On the Fold

Chapter I: Beware the Keeper

The river ran backwards on the day the queen vanished, so say the villagers of Gazona, but they are wrong. I am the queen; I am here; their perceptions run as backward as the river.

Still, I am utterly disoriented and lost, terrified by this anomaly. I am here, and yet I am not here. I remain unseen and unheard. Not even my mage seems aware of my presence.

It began as a storm, which came upon me suddenly while in the forest on the other side of the mote, picking wildflowers for Daphne’s hair and inhaling sweet scents.

I tried to return to the castle, but a gale carried me away while crossing the bridge. The river surged, and I could not escape the water coming in from the tributaries, pushing against the current and running backward.

I awoke amidst water trickling over my face under the trees at the riverside far from the castle, adding to my disorientation. The storm had relented, and the sound of seabirds calling out to each other in the blue echoed as I struggled to make sense of it all.

I now embrace my daughter, Princess Daphne, while she sleeps in darkness, wrapped in soft green velvet beneath her canopy.

I traverse with her daily, trying to communicate, but she cannot hear me. I am worried about her. When a seventeen-year-old believes she has lost her mother, well, in my daughter’s case, she is angry, her whispers wild and dark.

The villagers have a wild dragoon to train (it evolved and is far more intelligent than any dragon), but they are in mourning, preparing for my requiem, which I shall not attend!

Nevertheless, this is not the time to train a dragoon, so it remains trapped.

Daphne believes dragoons are knowledgeable and eternally tell the truth. I follow her like a shadow in the forest as she moves toward the dragoon's cage through entangled thistles and a network of trees behind the castle.

She is close enough to peek at it from behind an olive tree.

Upon the dragoon’s head, pointed horns are the color of its long white neck, which towers high over its coiled body. Its eyes search for freedom, and its whipping tail clanks against the cage rails, overwhelming my enhanced sense of hearing—a colossal beast.

Confined behind silvery-white bars, the dragoon’s head spins to face Daphne. Its blue eyes with little slits of onyx fix upon her from afar.

“Maybe it knows where Mother is,” she whispers to herself.

(Indeed, it does.)

“Protect my restless child,” I call loudly to the dragoon. It turns and looks through me. Though standing next to me, Daphne does not hear me. If I had hands, I would wring them in despair.

Daphne stomps from the forest trees and marches toward the dragoon's cage, her unkempt hair taken by the breeze.

Behind her, the keeper appears shrouded in a long, hooded burgundy cloak. He smooths his scarlet beard. “It is not permitted for you to be here.” His tone is sharp, and his voice is deep.

She turns toward the dragoon-keeper. “I must find my mother. Do you know where she is?"

The keeper shakes his head as he moves closer to her. "Maybe we can find her together," he says, reaching his arms out toward her, covering her mouth with one hand and grabbing her throat with the other.

I watch her sink to her knees.

“Do something,” I scream at the dragoon and beat my fists on the keeper, but I am utterly invisible and without substance.

The dragoon shrieks, “Such oppression!” so loud and blood-curdling that it echoes throughout the kingdom, and the keeper pushes Daphne away. He stands shocked and frozen, staring at the dragoon.

Daphne rises to hands and knees, gasping desperately for breath.

A thunderous sound pounds the forest floor as the King and his entourage arrive on horses, filling the atmosphere with golden dust. The King yells and dismounts. "What is this?”

Daphne crawls to the King, “Father, he tried to take my life.”

He stoops to help her rise. “The dragoon? It is caged!”

“No, no,’ Daphne whispers, holding her chest. “That keeper. That dragoon-keeper tried to choke me, Father!”

Archers surround the keeper with bows and obsidian arrowheads in position.

The King violently kicks the keeper until he is a lump of burgundy wool. “The rats await your filthy flesh!”

The King tries to gather Daphne in his arms, but she pushes him and stumbles away; an archer follows.

I can only observe the danger my daughter faces alone. I realize this is not a tinkerbell tale; you cannot just wish the harm away in any realm.

It is not the body that speaks now but the essence of what is left of me as clouds unfold. I ask for prayer and sing love songs, hoping all that is good can hold the evil in the Kingdom of Gazona at bay.

My mage, Ambrose, once spoke of a portal located far from the Kingdom of Gazona. It is said that one is granted new life by slipping through undetected. However, getting through that portal is as perilous as the journey. I have a stealthy prowl and am covert now without substance, so my chances of returning home shine.

I make it to the hills above but stop, turn, and gaze back at Gazona, unable to move forward. “Why did the keeper try to kill Daphne? What or who compelled him?

The dragoon wails in the night. "Such Oppression!"