Kisses Like Drops in the Sea

Kisses Like Drops in the Sea

by Ann-Marie Martino

People say their lives are the stuff of fairytales, but mine really was. I've heard it told a thousand times, in a thousand ways, but the most important facts are these: I was not a mermaid, and my love was not a prince—not exactly.

I was the youngest in a family full of daughters. I suspect that my father kept hoping for a son, but what he had instead were six girls.

As the youngest, I was cosseted and kept from anything that could possibly be dangerous. On moonlit nights, when my sisters and my parents swam up onto the beach, shed their sealskins, and frolicked in the waves, I was left behind.

I was sixteen years old, old enough to go ashore with the rest of them, but Mama scolded. Not yet, not yet, she'd whisper into my ear as she tucked me into bed. Remember the stories I've told you.

The stories were all of a similar theme: Humans were evil, base creatures whose very nature leant itself to trickery. A girl on shore could easily come to a very bad end at the hands of one of them.

In spite of the rebellious feeling that swelled my breast at times, I remained a dutiful daughter. I did not creep out of my bed at the bottom of the sea. I did not voice my objections: But, Mama, nothing has ever happened to the others! Or to you!

I never, ever, told anyone my greatest secret: that I longed to see the humans, to take their measure myself, to watch them and learn all the things that made them different from us.

Then, one day, everything changed—on the breath of a storm, the way most changes come.

I was alone when she floated down into the ocean, when she sank like a ship's anchor and landed directly in my bedroom.

I had been warned so thoroughly against humans, but this was just a girl! It was the human men Mama said would steal or burn a skin. This girl looked to be about my age, with fair hair tinted by algae, and eyes that were closed and softened into blurred edges by the rippling water.

I was so busy admiring her great beauty that, for a moment, I forgot that universal truth, right up there with the evilness of men: humans couldn't breathe underwater like I could.

In spite of the knowledge that I held a great advantage, living among the beauty of the ocean and being able to breathe in it, I couldn't stop the envy that flared to life inside me as I stared at her, at her long, shapely legs.

I could hear the storm roaring above, muted by the waves but still audible, the ocean itself a frothing fury. I dipped my head and nudged the girl up onto my nose, then began to swim up, and up.

I didn't know if she would make it. After all, I was only in my sealskin, and she was awkward to carry. A couple of times she nearly slipped away from me, but then I burst out of the ocean and swept my flippers forward, rolling her onto the sand.

The rain poured down, and I think if we hadn't just been in the ocean, we would have been drenched in moments.

She was so beautiful. I think it really only took that one good look at her lying there, rain running down her face like currents in the sea, for me to wish I could stay ashore forever.

I shed my skin and stood up awkwardly, not balancing well at all on the human legs. They actually hurt because I'd never used them before.

I was completely exposed without my sealskin, and I knew that humans always covered their bodies as if ashamed, but this was the first time I had ever slipped my skin and assumed human form.

The first thing I noticed was that it was cold without my skin. My human nipples peaked in the damp, cool air and I glanced down, taking it in: the well-turned ankles, the high, coral-tipped breasts, the slightly curved belly, the strange looking feet.

The girl lay at those queer-looking feet, unmoving as I crouched down and pressed on her chest. I'd never saved anyone from drowning before.

It was foolish and probably did nothing, but I leaned down and touched her lips with mine, breathing into her mouth. It felt like nothing I'd ever felt. It was my first kiss, and it wasn't even a kiss.

Suddenly, she sputtered, water flowing out of the corners of her blue-tinged lips.

I jumped back. Swiftly looking around, I saw remnants of a wreck—perhaps the one that had produced this girl.

There were straggling lengths of scarlet cloth in the water, and without knowing much about human clothes, I tried to cover myself with them. Her eyes were flickering, slowly opening.

How appropriate that her eyes would be the color of the sea where I had been born, where I lived.

"I'm not dead," she whispered in a hoarse croak. I could understand her language, but I'd never spoken it before. "Who are you?" she asked. "Did you save me?"

I nodded. I stepped back a few more paces. By then I was disoriented and had lost all sense of direction. Where had I put my skin? But looking at the girl made me ask myself dangerous questions, such as: does it matter where I put my skin?

Of course it mattered! Angry, I twisted away and tripped over trailing cloth. I flailed and landed in an ungainly heap, all of my human limbs splayed out every which way.

The girl was crawling across the sand towards me.

Her eyes were huge and round, the whites showing like the pearly shade of mollusks.

"You're a—"

I shook my head. Too hard. It made me dizzy. The girl reached for me, and I met her eyes.

"What's your name?" she asked.

I shrugged. I didn't know how to speak her language. In fact, I'd never before had the opportunity to hear it aloud. It must have been some sort of inherent magic that allowed me to understand her words, even though I didn't know how to form them myself with this newly human mouth. Like a baby, condemned to silence until I could learn.

I was supposed to have gone up to the surface to see the humans when I turned fifteen—and would have heard their language then—but my mother had not allowed it. Perhaps she had worried this might happen, this strange magnetic pull toward the unknown.

"Ah," she said. "It's all right. I can call you anything you like. How about Mariah? Or Grace—?" When I shook my head at the second name, she smiled. "Can you write? You could—no, I guess you probably can't. Do you have any objection to Mariah?"

