Mirage: "Before"
Mirage: "after"
"I do not know, my honorable Lady..." Treason said, darkly, "this is a great risk, and an unconventional means..."
I know it is, but bear with me. I trust you, Treason. You can do this for me. I know it. It is important.
The long-necked and strangely shaped Zekiran moved his wings around, and looked down his beak. He could not say that he saw her with his eyes, because he knew he was using other senses than mere physical ones to percieve Mirage. The faint image that he did see was a female, humanoid without all of his bells and whistles. In other words, Mirage: one of his distant ancestors. Or more accurately, her ghost.
Keep me. Keep my memory. I trust you...
"I will honor your request, Mirage, but ... only because I have always wanted to meet you."
The ghost smiled a bit, faintly, and then Treason took her mind, her powers, and her history into the back of his own mind. He tucked it away where it would be safe. He was more than intelligent enough to keep her separated, and he was the consummate shapeshifter after all - he dedicated a small portion of his own flesh to her memory. It would never fade, never fail. Not unless he himself met an end, and that was far from likely.
***
That was seven hundred thousand years ago.
Mirage's powers were strong enough that at times, Treason 'let her out' and allowed her to use his own body to look, to touch others. It wasn't often, though. It was draining for her to do so, and that was the last thing that Treason wanted, for Mirage to have gone all this way and then to not be there when he opened his mind up again.
The ship drifted from world to world, from star to star. And she had been around for almost a million before that, before asking for this rest that Treason could offer.
He felt her mind touching his, and Treason - settled up in his high viewing nook in the ship's central spire - closed his eyes to let her out once again. She did not come all the way out, merely wanting to talk.
You are bored, Treason, and that is never a good sign.
"You are still wise, my Lady."
You know that I was not an Owner, Treason, I was a High Holder.
"... You could have been anything you wished, Mirage, why choose that?" Treason nested down, resting his beak across his chest, and feeling his horns press against the back steel-glass wall.
Mirage gave a little pause, and then chose to allow him into her mind, more fully than he expected. He was suddenly immersed in a world of her own, her past - their planet's past.
***
There was a moment when Mirage, old and tired, had thought that she wished Vanya would have been there earlier, in her life. She would have been very different if she had had the pleasure of falling in love with him say, even ten years before they'd first met. And of course, he would say that he had fallen in love with her at that moment - everyone did. The first moment they met her, every man, and a considerable number of women, fell in love with Mirage. But...
But she was already involved, already having had no fewer than two children before they met. She recalled the party clearly - it was one of Morgontain's parties, and Mirage was barely into her fourth decade. Vanya, only about 15 years older than she, but he was so serious, so old already. He was always more mature than he ought to have been, but in so many ways, so much more innocent.
The party had been going on for hours already, when Mirage spied two extremely tall men talking to one another. One was closer to her age, while the other had been pointed out by Morgontain herself at the party when she'd arrived. Mirage knew who the blue skinned man was: she'd seen Beast Lord Aern Kshau at the races more than once. He was a masterful Steed racer, clearly loved the sport and loved the animals around him. And she'd heard that this dark-brown skinned one with the long black hair, that was Breed Master Vanya Sengihr. That was a name familiar to Mirage, by family means. She thought she'd heard it somewhere, from someone else. (Little did she know that in fact, she'd had whole conversations about the family - only to have them erased carefully and with pleasant thoughts, by one Darkhanis Paveh... the elder Sengihr's brother...)
There was something intensely sensual about the two men there. Mirage realized a moment too late that she had forgotten to block out this week for her mostly-annual fertility event! It would be a disaster, wouldn't it? She worried - her heart fluttered.
It nearly burst when the two men of her intense scrutiny turned at the same moment and looked at her. They almost had the same eyes, too, vivid blue on Kshau, and a peacock-shade on Sengihr's. They held the same look on their faces too, though Aern's was a bit more wild, Vanya's was a subtle desire.
They were all Hyperfertile. Mirage quickly looked away, trying to find Morgontain. But it was hardly worth the effort - she discovered that she had a horrid case of tunnel vision and could barely see beyond the offered tray of fruits that a Slave held up.
"Mistress?" Asked the young Slave, "Are you well?"
