Fortnightly Writing Competition: Dragons, Dragons, Everywhere (Results)

[Frodo]

DRAGONS, DRAGONS, EVERYWHERE

I have a *slight* obsession with dragons.  There's so many different dragon species, and each of them just as glorious as the last. 
I find these mythical beasts to be magnificant, powerful, magical, and completely fascinating! 





But what do YOU think about dragons?
Are they the earth's savouir, man's protector, or the scurge of the earth? 

I want you to tell me a story about a dragon or dragons.
-  Are you trying to protect a dragon?
-  Are you hunting a dragon?
-  Do you have a pet dragon? 
-  Is your best friend a dragon?
-  Are YOU a dragon? 

Let your imagination soar!  Your story can be funny, sad, heroic, whatever you want.  As long as it involves a dragon or dragons, I want to read it. 


RULES
-  One entry per person
-  Submit your entry by Sunday 26 August, 2018


VOTING WILL BE FOR:
-  Best character
-  Best writing
-  Best story
-  Best atmosphere
-  Best dragon


TROPHIES
               

[WHAM]

I have an idea. Dragons A dragon will be involved. More to come at a later date.

[Frodo]

Looking forward to seeing your story, Wham. 

[Sinitrena]

Why are dragons so damned inspiring to me that I already have over 5000 words now? Maybe because I have a soft spot for them myself?

Spoiler

Not the best photo and just a small selection of my dragons.
(What are you talking about, I'm not trying to bribe the comp admin...)

[close]

[Frodo]

Wonderful photo, Sinitrena   
Dragons are the best!

Can't wait to read your story. 

[Mandle]

I always wondered who bought those random dragon statues in gift shops.

[JudasFm]

Why are dragons so damned inspiring to me that I already have over 5000 words now? Maybe because I have a soft spot for them myself?

Spoiler

Not the best photo and just a small selection of my dragons.
(What are you talking about, I'm not trying to bribe the comp admin...)

[close]

Do you have any Tudor Mint? I used to be nuts on collecting those dragons when I was a kid

[Frodo]

Do you have any Tudor Mint? I used to be nuts on collecting those dragons when I was a kid

Does that mean you're going to write about Tudor Mint dragons for your entry??? 

[Sinitrena]

Do you have any Tudor Mint? I used to be nuts on collecting those dragons when I was a kid

No, I don't think so. Most of my dragons are "useful" in one way or another, not just figurines: candle holders, a lamp, little boxes for bits and pieces, a bowl for bonbons and a coffee table.

Spoiler

[close]

[Mandle]

Do I see Griff The P.I. Bear somewhere in there?

[Frodo]

One week gone already - only one week left to go. 

Hope you're all busy writing about dragons.

C'mon, I want to see lots of entries! 

[WHAM]

Hard Bargain

Ferrungis planted his claws into the soft soil and took pause, his great serpentine eyes gazing miles away, at the mouth of a great pass. The passage through the mountains was sided by tall cliffs, banners fluttering in the wind above. People and carts, peddlers and traders and travelers from far off places all milled upon the road through that pass, coming and going on their endless business. Before the mountains that served as the wall of the King's city were the vast, rolling hills of green, and the great pastures with neat little fences around them. Sheep, like white, puffy clouds, dotted the vast expanse. It made his stomach rumble, seeing food like that, so easily in reach...

The great dragon stood taller than any house, his head atop a slender, scaled neck that allowed him to see for miles and miles. His wings were folded atop his back, while his great tail rose high behind him, so as not to knock over trees or buildings or farmers. There was a fine to pay if he did that. “A fine for everything...” -he rumbles, a swirling cloud of smoke emitting from his nostrils, rising up into the air, to be thinned out by the breeze. Even now he could feel the eyes on his back, and see the glint of steel in the towers atop those hills. Ballistas in all of them. Cursed things. The old wounds still ached, even now, after all these years.

“Move along, ya big lizzerd!” -comes the voice of some straw-hatted man wearing goofy suspenders and muddy boots. Not a hint of fear in his voice. No respect. The man was brandishing a rusty pitchfork while hauling a bunch of beets in his other hand. “Yer' scaring the flock! Move along ‘fore I call the guards on ya!” Ferrungis simply bowed his head and began to stride, moving along the right side of the road so as not to be in the way, leaving the farmer to his beets and his delicious sheep.

The plains and the hills brought many memories. Fiery battles had raged right here, with the Great King's armies driven to a rout before the Dragon horde, screaming in terror as the first line fell. Or so it had seemed, right until the dragons had followed them to that pass ahead. Great fortifications had been set up there, protected by spells even Ferrungis could not begin to comprehend. Cursed bolts from those great ballistas had darkened the sky, rending wings and shattering scales, while sending dozens and more of the dragons into a lifeless freefall. In anger the retreating dragons had set fire to all the lands and forests. Even now, barely a single tree stood tall here, thought the humans had planted countless saplings, brought from distant lands and paid for with the gold and gemstones from the Dragon reparations.

Reparations. That word tasted bitter in the mouth and brought Ferrungis' blood to a boil. He'd been wealthier than any mortal man in the realm! Worked hard, for centuries, to accumulate his precious hoard. And here he was now, loose gold coins from centuries past tucked away under his scales.

He entered the pass, where the narrow passage forced him to share the road with the carts and peddlers streaming toward the city ahead. He knew the odd looks now, and the pointing and the laughing. A child, no older than seven, too young to have known the war, pointed up at Ferrungis and shouted: “Show us your wings! Wings! Wings!” Finally his mother rounded the slow-moving cart and silenced the child. Again, the great and mighty beast could only draw in a deep, shuddering breath and swallow down the bile and the frustration. He could easily have spread his wings, take off and reach his destination in moments. He could, but only if he wished to be fined for entering a no-fly zone. Or perhaps he'd simply be shot, if the guard captain was in a foul mood today. It was not a smart gamble, and Ferrungis had known of a fine old lizard, too proud for her own good, who had suffered and died here, just for such a risk, hoping to save half a days worth of travel time. No fines, that day, but no reparations, either. Those only worked one way.

Finally the pass opened up, and Ferrungis could make his way to the side of the road, overtaking the slow moving column. There was, of course, a speed limit. No faster could he stride than a horse could ride, so as not to cause alarm. Some children tried to run alongside with him, but could not keep up for long. It was a petty and pyrrhic victory to leave them in his dust. No pride welled up in that old draconic heart.

“Name and number, big red!”
“You know me by now, Gate Warden. Must we do this every time?”
The fat man, Henry was his name, with thick glass lenses over his eyes that made him look like some kind of foul insect and a big, round belly barely contained by the leather strap that could be graciously called a belt, tapped his finger on the great leatherbound book set on a counter before him. “Name and number! I need ‘em for the books, see!” Ferrungis rolled his eyes once more, his reptilian lids closing in a slow blink to mask the impolite expression.
“Ferrungis of the Iron Cliff.” His home. “Four-seventeen.” His birth-year. “Nine-two-two.” Nine for a red dragon, twenty-two for his unique registration number. Prior to the war he hadn't even known there were twenty-one other reds, let alone more.
“Repeat that last part, please!” Hot air darted from Ferrungis' nostrils. An image of the fat man's bones laid out in a smoking pile before him flashed in his eyes. It was a pleasant image.
“Nine - Two - Two!” He made sure the numbers were clearly audible. Speaking slowly in that rumbling voice of his, a voice that could shatter stone if he willed it, made him sound slow in the mind. Someone laughed off to the side. The fat man flashed up a smile and nodded his approval. “All right, I'll send the word. Out of the gates by the sixth bell, wings and tail in check and watch those claws. Knock loose too many of the cobblestones and someone will make up a fine for that, too! Already came close last week, with a silver one.”
Ferrungis simply nodded as he took his leave of the man, carefully picking his steps as he moved onto the cobbled streets and passed beneath the Great Gate and into the marketplace beyond.

