The Divine Gambit

20. Question and Answer Time

I walked into the archive a man on a mission. Perhaps more accurately, a dragon on a mission, as I leaned on my second half for the strength I felt I needed. I had questions I wanted answered, and Antonin was the only one I was comfortable asking -- the only one I believed had any incentive not to spin me a line of shit from the start. He had his own reasons to want me here, as a combined research test subject and fellow analyst in Antonin's quest to solve the fundamental workings of magic underlying draconic functions. I was the only one in the world accessible to him, and the others certainly weren't likely to be anywhere near as cooperative and accommodating.

At least, that's what I had been told.

As of late, I was growing increasingly suspicious of what I had been told.

Everyone I had met had been through Aisling directly or at Aisling's request. The handful of incidental interactions I'd experienced had been only one step removed from Aisling. How had I not run into anyone truly organically? Sure, I hadn't been running around outside trying to start a grassroots political campaign, cold approaching everyone I saw, but I had nothing to show for my time in public, nothing that couldn't be linked to Aisling within a step or two.

It seemed confusing to me. Beside Antonin, the people who should've been briefed on who I was hadn't been. Neither Evgenia nor Zoey had been fully read in on my situation before simply being assigned to me. Everyone else, despite seemingly being random interactions, already seemed to know who I was now. Maybe I was being paranoid, but the way Mallory had described requesting clearance for an outdoor flight rubbed me the wrong way.

I had encouraged Sam to stay home under the guise of letting her rest after yesterday. She acquiesced rather readily, content to sleep in with Beth. The younger woman was going to make a spicy chili with Zenya during the day, and Sam was content to hang out and put her magic into it. Once the idea was brought up, she wanted to see if Zenya could feel any difference between regular dishes and ones empowered with her culinary mana.

So I marched alone into the archive, determined to get some truth, and found the elderly archivist eying me warily as a similarly aged woman talked at him. She was sipping tea, wearing denim overalls and a big straw hat despite being indoors, and was speaking very slowly, laboriously elongating every phrase she wielded. On the table were nearly thirty potted plants -- flowers, cactuses, ivy, bamboo, ferns, a bush the size of a washing machine in a massive pot off to the side -- but I didn't allow myself to be distracted and drawn into a lesson plan until I had answers. I had worked myself into a righteous fervor on my way over here, and I had no intention of letting it be wasted or tempered before I began.

Oh, and the woman was covered in red scales, little ebony horns poking through designed, reinforced holes in the hat, and a thin, scaled tail wrapping around the leg of her chair. She looked almost like a wingless bipedal version of me, strangely. If anything was going to distract me, she was it, but I swallowed my curiosity and leveled my gaze and my questions at the archivist.

"Antonin, are my interactions being controlled? Are the people around me being screened before I can see them?"

The elf stroked his wispy hair, set his coffee down on the table, and sighed.

"Obviously, drakeling."

"Why? Why on earth did I have my whole life uprooted to be placed inside some Truman Show parody?"

Antonin pursed his grey lips. "Do you know, drakeling, who else has their interactions limited and potential meetings screened first?"

"Prisoners," I spat at him.

He rolled his eyes. "Business moguls. High-level politicians. Movie stars. Think, James."

My anger withered momentarily as I was caught off guard by Antonin actually using my name. "What are you saying?"

"It is possible to prevent you from having random interactions for your benefit."

"Without my knowledge or consent? Without my approval and direction?"

"Do you know what is being screened for? Do you know who is being filtered and why? Would you have anything to contribute to that discussion?"

"Yes? How would my opinion not matter?"

"James, in your previous life, if a known scammer from India wanted to get in contact with you but your phone provider automatically declined to connect him, would you be upset? If a phishing link was sent to your email, but it was automatically placed in your spam folder and deleted, would you be upset? These things were done without your prior knowledge or consent and without your solicited opinion on which things to actively filter."

"So what are you saying, Antonin? The only things being prevented are obviously malicious agents out to take advantage of me?"

