Remembering Dragons
A short fiction about stealing from dragons on Denironia.
The cave stretches up before her, its mouth dark and gaping. Gravel crunches beneath her boots as she steps forward. Each movement feels like moving through water, except instead of water, she's pushing through dread. She's heard the stories just like her companions. Dragons are eerily good at finding and shaping gold, terribly fond of their treasures, and often absent or sleeping during the day. The middle of the afternoon is a perfect time to enter a lair and steal their hoard. She still can't shake the certainty that something will go wrong. Ahead of her, the twins are laughing at something. Her fellow servant offers her a smile when she looks at him. None of them bring any comfort. She tilts her head back to look at the sky. Dark clouds hover overhead, maroon shadows against the blinding crimson. If it were to rain, she wonders if the water would look like blood. But Denironian blood is dark blue, not aquamarine. And Bonehunter blood is black. She wonders what color dragon blood is. (Distantly, she thinks she isn't really here. Something in her mind tells her this has already happened. They went inside the cave, they took a bag of gold, they woke the dragons, and they ran. They survived.) (She isn't here.) (She's remembering it.) They're inside the cave, her fellow servant laughing, when a dragon snorts and shifts. Its eye cracks open. They freeze. They're running through the passages, her lady seizing her hand, her lord slamming into a wall and swearing a torrent of curses. The dragons aren't far behind, but they make it out of the cave, and sprint across the ground toward the city. The dragon gives up before they're halfway there. It looks like they're safe. (She wakes up screaming from the dream, the memory of running through the darkness with a dragon behind her and her friends by her side replaced by the memory of a blade sliding across her throat and her blood spilling across the floor.) (It was just a dream.)
The cave stretches up before her, its mouth dark and gaping. Gravel crunches beneath her boots as she steps forward. Each movement feels like moving through water, except instead of water, she's pushing through dread. She's heard the stories just like her companions. Dragons are eerily good at finding and shaping gold, terribly fond of their treasures, and often absent or sleeping during the day. The middle of the afternoon is a perfect time to enter a lair and steal their hoard. She still can't shake the certainty that something will go wrong. Ahead of her, the twins are laughing at something. Her fellow servant offers her a smile when she looks at him. None of them bring any comfort. She tilts her head back to look at the sky. Dark clouds hover overhead, maroon shadows against the blinding crimson. If it were to rain, she wonders if the water would look like blood. But Denironian blood is dark blue, not aquamarine. And Bonehunter blood is black. She wonders what color dragon blood is. (Distantly, she thinks she isn't really here. Something in her mind tells her this has already happened. They went inside the cave, they took a bag of gold, they woke the dragons, and they ran. They survived.) (She isn't here.) (She's remembering it.) They're inside the cave, her fellow servant laughing, when a dragon snorts and shifts. Its eye cracks open. They freeze. They're running through the passages, her lady seizing her hand, her lord slamming into a wall and swearing a torrent of curses. The dragons aren't far behind, but they make it out of the cave, and sprint across the ground toward the city. The dragon gives up before they're halfway there. It looks like they're safe. (She wakes up screaming from the dream, the memory of running through the darkness with a dragon behind her and her friends by her side replaced by the memory of a blade sliding across her throat and her blood spilling across the floor.) (It was just a dream.)
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