“Who are you that dare encroach on my lair?”
I opened my eyes, looking through the grate of my metal visor. The light that filtered through them was nearly unbearably bright, walls of gold that rose on either side, reflecting the tiniest ray of light into a nova. Where was I?
The voice repeated, “I asked you a question, two legged thief.”
I raised my sword instinctively and held my shield up, like I’d done it a thousand times before. This place was unknown to me, yet I knew it well, I remembered I came here for a purpose, but what purpose was it?
A huge mountain of gold seemed to shift, coins and goblets tumbling down its sides. I tried not to quaver in my boots as the dragon revealed itself, a huge scaled behemoth that rose so high the summit of its curved neck scraped the ceiling of the great cave. This creature couldn’t be any thought up or contrived of our God, more than likely spawn of Evil.
The dragon’s eyes seemed to burn with fire, when he opened his maw smoke poured out of either side and his throat was set alight from within by some bright glow.
I bellowed with false bravado, “I’m not afraid of you.”
In truth, that was a far cry from the quivering little thing that barely filled the void my courage had left behind. I took a step backwards as the dragon spread his wings, the membranous front limbs stretching so far they touched the sides of this huge cave, but still they weren’t spread fully. He roared, “Another hero! Come to seek your end, then?”
His voice was like brimstone and sulphur, like thunder and tremors. He spoke and the world obeyed. I held my sword high still, pointing the edge of steel at the monster that couldn’t be real.
The dragon reached forward with one of his winged front limbs, scraping it against the side of a golden mountain on my side and allowing the coins to cascade down as a great avalanche of precious metal. I raised my shield and the rain of gold slid off. The dragon laughed a hearty bellow, roaring, “You foolish mortals, you seek out death willingly! You have no chance against me!”
Did I? Why was I even here? In this familiar place I’d never seen before, in this metal suit I’d never worn before but still was like heirloom to me. And this dragon? He couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be.
His eyes flared at the nullity of response from me, “Do you not fear Death? Do you not shake in your metal skin?”
The fear didn’t come, slowly seeping away as realisation began to creep in. I pushed up my visor, pointing my sword at the great beast, “You! You’re not real!”
I knew the dragon would have smiled if his reptile face allowed it, “Ah, so you are not one of the Braves, nor the Greedy? You are obviously not of sound mind.”
The suspicion was growing greater in me. I shouted at him again, “You’re not real!”
His eyes turned to fiery slits, “Care to see how real I am?”
The glow spread up from the bottom of his throat, filling the entire length of his neck as he drew his head up. I chanted silently to myself, “He’s not real, he’s not real, he’s not real…”
The fire came, and despite what I had said, I still flipped my visor down and held my shield up.
The yellow and white tongues spread around me like a mother’s arms caressing a child. I felt the heat, the searing pain, I closed my eyes yet the light flowing through my visor was so great I still saw it.
When the terrible heat ended, I looked up in surprise, amazed I had survived the onslaught of death. The dragon’s eyes widened, he bellowed, “No! This… this is impossible!”
I tightened my grip on my sword, and advanced on the beast, smiling grimly to myself. The dragon looked at me almost fearfully, backing up into his throne of golden coins so they fell like a waterfall on either side of him.
Building into a run, I sprinted in my full suit of armour at the giant beast. He breathed his fell flames on me again, and I shouted in defiance.
I remembered why I’d come, to slay a dragon.
I opened my eyes again, and looked up to see the ceiling of my bedroom and the serenely rotating fan. The sound of a door opening, then a voice, familiar to me, “I heard a shout? What happened?”
I rubbed my bleary eyes and looked at the door of my room, a woman stood there, my mother. I answered, “It’s nothing, just some nightmares.”
She closed the door, and I waited for the click of the handle before sliding down under my sheets, sighing to myself.
We all have something inside us, a hurdle to pass, a mountain to scale, a dragon to slay. And I knew, I’d see my own dragon again, stalking me, haunting me in my dreams. But this time, I wasn’t afraid.
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140,780 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
Hi Boe,
Quivering, not quavering.My name is Aley and I'm here to give you a review.
To start out with, I really think that this has some great potential. The story kept me in the moment and your descriptive language was very good. There were moments when I was really sure I knew exactly what you were talking about, but there were also some things that could be improved.
For me the main thing is to eliminate things which don't actually give any real description, even though they might seem like they do. You can do this by adding things in earlier, or taking things out.
