Here, Maidens Be Dragons

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” Madam Carme told her. “Once your ancestors were pure of body and heart. They were true humans.”

Then what am I?

The circlet of gold sat heavy on Amira’s head, a constant reminder of who she was, and what she was doomed to be.

A princess of the realm.

And the dragon everyone feared…

Amira flipped her black braid over her shoulder. The crown pinched her head bitterly. At its center upon her forehead, a small egg-shaped cage of golden wire criss-crossed over the sapphire that was inset between her brows. Shaped like a dragon’s eye, an amber glow flickered within the blue jewel– reminiscent of the power she could so easily wield. If she wished to.

Instead, she curtailed her desire to flame Madam Carme into something close to roast mutton, and tried to resume her notes for the history lesson. The tall tower was filled with everything a growing princess– and a flaming, scaly dragon– could ever need.

On one wall stood bookshelves of arithmetic, rhetoric, encyclopedias for multiple languages, and maps documenting the encroaching borders of the neighboring kingdoms. There was also an ebony-wood desk, a velvet armchair, and several glowing orbs to illuminate Amira’s workspace at night. Her tutor, Madam Carme, sat on an extra stool beside the bookshelves while she taught off the chalkboard.

On the other side of the room, a creature lived.

Scales glittered like ruby and obsidian amongst tufts of straw and sawdust in a nest where Amira slept. Bottles of potions lay on low-hanging shelves and bundles of herbs hung from the steel rafters. A spear of meat was staked into the dimly glowing embers of a fire pit. The smell of brimstone overlaid a lady’s perfume.

Madam Carme cleared her throat. “Are you listening, Princess?”

Amira nodded. The heavy sapphire, caged by the crown, only seemed to intensify her ever-growing headache.

“As I was saying, once there were only true humans. Perfect bodies, in the eyes of our creator. Untarnished. And then came the dragons. Your great-great grandfather, Themisto the Abhorrent, managed to woo your great-great grandmother in his human form. No one had known that the greatest of dragons could shift their shape before. He mated her, bound her to him, and so began the regime of distrust and hatred between my people and the monstrous beasts.”

Amira could clearly hear the delineation.

‘My people.’

‘Monstrous beasts.’

Madam Carme and the citizens of Chaldene did not consider her to be human. They did not consider anyone without soft skin (not furry, scaly, or feathery), or without an equal set of two legs and two arms, including one head, or who was not of average height (whatever that might be) as one of them. As a true human.

Luckily, Madam Carme and her father were the only ones who knew of Amira’s true nature. The rest of their people thought her father, King Ersa, had simply invoked the legend early.

If the other citizens of Chaldene found out, Amira would be relegated to the freaks and abominations. Or worse.

“For centuries,” Madam Carme continued, “our knights and princes have valiantly fought for maidens of virtue.” Of which you are not, she thusly implied. “Upon their victory, they are gifted riches and status, privilege befitting their station as heroes of legend. All curses must be broken by an act of true love. All monsters must be defeated for a hero to win the heart of his true love. This is the lore passed down by our loremasters. This is what your father instructed me to pass onto you.” Madam Carme turned and drew some more runes on the chalkboard. “Though I hardly see a reason to,” she muttered.

Amira heard the words her tutor was unwilling– under threat of imprisonment– to say.

‘She was a disgrace.’

A failing of generations, of being the princess maiden all knights fought for. How else were the charming princes, noble lords, dashing minstrels, and lowly lads supposed to show their chivalry? How else were they to show their bravery? Their boldness?

She was the ‘fearsome beast’ they were all destined to fight. Destined to conquer. Destined to murder.

“And so, against all odds,” Madam Carme concluded bitterly, stabbing the board with the stick of chalk, “you must find one of these hunters or noble knights and convince him to marry you. He must do so when your inner-fire is calm, and you must never reveal what you truly are!”

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Amira watched through her window as Madam Carme left her tower before the morning. Her tutor pulled on a rich brown cloak, covering her graying hair and permanent scowl, and strutted quickly into the forest towards the city. No one ever stayed with Amira during the day, or on the nights when it grew close to the fullness of the moon.

Not that I mind, she thought.

It was her only time to be free.

All alone, she watched the stars begin to fade until they only peppered the dusky pink sky. Her shoulder blades itched, and she welcomed the tickling sensation.

