Through the Valley

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” His own voice echoed methodically inside his head.

The words rang and repeated. Over and over. Sometimes slowly, and then sometimes quickly as he began working himself into action. Just as he’d get ready to move, he’d need another slow repetition of the words to ready himself again.

All the while, his gaze was fixated on the figure below him. A strong man. Not burly, but certainly strong. He was sprawled out on the ground aside a wagon filled with spices, gems, weapons, anything remotely of value – presumably from the town just south of them. He would periodically get up and add some flame to the massive bonfire flanking him opposite of the wagon. The only warmth in the cold forest. The only misguided light in a verdant shadow. His struts to the fire were met with his own chuckles. Reliving moments from earlier? A year ago? Moments from a lifetime to be sure.

The watcher had observed the strong man for hours now from atop his perch, hoping he’d drift off to sleep. Instead, he had his routine memorized down to every last minute. After every repetition of the words, it became clearer to him that his target was slipping further away from a quick end in his sleep and closer towards a brutish exchange of might. Would it be a fight? Or would it be another struggle from an untrained brute who never found the need to sharpen his natural abilities? The phrase resonating in his head didn’t allow him to think long enough for an answer. Only his initial action would illuminate it.

One prolonged breath in and out of his nose was the last queue he needed. He lowered his hood, tied off his cloak to a branch in the tree above the man, and jumped down landing on his knee head still down, breathing slowly.

“What do we have – “? The strong man’s condescending words cut short as soon as he saw the face of the acrobat lift and lock eyes with him.

The watcher was now the attacker, but before he could fully commit to this transition, he let memory take hold and replace the only words his mind knew for the past several hours.

Nightfall, Eleventh Moon, Year of the Storm

“The story changed depending on who was telling it, but one thing was clear on the day the dragons came – it was a beautiful day. Sunny, but not blinding. Warm, but not hot. Peaceful, but not boring. A day the Valley had been anticipating for what seemed to be weeks of storms rolling off the mountains to the north carrying winds, lightening, deluges, and other sporadic climatic events difficult for the people to put words to…before the dragons that is.

Elprin Valley stretched the entire continent caught between two isolated ranges of the Ciel mountains that crept southward away from the main body of mountains. It’s here in the mysterious mist filled peaks of the northern mountains that they came. Entirely unbeknownst to the people of the Valley.

I might not have been one of the unfortunate souls to be around during that time, but if the lasting effects I’ve seen are any indicator, I’m sure that day ended as equally awful as it started wonderful. I don’t like to let myself speculate on the fire. Nor the pain. The death. Instead, I dwell on the facts of the life I lived in the Valley – one I was involuntarily thrust into a half a century ago. Hmph. Whether it be a cruel joke, or destiny’s calling, the start of my life also marked a half century under dragon rule.

In my younger years, I didn’t notice all the suffering. Sheltered from the dragon raids on innocent towns and the territorial clashes between rival dragon factions. Ironic, God-like creatures squabbling over whether a forest or a river marked the borders of “their” land, yet they gave no mind to the actual people living there. I can’t recall a single dragon losing their life in a raid or a skirmish…nor can I recall the number of bodies lined up or utterly lost to the chaos.

The fire breathers and lightening breathers both had the same proclivity towards unnecessary violence. However, the Fires always seemed to leave more of a deathly wake. The forests they originally seized were burned to the ground, but as I grew, the lands came back into cycle, so I grew watching men and women and children being forced out from their cities to work the expanses of new fertile cropland. The void gave the Shockers the chance to move in and claim the major cities and towns. Today, most of the two factions’ clashes are limited to the growing farm villages on the edge of the cropland expanses. Once again, a societal border was the site of dragon clashes, yet humans are the only casualties.

The other factions certainly aren’t peace-loving. From the Frosts all the way to the Elders, each faction has carved itself a territory in the Valley to occupy. Occupy. Not to live. Dragons don’t like to linger in their territories longer than they need. The faction will always have a steady rotation of whelps around to keep a presence, but every dragon prefers the solace of their misty peaks in the Ciels. Besides, by the time I was old enough to remember, people began to recognize the dragon eye. An eye the shape and size of humans, but with a sinister vertical pupil with as much variety in color as the world around them. Edges sharp enough to cut through the very flesh that they sit on. A sinister feature providing the only window into the dragon soul – an unseen force of devastation hidden by an otherwise innocent body.

Again, irony comes to mind. Dragons aren’t at full strength in their human forms. Albeit they still possess enough of their primordial strength and power to dominate most of humanity’s strongest warriors. However, they aren’t as aligned with the supernatural blood inside of them while in their human forms. And when they transform, they still haven’t found a way to disguise their dragon pupils. But the sight of these is enough to deter any human from confrontation. Perhaps that is why I haven’t heard of dragons trying to perfect their self-conjuration. Although they are weaker as humans, they instill enough fear with their eyes to deter any attacks. I admit, dragon eyes are what haunt my every moment – both waking and sleeping. An eternal mark of terror, destruction…and shame that will never leave me.

When you’ve wandered as much as I have, you see firsthand what dragons can do. You see it enough times, you begin to blame yourself for all the times you should’ve done something to stop, maybe mitigate, the ruin. That hurts me from time to time, like now when I let my mind guide me down forgotten paths of remembrance. But only one instance of my inaction consumes me. Every day I can see her smile, but only fleeting, because the only thing I see after that is the horror in her face. The sound of her grieving wallowing.

After eight years on my own, she was the first person I let in. She still worked on a section of the cropland her family was “given” by the Fires. It resided on the edge of the expanding village of Sinos. I watched what they did to her family. To her home. And I did nothing. Even now, I’m trying with all my power to stop remembering, but I can’t. I would say that my emotions and thoughts of my past are now creeping uncontrollably to my conscious, because I’m finally edging closer to Fire territory after a couple of years on my crusade. But I know that’s a lie. A lie I am desperately trying to convince myself of, so that I can delay picking up the shambles of my emotional self a little longer…until it’s finally done. The truth is, every day that I’m away, memory’s torturous stain spreads like a root finding the gaps in the soil to stake its permanent foothold in the being of the land.

Not all dragons might be evil, but they have the means to ignite it. There’s only one solution for the people of the Valley.”

The watcher slowly closes his leatherbound pages and slides it to the end of his bed. He managed to sneak his way back into his cold, but dry tavern room without anyone speaking to him, where he lumbered about, licking his wounds. He trudged to his bed and to his bag and to the lone chair and to the cracked mirror. His steps were heavy with the physical consequences of his latest brawl and the emotional effects that lingered within him. He carried the chair to the mirror and delicately placed it down. The first bit of relief came when he unstrung his boots. The second bit came when he took off his wet cloak and shirt, soaked with the rain that began just as he started making his way out of the forest that occupied his time for the last several hours.

As before, his head was still angled down. A head heavy with the burdens of a life in the Valley. From the tops of his eyes, he could make out the new cuts on his arms, the scars on his exposed chest, and the sodden black hair as dark as the desires of a thief drooping down to his shoulders. After a few minutes of applying the necessary bandages and remedies to his injuries, he sat again, head down, facing the mirror. He sat a moment or two longer, until the view out of the tops of his eyes no longer satisfied him.

He breathed slowly through his nose.

In and out.

In and out.

Then he labored his head erect. His breathing had calmed him, but not into dull pacification. He was resolute with purpose, a self-assigned duty. His eyes were locked on the reflection in front of him, because of what stared back at him from underneath the curtain of wet black matte – two dragon eyes with slits of razor-sharp obsidian.

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” He whispered once more to himself.