The Trophy

There weren't always dragons in the Valley.

And when they arrived, the Duke of Hungairn made it his personal responsibility to make them as extinct as they had ever been.

He had always resented the way the war ended. It left the entire continent in ruins, all for the sake of a fight he never cared about. He had been content to remain in the Valley, providing for his people his entire life, but the war had overturned the whole continent.

His advisors suggested that the dragons had smelled the destruction of the continent from across the sea. That they had flown all that way to take advantage of the carnage. The Valley provided the perfect environment for them to have their young while they hunted the rest of the continent for spoils and wreckage.

Frankly, the Duke didn’t care why the dragons had come, he just wanted them gone. That’s what everyone assumed, especially when his dragon hunting task force doubled every month.

I still remember hearing the first sound of the hunters. Their heavy, booted footsteps were muffled by the underbrush that covered me. The cracking and squishing noises of my brothers and sisters being destroyed within their shells echoed around the forest.

The Duke himself carried me home in his pack. The light through my milky shell had dimmed for two days before he retrieved me out of his dirty bag.

“Good gods, what is that?” The Duchess’s tone was harsh. Her voice demanded to be listened to, no matter how unpleasant the words were.

“It’s a trophy.” Said the Duke. “I believe we got the last of them on this mission.”

“Why on earth did you bring it here, Ambrus?”

“Why, I brought it for you, my dear.” The Duke said proudly.

“Well, I certainly don’t want it, it’s hideous. I thought dragon eggs were supposed to be like Marzian Pearls. This looks like a cancerous rock.”

“Yes, this one was probably dead before it was laid. I thought it would be a good keepsake. To remind us of another threat we’ve overcome together.”

“I can’t stand the sight of it. Keep it in your den if you must keep it.”

Dejected footsteps carried me down the hall to a dimly lit room. The Duke placed me on the mantle of the fireplace and shut the door.

I stayed on the mantle for three years and seventy-four days.

I heard a lot from that mantle, even though the room was rarely used. The Duke would often escape there after dinners or parties to be away from his family. The clinking of glasses or muffled conversations with his staff were often the only activity of the day.

Because of this, the fire beneath the mantle was rarely lit. Neither the Duke nor the Duchess suspected that every time it was lit though, fibers and sinews would start to stitch together beneath my milky shell.

Despite how slow time moved, I eventually became acquainted with the whole family. More or less.

“What did I say about being on your best behavior tonight?” The Duchess slammed the door as a rustle of skirts invaded the room.

“Mama, he’s vile! You should have heard the things he was saying to me, the most ghastly-”

“I raised you better than this Pernella. To rush out of the room while a gentleman is speaking to you. The disrespect! You-”

“He is no gentleman. At least not one I would like to be acquainted with.”

The next sound was Pernella crying out, followed by a smack that sounded like a hand being slapped over an open mouth.

“I thought I made myself clear, my dear.” The sneer in the Duchess’s voice would have made me shiver if I had yet developed the muscles to do so. “It is imperative that you find a husband, and I’ll be damned if your father marries you off to one of his friends. Your only chance is to marry someone from my homeland, do you understand?”

A sob ripped from Pernella. “But I don’t want to leave! Please, mama, I don’t want to leave the Valley!”

A scuffle sounded against the hardwood floors, then a smack. Pernella cried out again.

“We are not staying here. I’ve had enough of this vile place. And you marrying a man like the Count is our way out of here.”

Tiny sobs leaked out of Pernella as the Duchess told her to straighten up and hold still while she fixed her hair and her face. After several minutes, Pernella’s sobs died away, and she followed the Duchess out of the room. Her tiny footsteps barely echoed the Duchess’s heels clicking on the floor.

Every once in a while, Pernalla would sneak into the den. I recognized her hesitant, quiet footsteps after that day with the Duchess. She’d sometimes stay in there for hours at a time, softly turning the pages of a book.

Pernella would only ever visit the den during the earliest hours of the day. The light from the window was nowhere near the mantle at that time, and she never lit the fire.

She barely made a sound.

Dustin was louder, although I doubt he tried to be.

The creak of the door was followed by a cough. Then a louder one. Then a seizure of coughing engulfed the whole room.

