Taste Of Survival

Chapter One

There weren’t always dragons in the valley, where they are feared across the globe, they are welcomed at the Armada. We serve them the greatest of meats to the finest of fruits, when they fill their rounded bellies, Spider fills his pockets.

Only a single dragon dines with us tonight, his mortal form is draped in the finest of silk and organza, his fingers adorned in stones of ruby and emerald and his hair is spun like wispy sugar. Despite his talent for skin-walking, it is not hard to pick up on a dragon in its mortal wear.

With the size of him, it's an ordeal for the waiters to guide him through the high stone doors and over to his seat. He had not appeared to mind, he walked in long languid steps, grinning at us with his big black teeth, the same amused way a human acknowledges an ant if it makes its presence known enough.

I finish tending to a customer, having convinced him that no, his ex-lover had not gotten the chance to poison his meal- not yet anyway. He still picks at the bloodied roast venison spread out on a gold platter, pink inside and dusted in pomegranate seeds.

"A dragon dines with us tonight," Spider says, as if I hadn't just seen him in all his glory, "he's a big one."

"As if there are any small ones," I say.

"Backtalk?" Spider raises a brow, he's a skinny man, cheeks hollow and eyes bulging, there's a rumour that instead of eating food, he eats the money he makes here at the Prussian Armada. Dense in enough nutrients for a businessman "you know how much one as big as that is worth?"

When Spider is called out on a job, even if it's halfway across the country, he spins his webs out to reach it. He collects flies on the way, small helpless children he knows have no home, no family and not even a country to return to. Of course, like spiders, he doesn’t eat them right away, he sucks and wrings them out of all their uses until there’s not a single-use left.

He sends out his flies on all sorts of jobs, whether it be to satisfy a man for information or sacrifice your body to the poison used in a parasite's dinner.

I flick the tip of my tongue into the bottom of my lower lip, where the black inked tattoo of a Spider is. A reminder that you owe him your allegiance, but also to remind those outside of the Armada that his flies aren't to be touched nor refused.

"How much?" I ask, balancing a single gold platter in the palm of my blue glove, the glass bottle of poison almost glimmers beneath the hanging chandeliers.

Spider inhales "you want to drink that poison you got there?"

"Not really," I say, it isn't exactly the highlight of a tasters night, to ingest a toxin so terrible that poison is the only way out of the misery.

"Then you best drop your sarcasm, boy."

I decide I've annoyed him enough for one day, I jut my chin out towards the dragon "I'd say the guy is enough for an Armada renovation, a couple of happy wives and anything else your sick heart desires."

"I knew it!" Spider rubs his hands together, "I knew it."

I see Araxie across the room, she gives me the arch of her brow when she looks between us and then continues to taste a vessel's heart for a hairy moth man.

“You know what to do boy” Spider eventually says once he’s done calculating the price in his mind “get me that heart.”

Although dragons aren’t the nation's favourite, they make a good meal. In fact, they make a meal so good that the shady business partners Spider frolics around with are willing to pay the beast's weight in gold- just for its heart, a delicacy in some parts of the world.

I give him a firm nod and walk through the tables with my head hung low, flexing my hands in the warmth of the hall. Shells of cutlery sit empty on the shining glass of them and inside, the fluorescent green and orange of a reef dwells. Vibrant fish swim delightfully in and out of their small coral reef, gaping and bubbling at the water.

In the centre of the restaurant is an enormous circular tank webbed in gold. A dozen mermaids swim with unease in the confined space, and the sandy bottom of the tank glistens with gold coins, the lost wishes that customers left behind the day before.

I fix my bowtie, comb fingers through my clean trimmed hair and head over towards table fourteen. He sits at a designated seat by the tank of jewel clad mermaids, they perform tricks and lean out of the iridescent water to offer him clams stuffed with inky white pearls.

Before I reach his table, Araxie passes by and grips my elbow. She’s always been incredibly fast, so I show her no sign of surprise and instead pretend to look busy so Spider will not notice.

“Has he got his sights set on this one?” she asks, a smirk on her lips.

“He has” I say.

“I spoke to the beetle” she says, “he’s agreed to buy it off us if we’re the first to bring him it.”

“Can we trust him?” I ask, eyes shifting between her face and the dragon.

“Isn’t it worth the risk?” She shrugs.

“No,” I tell her, “it isn’t.”

“We can trust him, Flynn” she rolls her eyes, she’s identical to me apart from the vivid yellow of her eyes, it comforts me and scares me at the same time.

“Bring the cake over once I’ve finished tasting” I tell her.

“Yes boss” she gives a stupid salute.

“Okay” I say, “act neutral, don’t give us away.”

She sticks her tongue out and saunters away to serve another table. When I reach table fourteen, I give a polite bow. He looks delighted at my presence and claps his large hands together, nails painted in a brilliant red and rings gleaming in the lights.

“I feel special” he says, a cool chill trickles down my neck at the otherworldly sound of his voice, he leans forward on his personalised chair “a taster, all for me.”

“You know what they say” I place my platter of poison on the table, “only the most important of guests have a taster.”

He chuckles, loud and haunting “because so many want me dead.”

“The more people want you dead, the more famous you are” I say, this works and he laughs again.

The waiters arrive with platters so big, it takes three of them to carry one, they spread out the table with delicacies of the sea, a black octopus drizzled in garlic, a yellow fin shark with its head as decor and a twisted eel appetiser.

I taste each dish with the miniature tasting spoon, calling out a loud ‘clear’ after each one.

“Remarkable!” The dragon says “how do you know if it has been tampered with.”

“Amateur tasters only know if it’s been tampered with once they’re afflicted with the poison” I tell him, licking the spoon clean and tearing a piece of octopus off next.

“I take it you are no amateur”

“I’ve surpassed my amateur days” I say, “There’s always a clue if poison is present, for example, beetle bergamot will carry a sour lemon taste.”

“Parasite poison always carries a fruity taste, while love potion carries the aroma of fauna” I continue “it’s all in the taste.”

“If only someone would tamper my meal with love potion” the dragon muses, lifting his napkin to tie it around his thick neck.

“I would.”

Araxie appears right on time, lashes fluttering and a monstrous cake carried behind her by the waiters.

The dragon gives her a long look over, one that creates an uncomfortable silence and an annoyed look from yours truly. I haven’t got time to pick apart the men my sister decides to flirt with though, I’ve got a job to do.

“You would?” He asks.

“Who wouldn’t,” Araxie says, and fans her face for effect “Spider insists this cake is on the house, Lord Dragon.”

The cake is full of brain brine, a deadly poison that explodes in the brain in a couple of hours. It could take longer on him though due to his size, perfect for it to take place during the empty morning hours.

Immersed in Araxie, he does not notice that the chunk of cake I cut out to taste is mushed between the linen of a napkin. I feel bad for a moment, he has not been cruel like past guests have been to me, but it does not change the fact that I am a taster.

A taster dies in place of their customers daily, we taste so that those more worthy than us may live to see another day.

But with the money beetle offers for this dragon's heart, I’d say it is our turn to see another day, free of poison and the promise of death.