“Careful,” Marley says, though he sounds a little more assured.
I approach. “I think you’re magnificent.”
The dragon chuffs once more, though this time it’s a little fainter.
“I’m Ramya, a witch, this is Alona, a Dryad, and that’s my cousin, Marley. A Capricorn.”
“Thanks,” Marley says dully. “But I’m a Sagittarius.”
“We don’t want to hurt you or hunt you or let anyone else see you,” I say. “I swear. But we’ve never seen anything like you.”
The dragon straightens its stature a little. I regard its great wings, thoughtfully.
“You live in the water, but you can fly?”
Part reptile, part mammal, part bird? It doesn’t appear to have gills, so it must hold its breath while under the water. I wonder if the wings are just for display.
As if reading my mind, the dragon stretches its wings and they cast off droplets of water, soaking the three of us. I laugh, thrilled.
“You can fly,” I say to myself, completely enraptured.
The dragon bows its head and lays the wing nearest us down, almost like a smooth, watery set of stairs. I know at once what the huge creature is challenging me to do, and it sets every fibre of my body on fire with excitement.
I step forward again.
“No, Ramya,” groans Marley. “Don’t do something stupid.”
“You know me,” I say to him, my eyes locked into the dragon’s gaze. “Stupid is someone else’s clever.”
I carefully climb onto the dragon’s back, as gently as I can. I shuffle forward once I’m astride its torso to sit up front, where the neck meets the body. There are sharp horns peppered across the scales and I use them as handles, gripping on tight.
“Right, you’ve had a sit,” Marley says, sounding like Mum. “Time to come down.”
Alona bursts out laughing and transforms into a green vine. She tenderly curls around the dragon’s
blue neck, turning herself into a set of reigns. I bark out a laugh of my own and turn to look at Marley.
“You coming?”
“Absolutely not,” he says, snorting in disbelief. “Don’t you dare do it. I’m not explaining to the aunts that you got killed trying to fly a dragon.”
“Marley,” I say calmly, smiling an indulgent smile. “We are not going to die. If we fall off, I will not let you drop. We’ll be fine.”
He does not look reassured in any way. He eyes the dragon with complete distrust.
“Marley,” I cry, laughing giddily. “How many people get to say that they have even seen the Loch Ness… Dragon? Let alone ridden it. Get. On.”
He gives it another moment of thought, and I can see the two sides of his brain warring over it. The sensible, logical side of him doesn’t want the other, quieter part to have any fun or joy. It worries and needles and is constantly afraid for him. It silences the whispers in his head that tell him it is okay to enjoy something, without dress-rehearsing all the ways it can go wrong.
He shakes his head.
I don’t push. I do not tell him he’s being ridiculous or weird or silly. Maybe I would have done, a year ago. Now I know Marley is sort of the bravest person I know. He’s not telling me he thinks this will be too dangerous because he’s scared.
More because he can see multiple endings. To every story, to every task. Marley can see every eventuality, like a clairvoyant.
He doesn’t want to risk things that are important.
I like risk, though. I’m not like Marley. In fact, if I’m honest, it’s the reason there was friction between us when we first met. He is Gifted and Talented – the boy that teachers drag out of History when there’s a school visitor. They like to parade him around as the perfect example, the child and student that we should all aspire to be.
It wasn’t good for people like me, and it wasn’t always good for Marley. Yes, praise must be nice (I wouldn’t really know) but after so much of it, I don’t know if Marley knows who he is without it.
Mum sometimes says, “Why can’t you be more like your cousin?”.
Because I’m neurodivergent. No moulding, no occupational therapy, no tough love or extra help or special education is going to change that. I’m never going to be a neurotypical child.
I was meant to be so much more. That’s why I’m not afraid. Maybe neurotypical children were made for behaviour charts and school reports and following commands but I’m not. I feel out of place in a classroom. I feel wrongly made whenever I’m stood up next to my peers at Sports Day or Open Day.
But I feel very at home on this dragon.
“I’ll be safe, Marley,” I tell him frankly, and as I
say the words, I can feel the dragon start to shift and
move, getting ready for flight. Its shoulders shift, its flank twitches and its feet pull up a little from beneath the water.
I let out a yell as the creature suddenly hurtles into a run, using the vast openness of the loch as a path for launch, spreading its great wings apart like a sail about to catch the wind. I grip on with everything that I have, and the air in my lungs is squashed by the air I choke on as the dragon gains incredible speed.
I know and feel exactly when we are about to take flight. It is a feeling without description, that I now know in my own body. A plane about to lift its wheels off the runway causes a certain faintness in your legs and a hook in your stomach, but it’s nothing compared to flying yourself.
