Jake? Making her give you
lifts
!’

‘I’m…I’m not
sure that’s what
really
happened.’

The confused
images flitting through Jake’s befuddled mind were beginning to
come together in a more coherent sequence.

‘There was an
argument…an argument between me and Leon.’

‘Of course there
was an argument!’ Leon persisted. ‘I told you to leave Celly
alone!’

Jake felt
bewildered once more.

Yes, that
was
true, wasn’t it?

Wait,
wait!

What was he
doing?

Here he was,
involved in a stupid argument about who was responsible, while
Celly was lying injured – perhaps even dying! – on the
floor.

He spun around,
falling to his knees alongside her as near as he could.

‘How is she?
Will she be all right?’

‘I think she’s
been badly winded by the fall,’ Erdwin replied distractedly as he
continued his careful examination of his daughter.

‘Winded?’ Jake
said, puzzled. ‘How can just being winded have left her like
this?’

‘Being winded is
highly dangerous to us!’ Perisa irately snapped at him. ‘Our lungs
control far more of our bodies than yours do!’

‘Yes, and
thankfully, because of that, they’re more resilient,’ Erdwin said.
‘But she took one hell of a fall here, obviously.’

‘She’s so
light
.’

Reaching for
Celly’s hand, Jake gently held it in his. It felt so delicate, so
incredibly weightless. Yes, when he’d held her earlier, she’d
seemed similarly weightless; but in moments of ecstasy, your senses
could be fooled, couldn’t they? Now she felt
physically
insubstantial.

‘She weighs
nothing at all!’

Of course she
weighs nothing, idiot!’ Leon sneered behind him.

‘That’s how we
fly, Jake.’

Perisa’s anger
had dissipated a little as she gently caressed Celly. Signs of life
were returning, with the merest flicker of Celly’s eyelids, a
whispering moan.

‘That’s why our
lungs are so important; they force helium throughout the
capillaries of our bodies when we prepare to fly.’

‘Mum? Dad?’
Celly groaned uncertainly, smiling weakly.

‘Celly!’ Perisa
exclaimed joyously, gratefully and tearfully kissing Celly on her
cheeks, her nose, her forehead. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked
urgently. ‘Can you tell us where you think you’re
injured?’

‘I’m okay; I
think!’ Celly chuckled quietly in reply.

With what little
strength she had, she clutched Jake’s hand.

‘Jake; you’re
okay?’ she said happily.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m
okay,’ Jake answered hoarsely, choked by his anxiety for Celly.
‘Thanks to you Celly, thanks to you.’