"I - I'm ..."
"She will be fine," Said a deep but feminine voice. Morgontain's. "Mirage, dearest? You should have told me you were feeling fertile this morning..."
"Ah - I ..."
"That's the fewest coherent words I have ever heard from your lips, my sweet," Morgontain said with a smirk crossing her scarred face. She'd been kicked by a Steed, damaged a bit in the subsequent fall in a stall, but to everyone there Morgontain would always be the most dignified woman in the world. Mirage certainly thought so, but her mind was turbulent - it was hardly able to concentrate on being nice to this woman. Morgontain knew better than even Mirage did, when she was going to be this way!
"You planned this," Mirage muttered, regaining a little control over herself. "I know you did."
"Why else would I ever throw a party?" Morgontain said, smiling, and turning Mirage back to face the pair of men. They were approaching. "Ah, and here is my young friend Vanya. Breed Master, this is Mirage Marad, recently named HighMistress."
Vanya hardly cared what had just been said, but nodded, and dutifully held out his hand in a greeting. Mirage, also feeling a bit odd, shook it. She glanced up at the taller Aern, and smiled, "I've seen you on the vids and at a race. You'll be in High Holdings soon enough."
"I'm always going to be an Animal Master, I think," Aern said, "he thinks that animals are filthy." He thumbed toward a deflating Vanya.
"They're wonderful, but ..." Mirage said, trying desperately to get him to look at her again, "Notice that I do not Hold any..."
"Nice to look at," Aern said, "but smelly. Sure. You don't like my smell. I'll leave." He almost turned, but it was Vanya who snatched his elbow as it passed. Careful of the long blue spines that the man's arms sported, Mirage noticed them a moment later.
"You must keep those bound while you race," She commented. "I have never seen them."
"I have to," Aern admitted, holding his arm up and flexing the spines, "otherwise my Steed's wings would be ripped to shreds. They're quite sharp."
Mirage could not help but think, how odd it was, that here she was standing beside a newly famous Racer, and an up and coming Breeder, and... She didn't even know what to do. Everyone always thought that Mirage had every answer, was always one up on the play.
However, she was rarely this badly in heat.
It looked as though Morgontain had brought Vanya, herself, and had hoped that they would meet. But she hadn't counted on Aern's presense - and she also hadn't realized that all three of them would hit it off. Within a few minutes, and after hastily grabbing drinks and fruit, bread and a bit of other fingerfoods to 'cover' their actions, they were off into the depths of the huge mansion in Ri'iri to find a place to get nasty.
Is this going to get any more intimate? Treason asked with a grin on his beak. I mean, that's a nice memory and all but...
Hush, Mirage told him.
"Normally," Vanya told Mirage and Aern, "it would be up to you and me to settle this the hard way," he pinned Aern down. He was much stronger than he looked, and a good match for the lighter-skinned man. Mirage almost wanted them to fight it out for her. But then again, that would have been a tremendous waste of their energy.
"But we're different?" Aern asked, and then bit Vanya's arm where it lay nearest to him.
"Very," Vanya said, and they did something not entirely printable. Along the way, he managed to explain that usually Hyperfertile males would literally fight over a female if she was available. But in their case, for some reason - probaby that both the males in question found either sex to be appropriate for their needs - they didn't want to fight. Instead, they would simply pursue the female before them until she told them both to stop.
Like that would help. (Actually, it would. Aern would stop, because he was a gentleman and had been brought up right. Vanya would stop because he'd been hurt before and didn't wish it on others - especially her.)
It was the day that Shatter was concieved, it would be known only to those three. Probably plus Morgontain.
The feelings of helplessness overtook Mirage again, in her current incarnation, as she realized that Shatter too was long gone. Not even her powerful psionics had lasted this long... They had had another - immortal - child, later on. But ... Mirage knew the girl would be happier without her.
Why would you say that? Treason asked. Frost is a sensible woman. She knows her heritage.
Mirage drew in a sad sigh - it's not that, it's me. I ... I still have trouble with my second life. You understand?
"Sort of," Treason said. "I understand that you've lost so much. But, so have I. You're no different from any of the other immortals on this ship, Mirage, only that you have no body."
