Speculative Stories for Your Consternation and Delight
Your world is too soft at the edges, Tally—
gossamer dreams never last in mine.
It should be such an easy thing to hate a human. Tally reeks of ancient dragon sorrow, after all. The young hunter could snap my spine like a twig should the stray shadow of fury slant across his brow. And yet he—
Likes flowers? Unending heaps of them!
As we near the boundary of his human village, our dirt road suddenly cuts through fields of blue that mirror the sky. I’ve grown up amid the glitter of jewel hoards so I’m used to all manner of shiny things, but no mineral glimmer could mimic the azure vault above so perfectly and splatter every green stalk with living sapphires.
I sneeze. Shards, I guess I’m allergic to this fallen heaven. “You den, I mean, you live here?” I ask.
“Aye, aren’t I lucky?” Crescents of dirt line his nails as Tally sweeps his arms wide to encompass a horizon of blue petals swaying like delicate cups in the wind. “The Meadowsea of Melarka is known throughout the four corners of the kingdom! Or at least halfway to the royal castle,” he adds with a chuckle. “I’ve worked these posy fields ever since my hands were strong enough to hold a spade.”
So, since he was a wee toddler, probably; and somehow, he sounds proud of his drudgery! My useless human teeth grind together as I hold my words back: Why suffer, fool?
With all his stolen-born power, Tally could easily appoint himself a king over his own kind! I don’t understand why he’s toiling away his days as a common gardener. Even worse, now I’m forced to play flower lackey, too. I suppose I should be “grateful” that Tally buys my tale of woe about losing my merchant caravan in the mountains, leaving me ever so graspy for coin—
Oh, I know how to be grateful . . . my whole life I’ve ducked my head down to survive in the dragon caverns. This dirt-grubbing toil is no different.
“I’ll never pick a single blasted blossom again after the full moon,” I console myself as my back aches after hours of weeding the East flower lot side by side with my mortal foe.
I just need to endure one month of torment to ferret out all Tally’s deepest secrets before our clash. It doesn’t occur to me until the fifteenth day of simmering under the summer heat that perhaps, just maybe—his simple skull holds no secrets? NONE . . . which means no way to tempt him from his ludicrous posy patch!
I broach my burning question over a water break by the workers’ well. “Tally, with your keen prowess, don’t you ever wish for something more in life?” I ask, handing him the dipper. “Something grander than a fate bound to a harvest of flowers—”
“More than Meadowsea? Not likely,” Tally scoffs as he downs the water in one gulp. “That would be a meager fate. These fields hold more wonder than any nobleman’s treasury; a wealth of medicine in the roots, sweet spice in the stigma and styles, rich dye in the petals, and a thousand wind songs in their silhouettes!” He tosses the ladle back into the bucket with a resounding splash. “What else could be more luxurious than this life?” he asks.
Oh, I can think of a thousand and one things in a gulp: maybe might, and the safety of strength? Renown! And—
A lump chokes my reedy human neck as I clutch the shapeshifter’s amulet under my tunic. I’m doomed if there’s really no way to lure Tally away from his precious stock of petals. Oblivious to my agony, the mortal boy has the nerve to plop down on the grass beside me and place his hands behind his head as he stares out over our blue horizon like it holds no hurt.
“But someday, I’m going to leave this place,” Tally announces with quiet confidence.
“Oh?” My heart flips with the tiniest sliver of hope. Maybe I can make it soon—
“I’ve been saving the finest stray seed stock after each harvest,” he whispers. “One day, I’m going to travel beyond the mountains to the farthermost land! I’ll plant my own small Meadowsea and raise hybrid blossoms more lovely than ANY that have ever dared to unfurl petals under sky. You could come with me, Cien,” Tally adds with a light nudge that nearly knocks the air out of me.
“I—” I bite back my words. Does this ridiculous confession hold the full measure of his private ambition? I envy the young hunter for his vision of a pocket paradise, and hate myself for such weakness at the same time! Yet I’ve never loved anything as completely as Tally loves his flowers. “I’d like that,” I reply softly, no lie on my tongue—
Though we are roughly the same age by our own species’ years, I have near a century on this human boy . . . so why do I feel like he’s steeped his short span in a hundred years of marvel while I’ve wasted mine cowering in shadow crannies far from the world?
