"What?! Everything? Thief! Blaggard! Y'ate everything! I'll feed you to the fishes if I don't eat you m'self, you son of a dragon's whore!"

Malikhail woke with a jolt. Did he oversleep? Why did Dragana think he ate all the food? His vision was blurry. A large shadow with waving hands loomed over him. "I didn't eat anything, Dragana!" he said and covered his head just in case she'd land a blow to it.

"Darganya? Are you speaking in tongues?" said an old female voice that was not the matriarch's.

Malikhail rubbed his eyes and squinted them until the blurry image focused on an old woman who looked younger than the crone of Malikhail's nightmares. She had graying wavy hair that fell from a messy bun on top of her head and high cheek bones that held up sunken dark blue eyes. Uneven yellow teeth peeked out of her snarling mouth. She was of middling height, but Malikhail felt like she filled up the entire hut with her anger alone. The grey cloth and fish nets that made up her dress did not obscure her big hips as it did her small breasts. Her browned skin was loose and flabby, hanging off her bone frame as if the meat and fat had been sucked out of her body. As a result, the corners of her body looked sharp. In her right hand was a curved wooden cane which waved dangerously close to Malikhail's head.

She was definitely not Dragana.

It was then that he became aware that he still laid in the old woman's bed, with the front of his body open to damage. He kicked out at her, forcing her to step out of range. With the space, Malikhail rolled off the bed and onto the floor. The energy he had to use to pull that move off burned out of him fast, and he had to grab the edge of the bed to steady himself when he began to sway. He scanned the hut for the source of what was making him hot, but when he saw no fire inside, he realized his body raged with a high fever.

The old woman saw his distraction. She stepped forward decisively when he was no longer looking at her, raised her cane, and hit him hard over the head, knocking him back onto the bed where he went unconscious.

The next time he woke up, it was to a pounding headache and heat consuming his entire body. When he got his muddled thoughts together, he discovered himself wrapped tightly in blankets held together by rope on the bed. In the middle of the hut, the old woman fed a fire she'd built with twigs and leaves. She looked up at him when he tried to move within the cocoon in which she'd put him.

"Save that energy," she said. Her already loud voice seemed amplified to Malikhail's ears and made the pounding in his head beat harder. She raised her cane warningly, and when he saw it, Malikhail stopped moving. He was too tired to sustain his efforts to escape anyway. "Good. You listen fast. You're sick from your injuries. I'm using the heat to drive it out of you. Go back to sleep and try not to die."

Malikhail looked from the fire to her. "Will you eat me?" he whispered. Somehow over the crackling fire, she heard him and chuckled, but her laugher sounded sinister to his fevered and hurting head.

"Well if y'die, I might as well cook you in that thing, eh?"

"R-Release me," he demanded weakly. He felt his eyes become heavy with fatigue and concentrated what energy he had left to fight to keep them open. Seeing that he would not go to sleep as instructed, the old woman shook her head and then heaved herself up from the squatting position in which she had been using her cane. Malikhail shrank further into the cocoon enveloping him as she stumped over. "Go away," he said. "Leave me alone. I-I can't die yet." Fear clawed through his chest and sickened his stomach when she stopped in front of him.

Malikhail clamped his jaw shut to keep from making anymore useless pleas when she reached over. He blinked as her free hand swiped lightly down his face. When she saw that he opened his eyes back again, she swiped again and again. Each time he had to close his eyes as she touched his face, his eyelids grew heavier and harder to open. Despite his spirit fighting to stay awake, his body cooperated with the old woman and forced him to drift asleep.

MMMMMM

Days later found Malikhail sitting on the edge of the bed late one night with his torso wrapped in clean bandages and a fading bruise on his forehead where the old woman had hit him with her walking stick when they first met. When his fever had broken and his strength rebounded, she had said her name was Ogygia. The name matched her foreign-sounding accent when she spoke. Her words sounded rough around the edges, and she slurred words together. He refused to talk to her at first, but she was content with his stonewalling silence and did the talking instead. After the third day since his fever broke, he opened his mouth to demand to know if she was Draconian because she spoke his language.

