In Part 3 (Ch. 18-25), our narrator became more comfortable with what she is, now that she knows it. She’s still not ready to fight to survive, but she’s ready to learn how, even if that means telling other people.
The term that in English is translated as “monster” hasn’t always included all of the categories it does today, even the broader categories of wild, Servant and sapient. Long ago, wild monsters were the only kind of monster. And a little less long ago, Servant monsters were the new thing, and that wasn’t always for the better.
The Servant spell was invented as part of humanity’s long quest to impart its wisdom on the things of nature. Even then, people knew that you could create monsters from humans, but it just wasn’t something that one did. Instead, Wizards attempted to create sapience from animals, “raising” them from their wild origins—and the first real step to this was the Servant spell. The Servant spell grants greatly improved intelligence, tempered by a binding to a target’s will. The latter part is quite important; even when this was first invented, wild monsters were a problem. People wanted assurance that these new and smarter monsters would not cause still more problems.
While Nihon experienced a minor cultural revolution brought about by the presence of the new Servant monsters, certain things began to fall by the wayside. Demand for Servants rose, and many people purchased the ones that kept appearing on the market without considering the Servants’ origins. It was at this time that the White Serpent first appeared.
Nihon does not hold the same kind of beliefs as those of Europe or North America. To them, there are all kinds of spirits belonging to all kinds of animals, objects and so forth. Even the creation of Servants was somewhat seen as an attempt to give voice to the spirits. The appearance of a giant white snake, therefore, was not viewed as something strange or foreign. Its movements in the sky prompted many to believe it to be a kind of river spirit that patrolled the land through which it flowed. However, this belief began to change as some of the Servant monsters began to vanish, whether from the markets or from households that had purchased them.
The people began to notice, began to converse, began to investigate—and a pattern emerged. These Servants had vanished from areas visited by the White Serpent, and had another thing in common: their creators all happened to live near the northern end of Honshu, a region not well-traveled but rumored to be the home of many spirits. Some travelers decided to go there; they did not return. Nobles intent on finding their missing Servants sent a small army; they did not return, either.
After that result was made known to the people, the “peaceful river spirit,” the great White Serpent, decided to travel there herself. After she had left, the northern region of Honshu went quiet: the outflow of Servants ceased. And the nobles who had not sent the first army then sent their own, and they found that the entire northern end of the island had been overrun by wildlife. Where once there had been what appeared to be a small city, there was now only ruins. The Wizards that had lived there were found dead, decaying and desecrated amidst a large amount of text and glyphs etched into the ground, into the walls, into the rocks. And the text described what they had done—how they had pilfered Hokkaido for its people, and turned them into Servants, and sold them throughout the land. And they had done the same to any travelers, merchants or soldiers that dared to challenge them. And when the script had been read, the White Serpent appeared overhead, swimming through the skies before vanishing once more.
While such a spectacle has not since repeated, there are those who still dare to challenge the Serpent of yore, repeating the evil wrought by the northern Wizards. And like the ones before, their end is swiftly wrought by the Serpent that still wanders the sky above Nihon.
I’m still a little lost in the tale even after Hikari finishes, at least until Jess snaps me out of it with a statement: “I don’t get it. What does that have to do with Dragons?”
I shake my head at her. “The serpent’s a Dragon, Jess.” The tale—was that really Akiko’s origin? She’s one of the older Dragons, certainly; she’s been around much longer than Frederick. And that story is definitely consistent with how Dragons used to relate to society. At least somewhat, anyway. I’m surprised she didn’t tell people who she was.
“How was I supposed to know that?” Jess asks, squinting at me.
I return her squint. “What kind of snake monster would live that long?”
Jess pouts. “It’s just a story, right?”
I shake my head again. “There’s a record of her in the DF’s basement. I don’t know why the people in the record would chase her—but it’s definitely her.”
“Who?”
“Akiko, the Hidden,” I answer, adding the context given by the Mymoir’s rendering of her name. And then I realize that it wasn’t Jess that asked. Eyes wide, I turn to Hikari. “Um…”
Hikari stares at me for a few moments. And then, she smiles. “You know, you have the same voice as the blue dragon that visited town last week.”
