I scrambled back as the ferociously angry dragon advanced on me,
crushing my mother’s charred remains beneath its monstrous
feet. My heart was pounding in fear, hatred and anger, but the fear
was too great for any other emotion to survive. It swallowed up
everything, until nothing remained but grim reality.
My reality, in this case, was the fact that I was soon going to
suffer the same fate as my mother. Her ashes were already being blown
to the four corners of the earth by the wind created by the fires of
the scaly beast now before me. He
opened his jaws and I saw the red
flames coming. I braced myself for the excruciating pain and the
death I knew would follow soon after.
But they never came.
I had closed my eyes at first, but when nothing happened, I opened
them just a slit. I froze. The dragon’s nose was less than an
inch from my face and up close, his teeth were as long as my dad’s
old sword. His hot breath blew my hair around
my face and into my eyes. Old scars from previous battles lined what
neck I could see. I didn’t know if it had been man or beast
that had made those scars.
Either way, he was still alive and had survived those battles. I
figured my chance of surviving this battle were about zero to none.
So, I didn’t move and I didn’t make a sound. I didn’t
even when the beast began to sniff my face, filling my nose with the
heavy fumes of sulfur.
“You smell of him,” the dragon finally said, his voice
reminding me of granite stones rubbing together. “His blood
runs through your veins.”
“Whose blood?” My voice was trembling and my hands were
shaking.
“Your father’s,” the dragon ground out. “He
is well known among my kind.”
“Ummmm…..thank you?”
That was the wrong answer.
“I hate your father!” the dragon roared, his tail lashing
in fury. “He is a killer!”
“He was not a killer,” I shouted back. “He was a
hero!”
I had loved my father and now that someone or something, in this
case, was degrading him. Well, I couldn’t stand it. My anger
and hatred came rushing back and this time the fear wasn’t
there to stop it. I remembered that I had a sword strapped to my hip,
I remembered that I knew how to use it, I remembered what my father
had said before he died.
He’d taken my hand and said, “Kaeri, always remember what
your family is. Don’t ever let us down. You’re the last
of us now. Be sure people will sing songs about us when we’re
gone.”
I looked at the place where my mother’s ashes rested and felt
hot tears fall. They were tears of fury, of hate, of grief. For my
mother’s sake, I wouldn’t let my family down.
I slowly stood up and drew my sword. The dragon drew back its head
and began to laugh. The sound of its laughter was even more horrible
than its voice. It made me think of a hundred bloody corpses, of
tragic battles, and of death.
“What are you going to do with that toothpick? Scratch me
behind the ears.” The beast sneered at me, mocked me.
I faced him head on and straightened my shoulders. My eyes narrowed
in defiance.
“I’m going to avenge the death of my mother. I’m
going to kill you!” I shouted the words, just wishing he could
feel the pain I did.
The monster laughed again. Suddenly, he swiped a paw at me, knocking
my legs out from underneath me. I landed in a heap, my sword knocked
out of my hand. It clattered away from me and landed too far away to
reach. I stretched out my arm for it desperately but I already knew
it was too far away.
While I was reaching, I felt the dragon loom over me. He smashed
his foot into my body, knocking the
breath out of me. His claws curled around my shoulders. I could feel
them digging into my shoulders.
I screamed in pain.
“Aww, you do feel pain,” the dragon observed in a
disconnected way, almost as if he were watching a play. “I was
beginning to wonder about your kind.”
I gritted my teeth. The pain of his claws was
almost unbearable. Waves of nausea swept over me and I threw up.
After I wiped my mouth, I noted with some satisfaction that I had
managed to puke all over the dragon’s foot. At least he would
have to take a bath after he killed me.
“Well, since you do feel pain,” he mused, “maybe
this day won’t be a complete waste after all.”
I braced myself for torture.
But it never came. Instead, I heard a rumbling from deep inside the
dragon’s chest. It evolved into speech and I realized that he
was reciting a verse, a spell.
“In payment of this debt, a dragon’s and human’s
bodies have met. Let her be fire and heat, never saving water to
meet.”
I immediately gasped and doubled over in pain. The dragon had taken
his claws out of my back which burned like acid. I started to feel
like I had the world’s highest fever. My whole body was on
fire. My eyes felt like they were melting and I couldn’t see.
My bones suddenly were as heavy as lead and had molten lava running
through them. Bile rose up in my throat and my whole body started
convulsing, every limb giving sporadic jerks like I was having a
seizure. My mouth opened to vomit for the second time in an hour but
it wasn’t my dinner that came out.
It was flames.
Fire started
coming out of every pore in my body and shooting in all possible
directions. My clothes were burnt away, leaving me exposed and naked.
Any tree, bush, pinecone, blade of grass, insect, and small animal
within fifty feet was instantly incinerated. The dragon laughed with
glee as I rolled on the ground, consumed with agony.
After what seemed like an eternity, the pain died away to a dull
roar. Sparks still flew out of my mouth but the flaming had stopped.
I lay on the ground panting, my arms and legs still twitching. The
world around me started to go black and hazy. I managed to twist my
head up enough to see the vague outline of the dragon’s face
looming above me.
It was a dark circle filled with red.
The world turned black…
I wonder what is going to become of her now... that curse seems interesting but I still don't quite know how it is going to affect her. You better post the next chapter soon!
I think instead of what you meant who, in this case.
I'll definitely be doing some serious editing.
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