A dry twig snapped beneath a small girl’s feet. The sound echoed far in the silent wood, scaring nothing away for nothing lived to be scared.
Her eyes last saw another life some thirty minutes ago, nearer to the forest edge- a deer, fleeing in the opposite direction from where she was heading. It leaped high over the fallen remains of a lesser ashwood tree, landing gracefully on the other side and vanishing into the brush.
Lashes fell closed, a shaky breath struggling its way in and out of her lungs. Anxiety, growing dread, emotions running high as necessity pushed the traveller further into darkness.
This forest was not special, no curse was laid upon it, and yet none wished to enter and none wished to remain. In back alley streets where those who have nothing lay, whispers spoke of something hiding in the depths: a monster that ate the flesh of men. Armed with a silver sword, leather armour, and a simple iron shield, a desperate girl was given a goal: kill the beast and welcomed as one of them- welcomed at the table where all will drink of her bravery.
An adventurer she was not, too scrawny and malnourished for a brothel let alone a guild of monster hunters, and yet this thin spider’s thread that stretched out in front of her was all that remained.
She had to succeed- there was nothing else.
The earth was misshapen in the empty wood, sections of ground pushed high above others, creating sheer walls of dirt and stone that left root systems floundering for purchase and herself blocked- forced to go around. One such raise of soil she came across had knocked over a large tree sometime in the distant past, but it had adapted and survived, roots sprouting from what once were branches and new growth reaching toward the sky beside roots still clinging to solid earth. She silently praised the tree for its determination, grateful for the path it had become for others.
Step after step, she forged through the ever darkening forest, towering true ashwoods holding up the sky overhead, their branches and leaves creating a dense canopy that blotted out the sun. Below, the ground soon became muddy, murky water pooling in places where the earth had sunk instead of risen, creating shallow swampland. It was in this stretch of transforming biome that a new sound slowly became audible over the squish of her boots in the muck. The low howling of wind, deep and full like an oncoming typhoon.
It followed a rhythm, eight seconds of silence between each new gust.
She stopped, a lump forming in her throat, one that proved extremely difficult to force back down. It was the sound of breathing, gallons of air filling and emptying lungs the size of horses. Each long breath reverberated through the trees, echoing off grey bark to assault her ears from all directions.
The weapon felt heavy in her clammy grip.
“I have to do this.” The girl whispered- a reminder. “I will find happiness.”
She squeezed the handle tight, and continued walking.
Each step toward the sound increased the dread hanging over her, new signs of danger appearing with increasing frequency.
More and more as she trudged through the mud, trees she passed were knocked over, struck with such force that they simply snapped in half. The resultant logs were left to rot in the shallows as food for mushrooms and worms.
Climbing atop the largest of them and following until its end brought her to section of much deeper water flanked by high rock walls. Gnarled grey roots curled lovingly over one of the raised slabs, slithering down its face and into the depths where they could feed. The other cliffside bore twin sets of long straight grooves, numerous deep indents into the rock where nightmarish claws had made their mark.
She averted her eyes from the claw marks, childishly pretending for a moment that what she couldn’t see no longer existed. She focused on the root covered wall instead, seeking a possible way to cross. In many places, stones that had crumbled from above became wedged between two roots; testing her body weight on them found that they were sturdy. Slowly and carefully she stepped from soil to rock to root, holding on tightly to each gravel coloured tendril of wood until she had to reach for the next, eventually touching down on the other side with an unsatisfactory wet squish. The breaths were so much louder now, her target not far away- asleep, she hoped, the only way someone like her could feasibly succeed.
A few paces away the earth sloped downward, a muddy slide down into the swamp proper where her final destination lay. It felt like a true precipice, looking down the hill knowing the only way she could ever get back out was when the threat was gone. She could see bones of all kinds at the bottom: human, animal, things she had never seen, all equal in the muck and the slime.
Her eyes fell closed again, tilting her head down to hide her nose in her scarf.
A deep breath. Hold- two, three, four -out.
She began her decent.
