Sins of the Father: Chapter Twenty-Eight (Patreon)

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Chapter Twenty-Eight

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Valar watched Melira and Attis carrying goods back and forth, his jaws set. Though they worked swiftly, they’d brought more supplies than either of them could easily move in a short time. He could only imagine his adoptive father and sister would have returned in half the time if not for all the effort the humans must have spent packing all their supplies and strapping them around the dragons.

“Let me help,” Valar finally said, rising to his paws.

Kylaryn glared at him. “Absolutely not.” Then she turned her gaze to her other children, waving a foreleg. “Voskyr, Kylyra, you will help carry things.”

The younger female tossed her head, groaning. “I already helped carry everything here!”

Their mother pointed a wing tip towards Valar. “And now you’ll help carry it where it’s needed. These humans are our guests, and you will assist them in whatever way they require.”

“Fine.” Kylyra huffed, lashing her tail. “But I shall expect something in return for my efforts.” She glanced at the unconscious gryphon. “He looks soft. Perhaps I shall have him for my new pillow when he’s healed.”

Valar laughed at that. “There’s an idea. Instead of sending him to the villages to work off his debt, perhaps he can serve his time as a pillow for dragons, instead.”

Kylyra picked up a few large bags, holding them to her chest with a single foreleg. “You hear that, gryphon? You’re going to be our pillow, from now on.” She picked up another satchel in her teeth, then hobbled over to Valar on three legs and set everything down.

Voskyr carried a few bags over as well. “Technically, wouldn’t he be Valar’s pillow?”

“We could always share him,” Valar said. He grinned at his siblings, shrugging his wings. “Or pass him around like currency.”

“I like the sound of that.” Kylyra shifted her voice into a playful, feigned negotiation. “I say, brother, if you do the hunting for us this week, I’ll give you five nights with the pillow bird.”

Valar rumbled laughter, shaking his head. “Oh, lord. The poor creature would never live it down.”

Kylyra nuzzled at Valar’s neck, then gave his scales a gentle lick. “Given what he’s put you through, I’d say he doesn’t deserve to.”

Valar grunted, brushing his wing across her. “Let’s just hope he lives, at all.”

Melira and Attis approached, carrying the last of the packs marked with a green oak leaf. “As much as I appreciate the help,” Melira said. “We’re going to have to ask you two to make room around Valar for us.”

The two youngest dragons moved aside to make room for the humans. Attis stood before him, offering him a smile. “Hello, Valar. A pleasure to see you again, circumstances aside.” Her eyes wandered from wound, to wound, and her smile gradually twisted into a scowl. “You look even worse than I expected.”

Valar flattened his ears. “So I’m told.”

Attis fetched a charcoal stick, and a leather-wrapped tome filled with pages of notes, followed by sheafs of blank parchment. She offered them to Melira. “If you’d be so kind as to annotate my assessments?”

Melira opened to an empty page. “Sounds like the job I was born to do.”

Melira and Attis slowly circled the dragon, remarking to each other on his wounds. Valar quieted as they inspected him. Now and then he lifted a wing, or held a limb aloft, or shifted his position. Melira took notes as Attis dictated, detailing what manner of treatment each wound would require, and what bag the supplies would be found in. Valar was quite impressed by her attention to detail, even as he worried for the discomfort to come.

Once their inspection was complete, Attis stood before Valar. “I’m going to start with your worst, and most concerning wounds, and work backwards from there. You’re going to need a lot of disinfecting, and a lot of stitches. Some of these injuries are quite deep into the muscle, as well. With any luck, they’ll all heal up well enough over time, but walking and other movements may prove quite painful for a while.”

Valar forced a smile to his muzzle. “No difference there, then.”

Attis pursed her lips, her eyes drifting towards Valar’s older scars. “So I surmised. On that note, I may also be able to provide you with some herbal concoctions in the future that might help reduce the inflammation and discomfort of your previous injuries, as well. Now, before we begin, do you believe you’ve suffered any internal injuries? Do you have any pains deeper inside your body, any difficulty breathing, any unusual tingling in your extremities? Anything at all?”