The city streets were narrower to navigate, and uncomfortable to be in. With each step Ferrungis had to care not to knock on the corner of one building or to crack the door on another. It was frustrating work to navigate this maze, built for creatures that were like insects to him once, but eventually he made his way to the old paupers quarter, the only part of the city that had burned down in the War. Now it was a very special marketplace, the construction work paid, once again, with Dragon gold.
“Ferry!” -came the far-too-friendly shout of an old woman, silvery in hair and wrinkled in face as she marched, brown robes billowing, out of her stall and right up to Ferrungis, smacking her hand on a scale on his forearm. He couldn't even feel it, but he knew her habits by now.
“Greetings, lady Mabel. I've come to trade.” She knew this. He visited every other week, especially this close to winter. “What is the price for a dozen heads of sheep?”

The old woman stepped back and begun to gesture wildly for the dragon to follow. The streets here were wider and more open, to cater to the draconic customers that visited every other day. Business was slow, but the profits, apparently, were well worth it. Only two other cities traded with the scaly kind, and the three formed a cartel that squeezed the dragons tighter every month. Some folk whispered, fearfully, of a breaking point, while others laughed and lined their pockets.

“Seven gold for a head, Ferry, but I'll cut you a deal and sell ‘em off at eighty. You know old Mabel likes you the best, right Ferry?” It might have been mockery, but it had gone on for a long time now, ever since the market opened. Ferrungis believed she had some strange fixation for his kind, which might explain why most of the other humans avoided her as best they could. Sometimes she seemed lonely. “Old coin or the new?” -she croaked up, trying to look like a sweet old lady as she scampered back to her little stall and pulled out her books. Her haste to make business betrayed her look. Ferrungis lifted his wing slightly, reaching underneath it to dislodge the bundles of coins hidden away. The old coin was much more valuable than the new, the coins wider and heavier, and pure gold rather than the plated copper the new King passed off for currency. Mabel's eyes grew wide and her mouth, with all four of her teeth, turned into a mighty grin. “Ooooh, dearie-dear! Let me just see, here...” She rubs her wrinkled hands together and turns the pages on her book. At least she could see better than the gate warden, and needed no help for her eyesight. “That makes twenty-two for the full dozen!”

It took a moment to register in Ferrungis' mind. “Don't lie, woman.” -he snorted. “Last time it was seventeen for a dozen! I doubt the sheep eat gold to fatten up!” His voice took on a loud, booming quality. Windows rattled nearby. Guards manning the inner gate turned to stare, hands on their crossbows and their horns, for alerting the knights. Mabel simply shook her head, looking small and sad for a moment, as if she pitied the great dragon, despite holding the upper hand in this little transaction. She was like a cat, and he her mouse. A plaything. “Two green drakes brought in stacks of the old coinage just this week!” -she explained. “Nobody even knew there was so many of those old things lying around, so they've gone down in value, see? That, and the King raised the tax on draconic transactions again last week, as you might know...” She paused as Ferrungis parted his lips, his great white teeth glimmering in the light of the slowly falling sun. He had to struggle to keep his voice down, to swallow the foul words that might get him thrown out. And fined. “Ferry! Please! It's only business, and you know how old Mabel likes you best!” It was as if she were talking to her favourite puppy dog, or a small, particularly dull child. “Tell you what, I'll give you thirteen for the twenty-two, so you can go home in good spirits. How about it?”

She drove a hard bargain. He had nothing more to offer than his gold.

The sixth bell tolled as Ferrungis already strode away from the gates, having stopped there to listen to rumours of the realm while being pelted with dung and small stones from time to time. Teenagers, wanting to be knights one day, proving themselves in the eyes of the giggling girls and smaller children. There was talk of great serpentine dragons in the west, over the sea, and of great harpoon ships being built to stop them from reaching the coast. The coastal nobles were upset and anxious to see their holdings defended. In the east there was talk of civil war, of an alliance of three dukes and their dragon servants wanting to claim a slice of the King's land for themselves. Ferrungis knew not whether to hate, pity or envy his eastern brethren. They, at least, had secured a steady income and food for the winter.

The sheep lay against his side, stunned with fear and pinned down by his wings, six on one side, seven on the other. They, at least, still knew fear and respect for the dragons. He'd likely eat one on the road, to sate the worst of his hunger, and to calm his nerve for dealing with the enforced landing checkpoints on the way. This week there were six, when two weeks prior there had been five.

It would be a long way home.

Somehow Ferrungis just knew it in his heart he'd need at least 30 of the old coins when he returned to trade a couple weeks from now. The humans always drove a hard bargain.

[Frodo]

AN ENTRY!  YIPPEEE!!! 

Brilliant story Wham. 
Can I give Ferrungis a big hug? 

[WHAM]

Can I give Ferrungis a big hug? 

He'd probably be fined if he declined. I'm sure he'll learn to appreciate it in time, though.

[Frodo]

Only 5 days left, people. 

[Ponch]

I have an idea... hopefully I'll find enough time this weekend to flesh it out.

[Baron]

I have time... hopefully I'll find enough ideas this weekend to flesh it out.

[Wiggy]

I think I'll have a lash at poetry this time, albeit from left field.

The following is a true story about dragons, there are two meanings to the word I hope you realise, and one is NOT loveable. It happened on the occaision of the 30th anniversary of my pilots' course graduation, and yes I was flying single engine jets since before most of you were born. The Queen paid for it, and it was a real hoot! Upside down at one hundred feet at 10 nautical miles per minute on my 20th birthday beats any roller-coaster you've ever been on! (and I was burning a gallon of kerosene per second) To reminisce over formative years is great, but there's always someone to spoil it. There's always a dragon...

DRAGONS

Dragons circling, dragons' flight;
Dragons waiting, hov'ring, in the night;
Dragons that must be fed, dragons on the prowl;
Well fed dragons, Prada clad, make their hunting howl.

Many miles they've come this night;
To strut themselves before their ilk;
And chatter unimportant things,
Before they make their kill.

Amongst themselves they chatter, bicker, and complain;
About "Useless bloody pilots, all they talk is aeroplanes!"
While totally forgetting who paid for that dress,
And the tennis club's membership, alas! I do digress.

The first and business travel that they got but for a song;
400 bucks London and back? Nice, but far too long!
The dragons, blue and red and green,
Wait for a signal, quite unseen
By men at least, Not man nor beast;
Can hear the huntress' call,
But soon the fun is over,
For us men, one and all.

The dragon is a mighty beast,
With sharpened claws and razor teeth,
Most splendiferous, and magestic;
With wings it flies across the skies
A scenario fantastic!
A mission bent, with great intent
To scratch out your very eyes!