No more!
The next ten days pass in a blur as I throw my clumsy human frame into reaping the summer crop of Meadowsea by Tally’s side. A curious lightness settles in my chest as he teaches me the secret warbles of the fieldhands that mimic roving hawks to scare away scavengers. Then a wild triumph runs through my veins as Tally shows me how to simmer great cauldrons of fresh petals until the temperature is just right to bathe silks in the most perfect shade of blue. Even though my hands grow rough from our work, I still clap them until they smart when Tally and the other fieldhands break out into dance and harvest songs after the chow bell calls us to gather—
The sky told a lie
Nothing bluer than me!”
The sun scoffed on high,
Go rain on Meadowsea.”
As sweat beads my brow with salt jewels in the noon heat, I dare to wonder in the mirage: what if I give up being an Irefiend and just stay “Cien”? It’s not such a terrible fate!
And one “Atrocienne” may never claim . . . .
Five nights before the full moon, I tend the sizzle of the dinner pot when I catch the shadow of Father crossing the waxing moon like a storm cloud, the flicker of lightning in his fangs. I shudder, accidentally spilling the bubbling stew onto the ground as his silent command rings like thunder in my skull:
HEEL.
I understand—if I don’t fall in line and obey his order, Father will raze the vast Meadowsea to a wasteland of ashes, and slaughter everyone in Melarka! And me? I whimper as I hug my skinny human arms to my side. He’ll surely kill me for my wretched failure—
I start as Tally slaps a firm hand on my shoulder, for I didn’t sense a single footfall.
“What’s eating you up from the inside out, Cien?” Tally asks, his brow knit with its own formidable thunderstorm. “You barely touched your berry mash earlier when normally you’re snarfing down thirds, and now this—”
“Now, nothing!” I shrug his hand off as the prickling sizzle of his hunter’s blood makes my hair rise and my shapeshifter’s amulet sear my chest with white-hot heat. “It’s nothing, I just—” I break down and platter half my sordid truth. “I’m not lost, Tally. I lied to you! I just can’t go home.” I wipe away a shameful sniffle. “Not ever, not unless I compete in a tournament. It’s kind of like . . . a family tradition, or a final rite of passage. But I don’t think I’m strong enough—”
“Ah, so that’s what got your noggin’ all a boggle?” Tally interrupts as a wide grin splits his face. “The answer’s simple, you big goose. Take me with you! I’ll be your tournament partner. Well, if that’s allowed?”
My breath coils in my chest like the scorching roar of a forest fire. The hunter’s spawn just offered himself to the Irefiend ceremony, on a platter! Tears prick my eye corners. Why, Tally? This is what I wanted, though . . . right? Fate has worked itself out so evenly, it must be the only path meant for us, all along—
“We leave at dawn,” I reply before he can take back his generous offer.
*
Why didn’t your instincts warn you, Tally?
Bloodlust is your birthright,
And my kinfang’s curse—
My last bowl of berry mash churns dry as dust in my stomach. These aren’t raspberries, they taste like cold cinders! But I shovel down my final meal with Tally because, well—
We’ll never answer the call of a chow bell together, ever again . . . .
Even though we leave the village before the first streaks of sunlight dapple the dew-laden stalks of Meadowsea, it takes us five hours by mortal foot just to reach the mountain’s edge, and another three to follow the secret path to the Arena of Spires. I’ve never scratched talon there before, yet I know the hidden way by deepest instinct.
Every dragon is born with this compass tug. And I am dragon, from egg to endscale! I am—
Tally gasps as thick coils of mist roll aside to reveal towering snow-white spires on all sides. “Is this your home, Cien?”
“No,” I reply, my hand slowly rising to the cord that hides my shapeshifting amulet. “More like . . . a graveyard. Some say these spires are simply quartz stone while others claim they formed from the calcified ribcage of the first dragon ever slaughtered by a human!” White-hot shivers run through me as I tear the amulet free and throw it to the ground. “We’re in a cage of bones, Tally.”
His eyes widen in shock as my body contorts with scales as I revert into my proper draconic form. Ah, much better! I click my talons and lash my tail, stretching cramped muscles. Yet shame washes through me as I dare not stretch the cricks from my wizened wings and reveal my full deformity before him.