He shook his head dejectedly. "No. For you, we are being more aggressive. You are simply too important to allow any risks. Only particularly conclusive passes are allowed to interact with you. You are dangerous, new to this world, young and rash, and could be convinced you have nothing to lose. There are too many pieces on the board to only be 99% effective in shielding you from unseemly influences. No, in my metaphor, you are not the celebrity or politician themselves. You are the celebrity's son, shielded similarly from the general public but not in control of how the barriers shielding you function."

I frowned at him, furrowing my brow and scowling. "And why not inform me of this? Surely, if it's being done in my interest, it would be valuable to explain to me what you're looking for and why not just anyone can interact with me."

Antonin bobbled his head back and forth, "I was of that opinion. I was encouraged to let things play out. It wasn't immediately apparent how long these precautions would be needed, though, now I fear they will be here for the foreseeable future."

"What am I being protected from, Antonin?"

"I don't know, James. If you want to know the history of either side of the curtain or the technical aspects of specialized magical theories, I am the elf you talk to. My revulsion and rejection of the current state of the realm is why I am allowed to mentor you. I don't know what they're looking for or who is moving against Aisling. I don't know what lurks in the shadows these days. I know that, for a time, you were heavily scrutinized yourself and are still being watched. There are those who do not believe you for what you are. I have heard rumors of things that will shake the world, but they are only rumors until they come to pass," Antonin explained, seeming every bit as tired and reluctant as his age deserved.

"Is that why Mallory would need to get permission for me to simply fly? Did Zoey need to get permission for us to go to the state park, too?" I asked, the majority of my anger dissipating in sympathy for my mentor. He had gotten a dragon to work with and ended up at the center of schemes he wasn't even being kept informed of -- sharing the position with him made it quite easy to understand his discomfort and mellow my tone.

"Yes and yes, drakeling. Your wolf mate has actually gotten permission on your behalf for all of your recent activities."

"Was that actually required and no one bothered to inform me? What would happen if I got up one day and decided to go for a walk on my own through the city?"

He shook his head, "It was required of her because you asked her to make connections for you. I would encourage you to be forgiving with her. You are her mate, yes, but she has a decade of engrained training and procedure carved into her every thought. Convince her that you're her CO and use that training. Her actual officers were content to cast her to your maw, anyway."

"How on earth would I do that?"

The woman spoke for the first time since I arrived, "Not literally, sweetcakes. Tony was suggesting you repurpose Miss Lyon's training."

Antonin -- there was literally no way I would ever think of him as 'Tony' -- nodded in agreement.

"Okay. I'm sorry for my tone earlier, Antonin. I hope you can understand why I was upset," I said. The two senior citizens nodded, and I continued, "But why were Zenya and Zoey not told who I was?"

Antonin grimaced, which made me nervous. "Miss Lyon was assigned to you before the chaos started and before we realized you were different than just a dragon with extenuating circumstances and dubious origin, even if you only met her later." He paused, taking a sip of coffee, and then said, "Evgenia was a screening test for you that I vehemently objected to, put into motion quickly after Aisling first met with you."

"Excuse me? Explain, and then tell me where the proof of what you're saying is."

"There is no proof, drakeling. Aisling and her advisors are not clumsy, arrogant mortals who need written documents to remember their own addresses. The vampire was sent to you without any information to see how you would treat her. She was a damaged thing that didn't provide much value to her benefactors and was convenient to create an excuse for you to handle. She was sent to you with a collar and a ball-and-chain around her ankle in that contract."

Antonin firmly exhaled, scowling himself now. "It was a horrible misuse of our position to do. But, the powers that be wanted you to have absolute authority over something. They wanted to see how you'd act. There were those who believed you, the nefarious dragon, might exploit her that day. Of course, I didn't think that was likely. If you were what you said, you'd be scared and lost. If you were lying, you'd be much more devious and prepared and would bide your time with her.