“His ribs.” Kylaryn approached them, her voice level but her gaze making it clear to Valar he was not to argue or dismiss her words. “He crashed into the wall, when he arrived.” She pointed to the back of the cave. “He was wheezing and struggling to catch his breath, at first.”

“He probably cracked a few of them, at the very least. Possibly even broke some.” Attis gestured at Valar’s chest. “In that case, I’d best listen to his breathing and his heartbeat as well. May I?”

Valar nodded. “Go ahead. Do you need me to lay on my back?”

“If you can do so without additional discomfort or difficulty, it might help.” Attis put her hands on her hips, scowling. “Large as you are compared to me, I might have to try and listen to each side of your chest individually, to appraise both lungs.” She glanced from Valar back to his mother. “I’m afraid I’ve never tended a dragon’s wounds, before. I’m working off basic anatomical knowledge. Thankfully, far as I know, most of our organs are the same as yours. Yours are just bigger, and in perhaps in slightly different places. So I’ll do my best.” 

A faint, wistful smile crept across Kylaryn’s muzzle. “You will not be the first human healer to ‘do her best’. It has been our experience that a reliable, knowledgeable healer is just as helpful to a dragon, as to any other creature.” She gazed at her son again. “Valar, do you hurt anywhere else inside that Attis needs to know about?”

Valar slowly, carefully rolled onto his back, his wings outstretched. “If I’m honest-”

“You’d better be,” Kylaryn said, her voice sharp.

Valar grunted, letting his limbs relax, forelegs half curled against his chest. “I’ve been aching nearly everywhere since the end of our brawl. I may have torn muscles in the fight, picking up the gryphon, and flying home. I’m sure I bruised myself deep inside, crashing into the wall. It hurts to breathe now and then, but not so intensely as to cause me trouble. The absolute truth is…”

Valar stared at the ceiling. Sunbeams danced across it in brilliant patterns. For a brief, fleeting moment, he longed for the scarcely remembered time in his youth when pain was not his ever-present companion. When it did not hurt to walk. When it did not hurt to stretch his wings. When he did hurt deep inside during a playfight with his siblings, simply because someone bumped his belly the wrong way. The moment passed, and Valar swallowed away the longing for what would never be, just as he always did.

“The truth is,” Valar said. “That I always hurt.” He waved a paw at the wounds littering his body. “This is just more pain. It will pass, and I will survive, as I always do.”

“I see.” Attis walked around to Valar’s left side, frowning. “I was going to give you something for your pain before we got started, anyway. I may as well do so now. Give me a moment.” She crouched down near one of her bags, undid a few buckles, and swiftly removed a mortar, a pestle, and a variety of herbs both fresh and dry. In a flash, she was grinding several types of leaves into paste. “If you take it quickly enough, it may start to kick in by the time we begin cleaning your wounds. It’ll make things a little less unpleasant for you.”

Valar scrunched his muzzle at the astringent scents emanating from her mixture. “Very well.”

Attis chuckled, adding a few more herbs, and a handful of berries. She opened a flask, and poured in a unfamiliar smelling liquid. “It won’t taste very good, but I promise it will help. I’m going to give you…” She paused, looking the dragon over. “Roughly ten times the dose I’d give a human.” Then she glanced over her shoulder at Kylaryn. “Your people don’t have any allergies to common medicinal, and pain-relieving herbs and medications, do you?”

Kylaryn tilted her head. “Not to my knowledge. The healers of Aran’alian used to prepare a wild variety of medicines and poultices for us during the war.”

Attis nodded. “Probably very similar recipes, given where I learned my craft. And none of you ever had any trouble with them?”

“Not that I am aware of.” Kylaryn shifted her weight, turning to address her son. “You will take whatever medications she gives you.” Then she softened her tone, her ears drooping. “Just because you can bear the pain, Valar, does not mean you always have to.” 

