The old man lived on the outskirts of Collobrières, a small village near the south coast of France. Every day for the past two decades, he had pedaled his bicycle from his stone cottage to le poste and back. He made the trip in vain, for never did a letter arrive for him, nor did he ever seem to expect one. But he enjoyed cycling along the D14 and waving to those he met along the way. Had any post arrived for him, of course, it would have been addressed to L'Ancien, for that was what the people of the village called him: The Ancient One.
       No one in the village recalled L'Ancien's real name if even they ever knew it. Nor were they aware that in the previous quarter century, he was known to them as Monvieux, who before that was a British expatriate the village children respectfully called M'sieur Battersby. Now the time was drawing near for a new persona--but first, L'Ancien had to die again.
       Over the millennia, he had lost count of the deaths. He had no idea how many remained to him.

       The summer of that year found him soul-weary. The news on the little transistor radio, which he kept on the stone wall of the patio back of the cottage, bleated almost daily of global climate change, and frequently he had to suppress a smile. Modern folks thought only in terms of the immediate moment. If they had witnessed all that he had seen since Mesopotamia was lush and fertile since he had been tasked by the Hesperides with guarding the golden apples of immortality . . . Humans cared only for their comforts, and if the Earth and her changes discomfited them, they panicked. Just as they would panic if he ever revealed his true nature in their midst.
       That was it, thought L'Ancien, early in August, sprawled on a chaise lounge on the patio with a flute of chilled sauvignon blanc and the late afternoon sun banking toward Iberia: his true nature. In all these years, he rarely dared to be himself. He had seen the reactions before; show a little bit of wing, or fire up the barbecue the easy way, and they came at you with pitchforks and mattocks, or they hired mercenaries to cleanse the land of you. And woe be unto you if you should happen to snack on a princess.
       Of course, with all that democratic liberté, égalité, fraternité claptrap everywhere these days, there was scarcely a royal morsel left.
       Snacks aside, L'Ancien was lonely. So he rode the D14, the twisting, turning bicycle path that snaked up and down the hills of the Massif des Maures, and greeted passing strangers. Now, on his patio, he reluctantly reached the conclusion that he needed something more. What was that poem? Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing? Yes, that was it. But the rest of it, the rest, was so wistful, the words calling forth what he had come to feel inside.
       "Only a look and a voice," he whispered, gazing out toward the sea, "then darkness again and a silence." Longfellow, he recalled. To capture the essence of loneliness, the poet must have been a dragon too.

       On a night in late August, when a glistening sliver of a moon made a neat incision in the indigo sky near Leo, L'Ancien cast off his adopted human shape and took flight with no particular destination in mind. He had to get away, to be himself, at least one more time. If only the moon were full, and his silhouette before it might be seen by a dreamer below. Was there one person left who believed in dragons? One person who was, yes, just a bit afraid, yet brave enough at least to "speak him in passing," as Longfellow might have written.
       A high breeze gave L'Ancien a headwind, and he coasted, hovering over the sea, watching the echelons of breakers far below die on beaches he could only visit in human form. One wave after another, metronomic, since time immemorial. The sea birds had already gone to sleep in their nooks and crannies in the rugged cliffs that broke parts of the shoreline that ran from Toulon to St. Tropez. A few fires flared on the sand, and folks still swam, partied, and caroused. Some of those beaches were pour les nus, where the removal of clothing to display the contents was de rigueur, but if he tried that, why, he'd never hear the end of it. L'Ancien smiled at the irony. At least at night, against the dark sky, he could be himself.
       Movement caught his eye, movement where there should have been none, certainly not at that time of night. He caught a slower breeze and drifted closer. A little cape jutted into the water there, connected to the mainland by a strip of sand. It ended in a great, tree-laden crag on which rested a small estate. The crag had never particularly interested L'Ancien . . . but the movement aroused his curiosity.
       He descended closer. There, on a ledge that led to the top of the crag, a shadow moved higher. L'Ancien saw long roots protruding through the rock and onto the ledge like vines. Some of the trees that grew atop the crag leaned out over the water as if about to fulfill a self-imposed fate. On the rocks at the base of the crag lay the remains of trees that had already taken that final plunge. The shadow . . . was that the purpose, then? To join those remains? L'Ancien peered into the darkness, into the shadows. There he was able to make out a young woman who continued to climb, clutching at roots to pull herself along.
