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Bådul was pondering at the bow of his boat.

His boat was not the largest his people had made, but it was all he had been afforded by the King of Åsgurdy, Swartulf II. Two others vassals who had been very impressed by Bådul’s delivery and determination had allotted him two other smaller ships.

The ships were tailored for the high seas, and in many ways were not unlike what Quintin’s Viking ancestors would have called a snekkja , or a kind of dragon boat. The three ships had been sailing alongside, for more than forty days now, very easily through the Northern Seas.

Bådul was pondering, because it had been twenty days more than any known explorer had been allowing themselves to go West (or East, for that matter), and his crew was manifesting some hints of doubts.

He was pondering also, because for the glimpses of that route that he saw through the boy’s mind, he knew that he was heading towards some kind of passageway in between the Great Rift, a chain of sub-oceanic volcanic mountains, that were showing on the surface, and likely to be treacherous, and full of eddies. Jahiz, his faithful commander in second was a skilled mariner and Bådul knew he could trust him, at least for these sailing matters.

A myna bird that Jahiz had brought with him was periodically sent as a scout in the vast seas in front of them, to report any trouble that may lay ahead.

And now, as Badul was still pondering he had still not seen the damn foul-mouthed bird back, some seamen started to shout, as a black point was appearing in the midst of dark clouds.

And finally, Rudy the myna (which was actually named Mercurius but that had been too long to pronounce for the rough crew) landed like a wet grenade at the feet of Badul howling “Mind your backs! Mind your backs!”

Speaking of dreams, Quintin suddenly remembered he had dreamed of a woman detective, by night, near a museum in London, in the 1920s. She was investigating a case of a strange disappearance near a small replicate of an Egyptian pyramid that had been put here for display. There had been an exposition of ancient artifacts in the museum, which had been recently unearthed by a team of archaeologists and graciously lent by Egypt’s officials.

Strangely enough, he felt the woman detective was linked to the story, and was in fact Dory. He could feel the other participants were people closely related to the woman too…

He didn’t really expect Dory would be giving him her two pence on this quaint dream…

—

Actually, thinking of Dory made Quintin remember a notepad photocopy that she had sent him last year when she had been in Madagascar for the first time, visiting some local caves. He never actually gave much thought to these funny drawings, but now they seemed to have some kind of interesting connection to all of this…

Today, which was the day of the autumn equinox, had been a bright day over the Orkney Islands, quite unusual for this time of the year.

Nanny Gibbon had been taking the twins for a walk into the nearby woods of the domain, were they could enjoy the wood dewberries that were ripe and delicious at this season. The twins loved picking them directly on the thorny bushes and eating them until their hands were full of the dark stains left by the sweet juice of the fruits.

They knew that Nanny Gibbon would pick enough to make some delicious jam, perhaps to accompany some of her famous sweet pumpkin pies.

When they came back to the Manor, they were exhausted by the afternoon spent in the lovely sunlight. After having washed their hands thoroughly, they didn’t really care for anything else but some sleep.

But as they moved inside the corridors, Cuthbert noticed he had carelessly left opened his bedroom’s door, and a prick of fear for the precious books had him immediately rush to the room.

And Cuthbert gasped in horror as he saw his book flown open on the floor, and the old grumpy cat Manfred, asleep on top of one of the blank pages.

Manfred had the nasty habit of clawing everything, especially the huge soft armchair of Lord Wrick, but his antics were elegantly accepted by the old gaunt Lord.

When he heard Cuthbert enter the room, the old fluffy cat raised an inquisitive eyebrow and moved very slowly and deliberately out of the book pages, only to reveal the immaculate pages, as whole as if the book had been brand new.

Cuthbert was thrilled with joy. Manfred had not done anything to the precious book. He would have stroked the cat with gratitude, but the creature had moved out of the room very swiftly for its old age, in a haughty look of total disregard for the little boy.

At least the book was intact. But what if… Cuthbert wondered… He started to look at the page, and new images started to form before his eyes…

When Bernhard, making his black panther puppet Archie speak, had answered the tongue-in-cheek burning question that was on everyone’s lips:

— Does Dory’s part of the story seem logical to you?

the answer had come as a surprise to many…

— Yes he had answered… adding a few moments afterwards, though that there is some mistranslation within the interpretation. [¹]

Archie also said that we were moving to a center of a seesaw which represents within your understanding an awareness of “it matters not”.

Ahahah, how greatly befuddling a new riddle would that be? Perhaps the answer was very simple too. Something like “egg”…

All that Quintin was sure, was that Dory surely enjoyed bouncing on seesaws juggling with a basketful of eggs!

