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I tell you this story as it was told to me, and if it is a lie, then the gods told it first.
“But we tell lies better! ‘Cause we’re antelope women, and no one can trick better than us!”
“Me too, me too! I’m gonna be like Mama, the best liar in the whole world!”
“Hush, my darlings. Do you hear that sound? The screech owl calls, and that means it’s time for bad little antelope girls to sleep in order to grow up quick, and beautiful, and cunning. So. One last lie before bed.”
Long ago, the kingdom of Umlagor stretched from the mountains of Ys to the deeps of the Gray Jewel Ocean. The rulers were friendly and kind, food was abundant and delicious, and the merchants were rich. But what Umlagor was most famous for was its dancers.
The ocean-dwellers practiced a style called flipspin, where dance pods swirl into formations and flowing, three dimensional patterns in tune with the tides. During storms, the dance pod sizes can grow to hundreds of swimmers.
The sky-dwellers practiced a form known as dive-bomb-bop. Birds and other flyers climb as far as they can into the heavens and then plunge towards the ground in graceful arcs, flaring their feathers or wings as they fall, until they pull up at the last moment before they hit the ground. Every year, dozens of careless dive-bomb-boppers are injured or killed.
The land-dwellers of Umlagor were primarily what’s known as flamenco dancers. They wear outfits in vibrant colors, and when they float across the floor, stamping their feet and flourishing their arms, their movements are so smooth it feels as though they’re swimming or flying. But the best land dancer in all of Umlagor was the Sea Dragon’s Daughter.
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter was arresting. When she danced, it felt as if the sun, the moon and time itself would still to watch. She had long, rippling black hair, eyes the color of midnight, and a red, red smile. She was very tall, for a human.
“Wait, the Sea Dragon’s Daughter was a human? Wasn’t her mama a dragon?”
“In some ways, my little fleetfeet, dragons are like us. There is no such thing as a half-dragon, just like there are no half-antelopes. If a dragon has children with a human, those children are either all dragon or all human. The mother of the Sea Dragon’s Daughter was a human who fell in love with a dragon prince. They had three children; the elder daughters were both dragons. The youngest was a human like her mother.”
“How come they weren’t all humans? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah, why weren’t they like their mother? Antelope women always have antelope girls!”
“That is not entirely true. Still, you say it with such conviction I almost believe you anyway! Excellent technique, my deerheart, keep up your efforts and soon I will trust you even when I know you’re lying.”
“Yes, Mama!”
“In fact, my lovely sparks, on occasion we do have male children. Our daughters are always antelope girls, true, but when we have boys they usually take after their fathers. You yourselves have an older brother who lives on the Wild Justice Salt Plains. He’s a centaur and a baker. Sons of antelope women have tend to have clever hands, silver tongues and a penchant for mischief, although their morals may be as good or as bad as anyone else in the general population. Your brother, for example, is reputed to be quite righteous.”
“So there are sons of antelope women, just no sons who are antelopes?”
“There have been very, very few antelope men, my sweets, but that isn’t the same as none. Perhaps… five, since we came to Orcus? And every one of those sons of Chaos shook Orcus to its bedrock before he was brought down.”
“Does that mean that antelope boys are better than antelope girls?”
“No fair! I want to be an antelope man, then!”
“Don’t be so silly, my little deerheart. Everyone knows not to trust antelope women: antelope men have no such stigma. For that reason, their victims are never wary enough and their betrayals are a delightful surprise.”
“Our victims will never be wary enough either!”
“Yeah!”
“I believe in you, my darlings. Now hush and listen.”
It came to pass that the Sea Dragon’s Daughter was chosen, above all the other dancers of Umlagor, to dance the primary role at the Festival of Saints. The Sea Dragon’s Daughter glided across the stage with the grace of a leaf on the wind, with the strength of the moon pulling the tides, and the joy of sunlight reflecting off of bells. Every eye in the audience was glued to the Sea Dragon’s Daughter and none could look away, but no one was more enchanted than the Anax of Phivo.
The Anax of Phivo was a powerful person, a rich, handsome man with great golden wings who fancied himself cleverer than he was.
“Don’t you say most men fancy themselves smarter than they are?”
“Mama never said that. She says ‘many’ not ‘most,’ stupid.”
“Don’t call me stupid! You’re the stupid one, you idiot!”
“Peace, my jewels, and no biting.”
“She started it!”
