The One Being Rescued

By Devan Barlow

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“We’ll probably have the dragons back before the festival’s over, you know. I’m sure everyone would love to see you there…”

Vivi’s only response was to shake her head and close her eyes more tightly.

The two of them had gotten along well when they had both arrived the year before, to begin work as dragon guides. But Vivi became steadily icier with every passing month, even though Ilana made a point of trying to include her and offering to introduce her to people.

Ilana was tired of reaching out and being rebuffed every time. She hadn’t missed the flash of dismay on Vivi’s face when she’d arrived at the guide building to find Ilana was the only one there with her.

Ilana shook her head and returned her focus to her dragon, pleased at the inrush of the familiar mind-space they had developed together throughout their partnership. Her left wrist was angled to lay comfortably within the interface loop, so that the bright pink piece of dragon-heart set into her lower arm connected to the system. The bit of hardware connected to the dragon’s heart chip and enabled the bio-code link between a guide and the dragon robot they steered for.

Their two dragons, evincing none of the tension between their guides, wheeled gracefully through the sky, above the thick layer of smog and pollution that kept the community from using solar panels themselves.

Immediately, Ilana saw the source of the shoulder pain she’d been experiencing for the last hour. While the sky on their left was gleaming pale blue, with sun pouring through, on their right the clouds were massing and darkening, and from that direction the air was thickening with humidity. Taking cues from her pain and past experience, she steered her dragon to the left. It was early enough they could stay out and collect a bit more sunlight in the solar panels that served as the dragons’ “scales.” Once they returned to the dragon roost, the gathered energy would feed into the community’s grid.

Another gust of wind, as she and her dragon navigated around the peak of a mountain, and an unexpected shift in the air pressure jarred her —

“Gone!” Ilana gasped, startled. She had never lost her link before. She was always the one who helped others reconnect.

Vivi immediately turned to her and ordered, “Join mine.”

“Are you sure?” Vivi was the last person Ilana wanted to do this with, but none of the others were here. Everyone had wanted the time off to go to the festival. Vivi had turned down the outing as she always did, and while Ilana wanted to go, she couldn’t justify taking the time off.

The guides’ scheduling was, intentionally, kept flexible since weather-sense came with the accompanying uncertainty about what any of them would feel up to on any given day. There were enough of them that this was rarely an issue.

“You want to lose your dragon?”  Vivi was tense with both annoyance and pain. “Just join, but don’t mess with anything.”

Ilana bristled, but before she could reply, Vivi grabbed her hand. A dull, muffling sensation overwhelmed her eyes, ears, and skin, and then —

Ilana’s first instinct was to fight her way out, because there was no way that this was a dragon link.

Except… she recognized the landscape below them as the one she’d seen through her own dragon just before it cut off, but everything else was bizarre.

It was so quiet. No words seemed to pass between Vivi and her dragon, only a steady sense of understanding. The colors were muted, with only the occasional more-saturated smear in her peripheral vision. Fleeting, velvet-soft sensations brushed against her fingertips and palms, and a flat, stony scent only just reached her nose.

The storm was approaching, the ache in her shoulders spreading down to her elbows and up the back of her neck. Not even the doctors in this community, well-known as the exemplars in managing weather-sense, were entirely sure why some people had such strong physical reactions to the changing weather conditions above the smog layer.

But those with weather-sense had the best chance to successfully link to a dragon. And since their bodies reacted to changes in weather, they were able to guide the dragons as they collected sunlight. There was no point flying somewhere that the sun wasn’t visible, or taking a route through bad weather if another path was available. With the dragons’ range encompassing most of the planet, and those with weather-sense to guide them, they were able to collect enough energy to power the community’s network.

Now, though the winds whirled furiously and the air steadily grew heavier, Vivi’s well-honed connection with her dragon ensured they got close enough to touch one wing to that of Ilana’s. The connection the dragons all shared among themselves activated with the physical contact, and orange-pink light bloomed brightly. A few seconds later the muffling feeling overwhelmed Ilana again, and she was hurled back into her own link.

