Scarlet on Black

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. They had, in fact, been mostly forgotten by the inhabitants of the hamlet nestled within. There had always been unwitnessed danger — previously missing sheep suddenly appearing once again, eviscerated — and perhaps folk unexpectedly succumbed to wanderlust more often here than in other places (or at least this was the reasoning behind sudden disappearances of heretofore reliable persons), but ‘dragons’ were never a viable alternative to more simple, mundane explanations. No, fanciful creatures of yore were better suited as a rod for unruly children refusing their night-rest — a threat, a consequence. But the signs were there, and perhaps if they’d been heeded, what happened that fateful day could have been prevented; perhaps those involved would still be alive; perhaps a girl, full of guileless youth, would have been spared a lifetime of nightmares.

***

A small lavender bird glides over the verdant green field, through a cloudless blue sky, never sparing a glance for the festivities below. The bird pays no mind to the cheerful laughter, the gleeful screams that begin in the center of the hamlet and then carry throughout the Valley. It flaps its wings once, twice, and only hears the faintest whisper of the mother calling her daughter before it glides further upon a warm current, before becoming only a line on the horizon.

“Little floret!” A heavy-set, scarlet-skinned woman — adorned in a simple white-linen dress with dandelion-dyed lace trim, beads strung throughout, adorning, her dark braids — calls into the field: “Wander not far, piglet, lest you miss the festivities!” The woman will miss calling her child’s pet-names through the field; of all her offspring, it’s this one whose departure will unsettle her the most, and today’s Founders’ Day Naming Circle will bring that inevitability ever closer. The girl herself, however, holds no such misgivings about abandoning her childhood, and rushes to be grown.

“I know, Mother! I’ll not be long,” a young female voice calls back, its owner already nothing more than a splash of pink-red travelling across the gold-green meadow. Her body’s movement through the tall grass traces a line from the furthest outlying structure of the hamlet (a long-unused windmill) to the start of the dark line of trees. It isn’t long before a soft breeze erases even this minute trace that the girl was ever here.

“Did you tell her where you were going, ‘little floret’?” the young male voice asks from somewhere behind the tree stumps that mark the start of Auger’s Woods. She can’t see where the voice comes from, but she knows at once that it belongs to Connor, son of Connor, and is at once grateful for her darker flesh; she is blushing, although the gloom of the Woods hides this just as readily.

“No,” she replies, scowling and clutching at the hem of her dress anxiously. “And only my mother calls me that. Besides, today I am to receive a new one, and be seen as grown.” She walks into the forest towards the voice, the crunching of dried leaves and twigs loud in the absence of even the birds and insects. Is she alone here? “Come out, already,” she calls into the deep green. “No one can see us here, nor would they care to if they could. I don’t understand why we must be so secretive.” The lanky blond boy steps from behind a gnarled and disfigured tree, and the girl is surprised. He is not as she remembers; eyes too dark, ears too long…

“Never mind that. Follow me.” A flash of a smile, and the black tunic disappears into the browns and dark greens, heading still further into the woods.

“Slow!” she calls after him, following through brush and briar, trying — and failing — to recall if Connor’s teeth had always been so sharp.

Deeper and deeper into the woods he leads her, stopping only long enough to ensure she will have breath for the next sprint ahead. Deeper and deeper.

“Enough!” she yells, once the entrance to the Woods is no longer visible, the penetrating light of day struggling to find purchase in the forest’s gloom. Her arms are sore from bramble-scratches, her Founders’ Day dress stained with dirt, and a ragged tear runs through one of the dress’s patterns. Connor, barely out of breath, leans against a tree.

“Another rest?” He rolls his eyes; they are more jaundiced now than they were a fortnight ago, she’s sure of it. “If you must. But then we go–”

“Tell me, who is your father?” She’s uneasy now, and uses the opportunity to survey her surroundings. The trees here are stunted and grotesque, the air acrid, the ground charred and yet soaked through.

“What?” The boy looks puzzled, but she’s not unaware of the glimmer of fear she sees alongside.

“The man who raised you. Tell me his name.”

“You ken it, surely,” the blond boy laughs. “Enough of this.”

“Aye, I ken.” She levels her look straight at the boy. “But I ask you to tell me yourself.”

The boy wears a mask of quizzical amusement for another moment, then the smile falls from his face, nearly a parody of itself as a petulant scowl.

“As I thought. You’re not Connor, son of Connor. Who are you?”

“Very clever, ‘piglet.’” The voice, now dark and full of flies, erupts from the boy’s mouth like a cough — harsh and abrupt. “His form was a new one, for all my years. Yet none, save you, deduced it. As I said: clever.”