Valar looked away, flattening his frills. “In that case, give me as much of that stuff as you can.”

Attis returned to mixing ingredients. “That’s the idea. And unless you don’t want me to, when I return to the village I’ll start preparing the anti-inflammatory compounds I mentioned. Whether you take them is up to you, but with regular usage, you may find some of your lingering pains easing over time.” She held a hand up. “Or perhaps not. I don’t want to get your hopes up in case they don’t help you as much as they often help my people.”

Valar lifted his head from the floor to offer her a smile, his frills lifted. “I appreciate it, just the same.”

“You’re welcome.” She picked up her bowl and carried it over to Valar, offering it to the dragon. “Take all of this.”

Valar took the bowl in his forepaws as delicately as he could. He held it above his chest, curling his head towards it. A strong, bittersweet aroma wafted from the pasty mixture of colorful leaves and mashed berries. “I thought you were giving me a dose fit for a dragon. This is scarcely even a bowlful. A human bowlful.”

“That is literally the most I’ve ever seen her prepare,” Melira said. “I once had a man who lost his entire hand to a bear.” She waved her book of notes at Attis. “She gave the poor bastard a spoonful of that stuff, and it damn near put him to sleep for two days.”

Valar blinked, then peered into the bowl. “But I don’t want to sleep.”

“She’s exaggerating.” Attis shrugged, but her sudden refusal to meet the dragon’s gaze did not inspire confidence in her truthfulness. “The point is, that is a large dose. And if it helps you sleep later, that just means you’ll heal up better.”

Valar growled under his breath, but brought the bowl to his muzzle. “Oh, very well.” He forced himself to lick up the contents, despite the unpleasant way they left his tongue feeling half-numb, and tasting a bitterness that lingered long after he’d swallowed down every astringent mouthful. He handed the bowl back to Attis, then laid his horned head back on the floor. “How long will it require to take effect?”

“On a dragon?” Attis returned the bowl to her belongings. “I’ve no idea.”

Melira chuckled. “But last time I took some, it knocked me on my ass in about ten minutes. Woke up the next day, trying to remember where my blouse went, and why my arm was in a splint.”  

Valar lifted his head right back up. “You are trying to put me to sleep.”

“Half-asleep, anyway.” Melira nudged the dragon’s shoulder with a booted foot. “Would you rather be wide awake while we’re scrubbing out those claw wounds with disinfecting spirits?”

Valar cringed at the thought. Having his wounds bathed in general had been painful enough. “Must you?”

“We must.” Attis returned to the dragon’s side. “Bite wounds infect quite easily, but claw wounds infect easier still. And often with a more ferocious, and aggressive infection.”

“As I tried to tell him,” Kylaryn said, curling her tail around his paws.  

“It’s because the claws are retractable.” Attis waggled her fingers. “Cats, for example, transmit infections far worse than they scratch you, than when they bite you.” She glanced at the slumbering gryphon. “And his paws don’t look that different from a oversized cats. There’s no telling what many of foul germs gryphons have in those sheaths.”

Voskyr and Kylyra both giggled to themselves, though Valar managed to keep a straight face.

Melira snorted, fighting back her own laughter. “Indeed.”

Kylaryn grunted, tossing her head and glaring at her youngest children. “Claw sheaths, you two.”

Attis stared at the two younger dragons, before a crooked smirk made its way across her face. “Ah, right. I suppose that might sound funny to a people with…” She cleared her throat, then laughed. “Moving on. While the medicine kicks in, I’m going to listen to your breathing, and examine your ribs best I can.” Attis glanced from Valar to Kylaryn. “Do you happen to know roughly where a dragon’s heart is located? Is it in the center of the chest, or off to one side?”

Kylaryn pointed to a place on Valar’s chest. “Slightly to the left, most often.” Then she gestured for her daughter to approach, and gently tapped a digit against Kylaryn’s lower back, where her spine ran between her hind legs, yet not quite to her tail. “We also have what we call a minor heart here, and with another, here.” She tapped the area between Kylyra’s wings. “They help regulate blood flow.”