“Cien, you’re amazing!” Tally cries, utterly oblivious to both my threat and flaws as he strides towards me.
Me, amazing? Can’t he tell I’m just a runt—a maddening itch stings me as Tally draws closer, the first prick of fury rising inside me. Oh, even in my crippled body, the Irefiend writhes for freedom.
“’Course, every Melarkan babe’s heard tale of dragons in the mountains,” Tally continues in blithe wonder, “but I never knew your kind was more than fable—”
“But you’re not from Melarka,” I interrupt coldly. “Didn’t you ever wonder how you came by your monstrous strength? You’re bred from cursed hunter stock, Tally. My kinfangs’ murderer!” I hiss.
I stagger as an unbearable heat burns in my chest. Is my corefire resonating with the arena’s bones, or Tally’s aura? Perhaps the two magnify each other. I fan the painful flame even hotter with my oath—
“And to prove myself worthy of my clan, I s-shall defeat you in the f-final battle between dragon and hunter, ever!” I snarl with bared fangs and only the smallest stutter of hesitation. My tail flicks into the shadows of a spire, knocking a wide assortment of human blades, axes, and maces between us. “Choose your weapon,” I command. “Fight me, that I might draw your blood and become the Last—”
“I don’t ken all your hogwash about kinfolk and hunters, but is my blood all you need to go home?” Tally interrupts. “Why didn’t you ask me earlier?” He draws a small dagger from the ground and slices it across his own palm more swiftly than the glimmer of lightning. “Then I give it freely.”
A few red drops stain the snow-white arena like slippery rubies. I gulp, for that knife’s strike could’ve been aimed at me. “NO!” I protest as a twisted certainty coils through my corefire like the dark smother of smoke. “I must reap your red, in honorable battle—”
“Nah, I’ll pass.” Tally frowns, folding his arms. “What fancified ‘honor’ is there in two friends fighting?”
“F-friends?” I whisper, my voice cracking. In my 113 years, no one has ever traded that title with me. Irefiend, Friend—I can’t be both. I have to pick . . . .
“I won’t fight you, Cien.” Quartz dust scatters as Tally plops down in the middle of the arena, sitting cross-legged. “I only came along today because I thought we would be sparring, together, as tournament partners!”
“Partners?” A deep voice booms through the sky, and I quiver as Father’s silhouette blocks out the sun.
Gold from centuries of crushed hoards flashes off his scales like flecks of magma. I lower my head in obeisance to my clan lord and sire. Nothing gleams grander than my father! All I’ve ever desired is to make him proud of—
“You disappoint me, son, mucking about like a mortal beast with such verve,” Father chastises me. He aims a single talon longer than a human scythe at Tally. “No more delays. Destroy that creature before he spouts one more lie from his hideous little face slit. Honor your slaughtered ancestors by becoming the Last Irefiend, or I’ll stamp out both your miserable stains myself!”
I flinch as Father alights on a spire and scathes the arena with his great emerald gaze, yet Tally remains stubbornly stoic. He slowly rises to his feet and shakes the dust from his hands as if finally acknowledging a threat to his life.
“Cien, I may not know my own father, but I know—that’s no kind of father,” he says, drawing up a sword from the scattered pile and throwing it, his strike shattering Father’s spire and forcing him to take flight.
“How long will you let this scum disgrace our clan, Atroshiam?” Father demands, mangling my name as he takes a higher perch.
A cold spear of realization stabs deep into my innermost heart chamber: Father flew here ALONE. But why would he keep quiet about my legendary battle to become the Last Irefiend, unless—ah, he’s hedging his bets! Maybe Father wants no witnesses if his crippled child fails to beat hunter’s spawn in the Arena of Spires . . . did he ever believe I could win this fight, or was I just the broken toy he tossed into the fray in one last gamble to keep anyone outside our clan from claiming the prize?
Even now, Tally ignores me, drawing another blade from the ground in the shadow of Father’s might—
Rage sharpens my scales with the glint of many thousand blades as the seething reek of my ancestor’s blood and the vortex of my own shame all converge inside my twisted frame. The muscles in my wizened wings stretch taut with the excruciation of my fury. Father’s wrong about me. And Tally? For a full moon I’ve let him confuse me with his flower talk and foolery, and now he insults me by refusing to recognize me as a true challenger!
