Chapter Text
When they returned home, Frederick got a fire going and changed Morgan into dry clothes. He washed the tears and snot from his face. Then he sat the boy in front of the fire and gave him some dried fruit to chew on while he toweled off his hair, damp from being flung into the snow. Morgan was calm now, or at least quiet, having cried himself out on the walk home. He stared owlishly into the fire, drool running down his wrist.
It began to snow that evening, as Robin had predicted. Soft flurries at first, and then it was as if the entire sky had opened up on them. The wind pressed at their windows while Frederick prepared Morgan’s dinner—barley stew and boiled carrots. He ate a little as well, hardly tasting his food. He did not have much of an appetite. His leg was starting to ache him again.
It took some time to put Morgan to bed. Although he had been practically falling asleep in his dinner, he refused to sleep alone, and Frederick did not have the heart to make him. Not when he kept asking for his mother. So he let the child sleep in his and Robin’s bed, lying next to him and letting Morgan cling to his arm. Once he was sound asleep, Frederick extricated himself and sat by the fire, absently rubbing his leg as he watched the door. Waiting for Robin to come home.
How many times had he waited on her like this? Frederick had lost count. But this time felt different. He knew that Robin would be fine, despite the storm. That she would return unscathed. She had promised she would.
He was calm, more so than he should be. Their lives as they knew them were balancing on a knife’s edge, yet there was some peace to be found in that, precarious as it was. Here it was, at last. There was no more avoiding it.
It was very late when he heard the knocking. By then his leg was quite stiff, but he went to the door as quickly as he could. Robin was waiting on the doorstep, blood-stiff hair whipping across her face. How small she was, hunched against the wind and shin deep in snow. She looked like she might sink back into the storm and disappear.
Frederick ushered her inside, brushing the ice from her shoulders.
“You are still bloodied,” he observed.
Robin nodded shyly. She rubbed a hand over her face, some of the dried blood flaking off. She tried to smile at him, but her expression snagged. She looked miserable.
He filled a basin with hot water and washed her arms and face, the blood turning oily again beneath his wet hands, the smell sharp. He rinsed her hair and neck, then peeled the frozen clothes from her body. He scrubbed at the stains in the pinkening water while she changed into nightclothes, but the blood was already well set.
“I’m sorry,” Robin said suddenly. “About all the blood.”
“You hardly need to apologize,” he said. “I have worked out worse stains.”
“I’m sorry.” Although the chair by the fire was empty, she came to sit by him on the floor. She curled her knees to her chest. Her bare ankles looked tired and thin. “You…You worked hard to knit that for me. I’m afraid I’ve ruined it.”
“It will come out,” he assured her. “Though it may need to soak overnight. And if it does not, it is only clothes. It is only blood.”
She rested her chin upon her knees. Outside, the wind had picked up again, its high, eerie whistle filling the house. The fire shuddered, their shadows shivering with it. But it did not go out.
Frederick let the dress sink to the bottom of the basin. He dried his hands. Neither of them moved.
“Did you find any wolves?” he finally asked.
“No,” she said, her voice loose with exhaustion. She rubbed her eye with her palm, then stared at her open hand. There was still some blood between her fingers, beneath her nails. “No matter how far I flew, there was nothing. Nothing. I couldn’t pick up a scent. I don’t think there were any others.”
Frederick nodded. He had suspected as much. After all, wolves hunted in packs, but they had been attacked by only one. A lone wolf, then, packless and desperate in the midst of winter. Straying into territory it shouldn’t. Taking risks.
The mountain did seem to attract that type.
“There shouldn’t even have been one wolf here,” Robin continued. She was still staring at her hands. Closing and opening them, her nails leaving crescents on her palms. “I should have noticed when it came to this mountain. I should have…”
Frederick folded his hands over hers. Her fingers were still cold.
“Let’s go to bed.”
They slid under the covers, careful not to jostle Morgan. Robin stroked the child’s wispy hair, staring at him as if it took every bit of her restraint to keep from pulling him to her chest.
“He is alright,” Frederick said, his voice hushed.
“I know.”
And yet she looked so mournful. Like she may never see him again.
“I’m sorry I left the two of you,” she whispered. “It had been so long since I’d felt…that. That fire. I wanted to kill something, to feel something die between my teeth. I thought I couldn’t be there. I think, maybe, I shouldn’t…”
He waited, but she did not finish the thought. Its terrible potential hung over them anyhow.
“You were trying to protect us,” he said finally. “You would not have hurt us.”
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t think I would have.”
He nodded. That was what he’d needed to hear.
“You were right that it would snow,” he said. “We may be stuck inside tomorrow. We met during a winter storm, too. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“You saved my life.”
A pained expression passed over Robin’s face.
“I’m sorry I could not get to you sooner. If it had bitten you, I—”
“I was not talking about tonight.”