"In the end, it was a fucking waste of everyone's time, except, in a shocking turn of events, Evgenia's. Those who are convinced you were a developing tyrant are still convinced, after all. Your benevolence and patience with the vampire is either a capricious act or a maneuvering feint, a random and unpredictable act of generosity, or a smokescreen concealing your true guile in their minds. Because it was an inconclusive screening, they allowed Sergeant Lyon to continue with no further knowledge as well. A second stage that, yet again, only raised more questions for those who hadn't yet condemned you in their own minds.

"There is no evidence for my protests, but I would appreciate it if you kept that information to yourself. I have no issue telling you what I perceive as the truth, drakeling, but it can be dangerous for both of us if others feel I'm feeding you partial, priveledged information."

Hearing Antonin swear confounded me even more than hearing him use my name did, to the point that I nearly forgot to continue to my final question. I stared at him for a moment, astonished at the turn of events, trying to ground myself.

"I'll do that. Why have I been discouraged from seeing my family and friends or remaining in contact with them?"

"Initially, so that we could try and place you in a situation that would be beneficial for everyone," Antonin responded sullenly. "The powers that be needed to investigate and figure out how on earth a dragon was born in our laps and no one noticed for 20 years. Of course, looking at the information, it seems as though you've been a dragon for less than eighteen months. Looking at ambient energy signatures around your hometown, there are sudden, inexplicable upward trends that originate some two years ago. Before then, the area had some anomalous high activity days, but nothing was sustained. If you were born a dragon, it would've been easy to see. Days you took a field trip out of town, the ambient level would've decreased, and so on.

"So, now the security professionals need to know why you suddenly changed from a human to a dragon and are investigating your past -- ignoring the fact that they won't find anything there. They're going through the procedure for finding a missing murder weapon when they're looking for a UFO. That is to say that they're acting like they know what they're looking for or that they will even recognize something strange if they see it. It's like trying to claim evidence of energy-generative cold fusion based on interviewing the janitor who was outside the laboratory room the night an experiment happened without even understanding what a nucleus is. We don't have any idea how or why you changed or what the mysterious third part of you is -- how can they expect to find any evidence of foul play when they don't even understand the play in the first place? It's preposterously arrogant."

"I think I understand."

"To answer your actual question, drakeling, you are being isolated from our world to protect you from strange happenings I am intentionally not fully informed of. At the same time, you have been encouraged to isolate yourself from your previous world while so-called security advisors attempt to chase ghosts in your past. They waste our finances and their own time looking for things they don't understand, attempting to clear everyone in your past of wrongdoing they couldn't possibly have committed, or at the very least, that there will be no recognizable evidence of. Miss Lyon's brother has been cleared, if you wish to talk with him. He's the only one I know of for certain off the top of my head. I wish I could give you a time frame to go on, but I have little other information. To be frank, I am hesitant to commit to saying that you will ever be allowed to visit your family again. I don't want to give you any indication that it will happen soon, and I don't want to tell you that it's guaranteed to happen."

I pulled out a chair at the table and sighed. The dragon hung his metaphorical head, apologetic for the mess that he felt he had caused. Which wasn't fair for him, I internally insisted, unless he had a choice in beginning to exist in my mind. It was just a mess. A mess I at least now had some knowledge of.

"Well, I can't say that I'm pleased with what you said, but I am pleased that you said it. Honestly, I've spent the last weeks mentally pretending that I'm off at summer camp or on a shared vacation with Sam. There's just been too much going on for me to feel really homesick and miss my family, and if I tried to think about it as a temporary inconvenience, the grief didn't pop up in the day-to-day. For now, if you're telling me it's still up in the air, I think that's how I'm going to continue."

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and trying to mentally reset, and then continued. "So, if this is summer camp, it's probably time we got to today's activities." Turning to the woman, I smiled and said, "Hi, I'm James. Terribly sorry you had to sit through my temper tantrum, and I'm sorry for wasting your time."

She laughed boisterously, clinking her teacup and saucer together, "Darling, you have absolutely nothing to apologize for. I've been known to be perturbed by much less life-altering things in my time. If this curmudgeon would do his job and introduce us--"

Antonin interrupted, "James, this is Antonella--"

"Just call me Elle, sweetie."