Amongst our clan there stood a man,
Who would not be one outspoken;
When the dragons called 'We're all bored!"
He played the final token:

"Fifteen years I've spent with you,
and shower'd you with praise,
But to this man here, I owe my life,
If you'd heard you'd be amazed!
You begrudge me seeing him, once in thirty years,
and my 18 mates who defied the fates
and the lost that caused us tears."

The way to beat a dragon, isn't through a lance,
For it will always lead you through a very merry dance;
But if you were to rob it of its pompous gift of flight
You clip its wings, and then it sings,
"Oh Waily!" through the night.

"Yer'r'off my staff travel!" cried he; with a flourish of his phone!
"Unless you've got some money, seems like you'll be walking home!"
Some Dragons threatened everything; like "No sex e'er for you!";
One brave (and lucky) man then said; "Of girlfriends I have two!"

The next morn, we old "young men" return'd
To our homes and hearths, we'd had our laughs,
The dragons were very burned.
The greatest mistake we all can make
In life when we're confronted;
Is to take anyone, any thing or gift, for pity's sake, for granted.

'Coz you'll find your own freakin' way home! Bitch!

[Sinitrena]

I'm tired and can't think straight right now, but I'm finally done with my story. Unfortunately, nothing makes sense at the moment, so this is completely un-edited.

Part 1 of 3

Dragon's Guardian

Fire... Burning... Shadows... A claw... A throat... Fire... Running... Falling... Deep... Deep into the crevice...Blood... Ripped skin... Ripped flesh...

Pain.

Just pain.

It was the first thing he felt. The only thing. There was nothing else. The bones, the skin, the hairs on his scalp, everything hurt. It just hurt. The pain came before the consciousness, before awareness, before...

Coldness.

It was so cold. He felt so cold. His skin was burning and he shivered from the cold.

Next came the screams. His screams, not yet hushed, even though his throat was raw, even though the rest of his body had given up, had sunken into a state of shock. He drifted in and out of awareness and he heard the screams. They were loud, louder than his own screams. They were roars of anger, of pain, of hatred. They followed him, into his hiding place, into his dreams.

Pain, more pain woke him up, fingers brushing over his skin, washing the sweat from his forehead. A voice drifted into his mind, not soothing, not angry, nothing. Cold, neutral, assessing.

Broken arm, not serious. The hand bend his arm back and forth. He pressed his teeth together, stopping a new scream, and felt something between his lips. It tasted bitter.

It smelled of fire and freshly grilled meat. Breathed on the leg, whole left side burned to crisps. Could be better, could be worse.

The hand removed ripped clothes over his chest. It freed tatters from the blood. Claws. Deep, down to the rips, but no inner organs wounded. Lucky, very lucky.

He lay still, not able to move, not even able to really think yet. The hand touched his forehead again.

“Fever. You're dying, boy.” The statement was as matter-of-fact as the rest of the assessment.

His eyes sprang open, darting around. He couldn't focus, couldn't see what he was looking for.

Who had spoken? Where was he?

He tried to move, to get up. Strong hands pressed down on his chest, not gentle, not kind, just unmoving, relentless. A new wave of pain spread through his body. He tried to scream again and the scream was muffled by the gag in his mouth. The bitter liquid on it dripped into his throat, made him cough.

The pressure on his chest didn't decrease but the stranger still had a hand to remove the gag and turn his head to the side.

He waited for the coughing fit to stop, then he repeated in the same cold and distant tone: “You are dying. Don't expect any sympathy.”

“What...?” he pressed out between trembling lips. “Where...? ...who...?”

His eyes finally decided to open and register his surroundings. They first locked onto the stranger who still pressed one hand on his chest while the other held his head. The man was young, though his features showed lines of wear and strain that better fitted an older man. Dark hair hung deep over his bespectacled eyes. He had never seen him before.

The man did not answer.

“Where... where am I?” he croaked next but only received an impassive look as an answer.

He tried to look further around, but as soon as he moved his head, did the man entwine his fingers in his hair and held it straight, forcing him to keep looking at him.

“What... what happened?” Cold eyes looked down at him. “Please, what happened?”

“You don't know?” The tone wasn't as neutral as before. Instead, a so far suppressed anger found its way into his voice. “You don't remember?”

“N...no.” He really didn't. It was all a haze. Images of a boat flashed before his eyes, of a cave, of laughter, the prospect of money, of hope, contained in an egg. And then all was gone, gone in a whirl of fire and claws.

The man was patiently waiting for the memories to form a coherent picture. “You don't remember?”

“I... No... I...”

“Yes, you do. You remember. I see it in your eyes. You know what you did. And if the fever doesn't kill you, the dragons will. I will drag you out of here, throw you on the field and they will rip you apart. The only reason you're still alive...”

“Please, I...”

“You have anything to say for yourself?”

His mouth tried to form words but his tongue felt heavy and sluggish, too heavy to move. His eyes, his look, caught by the mesmerizing, magical eyes of the other man tried to stay focused on the other but again and again they dropped closed. The pain, indescribable before had become a mere background annoyance in the last couple of minutes.

The bitter taste. He remembered it vaguely from a long time ago, when he was sick and his mother had... The thought did not finish in his mind before he drifted back into unconsciousness.

*

Roars woke him. Angry screams that pierced his dreams, echoed through his mind and shook the brittle wall he lay against. It felt like thousands of them screeched at the same time, filled with pain and hatred, both so deep ingrained in them that nothing could ever reach them over it.

His pain was just a dull throbbing now. It was all over his body, but it was contained, limited to the background. He still felt cold, even though he could feel the sweat on his forehead.

It took him a while to even want to open his eyes. The memories had returned and the fear, real fear, with them. He knew where he was, what he had done, who the stranger was. He did not want to name it, did not want to think about it, but he knew.

He remembered sneaking through the caves and he remembered the egg, lying on a carpet of moss and flowers. He remembered how it glittered before their torchlight could even reach it, filled with a light deep inside. He remembered the specks of colours that danced on the cave walls and ceiling, danced in colours he had never seen before. How it seemed to give life to the blossoms around itself, touching their very innermost secrets â€" touching his innermost being.

He remembered climbing up the wall and putting the egg in a bag, letting it down to the other three because it was too heavy to carry on his back and keep his balance. He remembered two of them running as soon as they had it.

And he remembered the piercing scream as the dragon returned.

His eyes sprang open and darted around the room. He couldn't see clearly. The remnants of the pain the drug couldn't numb and tears clouded his vision. He tried to wipe them away, but his arms wouldn't move. He blinked them away instead, too confused still to wonder what held him back.

He wanted to look around, wanted to finally see where he was and where the dragon's guardian had gone to, but it was still too difficult to concentrate. The constant screaming of the dragons just separated from him by an old wall made it nearly impossible to think of anything but them.

The screams seemed to call to him, they seemed to fill him with all the emotions the dragons felt. It was hatred and anger but also fear and most of all pain, a pain so much stronger than the claw of a dragon or its fire could create. It sneaked into his mind and shook him to the core.