I shook my head again, this time offering a tentative smile. My selkie-name could only be spoken in the musical trumpeting of our kind—not by a human. I'd never had occasion to be given an above-shore name because of my Mama's restrictions. Grace was something I'd never possessed, hence my objection, but the first name she'd given me sounded lovely, and I wanted it.

It made me feel lovely, though I had absolutely no idea what I looked like in this form.

"I should... you look half-drowned. Won't you come back with me? My home is up there, on the bluffs. You can't really see it from here, but I want my parents to meet the girl who rescued me." She shrugged one shoulder and gave a diffident little laugh. "They always said I'd wreck my boat someday."

I nodded, but I was searching for my skin with my peripheral vision. If I had lost it—if I couldn't find it again—I could never go home.

Then she was staggering to her feet, and though she had nearly drowned, she had the strength to pull me to my own.

"My name is Alera," she said, linking her arm through mine. "You can visit with us awhile, I think. Are you poor? Do you have any parents? Are you sure you can't talk?" The barrage of words came almost too fast, like an approaching riptide.

I shook my head and, without a way to speak a word, I found myself towed up a set of steps hewn out of the rock and up to Alera''s house.

'We shall be the best of friends," Alera said. But she and I would both learn—and soon—that it would be far more than that.

If I had known about the heartbreak that was coming, I would've gone back into the sea.

* * *

"This girl rescued me," Alera told her mother. "I think… she needs a place to stay for awhile."

This wasn't strictly true, but I had found no way to dissuade her and, in all honestly, didn't particularly want to. I wanted to be near her, even though it was the height of madness.

"Well…" her mother said, drawing out the word. "Is this one of your sailing friends?"

Alera nodded, too quickly, I thought. "Yes! Yes. Her parents are very poor. Couldn't we provide shelter for her for awhile?"

"Is there work she can do? We can't just let every peasant live with us, you know."

"For me, Mama? But couldn't we, just for me?"

"Your father has always had a tender spot for you," her mother said in concession. "I don't suppose he's going to turn her away, not if you want her here. But doesn't she speak?"

"Uh," Alera fumbled, but recovered. "Not anymore. There was a terrible trauma."

I was beginning to think the only trauma I had suffered was to be taken away from my home, but Alera still had that shine of newness to her, and I wasn't quite ready to go back down underwater.

"Then I guess it's settled," her mother said with a definite sigh. "Just make sure you clear it with your father."

"Of course I will," Alera said happily, linking her arm through mine and pulling me away.

I let myself be tugged along. Right then, there was nothing that could make me try to pull away from her.

* * *

The first thing Alera did once we were alone in the castle was yank me down a side corridor, toss aside a tapestry, and lead me into a room dominated by a huge, full-length mirror.

"This is the only mirror like this in the manor," she explained. "Papa doesn't like his 'womenfolk', as he calls us, to grow too accustomed to our looks. He's afraid that we'll—me, mostly—" she laughed "—become vain. But I sneak in here whenever I can. Not, you know, because I'm actually vain. It's because I know it irks him." She giggled behind one pale, well-formed hand. I could already say with certainty that her beauty deserved a little bit of vanity, even if it wasn't something to be prized.

I smiled at her, as if I understood, but I didn't, not really. Why would she want to irk the man who gave her everything she seemed to want?

"Here, take a look. I'd wager you've never seen yourself up close."

I shook my head in the negative. I wanted to tell her that I had never even been human before, but there was just no way to communicate that to her. Still, somehow she'd already surmised that I was curious about my appearance.

She moved to the side and I stepped forward, letting the image in front of me wash over me, trying to take it all in.

I wore a long yellow-silk dress, and my hair was dressed with flowers. All of that was Alera's doing, of course.

But what she couldn't do was give me the milky-cream complexion I had, or the peach tint to my lips, or the length of my lashes as they fluttered with my surprise.

I had thought Alera beautiful, but I had never considered I might rival her in looks. It was strange, to see this lovely creature standing there and know that she was looking back at me. That she was me.

I closed my eyes and wavered on my feet. It was too much to absorb. I had come to this place looking only to be in Alera's shadow, and now I saw, abruptly, that I could hide in no one's shadow.

I tightened my arms around myself and turned around. I didn't need this incredible beauty, though I suspected it came from being an enchanted creature. Hadn't the stories Mama told me at night always consisted of great beauties and magic?

"I'm sorry," Alera said, sensing somehow that I was more upset than pleased by my physical form. "I just wanted… but it was stupid. Come on, I'll show you my room."

I tried to strike the images from my mind, to concentrate on Alera's friendly, cheerful chatter, but part of me couldn't help but reflect on it.

What if the fact that I was beautiful made someone take notice, helped them figure out what I was? What then?

* * *

It seemed someone found my skin at some point, because several days after being made an unofficial prisoner in Alera's home—I wasn't, not really, but since I couldn't ask to leave, I might as well have been—a man from the fishing village brought it to the house—the great manor, which was more like a medieval castle than anything.

"A selkie-skin!" he cried, holding it up for Alera's father to see. Alera's eyes immediately tracked to mine. She knew—I think. But then, didn't she know that I might have family waiting for me? My poor mother. I was her youngest child—and I was missing. After all those warnings, had I fallen prey to humans, just as she always feared?

