But maybe now you have the impression that my childhood was only full of sorrow and pain.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. At least until the day the dragon came. But these years before that, I was a happy child. Our family was happy, albeit ostracized. That was less difficult for me than it was for my brothers or LoPa, who especially struggled with our isolation. But we found enjoyment in one another, in our closeness, in the space left for us at the edge of the forest.

  Though Lapas and Upe and several others were edge of the foresters, even they chose to remain separate from us. So we had our stretch of land where we grew our own food, made our own tools and pots, and gave our lives to one another. I think our persistence angered the clan more than anything else. That we would be content without the assistance of the rest of them.

  In the mornings, my mother would exercise. She began by sitting in silence and breathing. Slow breaths in through her nose and long breaths out through her mouth. I imitated her, never really knowing why, but it calmed me. I felt still and peaceful. Afterwards, she often carried me on her back into the forest.

  She squatted down and looked over her shoulder at me, “Come on, Lu.” She clapped her lower back twice and I ran to her. Throwing my arms over her shoulders but unable to clasp my hands together, she took me by the forearms and hoisted me up, then scooted me high so I could fit my hands together. I wrapped my legs tight round her, resting on her hips. Like this, we ran to the forest. Bouncing on her back, I was delighted. Laughter burst from me and I could feel her smile. When I slipped down, she scooted me back up to keep me from choking her.

  We broke through the forest’s threshold—a moment that was always slightly unnerving. Though we lived within the forest that is the world, it held a certain level of awe and fear for us. It wasn’t simply the barrier to our land. It was our god and it housed countless other gods. It was no simple task to enter the forest, which is why only the bravest were warriors and hunters. Some men foraged for food, shells, stones, and so on in the forest, but almost always in groups. Otherwise, they kept to the paths that led to the river or into familiar groves where berries could be harvested.

  HoPa and LoPa were unusual in that they often ventured into the forest alone or just the two of them. Either to sneak off for passion or to find time alone. LoPa especially wandered widely, singing and playing his lute.

  I think this is why my brothers and I held less fear of the forest than most in the village. We played and ran through the forest, though we always did this together. Even they were reluctant to go without me. Not that I could protect them, but there’s a comfort in sharing adventures, in sharing the unknown, in not being alone.

  But mother ran and I bounced on her back. The wind ripping past my ears, the colors of the autumnal leaves rainbowing past me. I listened hard for that eternal song but heard only the breathing of my mother. The beating of her powerful heart.

  She jumped over streams and boulders, only using her hands to help her over the highest rocks. She climbed trees.

  “Which one, Lu?” she said as she bounced on the balls of her feet in front of a dozen thick trunks.

  I pointed to the center one. Its bark a reddish black. “That one!” I clung to her so tight with my legs. My arms must’ve choked her but she never complained, only kept climbing. When the ground was far away and the canopy farther still, she slowed and adjusted my grip on her neck, “You good, Lu?” Her words came between pants. Her ribs expanded wide with her breathing.

  “Higher!” I chirped and I knew she smiled because I was smiling so hard.

  She climbed higher and my legs and arms burned from holding myself to her, breathing hard and hot against her neck. Our progress came slower and slower as she held onto my arms with one hand and used the other to keep climbing.

  Even in the coolness of an autumn morning, the leaves still touched by dew, we were sticky with sweat and even sap. We were as high up as we could go. We were about HoPa’s height from the canopy but the trunk became narrower and narrower up there. The tree we chose that day was unfortunately shorter than its surrounding sisters so our view was limited.

  But it was beautiful up there. The wind filtered through the trees and gently lapped against my sweaty skin. The sounds of the world were so quiet, so far away. There was a noise but the kind that’s hard to name. The noise of being far from the surface, from Saol’s skin. To be this far away was to live in another world. The world of birds and all things that flew and climbed.

  “That noise,” my mother shifted me to her chest but I clung just as tight with my legs, “is the land calling to the stars. It’s a murmured song. It’s the land blowing into the sky, reaching for those distant shores. The stars in their ocean of sky. Our world is adrift in it. We are passengers on a ship that is the whole world. It sings to us and it sings into the vastness of the sky, calling for its sisters and brothers. Its mother and fathers. It’s quiet but constant. Here,” she put her palms over my ears. “Do you hear that?”

  She was beautiful. Her eyes dark and intent. I would have believed anything she said up there at the bottom of the sky, but I did hear it. It’s like the wind, or the ocean far away.

  My mother smiled at the surprise written on my face, “Even our own bodies are full of wind. Even our hearts beat a song for the stars and other worlds. We can hear it if we listen. This is all it takes.” She covered her own ears and I covered mine. She blew gently onto my face and smiled. Putting her hands over mine, it changed the whispered song I heard. I pulled her close and pressed my face to hers, then covered her ears and breathed onto her face.

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  Her smile spread so wide. I had never seen her so happy, so delighted in anything I did. It made me laugh. It made me warm. It made me feel like part of her, and she part of me. My body slipped away up there at the bottom of the sky and I fell into my mother, into her bodysong.

  We made the long journey down, which took much longer than the climb up, but it was easier on my mother, since I wasn’t choking her. She was careful not to get me snagged on any stray branches, and she was weary from the climb.

  As we approached the ground, LoPa’s tenor reached us. Along with it, HoPa and my brothers clapped a beat.

