The needle bites my skin. I hiss. The first stitch hurts the most.
My people are the only ones with dragon wings.
The other people speak of us in hushed tones, sacred guardians of the children of dragons. The islands we live on, far out of the reach of traders, are where dragons return to lay their eggs, build their nests, and leave their young to us. We are blessed, maybe cursed, by the wings that grow on our backs.
That part isn’t true.
The wings on our backs are from dead dragons. Each one. The islands we live on are not only the birthplace of dragons, but their final resting place.
There only used to be one dragon death every 100 years. My grandmother had never seen a dragon death in her whole life until I turned five. We wept together, the whole village, our chief’s wrinkled forehead pressed to the bright green snout of the dying beast, its wings blending into the giant forest.
It was to be expected, our chief told us, her own orange wings folded neatly behind our backs as she addressed our village on the final day of mourning. Dragons live for nearly a thousand years. One of them will eventually die.
Everyone told me that I was lucky to have witnessed the death. Some live their entire lives without ever seeing one. I didn’t feel lucky.
Ten stitches in, I wipe my tears.
I was nine, headstrong and wild, spending hours in the forest spying on the older dragons, who were always too shy to let me come close. I didn’t want to spend time with my father caring for the newborns, who barely could crawl, and would cry in the wee hours of the night, or my mother, weaving threads of gold in preparation for a ceremony she might never see, and baking bread in an oven warmed by dragon breath.
I remember it like yesterday, chasing after a squirrel, tripping over a branch, and then a dark cloud rushed over the sky.
As massive as a forest, scales as yellow as gold, blood rushing like a river from his neck. He crashed into the trees, sending the whole flock scampering away. I rushed towards the crash site – but stilled when I finally found his body.
He had a hundred arrows stuck into his belly. His eyes were red with his blood. The green trees were stained red, red, red. All I could see for days. Red.
Thirty stitches. My back itches, but my mother swats my hand away.
Our new chief, his forehead without wrinkles, his back attached to a pair of emerald wings, was not as calm and composed as his predecessor.
He was pale and sweating, his words stuttering. We all knew why. Two dragon deaths in the same decade were unheard of.
We didn’t know what to do with his wings, the yellow one. The left one had a tear, marred by the sharp knife of a spear. The wing on the right was entirely broken by the crash. They can be healed, my mother said, her hands kneading bread. But who would we give them to? We already have a chief.
I wondered the same thing, watching as she and the other women began to fold up the newly-mended wings.
We had two more deaths before I turned 13. Another green, and an orange. Both had injuries like our yellow one. Spears, arrows, scratches, and blood. Too much blood. But my mother still healed their wings. Still, we kept them in the storehouse. Still, no one wears them.
Fifty stitches. Halfway, my mother comforted me. Halfway.
When I turned 14, we had the next two.
They were both young. Far too young. Barely past their 20th birthday. My father said he remembered feeding them. Both from the same mother, wings the colour of the sea, far too small for us to keep, our chief whispered.
The years of worrying had made him thin and weak, evenings spent staring at the sunset, praying that tomorrow we wouldn’t find another corpse.
We had too many wings. It was getting costly to keep them stored up, my mother said. Can’t we find someone to give them to, I asked. She looked at me, eyes filled with sorrow. Not yet.
When I turned 16, we had our 20th death.
By now, the mourning periods had all but been abandoned. Everyone was afraid of letting the new babies leave the island, fearful of when those dragon hunters would get off their horses and onto their boats, when they would find our island, and when they would kill all our dragons.
Seventy-seven stitches. Father’s lucky number, I joked.
She was my father’s favourite. That’s what he told me from the other side of his locked door, sniffs echoing under the gap.
She was a little terror, always setting fire to the blankets, always trying to sneak out and join the older dragons. Never listened to anything my father said. And yet, he laughed, his voice stinging with bittersweet nostalgia. Whenever she was in trouble, she would always turn those sweet golden eyes to him, and his heart would melt.
I had never heard him cry with such anguish when he recognised her, begging her to open her eyes and see him. She died as soon as she landed.
Ninety stitches. I’m almost there.
The storehouse was now too full. I had a fight with my mother. Why is our chief not doing anything? Why are our people staying silent? Why are we not fighting back against the hunters? I asked and I asked, and I yelled till my voice was dry.
She had no answers.
So, I went to the chief myself. I told him of my wishes. Many people my age stood beside me, some I knew, and some whom I had only seen in passing, yet all the anger in our hearts mirrored the breaths of a furious beast. We spent that night by the campfire, sweat glistening, eyes filled with tears as we realised the sacrifice it would take to achieve what we wanted.
He finally agreed to it at sunrise.
One hundred stitches. That was how many it takes for both wings to be attached to a back. I chose the red wings, my father’s final wish. Each stitch was made with a burning hot iron needle, pressed into my skin and out again, weaving thread made of gold, in and out of my back.
Each stitch burning the memories of the dead beasts into my mind. Each stitch sealing the unbreakable oath I had taken.
They call us the dragon warriors. We come in the night, sinking their ships, burning their camps, freeing their captors, saving our dragons. We never let them follow us back home because we know we can never return without risking it.
I miss my mother on cold nights, but my wings wrap around me and remind me of my father’s arms. Every few months, a new one joins us, leaving behind their family, their backs covered with gold threads that cling to a pair of wings.
I hope for a day when they stop sending new warriors to fight these battles. I dream of a day when I see dragons flying free in the sky. I dream of a day when I can return home to my mother.
But until then, my back shines with the scars of 100 gold stitches that remind me of the war I have yet to win.
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