Was it trickery that led Alera to bring me here?

"Nonsense," said a man sitting at the great table with Alera's father, dipping his meat into his trencher and lifting it to his mouth. "'Tis naught but a seal-skin. Common enough." He gave a queer look to the man holding it, as if suggesting he had poached it from the lord—Alera's father.

"But perhaps..." Alera's father said. "Leave it with my wife Madeira. Just in case someone—or something—comes looking for it."

Was it my imagination, or did his eyes land on me, if only for the briefest second?

The man frowned. "Do you not think we should burn it? Whoever it is... they could easily lure one of our daughters away."

Alera laughed, too loud. "But Papa! Selkies are just myths."

He scowled at her. "Not to the men that fish these waters," he said, clear warning in his voice. Alera subsided, but not before she gave me a helpless look under her lashes.

"It's time you retired," he told her. "Take your friend to the bedchamber prepared for her and blow the candles out, both of you."

But with my skin in the hands of a human, I couldn't rest, and Alera must have known it. For the first time—but not the last, no, never the last—she snuck into my chamber.

"I wish you could tell me your real name, Mari," she whispered as she tucked her nightgown around her legs and slid into bed with me. "I'll get it back, I swear I will."

I smiled at her in the darkness. She was half in shadow, but the moon silvered one side of her face and glinted like metal in her hair. She snuggled into the bed, her arms pulling me into her embrace.

It could have been strange, when her lips met mine for the second time, and in a fevered darkness we learned each other's mouths. I could tell she hadn't been kissed much either, and so we taught each other, even as the castle quieted down and creaked as it settled, like old bones.

* * *

Of course, I still felt guilty about leaving my underwater home and my family, but… what was one last young, silly daughter? Silly enough to get herself kidnapped willingly by nothing more than a teenage human girl?

I had been in Alera's home for months, and in all that time there wasn't a single murmur of someone searching for a missing girl, and I began to feel abandoned. As if Alera knew it, she started spending even more time with me.

We'd go down to the ocean, and she'd sift through the pretty shells and make little necklaces of them. She'd put them on me, and proclaim, "Perfect! It really goes with your skin."

Late nights would find us curled in each other's arms like two lengths of seaweed braided together, impossible to separate. I think Alera was unsure, though, because we hadn't kissed since that first night she crept into my chamber.

Despite that, we'd wrap up in each other and sleep that way, as if neither she nor I could sleep without clinging as tight as a barnacle.

* * *

There were times, too, that she took me out on her boat—the new one her father had commissioned for her. Not for the first time, I thought Alera was spoiled by being given everything she asked for—including me.

The part of me that felt wanted, desired, didn't mind. That part of me was the traitor to everything I'd grown up knowing, but I couldn't just push it aside.

On her boat, I'd sometimes feel the strong pull of the water, like the song of the whales, the tune one I couldn't quite recall anymore. I'd lean over the edge, so tempted to dive in—but without my skin, I knew it would mean my death.

As if Alera knew this, we went sailing less and less, even though it meant she spent much more time on land, away from the boat she loved.

I sometimes suspected that Alera wanted to be a part of the sea as much as I wanted to be a part of the land. Or her land, at least.

* * *

I'd mastered my human legs. Alera had even spent a few hours for several days teaching me to dance, which was something I wasn't exactly born to.

Which was how we found ourselves, six months after I'd left home, in the arbor surrounded by roses and apple trees, swaying gently to music only Alera could hear.

She began to sing, and held me so close I felt impossibly free, as if her embrace were nothing more than the ocean's kiss on my skin.

After awhile, Alera slowed the pace and though we kept turning, kept moving just so slowly now, she stopped singing and said,

"I don't know where they're keeping it. But I will find out."

I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of fresh apples, of cut grass, of sweet roses. It reminded me of everything about Alera that I found so fascinating.

In her arms, blind to my surroundings, she surprised me with the kiss. It was warm, and soft, and felt like peaches against my lips—yet another human thing that I had learned to love in my time on the surface.

She kissed me sweetly, as though we would always remember it and it should be the best it could be, and I followed her lead in that just the same as I followed her steps in the dance.

Finally, I opened my eyes and tugged myself away, just a bit, breathless. I don't know what Alera saw in my eyes, but she closed hers and a tear ran down her cheek.

"My father has settled it with a local baron. I am to marry his son." She glanced up and met my gaze squarely. "I'll get your skin back, and you can go home."

And just like that, our perfect dance, our sublime kiss, was over.

* * *

Alera began to avoid me after that; at least, it appeared that way. I saw her less often during the day, which left me nothing to do but gaze at the sea and miss... well, I ought to have missed my family, but it was the sea that called to me more than anything.

Guilt followed me around like a persistent school of fish, the guilt that I had somehow pushed Alera away; guilt that I did not even miss my family; guilt that I yearned to be back in the water, amongst the fish and the other selkies.

It was at night, however, that it became most apparent that Alera was, like I, longing for something—someone—else. She ceased coming to my chamber. I tossed, and I turned, and I missed her fiercely; she, it seemed, wanted only her baron's son and not the pathetic sea-creature she'd taken into her home.