Just a few moments more…

The early sun crept into the sky. Like a scythe, its shape cut through the darkness and dimmed the illuminated stars surrounding it. The itching grew harder to ignore.

Flames grew in her belly. Deep, like a rising inferno. Smoke blew from her nostrils, and Amira stretched her arms– wiling the bones to bend, break, and shift.

She didn’t need an incantation.

No spell could create or deny what was, to her, as natural as breathing.

Scales burst from her soft, pink flesh, covering her vulnerable hide. Sharp teeth jutted out from her jaw and claws ruptured from her knuckles. She quickly flung the gold crown from her head. Wings unfurled from her back and she leapt from the tower’s window before the transformation took her fully.

She finished her shift in mid-air.

The wind was her anchor, her guide. She let an updraft open her wings and she glided– a loathsome, twenty-foot beast with a wickedly spiked tail, gorgeous wings of ruby, and eyes blacker than a lady’s jet beads.

The sapphire on her forehead had transformed into a giant gem; like a five-pointed star, it grew into a crystalline diadem that arced above her eyes and horns.

With an instant beat of her wings, Amira lifted above the forest’s canopy. She was too big to navigate through the dense trees, but her dragon loved to soar through the sun’s rays and over the large lake nearby. Sometimes she even swam through the waters in her dragon-form.

But not today.

Today, Amira needed to fly far away from the tower, as far as she could, before the moon would force her back. Fearful words were beating rampantly inside her head.

“Freak!” The first word resounded.

“Beast!” There was the second.

And finally the third.

“Monster!”

Amira beat her wings higher.

What can I do when I’m everything they hate? When everything they scream is true?

She was a monster, but also a princess. What love could she hope for? What kingdom could she offer?

Over the last eighteen summers, she’d come to realize a simple fact: I am a product of dismay and regret.

Her mother had died giving birth to her. The midwife had said how her mother screamed— screamed how ‘it burned,’ burned like a flame in her belly.

That flame had been Amira.

Her father had been heartbroken to lose his dear wife, Queen Eurosisia. He’d been equally horrified to hold a scaly newborn bundle in his arms.

Though Amira had been born human, a sapphire gem had been inlaid in her forehead from birth. She’d also shown fragile red scales on her fingers and toes.

Luckily, a lady’s gloves and society’s constant demand for shoes kept those tell-tale signs hidden.

Amira felt a warmer draft of wind lift her wings, and looped over the green and yellow leaves of the forest. She couldn’t stray far, and her frustration almost burst from her scales– encouraging an aggressive upbeat of her wings that took her high above the clouds. Her wings were more powerful than the words her human-form could ever say.

She knew her kingdom was in dire straits. On a wall in her tower, a map clearly showed the burgeoning danger. The Kingdom of Sinope stood out like an angry line of blood, its borders constantly bleeding into the other territories. But Lysithea’s blue borders were also increasing, and so were the green lines of Taygete’s.

Traditionally, her virtue would have called a worthy man to her side– a hero who could’ve saved her kingdom from any coming invasion. Loremasters, fairy godmothers, and even the Gods passed this tale to the people of the World throughout the generations.

But Amira was also a dragon.

She had never heard of a knight rescuing his princess without slaying the flaming beast.

A cooler downdraft brought Amira nearer to the forest’s canopy as the sun began to set. Her dragon flew over an open glen, her black eyes canceling any residual light she did not require, and focused on the clearing below. It was easy for her dragon to spot the tall meadow’s grass, the blue and orange wildflowers— and the hunter staring up at her in shock!

____________________________________________________

Kory felt his knees threatening to buckle.

Great Gods, what manner of beast was this?

His thought spurned his hand to his bow and quiver. He’d almost knocked an arrow to its string, drawing it back– before he took a closer look at the beast.

Like ruby and sapphire…

His hand hesitated. He could not tear his eyes away from the beast— no, the creature. Its wings flapped, and the dragon hovered in mid-air before him. Its scales were brilliant, like individual gems, and the jewel crown on its head seemed to inspire obedience. He had to fight the will to bow down, to demonstrate his servitude to the creature’s majesty.

And the creature still hadn’t incinerated him.

Quite frankly, by now, he’d been expecting to be a barbecued human.

Why didn’t it roast him?

His hands lowered the bow entirely, and the dragon seemed to still its wings for a half-beat before him— before it bowed its head, and flew away to the west. As if it needed to outrace the early evening…