He didn't know how long he lay there, just thinking about the dragons, who tried to drag him again and again into his own memories, into his own memories of loss and grief. They forced him to remember, they forced him to think about the illness of his mother, about the fire his father had died in, but no matter how much he fought against it, they most of all forced him to remember the day he climbed up a wall and then fell when a dragon's roar pierced his mind for the first time and the fiery breath touched his leg. They made him remember the man on the ground, the only one who waited for him, even when the dragon came closer, even when the fire rushed from its throat. They made him look again and again as he lay helpless, half unconscious from the fall, as the mother dragon glided through the cave, majestic and fierce, and then pounced down on his brother and ripped him apart and chewed him to pieces. Even with the dragons' magic, the next memories were hazy. The dragon pounced on him next and her claw tore the skin from the flesh. He fell back into a crevice, too narrow for the dragon to follow, and then the screams started, the roars of all the dragons on the islands, coming into the cave, coming to him...

He lay there for days, that much he could tell, but the place he woke up in next was a different one.

This one. He lay on a thin woollen blanket that hardly protected him from the naked stone underneath and another kept the wind, howling through the cracks in the brittle wall, just slightly away from his shivering body. A couple of candles stood around him, their flames flickering in the wafting air, not giving away any warmth but at least spending some light in the otherwise dark room. He couldn't see far beyond them. Vaguely, he saw an old but still sturdy door and next to it a couple of leathern bags. Other than that, the room was empty. The other man, the guardian, wasn't there.

He tried to sit up again or to at least press his hands over his ears to keep out the constant roars from just outside the door, but his arms were to weak and the chains to strong. He hadn't noticed them before, now he did. They lay closer around his wrists than normal chains of iron. They sneaked around his forearm like the split tongue of a dragon, up to his elbows, and stretched with every movement of his muscles, more like a rope than a chain but heavier. They were warm, nearly gentle in their relentless grip and did not seem to have a beginning or an end.

“You are awake.” The neutral, distant tone was back.

His head whipped around to the door where the dragon's guardian stood, blocking the light from entering but allowing the wind to blow even stronger through the threadbare remnants of what must have once been part of a house or even castle but was now just a ruin and shelter to keep the worst weather away.

“And obviously alive. Regrettably.”

“Regrettably?” His voice sounded strange in his own ears, like the voice of a stranger, older, deeper, strained from pain and exhaustion, strained from screams that tried to rival those of a mother dragon who had lost her child.

“I would prefer you dead,” the guardian said, stepping further into the room and kneeling down next to his prisoner. “It would be easier, not having to keep you alive, not having to protect you.”

“I... I'm sorry?”

“You don't even know what you should be sorry for, do you, boy?”

“My name is Layim,” he protested just to say something, anything at all.

“I do not care, boy.” The words were spoken dangerously calm while the magic filled his cold blue eyes with a reddish shimmer that spoke of dangers as strong as a dragon's claw. “I do not care who you are. I do not care why you came here. I do not care for your sob stories and excuses. I do not care that you are poor, that you needed money, that you...” His voice became louder and angrier with every word. “No;” he stopped himself, took a deep breath and then continued as seemingly calm as before, “You are not worth my anger. You are not worth my thoughts. You are nothing. You don't have a story, you don't have reasons that are worth anything, anything at all. You are nothing. You want to know why you are alive? Why I didn't let you die? Why I don't kill you? Why I don't drag you out as food for my friends? Why I even saved your life with my magic?”

Layim tried to skid further away from the man but the bonds around his wrists and forearms wouldn't let him. His eyes darted between the other's face and the bonds, between his angrily shaking hands and the door.

“You have nothing to say? No idea? Well, then. You will tell me who hired you. You will tell me everything I might need to know to find the fledgling. You will do everything to get her back. You will do whatever I tell you to do. You will do so without grumbling, without lies, without falsehood and without hesitation.”

“And if I don't?”

“Quiet, boy! I did not tell you to speak. But, so be it. You shall see.”

With these words, the guardian flicked his hands in a impatient gesture and the tongues that held Layim's hands whipped back from his skin, leaving dark red bruises behind. The man buried his hands in the sweaty blond hair of the boy and dragged him to his feet. All Layim could do was grab the wrists of the older man to stop his hair from being pulled out. The guardian pushed him towards the still open door, over the candles that fell and expired, and outside, where he fell on his knees.

They weren't in a cave. Layim hadn't expected it, but he couldn't say where exactly they were either. It was some kind of ruin, that might have been, long ago, a strong castle. Now, except for the one room, only the remnants of walls formed bumps under green grass on the ground. Drizzling rain dropped down onto his head.

But his surroundings were of no consequence for him. As soon as he sat up, his eyes fell onto the beast that lay just a few steps away. It had its eyes, as big as a man's head, closed and its head lay relaxed on its front-paws. The long, spiked tail thumped up and down on the grass in irregular intervals and its muscular wings, clasped around its whole body, twitched from time to time as if it would shrug its shoulders. The scales, ocean-blue and violet, shimmered in the little bit of sunshine that found its way through the dark rain clouds. The dragon's tongue, split like a serpent's, hung lazily out of its half-open mouth in a cloud of its own smoke, coming from its nostrils. From time to time it licked up to a little horn on the tip of its snout, caught it between the two sides like between fingers and pulled. When it did, the dragon shook itself for a second, moved its head to a different position and then fell back into a deeper sleep.

The boy knelt completely frozen and stared at the dragon while the man just seemed to wait. Seconds seemed like hours.

Above their heads, other dragons circled through the air, most of them too far away to see their features or even to recognize them as dragons. Now and then, one or two of them flew one towards the other and it seemed as if they would collide but instead they danced around each other, sank deeper down to the ground and then, with heavy, strong strokes of their wings, they soared up again into the air. Once, one of the dragons swooped down fairly close to them, rushed deeper down than the ground they were on, behind the cliff and into the sea, and when it came back up, it had something in its mouth that it then threw up into the air before it caught it again.

Through all of this, the roars never ceased. They still echoed through his head, they still forced memories to the surface he did not want to have. And with a power he did not understand, they forced him to look for one dragon among them all, they made him search out the red scales he only remembered as flashes of danger. She was flying far above them, further from them than all the others. It was impossible to see her, but he knew which one she was and her screams, so far and still so loud, shook him to the core.

He shivered and dragged his threadbare shirt, hardly more than rags, tighter around his upper body. As soon as his numbness of fear left him at least a bit and he moved, the guardian pulled his hair and his head up, forcing him to look at the sleeping dragon.

“Chradragshza!” he said, calm but with authority in his voice.

The dragon's eyes opened slowly. It blinked a few times, the lids twitching both from above and below to the middle of the eye. After a few seconds, the dragon's eyes stayed open and it raised its head from its paws, unfurled its wings and pressed them against the ground, heaving itself up. It stretched its shoulders, first the left one then the right and swished its tail a few times over the depressed grass. The dragon yawned, spitting a small flame in the process, and then it stood in its full form before them. It looked around for a second and then settled on the guardian, looking at him with deep black eyes. It moved its head from one side to the other and combs of strong violet skin, of horn and muscles, where one would expect its ears, straighten themselves to impressive shields at the back of its head.

For another moment, the dragon looked at the young human, then it whipped its head around and stretched its long, spiked neck towards the boy. Its snout came to a sudden stop less than a thumb's thickness from the unmoving Layim.

It felt like years. Held by the guardian, the boy was unable to move, to shrink away from the monster before him. He tried to pry the older man's hands away but they were stronger than him, relentless. He had no choice but to stare onto the horn, studying every shade of colour on the dragon's scales. It seemed like an eternity, the dragon just standing there, staring at him, its nostrils stretching and contracting in fast and heavy breaths, a little bit of smoke coming out of them with every exhalation. Slowly, the dragon opened its mouth.