Did she regret it? Those times when I was restless, I asked myself this question over and over.

The only times I saw her now were at meals, when her father kept us seated far apart at the long table.

He never spoke a word to me, but I could not help but wonder: did he know?

* * *

As Alera's wedding drew closer, she slowly crept back into my life. There were no kisses, no embraces, no secretive, furtive touches—but she must have been anxious about her upcoming nuptials, because she began to seek me out again.

I had known we were friends, and now it was obvious it was so. Perhaps it was nothing more than that, though she was careful never to say anything that might injure my feelings.

I was lying in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep in this incredibly dry place. I'd thought I wanted all the surface had to offer, but now all I wanted was my home. With Alera being so distant, I could not even hold to her as if I had reason to stay here.

But as I twisted again in my bed, a sliver of light broke the darkness in my chamber. Moments later, Alera was stealing blankets and drawing her knees up against my belly.

"I couldn't sleep," she said, her voice a glad sound in my ears.

Her feet were cold, and I wondered what time it was. It must have been late, if she'd walked all the way here and the fires had gone out.

"Don't be so dramatic," she whispered. "My feet are fine." She had read my mind, like she so often seemed to do. She raised her arms and settled them over my shoulders, her hands working through my hair. "I am nervous. I don't want to get married yet."

She didn't recoil when I kissed her shoulder, so I closed my eyes and inhaled her sweet fragrance, the one that was so very different from anything else my nose had come across.

"I knew you'd be here," she said sleepily. "I don't like to think of life without you. Please say you'll come with me to my new home."

I held her gaze, and she smiled.

"I knew it."

* * *

I'd finally begun to think I'd fallen in love with her the first moment she opened her eyes and trained them on me, but now I was pretty sure I loved her with my whole heart. Since that night, things had settled back into a rhythm; I frolicked with her during long summer days and she held me till I slept in those equally long, sweaty summer nights.

If she was worried about her wedding or her baron's son, she didn't mention it again; foolishly, I believed it would last forever.

So when she brought my skin to me, my heart sank like broken timber in the ocean. Did she not return my feelings? I'd thought the kisses, the illicit nights in each other's arms said otherwise... but had I read everything all wrong? I knew nothing about humans. I could be so easily led astray.

She was marrying a local baron's son. The whole thing was mysterious. Why grant me her kisses, if she loved someone else? Hadn't she asked me to go along when she married and moved out? What did this mean?

I remembered about the time Alera had stopped sailing as much. I had questioned how she felt about me then. Now I questioned it even more. Could I have been wrong about Alera the whole time? Maybe she had only ever wanted me for practice.

"I've got it back, see," she said, and held my skin out to me. I could not tell if this was a kindness—or an attempt to send me away, out of her home for good. I didn't know if she knew it, but legend said that if I left her now, I wouldn't be able to see her again for seven years. Would she even wait that long? Did she want to wait that long?

That question assumed she did love me, a fact of which I was quite uncertain.

I shook my head. I lowered my face so she couldn't see the anguished expression on it.

If she gave me that skin, I would slip back into it and disappear into the ocean forever. I couldn't fight that, no matter how much I loved her.

Worse, I didn't know if I loved her enough to try to fight it. I missed the ocean with the keenness of a knife's edge, and staying ashore, even for Alera, might be more than I could bear.

"It's all right," she said, though, laying it carefully on her bed. She came over and kissed me gently. "I know you have to go."

This girl, who lived like a princess and had been not only my friend but so much more, could not possibly just say good-bye.

I held out my hands, the invitation clear that she should take them. She gazed at my palms for long moments.

"I can't," she said finally, and I let my hands drop to my sides.

So she did love her baron's son. She didn't want me after all. I had been nothing more than a plaything.

She went on, as if she read the uncertainty, the tragedy, on my face.

"I'd drown, Mariah, you know that." The name she'd given me all those months ago suddenly sounded even more foreign. Inappropriate and broken-edged and wrong.

I shook my head and reached for her again.

"Take it," she said. "Go home, where you belong."

The words might have been harsh, if not for the sparkle of tears in her eyes.

I ran to her, wrapping her in my arms and letting my own tears dampen her shoulder. When she disentangled herself, I put my palms on her cheeks and kissed her for as long as I could. It was almost like being back underwater, without the need to breathe air.

Then I was gasping, reminded that I was in human form right now.

Alera was breathing just as hard, her heartbeat ringing in my ears. She touched my face. There was a kind of desperation in her eyes.

"You don't understand, Mari. I don't have a choice. I have to marry him. Papa would be so angry if he knew... If he knew the truth about me, he'd turn on me. I know it seems like he's always given me everything… but this is the only thing he's ever insisted I do."

I was not entirely sure what she meant. It didn't seem strange, to me, to love a girl. But she seemed to be saying that there was something inherently wrong with it. It all began to look so bleak. I could take my skin and go back to the ocean, alone. But that would doom Alera to her marriage—a marriage she didn't seem to want.

She stared hard into my eyes, as if she knew what I was thinking. I think she must have known. We'd been so close, after all.

"I trust you," she said only.

