Cacopheny. The half-breed had never realized he'd had a name until Chiya had asked him what it was. Then, and only then, did he know. It echoed in him, filling some of the lonely, empty places with sound. The shadows whispered it to him like a charm, like a spell, like a lullaby, while he lay in the darkness and let the pounding of his head subside. They seemed pleased, but it might just have been because they had a new name to call him, or even just because his head hurt so badly. Whatever it was, he didn't care. He had a name, a name that was his and his alone, something, finally, that did not belong to Her.

The next span of time, indeterminate with night and day indistinguishable from each other, Cacopheny spent restlessly, either prowling his chamber from wall to wall, hissing under his breath at the shadows, at himself, at his absent Mistress and Mother, or else dreaming equally frantic and uneasy dreams in which he was overwhelmed and frightened and intrigued by so many new things. His awareness had slipped back into the endless Now of his cell with Her, divided into day and night by Her visits and the presence of the shadows, only his daytime now was marked by the times when Chiya came, opening the door to let the light beyond inside, bringing food and conversation.

He now understood what Aedelian Landwerlen's shadow had said, when it told him it was going to give him something: what it had given him was words. The words Chiya spoke, earnest and concerned, happy and smiling, once completely incomprehensible, now made sense and had meaning. Cacopheny listened, trying to learn, trying to form the words with his own mouth, but they were so strange and different from what She had taught him that it was difficult, and Chiya did not always understand him. Some days, he would be furious: with her for not understanding, with himself for not being able to make himself understood, with Aedelian Landwerlen for forcing this awkward and frustrating situation onto him, with Her for not teaching these words to him, and, as always, with the shadows for their constant jeering and interruptions. They even tried a few times to dive into him and interrupt in a more obvious fashion, but so far he thought he had fended them off.

Another change, insisted upon by Ketvia, was that he was now to wear strange blankets all the time, "clothes" they were called. Chiya and Ketvia and Aedelian Landwerlen wore them, and so Cacopheny must, also. He wasn't sure if he liked the idea or not, to hide himself behind clothes the way he'd always wanted to hide from Her, while at the same time feeling so closed in and constricted. While he gnawed at the idea in his own mind, he stubbornly refused most of the items brought to him, frustrating Ketvia into shouting at him while her shadow hissed threats which were surprisingly frightening. He still refused; they were too bright, to pale, to clean, to noticeable. Finally Chiya began to understand and brought him shadows to wear. Those, he finally accepted, though with reluctance that hid fear of what they would do to him. She showed him how to climb into them, pull them over him, work lacings and buttons and bindings, while the shadows laughed and whispered and wondered. His first set of clothes made it hard to breathe, but Chiya promised the feeling would pass, and it did. Still, he only wore them when Chiya came.

Slowly, so slowly that Cacopheny did not notice it for a very long span of his own brief days and nights, the room began to lighten. The shadows did not seem to notice, did not seem to even be affected by the growing light, the lessening dark, the increasing paleness that filtered through the dead black of his eyes. He finally noticed when the door opened, bringing a new day to him, and he was not blinded completely by the sudden intrusion of it. Instead, he sat blinking, almost able to make out Aedelian Landwerlen's face against the light of beyond.

"Well," he said brightly, and the light of his voice did not make him flinch, either. "I do believe our little monstrous Cacopheny is ready for the outside world. Why don't you get your clothes on and I'll show you around." It was not a question and Cacopheny balked, glaring and baring his teeth, but Aedelian Landwerlen waited patiently, and because he felt so restless and confined, as if what had been his world was no longer adequate, Cacopheny slowly began to dress.

Then they were outside, and Cacopheny shrank in on himself habitually, hunching his shoulders, ducking his head so that his hair half-hid his face, and pulling the shadows around him to shield him from the light that no longer bothered him as badly. He perceived that it was still dim, compared to the brightness of daylight, but it was enough to make him think of the sun and Her.

"Such a sour expression, Cacopheny," Aedelian Landwerlen commented, making Cacopheny frown at him, which in turn made Aedelian Landwerlen laugh. It was a more musical sound than Cacopheny's own braying laugh, but not as beautiful as Chiya's silver laugh. "And my, I never realized just how tall you are."

He was tall. He towered over Aedelian Landwerlen, even hunched. He blinked, at that, looking from the top of Aedelian Landwerlen's hair to his own, black-covered chest, and frowned again. "Vell. Vell, yooh. Vell yooh mehbeee arrrreh. Too short." The frown melted into a scowl at his own ineptness at communicating, but Aedelian Landwerlen only chuckled, understanding well enough somehow.

"Perhaps. But I, unlike you, can fix that." And suddenly there was no longer a short, golden-skinned, dark-haired man beside him, but a tall, golden-furred, dark-finned dragon. Cacopheny leaped aside, shadows swirling protectively and hissing, baring his teeth in surprise and threat. The dragon spoke to him with Aedelian Landwerlen's voice, and his shadow laughed. "It's still me. You know how Chiya and Ketvia have their two forms-- well, so do I."

"Tcheeyah," Cacopheny echoed. "Keht-vya. Yessss, tooo. All... all... trah-gohn? Drah-gohn. Yoo, too? Drah-gohn?"