Layim waited for the inevitable to happen. He waited for the dragon to inhale the cold air around them deep and slow, for it to stretch its throat with air, ready to breathe out more than just this air. He could see the points behind the rows of sharp yellow teeth where the fire would come out. He smelled the breath of the dragon. It smelled of roasted meat, of camp-fire and summer storm. Too transfixed from the impression, he stopped trying to move his captor's hands.

And then the dragon did inhale the air and its throat expanded. It stretched its wings but this was just a blurry movement for Layim at this point. He felt the warm air, hot, stream around his ears, swirling his hair. But instead of fire, a roar filled the air. Not infused with as much magic as the other dragons used, it seemed stronger in its natural hatred and force. It did not drag memories to the surface, it did not make him remember, but it spoke to him. The dragon put all it felt, all it wanted to do to him, all it would do to him into this one, loud, deafening, constant roar.

It seemed to last for several minutes, starting loud and then getting more and more silent as the dragon lost its breath. Finally, when the tone had subsided to how a man would be able to speak, fire began to glow in the back of its throat. Slowly, it flickered over the tongue and danced between the two tips. Suddenly, the dragon's tongue rushed forward and it slapped Layim in the face. Layim pressed his hands against a red welt on his cheek.

Then, the dragon closed its mouth again and turned his attention towards the man. It lay its head on the ground. Finally, the guardian let go of his hair and he put his hand on the soft skin around his mouth. He stroked it slowly up and down and the dragon slung its tongue around his arm and, moving back and forth, imitated the man's movement.

“Do you know what I am, boy?” the guardian asked, paying attention only to the dragon but speaking with Layim in an even more distant tone than before.

Layim shook his head. He did know what the other was. Everyone knew of the guardians, five men and three women who had somehow befriended the dragons and were now protecting them. Few people took them serious. For one, dragons didn't need protection, they were wild and dangerous on their own. For another, they stayed in their own regions, on a deserted island or in the middle of a jungle that was too deep to get through. He knew this but it just seemed safer to let the guardian talk.

Layim still pressed his hands against his cheek and stared at the dragon. He wasn't really able to do much else at the moment and listening to whatever the guardian had to say seemed like a better idea than arguing with him and maybe angering the dragon.

“I keep peace,” the guardian said, leaning his head against the dragon's snout. “We negotiated for fifteen years, day in and day out, night after night, to stop the war. Men leave dragon alone, the dragons keep to their habitats. No revenge, no destroyed cities, no more fields burned to cinders, no more deserts because life has left the land. But a dragon's egg, stolen by a stupid child; you could destroy what we worked for so long and so hard.”

He put his calloused hand under Layim's chin and pressed his head up. “I keep peace. As long as I, as we, protect the dragons, keep stupid people like you away from them, they won't attack your people again. But now, now you broke the peace. And now, why shouldn't they attack you and your stupid kingdoms and meaningless cities. Only because they still follow the treaty and do not leave this place.”

“They are just animals!” As soon as the words had left his mouth, he regretted him. But a questioning look from the guardian still made him continue. “We won the last war. The dragons vanished into their regions. They are just animals. Everybody knows that. Big and strong but that is all. Everybody knows.”

The guardian looked at him incredulous for a moment, then he laughed in a bitter, pained way. “And what everybody knows must be true? You know nothing, and I think you even know that you know nothing. You've seen them. You feel them. You hear their screeches. You feel their pain. Do you really think they are nothing to be afraid of? Don't pretend to be even more stupid then you already are.” He knelt down next to Layim and the dragon put its snout onto his legs. “False bravado. False hope. Lies, because humans just can't admit that they lost. Let me tell you one thing, boy. Even if it were true, if the dragons lost and fled, do you know what would happen if they were all killed?”

He waited for an answer that didn't come. Layim just stared at the man who could snuggle with the snout of a dragon and not even think about it.

“Do you know what their magic is? Dragons are this world. They are all that keeps life on this world. The Karisha desert? Ghivertshim was the name of the dragon who infused this part of the world with life. He was old, so old that his power alone kept this part of the world alive. Seventy spears pierced his gums and he fell into the ocean. The same second, the Karisha, then a lake, started to dry. Three days later it was a valley. Fourteen days later a sea of stones. The hills around it, they were green for another year, because the sky cried for the loss of one of its own. The three cities that surrounded the lake, the farms and fields? First they seemed to drown, but then the water seeped into the ground and gave nothing to the crops and trees. Five years after Ghivertshim's death, there were only ruins left. This is the magic of the dragons. And still your people hunted them. And still you believe that you could win a war against them? And still you steal from them? And still you want their magic for yourself?”

“I... I didn't want magic.”

“No. No, you wanted money. It is always about money or power. What about the one that was killed? Did he want money or power? Money, I bet, because the one who hired you is the one who seeks power. And people who seek power are not so stupid to walk into a dragon's den. So, tell me boy, who hired you?”

Layim didn't answer, not for a long time. His mind seemed empty of all coherent thoughts. There were too many and too few. Instead, he watched as the guardian continued stroking the dragon that had closed its eyes again and was gently snoring under his touch. The tongue, that had played with the snout's horn before, now licked and caught the guardian's hand from time to time. He didn't even seem to notice it or the smoke that drifted up from the beasts nostrils and enwrapped him in a veil of warm shadows.

“You'll kill me,” he finally said. “If I tell you, you'll kill me.”

“I might.”

“You'll have no reason to keep me alive.”

“Punishment.”

The boy stared blankly at him.

“Understand this, boy. I can never bring the egg back. When a dragon's egg senses danger, it hatches. And if it hatches among humans, the dragons will never accept the fledging as one of their own. They would not come for it to bring it back. They would come for it for revenge. And they would burn cities to the ground, the whole kingdom if they must, to find the one responsible. If their anger was strong enough, their hatred uncontrolled, they might kill and it would be a mercy. But you, boy, you will remember. You will see the pain the young dragon has to suffer through, the loss. You will see it grow up without its people, without its home, without its family. You will be so close to it, you will feel everything the fledgling feels, know what it means to be alone, really alone, not just like the loss of the brother you have known your whole life, not like the loss of your freedom, not like anything you can even imagine. Dragons are life. You will see all the sadness of a life that can never be as it should.”

Layim had thought the dragon was asleep but now it opened at least the eye that was turned in his direction. The same magic that had caught him when the guardian had assessed his injuries now held him in an even stronger bond. When the guardian spoke next, he seemed to narrate what Layim saw in the dragon's eye:

“Chradragshza was chosen. She had no choice, a sacrifice for the greater good. Not even wizards like me can understand dragons, not just like that. But a dragon hatched for a human, they know their own language and they learn the words of us. She is a mediator just like me, a connection between two worlds. My father's people, they came too close to a den. They build their houses where they shouldn't have, they felled trees that stood for centuries. The dragons were angry. They attacked. It was a time of war. The dragon's wars, they were never coordinated in any way, just people coming too close to dragons and dragons getting angry. My father's people had legends. That a sacrifice to a dragon would appease it. First they brought sheep. Then cows. Dogs, cats, everything. In the end, they decided to draw a lot. My father was a fair lord. He didn't exempt his own children. Chradragshza and I, we were both sacrifices. I was seven. They dragged me into the forest and tied me to a tree as close to the den as they dared go. But dragons are life. As wild as they are, as angry as this one was, first and foremost he wanted to understand how another lost life was supposed to pay for the destruction people had done to his home. He cut cut the rope with his claws and grabbed me. He flew me away. I spend years with them and we couldn't understand each other. In the end, they took me away from their home and placed Chradragshza's egg next to me. She was lost ever since, but together we connect two worlds.”