In that moment, I knew what we had to do. We couldn't be separated, and I knew also that I would give up the whole world—the entire ocean, too—to make her happy, even if it was the last thing I did.

I grabbed both of her hands next and pulled her to me. I didn't get my skin. I didn't get anything but the girl I loved. I would go home—I would take her with me—and we'd be together, there at the end.

I left my skin on her bed, and I turned to face her. We walked down to the ocean together, the sunrise turning the water molten shades of pink and green and gold; one foot in front of the other we went, my eyes never leaving hers and hers fixed on mine.

When the water was deep enough to be lapping at our lips, I lapped at hers, then thought, We'll take our last breaths together, and fused my mouth to hers. As if she read my mind, she didn't pull away.

We ducked under, and kissed until there was no breath left. The current tugged at us, as if trying to pull us apart, but she held fast to my waist and I kept her in my arms. Nothing was going to take her away from me.

But then something strange happened. Light filtered into the water all around us, like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

I felt my human legs slowly changing, and when I peeked downwards, Alera's were too. I kissed her harder. I knew instinctively that if I stopped kissing her too soon, it would all be over—and we would die.

And then I flipped the length of my brand-new tail, and let Alera go, except for her hands.

I wasn't really a mermaid, not exactly. But the tales that have grown up around my story call me 'the little mermaid', which isn't quite true.

I was the first mermaid. Alera was the second. I never understood why it happened, or how; there must have been some magic in me—in us—beyond that of a simple selkie. If my mother knew the truth of it, if that was the reason she'd always kept me close to home, she never said.

And, as they say in these things, Alera and I lived happily ever after, in a new home, together.

* * *

Ann-Marie Martino attended Emerson College and graduated with a B.F.A. in Creative Writing. She lives alone in Connecticut and enjoys writing both poetry and fiction. She is currently at work revising her first novel. 

What inspires you to write and keep writing?

I write because sometimes, I have a really great idea and I just have to be able to put it down on paper (or in this case, screen). I keep writing because of the sense of accomplishment every time I finish something. It's important to me to have a portfolio of stories that I can point to and say, "I did that." The feeling that I've made something--that's a great feeling. There aren't many that compare to it.

The Boy and the Dragon

The Boy and the Dragon
by Ann-Marie Martino

There was a house on a lake, high up in emerald-green hills. The house perched on stilts, buried deep into the glimmering water, and the hills surrounded it from all sides but one; that side fell away in a breathtaking cliff, which left the edge of the lake and sprawled downwards into the ocean.

The house was rust-colored, with yellow shutters, and a blue-black pitched roof. It had a wraparound porch, and the only way to and from the house to the ground away from the lake was a little boat tethered to the stilts that held the house in place.

You could jump off from one side of the porch, where it was left open, into the lake—but unless you possessed the daggerheart, like the boy in this story, you would not. For there was a dragon that slept beneath the glittering waves, and only the possessor of the daggerheart could speak to him, and be assured of his safety.

Now, this dragon was a young thing, a fractious male, but he wouldn't bother waking up to eat just anyone, and, in truth, found humans rather tiresome and not all that appetizing. But he liked his sleep—and dragons can catnap for hundreds of years—and would not want to be disturbed by unwelcome swimmers.

So now that I have told you about the dragon, let me tell you about the boy. He was about sixteen years old, fair-haired, like wheat in the sun; his name was Daryn, and he had travelled a great distance to take up residence in the house on the lake. He had had a dream, and in it was the young dragon, and, fancying himself in love, or some such, had hied off to see about his future.

His parents were long gone, as is often the case when a young person inherits the daggerheart. It is like a stone in the shape of the hilt of a sword, that fits in the palm of the hand, with a red pulsing center; its magic is that it lets you speak to dragons—to converse, and to tame them, and to ask one to grant a single wish.

So Daryn had set out on his journey, and at the end of it was the lake house of his dream, and he knew the dragon he fancied he loved was a-slumbering beneath the weathered old frame. The daggerheart in his pocket, he had come to beg a wish from the dragon he'd dreamt about.

And that is where the story really begins.

* * *
"Come out," Daryn said, the daggerheart warm in his hand. He held it out, but not quite over the water. Dropping it would be a disaster.

The water shimmered as if full of a thousand diamonds, and the sunlight washed everything to a pale yellow hue, much like the shutters on the little house.

"I have the one thing you respect," Daryn tried again. "Come out and see me."

There was a whoosh, and water swelled up over the sides of the porch, which was more like a dock in the water, and the great green thing that called itself dragon was suddenly at the lip of the water, his large violet eyes blinking slowly as he flapped his wings to keep himself afloat.

Daryn wanted to ask why a dragon with wings would choose to sleep beneath this lake, but he did not dare. Not yet. First things first.

"Hello," he said respectfully, bowing his head a bit before raising his gaze to meet the dragon's once again. "My name is Daryn. You might know of me, because I am the one who holds the daggerheart, and I am in love with you."

The dragon shifted a little in the water, cocking its head. Daryn held his breath. If it worked as it was supposed to, as his father had said it would, then if the dragon should deign to speak, Daryn would be able to understand him.

"You know not of what you speak," the dragon said. Daryn had the impression of guttural growls and thrumming vibrations, but what his mind processed was words in his own language. He grinned at once.