I… don’t recall speaking to her then.
She spots my confusion. “‘Let her go!’ Right? I am fairly certain that everyone in town heard you.” I feel my face get warm, and not just with my magic senses. “You called the white dragon ‘Akiko.’ I thought that was the name of the young girl.” From her story last week, right.
I take a deep breath. “They’re the same person.”
This time, Hikari’s eyebrows rise. “You know the tale? But then—how does she ride herself?”
I checked the Mymoir last Sunday. Akiko has a lot of spells that copy images, both still and moving, of many living things as well as things nearby, at least from what I understood of the spell descriptions. Some of those spells have sections that include something like a table but in more than two directions, storing a whole lot of numbers in a setup way too confusing for me to grasp. “She’s a white dragon. Those can make anything look like anything.”
Hikari pauses before responding. “I will need some time to process this. But what matters is this: the Dragon has not actively threatened our town, and you have now given evidence that the young girl before me is, in fact, the Dragon, and if I were to invite you there, it would not directly endanger us.”
“Um—!” I start. There’s no getting the other Dragons not to associate Blacksburg with me, but I don’t want to get this other town in trouble, too. “The – uh – the other Dragons—”
“You are not like them.”
“And they don’t like that!” I continue. “If I go with you, and they find out—”
“We were already assuming that they would attack our town simply for it existing.”
Oh. That, um… I was going to say, “That sounds terrifying,” but then I remembered that’s just the general assumption for how Dragons act. I just—I guess it never really registered for me until just now, given how far away they all live.
“How do you feel about monsters?” Hikari asks after letting me think.
I blink. I… don’t really know how to answer. “Uh… sapient ones?” Because wild ones are dangerous, period. Jess appears to have the same hesitation.
Hikari tilts her head for a second. “Sure.”
“Well, I don’t see them much, so I don’t think about them much.” I used to seek them out, but I don’t anymore. For reasons. Then I think about Davidson, and my life before December. “And I may have considered becoming a lizarkin at some point,” I mumble.
“What!?” Jess exclaims.
“N-not seriously!” I hastily clarify. “J-just, y’know, idle fantasy. I definitely never considered a scale pattern or anything.” A mix of blue, gold and red, like a sunset.
Hikari laughs, a high-pitched sound that somehow reminds me of a cat. After she calms down and I gather myself, she turns slightly to face Jess. “And you?”
Jess shrugs. “Like Emilie said, we don’t see them much. I don’t like being trapped in a block of ice, but outside of that I haven’t had any particularly bad experiences with them. You’re nice.”
“Thank you!” Hikari laughs. “So, what if you were surrounded by monsters?” For a moment I remember the fear of being attacked by the wolf before Jess’s dad saved us. “Sapient ones, I mean,” Hikari adds.
“Oh!” Jess sounds relieved, too. “Uh… I think I’d just feel awkward. Because I’m, you know, not one.”
I shrink inwardly. “I’m nervous that I would ask too many questions,” I admit.
“Too many questions?”
Jess raises a hand to answer. “She, uh, might have gotten told off by a few monsters in town for that.”
“The last time was over a year ago!” I retort. “And you were there, too!”
“I wasn’t the one asking questions!”
Hikari’s laugh cuts us off. “Alright! I think I can tell what kind of girls you are. One last question, though: Emilie, how did you find our town?”
I breathe in. “Well, uh, it wasn’t… all that hard, really. I didn’t know it was a town at first, not until I started comparing it to Blacksburg. But there aren’t many areas in a forest with rectangular hot spaces.” And one very cold space, also rectangular. My guess is a giant refrigerator the size of a house. There’s a bunch of other people in the town, too, but they’re less easy to pick out from among the beasts of the forest than the hot spaces from the trees.
“Hot spaces?”
“Homes, I think.”
She shakes her head. “No, I mean—why did you describe them as ‘hot’?”
Oh. “Dragons can… sense… different things, based on their element. Mine is heat, so if one space is warmer than the space next to it, I can tell.”
She frowns. “But we have all sorts of spells blocking information and communication magic.”
“Dragons don’t use Aspect magic. Whatever you’re using is not going to trick a Dragon that knows what to look for.”