  Up in the sky where even birds don’t fly

  Lives a sad old boy looking like a koi

  He swims and he sings

  He sinks and he spins

  Little bird don’t know

  Little crow won’t go

  Only Eeyo

  Only Eeyo

  Swimming alone

  Up in the sky with full moons for an eye

  Lives old Eeyo but his fishy fins won’t go

  He’s stuck outta luck

  He sinks and he shouts

  Old monks can’t go

  Young boys don’t know

  Eeyo falls!

  Eeyo falls!

  Sinking alone!

  Back on the ground my brothers ran in circles stomping and clapping to keep time with LoPa’s quickening rhymes. The words spun faster and faster till Akmuo could only hit every other beat and Medis was sweating with effort. HoPa had given up before we reached the ground and was now only laughing, his deep rich voice rolling over us like a cloud of comfort. But LoPa kept going. The words coming so fast I could barely even hear them as they flew past. Medis collapsed in exhaustion and laughter with Akmuo rapidly stomping his feet and yelling to keep up, though he was woefully far behind. LoPa then slowed it down, slower and slower and slower till he held each word and note so long that it became equally difficult to keep any kind of beat.

  Laughing, he pulled out his lute, “What now, love?”

  HoPa looked up as if searching for the right song, his fingers stroking his face. “Elya the DragonQueen.”

  Akmuo and Medis groaned and collapsed back into the ground, giggling, but I was excited. HoPa chose it for my mother. Their eyes locked and she let me down. I ran to my brothers who pulled me down with them. Our bodies tangling together, our laughter filling the space between the trees as LoPa strummed the first chords.

  HoPa took mother’s hands in his, smiling wide. As LoPa played, they let go and backed away from one another in time to the melody. It was a complex one. Too complex for children to really enjoy. Not like Eeyo the Koi or Petaliske’s many songs, which were designed to stick in your head and remain there, even if the words were forgotten. Those were the songs we liked best, my brothers and me. They were easy to keep time and most of the songs were humorous or absurd, while others spoke of great battles between gods and humans or gods and gods or humans and humans.

  But Elya the DragonQueen was a history, a song for the ages. Worse, it was a foreign song, forbidden by First Mother. But it was so beautiful, so perfectly constructed. LoPa’s fingers danced over the strings as HoPa and mother danced apart from one another but in time, as if they were mirrored. When the vocals began, they opened with a high delicate note that LoPa held longer than seemed possible. Every time, it seemed longer than the last. And then the lyrics really began and my mother and HoPa came together, their dance turning almost into a fight. Swinging limbs and fluid movements.

  The story was of the founding of Bauruk. Perhaps you know it. Elya met a dragon. The eldest of dragons known to have ever lived. Kurikononikuni. Every time the name entered the song, it stretched long, each syllable rolling over a dozen chords played rapidly while LoPa’s voice soared into a falsetto. Elya and Kurikononikuni met first as strangers caught in a physical struggle. Elya was alone at the edge of the world after her family had been taken by Deathwalkers when she came upon the dragon’s song of might and fire, of a black sun rising. They fought before speaking but neither could be named the winner.

  Akmuo and Medis picked up sticks and began swordfighting, imitating what they remembered of mother’s martial movements. Their sticks clanging together, as their goal was primarily to make noise rather than strike each other.

  But the song transformed when Elya and Kurikononikuni couldn’t claim victory. They began talking, and here the song slowed, the chords reaching higher and his voice growing softer. More pleasant to the ear. Easier to remember. My mother and HoPa came together, bodies so close they moved as one, swaying slowly and elegantly. Chords and words that filled my heart enough to burst. Even then I loved that part of the story and it brings me near to tears just thinking about it now.

  His tender fiery touch

  and her lips begging too much

  It breaks my heart with its beauty. They fell in love, as only the gods of history can. A love that shattered Saol and shifted mountains. The chords matched this. LoPa struck the chords more to distort melody than create it, but his voice rolled on clear and powerful. HoPa and mother separated but moved in parallel as mirrors. Their movements slow, deliberate, and forceful. Every battle described brought more clanging notes battering underneath his beautiful voice and the harrowing melody of blood and fire. Then they conquered, her riding his enormous back, flying over the land and subjugating all who opposed and even some who didn’t. The world became one of peace and Elya founded her dynasty.

  But age found her, and the melody slowed. LoPa’s voice ached with sorrow. It ranged from falsetto to deeper notes that HoPa filled in. His rough baritone oddly beautiful and made more so because of its imperfections. Their voices clung together even as HoPa and mother’s bodies became as one again. Slow and hypnotic, but mother’s movements began to falter and collapse. HoPa desperately held her up while his voice strained to harmonize with LoPa. Age had taken Elya, as it does all humans, and she died, in the arms of her dragon, Kurikononikuni.

  When she died, the chords stopped and the dancing stopped. HoPa held mother’s limp body in his arms and his faltering voice held the song together, a cappella. He sang of Kurikononikuni’s decision to leave the world behind and fly into the depths of the star ocean. But he returns every 170 years—one year for each year Elya lived—to burn the sky a bright yellow for the length of days her pyre burned.

  Mother straightened up and kissed HoPa, then they both kissed LoPa and laughed. Akmuo and Medis had collapsed into giggling fits once more after they had both broken their stickswords against one another. I ran to all of them and LoPa scooped me up, throwing me into the air, “Kurikononikuni!” he said with each toss. My laughter made me short of breath.

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