Perhaps, it mattered not after all… Perhaps, perhaps not… or not yet…

Well, Archie had also admitted during the night he didn’t really care being a parrot in that story… Perhaps he had finally lost it too, as would certainly say Fiona, who was their last beacon of sanity in that insane adventure.

—

[¹] Note from your impartially unbiased reporter: (phew)

India Louise had been switching her own book with Cuthbert’s that night. And as she was exploring some of the stories told in his, he was having a peek into hers.

Very quickly, he became aware of a whole new continent, in that World, across the Middle Seas. In that continent far North of the one where Malvina’s was living, lived some intrepid people. They were strong with big voices, and a bit quarrelsome too. Their ways had forgotten lots about Magix and they placed most of the value into tangible items.

The next page, a man was sailing across the Middle Seas with a handful of trusted men. He was a captain pirate, named Båd Al’Guz, which meant, Båd son of Guz. His crew referred to him as Bådul.

Cuthbert was intrigued by this man, and had begun to discuss with him mentally, asking who he was, who were his people. The same as Cuthbert had been very innocently doing with gentle Malvina.

But Bådul was tricky, and after a bit of a surprise, very soon discovered that the little boy could be a very interesting informant, though an unusual one.

And in fact, his information was much more interesting than that which the shamans of King Wulfrick babbled in the most inspired manner.

Till now, from the mouths of the buck-pelts clothed shamans had only came stupid gibberish that the King and his court gobbled endlessly. Something about “YaWn”, as they said: You animate Worlds neatly .

How stupid was that? Their only answers were useless to him, they were only telling him that he activated and animated the Worlds neatly, and that, in short, nothing was fixed and he could do anything.

Well, with that boy, that was different. He was talking about a cave with gilded dragon eggs, and THAT was of a great value to Bådul.

But of course, he would not frighten the young boy and pretended that his intentions were that of an explorer, trying to discover new shores and new continents, so as to become closer to understand from where he came, and hopefully make people aware of their closeness to each others.

He was such an eloquent actor that he almost shed a tear saying that sentence.

As a matter of fact, for as long as he remembered, he had been wandering in many situations, and lots of them had not been very pleasant. Born from uncaring parents, as lots, if not all, of his people were, working as a janitor in a sordid tavern, then as a warden (if not executioner when requested) in an even more sordid jail… Were the Gods to be blamed for that? Well, according to the shamans, he was the only one to be blamed, because he did not accept his responsibility as a weaver of Worlds.

Idiots.

At least, he had found his passion. He love sailing, and taking riches for his pleasure. Whatever then, he would take his share, and not care about what was next.

At least, if he could coax the boy into revealing more about that cave.

Dory’s guide was trying not to lose her again in the densely crowded streets, and had to honk in his mini-van furiously to keep the pace…

What a mad woman! he thought, But I must admit she knows her stuff, she heading right to the cave, even though she’s not from here!

A parrot zoomed past her singing Goooooot the keeeey! in the middle of the unperturbed crowd.

Jacqueline Bleomelen was a strict yet very affectionate nanny. Her Breton name being barely pronounceable by the English speaking kids she had at her charge, she was most of the time simply called Nanny.

Once, one of the rude kids from a previous home where she had been serving an atrociously callous French Count, had called her an Old Gibbon, referring to her wrinkled face. But she had a very light-hearted nature, and wouldn’t show any hint of taking offense.

Better, she liked the association with the playful and ingenious apes, and kept the moniker as it was more easily pronounced by the English kids she had in charge, and made them laugh that they could be so irreverent without facing punishment.

For special occasions, Jacqueline was wearing a funny costume that made the children often wonder why she had put some funny hat with little moth-feelers loose on her chin, but that, she had explained was a traditional dress from her homeland of Brittany.

Tonight, Jacqueline, or Nanny Gibbon, was having a funny dream, but perhaps that have been because she had been very excited by that excerpt she had read before going to sleep. As she was very pious, every night before going to bed, she would read a random quote of the Bible.

Last night it had been the Old Testament, from the Book of Joshua. It was about the conquest of the Promise Land, and talked about a king from Hazor named Jabin…

And in her dream, Jabin was a strange looking man, lost in the middle of ruins, who wanted to contact a woman about discoveries he had made in the Promise Land. He had found an entrance to a cave that had befuddled him. He hadn’t ventured too far into the cave, but anytime he had, he had found it impossibly deep and wide. So he wanted to share that discovery with that woman, but she was flying around in a parrot-coloured ballet tutu, on top of a three-humped flying camel…

Even the rigorous Jacqueline couldn’t repress a laugh at the unlikely images that her tired mind had produced.

