A Benevolent Evil Dragon

Interlude 1: Perspective of a Maiden

I was lucky. Loving parents, a quiet village to grow in, enough friends to pass the time and only once did I have to witness The Mistress of Tranquil Waters come to take her tribute. From what the elders said, she was far more lenient than most other monsters of her power, yet still she did remember every few decades that she had towns in her territory from where she could take more coin for her hoard… or more bodies for… whatever dragons use them for.

It was my best friend’s older sister that was the sacrifice back then. She benefited the community the least with her talents. Bone mana could only take you so far, and already she was showing signs of growing wrong… “Poor girl” I had thought, as a naïve 5 year old, but now, looking at my charred hand, I realize that it might have been a mercy. A mercy I will share.

I was one of three girls allowed to train my magics. Our village was too poor to have any more than that, after all, and out of the three I ended up with the least useful element for a somewhat peaceful mountainous village. I had a talent for fire and absolutely nothing else. My friend? She got nature, and with training from the older women she could make the fields give their share ten times over. The other girl, the chief’s daughter, had both a metal and a water affinity. With the metal she could help the blacksmith, or mold the coins into better formations to capture the wild mana of the world, and with water she could end droughts and make sure everyone has clean water.

I could light a fire.

I was a glorified spark-iron. Something that the chief’s girl could do herself too, to add insult to injury. So when the dragon came demanding tribute, scaring even the chief with how suddenly she returned, I wasn’t surprised to see the whole village push a plain white dress towards me.

I was allowed a moment to say my goodbyes and to change into the dress. I could only look at my reflection in a bucket of water, stains of charcoal skin spreading up my neck to my cheek, my hand that I used to channel my magic had little meat left, the bones being visible through the thin, scorched skin… I was as much a freak as the last sacrifice.

And so I bowed to that massive monster that owned this corner of the world and sat down in the wooden cage she formed from the ground. There were a few tears from my parents, but even they wouldn’t have been able to do anything. The dragon could have spoken a single word and everything would be gone. Nobody around here could deny her and live a second longer.

It took a few minutes and the flight wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it wasn’t the worst either. Power, control, anything related to magic was better when done by a dragon. That was just the way things were. The only beings more powerful in mana were made of it, or at least that’s what my mother told me before bed. Tales of monsters mimicking humans while being made only of rampaging mana… Tales of Gods and their absolute rule, that not even dragons could contest… At least not normal dragons like The Mistress.

Ah, the cage opened. And in came a woman that could have been my grandmother. She had skin tanned by the sun, with deep creases to show her years. It was no mystery what talents she had, it was a mystery why she was chosen. Sure, I could see the bark growing out of her torso through her dress, a few actual branches puncturing through, but regardless someone of her power and experience must have been valuable… We locked eyes as she slowly got down. She noticed my confusion and understood my thoughts.

“I wasn’t going to last more than a winter or two before I would wilt. No use spilling young blood for a few more moments in this world.”

She smiled, just like my grandmother did back when I was still a kid and she was still sane. Tears start falling and my body trembles. I was going to die. It took until I met someone actually resigned to it for me to really understand. I was barely twenty, I was supposed to fall in love and marry a cute boy… I was never that good at housework, but still, I would have preferred that over just walking to my death. But it was too late, from the moment the dragon decided she wanted new toys or a snack or whatever she wanted, my life was forfeit.

I sobbed and the old woman, mercifully, let me do so quietly. By the time we got to the next place, my tears ran dry.

“NO! Let me go, you cur! He deserved it! Every fucking second he choked, he deserved it and more!”

This one wasn’t a tribute like me or the old woman. Or maybe she is but she is less than willing. When we were allowed to train our mana, our very first oath was to the village. If ever we are called upon to lay down our life, we have to comply. That was the price for being allowed to harness the entire town’s worth of riches to empower ourselves.