This is one of those times when you can add things earlier.
So you tell us this is a great cave, but we don't really see the cave. How great is it? How big is it? Can't we get a quick overview of how many people tall it is so when we get to this point, we can be impressed by his size?
We can also talk about things like this though:
I am so glad you continued on with this and said something that actually could describe a tonal voice rather than something that described smells. Sure, we can smell breath, but we can't smell voice. The voice is made up of vibrations, not smells.
If you take brimstone and sulphur, put "his breath smelled like" in front of it, you have something more plausible, although sulphur is really all you need. Brimstone are kind of old fashioned and cliche for pairing with sulphur.
There are some things however, that just need to be taken out all together.
This really ruins it for me. I'd so rather you just cut this off. We don't need to be preached at. If we can't get your message from the story, then we shouldn't be told. It's sort of like having our gloves pinned to our coats still. We can take off the training wheels, right?
Taking off this last bit, and leaving it, perhaps just at "I opened my eyes again, and looked at the door of my room." would be enough. We're leaving it on an action instead of a personal note. We're giving the twist and then running for the hills because our job here is done, and we're giving the reader something to think about.
Personally even though it is a dream, I'd love more description of killing the dragon. Does it just shrink away into nothing? Does our narrator actually have to lay his sword to it? Since it is a dream, does it vanish in a poof of smoke? How real are these dreams? These are all things that are going to be useless questions but also if you go into the description of killing the dragon, people are going to expect the dream less.
Hi there, Bol. Just dropping by to drop some opinions.
-> I'm going to have to disagree with the other reviewers so far, and say I wasn't a massive fan of the ending. 'But then he woke up and it was all a dream' has been done many times before.
Now, it's normally done awfully, and your approach to the matter is better than most. Usually the audience feels cheated that the story they just read/watched has no bearing on the character's real life, but you pulled the dream together with your character wanting to overcome their obstacles in life, which made the dream relevant. So that is a good thing.
But I can't help admitting that I felt a little disappointed when your narrator woke up. I was so intrigued by how something was just off, by how this character was at once a rookie and an old-hand at slaying dragons, and the increasing mystery behind the dragon and whether or not it was real, that I was hoping for something a bit more original and surprising.
Now, I don't think revising this story to make it not a dream would be the right thing to do. However, it is something to keep in mind for future projects. As a general rule, if you're building up a mystery you want the payoff to be original.
-> You have some awkward phrasing in here. For example, 'This creature couldn’t be any thought up or contrived of our God, more than likely spawn of Evil' is a sentence that doesn't make grammatical sense.
Proofreading will allow you to catch things like that. Whenever I write a short story, I will put it aside for a week or two before coming back to re-read and edit it. It helps me catch things like this. Give it a go - you should hopefully find it helps you tighten up your prose.
Lovely story! The opening to your story made me think of the scene in the second Hobbit movie where Bilbo faces Smaug.
One of the fun things about dreams is when you actually establish control over what's going on. Then, dragon fire can't burn you, you can fly, etc., etc.
Hi there! Lucrezia here for a review.
This was really a great piece. It captivated me instantly, and that ending was surprising and awesome.
The details/descriptions/metaphors were all flawless. Seriously, your choice of wording was fantastic. The characters also didn't seem flat, they had personality and intrigue. Which is hard to do in a piece this short.
The pacing was very nice. There's really nothing I can complain about overall; you did a great job.
Nitpicks:
This is a bit long. I'd suggest breaking it up like so:
This place was unknown to me, yet I knew it well. I remembered I came here for a purpose . . . but what purpose was it?
Replace the comma at the end of "fiery slits" to a period.
Again, you might want to break this up a tad. An example:
I rubbed my bleary eyes and looked toward the door of my room. A woman stood there—my mother.
No need for the comma after "I knew."
Okay, now that the nitpicks are out of the way, I once again have to say this was incredible. And besides for the few little things I pointed out, it was pretty much perfect.
Good job and keep writing!
"His voice was like brimstone and sulphur, like thunder and tremors. He spoke and the world obeyed."
This was by far my favorite part in the story. The time you took in describing just how fearsome the dragon was really paid off, and made the story even more interesting. Although for the amount of build-up this story had I was a bit disappointed at the lack of a fight between the hero and the dragon. Maybe you were trying to prove violence is not required in conquering your fears. Anyway the ending was done perfectly. His problems were not completely solved but he did gain some confidence.