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Humans are so very small.
While he has never seen them with his own eyes until Morax brought him to the world of light, he has known of them long before, as he has known all things that walk and feast and die on the earth. The stones whisper of them, the little two-legged dwellers of cities built in the dark, and old roots sing of their prayers. He knows of their fires as he knows of the sun and moon, their marvelous lamps bringing stars to all the deep places, and he knows of their steps in the dawn and dusk, their taming of soil and trees and creatures. Nothing knows better than the earth that there is much more to knowing than seeing, and he knows more of the little things than they themselves will ever know.
The little things stand before him, eyes wide, mouths hanging open, and tiny tremors beneath their feet tell him that they are shaken as trees in a storm. Their faces are all different, all similar, none alike, each with an array of feelings splayed across them like crystals caught in the light. Several of them fall to their knees and bend to the ground, hands stretched out front. A woman trembles as she brings a tray full of gold and gems before him, while two men lower down the boar they have been carrying. The children---even smaller things, almost impossibly so---cling to the bigger ones’ knees and look at him with something in their eyes. Behind them stands his friend Morax, shaped like them but nothing alike, hiding his face with a hand but not entirely succeeding at concealing his mirth.
My friend, he says, with some bewilderment, in the language of mountains that Morax has called song. The humans jolt and tremble, and if not for their god’s presence they might have fled. What are the little ones doing, why are they laying down these things?
“They wish to see you, for they live so close to your mountain,” Morax says, stepping forward with a smile still on his face. “A dragon is powerful enough to shake the earth and the heavens, and when I told them of you they wished to bring offerings. Will you not receive them, and give them what blessings as you will?”
This is unexpected. He has been staying away from the human folk, close enough to see them and their curious ways, but not so close as to give them fear. As much as he desires to walk in the world that Morax walks, he knows that humans would be as fearful of a creature of stone as they are of lightning and things of the dark. A mountain, close enough that he could come as Morax calls, close enough that he could watch the little things as they till the soil and shape the earth with water and fire, has made him content, and he has not expected tales of him to be told.
My friend, he says, after a little consideration. I have no need for food nor treasure, and of blessings I have none to give. Indeed it is him who has been blessed, by this very being standing in front of him, but he does not bring it up now. They should keep the fruits of their hunts and the wealth of their homes. I am content enough to watch their comings and goings, and sleep in the sunlight, and listen to the trees in bloom.
The little god extends a hand and touches his foreleg, a gesture that somehow brings gasps from the humans surrounding them, and speaks. “Tell them this, then. Nothing will bring them greater assurances than hearing it in your voice.”
The stone dragon narrows his eyes. Though he knows of human words in the manner that he knows all things, he is a creature of rock and stone and it is not made of him to speak to creatures of flesh and dust, as mountains are not meant to speak in the tongue of man. Their words are made of tremors in deep caverns and the long slow crumbling of stone, and between this and the small, confined words of man no name nor sound could pass. He would tell Morax this, but the words of Morax ring in his mind and the thought of them not being believed disturbs him.
I cannot say that they will understand, the stone dragon says, and Morax only smiles.
For a long time he ponders how this is to be done, thinking of all he knows of mortals and things that walk and fly. Though there are things he rues in the bounds of the language of mountains, he has not thought of how to confine himself without. Mortals do not speak in echoes, where one hollow holds a thousand stories and the ringing of crystals holds a thousand names, but in words of captured wind and twisted flesh. A dragon of earth has neither wind nor flesh to boast of, but perhaps, like how a mountain can roar with fury not unlike that of a thunderstorm, perhaps it could be done for Morax’s sake.
He opens his mouth then and wills the stone to move, laboriously, to grind and click with mortal voice. Every sound that comes out is uncertain, one like a rockslide, one like a quake, one like stone falling into some great and immeasurable depth. The humans shiver, and between the sound of fire springs and the silence of ravines, the dragon tries to find a word.