“I see.” Attis scrunched her face, glancing at Melira. “Write that down.”

Melira snorted, scribbling down the information. “Yes, mother.”

Attis tapped a finger to her chin. “I’d wager they’re more like a series of valves, yes? Rather than a separate organ. Or are they?” She glanced at Melira, then back down at Valar. “Not the time for such discussion, I suppose. Lift your foreleg, please?”

Valar did so, and Attis pressed her ear to his side. She listened for a few moments, then moved to a nearby spot, did the same, and moved again. Attis continued moving around the dragon for some time, listening to both sides of his chest. Now and then she had Melira write down a few notes on what she heard, sometimes with descriptors and sometimes with numbers. Valar had little idea just what she was listening for, aside from raspiness or the pace of his heart.

“You’ve definitely cracked some of your ribs, at the least,” Attis said, when she’d finally finished. “And you sound a little wheezier than I’d like. But, as long as you’re not having real difficult drawing breath, you should be alright. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot I can do for fractured ribs, in your case. Normally, I’d have your torso wrapped up tightly for support while they healed, but your wings would make that difficult. We can talk more about that after I’ve addressed the wounds I can help with, however.” She paced around him, glancing up at Kylaryn, then back at Valar. “It’s also likely you’ve suffered some internal bruising. Probably quite a lot of it, in fact. That, at least, I may be able to help with.” She pointed towards some of the cargo bags with other symbols on them. “I’ve medications to mix up that help with the blood’s ability to coagulate. Those should cut down on any continued hidden bleeding. Once the gryphon’s able to drink water and keep things down, I’ll have him take the same. But for the time being…” Attis gazed across the dragon, her eyes lingering on several particularly deep, ragged gashes. “We should get started on getting these disinfected, and closed up.”

 Kylaryn rumbled. “Yes, please do.”

Valar rolled back onto his belly, and let the humans begin their work. The two women worked as a team. Though Melira’s areas of expertise were more in tracking and combat than healing, she’d picked up a great few tricks of the medical trade over the years. Despite being Attis’ commander within the Forest Ward, she deferred to the other woman now, and carried out her instructions without complaint or argument.

The healers began by cleaning and stitching the deepest, most ragged wounds the gryphon had inflicted. The first few such treatments were anguishing. Despite the efforts of Valar’s family to clean his injuries, Attis still wished to scrub and rinse each completely with highly potent medicinal spirits. To Valar, she may as well have poured oil into his open flesh and set it alight. At least by the time they moved onto the stitching phase, the spirit’s harsh burn left each injury nearly numb. Compared to the cleansing, the needle’s sharp poke and the stitches taut pull was but an irritant.

By the time they’d worked through a half dozen wounds, Valar found his focus waning. A heavy, leaden warmth slowly spread from his belly, settling in his limbs. His paws went half numb, feeling almost swollen and clumsy. The ever-present pain coursing through him eased to a dull background ache, easily dismissed. His vision swam, and he blinked several times, trying to focus on Melira and Attis as they stitched closed another long cut. Valar blinked again, and realized his head now rested on the floor. He could not recall laying it down. Attis and Melira rinsed another wound, and this time, the waves of fire were no more than hot discomfort.

“Yerrr truurrr per meh sleeeeb,” Valar said without lifting his head. He flattened his ears. That didn’t sound quite right. He tried to speak again, and found his tongue fat, heavy, and scarcely responsible. He focused on every syllable, but even then his words were long, and drawn out. “You’re…trying to…put me…to sleep.”

“And we’ve nearly succeeded.” Melira smirked at the dragon over her shoulder. “Don’t fight it. It’s for the best, dragon.”

A paw settled on the back of his neck, gently stroking his scales. “Go to sleep, brother.” Love and concern filled his younger sister’s voice. “You’ve done all you can for the bird. It’s time to worry about yourself, now. Let the pain fade, and find your rest.”