"Yes," Aedelian Landwerlen agreed. "And that is a nice trick, moving the shadows around like that. I'm curious what all you can do with it."

Suspicious, warned by the shadows, Cacopheny fell silent. The dragon waited a moment, then rolled his pale wings in a shrug. "In your own time, I expect. Come along, then, I'll show you around my home, and even the city, if you like." He started walking again, at a slow pace that Cacopheny could match even being so much smaller than he, and after a moment Cacopheny followed, the shadows relaxing against the walls and himself again. "It isn't much of a city," Aedelien Landwerlen continued, "not compared to cities off-world. Or even to Sanctuary, really. We're more of a village here, or maybe even a town."

The dragon, an Air dragon Cacopheny now knew, continued to chatter easily as he led Cacopheny through a small collection of caves, changing subjects more quickly and easily than even the shadows did, though still in that laid-back, cheerful tone. He described things in the caves, their uses, purposes, and the stories behind how they were made or acquired. They met no other dragons, which was fine with Cacopheny, though he wondered where Chiya and Ketvia were.

"Out on the meadow," Aedelian Landwerlen answered the unspoken thought. "Playing with the children. For how much she professes to hate dragonets, Ketvia certainly does enjoy keeping them entertained."

For a moment, Cacopheny wondered how the dragon had heard him, but dismissed it. One of the shadows had told him, most likely, or he had asked out loud without realizing it. Such things had been known to happen. "Vee ken-- ko? To sssehm? Yesss?"

You sound ridiculous.

All out of order.

You can't even pronounce it right.

Listen to how he talks. You sound nothing like him.

Who'd want to?

It's a disgusting language, anyway....

Aedelian Landwerlen was talking again, and Cacopheny tried to ignore the shadows. "Of course," he was saying, nodding his great head. "They will be expecting me to bring you out to them once we're finished in here, anyway, I expect. Chiya is quite pleased with your progress, and quite keen on teaching you everything there is to know about everything there is to know. I keep telling her to slow down and think less rapidly, but no, she must make so many plans." He sighed, but not sadly, and they moved out into daylight.

Cacopheny flinched, dazzled by the sun but not blinded, and ducked into Aedelian Landwerlen's shadow to escape it. The dragon looked around a moment, as if he couldn't see him, then shook himself. "You really do have some odd talents," he murmured, as if to himself, then continued, "Come out of there, where I can see you. You disappear when you do that, you know."

"Tissssap-p-peer?" Cacopheny echoed, coming back out but still standing so that the much larger body blocked the sun from his view, squinting unhappily. "I too?"

"Yes," Aedelian Landwerlen nodded. "You do. Come along, I'll bring you to Chiya and Ketvia."

They found the familiar dragons on the middle of a wide, open space of grass and flowers, surrounded by and covered with smaller dragons, more Airs and a couple like Chiya-- Light dragons, White dragons, Aedelian Landwerlen's gift told him. For a moment, Cacopheny was startled, certain they were being attacked, being hurt, like his confused memories told him he had been when he was first surrounded and confined like that. "Of course not," Aedelian Landwerlen's voice interrupted his impulse to run to their aid. "They're playing. Haven't you ever played before?" Cacopheny shook his head mutely and followed the Air dragon down onto the meadow.

The Air dragons swarmed away from Chiya and Ketvia as they saw them coming, but this time they did not swarm to surround Cacopheny again. They looked, if anything, nervous. Confused and obscurely pleased, not to mention relieved, he stared at them, but was distracted by Chiya bounding up to him, smiling and reflecting the light all around her, making her glowing and hard to look at. "Cacopheny!" she exclaimed happily. "You came out finally!"

"I thought he seemed ready," Aedelien Landwerlen explained. "He was starting to get bored."

After a warning hiss for the dragon to stop talking for him, Cacopheny tried to smile at Chiya, but it made the Air dragons draw back a bit again. Puzzled, he squinted past Chiya at them. "Sssey vroo-eye-ten't arreh," he said more than asked. Their shadows were screaming, hurting his head.

Aedelian translated, "He's commenting that they seem frightened."

"Well, you attacked them, last time they saw you," Ketvia pointed out as she came up behind Chiya, and he frowned again, trying to remember. "Besides, those fangs of yours aren't very friendly-looking." He frowned further, remembering that when he'd met dragons in their small-- human, Aedelian Landwerlen's gift reminded him-- forms, they didn't have sharp teeth like he did, like they did when in their bigger, dragon bodies.

"I'm not afraid of him!" piped up a small voice that went with a smaller dragon. Cacopheny blinked down, forgetting to frown, at an Air dragon who's head didn't even come up to his hip, colored much like Aedelian Landwerlen. Her shadow boldly cursed him, but smiled as it did so.

"Koot," he found himself saying. "Koot." Good.

"This is Enyi," Chiya introduced her.

"My granddaughter," Aedelian Landwerlen added proudly. "Of course she wouldn't be afraid. Even if you did make a lovely few rents in her fur and wings last time you met," he added dryly.

"Ap-ap-apol-oh-jzee," Cacopheny tried, and Enyi gave him a charming smile.

"No hard feelings," she chirped, and when he smiled back, she truly didn't seem afraid.