I, Atrocienne, AM worthy—
Jets of blue flame spiral from my snout as I stamp my claws in the arena. “Fight me, Tally!” I bellow, charging the mortal boy. “Or die denying our duel—”
*
You chose wrong, Tally—
You chose me.
Thank you.
Not even the lithe cut of my new wings can save me from Father’s relentless pursuit beyond the arena. And so long as Tally still breathes, I remain only half Irefiend while my sire’s held the full strength and terror of that title for centuries.
“Coward!” Father cries, his snarl shaking the sky like close thunder. “You haven’t earned the right to a measly inch of sky. When I catch you, I’ll tear both those false wings from your back and turn you back into ground scum.”
No thanks—
My fangs clamp just a hair tighter on Tally’s body as Father smashes through a mountain peak and aims a storm of boulders our way. I swerve aside and miss the bulk of the avalanche, but wince as a sharp granite chunk glances off my back, nearly dropping my precious passenger.
I can’t outfly fate much longer! Either Tally will die first and I’ll revert into a wizened runt and spiral downward, or Father will catch up to me and slash us limb from limb. Our slaughter remains the same, unless . . .
Can I trust the clouds to shelter us?
A thick veil undulates over dark swamplands below. But these twisting coils of rain-leaden mist arise from no ordinary pocket of weather, they are woven together by the ancient sentience of the Deep Gulch. The stagnant fog never lifts in this region and keeps all secrets sealed under a gray and gloomy blanket. And if the stories whispered about the Deep Gulch are true—
“Farewell, Father!” I cry as he dives straight for my throat, his firelit maw stretched wide enough to seize the sun.
Pulling in my wings, I surrender to the tug of the Deep Gulch, plummeting through the clouds more surely than a stone. A molten tear flies from my eye as a screen of mist covers me and cuts Father off from view. So, the legends are true-woven spells! The Deep Gulch accepts only those truly desperate into their lower domain, and my father, well . . . when has the least taint of fear or despair ever pooled in his shadow?
This swamp is our only safe haven—assuming we don’t drown in quicksand first. I twist midair and flap my wings to break our fall as a small, mossy isle reveals itself amid muddy bracken and algal pools. My claws squish broad tracks into the muck as I lay Tally across the soft branches of a fallen willow tree. No murmur escapes his lips, but the sweat beading his brow betrays the fevered wound inching death ever closer to his heart.
Hold on, Tally! I will take back talon’s cut—
“Deep Gulch!” I bellow across the fetid swamp. “I beg . . . your bargain.” There, it’s done—I can’t withdraw my plea from their tangled territory.
“Ho?” A low voice burbles in the humid air. “Dealings are our delight!” Six feet away, the swamp bubbles as a hunched scarecrow rises from the steaming depths arrayed in a tangle of driftwood antlers, twisted reeds, and mud-soaked cattails. “What would you ask of us, Sky Lizard?”
It takes all my willpower not to tremble like a speck of dust in their timeworn presence. “Please, heal Tally.” I gesture to my fallen companion with a head swing. “Heal that mortal boy, and my life is yours,” I vow.
“Ha!” The Deep Gulch crunches rows of snail shell teeth together. “Words are such wishy-washable things, can never wring them all the way out. But, we’ll take a looksie—” A drop of mud hits Tally’s cheek as they lean over the boy, a low hum in their throat. “Hmm . . . heh?” A reed finger taps Tally’s chest, and he coughs up a single drop of blood as the tiny crescent sliver lodged in his heart glows with a burst of silver light. “Nope.” The Deep Gulch snaps upright, shaking their rack of antlers gravely. “Sorry, can’t help the lad. Best save your tears for the void. Better luck with your next mortal pet!”
“But why not?” I demand, stumbling in the muck as my talons rake slippery ruts with my frustration. “You’re the Deep Gulch!” I protest. “Wiser than starfall, and mightier than the dark side of the moon—”
“Don’t got the nick of it yet, young Irefiend?” The Deep Gulch burps, exploding into a pile of rotted plants.
I don’t even have time to blink as a white fox runs across the fallen willow branches and curls atop Tally’s chest, cackling with a familiar voice.
“Some wounds run too deep for magic or mayhem to heal them,” the Deep Gulch barks from the fox’s snout. “For who may cross farther and cut deeper into the heart than any enemy? You know.”