"Tell me," he said eagerly, sitting down on the porch and dangling his feet above the water. The daggerheart he slipped back into his pocket.

"You are young, to talk of love," the dragon replied. Daryn scoffed.

"I have had a dream, and I know what it meant. It meant I was to come here, and to summon you, and to say this: 'I am Daryn, and I am love with you.' And you are not that much older than me, for a dragon."

"You had a dream?" the dragon asked. Daryn nodded. "It told you all this?"

"Yes," Daryn said. "I have come for my wish." He leaned out a little. "Take a human shape, and share love with me."

The dragon recoiled. "You cannot ask that of me," he snarled, but he did not sound angry so much as worried.

"I can and I do. I wish for you to take human shape and love me." Daryn patted the outside of his pocket, and the daggerheart grew warm.

The dragon wailed, but he turned and twisted and slipped in and through the water, splashing and thrashing, until he was nothing more than a teenage boy, treading water.

His hair was white, like an old man's almost, though it shone in the sun like threads of some metallic fabric. His eyes were still violet, and his body, though young, was toned and muscled. His nose had a patrician bent, and his lips were rounded and full. Daryn had the impression that he was nude beneath the water, and he was lustfully curious.

He was the perfect specimen of male beauty, and Daryn was instantly smitten. He had known he was in love, but now here was proof: they were meant to be together.

"I am yours to command," the dragon said, only now his voice held only fluted vowels and lovely, smooth consonants.

"Tell me your name," Daryn demanded, getting to his feet. "And come out of the water."

The dragon rose from the water, pulling himself up on the edge of the porch, but the question of his name—the demand, rather—he ignored.

In due course the dragon was garbed with some of Daryn's own clothing, his finest in fact, but he had yet to follow the other instruction. His name remained a mystery.

When, over dinner, Daryn demanded it of him again, the dragon shook his head and would say only, "You begged I become human, so I am. You said, 'come out of the water', so I have done. But my name is my own and will remain that way."

"I must call you something!" Daryn pleaded, but the dragon turned his face away, an insult. Daryn was upset by his recalcitrance.

"Call me what you will, human boy. I am not yours to own, though I must obey you."

Daryn had not known he would be required to name his dragon, so he said,

"I will think on it. I will sleep, and when I wake, I will know what to call you."

* * *
There were two bedrooms in the lake house, one decorated in blue with sailboats on the wallpaper and little model sailboats on top of the dresser, and one decorated in yellow with little sprigs of flowers that appeared to have been handpainted on the walls.

Daryn liked the color blue, and he wasn't all that fond of flowers in decorating, so he made up the yellow bedroom with blankets on the bed and pillows and gave it to the dragon to sleep in.

The yellow bedroom had a double bed in it, and while Daryn wanted to sleep next to his dragon, he deemed it too soon as the dragon still appeared to be surly about being summoned. It was okay, Daryn thought; they'd get used to each other, and the dragon would learn to love him.

They had time. Daryn crawled into the bed in the blue bedroom and closed his eyes. His dreams had brought him here, surely they would give him the solution as to what to call his dragon.

But he didn't fall asleep right away. The light from the moon was spread across his pillow like a lover's hair, and he kept thinking the dragon would creep out in the middle of the night—but he reassured himself that that couldn't happen. The dragon was required to adhere to his wish, and would be bound by it all the years Daryn possessed the daggerheart.

Daryn patted it beneath his pillow and tried to sleep. But the dragon was so beautiful, his body cried out for him to go slip into his bed and curl up against him. It ought to be his right, but he knew he had to be patient. The dragon might turn his feelings toward hate if Daryn pushed too hard, and Daryn wanted, more than anything, for his dragon to want to love him.

It was on that thought that Daryn fell asleep.

* * *
Daryn woke with the name of the dragon on his lips.

"I shall call you Alaric," he said at breakfast. He had cooked it himself. The kitchen was well-stocked with food and Daryn probably wouldn't have to leave the lake house to get more for awhile.

He had learned to cook at his mother's knee, and then finished up learning after she had died and he needed to feed himself.

If the dragon appreciated his efforts, he did not say. He simply glanced up with those unnervingly beautiful violet eyes and scowled.

"I do not love you," he said. Daryn smiled as sunnily as the eggs on his plate.

"There is time for that still," he said. "And I love you, which is all that matters, for the present."

His dragon glowered, and Daryn added, "I didn't know dragons were so bad-tempered."

"No one likes to be on a leash," the dragon replied.

"Think of it as more of... a tether," Daryn said. "To keep you grounded to me so you don't one day fly away. I would be inconsolable if that happened."

The dragon picked at his food. "I doubt it," he said. "What you perceive as love is naught more than obsession and a need for control."

"I regret that you feel that way," Daryn replied, "but at least let me try to change your mind?"

The dragon swallowed and put his hands on the table, palms down. "It's not like I have much choice, is it?" He suddenly appeared sad, and Daryn felt the sting of pity, of remorse.

"I don't intend to treat you badly," he said. He leaned forward. "I want us to be friends. Someday, lovers. Will you not give it a chance?"

The dragon breathed out heavily. "I can do that," he said. "If I held onto my prejudice, I would be the same as you."