But you have never been dead, Treason, you do not know what it was like to be dead, and to have enjoyed your life once. Once is really all I was meant for. Mirage flitted around his mind, nervous but unwilling to leave back to her nook in his braincase.
"Then why hang on?" Treason wanted to know.
***
They hadn't remembered that she was an actress, first. She wanted to be an actress more than anything else in the world. Before she knew how to use a camera, before she started taking any art classes, and even before she gained her Membayar status, she was to be an actress.
She was playing a role that had been long-desired by another girl in the class, but Mirage did have the skill - and she was far more beautiful even at her age. That led to a bit of a jealous spat, but Mirage had known that this girl would not like her no matter what. Even though she was "Mirage", she had no idea that there would be a handful of people in the world who just could not stomach her.
Mostly because by comparison, they were so abyssimal in nature or in deed, or in appearance.
Mirage had been Bred very well, by Darkhanis. Indeed.
But Mirage's lineage had nothing to do with the choice to put her as the lead in the performance. It was a dream role - the young girl created as the culmination of love between two who could not bear, given gifts of attention and wealth... At the expense of another Breeder whose attempts at getting the pair to bear a child had failed. Jealous, in a rage, the Breeder put a heavy dose of a drug together, and used it with her powers to cause the girl to sleep as though in a coma.
For years, decades, the girl slept... Her family was dust by the time her savior came along. He was a handsome young Lord, smart enough to get past the Homestead's defenses, and eager enough to see what those defenses hid. His powers were able to defeat the evil Breeder's scheme, and he woke the girl from her century-long slumber. The evil Breeder, who had lived unnaturally long herself, was placed into Exile, and all was well with the world.
Happy ending.
It was, it was a wonderful play. And you know that it was based upon truth, Mirage told Treason. He let off a noise, and she said, Scoff if you like, but it's recorded. The legal paperwork was on display at one playhouse I went to, when I saw it as an adult.
There was a world we were at once, that had a similar legend, Mirage, it was just a fable.
Yes, but Zekirans powers do work in odd ways, don't you agree?
Treason had to say yes, he did. They did work oddly. He tucked his wings together, and placed Mirage's mind in a safe spot where she could watch and communicate, but not interfere with his vision.
"Come along, Mirage, let's fly. I know you liked riding Steeds - you never did it enough."
Her mind giggled, sometimes she could be taken out of a bad mood by just watching the worlds from above. Treason was quite good at flight, his big wings looked ragged at times, but they were sound. Mirage tried once, to use them when he let her borrow his body, but she almost got his neck broken when she could not remember how many limbs to control. They flew over the big domed flight zone, and Mirage gave off a little tingly sensation.
The dragons are so amazing, Treason. Don't you think?
"I think they are big, and they take up a lot of room. I used to be able to fly in here without dodging them."
You are being silly, Mirage thought.
"I am, but don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold."
They landed and one or two of the dragons in question came up to them. One said something odd.
You should go to the Ring of Fire. Later. After you're whole.
"What does that mean?" Treason asked, and Mirage was silent.
***
It was days later, when they got word that the ship had found another dragon world. They'd been collecting the dragons for just under one hundred years so far, and there seemed to be more and more of them as they looked. And shortly after that, when one of the dragons told Treason to come with him.
"Ah, Vanya, you're..." Treason said, suddenly faintly uncomfortable around the Outsider. Not because he had some great secret - everyone knew that Vanya was a bit weird. But ... because now he had a stronger emotional attachment, Mirage's memories had gotten to him. "Looking well."
"We're going to be leaving for a planet, but the place is deserted. I want you to come along, just in case we need someone to orient us in the right direction when we travel back."
Treason blinked. "Back what? Won't you be able to find the ship again? It's not like it's small..."
"No, back to it in time. Forward. We're going to be traveling backward in time to get to the dragons on this world, and we need to make sure that we know where and when to arrive again. You do nothing but spend time watching the stars - and that's how we're trained to track things. By the star patterns."
"But... I'm no rider!" Squawked Treason. "Why can't you do it?"
"Because I get lost rather easily, and you don't want that. I can't lead the expedition." Vanya said. He looked curiously at Treason, then tossed his head. "Come on."
