Clean Slate

Chapter 1- Sweet Escape

I know better than to flee. There is no way for me to be free as a human in this draco infested world. Since birth, I have been told over and over again that I will likely be eaten by my future master. Staff at the Pax Institute assured me that they would not sell me plump if I was a good little num num. Being boney at the auction would mean my buyer will have to fatten me up first, buying me just a little more time before being served on a platter. I worked relentlessly, destroying generations of my people’s history, and building new structures to fit dragons.

Part of the work at the Pax Institute is learning how to best serve dracones when needed. Sometimes that meant performing dance, art, music, and even reciting literature. Other times that meant cleaning, cooking, gardening, and other forms of labor. I have never been outside of the institute unless I was working. My inmates are in the same boat, though they are not burdened by their skin. I am the only ebony human I have ever seen. Apparently the eumelanin pigment is sweet and addictive, like candy for dragons. 

Candy became my nickname at the Pax Institute. All inmates are given numbers, I’m number 987 out of 1,000, but Candy stuck to me like wet sugar. Nobody at the institute would touch me out of fear some of my eumelanin might rub-off on them, mindless sheep. That is what we have been raised to become and what I refuse to be. On my journey to defiance, I picked up tomfoolery. In one instance, I took clay and drenched it in powder to make it look like dough, then the dense cook after me served it to my oh so friendly inmates and superiors. Going a day without eating was more than worth it, so many staff members choked that day. The cook who took the fall said she had no idea why the dough was so hard, and the staff believed her after she passed the lie detection test. Head of the institute concluded that one of the younger num nums must have mistaken the package label when storing shipments. Staff had to double check all food packaging and labels every day for a year, and I slept with a smile on my face every night for that whole year.

Today, I pulled the best ruse a draco has ever seen. A mere human vanished before their very eyes. Yet, there is nowhere for me to run. They can fly, swim and dig, no, running is not an option. I had to find an alternative. Being a pet or a tool doesn’t sound much better, leaving me with “icon” as my only option. Icons are one out of a hundred. A few I knew of were either incredible artists, singers, cooks or storytellers. I was very close to one of these talented people, number 725, I called Vision. She always made pictures in her mind come to life out of anything. Out of food, trash, pebbles, hair, anything. Her creations caught the attention of many upper-class dracones who even came into the institute to see what she made. Vision never reached the auction house, she was sold long before she was old enough.

I am not talented in arts or music and especially not in the kitchen. At times I can be innovative, but mostly I just observe my surroundings and manipulate it. If I wanted to be an icon I had to create a new category for talent, deception. 

“She is here!” Gasps of disbelief echoed throughout the auction house. To the audience, I simply reappeared, seated among the bidders. In reality, that was where the trap door led. 

The flustered auctioneer fumbled with his megaphone and then failed to collect himself, “uhh, well only the best for my esteemed guests” was all he could muster. “Guards!” He commanded, and immediately the Ignis-plus guards at the back of the stage began to rush towards me. I did not move out of fear they would likely perceive it as a threat, but I remained composed showing no signs of this fear. No longer blinded by harsh stage lights, I took a moment to view my surroundings. 

This building is beautiful. 

It only takes a few hundred draco bidders to fill a globe of space meant for an audience of thousands, thousands of humans. Every inch of the dome building is well-preserved, etched in art and history. Massive buildings with architecture that had impressed dragons were kept and used for official purposes after the Draco-Human War, the war known as the original Tabula Rasa. The buildings my inmates and I made for the Pax Institute were usually smaller commercial buildings and custom homes for wealthy dracones and pluses. No one is aware that the stage in this grand dome was once for magicians, or even that magicians existed. I, myself, wasn’t sure that magicians were real until a few days ago, when they sent me with the rest of the merchandise to clean the auction house. The same dome building had appeared to me in my sleep a week before the cleaning. There was a man holding stacks of small plastic rectangles with pictures on one side. He was using these pictures to play a guessing game with his observers. Letters that spelled out the great magician hung over his stage. At some point he disappeared and I did not know how, until I came across the little trap door while scrubbing the stage. 

The pull of the hybrid guards’ harsh grasp breaks me out of my trance. One guard jerks me out of my seat, nearly pulling my arm off, as the other guard locks a metal leash onto my collar. Brilliant flames suddenly lit the space above our heads. The guards turned their attention towards the source, but I remained fixated on the dancing lights. The glow of the fire painted the sphere ceiling a rustic orange and a large draco shadow sat below its glow. His fire thinned the air supply a bit, but it also warmed my half-naked body in this cold room. A thought crept in with the heat, why is there no smoke?

“1,000,000 pecs!” The shadow’s fierce demand echoed through the minds of everyone, putting the guards at a standstill, jaws dropped.

Why is there no smoke? 

My thought repeated itself. I should be more worried for my life, but I spent my whole life preparing for death. Learning more about the wonders that surrounded me and how to manipulate it has been my greatest escape from the inevitability of death. I finally shifted my gaze to meet the shadow’s origin.  My eyes fell onto a young and large Ignis Regalis. His diamond crests took the forms of triangles alternating up and down around his neck. On his forehead, these alternating triangles outlined a crown, two short pointy mountains with one tall point in the middle. As I studied his diamond crown, I felt my focus being pulled towards his gaze that had already been locked onto me. His eyes then met mine and held them.

“1,000,000 pecs? For this num num?”  The auctioneer stuck a finger in his left ear and twisted it, refusing to believe what he heard and disregarding the fact that dragons speak telepathically.

“You dare question me, half-breed?” My buyer responded in threatening tones, even in the mind.

After reading the room, the foolish auctioneer decided to cut his losses and close the auction for the rest of the week. “No my majesty,” he said, “I only meant that she is not worth such dowry. Please take her for free, as a gift to accommodate all the commotion she has caused tonight.” 

 I did not struggle as the guards cuffed my wrists and warily placed me into the box soon to be shipped to my master or my demise. “Be careful, she is some kind of demon, that one,” I heard one guard warn. 

The box was adorned in golden ribbons and jeweled mosaic patterns of rigid flames. Air holes lined the upper half of every wall, but did not lessen the reek of citrus perfume. Inside this gift box I sat, legs-crossed, on a giant cushion soft as the dough I used to bake for my fellow inmates. 

Now, let's think. Why does a draco flame have no smoke?