The first thing that drew my attention as two burly men pushed her in were the cuffs. Ah, a criminal. Black iron cuffs with a golden engraving. Expensive things but they guarantee lesser mages like ourselves would be left crippled. I try to notice what might have pushed them to do something like this, but the woman looks perfectly normal to me. Dark hair, green eyes, fairer skin than most, she might have been a housewife of a rich man, with just barely enough mana to be a worthy sacrifice to the dragon… or maybe she was gifted enough to not suffer changes like the rest of us. This one’s a proper town, after all, with bigger, richer houses at the center and even actually armed and armored guards.

“Fuck! That rotten pig… Just a bit more and I would have been free!”

I look at her as she grits her teeth and hits the now closed cage, even clawing at it while screaming with more fury than I have ever seen in anyone before. It doesn’t do anything, of course, and the dragon takes flight again. Now I have to be the one sitting quiet and letting someone else cry. It’s… sad… so I try to get closer to the old woman and leave this new one space.

Another village. There’s no fanfare, but as the cage opens I see a young man, just a bit older than me, walking closer to us. He is not the sacrifice, but rather the kid in his arms. He can’t be older than 7. One icy blue eye, a soft, visible breath, and the missing arm and leg. The boy looks already dead and he just lays where he was placed, barely even breathing.

“I am sorry.” whispers softly the man who I assume is his brother. “I am so sorry…”

The foul mouthed woman jumps to her feet and tries to run past the man, only for a branch to explode out of the side of the cage and drag her back by the leg. She screams and thrashes, but it doesn’t matter. She gets stuck on the wall of the cage, held down tightly by living wood.

“One hundred more years on this earth and I would not be able to do that still…” whispers the old lady. I have to agree. Wood, as slow as it should be, feels more like lightning in the hands of The Mistress. I feel my chest empty, no fear, no rage, nothing left. All was burned by the fire already, just kindling left keeping me alive. We fly away as I am once more reminded that this is my doom.

Our last stop is the most terrifying. It is another town, the biggest in the area, the one that the dragon’s river passes through, blessing it with more than enough valuable resources, and here we have another prisoner sent to be sacrificed. It is not one of their own, however, but a wildling from the east. Much like me, her transformation is rushed, molded by whatever barbaric, beastly practice her kin does. While her right side has black hair, brown eyes and a glossy, light brown skin, her left one is a lot more primitive. Her arm has fur and bone spikes growing wildly and randomly all the way up to her face, her mouth has a lot of sharp teeth like a wolf’s and her lips look cut off to keep the fangs always revealed, like someone burned half her mouth.

Her mismatched eyes jump to each and every one of us as she is thrown inside. She towers over us all, with more muscle than any human, let alone woman, has right to have. Then again, she is no maiden, she is a barbarian slave, probably used in place of a work ox, since she might be similar to one in strength. If it weren’t for the many cuffs, iron chains and even leather straps, I might have been too scared to even be in this cage with her.

Then again, does it matter that she is a barbarian when we’re all heading to the same chopping block? Probably not. She looks stoic, but that unnatural tail she has grown shows how agitated she truly is.

Maybe, in a different life, we could have been friends.

Maybe.

Here it is. It is happening. We landed and were left to wait. The old woman is meditating, taking in mana, making the cage around her bud out leaves, if for no other reason than that she can. The boy is no longer motionless, but all he does is hug his leg, his fingertips starting to frost over. He’s losing control…

The two chained women could not be different. The beastly one is actually just sitting still, taking in deep breaths and then exhaling, sometimes flexing against her bindings, but not with all her strength. The other is hitting against the cage with her cuffs, hoping to destroy the enchantments, I imagine, but it is no use. Even the iron itself would be enough to ruin her magic.

Then there’s me, sitting here, empty. I raise my darkened hand, fire flickering at my fingertips, but it is no use. The nature and water around snuff out any fire mana my core can produce. Here, in what I assume is the dragon’s nest, I am just a simple woman with no power of my own.

I wish I still had tears left, it might have at least helped pass the time. Instead I have to wait here, to listen to cries and huffs and metal hitting wood, until the only sound I can hear is the powerful wings of the beast coming towards us. Time to figure out what she wanted us for, she who barely ever touched humans before…

The cage opens and I see them. Babies. The Mistress became a Matriarch.

