Noting the sense of unease that had spread across the gathering, Perisa smiled brightly as she turned first to Celly then Leon.
‘Celly,’ she said remarkably gaily, ‘why don’t you show Leon around the island? It will help you get to know each other again, and remember old times!’
Jake couldn’t help but notice that the uneasiness hanging over everyone immediately vanished. All the adults were now smiling expectantly.
‘Sure,’ Celly replied. ‘Me and Jake can show him round, can’t we Jake?’
The smiles vanished even swifter than the sense of unease had.
Obviously, Jake realised, this isn’t what the Volances and even their servants had had in mind when Celly’s mum had suggested taking Leon on a tour of the island.
‘Oh, but that could take ages, Celly,’ Perisa said, gently reprimanding her. ‘You could do it so much quicker if you flew, couldn’t you?’
Celly glanced back at Jake apologetically, her eyes pleading for understanding as she said, ‘I suppose so.’
Jake shrugged; what else could he do?
Celly’s mother could have just about leapt for joy, he reckoned, when Leon stepped forward, holding out his hand for Celly to take.
Even Mary looked like she was pretty close to erupting into a burst of cheers and rapturous clapping
Leon was already transforming, his skin glistening with gloriously captivating hints of emerald and amethyst, his wings unfurling as much as they could within the confinement of the canopy and its supporting stanchions.
Jake had to stop himself from gasping at the beauty of it all; a cathedral’s stained glass made real, solid, flowing and moving with incredible grace.
How could Celly fail to be as equally impressed as he was?
Taking Leon’s hand, Celly turned, leading him out from beneath the canopy. As soon as they were clear of everyone, she underwent her own transformation, her skin shimmering like waves of molten gold and silver, her wings like captured and elegantly controlled sunrays.
Suddenly, Leon stumbled, as if his legs were giving way beneath him.
He lifted a hand to his forehead, clasping it in the way you would if suffering a dreadful headache, or trying to stop yourself from feeling dazed, dizzy.
His wings crumpled slightly, such that they dragged weakly and uselessly across the sand behind him.
What was wrong with him? Jake wondered.
He whirled around, surprisingly anxious, wondering what everyone else would make of Leon’s abrupt change.
Everyone was beaming happily, watching Leon’s bizarrely dazed antics as if they ranked amongst the most wonderful things they’d ever seen. They seemed excited, enthralled, rather than apprehensive.
Could it just be that Leon was tired after his journey?
Jake studied Leon more carefully now, trying to interpret his drunken stumbling as nothing more than a sign of a fatigue.
Yes, yes; it had been a long journey after all. It would have taken a great deal of energy and strength out of him.
And, as if Leon had abruptly arrived at the same sensible conclusion, as if he had decided that he couldn’t fly another inch, he completely furled his wings away. Celly immediately followed suit, her wings rippling in the sunlight like the shimmering of a mirage, then smoothly disappearing into her back.
Still holding hands, they made their way down the beach like two young lovers.
So, Jake thought, he wouldn’t have slowed them down after all.
Then again, he told himself bitterly, I don’t think anybody will be happy if I run after them.
*
Very few of the pebbles he was throwing skimmed across the water as they were intended to do.
Rather, they plunged into an oncoming wave, or simply hit the sea at the wrong angle, instantly vanishing beneath the surface.
Jake didn’t care. His mind wasn’t on aiming low and flat enough, or getting the spin on the pebbles right.
Throwing the pebbles was simply a sign of his anger, his frustration. When they disappeared without a trace, without a skip or bounce, beneath the waves, it was a satisfyingly perfect summation of how he felt at the moment; overwhelmed, small and useless against the might of the never-ending, unstoppable waves.
Less than quarter of an hour ago, he was the happiest he’d ever been.
Now he felt more miserable than he would have believed possible.
He felt strangely empty, yet also ridiculously heavy. Awkward, graceless. Dumb, stupefied.
Like the control of all his senses had deserted him.
Like everything about him was poorly formed, badly connected.
Everything about him was hateful, useless.
In short, he was everything that Celly wasn’t.
Celly was wonderful, gorgeous, graceful. Celly was fun, bright, sparkling.
Celly was perfect.
Celly was superior.
Out of his league.
How could he have ever fooled himself that he and Celly belonged together?
Yet it was Celly who had made him feel that he wasn’t inferior, that they were made for each other.
Only moments ago, Celly had made him feel as perfect as she was.
Almost made him feel, in fact, that he could fly, just as she could.
That’s how happy he had been.
And now?
Like the pebbles that sank and sank, vanishing in the waves; that’s how he felt now.