I rear back as the foul mists hook a cursed flash of memory from my skull and shake it before my eyes like the waver of lightning. Tally, standing tall and firm in the middle of the arena as I barrel towards him:
“Maybe you never really considered me your friend, but . . .” Tally casts aside his sword a breath before my claws arch towards his chest. “But I truly counted you mine, Cien. Always.”
I draw my kill strike back! Just a second’s slant too late—
The wavering mist dissipates between the white fox and I. “Oww, that HURTS,” the Deep Gulch howls with animal tongue. “Just a wee splinter of talon, heartward bent, the smidge of rubiest blood, and poof!” They cackle with glee. “New wings for you, death for him. Noice trade, heh?”
The fox leaps from Tally’s chest straight into the swamp before I can break my hollow silence. A breath later, a massive toad jumps from the depths and hops between Tally and I, huge amber gems studding its hide with a treasury of grand warts.
“That wound is near as fatal,” the toad croaks in the Deep Gulch’s voice. “Your prey, excuse us—your hunter ‘friend’ will expire before the first dapple of dawn light. May we have his bones then? Pleaassee.” The toad’s tongue snaps in a hungry curl. “Stew and charms, we promise not to waste a scrap!”
“No!” I lunge over the ravenous toad to crouch beside Tally on the fallen willow, baring my fangs. “I’ll do ANYTHING.” I tame my snarl and humbly bow my head. “I offer my wings, my life . . . whatever you need to save him.”
The Deep Gulch sighs. “Why must you pesky folk always fall here and salt our nice rotten bog waters with your sins when all we want is fresh mud for the lotus? Heal him, we cannot! But save?” The amber-studded toad muses between a fly catch. “Maybe . . . but the cost runs deeper than life’s marrow or death’s dust, Atrocienne.”
Of course, the Deep Gulch has already taken my name. Might as well have the rest of me! “Do it,” I demand.
“As you unwish,” the Deep Gulch croons as the toad explodes into a burst of amber shards.
I yelp as molten pieces pepper both Tally and I with a sticky sap. Nothing burns a dragon. Yet this foul concoction teaches me the sizzling anguish of flame for the first time in my life. I writhe in the muck as each shard burrows deep into my scales, setting my entire body ablaze with the bite of magma fresh from the core of the world. Did the Deep Gulch trick me?
“Tally, I tried . . .” I whimper before my last iron speck of will surrenders to the darkness.
An hour or an age later, I wake encased in a thin layer of amber. Panes slide off my scales as I strain against this resinous prison, my stiff wings webbed tight against my body. Ah, I’ve reverted to a proper runt gain—but Tally? The mortal boy remains entombed in a thin layer of amber.
“Why didn’t it work?” I bellow across the swamp, but the Deep Gulch keeps their sweltering silence.
Another voice answers that I hoped never to hear again—
“TRAITOR!” Father’s shriek scorches a clear arrow’s path through the mist.
Horror constricts my wizened wings even tighter against my back as the huge shadow of my sire sweeps over the tiny moss isle. “Why’d you let him through your spell cloak?” I cry out to the hidden Deep Gulch. “I thought only the most desperate creatures may gain entrance here!”
“Exactly so, wee Ground Lizard,” the Deep Gulch replies with an insect’s buzz. They stitch themselves a fresh silhouette of a woman from a thousand iridescent wasps and hover beside the fallen willow.
“Tell me!” Father demands, fire spiraling from his nostrils as he circles closer. “What deal did you strike with that filthy bog hag?”
“No deal,” the Deep Gulch cackles. “Your kinfang gave me EVERYTHING without price. Ho-ho, we’ve mulched a grand delight from the blood fury of an Irefiend and the powerful aura of the Hunter, all in one glory-storied tangle! Soon now, our beautiful creature wakes . . . .”
My meager corefire flickers with an ember of hope. Tally still lives? For now—
“I should’ve destroyed you at first egg shatter when you dragged your mangled form from the shell,” Father growls. “Now, your weakness gives rise to an unstoppable creature! A MONSTER without a single natural predator in this world—”
“Not so, Father!” I protest. “You’re wrong about Tally, he wouldn’t—” I duck low as his tails nearly scythes my head, sweeping through the middle of the Deep Gulch and scattering their buzzing silhouette.