Ah, that’s why… I think as I see them creeping closer. They couldn’t be more than a few months old by their sizes… Big as the common wild dogs barely touched by mana. They are likely already able to fight for their food. And that’s what we are. In those lizard-like eyes I can only see hunger.

At least in the three normal ones. The last one is terrifying. It’s not looking at us as a general meal, its eyes are swiftly moving through all of us and I can see it think. It barely spares me and the boy a passing glance, it looks at the old woman like one would a wounded deer, then its eyes jump between the faces of the criminal and the slave, and their bindings. After taking it all in the large beast becomes larger still, for while his siblings were like wild dogs, he was like a flesh-cored wolf from the deeper parts of the forest.

It’s big, with wicked horns and fangs, with twin tails that brush against the grass as it steps closer. I can see the claws twitch to dig into us, I can see its large tongue glide through each and every tooth. It makes no sense, why is this one so different. The others are scary like any wild animal, this one is the only one that feels like an actual dragon stalking its prey.

What inane thoughts you have, you dumb girl. You’re going to die, eaten alive by baby dragons, what matters that one is strange and terrifying? A voice in my mind says and it speaks truth. It doesn’t matter, I cannot do anything with my pitiful reserves. So I sit. I see as the criminal tries to get up to run off, I can see the barbarian beast’s hair raise as it prepares to growl and bite to fight off the babies, I can see the boy and the old woman close their eyes, the woman hugging him as they both know they are powerless to stop this. I am about to close them too and whisper a final prayer for a better afterlife, when I see one of the young ones jump at me, but then a blue blur hits it away.

I live a moment longer. I see the largest of them all open its mouth and spit fire all around, making a whole wall of it. The fire continues to linger, despite the massive amount of water and nature that should snuff it out, it instead burns and scorches even the freshest grass. I look at it, my chest feeling warm as the ash in my core is turned to embers by the sight of the flames, but I am not allowed to lose myself in the feeling. That same young dragon roars and I am overcome by true fear.

My limbs are stiff, every bit of my body hardening as if pretending to be a statue would make it less likely to kill me. This was one of the many innate magics of the dragons, the ability to terrify anything weaker than themselves. It is the roar they make when one threatens to steal their hoard, something that usually results in a dead thief. This time it only results in four humans and a wildling collapsing to the ground, while three baby dragons crawl backwards.

The only one unaffected by this mighty roar is The Mistress of Tranquil Waters herself. She narrows her multitude of eyes, then stretches down its massive snout and huffs at her child.

She is answered by another powerful roar.

The moment is tense and I hear sobs, though I don’t know who is crying… it might be me. But the moment passes. The mistress lets out a low rumble and flies into the skies as I see the bigger child collapsing and panting. I turn to look at the others, everyone is too confused to even say anything.

A minute of silence later, with only one attempt of a baby coming close which is thwarted by our unlikely protector snapping at it, and the monster herself comes back dropping a small pack of five flesh and bone wolves They look terrified and while the young dragons make short work of them, one runs away and tries to jump at us, probably mad from fear. The barbarian, despite being rendered powerless by her bindings, steps forward and tackles the beast, just as the older dragon joins in and rips off the head of the monster with a sickening squelch.

it then starts digging through the beast’s chest, taking out its core and devouring it. it even goes to take them out of the other wolves… no wonder it’s so big, it’s been stealing all the cores for itself.

My head snaps to the mistress as I hear her voice.

An impossible rune floats above her head, one of the most complex things I have ever seen. I feel a headache growing as her rumbles and groans are turned to words.

“My eldest boy has found you endearing, somehow. You shall live a while longer as pets. Behave, for the second his flight of fancy ends and he gets bored of your pathetic selves, you will once more be food for my children. Make your peace so you at least have a dignified end when it comes.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief and collapse once more, tears returning to me.

I will live another day…