The Value of Perspective
The Value of Perspective
Krrrrr...
"Mother."
...Startled me.
In the quiet heart of the canyon night, a low voice drifted down.
I sat at the edge of the cliff and only lifted my head a little.
Whenever Gargantua moved, the warm current that had been circling gently below the canyon sank just a fraction.
The mist clinging to the cliffs slowly parted, and the clouds hanging in the night sky shifted to one side.
Only then did the voice arrive.
A low, ancient resonance—the kind of sound a mountain might make if it had ever learned to speak.
Gargantua had lowered his body on the opposite cliff.
His six pairs of wings were folded like a vast mountain ridge, and his three pairs of eyes quietly regarded me through the dark.
If he came even a little closer, the entire cliff where I sat would drown in shadow.
Knowing this, he always kept a fixed distance whenever he faced me.
With a body the size of a mountain, he was careful down to the tip of every wing so as not to startle a single human.
It was funny, and grateful, and sometimes a little heartbreaking.
"Can't sleep?"
I asked.
My voice came out smaller than I expected.
"I watch the sleeping canyon."
"You do that every day."
"Today, Mother's breath is rougher than the canyon."
I couldn't answer.
Gargantua always struck straight to the point like this.
It wasn't sharp like a blade, yet somehow there was no way to dodge it.
I looked down at the hands resting on my knees.
Small, white hands.
For five hundred years these hands had polished eggshells, brushed dirt from between scales, washed blood from forepaws, and patted the snouts of angry dragons until they calmed.
Most of what these hands had done was of that sort.
Feeding.
Putting them to sleep.
Scolding.
Stroking.
Grabbing a child who had stuck something inedible in its mouth and yelling at it to spit it out.
Shouting that breath weapons were forbidden.
Nagging them to tuck their tails in.
But today these hands looked different.
These hands had let someone live.
At the same time, they could have closed someone's mouth.
A single word would have been enough.
I wouldn't even have needed to get blood on them myself.
Alduin had been behind me.
The reddish-brown dragon had been in front of me.
If Masor had been there, there might not even have been a sound.
If Gargantua had been there, it might have ended with a single settling of the wind.
That man would never have been able to say a word.
Not "witch."
Not "dragon."
Not even "Milia."
The fact that I had thought such a thing kept scratching at the inside of me.
Still looking down, I asked,
"Are the children asleep?"
Gargantua's eyes slowly turned toward the canyon floor.
"The young ones are sleeping. Those whose bones have hardened have closed their eyes, yet they have not yet swallowed the words they heard today."
"Those whose bones have hardened."
"The children who have grown long."
"Can't you just say adults?"
"If Mother commands it so, I shall."
"No, forget it. 'Bones have hardened' is weirdly accurate."
I looked down into the canyon.
At night it was different from day.
By day the feeding grounds had been like a living mountain range.
Alduin would roast meat just for me, then quietly pin the others with his golden eyes when they caught the scent and crowded in.
Masor would cut away dangerous bones while invisible, then deliberately make a soft sagak sound before I could even look for him.
Gargantua would set down prey that looked as if he had swept an entire mountain or sea, insisting he had been careful.
Today everything was different.
The feeding grounds were quiet.
The children who had heard the new rules kept checking their own tails even while eating meat, and the younger dragons curled their bodies carefully so as not to bump the even smaller ones lying beside them.
Roar first, before breath.
If attacked, take to the air first.
Do not leave the canyon alone.
Only go out together on appointed days.
Call me before you kill.
The things I had said still floated through the entire canyon.
Those words caught in the children's throats.
Like bones too hard to swallow.
"Gargantua."
"Yes, Mother."
For a long while I couldn't bring out the next words.
If I didn't say them, I could pretend they weren't even thoughts.
Once they left my mouth, they became mine.
Proof that I had thought them.
I hated that.
Yet if I didn't speak, the thought only grew larger inside.
I pushed a small stone on the ground with my fingertip.
The stone was warm.
The canyon floor never fully cools, even at night.
Because the heat and breath of dragons linger long.
The stones of the burned village had been hot too.
But that heat had not been warmth.
I knew the difference.
I hadn't wanted to know, yet I had learned it.
"...Should I have killed him?"
The words came out very small.
But Gargantua heard them.
The guardian of the canyon never misses a soft sound.
He hears a young dragon tossing in its cliff nest, and he hears the breath of one not yet born moving inside its egg.
So of course he heard my voice.
He did not answer at once.
Silence settled.
But that silence did not push me away.
Like deep water receiving something heavy and letting it sink, it held my words for a long time.
I couldn't bear the silence and continued.
"That man. The one who survived the village. The one who called me a witch. I let him live."
"You did."
"I told him to live and speak. To tell the kingdom, or the knights, or the mages. To speak of the dead."
"You did."
"But."
My throat closed.
I clenched my hands tight.
"What happens if he really does speak."
Gargantua said nothing.