"Do I look like one?" she had responded with good humor. Her jowls shook with amusement along with her loose skin when he shook his head.

"Are you Tarymian?" he had demanded.

"What is a Tarymian?" she asked. "Another one of you?"

"No, they're not like us. They're weaker and evil."

"What do they look like?"

Ogygia lifted her eyebrows when Malikhail admitted that he'd never seen a Tarymian before. "Then how can you hate someone y'don't know?" she exclaimed. Malikhail had ground his teeth in response and stopped looking at her in order to hide his embarrassment. Over his silence, she'd told him, "Now that you're better, you can repay my kindness by making me the fish stew y'ate!"

MMMMMM

Malikhail looked up from the bed at the sound of Ogygia's cane just before she entered the hut. The small fire she had burning cast dancing shadows on the walls around her. "Why can't you get the fish?" he repeated again as he had been for the last few days. "I never learned. I can cook a stew but not catch fish."

"As if I haven't done enough work already!" Ogygia retorted. She set down a metal bucket full of water next to the fire before coming to stand in front of him with both hands resting on her cane. "You're gonna make me a fish stew in repayment. That means from catching the fish to cleaning to cooking."

"I'm only ten years alive. I can't do all that. And this lake is too big," he insisted. "What if I can't find my way back here?" With force, he added, "Plus, fishing is dishonorable for a Draconian!"

"S'that why Draconians die so easily from the cold?" Ogygia shot back. "You're starving over pride!" Before Malikhail could defend his race, she added with squinted eyes, "You're not much of a Draconian with those baby fangs. I saw the rest of you while you were still sick. There's s'not much else to you, is there?"

Malikhail's hands tightened into fists. "I'm half Draconian," he said through clenched teeth. He growled when the old woman threw her head back and laughed at him. "I'm still Draconian!"

"Oh yes, you're a Draconian alright." The end of her cane pointed at his right ankle, and he felt the iron ring surrounding it become unbearably heavy when she said, "D'all Draconians wear slave rings?"

His eyes began to sting. It was not his fault that no matter how hard he tried, he could not get rid of the thing that still tied him to the Rodracus family. He realized too late that tears had slipped down his face. Enraged at himself for letting his weak human emotions get the better of him, Malikhail used his fists to wipe away his shame and then glared at the ground in front of him.

He saw the flash of Ogygia's hand just before she grabbed onto his chin to lift up his face. Before he could react, her thumb plunged between his dry lips and rubbed both of his fangs. Malikhail yelled and grabbed onto her wrist. Though he tried to yank her hand away from his face, surprisingly her grip was very strong despite the frail appearance of her bony hand. He only succeeded in hurting his face more when her fingers tightened around his chin.

A sideways smile cut through her lips, revealing part of her yellow uneven teeth. "When you're ready to knock them fangs outta your mouth, I'd like t'keep 'em!"

With epic effort, Malikhail wrenched his face away from the crone. She burst out laughing as he fell backward on the bed, his hands covering his mouth. If they were back in his village, Dragana would have already ordered her death by fire or blood dragon for being a witch. It was known that witches needed a personal belonging of someone in order to control them. It was known also that the Tarymian goddess Helena used witchcraft to aid in Dragus's defeat and exile the Draconians.

"I'll teach you t'be a proper fisher. Then you can catch me a fish t'make me a stew," Ogygia said. "And what did you say back there about a lake? There's no lake, child." She pointed at the wall where beyond was the expanse of water Malikhail had seen the first time he'd arrived. "This here is an ocean. Much bigger than some puny lake!"

Malikhail sat up slowly and lowered his hands. His brow was furrowed as he processed the unfamiliar word. "O-Oh-sheen?" He recoiled when the old woman thrust her face within inches of his.

"Oh-shee-an, y'moron," she corrected. "Din't nobody tell you about it?"