When the guardian had finished his story, the dragon, Chradragshza, closed her eye again and started snoring again as if she had never paid attention to anything around her but the caresses of her guardian.

“Punishment, boy. That is why I will keep you alive.” With these words, the guardian gently pushed the dragon's snout from his legs and stood up. Without looking back he went back into the ruin. In the door he paused for a moment. “We leave tomorrow.”

Layim took a deep breath, relieved that the guardian was gone, and then his eyes fell on the dragon again. There was absolutely no reason to relax, even though Chradragshza lay completely calm on the ground, less than a step away. She seemed not to notice anything around her, but as soon as Layim raised his hand to sweep an errand strand of hair out of his eyes, her head whipped around to him again. Slowly, lazily, she opened her eyes, first just a slit and, when he paused in the middle of his movement, completely. She watched him, absolutely still, not even moving her pupils, that were only recognizable as a darker shade of black. She kept her mouth closed and not even the constant smoke still drifted from her nostrils.

After a while of motionless starring from both sides, Layim started to carefully crawl towards the only still-standing wall of the ruin. Her head followed, never getting any closer to him than it were before, but also never giving him more room. The wall stopped his fearful movement. He couldn't back off further. He didn't dare stand up. He didn't dare crawl to the side, lest she might think he would do something she didn't want, whatever that might be.

“Please...,” he whispered, not even sure himself if he spoke to the dragon or begged the guardian, who couldn't hear him, to return. Maybe he even send a prayer to gods he hardly believed him. Maybe he begged the dragons above his head to be silent. He couldn't tell. He still couldn't think clearly enough to form a coherent thought.

He sat there when the drizzling rain stopped and the sun peaked out behind the clouds for a last ray of sunshine over the cliffs before it sat into the ocean. He sat there when the moon rose and the stars glimmered in the dark. He sat there when the cold made him shiver even more than the fear, when the drug the guardian or the magic he had used started to fade away and the pain returned, adding to all he still felt from the roars of merciless dragons. He sat there when Chradragshza finally let her head sink onto her paws again and the smoke drifted up from her nostrils again. He lay, exhausted, when she shifted the head slightly so that the smoke blew onto his arms. And he fell asleep there when even fear couldn't keep his maltreated body upright any longer.

*

[Sinitrena]

Part 2 of 3

*

A kick against his unharmed arm woke him up. Even before he opened his eyes, he noticed that it was silent. The wind howled over the cliff even louder and stronger than before, but compared to the dragons it was nothing. Their constant, breathtaking roars had stopped. As long as he kept his eyes shut, he could even pretend they weren't there, though his memories still drifted back to the moment he took the egg and his brother died, as soon as he stopped thinking consciously about anything.

The pain was still there, though manageable. Maybe the guardian had used some magic again. He couldn't tell and he didn't want to think about it either. He knew that he should be dead, that it was nearly impossible to survive wounds like that and only magic could have saved him. Magic, feared and rejected everywhere.

He took a while to get ready to face the world again, waited to open his eyes, waited for a second kick that didn't come. Slowly, he blinked sleep and dried tears away.

The dragon was gone. He did not dare look around for her. He neither wanted to know where exactly she was, nor annoy the man standing over him. Slowly, he sat up and stretched.

The guardian passed him a piece of roasted meat and waited for him to eat, standing over him the whole time with crossed arms. “So, where to?” he finally asked.

Layim swallowed the last bite. After a moment, he swallowed his fear, then finally his resistance. “Pyandra,” he said, “Lord Hadren hired us.” He closed his eyes.

“Ah.”

Layim waited fr a blow that didn't come, for fire to rain down on him or for the earth to swallow him. He waited for something, anything to happen, but nothing did. No sword cut his head from his shoulders, no angry dragon ripped him apart. Nothing.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes again. The guardian still stood in front of him, or again, because now he held an old shirt and trousers in his hands. “Dress, then bring me my bags, boy.”

Layim took the clothes and nodded.

*

The guardian stood next to Chradragshza when he returned. He was busy tethering some kind of contraption onto the dragon, who nudged him again and again and tried to stop him from tying the leathern straps to her forelegs. Long straps already reached over her back and to her hind legs. He didn't seem to mind. He nudged her back, pressed his hand from time to time against the teeth that she had bared. Layim even believed to hear him laugh silently.

“Don't stand there, boy, bring me the bags.” H hadn't turned around, hadn't even stopped for a second what he was doing and even through the laughter he had for his dragon, when he spoke to Layim his voice sounded cold and distanced.

Layim didn't want to take even one step closer to the dragon. He knew that he had little choice, but that didn't make his legs move or his breath slower. It didn't stop his hands from shivering or his eyes from tearing up, due to fear, pain or memories that just wouldn't leave him, even he couldn't tell.

“Now, boy.” The guardian had finished attaching the saddle to Chradragshza and looked at Layim. They both did, waiting for him to obey. At the same moment, they cocked their heads and at the same moment they took a step forward.

Layim stumbled back, trying to keep his distance, but again a wall stopped him.

“You'll expect me to get onto this...”

“Her name is Chradragshza, remember it.” Chradragshza tail, twice as long as her back, thumbed the ground and a little bit of fire shot from her mouth. ”And yes, I do. Now get over here.”

“And... and if I don't?”

The guardian shrugged. “You will. I'm sure you prefer coming with me to staying here?”

No dragons were in the sky this morning and no roars filled the air, but that didn't mean that he didn't feel their presence. They were there, in his mind, in his heart, in the hardly suppressed need to throw up, in every bit of grass and in every rain cloud. This was their land and their home and if there ever was someone less welcome than every other human, it was him.

Slowly, he pressed his hands against the wall, not trusting his legs alone to find the strength to get him moving. The guardian grabbed his arm after a few steps and dragged him forward. Next to Chradragshza the stopped him and held him steady.

“These straps,” he explained calmly, showing him two that had buckles near the middle of the saddle, “go around your thigh and close like a belt. These,” he showed him two further towards Chradragshza's head, “are for your arms or your hands. You can hold onto them or lean forward and put your arms through them. It is uncomfortable but safer. This one goes around your waist.”

“I don't want to ride on this saddle,” Layim protested weakly.

“As you wish,” the guardian said with a shrug, ”Chradragshza's claws will do just as well. She wouldn't mind. As a matter of fact, she would prefer you in her claws.”

Layim couldn't help but look directly into the dragon's eye. For a moment it seemed to him like she was laughing. “Where do I put my hands again?” he asked quickly.

The guardian tied his bags to the saddle and then he strapped Layim in. Chradragshza didn't protest or try to nudge him again. She held perfectly still while the guardian climbed onto her back and knelt down there. There was only one pair of straps, the saddle was not made for two people and so he buried his hands under the rough leader of the saddle from behind Layim and held onto it in a way that Layim would have considered precarious if he had even one thought for the other's situation.

“You might want to close your eyes,” the guardian whispered gently into his ear but it was already too late.