I already knew the answer.
So my words came faster.
"Humans will come. Knights will come, mages will come, people who want to catch dragons will come. They'll say they want to find the dragon that burned the village, the witch who commands dragons, and they'll try to find the canyon."
I swallowed a breath.
"And yet I let him go. I told him to live and speak, and in one corner of my heart I hoped he wouldn't make it. No—I hoped he wouldn't be able to speak. I don't know what I've done."
From below the cliff, small breaths continued one after another.
The breaths of sleeping dragons.
Some were thick and slow; some were still as thin as hatchlings'.
Every one of those breaths felt like my responsibility.
The people who died in the village.
The dragons sleeping in the canyon.
The survivor.
The child who had breathed fire.
All of them laid before me, and I had only two hands.
"If I had killed that man, the canyon might have been safer. No one might have known about us. The burned village might have just... just ended as a burned village somewhere in the world."
I lowered my head.
"I hate that I'm thinking this."
One of Gargantua's wings moved very slowly.
That motion alone changed the path of the wind circling below the cliff.
The wind stirred my hair, yet it did not touch the corners of my eyes.
Even that seemed careful.
"Suenoi. This worry was born of Mother's kindness. Do not trouble yourself over it."
The low Dragon Speech mixed into the night air.
I lifted my head.
"Suenoi...? What's that."
"A word that lays a bleeding thought to rest for a while."
"That's what it means?"
"Human speech is insufficient. It is closer to meaning that Mother should stop biting herself."
"How am I supposed to not trouble myself over this."
"Remembering the dead is Mother's part. But continuing to bite yourself is not memory."
I pressed my lips together.
Gargantua's voice was firm.
It was not a voice that wrapped me in warmth.
He had never been able to speak that way.
Gargantua's comfort was closer to rock than to a blanket.
Not soft, yet if you leaned on it, it would not collapse.
He continued slowly.
"I will speak as guardian. That human's mouth was dangerous."
My shoulders stiffened.
"So I should have killed him, then."
"No."
"You said it was dangerous."
"Saying it is dangerous does not mean it may be killed. Danger is a fact, and choice is a path. A fact does not decide the path."
I could say nothing.
Gargantua's three pairs of eyes held the night light.
Those eyes neither pressed me nor turned away.
They simply were there.
"Dragons know the easy path. Fear can be burned. Eyes that have seen can be closed, and a mouth that would speak can be shut. A mountain becomes a road when it is toppled, and a forest opens the view when it is burned."
"You say it too easily."
"For a dragon, it is easy."
It was cruel.
And therefore honest.
"Yet the easy path often tramples many things."
Gargantua's voice sank lower.
"The smaller the thing that is trampled, the more the strong mistake it for a road."
I held my breath.
Those words lay before me like an ancient stone.
I could not step over them easily.
"Mother has always told us. It was the first law we ever learned."
"That was just..."
I started to answer by reflex and stopped.
Just what?
Just nagging?
Just household rules?
Just words to reduce the noise at home?
I said quietly,
"The village burned."
"It did."
"People died."
"They did."
"Milia too."
The name left my mouth.
Even I was startled after saying it.
The canyon night seemed to grow a little deeper.
Gargantua's eyes moved very slowly.
"Toihan... a human name?"
"That man's daughter's name. Seven years old. She hated the crusts of bread."
After speaking, my throat hurt.
I do not know Milia's face.
I do not know her voice.
I do not know her favorite color.
I do not know what expression she wore in the morning when she said she hated bread crusts.
All I know is one name and the words that she hated bread crusts.
Yet that keeps rising again and again.
When I think "burned village," I see ash and stones and a black road.
When I think "Milia," I remember that there was a person inside it.
That frightened me.
"Because of that name I couldn't kill him. No—I didn't want to kill him. But I'm afraid the canyon will become dangerous. Then this isn't kindness. It's just me wavering."
"Because two hearts exist together does not make either one a lie."
Gargantua said.
"When a river meets a rock, it splits. The water does not vanish because it has split."
I looked at him.
"Your words are harder than usual today."
"Because Mother has met a hard night."
"Are you determined to sound like a sage?"
"I have only watched for a long time."
I let out a small breath.
Gargantua did not miss that brief opening.
"Mother, if you had looked only one way, it would have hurt less."
"Isn't less pain better?"
"The path of less pain often discards the most."
"What would I end up discarding."
"Rather than discard... Thuim. We would have learned it."
"Learned what."
"That because Mother wished not to hurt, it would be all right to close someone's mouth."
Those words sank deepest of all.
Below the canyon a young dragon cried softly in its sleep.
Soon the dragon lying beside it covered its back with a forepaw.
The movement was clumsy.
Yet careful.
As if it were still holding onto the words I had spoken that day even in its dreams.
Watching that, my throat closed.
Gargantua continued.
"The strong have many words with which to justify themselves. All of those words may be true. Yet many truths gathered together do not make a sin disappear."