“Peace. Many men do think they’re smarter than they are, which is a gift that keeps on giving because that makes them so easy for us to fool. But that’s not exclusive to men — it also applies to women, hermaphrodites and people without gender. If you never remember or trust anything else I teach you, remember this.”
The Anax of Phivo fancied himself cleverer than he was. He also fancied himself in love. He offered to marry the Sea Dragon’s Daughter and bring her home to Phivo as his third wife, and when she turned him down he had her kidnapped.
“He had her kidnapped!? He’s not clever at all! Her father is a dragon!”
“Yes, my fleetfeet. Even more than that, the Anax should have worried about her mother, who was the type of person to not only fall in love with a dragon but to be loved back by one.”
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter woke up from a drugged sleep in Phivo three weeks later. She was locked in a room with a single barred window alone. Her beautiful, rustling red flamenco dress was gone, and all she had to replace it with was a wedding gown with heavy, gold threaded embroidery and an elaborate diamond and gold necklace. Eventually, a servant came by with a tray of oatmeal and told her that she was to be married to the Anax in three days time. The Sea Dragon’s Daughter sat down and wept silently until nightfall.
“Personally, I suspect some artistic license here. There’s no shame in crying if you’re scared, but there is shame in giving up and by all accounts, the Sea Dragon’s Daughter was an extremely tough woman. I think it far more likely she cried while she simultaneously searched the room for anything useful. If either of you are ever kidnapped, I expect that you will follow her example and do more than sit and feel sorry for yourselves.”
“Yes, Mama.”
When dark fell, the Sea Dragon’s Daughter heard a noise. She got up to investigate and there, outside her window, was a beautiful woman with beautiful horns peering in at her.
“Hello there,” said the woman, smiling soft and friendly. “Are you all right?”
“Hello,” said the Sea Dragon’s Daughter, who knew an antelope woman when she saw one. “If you help me escape, the Anax will be furious. If I get home to my family and tell them what happened, there might even be a war.”
The antelope woman’s mouth twisted into a meaner, more genuine curve. “That does sound nice,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’m going to need more than that before I agree to help you.”
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter nodded. “If you get me the key to the door, I’ll give you this necklace. You can sell it to fund your schemes.”
The antelope woman accepted the necklace between the bars of the window, and returned with the key by moonrise.
“That’s dumb. Antelope women don’t need money to make Chaos.”
“Ah, but, my little deerheart, sometimes it’s convenient for us to let people think that we do.”
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter took the key and escaped from her locked room. She crept through the building until she located the exit, whereupon she discovered that she was lost in an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar country.
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter stumbled blindly through the streets until nearly sunrise, searching for the road home. What she found was the antelope woman.
“Have you been following me?” the Sea Dragon’s Daughter asked.
“I have,” laughed the antelope woman.
“If I’m still inside the city when the Anax wakes up and finds me gone,” the Sea Dragon’s daughter said, “he’s probably going to catch me. I’ll give you this wedding dress, which is covered in embroidery with real gold, to sell for scheming, if you will guide me home to Umlagor. Wouldn’t that be more fun than just watching me be trapped and then married?”
“I wonder,” said the antelope woman, smirking. But when the Sea Dragon’s Daughter slipped out of the heavy, embroidered dress and waited, shivering in her shift, the antelope woman took her hand and led her to the city gates.
They walked for days, the sun rising and setting in a fixed wheel above them in the sky. The antelope woman led them in great wandering circles. She claimed it was to confuse pursuit in case the Anax was tracking them with scent rat-moths, but the Sea Dragon’s Daughter knew it for a lie and still laughed. One night when the scorpion stars were out, glowing tiny oases of light in an ocean of darkness, the Sea Dragon’s Daughter taught the antelope woman the basic steps of the flamenco and they danced over dunes of sand, stomping their feet and swaying together in time until morning.
“What should I call you?” the Sea Dragon’s Daughter asked one evening as they lay together, bodies curled towards one another and hands intertwined. “In case I ever meet another antelope woman and need to distinguish you from her.”
And the antelope woman told her, “Stag Maiden.”
“What? Why would an antelope woman say that? That’s absurd!”
“Because, my deerheart, calling herself Stag Maiden was a lie so obvious that it almost counts as telling the truth, since she was neither a maiden nor a stag, and the Sea Dragon’s Daughter knew it.”