“Perhaps you’re dull.” She’s grown accustomed to handling the errant gnoll or goblin on Old Hastur’s land (and very close to nearly rich, since she began charging for the trouble); she knows she mustn’t panic. But whatever this thing is seems more akin to those in Mother’s stories of dark rituals and heathen beasts. “I’ll not ask again. Who are you?”

“Not Connor, as you deduced. But who are you to ask? Are you Speaker for your clan?”

She does not hesitate to use what she has learned, what little generational knowledge has been passed down through her family, the reason for this tradition long forgotten. “Yes, I am. You are not welcome here, fiend, and trespass upon the sacred land of my people. Leave now, and never return.”

There is a moment where she sees the not-Connor considering, and believes that this encounter may yet turn in her favour. Her heart drops upon hearing the guttural laughter that follows.

“‘Sacred land of your people?’ Would the land cease to be sacred if your people were no longer upon it? If this is what it requires to roam freely here, I am willing to take on such a burden.”

Perhaps because of the chill in the forest, the ache in her legs, and the hot air in her lungs reminding her of reality, the girl’s mind is forced to accept what she witnesses, and even still comes dangerously close to untethering altogether. The boy’s skull seems to melt, re-form, until it resembles that of a horse, the face-skin pulling tight around to accommodate its new shape. His eyes become gold, and his ears elongate, curling and elongating into sharp horns that frame the grotesque face. As the black tunic melts down his arms, extending until they nearly blanket the forest floor in a black and leathery skin, the girl has a hitherto unthought realization. Horror dawns on her face as the gargantuan black mass takes to the skies, and she begins to scream.

***

She returns too late; she was too deep into the Woods, and too tired from getting there. She arrives at the hamlet border sweating, her breath ragged. A smoldering crater, acidic plumes rising from its centre, is all that remains of the settlement of her birth. The black dragon slithers down from its perch on what remains of the abandoned windmill, and waits for the girl — this erstwhile ‘Speaker’ — to compose herself.

“And thus my obligation is fulfilled: the land is purged of its sacred people. It is now I who owns this land, and you, nomad, are trespasser. You may continue to tread this land,” its eyes become slits, teeth bared in a mockery of a smile, “but I require a tithe.”

And as quickly as before, the beast is not-Connor again, in size and shape, voice and smile.

“A kiss from Little Floret.” the boy finishes sweetly, feigning bashfulness. He leans down and closes his eyes, lips puckered.

The girl is shocked, cannot think, and acts on instincts instilled in her from an upbringing as a polite and obedient youngling, leaning in to accept the kiss. Their lips brush for the briefest instant before the girl, eyes alight with hellfire, opens her mouth wide, bearing the only weapon left to her. Her teeth clamp shut around the meaty cheek of the not-Connor as fast and powerful as a bugbear trap would its prey’s leg. A sudden jerk of her head, and the fair skin of the boy’s cheek is torn off. A demonic voice screams, filled with pain and surprise. The boy-thing recoils, ragged pink meat bleeding over exposed teeth, then whips its head towards her. She sees white, the color of pain, as the world burns away.

“I mark you in kind, young Speaker, last of your people,” the dragon’s voice booms. Her world is hot, and bright, but she hears this clearly, its voice fraying her mind. She cannot feel beyond the immediate pain in her head; she is sure she feels the bones of her face beneath her probing, protecting hands. When she feels the gust of wind buffet against her, the girl knows she is alone.

***

The last vestiges of the day vanish from the Valley before the girl is finally ready to depart her home. No longer clad in frills and lace, she wears the leathers of her ancestors, long-entombed to preserve their power. A scarred, bald head, having been boiled and burned, leaves no trace of the rich, dark locks that once graced it. Her face is a duality of living and dead: while one side resembles the fine-and-fair maiden who once followed a would-be suitor into the Woods, the other resembles the utter death she discovered there. She runs her hands over her face — feeling the exposed skull and teeth — and barks ruefully; such a turnaround a single day has made to her fortune! She catches sight of a small, lavender bird racing towards the Woods, no doubt attempting to outrun the light, to make it home before those dark-dwelling predators awake. She wonders if this is the same bird she saw today, if it too had heard her mother calling her across the field.

Little floret. Piglet.

She spits, mouth too full of memory, heart too empty of feeling. If today truly was to be her Founders’ Day, then this acrid pit — once a place of unconditional love and overwhelming security, now a stinking monument to death — was to be her Naming Circle. From today, she would be seen as grown, so the trappings of childhood would have to be forgotten. Today she chose a new name, and with it, her ultimate path. There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, but now that there were, they’re fear was now a named one.