"Okay..." Treason said. There was precious little that he couldn't find out about Vanya, simply by listening in on his dreams or prying into his mind. However, Vanya was at a disadvantage here because of course, he didn't know that Treason carried his old lover in his mind. Treason knew that Vanya thought she was dead. Gone, and dust.
Concentrate, Mirage said, quietly. Don't get lost.
Okay, Treason said. I'll try. I've never gone on one of those dragoning trips, so I don't know what we're going to expect.
What they expected was irrelevant. When the dragons moved their mass through the Nexus, teleporting, they brought along the mind of Mirage, and her host, and sent them not into the atmosphere of this world below their grand ship. But instead, they went backward in time, to an era when the dragons flew in the skies and their companions were actually rare.
"We are here," Vanya said, a bit winded. "A couple of us are going to visit with the dragon hatchery. Don't get lost, okay?"
"You should talk," Treason said with a smile. Yes, his beak had teeth.
I like this place, Treason, I like the way it feels. This is not the Ring of Fire, though, is it?
"I don't think so," he said, looking about. He noticed one of the other dragon riders from their ship flagging him down, so he headed toward him. "What is it?"
"You do realize we'll be here for about two years?" He said.
Treason blinked. "I do now," he said.
That is time enough, Mirage said.
"Were you in on something without telling me?" Treason asked. They walked toward a tall cliffside, where he saw some kind of humanoid inhabitants working on scaffolding above.
No, but... I think it is time for me to get my own body again, Treason.
"Won't that come as a surprise to the others?" Treason asked. "And if you thought this would be the time, why didn't you have me find the others? I can shape things, but ..."
But Treason, you can also suspend yourself into a body and ... shape it for me.
"I'd forgotten that you were clever too," Treason said. "Much too clever for your own good. No wonder they loved you so much..."
Because the group of dragon riders had largely ignored Treason, and he could find them easily using any of his given powers so long as they were on the same planet together, they didn't think much to follow him when he went into the woods under the cliff face.
Treason? What are you doing?
I'm looking for bodies, he replied. But he was looking upwards.
Treason, they are still alive.
"Yes, but one of them will fall. And look at how they are afraid to live here. It's obvious."
It was obvious, too - that the inhabitants of the planet were not forest-dwellers. They would lower their scaffolds from the top of a cliff and carve their homes, but they would not run through the woods. There was doubtless a good reason for that fear, but honestly Treason was immortal, and he was big, and quite scary. If something thought they could eat him, they'd get a nasty surprise in the form of his claws, horns and beak biting. Not to mention the mental powers...
Treason took up a spot in a tree, under the cliff. It took them three weeks, and he was notified during that time by one of the mentalists in the dragon camp that one of their members had in fact found an egg and paired up with it, so they were in fact here for the long term. Three weeks of waiting, and Mirage occasionally nudging Treason to not go shake the scaffolds or just pick off one of the people from them in flight.
I do not want a body that badly that you have to physically take it away from someone who is using it.
But Mirage, do you want a body you can live in, or one you ... need to grow up into?
Treason's mental speech trailed off when he saw the young child. It was toddling through the woods - and moments later Treason heard a voice, terrified, calling a name. The mother? Surely. But the mother was smart and sane enough to remain outside of the forest.
The child was probably male, but quite young. Perhaps only three or four years old. They grew to be a decent size here, not quite as tall as Zekirans perhaps but they had the same general arrangement of arms and legs. That's not saying that Treason had the typical Zekiran arrangement of arms and legs - but Mirage would. She did have children with extra arms and tails and such, but she herself was lousy at those things.
Treason - she warned, please don't just kill it. Please.
I have no intention of doing so. But it will be injured, and it will have to die first. If you wish me to remain outside of murder for you, you must wait, and you must know what happens to the body. Treason waited, and then watched as the reason for the local's fear came out from hiding. It hadn't messed with Treason of course, because he smelled oddly and was much too big for food.
The animal was long, somewhat slender like a snake, and had two obvious limbs near its large head. But there were also two long stinging tentacle-like objects which it used to dangle in front of the prey. Even this prey, which should have been wary, should have known better. The child turned and gave a squeal, half in delight at having found something pretty dangling right next to it, and half because the other tentacle had just stung it's neck from behind.
