I had the most amazing encounter today.  It might change everything.  Details to follow.


    Everything felt distant, unreal, to Marble.  Seeing the landscape of her young adulthood, the reclaimed woodlands where she had scraped many a knee, hadn’t seemed real until she had finished the painting.  Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she remembered the brush strokes leading up to the completion of the painting.  One moment, she was searching her memory for fine details, and the next she had one of her mom’s doves perched on her shoulder, cooing for attention.  In between… was a blur.  Then there was the shower of water.  There was light coming from her painting, and that was the focus of her eyes, so Marble assumed storm clouds had rolled in and were battering the College building with rain, but it lasted only a moment.  She turned and looked behind her to see…


    “A dragon?” Vaterin asked.  Marble startled.  I suppose I knew she was there, but I forgot.  Everything still felt unreal, and now that she was staring at the four-limbed, serpentine body of the dragon of Tourmaline Isle, it had taken on a nightmarish quality.  A massive geyser was erupting from the ocean below, and the dragon’s body was coiled on the water.


    “The dragon we know as Tourmaline, who bargains with the College,” she said softly.


    Brother Pitch burst into the room—where was he before?—followed by Mother Superior Honoria—oh.  Fetching the Mother Superior.  Both of them bowed deeply, not quite kneeling, before Tourmaline.  Divinely appointed, like Queens, dragons are the only other creature kneeling before would not be a heresy.  That they’re not… suggests relations have soured.  Perhaps it was just as well and just about time that I accepted patronage somewhere away from the College, it won’t last long without fresh water.


    The dragon, the gentle blue color of a spring sky, spoke without opening her mouth.  “I demand the painter.”  The painter… must be me.


    What did I do?  I thought I was done with dragons, and yet they continue to be relevant to my life.  Vaterin stood next to Marble and pulled her to her feet, murmuring, “I’ll go with you.  I’ll always go with you.”


    Marble kissed Vaterin on the cheek.  Such a charming sentiment.  The dragon can eat two as well as one, but at least we’ll be together in Heaven.  This must be another forgotten rule of the agreement the College made with Tourmaline.  “I’m the painter, assuming this is what you’re looking for.”  The dragon held up a claw to the side of her head, and Marble realized she was speaking through a window.  Brother Pitch hurried forward and opened a window on a hinge, a rush of cold air accompanying it.  Marble repeated herself and picked up her painting by the sides of the canvas, holding it up for Tourmaline to see.  The dragon nodded and gestured for her to come forward.


    The Mother Superior spoke up then.  “I will not allow you to harm one of my students.  If we’ve violated the terms of our agreement with you, we will pay appropriate tribute, but I will not let you hurt her!  What she’s done is a miracle!  She leaves with the ship today, she’ll be out of your domain and someone else’s problem!”  Vaterin looked shocked.  When Mother Superior Honoria had spoken during sermons, she had been soft-spoken, gentle, and affectionate toward her charges.  Marble, on the other hand, had seen her passion before, and simply felt touched that she was worthy to be the target of it.


    “It is a miracle, as you would understand it,” Tourmaline once again spoke, and this time Marble felt what she suspected was the tickle of air sorcery, or something like it—water dragons can’t use air sorcery, can they?  It’s been a long-standing tenet of the faith that humans are special in that, through our faith, we can access all four spheres of magic, while dragons as punishment for shielding the first humans were restricted to their element.  That’s why Tourmaline is sitting on a geyser instead of flying.  But then she’s speaking into our minds?  Marble realized she had tuned out the very voice of the dragon.  “—would speak with the artist, I will not harm her.”


    “I’m going with her!” Vaterin declared.


    Tourmaline regarded Marble’s love, her defiant wide stance and arms crossed over her chest.  “The spirit mage.  Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”


    “Not enough trouble by half, if you’re not taking me seriously!”  Vaterin, I love you but you’re doing a stupid.  She could devour you, maybe not whole, but easily enough.


    “What did I do?” Marble asked Tourmaline.


    “That is a secret you and I will both keep,” the dragon said.  “If you and your… companion will accompany me to my lair, I will explain.  I strongly advise that you assent, it will work out well for you.”


    “Vaterin?”


    “Dragons are the patrons and protectors of humans, and she says that she means you no harm.  She said you were a worker of wonders and that she wanted to talk to you.  But you were woolgathering.”


