literature

The Man in the Moon

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“My offer from last night still stands.” Liz reminded me. “Have you made your decision?”

I looked up at her, a forlorn smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. It was remarkable how close we’d grown over the last several months. We were so different. Yet, on a fundamental level, we were the same.

As a human, I should have experienced a number of emotions when faced with one of Liz’s kind. Fear, anxiety, anger, and despair were all warranted. The dragon race deserved nothing less: in six months they had wiped out all trace of human civilization, and in less than a year they’d driven mankind to the brink of extinction.

On the surface, Liz seemed just as savage as the rest of her species. A tangled myriad of black scales, white claws, and piercing red eyes, the dragon harbored a predatory finesse that would have put any Earthly carnivore to shame. But most dangerous and most defining of all was her size: while most men were lucky to stand six feet tall, she stood well over one-hundred-and-sixty.

I’d been something of a nerd before the invasion, spending my time with computers and books. If that life had taught me anything, it was that I couldn’t judge a story by its cover. And Liz’s feral nature was only skin deep.

I no longer saw a dragon, or a murderer, or a monster. I saw a friend. And, from that friend, I found an impossible question.

I didn’t answer – how could I? Turning away I fixed my gaze on the world around me – on Earth, where I’d grown up. I saw rolling hills, and soaring mountains, and flowing rivers. I saw streets, and cars, and towns, and lives that had been both made and broken.

I saw home.

And if Earth was home… could I really bring myself to leave?

* * * * *

“It is really something.” Liz purred with a contented sigh. She leaned back in the grass, propping her hands behind her head in perfect bliss; and, with a smile, I followed suit.

“What is?”

She gestured up to the night sky, spreading her arms to encompass the view from horizon to horizon.

“When we first came here,” the dragon explained “it was like we’d been cut off from the universe. There were so many lights on the ground that they blotted out the stars. It’s taken over a year… but I can finally see our galaxy again. It’s like by ravaging this world… we also somehow healed it.”

“Poetic,” I congratulated, giving her a weak clap.

“Watch it – I’m not above eating you!” she scolded. “You know I’ll go through with it, too: I’ve done it before!”

“Almost daily.” I conceded, brushing imaginary saliva off of my arms. “They made signs for this sort of thing, back when humans were in charge. You’d see ‘So-and-So Days Since Last Accident’ posted all over work stations. I think I’ve reached my new record: one.”

“Don’t tempt me, and you may keep up the streak.” Liz speculated. “Luckily for you I’m in the mood to talk.”

“You’re always in the mood to talk.”

“And, thankfully, you’re usually in the mood to listen. And on some level that surprises me.”

“Really?” I asked, turning my head towards her.

“Really.”

“What… you can’t wrap your mind around the fact that you’re an interesting person to listen to?”

“I can wrap my mind around the fact that you don’t ask questions!” she exclaimed. “You’ve never taken charge, never directed a conversation! You don’t ask about me or my kind.”

“You never brought it up. I figured it was sort of a sore subject?”

“Alex,” she said sternly, rolling over to fix me with a petrifying glare. “We’ve been friends for months now. If I was going to kill you, I’d have done it by now. You’re not going to risk your neck over a bold question.”

“Keenly noted.”

“So ask me anything – anything at all!”

“Anything?”

“Personal, impersonal, trivial, meaningful… anything.”

“Alright… what’s your bra size?”

“Cute. I’m a B – an upper end B.”

“And thus I have been enlightened.” I said, rolling onto my back with a contented sigh.

“Alright… let’s try again? Maybe something less anatomical this time?”

I finagled one hand from behind my head, pointing up at a nondescript spot in space. Millions of miles beyond the end of my finger the stars twinkled, the planets danced, and the Milky Way continued to swirl on in its endless existence.

“Humans never could put a finger on you.” I recalled. “Before the global collapse of civilization we had our theories. Some claimed you were from space, coming here to colonize our world. Others hypothesized you came from a portal, reaching out from another dimension and into ours. I honestly didn’t think it was important… but now I feel differently. I want to know who was right.”

“It’s nice to realize you can pull your mind out of the gutter every once in awhile.” Liz said. I didn’t look over at her; but I was profoundly aware of her toothy smile.