With one smooth motion, Chradragshza unfurled her wings that started on her back slightly behind her forelegs. She stroke the air once with them, sending wind past Layim's ears, then she folded them in again and started to run. Her paws thundered over the grass towards the cliff. She did not stop when she reached it. She ran past it, stretched her neck into the empty air and then, when she started to fall, towards the ocean hundreds of meters below. She made her body as long and small as she could and rushed towards the surface of the sea. Then, when the water was close, she pulled back her head and stretched her chest towards it. Suddenly, she unfurled her wings again, stopping the fall just as her paws touched the water, sending ripples through the waves. Smoothly, she glided over the sea, the three segments of each one completely still and when she finally flapped them again, she created distance and height.

The fall had pressed Layim against the guardian's chest and it seemed like it had dragged his stomach so far back that it felt out of his body. With the slower, calmer flight of the dragon, it returned to its usual position and then into is throat. It was all he could do to turn to the side before he heaved up the little he had eaten and threw up into the ocean.

The guardian grasped his hair and pulled it back. Gently, he drew circles with his other hand on the thief's back until everything had left his stomach.

“You still might want to close your eyes,” the guardian said when strong strokes of Chradragshza's wings pulled them higher and higher.

He couldn't. The wind was whipping past him like a summer storm, bringing tears to his eyes. But the thought of not knowing what was going on around him was worse than the pain the air-stream brought to his eyes or the fear from a hight he couldn't even describe.

Chradragshza flew higher and higher towards the morning sun. At first, it started to warm them when she broke through the last dark clouds. Then the coldness from moistness and height seeped into Layim's clothes and his very skin. It was breathtaking, in the truest sense of the word. The air was thin and heavy. At least, the flight itself distracted him so much that he didn't look down and managed to stare on the scaly neck of the dragon instead.

“Breathe slowly,” the guardian said, knowing exactly what Layim experienced for the first time. “Don't panic. Stay calm.”

“That's… that's easier said than done,” Layim said through gasps.

The guardian laughed silently. “You'll get used to it. You have no choice. - Concentrate on your breathing. Don't pay attention to anything else. Don't look down.”

But it was already too late. The words reminded him too much where he was and his look drifted past the dragon's neck. Through a veil of white clouds he saw a world that was alien to him. They weren't over the ocean any longer. Deep, deep below he could see the coastline and the hills, fields that were yellow drops and a town that was nothing but red dots. It wasn't rushing past. They were so high up that everything below seemed slow and sluggish.

His breath came in gasps again. “I.. I can't. I...” Layim swallowed hard, then he begged: “Distract me, please, sir, I... Please...”

“Don't forget who you are, boy,” the guardian warned but there was little rebuke in his voice.

“Please...” He couldn't take his eyes away from a world that he had known all his life and now couldn't recognize.

“Or who I am.”

Something caught Layim's attention in these words. It was such a little thing but it was enough to bring other thoughts into his mind. “I don't know who you are,” he said weakly. “I know nothing about you.”

“You know enough.”

“I don't even know your name,” he protested, more courage and defiance in his voice than he felt.

The guardian laughed again and the laughter made Layim turn towards him. “And my name will tell you anything about me?”

Layim shook his head. “No, but...”

“Yes, but. It is Prince Vettian of Altri-Atron.” He paused for a second. “The title is a bit out of date. I somehow doubt anyone even remembers that I ever existed. Maybe in legends. 900 years are a long time. As strange as it might sound, I never ask when I return there.”

“You are 900 years old?”

“And you are a bit nosey, aren't you, boy? Yes, I am over 900 years old. And nearly just as long I have kept the peace between dragon and man.”

*

A journey that would take more than a week by foot took less than a day on the back of a dragon. Layim couldn't tell when they got closer to Pyandra. Everything looked the same down below them or at least too different to what he was used to. At least, he got used to looking down from time to time, though never for more than a few seconds. He had spend his whole life in Pyandra and now the high walls were hardly more than an uneven circle around something that was just a brown and grey mass. The castle, where he had spend three weeks in the dungeon before Lord Hadren ordered him brought before him, stood only out from the rest because it was higher.

This time, Vettian warned him early enough to close his eyes and this time he listened.

He only felt the muscles on Chradragshza's back contract as she folded her wings onto her side and stretched her neck and head down and forward. Wind pressed him back against the chest of the guardian. Layim knew that the ground was rushing towards them, like it had done when he fell in a dragon's cave, he knew that the grass was coming closer at a pace that was unfathomable for his mind. His ears felt as if they pressed themselves deep into his head. He couldn't hear for a moment while the dragon fell and then her wings unfurled again and he couldn't stop himself from tearing his eyes open. The ground, just seconds ago only a mass of colours, had now shapes he knew and sizes he was used to. The air seemed to stop for a second, the dragon stood perfectly still in the air as Chradragshza flapped them against the atmosphere just meters over the ground and then she landed as gentle and still as only a feather could. She took a step forward, shook her head from side to side for a moment and then turned her neck around to them. She put her snout against her own shoulder and then she blinked.

Vettian laughed and then reached past Layim and petted the little horn on Chradragshza's nose. Before Layim had fully comprehended that they had reached the safety of solid earth again, slipped Vettian from the dragon's back and untied Layim's legs and waist.

Layim fell more than that he climbed and landed next to Chradragshza's sharp claws on his knees, panting and dry-heaving. Everything hurt and he wasn't sure if this came from all the wounds his body had suffered not too long ago or the most unpleasant journey imaginable. Probably both, no matter how well Vettian's magic had obviously healed him. In fact, the only wound he still noticed individually and not just as part of the mass of pain his whole body was, was his cheek where Chradragshza had slapped him with her tongue. Curious, distracted by this sudden realization, his hand touched his cheek.

The guardian must have noticed his movement. He paused from untying his bag and the saddle from Chradragshza's back and said: “She marked you. It's a spell. Every dragon will know what you have done and every dragon will know that you receive your punishment. Don't think too much about it. We have work to do.”

“Where are we?” Layim asked, standing up and looking around.

They stood on some kind of meadow, surrounded by hills and the outskirts of a forest less than a hundred steps from them but Layim didn't recognize anything here.

“To the west of Pyandra. About two hours away.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

Layim stepped further away from Chradragshza. As long as his two companions allowed it, he preferred not to be too close to the dragon. “Um, no, not really. I mean, why are we so far away from the town?”

Vettian looked over to him. “You think its a good idea to bring a dragon close to so many people? We walk the rest of the way. The only thing Chradragshza could do there is burning it to the ground anyway and I would rather avoid killing a whole town just to get to a few people.”

*

Layim already limped after a few minutes. They had left Chradragshza behind at the edge of the forest where she rubbed her back against a tree with obvious pleasure. She had given off a short, annoyed roar that was much more subdued than what he had heard so far when Vettian bid her farewell but other than that she did not protest.

“Dragon to dragon. Man to man. We're used to it, unfortunately,” the guardian had said with a shrug and not looked back.

After that he had said nothing else and only pulled the young thief along when he slowed down due to the pain in his leg and the general exhaustion he had no time to shake off. Even when Layim tried to ask questions, manly just to talk because talking was easier to bear than silence and knowledge was preferable to not knowing what the guardian planed to do, the man just shushed him with a simple gesture.