        Suddenly her foot slipped, and for just a moment she dangled over the ledge, both hands holding onto a root. Scrabbling for purchase, her feet dislodged rocks that clacked on detritus below or splashed in the waves. In the air ten meters away hovered L'Ancien, torn between choices. If the woman gained the top of the crag, he could transform to a human and talk with her, perhaps dissuade her from ending it; but if she should fall, he needed to be able to swoop under her and catch her. And if she should spot him right now--
       Gradually, L'Ancien eased back. With a supreme effort, the woman regained the ledge. Moments later, she stood on top, beside one of the windswept trees, her chest heaving as she fought to catch her breath. A breeze whipped her long yellow hair across her face, and strands caught across her mouth. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and gazed out to sea.
       L'Ancien landed silently behind her on the crag and folded his wings into place. Within seconds he completed his transformation, choosing the appearance of a man perhaps five years older than his estimate of her at twenty-three. He gave himself disheveled black hair and rugged clothing that suggested he did not care much about his appearance. To greet her, to say something . . . but if he spoke, he risked startling her off the cliff. He had to calculate an approach that was both natural and not unexpected.
       After some thought, L'Ancien simply walked out to the edge of the crag and stood looking out to sea as if he had done this on many occasions before. There he waited. The wind that had borne his wings now ruffled his hair. He clasped his hands behind his back and allowed himself to sway with the rhythm of the waves far below.
       Presently L'Ancien heard an "Oh!"
       Immediately he prepared to transform if she should fall. But she was steady enough.
       "I-I didn't see you . . . there . . . "
       She spoke in a smoky voice that might have buckled the knees of an ardent suitor. It did not seem possible to L'Ancien that only moments ago, she was ready to still that voice for eternity. He did not turn around or give any indication that he was aware of her.
       She cleared her throat for attention. "Allo?"
       L'Ancien started to turn toward the sound of her voice and deliberately lost his footing. One leg extended out from the edge, then the other, and only his grasp of a large, embedded chunk of granite kept him from plummeting into the sea. Or so he presented himself to her.
       In dismay and alarm, she cried out and rushed toward him, stretching out on the rocks to grasp his wrists and pull him back to safety. He found purchase with his knees and scrabbled back onto the crag, allowing her to assist him. Finally secure, he sprawled there while she sat beside him, both gasping for breath.
       Recovering, L'Ancien studied her out of the corner of his eye. Physically she had no reason apparent to him to end it all. Tall and slender, she belonged on the beach at St. Tropez, to be admired. Even in starlight, her pale skin glistened, although he had to concede the glow might be the result of her efforts to save him. Her large, light eyes--blue, he guessed--dominated her oval face, with its snub nose and thin slash of a mouth. But the tip of her tongue flashed out like a lizard's to moisten her lower lip and make it shine. The gesture was all the more alluring because it was subconscious.
       "What were you thinking, so close to the edge?" she asked roughly. "Were you trying to kill yourself?"
       Her questions charged him with a moment of truth. He wanted to draw her out, to learn why she had been so ready to do precisely what she wondered about him. But what could he tell her? What answer would relate to her? Loneliness, though often it weighed on him to the point of despair, sounded too trite. One look into her eyes told him that her reason, no matter how misguided, would prove uncommon. Despondence? Perhaps the loss of a loved one. Mentally he shook his head: again, no. Hers was a more profound agony of long-standing, building up until it had become unbearable. But what was it?
       What drove someone at the beginning of life to end it almost ere it had begun? As much an egg would refuse to hatch, and with the hatching a failure, no dragon.
       In his empathic sorrow for her, L'Ancien might have shed scales. But he had adopted for her a human persona. Very well; he challenged her with the rejoinder of an adolescent.
       "You wouldn't understand."
       "Perhaps I would."
       L'Ancien gazed out to sea.
       "Tell me," she urged.
       "Why would you want to know?"
       "Perhaps we have something in common."
       He turned around, arms folded across his chest. "You? With me? What could we possibly have in common?"
       She turned to face the sea and did not answer.
       "You?" he said. "You were going to throw yourself off this cliff?"
       Hers was the faintest whisper, not intended for his ears. "C'est la mort qui donne du relief à la vie." The thought of death gives life relief.
       But he had a dragon's hearing and received her words, though the breeze tried to wrest them away.
       He looked up for no reason but that it was not at the sea, nor was it at her. "So many stars," he said, in a voice only a little stronger than hers.