    Pique tinged Tourmaline’s mental voice, “You were tuning out me?”  She sighed, somehow.  “Artists are temperamental creatures.  I knew this.  I will forgive it.  Don’t let it happen again.”  What happens if I do it again?  But Marble nodded and turned towards the door.  “No!”  Tourmaline declared.  “Out of the window.  I will catch you.  Your companion may bear the canvas, I want your focus to be on safely clambering out.  It is replaceable, you are not.”


    “Well that’s an auspicious statement,” Vaterin muttered.


    Marble straddled the windowsill and tentatively put weight on her outside foot, and found it to be… solid.  Standing on solid air, when she wobbled she felt an invisible force catch her.  She looked at Tourmaline and saw that the dragon’s third eye was glowing.  I wonder what that means.  Vaterin followed her out, a little awkwardly with the canvas, but was similarly buoyed.  The two of them were lofted into the claws of the dragon, and the geyser began to descend into the sea, dragon and painters with it.  Marble stole one last glance up at Brother Pitch and Mother Superior Honoria, looking with concern out the window of the art room.


    When they reached the level of the sea, Vaterin yelped, but her shoes remained dry.  It was as though an invisible bowl were holding the water at bay.  In moments they were within a bubble of air under the water, and still descending into the sea.  “Water sorcery?” Vaterin asked Marble.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    But it was Tourmaline who replied.  “I am holding the sea at bay.  I would not flood the land led to by the young soulcerer’s painting.”


    “It’s sorcery?” Vaterin asked.  But Tourmaline said nothing, and they continued down into the watery depths, grasped firmly by her foreclaws.  Marble decided to enjoy the trip.  The gentle luminescence of Tourmaline’s third eye and the wan sunlight that made it down this deep in the sea let her gaze at schools of fish and other sea creatures.  I didn’t know we had otters this far north.  Or maybe they’re seals?  I don’t know a ton about sea creatures.  It was always a sore spot, things that live in the water.  But they’re pretty… I should be paying attention in case Tourmaline speaks, though I doubt she’d eat us after she was so insistent upon my caution and safety.


    They moved along the ocean bed into a rocky cave in the side of the same cliffs which supported the College, and from there into a natural cavern somehow dry despite being under the water.  Marble looked around, curiously.  It was decorated with tapestries rendered in blues and golds, and what Marble could only characterize as a bed-shaped pile of gemstones lay in the middle of the cavern floor.  Lining the walls were art pieces ranging from paintings to sculptures.  She even recognized one as her own work, from the previous semester which had started in Capricorn.


    “Now then,” Tourmaline said, “now that we are assured some measure of privacy, I will explain.  What your companion holds in her hands is a soul painting, soul magic, soulcery if you will.  It is a lost art, one which dragonkind has known would someday be recovered, and that it would usher in a new Age of magic.”


    “How will it usher in a new age if you keep it secret in your lair?” Marble demanded.


    Tourmaline looked down at her, and Marble swallowed before the dragon answered, “It is not yet time.  Trust in the wisdom of dragons.  Now then, tell me what happened.”


    Marble shrugged helplessly.  She didn’t remember what had happened.  “I was painting, and I was patient—”


    Tourmaline interrupted her.  “Patience is a gift of the Spirit.  Were you visited by Saint Nicholas?”


    “Oh.  I suppose I was.  That’s where I should tell you what happened?”


    “Everything between then and now.”


    So Marble recounted the night she and Vaterin had spent after the All Saviors’ Day feast.  It felt strange, to share something so personal, but who could deny a dragon?  “The next day, it was as though I didn’t just have five days left, it felt like I had the time the One God had given me and I knew it would be enough for what He intended for me to accomplish.  So I set out to paint home, which I was finally letting go of returning to, and… a few days later I was nearly done and that’s where it gets a bit hazy.”


    “I can fill things in a little bit,” Vaterin said.  “I was watching her.  I paint her.  A lot.  And I love her.  Also a lot.”  Vaterin related the glowing, the emotional distance, the nature of the painting she was still holding in her hands.  Tourmaline nodded as she went on.  “So why is this a secret, if it will usher in a new Age?”


    “You are impertinent, human.”


    “My question is quite pertinent.  You’ve brought us into your secret, lucre-filled lair to privately discuss—interrogate us, you’re not even discussing it because all you’ve given us is a name.  Soul magic.”