BelleDora, the buxom maid of Huÿgens, winked at Illi.

She was somewhat familiar, a nurturing presence that reminded Illi of the maid she and her parents had in their cottage in South Africa. Except that BelleDora had big hairy feelers, like a huge velvety moth, and that her father and mother wouldn’t have been careless enough to recruit a maid with such laisser-aller.

She was perhaps dead in that dirty hole, but she was obviously still alive in this dirty hole. They all claimed she was something hairy and funny… a what’s the name already? A grim shawl? whatever…

Bugger this…

She was having a hard time putting all her thoughts together. She felt like she was many people at once, and none of whom were of great help to her current adventure…

Perhaps she would have to play the game to discover more of what or who she was?

So she asked BelleDora to explain more about this strange land.

And BelleDora was more than eager to provide some answers…

Of all the eggs Malvina had been collecting since the beginning of her settling down in the cave with Leörmn, only one had been producing a baby dragon, till now.

She had nicknamed her Buckberry, because the little one seemed so fond of the buckberries that grew at the entrance of the cave.

Buckberries were a variety of wild big electric blue-vermilion reddish berries, and were known to have thwarted all attempts to be grown in gardens. In a legendary past, a famous king of the near Kingdoms named Hadraz the Third was said to have been loving these fruits so much that he had spent torrents of gold in trying to have them farmed in the precious glasshouses of his realm. All the attempts of the most knowledgeable Master Farmers had been amounting to nilch.

This habit of Buckberry, for one moment had been making Malvina anxious of him revealing the location of their safe haven. As she could and would not prevent him to go in search for them, she created some powerful spells to hide him, at least from people to whom the little dragon had not revealed his true name first.

That had caused some stir from some people who where adventuring near the cave to pick up some of the juicy fruits that could be easily spotted from the plains, as they noticed a heavy breath and * munch * sound around the bushes, that moved like shaken down by a powerful ghost.

Thus has begun the trail of rumours saying that the cave was haunted.

All in all, Malvina was not so displeased that there were only a few eggs hatching at a time, as the young dragons were very lively, much more so than the older ones who kept most of their time sleeping, or more aptly put, dreaming.

Dragons had no need for training in a sense, as they were aware of their abilities, and Buckberry, even being so young could just have been moving away and started his own adventure, but something was compelling him to stay in the cave.

He had chosen a different form from that of Leörmn, and it was indicating he would not have the same intent. As he would continue to grow, he would probably be a very powerful dragon, shaped for flight and discoveries in the farthest boundaries of the Worlds. At times, Leörmn even doubted he would be fit for a human partner, as he had only managed to scare the few humans he had encountered…

After all, it was not necessary, though dragons could draw a lot from such a partnership.

Dragons were not always welcome, as they were feared for their might, and could not always easily explain what they were doing, as most of their movements were in the Unseen.

In that, only Ragmók, the old speech of the dragons could be used to properly explain these movements. Ragmók was not really a speech, in the human sense, as it could also be spoken through gestures or singing or drawing. But it was the very essence of Magix.

When a dragon and a human bonded, they shared their languages in a communion of their spirits, and the chosen human could delve easily into the Unseen, while providing to the chosen dragon an ease of movement into the Seen.

This morning, Fiona and Quintin had a small impromptu chat —or rather, prompted by the story they were all weaving, that Archie, the puppet black panther, had been telling them last week-end that it was a magic connection between all of them…

Quintin: Your story was great!

Fiona: Thank you So was yours.

Have you written any more since I last looked at the story?

Quintin: no, I’m not that much inspired… I even considered to wrap in up in a way, but seeing you were all drawing so much from it, I think I will leave it open ever after…

Fiona: no, wrap it up if you feel.

I have drawn what I wanted. I will go and blow up the cave if we don’t finish it

Quintin: Ahahaha! Don’t restrict yourself

Fiona: When you started the Malvina story, did you have an idea where it would go, or did you pick that one because you had no idea?

Quintin: This one nagged me because there were many people I felt behind it and I did not know how to get them to show up and make their presences known. And I felt that it was loose enough too, to allow people to jump into it; and there was your initial interest in the picture

Fiona: The endearing dragons…

Quintin: Yeah…

But I had strictly no idea about the rest. It was just a bet, on luck…

That’s funny, because I had a strange impression of a little girl yesterday, in a futuristic city, named something like Janice , and it was like she knew now what she wanted to do, and it was something similar to that, something like creating worlds for other people, in which they could have fun, or heal, or explore things…

Fiona: And did she have any impression of what form that could take? Like books, or games or what…

Quintin: No, it was much more “real” in fact…

Fiona: you know like the card-captor game which I suppose is interactive, so real

Quintin: Yeah, perhaps a bit like that, yes; or like creating a ball of energy in which people can be drawn and experience as they will. It’s only a translation, but that’s the idea… in a way, that’s very similar to a game or a book, but only that it just feels totally “real”

Fiona: So a little bit like I have done with the story, to resolve something

Quintin: yeah, exactly, or with your paintings

Fiona: It can be really useful to take on other personas to do that, even like in drama type situations, being someone else…

Quintin: Yeah, people can unleash their imagination.