“Easy son.” It didn’t sound like the Duke had stood up from his seat near the window.

When Dustin’s coughing had died down, he took several deep breaths. I waited for the sound of footsteps and seat cushion springs, but it never came.

Another deep breath. “You wished to speak to me, father?” His voice was low and confident, if not a little tired from the coughing fit that had momentarily overtaken him.

A low sigh from the Duke’s chair, then the rustling of a paper being set down. “Your mother is insisting it’s time for you to finish your education.”

Silence.

“Is this because of last week?”

Another sigh, this one more frustrated. “No, I haven’t told her about that. Although, if I have to bail you out of the village jail again, I doubt even my silence would be enough to keep it from her.”

A soft sniffle, followed by more silence.

“What were you even doing there?”

Dustin sniffled again. “I told you. I was following… a lead.”

“A lead, yes. I still don’t see why you think that’s your job.” The Duke stood up then, his heavy footsteps carried him towards the small bar in the room. I’d become familiar enough with the clinking of the bar cart to count each glass.

“Well, it doesn’t seem to be anybody else’s job.” Dustin’s voice sounded heavy and sharp.

“Because it was an accident, Dustin. We talked about this.” The Duke filled a taller glass than normal.

“Except I can’t shake this feeling that it wasn’t an accident father!” Dustin’s lungs seem to rattle with unvoiced tension, or maybe it was just his sickness threatening to overtake him again.

I barely heard the sound of the Duke taking a long swig from his glass. “Look, I know you’re upset, but I implore you to drop this nonsense! For stars sake, you didn’t even know Gribbes that well, did you?”

The fire below me wasn’t lit, but I don’t think that’s why the temperature in the room seemed to drop at that moment.

“...No.” Dustin sounded like he was holding in a cough. “I didn’t really know him.”

Heavy footsteps were followed by the slapping of a hand on a shoulder. “Tell you what. If you still feel this way after you’ve finished your education, then we’ll discuss this… theory you have.”

I listened to many conversations during my time on the mantle, but I got the impression that Dustin was also familiar with listening to conversations. The few times I heard him in the room, I grew to like the sound of his voice, despite the constant coughing. He seemed like someone who knew how to listen.

Which was something I certainly knew about.

All I ever did was listen. It was all I could do.

Then I met Toby on my seven hundred and eighty-fourth day on the mantle.

“What do you mean, he just showed up?” The Duchess’s voice sounded like she couldn’t decide between growling and yelling the words.

“That’s it, your grace. Cook found him on the back steps of the kitchen this morning.” Mrs. Nagy’s scratchy voice was barely above a whisper. I knew her to be the housekeeper of the Duke’s estate, though she rarely visited the den.

“You’ve never seen him before?” The Duchess’s foreign accent peeked through her clipped words.

“I’ve never seen him before in my life! But that note was tied ‘round his neck, it was.” Mrs. Nagy sounded like she was accusing this person of murdering the family’s beloved cat.

The sound of the Duchess’s hands unfurling paper was heard next. The silence that followed was as thick as the shell surrounding me. If I had a fully formed spine at that point, I’m sure chills would have run down it.

“Shit.” The Duchess whispered violently.

“It’s like I told you, your grace. Only she would know such things about the family. She has to be telling the truth.”

“So this is the Duke’s real son then.” The whisper scraped through her teeth.

“Would seem so, your grace.”

A long silence followed, then the Duchess’s heels moved slowly around the room.

“Do you have a name, boy?”

Luckily, my ears were formed enough to hear the tiny voice in the room. “Toby.”

“Toby, your grace.” Corrected Mrs. Nagy.

“Toby, your grace. Ma’am. Your majesty.” He sounded the way I felt when I was carried away from my brothers and sisters.

A scoff sounded from the Duchess. “How old are you?”

“Ten, ma’am. Your grace.”

The Duchess sounded like a true dragon as she huffed out a violent breath. “What on earth are we supposed to do with him, Mrs. Nagy?”

“Ah.. well, maybe the stables could use another hand. Tending to the animals…”

“Mrs. Nagy, what possible use could the stable master have with a one legged boy?!”

I’m certain that if my lungs had been fully formed then, I would have sucked in a terribly large gasp.

