The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode click here. To read it from the start, click here.

Gina and Zack’s quest has led them to Rennou, where B’frona the miller’s son has begun talking about the changes that occurred after they left.

Gina pushed back her three-legged stool. “B’frona, where’s Puff?” she asked, referring to the Frengan dragon pup she’d adopted when she first came to Rennou.

The teenager rose and walked over to the window above the wheelhouse.

“B’frona—”

“Because of you, everything is worse!” he said.

“B’frona!” Sh’renn admonished.

“No, it’s t-t-true! And you have no right to chastise me. You are not my mother. You are not even my true sssister!” He wasn’t a boy anymore, but he still had that angry stutter.

“And you!” He pointed at Gina. “So you are from another w-w-world—what does that change?” He slammed his hands down on the table. “The widow F’lenn is still dead and the dragon is sssstill…” His eyes were streaming.

Sh’renn went and laid her hands over his. “Tell them what happened.”

He jerked away the tears, took several deep breaths, and wiped the spittle from the corners of his mouth. “After you abandoned us, I tried to raise your Boof.” This was the closest his accent could come to Puff. “But it was hopeless. Once a Frengan dragon has bonded with its dragonmeer, it can never be anyone else’s. Its tenderness toward humans, even its appearance, is molded by love. But if its dragonmeer leaves—”

“But I didn’t think—”

“Of course you didn’t! If Boof had been nurtured by you, he would have remained gentle, and fiercely loyal to the people of Rennou. He would have grown more and more beautiful, with vermilion, azure and saffron scales, with wings as fine as snowflakes, yet strong as irontrees. But when a dragonmeer abandons her dragon—”

“But I entrusted him to you, B’frona!”

“I heard you dragon’s song the night you left, J’nah. I ran to the Great Porch, and found him there, alone and trembling.”

Gina’s heart rose into her throat.

“I tried to comfort him, but failed. I stroked his neck, rubbed his horn nubs, and tried to gladden him the way you had, but I could not replicate your simpering voice. Boof wailed his song of mourning all night long. When the elders gathered the next day, I showed them your note and assured them ‘the great girl knight J’nah’ would return.

“Days passed. He neither ate nor drank, but only warbled his pitiful dirge. And so the Miracle of Rennou became the Curse of Rennou. He frightened the children and upset the marketplace. Buyers took their business to Crésie, Peludien and D’nair. I could do nothing, so I left him alone and attended to the Mill. But that was only the beginning,” B’rona said ominously. “Without your love…

Your dragon began to change.”

φ

Thoughts: The most powerful defense against bitterness is to love it away before it begins.

To read the next episode, click here.