previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/04/02/im-afraid/
all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
The creature carved fish skins off
by sticking a foot inside its wide open beak.
Therefore it couldn’t see me that well
so I dug a shallow pit in the dirt
with my paddle feet
and drew oversized runes to start a fire
activated by the skins it randomly tossed out
then I gathered a bunch of those skins
on top of the runes
and flames flickered up,
hiding the evidence of magic
before it saw
and started wondering
what started the other fire.
And I talked
while we worked,
telling the dracan
the bare bones of my life.
I ran away from home.
Got bullied in demon school.
Left. Got stuck in a keep.
Met a sea deity
who let me come here
for the price of my feet.
Then
around sizzling, boxy fish
in the firepit,
the dracan
answered my questions
as well as it could
which really wasn’t that well,
but this dracan
was young–
obviously it was young,
since it was smaller than the others,
but I hadn’t realized
it’d only been flying
for a couple weeks
and only helped with the fire
because everyone who could fly did
and they saved a good chunk of the trees
but lost nearly everything
close to the lake–
too young to have thought-out answers for me;
it said the blue-green shroud
came from their moon god
and the plants and fish ate it
because it was food, obviously,
(so I was like “plants don’t need food”
and it was like “uh, yeah they do, duh”
so I let it drop
but also had to ask,
“Why don’t they eat you and me then?”
and it said,
“because we’re not food”
so
wow
that’s
helpful)
and it said this garden
was a boring place
where adults came
to speak to the moon,
and the dracan thought
the moon would be sad
about its garden burning
(so I asked
if we should be eating these fish
from the sacred garden
and it said
why shouldn’t we?
So I went along with that)
and I chose
not to point out
that I messed up a rune
and that started the fire
even though I had told it that
when it thought I was a naiad
but I guess it forgot
in the chaos
so good for me
I could keep my fire runes
to myself
though
maybe if it knew
it still wouldn’t conclude
that I’d started fire,
or maybe it would,
so I pointed at our dying cook fire
and asked if there was a place I could sleep
and it said
I could sleep in its village
so I
thought I’d get to ride its back
but no
it opened its huge beak
and beckoned me with a claw
so I
wobbled over
and climbed in
to this huge, humid sack thing
but kept my head and arms
over the edge of the keratin rim
just in case it tried to shut its mouth
though I doubted it’d try to eat me on purpose,
given I wasn’t “food.”
Honestly, it seemed oblivious
eating me was even an option
just like
it was too young to realize
or analyze why
a moon god might get annoyed at us eating its fish
and might want to punish the dracans
for letting its sanctuary burn,
though nothing
was mad at us yet,
so maybe we were fine.
With me in its mouth,
we erupted from the ground,
and the wind
in my face
made me sneeze
and the ground vanishing below
into a black blanket around a perfectly round lake
made my eyes go huge
but
I started laughing
at how teeny it all looked from up here,
lofted by wings not beating my head,
floating with my full stomach,
and I just
spread my arms out
to the air
and let myself feel free.
***
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Jordyn Saelor 