Bee And Foxglove

Lisa Almost Wakes The Sleeping Dragon

Kara Bee,

Boy, do I have a story to tell you. The monks and nuns of the Top of the World Sanctuary have a traveller's stamp, surprisingly, so I've used it below in lieu of a postcard. But I've gotten ahead of myself.

Bee looked at the bottom of the page, where a complex mandala-type pattern was stamped in indigo-blue ink. It was fascinating.

She read on.

I actually saw the Dragon before the Sanctuary. I didn't mean to. I got lost, actually.

The Top of the World is the name of the whole mountain range, right – but in particular, when people say that, they're talking about the Yoru'axas Plateau. I don't know how the monks and nuns get up there without magic gliders. Most of the way up is sheer cliff face. I swear, some of it is even angled outwards – even worse than perpendicular.

It's cold on the plateau, but it's beautiful. There are little, round flightless birds everywhere, completely trusting; they let you stroke them. There are no trees, just scrubby bushes and herbs – but there are flowers, so many flowers. Oh, and the butterflies! The Top of the World is so colourful, you wouldn't believe.

Anyway... don't judge me: I got confused and was holding the map up the wrong way round. There wasn't a lot to orient on, okay? And so, before even seeing the Sanctuary, I saw a vast cave in a cliffside... and the Sleeping Dragon herself.

Like... how do I say this? I'm not a writer. She's... big. Oh god, this sounds stupid. I mean... there's something about that size. Living things are not meant to be that big. Big like a hillock, or a rock spire, or maybe even the biggest tree imaginable, but not like a creature should be. Person, I suppose I should say. Yoru'axas is sapient, after all.

She is gold in colour, but not like the stories. More like a dull brownish yellow. Perhaps dust and lichen have 'tarnished' her. Curled up like a cat, head resting on her front claws, tail wrapped around.

Strangely, I didn't feel scared. I don't think I would have felt scared if she'd been awake. In awe, yes, absolute awe, but I was so tiny in comparison, I doubt she'd have much use for me, either as a meal, a friend, or an enemy. That was just my feeling; I know she is meant to be a kind person.

I was thinking for a whole minute that she was sitting on top of a pile of jewels like in the stories – mostly because I couldn't take my eyes from her. But then I realised it was just a multitude of flowers. I don't know if the monks grow them like that, or if some magic encourages them to grow organically. It certainly had that scattered look of a wild meadow, but it was as beautiful, multicoloured and vibrant as any garden I've seen.

On the walls of the cave, there were all sorts of carvings and paintings. Most prominent was a strange depiction of the moon – I guess it was the moon, because it clearly had the moon's pattern of craters, but for some reason there were twenty-one of them, most partly filled in with different amounts of black shading, leaving crescent shapes. Here's my best attempt to draw it.

[A drawing of twenty-one moon phases, going from new moon, to crescent moon, to full moon, to crescent moon, to new moon again].

Here, I want to butt in and say that this is about as much a mystery for me as it was for Lisa, if for different reasons.

On Phaestos, as far as I could tell, no one had an inkling that every other known moon in the Andromeda Confederation went through the classic 'moon phases' that most of us know well. I, on the other hand, was baffled as to why Phaestos' moon was located in its L2 Lagrange point, what kept it there, and, if this had not been a wild fluke of nature, what purpose it served in this position.

One last possibility is even more unsettling to me. The possibility, indeed, that the moon's position was little more than the casual personal preference of some being so vastly powerful that it simply had no major reason not to move it.

I will provide no answers to this in this book; you, like me, will have to settle for knowing that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than even William Shakespeare could imagine.

Back to Lisa's letter.

Yoru'axas was audibly breathing. She let out a really long, deep breath as I left. That made me sweat. Had I disturbed her sleep, even a little?

Anyhow, the monks and nuns of the Sanctuary were shocked at what I'd done. Apparently I would have needed to go through a month-long initiation before being allowed to see the Dragon. Selfishly, I'm glad I got lost.

They all speak good Mondolingvo here. They're a bit stuffy about it though. Think there's a 'right' way to speak and a 'wrong' way. I like to mess with them a bit by putting on my most earnest face and then throwing the most awkward construction at them, like 'malmanĝejo' for toilet.

Despite the stuffiness, it's nice to have someone to talk to. I think I'll stick around for as long as they'll have me. Maybe, if we're lucky, this letter will arrive back in Kandra before I do.

With endless gratitude,

Lisa.