“Yes, Valar.” Voskyr’s voice joined his sisters. Somehow, his younger brother sounded even further away, even as the young dragon’s touch brushed his half-outstretched wing. “You need your rest. Let them do your work, so you can heal. We’ll take care of you till you wake again.”

Valar tried to lift his head, tried to look at his siblings. At first, his body refused to obey his commands. And just as he finally marshalled the last of his strength and began to raise his head from the floor, his mother’s muzzle gently pressed against his, bearing him right back down. Kylaryn’s face filled his vision. Tears shimmered in her vibrant silver eyes. Her voice filled his head, a trembling mixture of love and sorrow.

“Go to sleep, my lovely son.” She licked him, just between his eyes. “You’re as strong, and stubborn as your father ever was, and you’ve a heart to be proud of. But for all you’ve been through, all you’ve survived, you’re not invincible, Valar. You cannot keep acting as if you are. So sleep now, my son. Sleep, and let peace replace your pain, a while.”

Valar could not have fought his family’s advice even if he wished to. The creeping numbness that slowly spread throughout his body soon encroached upon his mind. His eyelids drooped. He struggled to open them, only to find his mother now laying across from him, her muzzle brushing his. He thought he’d but blinked, but perhaps he’d slept a while. Were the healers still binding his wounds? Was his mother keeping watch over him? Valar’s eyes drifted closed once more, and this time, he could no longer open them.

Valar slept, deep and dreamless. He floated in darkest oblivion, unaware even that he slumbered. In that oblivion, there was peace. There was an absence of pain. His slumber was dark, and silent, a desperately needed respite, even as the dragon was blissfully unaware of the length and depth of his own slumber. When at last Valar awoke, it was all at once, and with a sudden alertness he was unused to. Instinctual warnings tingled at the base of his spines. His claws were all unsheathed, as if of their own accord. Valar lifted his head, unable even to remember falling asleep, yet wondering what had woken him so abruptly.

Moonlight glittered on something green, just in front of him.

The gryphon stared at him, his emerald eyes narrowed and unblinking. He whispered, his raspy voice barely audible. “I’ve been thinking about killing you.” The gryphon flexed his forepaws, his unsheathed talons perilously close to Valar’s neck. “No one could stop me, in time.”

Valar swallowed, trying to lift his head. Despite his instincts screaming at him, the medicine’s lingering effects left his body feeling slow, and heavy. He managed little more than a brief look around. It was nighttime again. The full moon’s silvery light had replaced the earlier sun filtering into the cavern entrance. Nearby, Valar’s mother slept half-curled with Voskalar, her head upon his forepaw. Both his siblings slumbered in another part of the chamber. All his family were near enough to help him, should he need it in the night, yet far enough away to give him space. Too far, he realized, to stop the gryphon from cutting his throat, should the bird choose vengeance. 

“Have you?” Valar’s own voice was little louder than the gryphon’s. He did not wish to rouse the others yet, lest they should inadvertently exacerbate the situation. “Dare I ask what conclusion you’ve reached?”

“I haven’t.” The gryphon’s eyes flicked from Valar’s face to his own claws, then back again. “Part of me still wants to. You…” His whispered words trembled, nearly lost amidst the clenching of his throat. “You took from me, what meager life I had built. You stole from me my friends. You…” Anger melded with sorrow in the gryphon’s voice. “You shattered the only keepsake I had left, from my poor, lonely mother.”

Across the room, Kylaryn opened her eyes. Her claws slipped free, and she rose, silent as the night itself. Valar forced himself to keep his eyes on the gryphon, watching his mother only through his peripheral vision. He forced himself to focus, lifting only his spined tail tip, trying to signal her to hold her ground. From her vantage, he did not know if she could see how close the gryphon’s claws were to his throat. Valar knew she would tolerate no threat to her son’s life, but he also knew she wouldn’t make it in time. If Kylaryn struck, the gryphon would die within instants, but Valar would die with him.