"--And she's here to teach you the basics of applied phytomancy."

I looked at the two of them, then at the plants spread out all over the table, and then back at Elle and said, "I'm getting some pretty strong context clues here, but I'm afraid I don't actually know what that means."

Elle smiled, "Because Tony spends all his days with his nose in books, dear, he needs to use incredibly precise words that other people have never seen before. I'm a florist, darling. I specialize in growing flowers into arrangements, especially elegant, intricate displays for weddings and events. Today, dearie, I'm going to show you how to feel them. Tony said you can utilize multiple mana specializations, yes?"

I scratched my head, "Sort of? I wasn't effective when I tried to do some enchanting, basically just destroying the materials I tried to use. With warding, I sometimes struggled to understand the concepts, although one of my companions assisted me. Evocation felt really natural, almost second nature."

Antonin added, "Your struggles enchanting were intentional. Those cheap metal plates have a shallow feedback threshold, and I knew you would lack the precise control necessary to utilize them."

Elle thanked Antonin and set her tea down, pulling a cut flower from a bag I hadn't seen before and handing it to me.

"Hold it gently, sweetie. I know you're a strong young thing, but the flowers usually aren't."

She sat back for a moment, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, clearly waiting for something. After thirty seconds, I didn't feel any different. After a minute, I felt strange, as though all of the plants in the room were watching me. They hadn't moved, but I could feel them yearning for my attention as a collective.

Then Elle gasped, and the sensation faded. Her hands trembled and shook, and Antonin carefully held her tea for her, precisely tipping it to offer the red-scaled woman a sip without words. Elle hadn't even opened her eyes yet.

After she had swallowed, she asked, "Did you feel it, darling? It's challenging for many who don't find themselves blessed with a green thumb, I know."

"Yeah," I murmured, watching her struggle from the effort of demonstrating something for me. "I could feel the plants reaching out to me. It was a bit overwhelming, suddenly having all of them watching me."

Ella gave a slow, lazy nod, practically moving her entire body to agree with me. "Wonderful, darling. Now, feel the plant in your hand. Ask for its help. Reach out to it."

At first, I kinda shrugged and mentally posed questions to the flower, before realizing that was utterly inane and not at all what Elle had meant. Then, I tried sensing it with my mana. It felt odd, blurry and distorted and warped and not at all what I expected. Of course, the only living things I had really tried to sense this way had been other mortals, mostly Sam. I tried once with Beth and that hadn't worked, but it had been obvious how it wasn't working. Rather than pushing against a spring like with Beth, where all my energy and effort was stored to work against me, trying to interact with the flower felt like walking in quicksand. Every direction felt wrong; every attempt pulled me deeper in and added more resistance to my flailing limbs.

Of course, I hadn't ever pushed ideas that way to Sam. I hadn't needed to. We had words the first time, and now we had a rapidly developing nonverbal bond cheating for us. When I lashed out in frustration and asked the flower why the fuck it was fighting me so hard when all I wanted was to understand it, the pressure released. The energy of the flower in my hand turned over, and I got a glimpse of a kaleidoscope of colors and sensations I didn't understand detailing what the flower had experienced. When I pushed some energy into the flower, I could feel the stem stiffening in my hand, the starting vestiges of a wilt disappearing as I moved the touch of life into it from my fingertips.

Elle clapped her hands gleefully and we moved on. She continued instructing me on feeling and sharing with the mana of other living things, surprised at how easily it came to me given that I was neither a spirit nor someone who had been doing this naturally throughout my entire childhood. When I sheepishly admitted that I had been doing it to share energy with Sam, she cocked her head, took her hat off, and looked at me like I had grown wings and a tail.

I could feel her considering that information over the next thirty minutes, as she had me identifying the different plants based on how their energy felt and how they reacted differently to mine. After I finished predicting how much water they needed in the next day, week, and month to sustain their current sizes, including a trick question where one of the cactuses had been deliberately over-hydrated and needed to be left alone, I felt that Elle had made a decision.