A Fortress of Pebbles

“Allow me to answer a few questions,” continued Tassadu. “First, yes, I am part dragon, and you can be too!” He gave a friendly wink that he’d been practicing. It was terrifying. “Second, yes, this is an afterlife of sorts. You’ve been selected by an ancient lottery system–”

The girl, Cassandra, was already beginning to cry. Although Tassadu had been working on making his opening speech “more cheerful” and “less intimidating,” the fact remained: most kids selected for the Fortress didn’t expect (or particularly want) the afterlife to involve a talking dragon, no matter how friendly he seemed.

Aissaba took off her sunglasses and knelt on the grass, trying not to let a groan of exertion escape her lips. She did her best impression of being an older sister or aunt, one who definitely did not have a hangover. “Look, I know this is weird. One moment, you’re riding the bus, and the next you’re in the Fortress.”

“I drowned in a swimming pool,” added Tassadu, practicing his wink again.

This pushed Cassandra over the edge, sobbing into Aissaba’s shoulder. Orion was patting his sister’s shoulder, looking anywhere but at Tassadu.

“Everyone you’re going to meet today,” said Aissaba, “was once standing exactly where you are right now, wondering what the fuck the Fortress is.”

“Heck,” Tassadu reminded her.

Aissaba glared at him, head throbbing. Not the time. Orion stifled a giggle.

This inspired Cassandra to pick up her head, leaving a wet spot on Aissaba’s neck, cold in the synthetic breeze drifting through the Fortress gates. “Sorry,” she said, wiping her nose with one sleeve of her plaid flannel. She wiped Aissaba’s neck with the other sleeve, eyes on Tassadu. “Is he the devil?”

Tassadu deflated. This was not the first time.

As gently as he could, Tassadu explained, “Let me put it this way. If you could change your eye color, what would you pick?”

“Purple,” said Orion after some thought. Cassandra considered the matter and, perhaps because she was a twin, agreed upon purple. They both wore plaid flannels, jeans, and Converse sneakers. They blinked at Tassadu warily, their blue eyes matching the synthetic sky above them.

“Purple! That’s great!” said Tassadu, in his delighted talking-to-kids voice. With the graceful air of a magician performing a trick, his talons extracted two pebbles from a pouch on his belt. He held them briefly to his forehead then gave one to each child. “These are life pebbles,” he said. “Go on – tap your eyelids with them.”

This was Tassadu’s favorite part of the job, when the kids started warming up to him. Aissaba knew better than to interfere. Delicately, daring to believe in magic, the children touched their lids with the pebble and gasped when their eyes met again.

“Oh. My. God,” said Cassandra. “You look so cool!”

“Can I have a mirror?” asked Orion, studying the deep amethyst color of Cassandra’s eyes.

Aissaba grunted as she stood up, wiping the grass and dew from the knees of her robe. While Tassadu supplied a mirror from his backpack, Aissaba took a clipboard from hers. At the top were the kids’ biographical sketches, written in Tassadu's tidy script. The rest contained the usual checklist. She crossed off the first two items: 1) meet the newcomers at the main gates, and 2) establish a warm and genuine connection.

She cleared her throat, moving on to the next item. “Our job is to show you all the cool things about the Fortress and, basically, convince you to stay. Wanna see more magic pebbles?”

“So…” said Cassandra, her purple eyes suddenly serious. “We can go back after?”

“Of course, Sweetheart!” said Aissaba. Her usual response – warm and genuine. She did not add, however, that she and Tassadu were very good at their jobs. Everyone stayed.