Careful, Mirage said, it has a long range.
I can see that. Perhaps you could distract it somehow.
Maybe you could try shaking the branches. It is going to eat the child and that's- horrid!
"It has to eat, to survive," Treason pointed out. But by that time he was halfway down the tree and trying to glide in the limited space that the forest offered. He clipped the creature's stinger, and it reeled back with a pained yelp. The child was going to die quickly, from the sting, and Treason forced his mind into the animal's brain to make it think there was something far more interesting and good to eat - that way, far away.
"Still breathing," Treason said, "is that all right?"
Mirage was silent, but she was also somewhat desperate. Go, Treason. Find my memories and shape this body for me... Please.
The tone of her voice, almost sad. But it was a sadness with an edge to it that said volumes to Treason. They'd been together in this form for so very long. They were friends - but they would still be. Now to give her the chance...
He sat down near the boy, and forced his mind into it. His own body would grow cold and die, without him in it for a great length of time. But for the moment he did not need to worry about it. It would be fine. It would only take perhaps an hour to shape this body into the childhood form for Mirage, that she wanted. An hour was nothing. He'd left his body alone for a week once, and all it did was act really hungry when he got back to it. It felt foggy, though, like seeing through mist, which meant that his brain would need to keep coming back.
The child's body was obviously poisoned, and his frail brain had already succombed to the venom. There was nothing to save, nothing to chase away. But the lower brain was still working and it kept the lungs breathing, the heart beating. That was both a blessing and a burden.
Treason shaped himself into the boy, and then began the effort of changing the cells. Almost one at a time, they followed his instructions. It was dark before he'd gotten the shape right. He abruptly returned to his own body, and then Treason looked down at the child.
It was pale, alabaster white, with black hair. Her eyes were a distinct shade of periwinkle-blue, a beautiful violet that he'd heard other people talking about at length before. The cherubic face was lovely, he was working with the genetics - and realized that Mirage knew her own genes when she found them. She herself was Treason's ancestress: Mother of Shatter with Aern, who bore Tylee to Ten, who had Tailin, who paired with Shire to sire Lathe, who sired Treason with Vortex Veh. They were all connected, almost all of them distantly related to begin with. Such was the way of Zekira in that era. It was hard to get away from the Hyperfertile lines anyway.
Mirage's powers awakened, in Treason. She had guided his hand. He compulsively created another immortal body, of course, that part was easy. Mirage caused the body to have the right kinds of genetics, the right flavor of powers nestled in its cells.
Yet she clung to Treason before entering the body herself. You will have to cut the ties, Treason, I cannot shape your body for you.
"I know. And... just what is it we're going to tell anyone when we find them?"
Mirage's mind was silent, and she'd fled his brain in that moment. He knew she'd heard him, but she was in transit and couldn't do anything but activate this young body.
Moments later, the new young Zekiran Immortal blinked her eyes. They were the right color, Treason decided. And he'd fallen in love with her too, the moment he saw her.
"When we have to tell them anything, tell them I wish to go to the Ring of Fire." She said, her voice was high, a child's voice, but it was her own.
***
The adult dragon was ready to go, and Mirage had grown some in that time. Treason and she remained outside of the dragon camps, watching more the activities of the local human population. They were hardly savages, and Mirage regretted not being able to tell the woman whose child had died for her, that he was a wonderful new thing now.
"They have little power," Treason said, absently. "They're not going to amount to another one of our kind of races, you know."
"I know," Mirage the child said. "But they will do okay. As long as they get over their curiosity of dangly things."
Treason laughed, and picked her up. She felt safe in his arms, as she clung on to him. They flew over the camps, over the cliffside, and into the dragon lands. There, they were met by a number of dragons, predictably.
One of them was Ruarth, Vanya's blue.
I know you, He said.
"No, you only sort of know me... I have never met you." Mirage said.
Vanya will want to know this, the dragon said.
"Of course he will. But we have a while before he will find out, okay?" Mirage said, and with half a thought cleared out the dragon's mind. They were not on a level with the Zekirans, and certainly not with her. Treason was surprised that she'd do such a thing. Especially to Vanya's dragon.
