Thirty One #2
A dragon roars in pain, five guards standing at its open cell door.
“What are you doing!” I gasp, stepping closer, the pressure in my chest increasing.
I don’t know how to help, what I can do, but as the pain intensifies, I have to do something.
I reach them, but a guard shoves me back and I fall down, hands scraping against the floor.
“Shut it, elf,” he spits, picking up a spear and thrusts it forward.
A sharp cry has my eyes stinging. I get to my feet slowly, keeping a wide berth as I get as close as I can.
Inside, a guard is wrestling with one of the dragons, a blue one, and he’s trying to put some sort of… harness on him?
“Stay still you stupid fuck,” a guard shouts, as he’s shoved so forcefully to the side that he slams into the bars.
I can feel him wanting to open his mouth wide enough to release fire, but with the muzzle on him, he can only open wide enough to chew, not burn them.
“It’s not working,” another guard says.
“It has to, maybe Nighturn is the only way. Knock it out, put it on him.”
“Our supply is short,” the one who is still trying to get the saddle on growls, kicking the dragon. I flinch.
“Just kill it,” shouts another. “This is another failure.” My heart lurches in my throat and I move closer without thought.
“Wait,” I say, holding my hands out in front of me when they turn to look at me.
“The fuck do you want?”
“I… I can help.”
They laugh, but one of them, the one who hurt me with a spear, looks at me curiously.
“Yeah right,” the one who pushed me says.
“No,” the quiet one says, walking toward me and I back up a step. “She may be able to actually, elves have a way with creatures.”
The others pause, and then one of them says, “I doubt that, Verson.”
Verson slowly shakes his head. “What’s the harm, Eden?”
Eden, the one who had the harness, looks down at it and then huffs, walking out of the cage and throwing it at my feet.
“If she dies,” Eden says, eyes on Verson. “It’s on your head. The king told us not to touch her.”
“And we aren’t,” Verson replies. “The dragons are.”
The others nod, and then they move to the side, leaving the harness at my feet, the angry baby dragon in the cell, and an open door.
Okay, Alara, you can do this. I can do this.
Slowly picking up the harness in one hand, it’s heavier than I expected, I eye the guards and make my way to the cage, stopping just before I enter.
The dragon has retreated to the back corner, making itself as small as possible and my heart aches.
A vision of myself doing that with Emerish, trying not to make a sound, to be hidden, to not get hurt, flashes through my mind.
I was like this dragon once, but then I was freed.
And I vow to do the same with them.
Help me, Elvanan.
“It’s alright,” I say to the dragon, and he snarls, eyes on the harness. I look down at it before dropping it.
“What are you doing?” Eden snarls.
“Let her work,” Verson says. “I doubt this will happen in a matter of minutes. It will be days.”
“The king won’t be happy with that,” another interjects.
“If he wants to ride a dragon, he will have to be,” Verson replies, and I suck in a sharp breath.
“He wants to ride a dragon?” I ask casually, turning to look at them.
“What do you think all of this is for?” Eden snarls.
That’s why he’s doing this?
“But why?”
“To kill you all. Are you stupid?” Eden snarls.
“The Dragorie’s been a thorn in Lothmere’s royal line for years, so once he’s rid of them, burning them all to the ground, he will then go to your lands, you dumb elf.
And he will burn all that to the ground too, only leaving some parts of the lands full as a gift for us to rule over.
” He spreads his arms wide, “We will be lords of our own land.”
The greed in his eyes is sickening, and I look down at the harness again, the cages, and a thought comes to me as I look to the cage where the hanging dragon is lowered.
Her eyes open, pinning me in place before closing again.
I look at the young dragon in the corner, my mind racing.
The king wants to get rid of the Dragorie and eggs have been stolen for years.
He’s trying to raise them… but not successfully.
He’s stealing eggs, hatching them and then trying to train them when they’re young, in an attempt to be able to ride them and be rid of the Dragorie.
And then he will have his own dragons.
And nothing and no one will be able to stop him.
I move toward the younger dragon, and when it releases a particularly violent snarl, I sit down, and hum.
“She singing to a fucking dragon?” Eden snarls, “This has to be a joke.”
“Just give it time,” Verson shushes him.
It takes a while, just like the times before, but the dragon eventually settles, and I ignore the guards scoffing and muttering insults at my back.
“It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.” The dragon’s yellow eyes lock with mine. I feel the trepidation, the worry and hurt. “I promise, I’m not here to harm you, I want to help you.” I shuffle closer, and when the dragon doesn’t do anything, I begin to hum again, closing my eyes.
“Just lock her in, the dragon can’t eat her, anyway.”
“It still has claws.”
“Oh well.”
My hands shake a little with nerves when the door locks, but I keep breathing evenly with my humming. Even when time passes, even when the guards leave, even when I feel the eyes of the other dragons through the bars of the cages, I don’t stop.
It’s a while later, when my throat becomes sore that I feel a subtle heat in front of me.
The dragon is completely silent, and I know he will be right before me when I open my eyes, but I don’t look. Not yet.
I let him smell me, feel my sincerity, my truth, and only when that heat becomes warmer still, do I peel my eyes open.
“Hi,” I whisper, and the dragon’s gums peel back a little, but I’m not scared. “I’m Alara,” I say, slowly lifting a hand.
The dragon eyes it, a warning rumble spilling from him, but after a moment, his nose touches my palm through the muzzle, inhaling.
I hum once more, keeping very still as the dragon moves just a little closer, his snout heavier the more he presses into me.
“I’m sorry you’re in here, it must be hard, right?” The dragon watches me intently, and I spot blood dripping from its side.
The guards must have done it.
Slowly, I take the edge of my tunic and though it’s difficult, I rip it. The dragon startles, but it doesn’t move.
I hold it up.
“May I?”
I stand slowly, moving to its side and his head turns with me. I take a deep breath and give the dragon one more look, humming again, and then I press the cloth slowly to the open wound.
The dragon stills, I still, wondering if he’ll turn and hurt me, but he just releases a soft whimper, and my heart breaks.
I know that sound.
It’s the same sound I made when I thought a touch came with pain, when the softness was soon replaced with malice, when any contact was hurtful.
“Shh, it’s okay,” I say, a tear slipping down my cheek.
I feel it all like it’s my own pain because it once was.
I was the one in the corner, I was the one scared to be touched.
I was this dragon.
Until Rohan.
I close my eyes and visualize him at my back, his warmth and strength, his belief in me that I could talk with dragons, his promise to free me.
My eyes peel open.
Now it’s time for me to free myself, so I can free these dragons.
“That’s it, good boy,” I raise my free hand and stroke down his scales, and his spiked tail swishes behind him.
The dragon purrs, and I walk in front of it, determination running through me.
“Someone told me that one day, I will say he freed me.” I bring up a hand and stroke his snout through the muzzle.
“And he did free me.” My other hand raises to my exposed throat, feeling the scars there.
“But in other ways, only we can free ourselves.” I take a breath, looking at the other cages.
“We are not weak, we are not hopeless, and we are worth more than being caged and made smaller than what we are.” I look back into the dragon’s eyes.
“We are worth more than just one thing to live for.”
A dragon rumbles in the cage next to us, and then another purrs, then more and more join it, warmth filling my chest.
I look around at the cages, seeing dragons now pressed up against the bars, watching me.
Lastly, I look at the end to the hanging dragon, something is shining in her eyes.
“We will be free, truly free, and we will have many things to live for.”
It’s a promise.
Not only to them, but to myself, too.