*
Chapter 8
Farther along the beach, Jake came across the indents in the sand where he had lain with Celly.
He angrily scrubbed it out with his feet. Kicked at the sand like he was kicking Leon.
He looked out at the glistening waves, remembering how he and Celly had come together, been drawn to each other, within their rolling embrace.
He couldn’t scrub that away, could he?
The flowing, sparkling light had rippled across their skin. Making them glow. The glow of silver, diamonds and sapphires. Of stars and the clearest sky.
For a moment, awash in the sea’s undulating glow, he had foolishly flattered himself that he was as beautiful as she was.
Fooled himself that he too looked as if he had been blessed by the sun herself, reflecting her glow, her magnificence.
Of course, in his case it had only been a briefly borrowed beauty.
In Celly’s case, it was perfectly natural to her. Like she was an offshoot of the sun. Like she had been born magically from an elemental fire.
Because yes, even untransformed, Celly’s skin glowed deliciously. This glow, though, was the luminosity of perfect, unblemished skin, the radiance of health, the golden sheen of the lightest, most flawless tan, continuously bathed in the sun’s light.
They all had it; all the dragons.
Now he came to think about it, yes, even when in human form, there was this strange sense of a faultless, brilliant aura about them.
What was it they said about certain people lighting up a room? As if they carried an inner radiance?
Yes, that was the Volances all right.
Their servants, too.
And – though he was loath to admit it – yes, Leon as well.
Wasn’t that what all his anger was about, really?
That, unlike himself, Leon possessed a beauty comparable to Celly’s, in its way.
He was tall, slim, elegant.
Every movement flowed effortlessly, one into the other.
Even as humans, even though they weren’t actually humans, they were a more perfect, superior species.
And as the creatures they actually were? They could have been formed from everything that humans deemed precious.
Gold. Silver. Rubies. Sapphires. Opals. Emeralds.
Hah! Hadn’t he read in fairy stories, in legends, that dragons jealously guarded hoards of precious gems and treasure?
How ridiculous was that?
Their skin was more beautiful, more awe-inspiring, than any treasure hoard
he could imagine!
And, come to that, wasn’t here something else those legends and medieval illustrations had also got so ridiculously, so laughably wrong?
The way they told of or pictured a single knight in armour taking them on!
Oh sure!
A single slash of a talon would open them up like they were a handy can of fresh meat!
Jake blinked, shaded his eyes, as a bright burst of sunlight flashed in the sky just above him. Incongruously, he also abruptly found himself enveloped in a growing shadow.
He glanced up towards the glistening ball of golden light. It was descending swiftly towards him, a miniature sun in its own right, a fiery, falling star.
Celly.
Celly was dropping towards him, her wings now halting and slowing her fall as if she were a descending angel.
The sun’s rays shimmered through the languidly beating gossamer wings, seemingly transforming the surrounding air into shimmering, fluctuating streams of liquefied gold.
Celly giggled happily.
Then, suddenly, her arms were wrapped tightly around his shoulders, his neck.
She drew his head close to hers. His mouth to her lips.
Then her wings curled about them both, an embracing cocoon of blazing light, of the most reassuring warmth.
*
Chapter 9
Just to think; she had always wondered what her first kiss would be like.
How was it supposed to work?
Did your lips meet straight on, or at an angle?
Should they be dry? Or should she wet them slightly, with a secretive wipe of her tongue tip?
But not too wet, surely; that would be horrible, wouldn’t it?
And where did your nose go? Wouldn’t it get in the way?
Now, it all just seemed so natural. So easy.
So meant to be
Like it required no thought at all.
No thought apart, that is, from how wonderful it all was.
How incredibly delicious it felt.
As for her nose, well; it just somehow fitted perfectly against Jake’s face.
Just as his nose, his cheeks, his lips fitted perfectly against her cheeks, her lips.
Fitted, in fact, as if they had been deliberately formed to match, to complement each other.
Everything brushed lightly, strangely tantalisingly, against each other.
Like their skin was whispering, one whispering its love for the other.
Jake didn’t need to talk to tell her how much he loved her.
His lips, mute yet endlessly moving, flitting across her neck, nibbling beneath her chin, her ears, savouring hungrily the rising of her throat as she ecstatically arched her head back; they told her this in ways words couldn’t express.
And when their lips met once more, they nestled delicately, or merged firmly, the contours blending and inseparable, as if each needed the other to feel fully whole.
Their lips were soft, moist, malleable, unresisting.
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.
*
Chapter 10
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?’<
br />
‘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.
*
Chapter 11
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.