“He WILL,” Father hisses. “Hunters just like him trampled all two dozen brothers and sisters in my egg clutch before I was even born, forcing me to crawl through their shards to survive. Dragons may only ever trust in human violence because mortal mercy is the grandest lie!”
At last, I grasp some small measure of the deep-rooted panic that allowed Father to sink through the dark folds of the Deep Gulch after us. Yet I can’t fathom the desperate hatred that must’ve twisted through his scales from the very terror of his own birth.
“You’ve condemned every last one your kinfang to perish with your supreme selfishness!” Father hisses. “As your sire, it’s my duty to sear this horrid fate into oblivion. Prepare yourself, son—”
“No, I won’t let you harm him!” I dive over Tally’s sleeping form as a bright fireball gathers in Father’s fangs. Perhaps the ashes of my carcass will protect my friend until he wakes from slumber? Perhaps not. Maybe, we’ll meet again in the passing dream of another life, but not as Taliesen, or Atrocienne . . .
Someone else?
Lightning erupts from the ground and tosses me to the banks of the mossy isle. A resounding crack fills the air as Tally’s amber casing splits. I squint as a blazing figure flies into the air to meet Father. A flame-skinned boy locks his arm around Father’s massive jaw, snapping it shut and quelling the inferno before it can escape his fangs. I brace against the shockwave as Father smashes down onto the fallen willow, the wood snapping beneath his huge body like a splintered pyre.
The young hunter hovers high above the isle, two wings of aural fire blazing from his shoulder blades like twin spears of sunlight. Somehow, I can sense the pulsing talon fragment lodged inside his heart, and wince at a tiny jab of pain. And in that sharp slice, for the smallest snatch of a second, I wonder . . . was Father right?
I betrayed Tally—have I warped him into a creature of pure vengeance?
The boy plunges from the sky to rest a single hand on Father’s snout, and he grunts as it settles with the seeming weight of a mountain. “You will never NOT be afraid of me, will you?” Tally muses. “I was born your worst fear.” He sighs. “Maybe one day you’ll ken I’m not your foe, but until that dawn, heed my warning well: harm one scale on my friend, and I will annihilate you down to the last ash fleck. Got it?”
Father’s golden scales tremble with the force of a small earthquake as he nods mutely.
“Friend?” I whisper hesitantly, half-unbelieving—
“What else would you be, you big, daft goose!” Tally chides as he leaps from Father’s side and lands beside me, his wings blazing stray tufts of fire.
As his blue glance locks with mine, the invisible coil between us gleams plain: the Deep Gulch has threaded our life forces together! Now with every breath, the young hunter draws in another ounce of my memories and treachery, and slowly, I sense his world mingling with mine, as well. But not all; where once Tally’s gaze shimmered like an endless, gentle Meadowsea, now, a faint shadow scars the edge.
I broke that clear horizon. My head falls low. “I’m sorry, Tally—” I start as his hand rests lightly on my neck.
“I know, Cien.”
A warm ember ignites inside my corefire at his touch, a familiar flame traveling through my sinews and flaring my wizened wings with the magnificent strength of the Irefiend once more. But how? I gave up that power for—
“No, you shared it,” the Deep Gulch whispers as a storm of dandelion seeds snakes past me and dissipates on a gust of breeze. “That is the only we could salvage blood and bone, spark new heart from stone.”
I’m not the Last Irefiend . . . WE are! Tally and I, together—and a true abomination in Father’s eyes.
“There’s no home for us here anymore, Tally,” I confess, casting my gaze on Father seething in his forced humility. “No safe den where my kinfang won’t pursue. Where should we go now?”
“Let’s make our own den!” Tally replies. “Somewhere faraway.”
I raise my eyes to the sky as a thin path of light filters through the fog; the Deep Gulch is letting us go . . . .
“Somewhere with a fine blue patch of Meadowsea, I suppose?” I ask.
“Aye, only the finest, and the bluest,” Tally insists with a grin.
My fangs gleam bright in a dragon’s twist at a smile. “Tally ho, Partner!”
Two pairs of golden wings blaze in one wish as we vault skyward, seeking an unbroken horizon.
*Enjoy the full collection of Dragon Crumbs* Tales!
~*~