“In a way everyone was right. Dragons are interplanetary beings – creatures of the stars. But where your race found their way into space through ships, we found a different path.

“We were once much like you humans. We plotted and schemed amongst one another out of personal greed, constantly expanding our arsenal of technology and broadening our knowledge of science. But, much like with your use of CFCs and fossil fuels, we were blind. We couldn’t see the toll we were taking on our planet; and it was only when our resources were virtually exhausted that we put down our pride and recognized our error.

“So the wisest and most capable of our race devised a plan. One final schematic was drawn in our labs: a blueprint for a machine that could stretch the very fabric of the universe. We could pull space apart, or we could push it together; and, by doing so, we founded not a weapon but a gateway.

“We’ve abandoned scientific progress ever since.” She said solemnly. “We kept only the portal machine. It didn’t give us a chance to rebuild our tarnished home planet… but it gave us the opportunity to make the universe our home.”

I took a moment to process that. I was coming to my own realizations when Liz spoke again – and she ended up confirming my suspicions.

“It is funny, really.” The dragon said, accompanying her words with a quiet laugh. “One time you spent three whole days in my stomach. You’d have been in there longer if you hadn’t complained about needing to go to the bathroom! But during that time you didn’t just live in me: you lived off of me. You took a portion of everything I ate, siphoned some of everything I drank, and commandeered a portion of the body I maintain.

“You could argue that, for that half-week, you were a parasite. But it is somewhat hypocritical for me to say that. Dragons are, too. We don’t live off any one being, though: we prey on the universe itself, sucking every world dry before moving on to the next.”

“What happens after you ‘kill’ a planet, then?” I asked. It made me uneasy to ask the question aloud, like I was condemning my own world.

“After we deem a world’s resources exhausted we move on. Our machine finds another habitable planet in close proximity; and, like locust, we swarm to it. Whatever remains on our victim-world is left to their own devices – to rebuild and repopulate so that, generations from now, we might return and start the whole process again.”

“How long until Earth reaches that point?”

She didn’t answer. I almost liked it better that way: like she wouldn’t burden me with the fate of my people. A wise man had once realized that ignorance was bliss; but foolish men had reveled in the fact since human civilization began.

Unfortunately, I was much smarter than that. And, just as unfortunate, the answer to my ominous question was right in front of me.

It started small, a mere dot on the horizon. As I watched the phenomenon grew, expanding from a figment of my imagination to a definitive object. I reached over and tapped Liz on the shoulder, mumbling something about a shooting star.

She didn’t answer me. And, just as the dragon had come to know me, I’d come to know her. I could tell earlier when she was smiling; and there, like a sixth sense, I could practically feel her frown.

The object solidified itself – bleached white against the black backdrop of the sky. It wasn’t a shooting star: it was a dragon. And it wasn’t on a routine hunt: it was moving with purpose.

I propped myself up on my elbows, watching it pass overhead and out of sight to the west. Somewhat unsettled I turned back to the east, hoping to lay back in the grass and relax. But, by the time my neck had craned all the way around, I was anything but relaxed: I was up on my feet, clutching my head and rubbing my eyes.

The white dragon had been a forerunner. For as far as the eye could see dragons clouded the sky, reaching from horizon to horizon in a single flight. It wasn’t some arbitrary migration, but the movement of an entire species – the relocation of the winged armada that had brought Earth to its knees.

The spectacle lasted for several minutes until, at length, the last stragglers disappeared over the western treetops. Only one dragon remained: a dragon who, like the months leading up to that night, had faithfully stood beside me.

But when I looked over at Liz, she was no longer laying in the grass. She was on her feet, her gaze trained on the dragons’ wake. There was a hunger in her eyes, a lust I could never hope to comprehend; and, when she turned back to me, there was a grim message etched into her face.

“Tomorrow is a very important day for both of us.” She said quietly. “I’ll give you until the morning to decide. But when the sun comes up, Alex… I need to know.”

* * * * *

“I need to know.” Liz said again.

I stood there silently, unable to bring myself to a decision. The dragon lacked my gift of patience, and she lacked the time for my delay.