Robin said nothing, but he could feel her body tense. He reached across Morgan and placed a hand on her wrist. Just to touch, not to hold. She let him, her dark eyes searching his face.
“I told you that I found myself stuck in a blizzard shortly before we met.”
“You did, yes.”
“But I did not tell you how I survived.”
Hesitantly, she shook her head.
“It is quite a story,” he said. “If you would indulge me, I shall tell it.”
I ought to have known better than to check the traps that day. It had been cold, and my leg was stiff. But I went anyhow, perhaps to prove that I could. It turned out I could not, of course, though I think the storm would have caught me even if my leg were uninjured.
By a stroke of luck, I found an empty den. At the time I thought it belonged to a bear, though it seemed far too large. I decided to shelter there, despite the risk. I fell asleep, not certain that I would wake up.
But I did. I awoke to find a bird in the den. At least, I thought it was a bird. A small bird, with handsome black feathers. I thought it was a robin, caught in the storm as I was. I fed it some bread and warmed it in my coat. It was a friendly creature, completely unafraid of me.
I fell asleep again, and when I awoke, the bird was gone. But though it was still snowing outside, the den was astonishingly warm. It was as if the earth inside had been heated with fire, though I did not give it much thought at the time. I was simply thankful to have survived.
“You were lucky.”
“Yes,” Frederick agreed. “But I never quite figured out how it was that I survived. I could have sworn there had been a fire in that den. There were traces of scorch marks, and the scent of smoke. But if that were the case, why had I not burned as well? I could not guess. Though I know now that there are some things that do not burn.”
“…I suppose there are,” Robin said, her voice tangling in Morgan’s hair. “And what of the bird?”
“I think it saved my life. Though I do not think it was actually a bird. Not anymore.”
“What do you think it was?”
“I wonder.”
He looked her in the eye, and she did not look away. They lay there, neither of them saying anything, the steady sound of Morgan’s breathing floating up between them.
“I have a story as well,” she finally said. “Though it is rather long.”
There was once a dragon that lived in a faraway land. The dragon was very powerful, and for that reason, its creators kept it locked away underground. Though the dragon did not know that. It was young and had lived its entire life in the dark with only its creators for company. They told the dragon they had created it for a “glorious purpose,” but the dragon did not know what that was, either.
What the dragon did know was that it loved its creators. It hated them, too. They sought to draw out the dragon’s full power, but their methods hurt. If the dragon was as powerful as they said it was, then why did it have to endure such punishment? Why must it be bound to them? It decided it did not, and so it killed its creators and escaped the underground.
The dragon flew for the first time, its wings finally making sense as it rose into the sky. The above-world was vast and strange. There were people there—humans, like the dragon’s creators. Unlike its creators, which celebrated the dragon’s strength, they fled in fear and hurled arrows and stones at it. And yet it did not want to be alone. Because it was very clever, it could take the form of a human girl. In that shape, it could walk among humans, but in time it grew weary of their cruelties. The humans, in turn, grew suspicious of it. It could not be what they expected it to be. The dragon was cast out.
The dragon flew far, far away from the place of its birth. It lived many places, but never long enough for any of them to become a home. It could not seem to be with people, no matter what form it took. They chased it off when it took the form of a human, and they attacked it as a dragon. If it could not live in peace either way, it would rather have the freedom of strength. It rampaged from one mountain range to another, snatching livestock and burning everyone who came to slay it. It wondered if this was the “glorious purpose” its creators had in mind. This destruction was, after all, what they had trained it to do.
But it was a reckless way to live. The more the dragon rampaged, the more enemies it made. It grew careless, and one day a knight stabbed it in the gut. Not that it was enough to really hurt the dragon. In fact, it hardly hurt at all. It was more of a shock than anything, like pricking one’s finger with a needle. It was—
“Did you…did you laugh?”
“Excuse me,” Frederick said, willing himself to stillness.
“Shh!” Robin chided. “You’ll wake Morgan!”
“My apologies.”
He had not intended to laugh—the sound had loosed unbidden from his chest like water from a spring. It wasn’t even particularly funny. Still, despite everything, this was the point she chose to belabor? That the spear had done the dragon no great harm? That was so…so…
He covered his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Please, continue.”
It was not a major injury, and it healed very quickly besides. But it was enough to convince the dragon that it could not continue living that way. More people would come to hunt it, and it may not be so lucky next time.
The dragon experimented with other forms, copying the shapes of the beasts it encountered. It became a bird, preferring the feeling of wings on its back. The sky was where it felt most at home.
For the first time, it began to wonder why it was a dragon at all. That was how its creators had referred to it, but they were dead. And if it could easily slip into other forms, then how could it say what it ‘really’ was? It couldn’t. Whatever it turned into, it was still itself. Maybe that was the problem. How could it be with others when it couldn’t even…
Anyway. Life as a bird was dull, but safe. No humans bothered it, and other animals kept their distance. It flew as a bird during the day, and at night it became a dragon again, sleeping in a burrow it had dug.