Malikhail lifted his chin, getting tired of her domineering over him. "We don't have 'oh-shee-ans' where I live."

"Well, now you live near one, and I'm gonna have to teach you about it and how to properly respect it!" Ogygia said before she turned around and headed to the other side of the small fire. Using her cane as an anchor, she sunk down and sat cross-legged on the ground. She put her cane across her lap. Malikhail had noticed that since he'd taken over her bed, that was how she slept at night.

Malikhail stared at her for a few moments before saying, "I've been dreaming of this oh-shee-an—"

"Ocean! Say it properly."

"Ocean," he said with a snarl, "for weeks before I came here." He eyed her warily but she only stared back. "I followed a robin here while I was trying to chase it down."

"And then y'lost it and came upon my stew where y'ate it," Ogygia finished matter-of-factly. "Sounds like Calypso sent you that bird t'bring y'here."

"Calypso," Malikhail repeated. "Who is that?"

"Who is She," Ogygia said with reverence. "She is the ocean. She is the goddess who protects any and all that give their lives and sustain their lives with the ocean. All life started from the ocean. She is the mother of all living things."

Malikhail blinked a few times as he tried to process what the old woman had just said. "No, she isn't," he said finally. "I didn't come from the ocean. I came from humans and dragons. We were created by Dragus, who made humans with those evil Tarymian gods Helena and Onus. Then, he made the dragons who bonded with only worthy humans! This is known!" he added fiercely above Ogygia's roaring laughter. "Dragus is the most powerful and true god!"

"If He's so powerful, why'd He get banished to this hellhole ice land?"

Malikhail flicked his hand dismissively. "He was betrayed by that snake goddess Helena," he said, telling her what has been passed down for generations. "She was under the thrall of Onus, the thief god who stole Dragus's rightful place as the head of all Tarymian gods." With bitterness, Malikhail added, "That's why Tarymian women are so weak. They were made that way in Her image—to be subservient to men. Draconian women are equal to Draconian men because Dragus made it so."

"Sounds like Calypso and Dragus would be a good match," Ogygia said teasingly.

Malikhail snorted in derision. "All women are scheming and not to be trusted," he said.

Ogygia raised her thick graying eyebrows. "Even Draconian women?"

"Especially Draconian women," Malikhail said flatly while the faces of Dragana and Annunziata flitted across his mind.

"Din't you just say that Draconians were purposefully made by Dragus? Doesn't that mean if Draconian women are scheming and untrustworthy that Dragus wanted the women to be like that? Or perhaps He made a mistake?"

Malikhail stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "What are you talking about?" he said eventually, making her throw her head back and laugh.

"O Calypso, those Politickan philosophers would have th'time of their lives going 'round in circles on your head!" she cackled.

"Po-Politickan?" Malikhail repeated. "Who are those? Are they warriors?"

"Hardly," Ogygia said with rolling eyes. "Go t'sleep and I'll tell you 'bout some real warriors tomorrow after fishing lessons."

"I'm not tired," argued Malikhail. "Tell me about the real warriors! Where are they fro—" Malikhail shut his mouth when Ogygia raised her cane in the air.

"I liked you better when you were afraid of me and wouldn't talk. Now y'can't stop making noise and complaining all the time. Shut your mouth and go to sleep, or else I'll sew your lips shut," she threatened. "Y'think it's easy having these old bones and the weight of dead skin? Go t'sleep." She waited until Malikhail settled onto the bed and closed his eyes before putting the cane on her lap again. Then she picked up the bucket and threw the ocean water on the fire where it went out with a splash and then a hiss. Darkness settled inside the hut.

Malikhail rolled over so his back was toward her. Over the hiss of the salt water turning into steam on the hot logs, he heard the rhythmic sounds of the ocean's waves fall onto the beach—that's what Ogygia had called the part of the land they were on—and run back to the rest of the water. These sounds had comforted him the last few days, and they easily lulled him to sleep where he dreamed once more of standing in the middle of the ocean.