Daryn clapped his hands. The probability of an insult was lost on him. "After breakfast," he began, but the dragon cut him off.

"It's exhausting being in a human body," he said. "I would like more sleep."

Daryn shrugged. "All right. I'm going to sit out over the lake. Are you sure you don't want to go swimming?"

The dragon's face suffused with a pretty pink color. "I do not know how to swim," he said. Then he shook his head as if to shake away the blush and qualified, "As a human."

"I could teach you," Daryn said. The dragon regarded him, one eyebrow faintly quirked. It was obvious he was thinking, and thinking hard.

"All right," he said finally. "But after my nap."

Daryn dimpled, then paused. "I'm not used to being on my own," he said. "My parents are dead, but my father hasn't been dead that long." Which wasn't entirely the truth.

The dragon glanced down. "I'm sorry," he said. He must have felt badly for the child who'd lost his parents, no matter what else he was.

"Do you mind terribly if I stay in your room while you sleep?" Daryn asked. "I'll be quiet."

The dragon appeared worried. "I don't know..." he said, obviously unsure.

"I won't hurt you," Daryn said, with a little half-smile. "I love you, remember? I'd never hurt you."

The dragon looked dubious, but finally he gave a one-shoulder shrug.

"I suppose," he said. He suddenly had a queer-looking glint in his eye. "Where is the daggerheart? Could you leave it in your own room while you're in mine?"

"I can't," Daryn said. He pointed. "How would I understand you?"

The dragon laughed and gestured to his form, that of the teenage boy. "I'm speaking your language now," he said.

"Oh. Right." Daryn flushed. "I'm sorry. I'm a foolish boy."

"It's no issue," the dragon replied. He set down his fork. "I'll be in my room sleeping. Try not to wake me when you come in."

He got up and left the kitchen, and Daryn fingered the daggerheart in his pocket. He hadn't agreed to leave it somewhere else, and he didn't think that it was a good idea.

He finished up his breakfast and followed the dragon out of the room.

He had been lonely, but now he had his love; he sat on the floor of the dragon's assigned bedroom and watched him sleep, the waves of his hair caressing his brow, those glorious, unusual eyes closed.

* * *
Daryn taught the dragon how to swim later that afternoon, after his nap was finished. The dragon seemed unconcerned about stripping down and jumping into the water, and Daryn had to work hard not to stare.

"It's mostly about floating," Daryn said, but he wasn't very good at explaining, so he demonstrated.

The first time the dragon went under, he came up immediately, spluttering, face burned red.

"I cannot breathe!" he exclaimed, and Daryn fought not to laugh.

"Alaric," he said, "you're human now. I don't think you can breathe underwater anymore."

The dragon gave him a dark look. "These human bodies are so fragile. I miss my proper form."

Daryn frowned. "I am sorry about that, but you and I are meant to be together."

The dragon gave a gusty sigh. "I disagree," he said.

"You promised," Daryn reminded him, and then he dove back into the water. "Come on. It's a hot day. Come over to me."

The dragon showed off what he'd learned and swam over to Daryn. Above them, the sky was a fluted blue, the sun high and bright. It was hot on their heads.

Daryn held out his arms. "This is a hug," he said, and embraced the dragon.

He stiffened at first, but everyone knows a hug can feel so good, and the dragon soon felt no different. He obviously relished the hug, even though he was still bitter about things; Daryn, for his part, held him in the water for a long time, treading water, his head on the dragon's shoulder.

By the time the sun was sinking down, Daryn and the dragon were lying on the deck, staring up at the sky as it drifted into a darker blue, night beginning to fall.

The swimming lesson was over, and it had been a success.

* * *
Gradually, the dragon began to trust Daryn. They spent their days together, swimming and then sprawling on the deck and talking. Daryn told stories that the dragon had never heard.

"And the princess was beautiful," Daryn said, on his side, leaning on one elbow and watching the dragon. "She had flowing golden tresses that all the women in the kingdom were envious of, and the biggest, most beautiful blue eyes, and everyone in the kingdom wanted to marry her.

"But she had chosen someone, a lowly servant, the man who brought the coal to her room for the scullery maid to rake in the fireplace. Even though he always smelled of coal-fire, she had given her heart to him utterly."

"But why?" the dragon asked. "Couldn't she have had the most handsome prince in the land?"

"She could," confirmed Daryn. "But that's just the thing. Her father had found out about the servant, and condemned him to his daughter. 'No, you may not have him,' he said, and she took to her room for eleven days and nights and refused to come out.

"She didn't cry, and the man she loved was refused entrance to the palace. The lovely princess was staring, dry-eyed at the night table, when there was a knock at her window. Before she could even do anything, it slipped open.

"A crone entered the room. She pointed a gnarled finger at the princess and said, 'what would you do for your love?'"

"And then what happened?" the dragon said eagerly.

"The princess swore she would do anything for her love, and the crone considered her. 'The king is having your love executed this day at noon,' she said. 'If you wish to save him, you must give up your envied hair. Cut it off. And your eyes,' the crone added cagily. 'Can you live without your eyesight?'

“'Anything!' cried the princess. And the crone snapped her fingers. At once, the most beautiful princess in the land was transformed. Her hair was ragged and short. Her eyes weren't just blind, but scarred closed. Her fingers were plagued with arthritic pain and curled in on themselves.