    “Soulcery.  A pun,” Marble said softly.  “I am with Vaterin.”


    “It is not so much that it needs to stay a secret indefinitely as that I want to make sure, on behalf of dragonkind, that it is revealed in the proper way.  Humans will benefit greatly from this art, merchants in particular.  Little spirit mage, you may yet buy your way back into your family with this soulcerer.  Distance is as nothing.”


    “What did I do?” Marble insisted.


    “It was likely the fruit that did it.  The patience.  You took the time, possessed the skill, and put forth the sincere love and effort necessary to paint perfectly a location separated by space.  You have created a portal which leads directly to your parents’ estate.”


    “Hey, that’s wonderful!” Vaterin declared.  “Can she go back through it?  Or is it one way?”


    “The dove, Vaterin,” Marble said.  “It flew through.  It’s a window.  I could go home at any time.”


    “She is correct,” Tourmaline said.  “Only one painting is needed to link two locations, though destroying the painting destroys the portal.  It will render vast distances trivial as long as you have a suitably large canvas.  In Ages before Age, humans took entire caravans through canvases painted over the course of years, the investment of energy and time worth the world-spanning savings.”


    “So why did this have to be related privately?!” Marble demanded.


    “This power could be misused.  It has been used to march armies into heartlands, spirit thieves into sanctorums, and that must not happen again.  The knowledge will be spread by dragons, that humanity is once again in tune enough with the One God to perform this miracle, and they will patronize humans skilled enough to create them.  By the time the knowledge falls into the wrong hands, hopefully humanity will have matured enough to avoid… well, another Age of Loss.”


    “So the Age of Loss was caused by humans after all!” Vaterin said.


    “After a fashion, yes.”  She’s being circumspect.  But there are bigger issues at hand.


    “As amazed as I am, and as grateful for the explanation of what I’ve done, I have a patron I must depart to serve.  Both of us do.  I assume we are sworn to secrecy, but what happens if I produce another work of this nature?”


    Tourmaline shook her head.  “You will not be going to your human patron, soulcerer, you will be patronized by me.”  She waved a claw dismissively.  “I know, you will want more favorable terms for your College, wealth for yourself, all things which can be worked out.”  The dragon scooped up a handful of blue gemstones, each the size of a pearl, and poured them out over Marble’s head.  “I could restore the fortunes of your parents, cancel the debt of the water sorcerer.  After all, no mortal would stand against a dragon for long.  But I will be your patron, and you will remain where I can keep you safe.”


    “As appealing as that offer is, I have other arrangements made.  I would keep my patron, because of her proximity to the patron of my love, of Vaterin.”


    “Mortal, one does not turn down an offer of draconic patronage.”


    “Dragon, a mortal does not turn away from the love of one’s life.”


    There was a long and pregnant pause, while the dragon stared down the noblewoman.  Marble held her head high, as she had been taught in her youth, as she had seen Vaterin do, and as she was entirely capable of doing even in the face of death.  Finally, Tourmaline nodded.  “Your dedication does you credit, Bitumen.  I will patronize your lover as well.”  She’s not my lover, she is my love!  “Your love, then.”  So she can perform air sorcery.  “Your thoughts are straying, mortal.  Attend me.  I will be your patron, and your love’s patron, and I will restore the fortunes of both your parents and the college.  Particular terms we will work out in time.  But you will stay here, with your love, and practice your art.  Practice?  You may well teach your art, once we find a pupil of suitable virtue!”


    Marble turned to Vaterin.  Vaterin set down the painting, carefully leaning it against a cavern wall, and they held hands.  Vaterin laughed and said, “Tourmaline did say one does not turn down an offer of draconic patronage.  I’ll accept if you will.”


    “It all worked out.  It really did.”  Marble scooped up a hand of the gemstones Tourmaline had poured over her head.  “This will pay handsomely for a marriage ceremony.”  She let them fall from her fingers and pulled Vaterin close for a kiss.


    When they kissed, it had a different character than many of the kisses they had shared.  It was not a stolen moment during a full and demanding schedule.  It was not an abeyance of an inevitable and painful separation.  It wasn’t even a defiant enjoyment of a minor intimacy despite a peanut gallery.  It was a joyful kiss, a kiss where their nerves sang with the happiness of a couple guaranteed proximity, security, and the freedom to pursue their hearts’ wishes.  And that, I think, is more beautiful even than the painting.