It’s so much more of a wrench, she thought as her body and mind scrambled to acclimate, when you’re the one being rescued instead of the one doing the rescuing.

But the mind-space she preferred returned in a beautiful, comforting crash of sound and light and color. She needed her music to focus, songs she had known and loved for so long it took almost no effort to project them into the space here. Once again in sync with her dragon, she felt the currents of air sliding along her limbs, a never-ending play of particles and pollen bringing with it dozens of scents, and the fullness of the world around her. Only like this, with the totality of what her dragon was experiencing, could she —

Oh.

The mind-space used by a dragon and their guide was intensely personal, and this was the first time Ilana had ever experienced another pair’s.

And then something about Vivi finally made sense.

Even the brief time she had just spent in Vivi’s interface was enough to know Ilana would never have been able to do the work that way. And a few months back, when Vivi had gotten cut off from her dragon and Ilana had reconnected them, her own interface must have been utterly overwhelming if that quiet, gentle place was what Vivi was used to.

Ilana groaned, waving away her dragon’s burst of concern as they curved back toward home and down through the smog layer, heading toward the roost. Moments later, she felt the unmistakable sense of home that meant her dragon was safely snugged into their portion of the roost.

She disconnected, stood, and shrugged on her jacket, grateful for the familiar feel of the warming pads worked into the shoulders. They rested on the spots where her pain tended to be worst, and helped take some of the tension off her neck and head.

“Thank you,” she said.

Vivi nodded, not looking up from where she was wrapping warming braces around her wrists.

“Also,” Ilana continued, “I’m so sorry. I cannot believe I was so selfish not to realize this, but… you need quiet. Much more quiet than I do.”

Vivi rested her hands in her lap, but still didn’t look up at her.

“It was amazing to come here,” Ilana said, “and finally be around people who understand about the weather-sense, and the pain, and… I realized I love spending time with people. I love talking with them. And I thought you would be happier if you did those things too.”

She should have known better, after all the times she’d had to make her own boundaries clear to other people, when it was a bad pain day or she was just too exhausted. “I should have realized, much sooner, that this wasn’t what you needed. So, I’m sorry.”

She saw Vivi searching for words, but finally said, “Thank you, Ilana,” and gave her a soft smile. “I appreciate that.” In the next moment though, concern crossed her face. She considered, then as if she wasn’t sure whether she should, said, “You know… you don’t have to be here every day,” she offered. “There are enough of us.”

Surprised, Ilana struggled to explain. “Being here doesn’t make the pain less, but… it’s like a distraction? And I love my dragon, and to know I’m helping —”

“But you also need rest,” Vivi insisted. “No one’s going to think any less of you if you’re not on hand for every single reconnection.”

A moment of silent understanding passed between them.

A few minutes later, they exited the front of the building, only to find four other dragon guides waiting for them in the nearby pavilion beneath the trees. Soft lights were draped around the structure, a less-intense mirror of the bright lights still visible from the festival space a few minutes’ walk away.

“We figured since you had to miss the festival, we’d bring it to you!” Their colleagues showed off the trays of food and drink they’d snagged from the festival space.

Ilana checked to find Vivi looking relieved, not overwhelmed, by this small microcosm of the community’s celebration.

“How’d it go?” one of the other guides asked, glancing toward the roost.

“Fine, thanks to Vivi saving me! I’m exhausted, though,” Ilana confessed, making herself a plate.

“You, admitting you’re tired?” It was said with a laugh, but a good-natured one. “Why not stay home tomorrow? Rest.”

Ilana glanced at Vivi. “I think I will.”

As their dragons slumbered peacefully, Ilana and Vivi had a much-needed meal, while the others chattered about their days. There was still music coming from the festival, just loud enough for them to sway softly in time with it.

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Devan Barlow is the author of An Uncommon Curse, a novel of fairy tales and musical theatre. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in several anthologies and magazines including Solarpunk Magazine and Diabolical Plots. She can be found at her website https://devanbarlow.com/ or on Bluesky @devanbarlow.bsky.social. She reads voraciously, and can often be found hanging out with her dog, drinking tea, and thinking about sea monsters.