“But you said it’s dangerous to lie about your name.”
“It is.”
Stag Maiden and the Sea Dragon’s Daughter journeyed together for almost a season, lying and dancing and kissing and laughing. They’d go into small towns whenever they ran low on supplies, and the Sea Dragon’s Daughter would watch Stag Maiden con food or clothes or small trinkets out of people who really should have known better.
The end came on a fiercely rainy day when they had gone to town to avoid the wet. The Sea Dragon’s Daughter and Stag Maiden were sitting at a bar sipping hot toddies when the town crier began shouting the news.
“Umlagor and Phivo on the brink of war!” the herald announced. “Umlagor demands return of beloved dancer and citizen! Phivo denies all knowledge and wrongdoing! Troops amassing in Ys foothills!”
Stag Maiden and the Sea Dragon’s Daughter looked at one another. They knew each other well enough by then that they packed up and headed for Ys without another word. No matter what the Sea Dragon’s Daughter had said to coax Stag Maiden’s assistance, the Sea Dragon’s Daughter would never stand aside if she could avert a pointless war.
They arrived at the foothills of Ys in record time, but they didn’t beat the army of Phivo.
“If I don’t manage to get past them unnoticed, there really will be a war,” the Sea Dragon’s Daughter said.
“I could help you,” Stag Maiden offered, smiling soft and friendly. “I’ll go in and distract them, then you slip by in the chaos.”
“I have nothing left to pay you with,” the Sea Dragon’s Daughter replied, shaking her head. “And besides,” she added, smiling wryly at her lover, “I do know who and what you are. I have benefited from your aid twice already, Stag Maiden; a third time will surely result in you deceiving me.
“Antelope women always betray. It is your nature, and you can no more change it than a leopard can change her spots.”
“Yes,” Stag Maiden said, smiling her mean, real smile again instead of the soft one. “I am a daughter of Chaos, and I cannot be tamed. There is nothing I will not do, if I want to, and no one can make me do anything unless I will it. And I do not want to double-cross you simply because the gods and my nature say I’m supposed to. Is that not the greatest rebellion and betrayal of all?”
“All right,” whispered the Sea Dragon’s Daughter. “It’s a deal. I’ll give you my heart, to use for your scheming and betraying, and you’ll distract the Phivo army so I can prevent the war.”
“Ah, you darling fool,” Stag Maiden replied, “didn’t you notice I stole your heart weeks ago?”
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter laughed, then, and they kissed one last time before Stag Maiden walked down into Phivo army camp. The Sea Dragon’s Daughter faded back into the tree line to wait for trust’s vindication or inevitable betrayal.
Within the hour, the Phivo army was showing an increase in activity as soldiers ran hither and thither. Within four hours, several large tents had caught fire and the entire camp was busy forming bucket chains to combat the flames; there were also several clouds of bees swarming near the pack animals. No one so much as looked up when the Sea Dragon’s Daughter skirted the army’s flanks on her way home.
With the return of the Sea Dragon’s Daughter, Umlagor called off the war but Phivo never admitted any wrongdoing. Even to this day, whenever representatives of Phivo visit anywhere that the kingdom of Umlagor used to rule, local dancers receive extra guard details in case Phivo tries another kidnapping.
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter searched desperately for news of Stag Maiden and finally learned that her beloved was killed by one of the Anax’s lieutenants for inciting enlisted soldiers to desert.
The Sea Dragon’s Daughter’s heart broke. She built a shrine to her lover on the coast and commissioned a statue of Stag Maiden, which tourists can still visit today for a modest fee. The Sea Dragon’s Daughter continued dancing until her death decades later, but she never took another lover.
“…was Stag Maiden right? Is rebelling against our own natures the biggest and best betrayal an antelope woman can ever commit?”
“Of course not! She was a fool who went soft and she died for it. I would never do something that weak. She was selfish and she let down every antelope woman everywhere!”
“I was asking Mama, not you! I think Stag Maiden was really amazing and bold. It was so cool how she wouldn’t let anyone or anything tell her what to do! You’re jealous of her creativity and wildness! Mama, who’s right? Is it me or her?”
“Ultimately, my sweet deerheart and fleetfeet, you will have to decide for yourselves.”
“Maaama, that’s not an answer!”
“Come on, Mama, what do you really think?”
“I think I see I see you yawning, my lovely sparks. It’s time to scurry off to bed, now.”