The Pearl Ch. 02

He chuckled lightly. "It isn't that I'm speaking differently, it's that you're hearing differently. You have many questions, and there is much to explain. Is there a place you wish to go?"

The river was fairly long, running through several towns, and I managed to explore most of it in my time as a dragon. I knew of several secluded places. I took him to one, where a grassy part of the bank intruded into the river and made a very comfortable spot to lay. "First let me begin by saying you may call me Chang. I already know your name is Sebastian."

"From the pearl?" I asked.

"Precisely," Chang confirmed, nodding. "When you took the pearl in, it bonded to you. As I said earlier, it is yours." He paused for a moment, looking remorseful. "Which leads again to apologizing for my arrival. I made assumptions, and they were most untrue."

"Yeah, I was wondering about that. Actually, I was terrified," I admitted. I figured he probably was already aware of that. "What did you think I'd done?"

"I thought you intentionally misappropriated the pearl for you own ends," he responded, settling in. As he curled around and became comfortable, I made a longer inspection of him. He was much larger than I was, well more than double, or even triple, my length. Even relaxed, he held himself with a regal bearing. The scales on his body were a gray-black like angry storm clouds, which somehow flashed white when he turned just the right way. His eyes were golden and glowing. His neck was arched and his head was almost delicately poised. His antlers spread out farther than mine, his ruff, beard and mane were thick and full, and his whiskers hung about 3 to 4 feet down from his snout. His presence fairly oozed nobility and age, but all of this came off him naturally. None of it seemed put on or the least bit pretentious.

"When you swallowed the pearl its primary magic was activated and I could sense that had happened," he continued. Although calm, his voice still carried the undertone of thunder. "I could not get a sense of where it was, however. Locating the pearl was first complicated by the fact that it was no longer in the Middle Kingdom, and was in a place I had never been and knew nothing about. Matters were further complicated by the fact that when you drank from this river, you bonded to it and the pearl was bonded to the river along with you. That should not have happened."

"Then why did it, and what should have happened?" I asked, curious.Turning into a dragon isn't enough, apparently. But wait, there's more....

"The magic faded over time. You should have been taken immediately to the Middle Kingdom. The pearl was too weak to manage that. So instead you bonded to the first element you took in, this river."

I was trying to assimilate what he was saying, but most of it was going right over my head. "Bonded to the river. What does that mean, exactly? And what is the 'Middle Kingdom'?"

"What it means is that in time you will become the river's guardian and protector. In return, the river will provide you with shelter and sustenance. However, at this point the bond is very weak. The Middle Kingdom is what you would call China."

"Well, how did the pearl get out of China and into the ring?" I asked.

"In truth, I do not know." For a moment he looked very distant, as if trying to see something far away. Then he shook his head and looked back to me. "Which bewilders me to no end. Embarrassing, really, to lose track of it in that manner."

"Were you in charge of it?" I asked.

He looked at me dumbfounded. "Of course I was," he replied as if I'd asked a ridiculous question. Before I could comment, he seemed to catch himself. "I'm sorry," he continued, waving his claw as if to dismiss what he'd just said. "I forget you don't understand how these things work. The pearl you carry is my creation, and as such, I am responsible for it, for what happens to it, and what happens because of it."

The information from Dakota's books suddenly came back to me. The stomach of a clam, from which would come a pearl. My first reaction to the thought of swallowing something that came from another dragon's stomach was ewww, but it was only temporary. I imagined there were probably worse things. I just hoped I wasn't going to hear any before this conversation was over.

"Well, why did you create the pearl?" He sighed. "That may take some explaining. You may not understand, being as humans are nothing if not extremely fertile. However, dragons are far less so. Sometimes our numbers dip alarmingly low. At these desperate times we sometimes resort to," he paused again, apparently searching for the word, "I suppose desperate measures would accurately describe it. You see, all dragons," he paused again, "all Chinese dragons," he amended. "All Chinese dragons, which obviously you are now numbered among, are born with pearls. The pearls are the centers of our, and your, power. However, we are also able to produce additional pearls. When these are fed to other creatures, they become dragons. In the past, when the breeding cycles have not been fruitful, we have resorted to these methods."

I admit I was floored. Their breeding program had upended my life. My face must have shown it, because when Chang continued, it was with sadness.

"I know, it seems unfair and unjust to you now. I assure you, there was a time when this was considered a blessing." He looked wistful and was silent for moment before continuing. "Within the last few centuries, this practice has largely been abandoned. When it was performed, it was done only with the human's consent."

"How old is the pearl I've got?"

"Centuries," he responded. "How many?" It was mind boggling that the pearl would wait that long.

Chang looked thoughtful. "Hard to say, anymore. Time begins to blur after a bit, but I would say between seven to eight."

My jaw dropped. "Seven to eight hundred years?" I stammered.

"Yes, one hundred years is a century."

"Fuck me," I said softly, for lack of anything else to express my awe.

Chang looked askance at my statement. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, amused. I wondered if it came across as a verb, rather than an epithet.

"Um, uh, it's just an expression. Or at least I was just using it as an expression. Seven or eight hundred years, huh? Wow, that's a really long time. Why didn't anything happen before now?"

Chang looked far away again before answering with a shrug, "Again, I really don't know. That is an exceptionally long time, even among dragons. Still, the pearl made its choice, separate of anyone else's concern or consent."

His voice trailed off and Chang gave me a long once over, and I could feel the intense scrutiny in my pearl. I fought not to squirm a little. He was quiet long enough that I was ready to say something just to break the silence. Then he sat up on his haunches and pulled out a glittering scale. He closed his front claws around it while bowing his head. When he opened his hands, a bird the same color as his scales flew out and climbed high into the sky before flying out of sight.

"What was that?" I asked, amazed.

"Just a messenger. Whatever else happens this night, I do not think I will be returning to my clan anytime soon."

"Why not?"

He smiled at me with something that seemed like genuine affection. "Because I will be staying with you." When I started to insist he didn't have to, he raised his front leg. I fell silent. Largely because, in all honesty, I was glad he was staying.

"The arrangement made with heaven in regards to the making of pearls is that we would accept whoever was chosen. There are neither accidents nor coincidences, and if it took this long for the pearl to find you, all the better and I welcome you. However, as much as I am pleased to have another dragon in the world, I understand that this may not be the path you would have chosen. Therefore, I am offering you a choice. You may stay here and learn this path as a dragon. Or, we will travel in search of some means of changing you back, assuming one exists."

"But you said you couldn't return me to human."

"I cannot. But to say that I cannot do it is not the same as saying it cannot be done. That there may be a method is possible, though I can't guarantee that there will be one."

He once again looked at me with a strange kind of endearment, almost like a parent uses when gazing at a child, or the way a true friend looks upon another for whom they would do anything. I felt a pang in my chest, because I didn't feel like I'd earned that look yet. I desperately wanted to deserve his love and approval for some reason, though, and that confused me, too.

"Either way," he continued, "I will be in your company for some time. You need not decide immediately. I know where you are now, and I will return upon the morrow to see what it is to be." With that, he stood up, rose back into the air, and flew off.