       With a gasp, she turned to face him once again. "Yes," she said softly. Then: "Yes!"
       "Stars?" said L'Ancien. "You were going to die for the stars? But why?"
       "Because I no longer remember how to reach them."
       In the center of the top of the crag, he spotted a concrete bench under a wind-gnarled tree; no doubt placed there by those who dwelled in the estate. He turned and made for it, seating himself to one side to leave space for her. She hesitated at his gesture but trudged to join him there. They both sat facing the Mediterranean Sea, under the great gout of fresh cream that was the Milky Way.
       "To reach them," said L'Ancien, "you must use science or magic."
       Slowly she nodded.
       "Go on," he pressed. "You have words. Say them."
       "You would not . . . "
       "Would not what? Understand?" He sighed. "Perhaps not. But neither would I laugh."
       She did not respond.
       "Why would you go there?" asked L'Ancien, looking up.
       "Because . . . because that is where I . . ." She paused abruptly, and when she looked at him, her eyes glowed with starlight. "No, that is where we belong; that is where dreamers belong." Her eyes dulled. "And humanity has condemned dreams of stars. Far more important now is to convert the entire mass of this world to human flesh and create more ways to try to feed it. Pah!"
       L'Ancien nodded.
       "I don't belong here," she hissed through clenched jaws. "This is no place for me." She heaved a desolate breath and got up to drift toward the precipice. "Si j'oublierais que j'ai vécu . . . I wish I could forget that I used to live."
       L'Ancien chuckled. "You're far too young to be able to say that."
       She looked back at him as if seeing him for the first time. "Mais non. Je suis trop vieille. I am far too old."
       And with that, she threw herself off the cliff.

       For a moment, L'Ancien was too stunned to move. When finally he did, it was to rush toward the cliff, changing as he ran, his cry of "No!" punctuated by flames. He flew and dove down, hoping to catch her. His eyesight penetrated the shadows and the darkness, and saw no sign of her on the cliff face or among the rocks at its base. Had the waves already carried her body out to sea?
       Where was she?
       Nowhere . . . nowhere . . .
       She was gone.
       Gone!
       His great dragon's heart ached like stone on raw bone. For a few moments, they had connected, he had connected with her, she was more than just a passer-by on the D14 waving to a crazy old man, she was . . . what was her name? Anguish assailed him: he had not even asked her name. Still, what matter a name? He himself had had many, perhaps too many, since the days he was known as Ladon, son of Phorcys and Ceto. This young woman needed no name. Between them, when either spoke, only the other would listen. Names were superfluous. Still, she was a person, whole and entire, a person of flesh and blood, likes and dislikes and a desire to see the stars. He could have taken her out there; he could have, had he but the chance. One more chance.
       Over thousands of years, he had never asked for another chance.
       He asked for one now.
       If only Hera were listening . . .
       He surveyed the rocks at the base of the cliff and knew he was not going to get another chance.

       The night passed. On the evening of the following day, L'Ancien sat half-transformed on the chaise lounge with a flute of red table wine, something cheap and unworthy of himself, unworthy of the very flute in which it sloshed while he twirled the stem between a long green thumb and forefinger. His wings, half-formed, seemed to sprawl over the back of the chaise like discarded sheets. Scales had begun to take shape on his face, and his snout was just at the cusp of emerging, but he held it there lest he be unable to drink the wine.
       Had another dragon seen him, he might have thought L'Ancien inebriated, but that was impossible, of course. Hera was long gone, forgotten among newer deities. The apples of the Hesperides lay shriveled under so much desert silt and dust. And L'Ancien, né Ladon, was alone and had been alone for mighty years. Embarrassment was unlikely.
       Yet he panicked very briefly when he heard the knock at his front door.
       Up he staggered, gaining his feet, lurching a few steps before his equilibrium returned. But he could not get through the back doorway. Chagrined, he stepped back, reformed himself to fully human, and made his way through the cottage.
       He opened the door to a man from le poste, a courier. He wore a dark blue postal uniform with white piping and a stiff, dark blue cap, and he was seated astride a blue postal bicycle. The courier flashed an ingratiating smile and proffered a long white envelope.
       "It is official, M'sieur," he said, in the French peculiar to Languedoc. "I was on my way home, and I thought perhaps . . . "
       "Merci," said L'Ancien, taking the envelope. "Would you care for some wine?"
       "Mais non," said the courier. "Madame is waiting with the dinner."