"I'm but a child, Treason," she replied to his unasked question. "I am going to be a woman for him, and perhaps for you, but not right now. For the moment I must grow."
"But... How are we going to hide you, then?" Treason said, almost whining.
"Just tell Viridia, and she'll know what to do." Mirage said, and nodded. She was more precocious than any child. She'd never lost that, in her long long life, nor her death.
***
Somehow, they did manage to get Mirage up to the ship, in the right time era, without anyone knowing. Mirage grew stronger every day that they had been down on that planet, her powers coming back to her, and her life force keeping her spirit tied firmly to the body. She grew another few years, as they moved on in space. Treason had hinted that they find the place called Ring of Fire, but since he knew only the name, they could hardly expect him to show them where to look for it.
"It is strange," she said, looking at her hand and turning it over. "I was once reviled to be in flesh. I never told you, Treason, why it was that I remained here when I was dead..."
"You did not," he agreed. "Are you going to now?"
"I will." Mirage purred. She was a very attractive young teen, by this time, but Treason had grown to love her more as a child of his own, than as an expected lover. He had not shared her with the rest of the ship, however. Only Viridia knew, and it was true that she could keep secrets even when many others would not have.
As the ship moved through space, this time heading toward the place where the Zekirans would make their final stand and remain - so far as they could tell - forever, to Planet Twenty, Mirage and Treason spoke to one another quietly.
Mirage told him of the depth of darkness, how warm and inviting the world of the dead was. It was filled with people, ancestors, and friends... Not all of them knew who they were, not all of them knew who she was. In fact, many of them, the vast majority of course, did not know anything at all. They were merely impressions, power given a bit of shape before sliding out into nothingness.
It was familiar, it was home. For almost four centuries, before her first 'second' life, Mirage was comforted by the presense of her mother, her father who she practically didn't even know. Her beloved Vanya, and their relatives. And then... Archeria did the horrific deed of moving these beloved dead into new bodies, immortal undying ones. Where it was cold and hot, where you could starve but never die, where it was all but impossible to find out where you were... Where no one knew you, no one cared, and where, if they did find out who you were, as an Outsider - you were suddenly shunned. No matter the profession you had before, no matter how pretty you looked or how much you could help a situation. People feared the Outsiders, and Treason knew that.
He was a young child when Archie created the cloned bodies that had these dead minds back in them. But then, he was also running loose on Neres or flying around with the rogues and renegades. And he'd been born with the knowledge that he was quite immortal. His father Lathe was clearly so, and his uncle Lash as well. He was used to the idea that he could move unseen, be unknown. His shapeshifting clearly helped, but he chose not to alter himself most of the time. Mirage did know that, he did it constantly when they were on planets together.
But why remain with the living, after Vanya was forced to put her down? It was a hard death, too. One that he'd never forgiven himself for doing. She was the second of the immortals who required it, Skye was the first. He'd gotten completely out of hand, and was manipulating people left and right, on their little island. He didn't even last two hundred years, barely less than his first life. But he was given another chance, and had performed better that time. Mirage watched and waited, helping her lover through the long years on Zekira by occasionally offering her own powers through him. He hated the way that the ancestors would do that to him - but they were merely using him as a focus. Without him, she told Treason, they could never have helped anyone. Not everyone can focus the dead's energy.
"I can," Treason said.
"And so could I, as a child," Mirage said. "One of my own ancestors, Latelenae, came to me when I was quite young, and she stayed with me. Even through the long years, we remained together. She ... eventually vanished, though. She'd used up herself keeping our descendants safe."
"But why, then, Mirage?" Treason asked.
"Because the warmth of a body is better than the memory of it. Because... Even though I'm the mother of some of the most important lines in Zekiran history... There is no more Zekira. Nothing to remember but us. Who will remember?"
"I did," Treason said. "I would never deny you, Mirage."
"But the history of our people was longer than most other civilizations we've ever encountered here. Longer than many of them combined." Mirage said. "And now, we will put down roots in another world, and perhaps... There will be another world where we can pretend that forever will never come."
"You love living," Treason said.
"I do, I ... and I feared being lost. I was jealous, too."