But Valar didn’t really think the bird wanted to kill him. Not anymore, at least. If that was truly his wish, he could have cut the dragon’s throat in his slumber. But he’d waited, watching, until Valar was awake. Until the dragon could hear him speak his piece. So Valar stayed quiet, and let the gryphon talk. Kylaryn’s eyes flicked to Valar’s tail, and she waited, tensed and ready to strike.

“I’d have killed you, in that fight.” The gryphon’s words came out as a broken, shaking warble, the saddest birdsong Valar had ever heard. “I wanted to. Almost as much, I think, as I wanted you to kill me. Until you did, and then…” He took a shaking breath. “All I wanted was to live. To see my mother again. To…” Tears welled in his emerald eyes. “To hug her, in my wings. To tell her I loved her, and that I was sorry I left. And it was too late. I was dying. And then…” The gryphon swallowed back a sob. “And then you picked me up. And you told me to hang on. To live. You promised me…” The sob broke through anyway, loud enough to wake the rest of Valar’s family.

This time, it was Kylaryn who signaled them to wait. She crept closer, while the bird’s attention was fixed on Valar. Beyond her, Voskalar and Valar’s siblings pushed to their feet in silence, ready to do whatever must be done, to protect their kin. If the gryphon realized he’d woken the others, he did not care.

The bird’s eyes remained locked on Valar’s. Tears ran from them, wetting his ebon feathers. “You promised me that life was more than bitterness. That if I held on, that my life would get better. And, for reasons I cannot fathom, I believed you, if only for a moment. So, I clung not to my life, but…” The gryphon swallowed again, sorrow breaking his voice. “To you. To an enemy, who, somehow, someway, cared what happened to me. Not because I wanted to live, for I believed you had already slain me. But because, as my blood drained away, I wished to for my life to end with the belief that…” The gryphon broke down into a racking sob, his wings shaking. “That I mattered to someone. I clung to you because you actually cared if I lived, or died.” He sobbed again, gazing down at his own forepaws. Slowly, the gryphon retracted his claws. He moved his paws away from Valar’s neck. “And I don’t think I want to kill you, anymore.”   

 It took nearly all his strength to fight through the medicine’s weighted numbness, but Valar forced himself to his feet. He moved to the gryphon, and gently pulled the bandaged creature into a hug. At the same time, he swept a wing forward, ushering his family back. Kylaryn glanced at the others, and as she backed down, so to did they. As they retreated, Valar in turn wrapped his wings around the gryphon, sheltering him.

“It’s alright, bird.” Valar’s own voice was hoarse and ragged. “It’s alright. You matter. Whatever you’ve been through, whatever sorrows you’ve suffered, they’re behind you now. All you have to do now is live. You’ve survived this far for a reason, gryphon. Surely you have a purpose left that awaits you. You need only but find it.”

The gryphon cried against Valar’s scales, resting limp against him. His voice was muffled, yet its pain remained all acute. “We are born beneath broken stars, dragon. No one has a purpose. We only are.”

Valar flattened his ears. He had never heard his own youthful regret expressed so succinctly. Born at the start of the war that would ruin his home. Maimed in his childhood. Abandoned by his father. Driven from his home. The origin of this bird’s pain was a mystery, but its expression, its depth, it was all too familiar. For Valar too, once believed himself born onto a cursed life, meant only to know pain.

But Valar had long since found it in himself to turn that pain into strength.

Perhaps, so too could the gryphon.

“All this pain, gryphon?” Valar eased his wings back, then cradled the bird’s head in his forepaws. “All the sorrow, all the anguish. It is not for nothing. It is the fire that forges the steel. You cannot let it control you, lest its bitterness mold you into something brittle. Instead, you control the pain. You bathe yourselves in its flames, and you let it forge you into steel.” He took a slow, shaking breath. “And then you discover your purpose. One awaits you yet, gryphon. And I will help you find it.”