       "Eh, bien."
       After the courier had departed, L'Ancien closed the door, a thoughtful frown on his face. He drained the flute of wine, shrugged, and slit open the envelope with a long nail.
       The contents consisted of a notice informing him that he was now a pensioner--the government's way of putting him out to pasture. He was officially regarded as of no use to anyone, a drain on the economy. He was waiting for God now.
       He drew himself up to his full human height. Moi? A drain on the economy? Why I could devour lead and shit gold before these people learned to paint themselves blue and worship rocks! I've half a mind to go eat a Renault and fly over Parliament and really give their economy a boost.
       Yet in the next moment, he sobered. Now he regretted having registered with the pension office, but registration came perforce with the identity he had adopted, as with each identity he had adopted this past century or so. He wondered whether his other selves, though dead, were receiving pensions. Governments were notoriously slow to adjust.
       I'm a pensioner, he thought and snorted. A jet of flame incinerated the notice and melted the top half of the flute.
       Perhaps, he decided, it was time. Could I do it? Could I truly do it?
       The girl had.
       He recalled the night before. He wondered whether he possessed her sort of courage. She'd had nothing left to live for now that humanity was turning its collective back on the stars and wallowing in overpopulation. Surely he as well had outlived his purpose.
       He glanced at the bottle of wine on the counter in the dinette. A snoutful remained. He hesitated.
       Just go, he told himself.
       Let them wonder what happened.
       He stepped out to the patio and transformed. Moments later, after one last wistful look, he was on his way to the great crag. The night breeze carried him well, and he soared. But soaring failed to lift his spirits.
       He spotted the crag at last and circled it, drawing ever closer as he descended. Yes, there was the bench where they had sat oh so briefly. Ships that pass in the night. But she had passed into an eternal night.
       As he was about to do.
       Then he saw her.
       He almost fell from the sky in surprise. As it was ten meters above the crag, he completed an emergency transformation a little too soon and plunged in human form the last three meters or so to the ground.
       At the sound of impact, she whirled around. In the light from the stars and the sliver moon, he saw her mouth open. His was open as well as he regained his footing.
       "You!" they said together.
       "I watched you die," he said. "I saw you die."
       She stepped forward. She was wearing a long dark skirt that the breeze used to sculpt her legs, and she was wearing a pale, low-cut blouse with floral embroidery. Her feet were shod in loafers.
       "I . . . caught myself," she told him. "I couldn't. Not last night. I wasn't ready. Tonight I am. I'm glad I get to see you one last time."
       He came to a halt within arm's reach of her. "How . . . ?" he managed. "What . . . how?"
       "Close your eyes."
       "What?"
       "Close your eyes, please."
       L'Ancien obeyed.
       A couple of seconds later, she said, "You may open them," and he did.
       Before him stood a glistening blue and purple dragon. His heart stopped and started up again, stuttering.
       "No one will believe you if you tell," she said. "And I will be gone out to sea by then."
       L'Ancien, né and once again Ladon, began to laugh. By the time his laughter abated, he had transformed.
       "I'd rather you didn't do that," he said.
       Her dragon's mouth moved, but neither words nor flames emerged.
       "I came here tonight to follow you," he told her. "For what I thought were your reasons."
       "But now?"
       "Now I see that I cannot . . . "
       "Can you guide me to the stars?" she asked. "Will you take me?"
       Sadly he shook his head. "I was charged with protecting their dreams," he said. "Even if they have abandoned them, abandoned their destiny. One day they will realize they need dragons in their lives; they need the stars. I want to be here on that day."
       "We can always come back," she pointed out.
       Slowly he nodded. "That," he agreed, "is true. Come, then."
       They rose into the air, not so much flying as gliding. For them, the rules of the physical universe did not apply. There was no escape velocity, only a gradual ascent. The stratospheric currents became their playthings. And soon, the stars ceased sparkling; now, they were glowing waypoints of direction, inviting them to come here, to go there, to do what they would.
       In space, with no air to carry the sound of voices, their minds became as one.
       They turned, their wingtips touching, to gaze at the Earth. Clouds swirled where the sunlight struck them, and in the dark half their dragon's eyes detected points of light, where people lived . . . and perhaps where some still dreamed.
       "Just two of us," he said, "to give them inspiration when they need it."
       She gave him a sidelong glance and slipped away, tilting her wings at him. "Two," she said. "For now."