"Jealous? Of what? Whom?"
"Of Vanya, and of the others. They would be alive, keeping themselves part of the world. The real world. Not the world of the dead. You know that I am not the only ghost that the ship has?" Mirage said, and Treason nodded. Though he was oddly surprised to think about it now, after so long. They'd been around - and he knew them, but he didn't talk to them. He wasn't allowing any of the others to hitch a ride in his braincase.
"It's a petty thing, really," Mirage admitted. "I wonder that if I had been told while I was alive the first time, you'll wind up living as a memory in the mind of an immortal, but you can't touch the living around you... I would have thought that was insane. How could I ever live any other way but the way I did then? With a body, with a heart."
"Some of the people we find call it 'soul'," Treason said. "But we know better..."
"No, we do not," Mirage said. "If there is a word for something, there must be a reason. I am alive, and thank you very much, Treason. I can breathe and speak, and move. The only way that I would trade this life away, now? Is if I could be assured that in death, all of my other friends, my still-living friends, would be there with me until we all vanished together. I do not like the thought that any of us have been left behind." She drew in a long shaky breath, "and there have been millions of those..."
Suddenly, Treason found himself comforting Mirage as she sobbed into his furry-fluffy chest. "They're all gone, Treason... Everything I knew." Eventually she straightened up again, and composed herself. "That ... was all I could do the first time. When no one knew me. I would go to a place that I thought I Held, some place that I'd comissioned by one of the local artisans or architects, and try to enter it, but... I would be turned away - because it belonged to a descendant who'd never even heard of me. Or was so distant that they didn't even see the resemblance. I wish... I wish that I was not so completely vain, Treason..."
"You're not vain, you make perfect sense. All we have is our bodies, Mirage. But you've been given another chance."
"And now," she said, gulping another sob. "Now, I might have to do it again, this time with people who believe I am dead and gone..."
"They'll get over it," Treason said. "And you'll do fine here. I think they've plotted where we're going to land, too."
"Do you think?" Mirage asked. "And... should I go talk to Viridia?"
"Ring of Fire is going to be your first destination, Mirage," Treason reminded her. "And that's a bit away from here. And," he reminded her, "you're still pretty young all in all. Worldly, but young. I don't want you running around where people might mistake you for a child."
"... What does that mean," she asked.
"It means... I wish to remain with you, I'll be your body guard. For the moment. And if the dragons think that you have a bond with them, I'll give that duty to them. But in the mean time, I'll do it for you. I'll go with you to this mystery place. I wonder what it's like, anyway."
"All we know is a name!" Mirage laughed, suddenly. It was a relief to her to feel loved again, to feel this need in her bones, to know hunger and ache and pain. But like her crying bout, her histerics lasted only a moment. Then, she steadied and looked at Treason. "I'm glad you'll come with me, Treason. I don't know what I'd have done without you all this time."
"Probably pester Vanya," muttered the tall bird-beaked-man.
***
Vanya would need pestering, too. There was something about Mirage's presense on the ship which actually alerted him - probably her scent. But because he had only known her as an adult, a mature woman, he didn't recognize it. Perhaps something deep within him did, but he could not say why.
Plus it had been nearly two million years since he'd smelled her.
It was two years later, when Mirage looked to be about fifteen (and had fortunately not had another of her 'heats' yet - that would perhaps happen within another two or three years, and she alternately dreaded it and wished for it desperately), when the dragons gave their mental crooning to Treason and Mirage. They snuck off the ship, Treason and Mirage and two of the shipbound dragons, when it looked like they were as close to the Ring of Fire as they could get.
"This place is ... truly amazing," Mirage said. "Look at that."
"It's dangerous, and I'm not flying into it," Treason laughed.
"You might want to," said Mirage, as she spied some of the weirder looking dragons that had been assembled at the site. "They're ready to mate..."
"Well I'm not going to mate that one!" Treason said, looking at a skeletal one, and then seeing another which appeared to be on fire.
"I'm going to see why I am here, Treason. Keep me safe." She laughed, and Treason knew precisely why Vanya - or Aern, or anyone else who could percieve the woman - would continually forgive her the little mannerisms or accidental flaws she dislayed. She was indeed, perfect.