To his horror the word comes out wrong and misshapen, and the rocks around him heave and shake and roar. The humans make a high, wind-reed noise, and hold their children closer, their feet taking them backwards even in the presence of their god. The stone dragon himself shrinks back and for a moment envies the dragons of the air, for they have wings and can leave when their presence harms that which should not have been hurt.
Only Morax stands his ground, his hand still as stone on the stone dragon’s leg, and he casts a glance towards his people and extends his other hand. His people quieten and stop in their tracks. The god turns back, then, to look into the eyes that he has given, and he says, “It is fine.”
Unseen by mortal light in Morax’s eyes is the glow of a newborn star, bright as sunrise and warm as the midday breeze. In it blazes a marvel, for in his eyes he speaks a language that no one knows, a language without name and with no words, one that only the dragon can hear. In the soft touch of his hand he again speaks, and in this it is with the language of mortal things, of small things with veins that bleed and pulse, as if stones that form the dragon himself possess a heart.
There are words such as this, he realizes. And then Morax, seemingly recognizing what he has learned, smiles. The smile of a victor who has known no failures, as bright as the sun.
In the brilliance of such things, who could linger for long in the dark?
The dragon does not remember for how long he continues to try to speak, how far the shadows have lengthened, whether the day has turned to night. Nor does he know for how long the humans watch on in silence as if they have a sudden understanding of what lies beneath the tremblings of the earth. In whatever hours passes he spins echoes into singular sounds, the thousand voices of caverns into a single voice, and he tries, oh he tries, to contain the long slow death of mountains into the finite deaths of finite lives. But at last the stones crumble and the echoes fall into place, and from his throat there comes out words, words that he knows Morax’s people can hear.
“Little. Ones.”
It surprises him as much as they, these mortal words, and not without wonder. And it grows easier, once the first words come, though it does not quite become easy, nor is it natural. It is strange, strange and difficult, but the strangeness of knowing that stones could have a voice that little things of the earth could hear is not an unpleasant one.
“Give not to me. The fruits of your work. I have promised. No harm shall, come to you.”
The woman who had carried the gold and gems falls to her knees in front of him and cries out, once again, “Great Dragon! Our lord and god told us of your strength and your wisdom. Please accept our gifts to you!”
“I need. No such. To others should they go.”
“But to whom, Great Dragon?”
He pauses for a moment, then looks at Morax, who shakes his head.
“To those that need. Animals. Weak ones, of your kind.”
They fall to their knees around him and lie prostrate, the echoes of their heartbeats through the earth tremulous, like they have just witnessed something of wonder, a miracle beyond what they can reach. In this he does not understand, for are they not the people of Morax, bringer of miracles, who shines like sunlight and whose eyes glitter like stars? In his bewilderment the stone dragon has no more words and instead reaches forward with his tail, gently brushing the little ones’ fragile bodies with the leaves of his boughs. The humans make their wind-reed noise again, though this time there is no fear in it, and he hears the children squeal. A girl-child reaches out for a flower on one of the branches and he lowers it down for her. She does not try to pluck it, and her touch on its petals is soft, as soft as Morax’s hand.
“That one is named Jiu,” Morax says, pointing to the little girl holding the flowers in his branches like they are too precious to touch. “She was born in a night of storms, four summers past. This other one is Yan. He always chases butterflies in the meadows. The one trying to sneak to the base of your tail is Zhiqiang. All of them children that you have watched since you came to this place.”
Some of the older humans gasp and try to reach for the last boy, but Morax’s smile stops them, and the low rumble of the dragon’s voice quietens their hearts. The dragon beholds them, the little ones that he has indeed watched, that he has named in the language of his memory. The little girl whose birth cries had shivered through the earth with rainwater, the boys who played at the foot of his mountain. Something ripples through his heart like stalactite droplets, spreading roots like the seeds of a buried wish, and for a brief, brief moment he ponders what it would be like if he could reach out to these little ones with hands that could never hurt, as their elders and elders before them could reach out and ruffle their hair.
