THE STORY ENDS HERE

Page V

Weave #16 Thread #V

Photo by Tan Kaninthanond on Unsplash

If you’re new to the tale, don’t worry. We’ve got summaries at the end.

The original Stitch: The last library on Earth has one rule: you can only check out a book if you can convince the librarian you’ll survive long enough to finish it. Sunita Chakraborty

*Zeest, with the magical power the dragon bestowed upon her presence, had transformed the first two stitches into a thread. The sparks were then continued by the two magnificent writers Malicyoung and Clarity.*

***Unlock the rest of page V here.***

Guardian of the Knowledge Dragoness' POV

“Two newly turned dragons. How utterly delightful."

I looked at the latest dragon once the transformation stopped to see what excruciating pain did to his dull mind.

He, of course, looked at himself.

He had wings. Uhm, barely an aberration. Dragons must have wings. Bat-like wings. His were black.

And he had… stripes. Which looked less like a dragon and more like an unusually angry honeybee. Oh, splendid. A dragon with the aerodynamic elegance of a disgruntled insect. Somewhere, a dragon ancestor must have been turning in its grave. Assuming it still had a grave.

He managed a few smoky coughs before he could articulate something more understandable.

“Uhm… Blackie?” I was offended by his call. Not visibly, of course. I possessed dignity. I nodded anyway. His eyes met mine.

“What?”

He paused. Oh, I almost gave up pampering this totally less-real-looking dragon.

“I have questions — ” He raised his claws.

“One.” I cut him off.

“Am I… you know… still sane?”

I regarded him with profound disappointment. Let out an excessively loud sigh to emphasize my irritation. “Unless the transformation has also incinerated your hollow draconic brain, you remain… regrettably sane.”

He blinked. I continued before he could celebrate.

“Unless, of course, your abundantly idiotic mind proves otherwise.”

“And… Uhm… Blackie?”

He was irritating me more by the second.

“Proceed. I am already disappointed,” I said at last.

“Is this supposed to happen?”

By now I briefly considered pretending I had never seen him. “The ridiculous look, or whatever is wrong inside you?”

He went quiet. Which was good. At least he understood the question.

He hesitated for a moment before he opened his jaw again. “I… don’t remember my name.”

“Ah. Good.”

His face changed. It looked alarmed. “How on scorching earth is that good?”

I batted my immaculately perfect, long and curled eyelashes and rolled my eyes.

“First, the earth would no longer stand the same way it used to after the purge.”

He blinked, perhaps unsure how to take in the first piece of information.

“Second, simple. New earth. New identity.”

“Huh?!”

“Pick a new name.”

Before he could answer, the book-lover—currently-also-love-struck-with-the-library’s-pillars dragon—leaned forward.

“Buzz?” she said. Her lava eyes glinted with unnecessary overexcitement. For one brief and glorious moment, I considered throwing both of them through the dome. I had preserved ancient languages through wars and fire. I refused to watch the name “Buzz” become part of draconic history.

I stared at her. Uh, I should have just burned her. “No.”

The honey-bee-looking creature looked at her, then at me. “Buzz?”

Oh, no. He said it like he was asking whether the name suited him. Maybe asking for permission. Or even asking if the low continuous hum could be considered a name. Let alone for a dragon. I watched the dreadful idea take root behind his eyes.

“Absolutely not.” Upon the oldest flame… He’s actually considering it.

I closed my eyes and exhaled a controlled, non-smoky breath.

“Fine.” I had been working in a library for long enough to know when giving another argument would be pointless. “Two stupid dragons it is. Let history remember this shame.”

I turned away before either of them could manage another mindless, nonsensical word.

I stormed across the library to the half-ball dome made of glass on top of the building.

For a moment I simply floated, eyes on the outside world that was eaten by fire blazes. Smoke and ashes. The fire had taken everything with such enthusiasm. Books had survived. Somehow, books had survived. Perhaps knowledge was simply too stubborn to die. Or perhaps the library had merely been too arrogant to burn.

Soon, Real soon,

“The story ends here,” I announced.

A pair of hushed hisses came from the two newly turned dragons.

“The what?” The vaguely honey-bee-looking dragon asked.

I closed my eyes.

Another hissing sound. The argument continued in hushed voices, each dragon whispering with the intensity of someone who had forgotten that whispering was still audible. My new creatures were already having their first fight. Just great.

“How am I supposed to know what she knows and what she says?” said the orange-winged dragon.

I slowly turned, floating above them. Trying, as much as I could, to indulge myself in the smells of papers and ancient scrolls.

Two stupid dragons in one library. No end to my problem, unfortunately.

“The story ends here,” I repeated.

Neither of them looked convinced.

Fine. I could deal with it. I was the librarian. I decided where a story ended. Supposedly.

I was actually not being persnickety about it. But dragons were simply better rulers than humans. We guarded knowledge, we didn’t feed it into an artificial, endless void.

New Earth. No humans. Perfect.

Unless they cheated the curse. And I had a bad feeling that they might.

THE WEAVE THUS FAR:

**Thread I** by Zeest Zulfiqar: I’m Turning into a dragon. All my family members have already Turned and lost their sanity in the process. A librarian (who has already Turned into a black dragon herself) offers me a deal: I must read a complete book through intense pain if I want to survive with my sanity intact.

**Thread II **by Zeest Zulfiqar: I’ve survived the Turning, and I realize that despite the intense pain of the process, I have remained sane. Now, the one thing I love above all, even more than myself, is books. Now I must find a way to save the others from Turning into mindless beasts, too.

**Thread III **by Malicyoung: Magically sane but still reeling from the agony of my Turning into dragon form, lava-eyes is confronted by a new challenge and an enigma. Someone else has entered the Dragon Library, blindly seeking shelter from the Dragon Apocalypse. Can they trust him? The young boy still seems human, but… when will he Turn?

**Thread IV by Clarity: Oz’s POV cont’d — **My compulsive urge to count seconds and objects gets me through a safe Turning and I join the librarian and the lava-eyed book lover as a sane dragon. However, I can’t remember who I was before I Turned.

Thread V by Meta Marvelia: Guardian of the Knowledge Dragoness’ POV — Two newly transformed dragons. One library. And a name I would never agree to defend if my ancestor decided to wake up from its grave. At least, the story ends here.

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