The ground wasn’t as slippery as she thought, and so it took some time to alternately slide and shuffle down the slope. A sickening crunch underfoot bid her welcome at the hill’s base, the brittle remains of something once living giving way beneath even the slight weight of her skeletal body. Ahead, a clear path through the thick undergrowth of the swamp had been made by the repeated trampling of something truly large, knocking aside or crushing anything that got in the way of its chosen direction. She followed the path, wading through the water as quietly as she could, until at last finding herself at its destination.
A clearing- or what would have been if not for the permanent roof created by the canopy -opened up before her, an islet of dry land raised up from the earth at the centre. Laying atop the dais of soil, curled around a pile of shimmering metals, was most unfortunately- tragically- certainly- her quarry.
Great wings of abyssal black folded against a hide of obsidian scales, four large horns grew out and forward from its brow and neck, framing a face of heavy contours and hard edges. Atop its head a webbed crest grew, lilac fins continuing in series down its spine to end in a graceful fishlike tail.
It was an ancient black dragon, and it was asleep, breathing calm deep breaths as it dreamt of destruction.
For the first time in her long long journey through the forest, Ilya completely lost it.
This was in no way part of the plan. She expected a beastman or a troll or even a direbear, anything even remotely possible for a human to slay. Realistically speaking, a scrawny little street beggar would fair little chance against any of those threats, but little chance is still greater than zero. Ancient dragons were the apex predator of the world, the list of things that threatened them extremely short: gods, other ancients, heroes, done. Why would anyone ever think she could do this? Why did they send her here?
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“Oh? Another lamb to the slaughter?”
She froze.
In the short span of time her momentary lapse of courage took, Ilya had lost everything: her chance for a home, her chance for escape, her very life. The dragon had opened its eyes.
Jade irises surrounded by a sea of blackness peered deep into the girl’s soul and their owner found itself very amused. “But my, they really have outdone themselves this time, sending a starving child?” It rose to a seated position, towering over its new prey with a dark chuckle, its deep feminine voice dripping with derision. “Such cruelty from supposed creatures of Order.”
Stepping off the island and into the water, the dragon paced a slow methodical circle around her, observing its meal from all angles, trapping her within an ouroboros of its long serpentine body. “What did they promise you on your successful return? Wealth, renown, a grand feast?”
When the dragon’s terrible eyes went out of view, the overwhelming hold they had over her voice went with them. “A place to… to belong…” Ilya whimpered breathlessly. It was so easy for them to convince her. A home, friends, purpose- merely a glimpse at what she would gain when she returned was all it took.
The sudden booming of horrid cackling laughter shook the trees above, the beast’s tail slapping against the water’s surface multiple times with uncontrollable mirth. The waves the motion generated sloshed around the clearing violently, toppling over delicate grasses and splashing up onto until then dry shores. “Truly??!” It cried in disbelief.
Ilya squeezed her eyes tightly closed and nodded quickly. It’s the only thing she’d ever wanted- she would do anything for that simple goal. This sent the dragon into another round of cackles, lasting just as long as the first, it laughed joyously into the night for what felt like ages until finally petering out and leaving the swamp silent.
“Let me let you in on a little secret, my sweet lonely child.” Its voice was suddenly millimetres away from her ear, sending an involuntary chill up the young woman’s spine. “They were never going to accept you.”
Ilya’s eyes opened wide, something in her stomach dropping. “…what?”
Another chuckle, quieter this time. She felt it vibrate against her body. “They know I am here, this was no mistake.” Grinning as it watched the girl put the pieces together, it drip fed further despair. “The humans send unto me their most unwanted and despised: a noble’s useless third son, an adventurer who tried too hard to be good, an annoying orphan girl begging to be given a chance.”
It made one more half circle around, coming a stop directly in front of the girl. Leaning down, the dragon puffed a jet of hot air out of its nostrils, blowing messy bangs out of Ilya’s eyes so it could stare into them as she realized the truth.
“You were disposed of.”