They are so small.
“Jiu,” he says instead in his newfound voice, slowly and carefully. “Grow strong, and go on to love the flowers and trees as you do.” The girl stares up at him and smiles, shyly, before hiding her face back behind his branches. “Yan. Grow healthy, and chase your quarries with grace and honor.” The boy looks up at him with a big, guileless grin. “Zhiqiang. Grow bright, and seek always for that which is righteous.” The last boy pouts, and holds on to his tail with both arms.
A murmur erupts among the grown ones, and the stone dragon, confused, turns to Morax as if he could explain why. To his surprise, the eyes looking back at him are luminous with wonder. Morax, who is the most wondrous thing to walk this earth, looking at him with a smile that is no longer imperious sunlight but fireflies reflected in noctilucous stone.
“For one with no blessings to give, your blessings are very wise, my friend,” Morax says, exhaling. “I have come here knowing that you would give me a gift, and yet you have given me one that is beyond all measure. How can I ever hope to give back something equal, in return?”
The dragon bristles at this, for he does not relish the thought that anyone would spurn the gifts that Morax gave. Morax has given him eyes and sunlight and hope and all the beauty of things beyond any word that can be spoken, and now, now he says it is not equal to the nothingness of this. A more preposterous thought could not have been named. He would have swished his tail at this little god if not for the children, and in the end only makes do with nudging him with a touch of his claws.
Morax laughs. “Though it may pale to your gift, will you allow me to give you something of my own as well, dragon of earthsong?”
With this Morax makes a motion with his hand to one of his flock, who takes out a stone tablet from their belongings. This is given to Morax, who in turn lays it before him in the sunlight. The dragon eyes him curiously before turning his attention to the tablet itself. There are lines carved into the stone, shaped like thoughts and memories. He knows these, they are what humans leave when they want to preserve something forever, setting it in stone so it may outlast the memories of mountains. Stones forget, their memories short, but marks made on their heart will last far beyond what they can remember.
“I have meant to give this to you for a long time, but nothing would quite fit, and it is long in preparing,” Morax says, running his star-bright hand on the little carvings. “What do you think of it?”
The carvings are beautiful, he answers, uncertain. But I do not know what they say.
“Retuo,” Morax says, turning to him with a secret smile. “The closest I can get to the sound of your name, in the language of my people. It means wisdom, for you are very wise.” He then takes a step forward and places his hand on the dragon’s horns. “It is yours if you find it pleasing, my friend. You may reject it if you want, though I hope that my people would have something to call you, something to etch forever into their memory and their children’s children’s memory. And I,” with this the smile falls from his face, and his hand passes from the dragon’s horn to his snout. “I cannot speak in the language of mountains, but I have long wished that I could call your name in my own voice.”
When the dragon does not reply, he continues, with more fervency, like he is afraid of some shadow that rightly should never touch the sun.
“Even if you will not take the name---will you not come with my people? They are not afraid of you. Come to those that you have watched and remembered, to tell them stories of when the world was new. It is not a gentle world, for times are harsh and cold----but you have given them the gift of gentleness, and they, and their children’s children, will remember you.”
The dragon is silent, silent for a long time, as silent as worlds in a universe being born anew. He is afraid. Afraid of how Morax could see into him like this, into the half-buried seeds of impossible wishes, into his stone heart that does not beat and stone veins where no blood flows. Afraid of how Morax could see into his one regret in the hollows of old mountains, the one thing echoes could not say. Yet at the same time he is glad, glad like a fresh-fallen drop of sunlit rain has reached some long-forgotten river that feeds his bones.
When he speaks, it is the first time he speaks to his friend with the voice of the same world.
“It is not I who gives gifts beyond measure, Morax.”
A smile breaks once more unto Morax’s face. “Retuo,” he says, “it gladdens me to hear your voice saying my name.”