“Well…” Mrs. Nagy began, clearly flustered. “I suppose we could use him in the house?”

“For what?”

“For cleaning, your grace. His hands still work, I suppose.”

Now the Duchess’s firm footsteps marched across the room. I heard Toby suck in a shallow breath. “Do you clean, boy?”

“Y-yes, m- Your grace. I can.”

“Now you listen to me, boy. You behave yourself, and you can keep a roof over your head. You do everything Mrs. Nagy says. One wrong move, and I’ll have you out on the streets before your precious mother is cold in her grave.”

I could have sworn I heard a tiny gulp. “Yes. Your grace.”

“And Toby? Do not speak to anyone in the family. Especially his Lordship. Do you understand?”

Toby was of great interest to me from his first day in the house. I grew to anticipate the uneven rhythm of his one worn shoe, coupled with the wooden peg standing in for the other.

Since the den was relatively outside the way of the main part of the house, it became Toby’s responsibility to clean the room. I saw- or rather heard him two or three times a week from then on.

I heard him grow just slightly too big for his one shoe. The wooden peg replacing his leg grew too small as well, making his gait more uneven than ever.

Despite this, he was a most delicate handler of the den. He picked the used glasses up off the bar so carefully, I could no longer count the number of glasses as they clinked against one another.

He methodically cleaned each window, slowly making his way from one end of the room to the other. The cloth squeaking quietly against the class.

He dusted the mantle with serene precision, delicately adjusting each knickknack and token in turn.

The first time he moved his step stool to the mantle, he stood right in front of me. I grew as still as possible as I listened to him study me.

Then, one tiny finger traced a dark gray vein running along the side of the shell. In all my time on the mantle, no one had ever gotten this close to me, let alone dared to touch my shell.

“Hello.” He whispered.

If Toby hadn’t been my favorite before then, he certainly was now.

Then, when the weather turned cold, Toby started making sure the fire was lit every day.

I don’t think he knew that I needed heat in order to grow. Or maybe he did, I couldn’t be sure at the time. Still, I found myself able to grow quite quickly. My wings, claws, tail, and scales finally took shape over that winter.

Truthfully, I could have stayed in the shell forever. I didn’t really want to face the rest of the house. The Duke, with his murderous view of my kind, and the Duchess, with her near feral temper, had never been great incentive for me to hatch.

Except, I really wanted to meet Toby.

He never said much, to me or anyone else. Still, I could nearly feel his gaze on me every time he stepped into the den.

One day, he wasn’t alone.

“Oh, sorry sir. Your grace. Sir. I’ll come back later.”

“Don’t bother, I’m nearly done in here.” The Duke quickly stood and closed his book.

“... Yes sir.”

An inquisitive silence followed. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here yet. Do I know you?”

More silence. I could almost feel the violent shake of Toby’s head.

“Ah, well. Best be off.” The Duke started to leave.

“I think you knew my mother though.”

Not that my reasoning powers were really strong, but I could have sworn this was exactly what the Duchess did not want Toby to talk to the Duke about.

“Who now?”

“My mother… She was a maid here. Her name was Kara-”

“Ah. No, I don’t think I-”

“I’ve actually been… hoping to talk to you, your grace. Sir.”

“I really need to be going now…”

“I know sir, it’s just that my mother said that if you knew-”

“I think we’re quite finished here! We don’t want to say anything untoward now, do we?” The Duke’s tone was final.

Toby didn’t get the chance to answer. The door to the den slammed shut.

My heart was very small, and truthfully, I had no idea what the organ was for at that point. All I know is that it hurt terribly for Toby when that door slammed.

I thought about his uneven gait. His tiny “hello” on the day we met. His careful, kind dusting of my shell on the mantle.

How he lit the fire every day, which gave me warmth and allowed me to grow.

How the Duke didn’t even have the decency to finish the conversation with him.

I don’t remember deciding it was time. All I knew was that I had the sudden awareness of how sharp my teeth and claws had become.

I was suddenly quite aware of how thin the shell surrounding me had become.

I didn’t decide it was time to leave the safety of the mantel. All I knew was that I wanted to help Toby like how he had helped me.

With that in mind, I made the first tiny crack in my shell.