The sun stood deep in the sky when they finally reached the top of one of the hills surrounding the small town that was only more than a village because an important castle stood there. As did all towns, it welcomed visitors with cages hanging down from the city wall where criminals found a usually slow and painful death. Sometimes, they were already dead when they were put into the cages. It was a warning to everyone coming close that law and order reigned with a hard hand there.

Layim hadn't often left the town, but when he did he always looked up to the cages. This time, the faces of the two prisoners stopped him in his tracks.

“Someone you knew?” the guardian asked, dragging him further towards the gate.

“Yes.”

“Someone I should have known?”

“Yes.” He could not take his eyes from the limbs that hung down through the grate in a way that was just wrong or from the faces that seemed to still scream, not from the eyes that had bled over their cheeks or the fingernails that were gone, just gone.

“Did you expect anything else? Nobody likes witnesses. No matter what happened to them, it's better than what I would have done.”

Layim shuddered. The worst was not that his two accomplices had found an end like that or Vettian's statement or even that the cold and distant tone that seemed otherwise gone that day and was replaced by a slight bit of humour had returned but this one single traitorous thought that maybe, just maybe they deserved it, everything that had happened to them and worse.

He knew, or believed, that this was the dragons' magic talking, the spell they had ingrained into him with roars and screams, with memories of pain and loss. He hated them. Every last bit of him, every fibre of him hated them. And at the same time he mourned them. They were not really friends. He hadn't even really known them before they were hired together, force together to steal a dragon's egg, and they had fled as soon as they had the egg in their hands, leaving him and his brother alone in the cave. But to be killed by their employer, to be tortured, to be murdered, that still seemed too much.

“They did not deserve this,” he whispered.

“They deserved this as much and as little as you,” Vettian said gently. “They probably didn't know the consequences. They might not have cared. Nobody really remembers what it means when dragons get angry. What you feel, the hatred? It's subdued, I know, and it can't remove your own feelings, but imagine it a thousandfold and you don't even come close to what the dragons feel.” They walked through the gate unchallenged, Layim's look still stuck to the cages so that Vettian had to steady him and pull him along. “They have so very few offspring, their numbers are still not back to what they once were. And now they lost another one. The fledgling might not be dead but it can't ever return either. It can never learn the full magic of its mother, it can never fly with its coven, it can never just be a dragon. It will be welcome on the island but always ever as a guest and it will never find another home, no real home. The other dragons of the guardians were chosen and brought to friends, but this one is with its enemy. And believe me, it knows. For you, dragons are just wild animals, but do you really think that Chradragshza is an animal. Or a pet, for that matter? She did not chose to leave her coven but she did chose to stay with me, so that she is not all alone. Not all dragons that get separated do this, especially those that are not close to humans. There is such a short time between a dragon hatching and it learning to understand the people around it. When there is nobody, they can never really connect with anybody. And this fledgling might learn, it might become a mediator but it might also end up completely alone. And worst of all would be if it befriends its captor.” He hesitated a moment, then he turned Layim towards him and fixed him with cold-blue eyes. “In the eyes of the dragons and in mine, these two were murderers, nothing else. It doesn't matter that they didn't know. It doesn't matter what the law, human law, says about it. It doesn't matter that you feel different for them or that they were betrayed by someone else. They did deserve it.”

Layim said nothing. He just stood there and stared into eyes that were as deep as an ocean and as old as the dragons themselves. He expected the same hatred the guardian felt for his accomplices to be there in them, but it wasn't. There was just the pain he had heard in a mother's cry and a searching look. The young face that was really as old as time itself showed the lines of strain and a long life clearer than before. It almost seemed to beg him, beg him to understand or to at least acknowledge that he recognized the truth of the words.

Layim could not free his eyes from the other's, caught in the same spell he had used before, the spell Chradragshza had used as well. Memories, restrained for a while at least, memories he was so familiar with by now, were dragged to the surface again, mixing with the new loss of two accomplices, of two strangers that had become partners in a week of travel and traitors in a single step.

Layim swallowed hard. “Why am I here?” he finally asked. He knew the answer and at the same time he knew that it was different.

“As punishment.”

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Everything. Everything you can.” Vettian laughed and it seemed to Layim like the spell evaporated and had never been there. “We are about to steal a dragon, after all, and you are the thief. An accomplished thief, if I'm not mistaken.”

Layim still stood still when Vettian had already reached the next street corner. He wasn't looking back. Now was the time to disappear, now was the time to run. He followed the guardian as quickly as he could.

“You want the dragon back and you want to punish Lord Hadren. Why don't you just...”

“Attack? Have Chradragshza attack? How many innocent people live in this castle, do you think? And how would the king react when a dragon destroys a castle of one of his allies? No, we free the fledgling and we punish Lord Hadren but we leave everybody else out of it.”

“How?” Layim had to jog to keep up with the other's long strides.

“Lord Hadren is a wizard like me, so I'm not surprised that he is interested in a dragon all for himself. It also means he is probably interested in other wizards, considering how magic is usually treated. Besides, I know of him. We share acquaintances, though it's probably better not to mention Sjilli. He knows that she is a guardian.”

They had reached the castle's gate. Pyandra was a small town and the castle, while important from a strategic point of view, was not that impressive. It was hardly more than a group of larger house surrounded by their own wall. The kingdom was peaceful, it had been peaceful for over seventy years and so the two guards leaned lazily against the wooden wall of their guardhouse. They watched the comings and goings of countless visitors, servants and clerks and only stopped some when they did not recognize their faces immediately, never even picking up their halberds which stood in the corner of guardhouse and castle wall.

Vettian did not stopped, he walked directly towards the gate.

“He'll recognize me!” Layim said quickly before the guards were in hearing distance.

“You're my servant. Servants tend to be invisible. And even if he recognizes you, it won't be too much of a problem for me. - Stop protesting. I know what you are doing.”

What was he doing? Layim wasn't sure. He didn't want to go into the castle, that much was clear, but why? Was he afraid? Was he not on the guardian's side? Was he on his side? Why?

Thoughts rushed through his mind that made little sense and he couldn't even tell if all of them were his own. What was the magic of the dragons, forcing him to feel what they felt, what was his own anger that he could not expect help from Lord Hadren, what was remorse, what fear of a war that seemed so far away, what fear for a little dragon that was just an animal for him just days ago? But Chradragshza wasn't...

He had to jog after Vettian again.

“... stories of times long gone, the legends of old,” Vettian was saying, “I sing of the time of the dragons and of the heroes that fought them. I tell of the fall of the twins or the rise of Roppri the great, I play dances old and new on the flute, I lead your lord into adventures of love, of magic, of...”

“Yes, yes, yes, it is enough,” one of the guards interrupted him, “You may wait here for the chamberlain. He'll probably hire you for a day or two.”

Vettian cocked his head and bowed it in a way that seemed respectful and mocking at the same time, then he leaned against the wall and sank slowly to the ground, letting the last bit of sun of the evening fall onto the tip of his nose and waiting for the return of the other guard and probably the chamberlain in the most relaxed way possible. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“A bard?” Layim whispered when the guard was distracted by other visitors, “You pretend to be a bard?”

Vettian smiled. “No pretending. I am a bard. What do you think how I earn my money? Dragons only pay in freshly roasted meat and a place to stay when I'm visiting and people don't really care about me or what I do. I don't need much, but from time to time I have to pay for something.”

*