I could say nothing.
It resembled the words I had spoken to the survivor.
That your grief is real, and this child's wound is real, and this child's sin is real as well.
I had said that.
Yet I still had not fully accepted those words myself.
They were my own words.
And I could not swallow them.
"Then was I right to let him live?"
Gargantua did not answer at once.
He does not offer easy comfort.
You were right.
You did well.
Mother is correct.
He does not speak such words carelessly.
And so he could be trusted all the more.
"As guardian, it was dangerous."
"I know."
"Yet as teaching, it was necessary."
"Teaching?"
"Because Mother did not kill that human, we may learn. That the thought that power allows one to erase anything may be wrong."
I looked up at Gargantua.
A dragon vast as a mountain range regarded me with very quiet eyes.
"Can you really learn that."
"We learn."
"It'll be slow."
"Dragons live long."
"Can I believe that?"
"Belief is like the wind. Even unseen, it supports the wings."
I narrowed my eyes.
"Where did you learn a line like that?"
"It is the shadow of words Mother often spoke."
"I said something like that?"
"You have said similar things."
"Just what do I go around saying normally."
Gargantua did not answer.
That silence was even more suspicious.
Even so, my breath eased a little.
A little.
Just a little.
Gargantua spoke again.
"A good choice is not always clear. Some paths remain muddied, and some paths injure the feet. Yet mud upon a path does not mean it is not a path."
I turned those words over for a long time.
Letting him live had not been clear.
Inside me there had been fear, calculation, cowardice, and things too ambiguous to call kindness, all mixed together.
Even so, that path had been different from the path of closing a mouth that would speak.
I had not chosen a perfect path.
I had only avoided a path I did not want to teach the children.
Whether that was enough, I still did not know.
But it was not nothing.
"Gargantua."
"Yes, Mother."
"If humans come, don't kill them at once. Don't crush them just because they approached the canyon—tell me first. Even if Alduin rages, stop him. Even if the others are afraid, stop them."
Gargantua was silent for a long while.
"I shall obey. However, if young breaths are in immediate danger of being extinguished, I will act first."
"You should."
"With that permission, I do not lose my place either."
"Your place?"
"A guardian is not one who only closes the gate... Repiocap. One who knows when it may be opened and when it must be shut."
I sighed.
"It sounds easy when you say it, but it's the hardest place of all."
"That is why I have stood here long."
"Don't your legs hurt?"
"I mostly... stand with my legs buried in the mountain."
I stared blankly at Gargantua.
"...Was that a joke?"
"It appears to have failed."
"You make jokes?"
"I learned them from Mother."
"Don't pin it on me."
"Most of it is grace."
"And the rest?"
"My diligent... Hiom. Scholarly zeal."
"Fine. That's enough."
A laugh came out.
A short, tired laugh.
But still a laugh.
Gargantua's three pairs of eyes slowly closed and opened again.
To him that was also a confirmation.
Confirmation that I had not completely broken yet.
I looked down into the canyon once more.
Sleeping dragons.
Children with names.
Children who still did not know how heavy a human name could be.
What should I teach them first.
Numbers would not work.
One village.
Dozens of people.
Damage.
Deaths.
Such words were too distant for dragons.
Dragons look at mountains, at rivers, at the sky.
I would have to teach them first how to look long at a single small life.
"I won't tell everyone yet. There are too many who won't understand."
"A seed does not become a forest at once."
"But I still have to plant it?"
"If it is not planted, the forest will never come."
"You're really sounding like a sage tonight."
"Tonight... it seems Mother has need of such answers."
"Pfft."
This time I laughed a little longer.
The laugh spread small through the canyon night and faded.
Gargantua's wing moved slowly.
The canyon wind lowered.
A warm, careful wind.
A wind that did not cover the wound, but sat quietly beside it.
"Will I be able to sleep tonight..."
I narrowed my eyes.
I slowly rose from my place.
My body was still heavy, and my heart was still unordered.
The question had not vanished either.
Should I have killed him.
I still did not know.
Perhaps I would not know for a long time.
But one thing I seemed to understand a little.
There had been an easy path.
A path of closing it with blood, covering it with silence, and keeping the canyon safe for a while.
I had not chosen that path.
Not because I was certain it was right.
But because I did not want to teach that path to the children.
I started walking toward the cave.
In the distance Alduin's golden eyes were thinly open.
Eyes pretending to sleep.
"Al. Don't pretend—actually sleep. I'm putting you to study tomorrow."
Krrr...
Alduin's gaze grew even more aggrieved.
I smiled very small and walked on.
Masor was not visible.
Normally I would have called, "I told you to stay in my sight," but tonight I did not have the strength.
I only spoke softly into the night air.
"You sleep well too, Masor."
From very far away, so small it might have been buried between rock and wind, there seemed to be a sound.
Ssagak.
Somehow, it was different from his usual sound.