"When her love found her, she had been banished from the palace—it was thought she'd kidnapped the princess, and the king was loathe to cut off her head just yet; not before he could find his beloved daughter.

"But the coal-man found her outside the castle, wandering blindly. He recognized her at once, and cried, 'You've gotten so ugly, princess!'"

"This is a terrible story," the dragon said gleefully. "It doesn't have a happy ending, does it?"

"I'm afraid not," Daryn said. "For though the princess had given up her beauty, had given up everything in her life to save his, he was repulsed by her. He took her hands and told her that he loved her, but since she couldn't see the lie on his face, she believed him. He brought her to the king and said she had killed the princess.

"The king was devastated. He ordered her death. And as the executioner took her head, the man was set upon by the crone, who transformed before his eyes into the image of the beautiful princess.

"She told him he was hers for all time, and she punished him for eternity; wearing the face of his beloved, she made him a slave, and she never once let him forget what he'd done." Daryn took a deep breath. "The end."

The dragon sat up and clapped his hands together. "I'm glad he got what was coming to him," he said.

Daryn sat up too and reached out, clasping his hands together with the dragon's. "I would never forsake you," he said seriously, staring into those violet eyes.

The dragon met his gaze steadily, then slowly, they leaned toward each other. In the weeks they'd been together—it had been about three—the dragon had come to care for the boy.

Daryn reached around the dragon and cupped the back of his head, drawing him in. Their lips met like a benediction, a velvety press together, and Daryn closed his eyes and taught the dragon how to kiss, as well.

He didn't notice, what with the kiss and the beauty of the sunset wreathing them, that the dragon had not made the same promise.

* * *
Daryn taught the dragon many things over the next months. He showed him how to fish, and how to cook. He took him out in the little boat when they needed to get more food. They fell into kisses like drowning, and after a while, Daryn and the dragon would retire together, sleep in the double bed in the yellow bedroom.

But even though nights were filled with furtive touches and declarations of Daryn's love, the dragon was growing restless, and Daryn could tell.

So late one night, he kissed the curve of the dragon's neck and held his lips there for a long time, before whispering into the beautiful skin,

"I am so glad I dreamt of you. Will you sleep with me? Will you love me?" he asked.

The dragon breathed out, and his muscles rippled.

Daryn kissed his skin again. "Please," he said, "tell me your name. Surely you love me enough by now."

The dragon took another breath, and then in a voice barely more than a whisper, he said,

"My name is Jaron."

Emboldened by the confession, Daryn shivered and spread kisses over Jaron like spreading honey on bread.

The night breathed around them like a living thing, dark and terrible and wonderful, and full of the scent of their bodies, the sound of their breaths, the softness of their skin.

Jaron never pulled back, and Daryn never had to press too far forward, and when Daryn finally fell asleep, sticky and sweaty and sated, Jaron lay awake.

His body was alive in ways it had never been, and it made him miss his dragon-form acutely.

He stared hard at Daryn as if he could memorize him, then kissed his wheat blond hair and murmured,

"I'm sorry."

* * *
Daryn woke up alone. Yawning, he figured that Jaron had gone to the bathroom, or gone outside to sit and watch the sunrise, and he wasn't worried.

Not at first.

Not until he went to take a shower and discovered the daggerheart was missing. Gone! Daryn practically flipped the house upside down looking for it—and for Jaron.

He found neither.

Soon the awful truth dawned on him. Jaron had taken the daggerheart and left him.

Daryn sat down hard on the deck, the lovely sunlight not even making an impression. After the night they had spent together, it felt like the worst betrayal ever to be left alone, no longer special, no longer the possessor of the daggerheart. He hadn't even known that the dragon could take it from him.

"Why?" he asked the bright morning air. It was crisp and cool. Sometime in their idyll, summer had turned, and autumn was creeping in.

He understood, thinking back, that the dragon had never once said he loved Daryn. He'd never promised not to forsake him.

How long had Jaron been planning to leave him?

He remembered the story he'd told Jaron, about the tragically beautiful princess.

He realised he'd been cast as the villain in his own fairytale, and it didn't have a happy ending, just like the one he'd told Jaron.

Though the boy stayed in the lake house until he'd grown into an old man, without the daggerheart, he couldn't summon the dragon back to him.

But it was late one night, the old man's eyes closed, his mind slowly fading away, when the softest caress ever slipped across his forehead.

"I do love you," came the quietest whisper in the world. "I'm sorry."

* * *
Eventually, the lake house was empty again, and the dragon slept beneath it for many more years.

And that is the story of a boy—and the dragon who loved him.

* * *

* * *
Ann-Marie Martino attended Emerson College and graduated with a B.F.A. in Creative Writing. She lives alone in Connecticut and enjoys writing both poetry and fiction. She is currently at work revising her first novel.

What inspires you to write and keep writing?

I write because sometimes, I have a really great idea and I just have to be able to put it down on paper (or in this case, screen). I keep writing because of the sense of accomplishment every time I finish something. It's important to me to have a portfolio of stories that I can point to and say, "I did that." The feeling that I've made something--that's a great feeling. There aren't many that compare to it.