Part II: Veka en la Moderna Erao
“And I missed…all of this?” Fowlsing tossed another book aside. “All of it?” He leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose.
By all reasonable Draconian standards, Fowlsing’s hibernation had been a short one. He had drifted irresistibly into hibernation no more than three hundred years ago with the flickering candlelight of human civilization warm behind his eyes. He had known there would be changes, of course; he had even suspected that the changes might be hard to accept. His own father had warned him sharply about the disorienting effect of waking from hibernation in a different century - but this?
Fowlsing vividly remembered his father complaining - at length - about missing the invention of gunpowder during his own hibernation. Of gunpowder. Fowlsing rubbed his eyes and groaned. If only the old dragon could have seen this.
Fowlsing leaned forward. “So….What? Humans can fly now?” He rifled through the pile of books, fighting a rising sense of panic.
“You have no idea. They’ve even visited the stars.” Zmei sat across the table from Fowlsing, watching him with something like sympathy. She tilted her chair back slightly, reaching for the bookshelf behind her without looking, then plopped a copy of A Concise History of Aviation on the table between them.
There had been a letter from Zmei waiting for Fowlsing when he woke up. It was written in Old Draconian, though the neat, tiny script was obviously not the work of a dragon’s claws. Fowlsing had recognized the source of the letter immediately, if not the name of its author. There had always been a member of Zmei’s family among the dragons in that region.
Her people were not, strictly speaking, human - descended from the zagorkinje, or so it was theorized. For many hundreds of years, Zmei and her ancestors had offered their counsel and sharp sense of strategy in exchange for the dragons’ protection - and a share of their riches. Zmei herself was 248 years old, though Fowlsing thought that most humans would guess her age around 40 or so.
The pair sat in the middle of Zmei’s bookshop - a bright, airy affair near the town center.
“Do you know, when I fell asleep, this spot -” Fowlsing stabbed a finger accusingly at the library floor “ - This spot right here - was a cow pasture?”
“I remember.” Zmei shrugged and raised her eyebrows. “It was a graveyard after that, but you wouldn’t remember. And then a haberdashery. Most incongruous.”
Fowlsing rolled his eyes and turned a page in A Concise History of Aviation. Zmei had spent the better part of the morning irritating the dragon by coaching him on what she claimed was “the best possible shapeshifting form,” and he was still feeling prickly about it. And tired. He wondered how long it would take to feel fully awake after nearly three hundred years of sleep.
“So I missed….” He flipped a few more pages. “…What, the entire Industrial Revolution?”
“And two world wars.” Zmei tapped a page in the book meaningfully. Fowlsing frowned, and peered down. Zmei’s finger rested on a blurry photograph of two sleek metal airplanes. One was in engulfed in flames, plummeting toward the earth in a ball of fire. “Don’t forget two world wars.”
Fowlsing spent the next six weeks in the town center, peering through windows, dodging traffic, and devouring tomes in Zmei’s bookshop. She was knowledgeable and patient - if not exactly kind - and she always knew where to find the right book. He was deeply grateful for her help - even if he didn’t feel the need to say that to her face.
The only real sticking point between the two was Fowlsing’s human form. Fowlsing thought that the form Zmei had selected for him was ridiculous - a pudgy, balding man with pasty skin and an ill-fitting suit. He had tried to convince Zmei that his other forms were more suitable - surely the bronzed, muscled warrior he’d used to wheedle gold and gems from Queen Maria Luisa of Spain was a better plan than this. He had shifted into the warrior form to prove a point, and Zmei had laughed so hard that she dropped a pile of books on his head - leaving him chagrined, irritated, and bruised.
Later, when she had finally stopped laughing, Zmei assured him that the man-lump in the baggy suit was his best bet in this new world. When she wasn’t looking, Fowlsing adjusted his form - just a bit - flattening out the stomach by a few inches, adding a few muscles. On impulse, he also added a mustache, mostly because he knew it would irritate Zmei.
Much better, Fowsling thought, admiring his reflection on the polished tabletop.
© 2021 Rebecca Robbe