“You can remain on Earth, can recollect and reorganize your people. You can bring mankind back to its former glory, and see this world prosper in a new era of peace.

“Or you can come with me. You’re a good person, Alex. When I give you the chance, you always have something interesting to say; and, when I take the chance, you always have a faithful ear to listen. You’re so unlike my kind. You’re tolerant, and friendly, and accepting. If I have to spend my life with someone… I want it to be you.

“But I need to know.”

I knelt in the grass, running my hand through the stalks. Each was coarse against my skin, damp from the early morning dew. It was comforting. It was familiar. It was all I’d known for over two decades of life.

But it wasn’t home. Earth was no longer home. It was where I’d grown up, true; but there comes a time when everyone must move beyond the house where were raised and into the life ahead of them.

Liz had become that new life – that home I’d moved into. And where she moved, I moved.

“So what does this make me now?” I asked, giving her a confirming smile. “Am I still human? Homosapien? Or have I evolved into something new? Will people start calling me ‘homostella’ now?”

She picked me up by the back of my collar, holding me aloft for a thoughtful moment. She clicked her tongue thoughtfully; then, with a humoring grin, shook her head.

“You aren’t some new species.” Liz chided. “But you’re certainly a new person. You’re less like your ‘homostella’ fantasy and more like… The Man in the Moon.”

“Man in the Moon? Are we going to any moons?”

“I’m sure you will.” She said with a sly wink. “There are plenty of wonders you’ll get to see out in the universe. There are biomes that will make you question the fundamentals of physics, ecosystems that will seem utterly backwards, and stars that would put your sun to shame.”

She opened her mouth, pushing me towards her teeth. Impulsively I kicked back, my flabbergasted grunt echoing past her molars and down her trachea.

“What? You think the dragons are just going to let me walk you into the portal?” Liz demanded. “They’ll take time to warm up to you. Until then you’ll just have to be… smuggled goods.”

“And what better place to hide something than in your guts?” I asked morosely.

“Precisely!” she agreed.

She twisted me so that my feet no longer blocked her progress. With a happy gurgle she shoved me past her fangs, hitting me with a solid lick for good measure. This time when I wiped my arms, the saliva on them was very real.

“Days Since Last Accident: Zero.” I sighed.

But Liz didn’t seem to mind. She ended my struggles with a definitive gulp – one that would take me far, far down into the organic maze that was her body.

But before I disappeared I snatched one last glance of the outside. I saw thick grass, towering trees, distant mountains, and a sky so baby blue it seemed reborn.

It was the last time I ever saw Earth, and the first time I truly came to question my decision. Had leaving my planet been the right choice? Had I let myself be taken from where I belonged?

Day after day I’d wonder. But, day after day, I’d come back with the same reassuring answer: that I’d chosen well.

I belonged with Liz. And The Man in the Moon belonged among the stars.
:iconarchsteel: rediscovered my most popular deviation, Cat and Mouse. He knew good and well that I'd planned to let the story end where it began back in 2011. But he also knew that I couldn't resist a commission...
(The first part can be seen here: bowtothedrow.deviantart.com/ar… )

All in all I'm very happy with how this turned out. It was interesting to have to reread some of my past work, and to have to figure out how to revitalize a long-deceased plot and dust off some forgotten characters. With luck you guys will enjoy this just as much as I have: it is, after all, a sequel to my most popular deviation.

On a personal note, it sort of irks me that I've done a commission out of order. But in all honesty I've been stumped on my current projects. This seems to have gone a lot better than my other recent attempts to write; and so, with luck, it has done the trick and gotten my creative juices flowing again.

Did you enjoy this story? Do you have an idea for one of your own? I still offer commissions! There are plenty of options to choose from, ranging from the lengthy three-part commission, to the unusual choice-story commission, down to the inexpensive vague commission!
:points: values and details can be seen through the widget on my main page.
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Pieonix's avatar
My friend *pats*

*silence*


*bitch slaps*
boi dont u freaking make another good story like that or imma *slaps* fill *slaps* my *slaps* search *slaps* history *slaps* with *slaps* this *slaps* good *slaps* shit