The Dragon in Shining Armor

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

One hundred years ago it was nothing more than a deserted spit of land off the coast of Florida.

The odd thing was, until the dragons emerged, no one even knew it was there.

Seamen who routinely sailed past the bit of Caribbean Sea the island inhabits never saw anything more than ocean.

People assumed it was because the mind plays tricks, especially when you’ve been at sea for a while. But every sailor they asked, young, old, new, experienced, all said the same thing: there was no island.

Cartographers checked every map they could find and none of them plotted the island.

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have my map.

I ended up near the Valley because of my ex boyfriend, Jake. He was obsessed with the dragons. Grew up with some sort of hero complex I can only assume spawned from childhood trauma. He better fulfills the role of monster and less the knight in shining armor. Too busy beating me with words and fists to devote much time to heroics.

He wasn’t always like that. Maybe if he was himself from the beginning, I never would’ve come with him. But, come on, what’s more romantic than being whisked away by an almost stranger to an island that spawned a species previously thought to be mythological?

Of course, I didn’t give a shit about the dragons. I came for him. For the stupid romance of it all. Over the decades dragons adjusted to sharing the world with humans and quit hunting us. So we quit hunting them. Mostly.

Except for people like Jake always trying to control the uncontrollable. The unfortunate side effect of hunting dragons is occasionally being eaten by one. Which is what happened to my ex. One minute he was yelling in my face, fist cocked and the next he was gone, the flapping of great bat-like wings drowning out his screams.

Obviously, I was distraught, or pretended to be. It wasn’t much of a stretch. Once he was gone and I was safe, the shock and trauma caught up to me. Takes some time to process that. Not to mention the mixed feelings about how the knight in shining armor turned out to be the dragon.

Anyway, once I got past the initial uncontrollable panic attacks and insomnia, I realized there was maybe a little more to this whole dragon business than I’d thought. Rather than hunting them like my dipshit ex, I decided to learn what I could about them.

Which led to lots of reading and research and notes, etc. Which brought me to an old book shop on the island. They refer to the owner as the Keeper since he keeps track of most records on the island. It’s also said that he’s been around as long as the dragons. Since that would put him over 100 years old, that pushes the boundaries of truth, even for me.

I was planning on going in the right way. Telling him what I needed and asking for help. But life had other plans for me. After everything that happened, a little breaking and entering doesn’t really register on the moral compass.

Worried that he preferred working late, I waited until the darkest part of the night just before dawn, stealing across the deserted streets of the island.

Several visits to the shop during the day taught me that beneath the store was a basement and that’s the most likely place to store the good shit.

There are no alarm systems to worry about on the island. Most electronics malfunction in close proximity with the dragons. Something about ancient magic and modern technology not mixing well. And people brave enough to live on an island with a dragon population outnumbering humans typically don’t worry about thieves.

I pick the lock on one of the basement windows and poke my head through the narrow opening. Darkness is interrupted by shafts of silvery moonlight peeking through the rectangular windows. No candles or lanterns. Nothing to indicate an old man studying ancient maps.

Opening the window further, I slip through, landing quietly on the floor.

I’m elbow deep in a pile of old parchment and books when I noticed the room brighten around me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” A surprisingly strong voice for a man supposedly over a century old.

I groan inwardly and turn to face him.

He holds a lantern high in his right hand. The left holds a sword, pointy end facing my direction.

“Umm, I’m lost?” I try, already backing slowly towards the window I’d come through.

The Keeper moves the sword almost too fast for my eyes to follow and hurls it through the air. It sticks in the wall inches from my nose.

“Or maybe not,” I reach a fingertip out to steady the end of the sword.

The Keeper chuckles behind me. Not in a humorous way. In a way that tells me he’s not scared by a stranger in his basement in the middle of the night.

I turn to look at him. Fully dressed. Eyes aware and focused. So probably not roused from sleep. Either I misjudged his working hours or something else alerted him to my presence.

“Give back whatever you’ve taken and you’re free to go.”

I shrug. “Haven’t taken anything.”

He glares at me.

“I really haven’t.”

And this much is true. The map I found elsewhere. Problem is, there’s another half that goes to it and my search led me here.

Still, he stares at me. The silence is unnerving.

I sigh and look at him, pulling on the strap across my body holding the bag that contains my half of the map.

“I-I need something.”

“No.”

I blink at him. “Just…no. You don’t even want to know what it is?”

“Doesn’t matter. If borrowing was your intention you would’ve asked first and tried to steal after I said no. You came to steal first with no intention of asking.”

I grimace. He’s not wrong.

“Okay so maybe my way of doing things is a little rude-“

“Immoral,” he interrupts.

“Or that, but my intentions are good.”

“How so?”

“I need it,” a little desperation leaks through. I can’t tell if that was an intentional manipulation or I’m getting sloppy.

“Why?”

I sigh. “I can’t tell you.”

He studies me for a moment and I wonder what he sees. A small part of me, a part that I shoved deep down the day the dragon carried my ex off, feels the tiniest bit ashamed. But it’s enough to send a jolt through me. When was the last time I felt shame? And why now in front of a total stranger? I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin a little.

Whatever he sees, he lowers the sword instead of running me through. Then he sighs and says, “Come upstairs.”

He’s turning to leave when I ask, “Why?”

“Because I’m an old man and I’d like to sit.”

“Fair enough,” I mutter following him.

Maybe it’s a trap or a trick. Maybe he really does just want to sit down. I glance back at the window, judging the distance. I’m surprised to find it closed now. Latched as well.

“Don’t even think about it,” his voice carries back to me from the stairs.

Sagging, I follow.

The upstairs looks worn but cozy. Candles and lanterns throw off light, bathing the place in a warm glow. The furniture is old fashioned, out of date by decades. There’s a TV in the corner of the kitchen. The news is on but the volume is low.

He leads me to a small table adjacent to the kitchen. I sit, staring at the TV, nervous. From here I can see the living room. A beat up old chair that was probably once green but is now a sickly yellow sits next to a table covered in cheap paperbacks. From what I can tell, these are romance novels. The kind with a shirtless man holding a distressed woman whose breasts are about to pop out of her dress on the cover. I look away, embarrassed. I expected dusty old tomes and a leather couch in front of a blazing fire. Wood paneling, maybe a glass of brandy. Not dirty romance novels.

The Keeper sets a cup of coffee in front of me and I inhale. Money is scarce lately and coffee is a luxury I can no longer afford.

“What kind of trouble are you in?”

I fidget with the handle of the cup. “Why do you assume I’m in trouble?”

He chuckles again, this time with more humor. “Often people who aren’t in trouble don’t go to the trouble of robbing an old man.”

But he doesn’t move like an old man. He moves with a strength that belies his age. Curiouser and curiouser, I think.

“Well,” I begin, trying to come up with a lie. But then an image on the TV catches my attention and I look up to find my face filling the screen. The image shrinks and moves to the side so the audience can see a man.

The Keeper notices my distraction and turns to look at the TV behind him. He looks back at me, eyebrows raised.

Guess the game is up now.

“That’s why,” I say quietly.

Because the man on the screen talking is none other than Jake.