Time-locked

It was always a huge blast of wind swept, tornadic weather that kept the two thunderous figures seemingly together and also, apart. The large beast seemed to thrive in intense heat or cold, especially high winds and large waves of sea air.

The man was used to it. He was a knight, sword to the king, sworn to the realm.

The huge rat’s nest of towering trees that seemed to give them at times, some respite from the recurring weather, were at this point, violently dancing with the gusts, looking more like outstretched hands reaching out for the two desperate figures fighting in the twilight hours of the night.

The Twenty-Year-War felt like it had been going on longer than that, much longer.

In fact, it felt like a hundred years to the fighting pair.

The knight’s chain links were not rusted, not tattered by time. His shield, the knight felt, had been cracked or worn down at some point over the last few years, but somehow, in a state of perfected solid steel, it’s reversed tear-drop design was only barely scratched—-puzzling the knight even mid-battle.

The dragon-colonel felt neither grounded or tethered by the surroundings, but realized everyday that something was off about the skirmishes, the battles that ensued. It’s dew-drop shaped hardened design, nature made of course but hardened by destiny and by dragon fire, shell of a skin was like a shield, and was at once weathered by battle. And yet, seemed to be in a condition that seemed untouched by scar or lesion. This puzzled the dragon-colonel.

The knight’s leading forces neither succumbed nor advanced. His general was not in reach, but always ahead, on the mountain near the huge forest, waiting to give them orders.

The wind picked up, and as the knight’s sword hit one of the massive black fangs of the dragon-colonel(he didn’t brush his teeth and had terrible receding, painful gums), it cracked with a splintering wood sound, and he growled, the fire in his belly lighting in a terrible glow.

The bombast of their battle became a showstopping ordeal.

Nature of all sorts hid from the clanging and the roaring and the bellowing and the screaming. The only thing that didn’t calm down was the wind itself and the sea.

One creature was amongst the horde that felt keen to make their presence be known:

A clattering, busybody mermaid in the waters nearby that kept clapping its fin-like hands and chittering, crying almost, pointing to something bigger above the trees.

This constant badgering was continuing as the climax of the battle was raging on, and the knight was dead locked with his knight’s shield and his father’s posthumously designated sword, (whom was killed by a dragon lord when he was three, or so he believed and thought he remembered)—all head on with deep dragon fire breathing hell and deep set, terrifying red eyes.

Red dragon eyes that swirled into a chasm that seemed so familiar and painful and sad.

The knight kept the brunt of the red fire from his body, and as he felt the trickle of the heat flowing around him, he looked up at the sky and tried to breathe in fresh air.

The terror ridden sky that once looked wildly swift and ready to turn into deadly storms, now was eerily quiet and calm.

It was white with pinches of blue, no stars, no moon.

He tried to breathe in, but the wind escaped him. He couldn’t get in enough air. There was only smoke and a sudden charred sulfur smell.

Suddenly, the fire tilted in a vortex like fashion and the knight heard a scream.

He lifted his shield, and saw the scorched mermaid that was making a scene just a moment ago being swallowed whole by his foe.

“Barbarian!” The knight accused angrily, his sword pointing toward the colonel.

“Your people envelop the true acts of barbarism—you are aiming to exterminate my people!” The dragon-colonel retorted. “And I was only hungry. You should know what that means..” his smoky red eyes narrowed, and the knight’s own green eyes, hidden by a helmet, were widening a bit, but also narrowed.

“We don’t commit such acts! We will reclaim our king’s land!” The knight stuck the sword into the sodded, wet ground, extenuating the point. “And how would you know how I feel… you aren’t…” he can’t finish the sentence. Is it the word, ‘human’… no, he thinks. Orphan?, the word cuts through his mind suddenly but he bit his tongue and noticed his foe still talking.

“Our king is the rightful king!” The dragon-colonel clawed forward with heavy steps as his wings gusted up, creating wind that shook the knight forward a bit toward the aching sea, his heart thumping in his chest in a deep way.