Just like that, the thin shimmering spider’s thread that had guided her all this way snapped, plunging her into the bottomless abyss below. All expression and emotion drained from Ilya’s face, her terrified and sorrowful grey eyes becoming empty and cold, her tense muscles relaxing. There was a splash as the silver sword felt from her limp fingers, disappearing beneath the disturbed and murky swamp water. The rest of her body joined it as her legs failed to hold her up, sinking down to her knees.
“No tears? No anger? Not even a scream of betrayal?” The dragon queried disappointedly, watching its prey lamely fall apart like the abandoned puppet she was. “I worked hard building that up, the polite thing to do is let me in on the despair.”
“What is wrong with you?”
…
“…You bore me.” It finally conceded, picking the sword out of the muck and turning to walk back to it’s hoard. It’s tail splashed water at the girl as it went, but still she did not move.
The silver blade made a fine centrepiece to the hoard, sticking out pommel up with the gold below as its pedestal. Content with the new addition, the dragon once more curled up around the pile of shimmering wealth and closed its eyes. “When next you wake me, do so with screams or wailing.”
Nothing happened for a full two minutes, the only sounds aside from the dragons lungs being the occasional collapse of something from the canopy or a bubble of gas popping as it reached the surface of the swamp. Eventually, the quiet sloshing of water bid the dragon to open an eye. Ilya had shuffled her way across the clearing to the dragons islet and now gripped tightly to its shore, digging her thin fingers into the soil. Her shield had been discarded somewhere and her head was tilted down, a curtain of long and dirty black hair covering her face from sight.
Another few seconds of quietude passed between them, neither moving and neither speaking a word.
“…I have nothing.” The voice that finally came out was dead and lifeless- without inflection or emotion. “No place to return to. No one to miss me. I never did. I never will.” The girl’s body tilted forward, bowing to press her forehead into the mud.
“I give myself to you, great dragon, to do with as you wish.” She declared, prostrating herself before her executioner. “I’m sorry… but I can’t find the life in me to scream.”
The great beast continued to stare at the girl’s form, single eye occasionally scanning up and down as if considering what to do to her. It eventually sat up, rising to full and terrible height, claws flexing only a foot from Ilya’s head. “…Very well.” The dragon sighed with annoyance, and Ilya readied herself for the release of death.
A life of suffering over at last.
…
“Go and sort the bone piles outside; set aside any skulls for warning stakes or totems.”
Head still pressed into the filth, when Ilya’s brain restarted and her eyes snapped open all they could see was mud. That couldn’t be right, surely? It sounded like the dragon was expecting her to do chores? The last time anyone wanted her to do anything for them it was a ploy to take her life, something this predator already held in its claws.
The great beast continued. “Also go and find a clean stream in the forest to wash your hands and face, that mud is full of disease and you are not yet immune.” Okay that definitely couldn’t be correct, someone caring if she got sick? It sounded too good to be true. Perhaps she had died in her sleep last night, and this whole day was one final fever dream.
‘But what if…’ Ilya rose up from her bow, dumbly looking up at the man-eating, torture loving evil dragon with a look of genuine hope.
“Are your ears broken in addition to your head?” They might be.
“Let me be perfectly clear then.”
Abyssal black wings opened to their full majestic span, brushing each edge of the clearing as their owner’s glorious scales shimmered with dark power. “I am the black dragon Visnavik’drok’sahrot, and you are mine now, bound in servitude for the rest of your sad little existence.”
The great beast’s words were punctuated with a flap of its massive wings, the resultant gust of wind slapping Ilya across the face and nearly throwing her backwards into the water. “You are to call me Lady Visnavik, or My Queen, or My Lady. You are to do whatever I say.”
Forcefully snapped out of her shock, Ilya scrambled to grab the lifeline offered to her, head bowed in desperate submission. “Yes my Queen! Of course my Queen!” This was it. This was finally her chance, what she had been surviving all this time to find, what all the pain and tears and suffering had been for. A place in this world she could call her own. A purpose.
Ilya would do anything, debase herself in any way, to stop it from slipping between her fingers.
This was the beginning of her new life.
From the sketches of the author:
image [https://i.imgur.com/XHb9MgW.png] Ilya [https://i.imgur.com/Zeqaqpu.png]