And I think there are still lots of things that we can expand in this universe in fact, not only related to the cave…

Fiona: such as? eggsamples?

Quintin: You said it! The eggs and relationships with dragons, all the magical artifacts or creatures. Didn’t you want a baby dragon?

Fiona: Yeah, I told you I did, but you just said some riddle!

Quintin: Did I? That’s not like me

Fiona: Ahahhaha! It is you to the core

Quintin: LOL, damn me!

Fiona: Well, that is a bit strong, but …

Quintin: Ahahahahah. I said you would have to earn his trust? (or hers, for that matter)

Fiona: I can’t remember the eggsact wording, I think I had to work for it though, like you weren’t just handing out dragons on a plate

Quintin: It could bound with you very strongly and help you unravel your unknown magical powers. It’s not just a creature, it’s a complex personality, you cannot just take it like a puppy. There is a sharing between the two…

Fiona: So are you going to allocate baby dragons to people or what? Or shall I just go and find an egg that no one knew was there

Quintin: Ahahah, no, they will not be allocated, they will choose their own partners

Fiona: Ahahaha, one minute you say it is my story! And now you are back in control

Quintin: Ahahaha, the story has a willing of its own too…

Try to do what you want, it’s not a matter of control ; it’s just you’ll know what clicks and what does not…

Quintin: And actually, I don’t think everyone will be interested in dragons…

Fiona: How does a dragon help one learn magic powers?

Quintin: It’s just because there is an openness between the two; let me find something for you, that Elias (you know, Michaela’s partner), has told to me and Yann, when we had them on the phone last month.

Elias : I would express to you that, as you focus your energies with each other, and you allow yourselves to merge and feel into each others’ energies, you may in actuality each discover some obstacles that the other may not necessarily be aware of yet, and you can share that with each other, and therefore facilitate your interactions even further.

Fiona: And how having a baby dragon could help unleash our magic powers then?

Quintin: It helps because it reinforces your trust in your own abilities to connect. It’s not directing, it’s a sharing and exploration for both of them; that’s why they are picky. As you would be picky too, knowing you would share together all the darkest corners…

Fiona: I am not sure if i have dark corners

Quintin: it was a metaphor

Fiona: ahahahhahahahahahah

Fiona: I know, so was mine

Quintin: ahahahahah

Fiona: I was thinking I feel really accepting of myself

Quintin: Yeah, that’s the point in the little adventure before you meet it.

You have shown your trust in yourself and in your abilities, and your self-centeredness, which is essential, for the dragon doesn’t want a frail personality. Because he drops his defenses too when he shares and bonds.

Fiona: Well I think it sounds scarey now, what if no dragon picked me…

Quintin: There will be instant recognition. And you don’t “need” a dragon actually, that’s what is important: it’s a catalyst, nothing more, nothing less…

Fiona: True.

Quintin: Like Arona managed to sneak into the cave without giving the answer to the riddle (egg-sitingly) because it mattered not to her, whatever the outcome, she was directing of herself.

Fiona: I felt like I have pictures now to assist me. I link strongly to pictures as a quick reference when I start to feel something like a negative emotion, for instance I may start to worry about how I am going to have enough money, or whatever, and I could quickly link to the spider picture

Quintin: you mean, you create an imagery, right? That is something which I like in your stories and emails; even though it is not necessary to create imagery, it’s always so entertaining, like having these funny creatures pop in the cave!

Fiona: Ahahahaha yes

Quintin: And also, in creating imagery, it helps you seeing it in a more neutral way

Fiona: I suppose it is just a quick trigger for the desired belief. I can link in quickly with the child, when I start to feel left out, for example.

Quintin: yeah, beliefs as an alphabet or a palette, neutral, but that can create words and sentences or images. And the imagery of the child was very similar for me, to that of the playfulness picture

Fiona: Yeah, I know… That’s what I said to you with the playfulness picture

Quintin: Of course, you know

Fiona: That I related most to the figure of blue hat… and big feet

Quintin: Ahahaha, stomping on the poor key-fish

Fiona: Nearly…

Quintin: Have to go now, thank you for this enjoyable conversation

Fiona: See you!