One winter, it found something strange—a human man sheltering from a blizzard in its den. He was handsome, but very unusual. Although he was dying from the cold, he fed it the last of his food and tried to warm its small feathers with his breath. There must have been something wrong with him. After all, who does that? What kind of person…
It had never cared any humans other than its creators, but the dragon thought it would be a shame to let this human die. It tucked him under its wing and warmed the frozen den with fire. And so he survived the night.
The man left its burrow, but the dragon’s curiosity remained. It took the form of a human again, intent on becoming the man’s wife. At first, it only wanted to figure out what made him so kind. And perhaps the dragon wanted to know if…if it were possible to be with others again, after all those years.
But the dragon miscalculated. The man was even kinder that it had realized. Without knowing what the dragon was, he opened his home to it and gave it many things, though he could hardly afford to. And, like a fool, the dragon fell in love. It even had a child with him. The dragon wanted to give the man as much as he had given it, but it had nothing to offer but the feathers on its back. So it gave him those. Even though it meant it could not soar through the sky as easily as before, the dragon did not mind. The sky had felt like home, but it had a new home now. If only for a little while.
“I liked that story.”
“You did?”
She sounded hopeful, and yet there was something cautious in her voice. Bracing for impact. It was ironic—he had seen her tear the throat out of a wolf, but this was what frightened her. Frederick remembered how, years ago, she had asked if he was afraid of her while they had lain in this very bed. He hadn’t been, and he still wasn’t. He did not want her to be, either.
“I think it is the best story you have told so far,” he said. “It started off rather sad, but it took a gentle turn.”
“It did. Unexpectedly.”
“But that cannot be the ending, can it?”
“It doesn’t have an ending. Not yet.”
“How do you think it ends?”
Robin’s eyes clouded, and he knew she was thinking of all the blood-soaked endings she had told before. The inevitable betrayal and tragedy that led to them. The fangs that revealed themselves.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to say.”
“Then how about this,” he offered, lacing his fingers between hers. “The dragon finds a home, and ‘a little while’ turns into years, which turns into more years. They raise their child into a fine man. Perhaps the dragon realizes one day that it can let its feathers grow in again. That it has given the man enough. More, even, than he’d ever dreamed of having. And the dragon stays. It stays, and the dragon and the man live out the rest of their years in utter happiness.”
“It sounds too good to be true,” Robin murmured. “I’m not sure I could believe an ending like that.”
“I see. Then what of this—the dragon stays, they raise their child, and live in modest happiness until the rest of their days. Would you like that?”
“A ‘modest happiness,’ huh?” She made a sound that was something between a chuckle and a sob. “I…I would like that. I think I could believe it.”
Frederick squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. She smiled at him, very slightly, but a smile nonetheless. He leaned carefully forward, mingling their breaths, and after a moment, she leaned in to meet him. Her lips tasted faintly of blood. Still, it was her mouth, her hand sliding up his neck into his hair. He would not have it any other way.
“I love you,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers. “Robin, I love you. Please. Stay.”
He felt her breath catch. Her fingers tightened in his hair.
“I…”
“He-choo!”
Morgan sneezed, his leg kicking out and catching Frederick in the stomach.
“Oh dear,” Robin said, as the boy whimpered grouchily awake. She scooped him into her arms, wiping the snot dripping from their son’s nose. She sat on the side of the bed, stroking the back of Morgan’s head and bouncing him in her arms. Frederick gazed at her back, the white hair that fell nearly to her waist. The fireplace’s last embers haloed her shoulders in soft orange light.
“Thank you,” she said, so quietly he almost did not hear her over the wind. “For loving me. I…I love you, too.”
He knew. Even without her telling him, he knew. Still, he was glad she had said it.
He had wanted her to say it.
It was late when Frederick woke, the house already full of winter light. After last night’s storm, he had not expected the sun to come out at all. Morgan was asleep yet, his head tucked against his chest, drool darkening his shirt. And Robin…
“Morning.”
She was sitting up, blanket drawn over her lap. Waiting for him.
“Good morning,” he said, relief blooming in his chest. “You stayed.”
“I did.”
She brushed the back of her hand against his face. Her skin was pleasantly warm.
“It’s stopped snowing,” she said. “It’s a nice day.”
“We could go outside after all.”
“Yes.”
“I am glad you are here.”
“I am, too.”
Robin stood. Walked to the window and opened it.
“This is my favorite kind of sky,” she said. “Clear and cold. The sort of sky that makes you feel clean just by being in it.”
He rose, careful not to wake Morgan. His leg ached, but it no longer bothered him—it was as if the bitterness had melted away. He joined his wife at the window. Above, the sky was a vast brightness, trimmed with feathery clouds.
“It is very beautiful,” he said.
Frederick looked at her, and Robin smiled faintly. Then she took his hand in hers, her fingers trembling.
“There is something I have to show you.”