Suddenly, the sea and the wind were in a rage, and the wind picked up so violently, a massive red wood tree cracked, splintering so suddenly it fell.

Right on top of the dragon-colonel, with a squelching, squeezing crash—the colonel wheezed in surprise.

He whimpered, and cried out. The massive, heavy tree slammed against his old body and he was trapped.

That’s when the knight saw him.

The sorcerer.

He was on top of the mountain, mounting pressure on the sea and the gravity of the moon.

It was a monotonous sort of haul, a poetic humming from the human sorcerer that felt like a synching up with a time locked piece of land, the wooded part of sea that they seemed to always be stationed on.

And that’s when the vision hit the air—heady and sun licked, a vision that this wasn’t quite as real as they thought it was. That maybe there was a reason the war was lasting as long as it was, and why the dragon people were slowly dying out, their resources drying out—-their history being erased by man’s prideful idea that only they should rule.

The king’s realm was playing dirty, the knight realized, and he was but a pawn in their evil, distracting scheme.

He saw that the sun was rising and the dragon-colonel was losing color, and losing his breath.

They locked eyes as old foes, knowing they were just in the throes of heated battle, but right now, that didn’t matter.

The knight and the dragon knew their whole story, the sieve of their past was flowing through the quiet of the night—-as the knight took off his heavy chains and started to help his enemy to escape the horrible destiny of being crushed to death by a fallen tree.

The sorcerer felt this sudden shift in the time lock and was shaken, yet strangely lifted—-almost wanting to lift the curse itself, yet didn’t yet, still waiting to see what would happen.

The secret of their time freeze was not yet given: the dragon-colonel and knight had been stuck in a loop.

Just as others before them, this loop was to persevere the “rightful king,” in a perfect balance. To keep the dragon lords from usurping the throne and destroying the realm with their barbaric ways—or as the propaganda of the kingdom said.

However, the knight and dragon-colonel seemed to share more of a important relationship than that of a battle worn foe-ship. The knight ferociously dug out the dragon, breaking apart the wood with his sword and bare hands, their shared gaze burning and though there were no words, it was understood that when you battle someone so long—-you don’t take them out when they are under such circumstances like this. It is a cheap shot.

They had a mutual respect for each other.

Fifteen minutes of agony from the wheezing dragon and the knight chipping and breaking away at the hard red wood, the dragon finally escaped the fallen tree, catching his breath.

The sorcerer had tears on his cheek, touched by the act of altruism.

He decided to lift the spell.

But, first, he wanted to show them how it originated; how they met.

Or moreover, when they met.

Same place, same spot, in the woods by the sea, but locked in time—-they were young, children.

Playing in the woods.

They were friends. The dragon was of a noble family and the human child, he had found lost one day in that woods, and became close to out of odd happenstance, giving him his father’s sword(the dragon’s father was killed by a lord when he was three) to protect himself from the dangers of the wild. It was not normal or socially acceptable to have dragon and human be friends or be close—-so they had to socialize in the woods where the poor human child lived.

“You are cheating! I’ll never catch up to you!” The young boy yelled, laughing at his dragon friend that was flying, as they were playing chase.

“You can climb, can’t you? Hurry up!” The dragon boy yelled back, gliding down to acquiesce to his friend.

There was a sudden gust of very strong wind, and it carried them to the red wood, which had tilted, cracking and falling on the ground.

The young dragon noticed and pushed his friend out of the way just in time.

At this moment, the human king had set the sorcerer’s curse into motion, and the two children froze in time, and got sent into the loop of the future war.

The knight and dragon-colonel were in utter shock as they realized their origins and sighed in a collective exhaustion.

The full moon suddenly came out and the stars shined, and the wind was a soothing breeze.

They decided then and there they’d create a truce between the two of them and bring it to their collective kingdoms—-joint against the possibility of bringing about anymore war or famine or land conflict.

The wind died down and their hopeful friendship began again, though the dragon people’s history were uneasily wrought with a fear that they’d be forgotten and lost to time. The knight hoped not.