Fate of Dragons

Epilogue

Astrid danced in and out of the weaving currents of people who wandered up and down the market lanes. There were probably more people at this market than in all of Enval, she thought. In the corner of her eyes, she caught a flash of color on her wrist and smiled. It was the bracelet she'd woven with Amina the day before. The Senemi woman had opened a new shop here in Saldive selling her woven goods, and she'd taken on Astrid as an apprentice. So every day Astrid walked into Saldive from her family's home in the camp on the outskirts of the city.

Amina's shop was down a small lane just off the far corner of the market. Astrid broke free of the crowd and skipped to the shop. She smiled again when she saw the carved and painted wood sign that hung above it. The Sleepy Sheep. Astrid just liked the picture of the sheep that Derol had made. He had always been so practical and serious that Astrid had laughed when she saw the whimsical sheep with its eyes closed in little slits, a smile on its lips, and a cloud of bubbly white fleece.

Derol lived above the shop with Amina now, and he had taken to helping her run the shop. Astrid was glad that she still got to see him almost every day. At first he ha been living in the camp near Astrid's family and the others from Enval who had begun to trickle in through that door they'd made. But then Amina had moved, and then Derol went with her. It had almost been worse than when Gypsy and the other dragons had gone.

Astrid pushed the dragons from her mind at the same time she pushed the door to the shop open. The little bell on the door announced her arrival and the shop girl at the counter smiled and nodded at her.

The space was small inside the shop, but Astrid liked that it felt cozy. Shelves of folded garments lined the walls, and racks and tables filled the rest of the space. In one corner, skeins of yarn lay piled in baskets, some of it made from wool, some made from the fibers of different plants farmed in Yennar Lei. Astrid had spun wool in Enval, but she had not been very good at it yet. The plant fibers were even harder to get used to. Amina, too, preferred to spin wool, but she said they'd have to learn the cotton and hemp, too, living in Saldive. People didn't need as much warm wool in this climate. They still wove enough woolen garments to send north to the cooler parts of Yennar Lei, near the mountains. And the Onami trading caravans came through the camp, Amina said, and they went to all sorts of different places whose names Astrid had never heard. When Amina said it, she said it as though Astrid might be excited by the idea of traveling all about. But right now, Astrid had had enough of it. Now she enjoyed visiting familiar, comfortable places every day.

She wove through the racks and tables in the shop until she came to the back stairway. It creaked as she went up no matter how lightly she tried to step, so before she reached the top, the door had swung open and Amina stood there waiting for her with a smile.

"There you are, dear," she said and moved aside so Astrid could enter the rooms of her workshop. "I've made some tea."

As usual, a tray containing a tea pot, cups and an array of small cookies and sandwiches waited on the low table in the middle of the arrangement of chairs and couches.

"Thank you," Astrid said, and she went to her favorite chair, a large squarish one big enough to curl up in. She took a cup and saucer, poured herself some tea, and put one cookie on her plate. Then she sank into the chair and tucked her legs up under her.

Amina poured her own cup of tea and sat on the couch across from Astrid. They began all their lessons like this, first talking about everything and anything that was on Astrid's mind. She had been a bit awed and nervous of Amina at first, but now she felt at ease around her and looked forward to their conversations before her lessons.

Today Astrid's lesson would be to weave on the floor loom for the first time. The last few lessons she had spent learning to warp it, which she found calming, but now her fingers itched to begin weaving the colorful threads through the weft. Then the fabric would begin to form.