Under the Mountain

Piercing cries cut through the blanket of silence as the dragon crept through the darkened forest. A light snow had begun to fall in peaceful drifts, bringing with it the first smells of winter; hearth fires and damp wood. For a few moments, the forest grew silent, and the dragon stopped to listen, then, another faint, needy shriek. Further into the forest it went. Night had begun to fall early that day, and cold had swept through the trees, frosting over the leaves and branches, hardening the water to which they desperately clung. It had been a few hours since the beginning of the fall, but already the night had settled in the sky, millions of stars burning in the distance, the scattered embers of a dying fire.

A glow emanated from between the trees ahead of the dragon, an unknown source lighting the way towards the wailing cries that were seemed to grow fainter the nearer the dragon got. The last few trees broke under the dragon’s scales as it pushed through to the source of the noise. Backlit by a burning village, a small human child had squeezed into the hollowed-out trunk of a tree, its face red and wet from its screams. The cries stopped short, round eyes staring out from a soot covered face at the dragon. Flames danced higher into the black sky as the houses around them burned, the fire creeping closer as time passed.

The dragon watched the child, the child watching back, as it inspected the area around it for other humans. A gaping silence roared above the sound of the flames, no sounds other than the small bundle of skin and bones and tears, making small whimpering noises, and the branches continuing to snap under the dragon’s smallest of movements. The area smelled like fear and a burning rage to rival the flames now engulfing the night. Whatever had happened to the village, it was angry and cruel and full of an unending hunger.

The child crept forwards, towards the dragon, its hands reaching for warmth and help. Slowly, the dragon snaked out to latch its teeth onto the back of the child’s shirt, unfurling its wings to take to a silent flight, over the burning village filled with fire and rage and fear and death, back to its nest.

The nest lay in the nearby mountains, far back in a cave surrounded by hidden tunnels leading from one side of the mountain to the other and every direction in between. The dragon landed in one of these tunnels, a smaller one, closer to its nest and gently placed the child on the ground in front of it, nudging the child further into the tunnel. The child continued to stare at the dragon with its round eyes set in its soot covered face. Its scent was a mix of fear and curiosity and pain and confusion. It turned to peer into the darkness just beyond the mouth of the tunnel, then looked back up at the dragon, reaching its hands towards it again. The dragon nudged the child again, pushing it with more force this time, into the looming tunnel.

As the tunnel began to shrink, a dim light began to show muffled features of the tunnel through which dragon and child walked through. Vibrant, green lichen grew in spiderwebbed patterns across the walls, spindly fingers reaching back into the dark from where the dragon and child had come. The walls surrounding them looked as though intricate whirling patterns had been carved into the smooth, dark rock by some other creature. As they continued through the tunnel, the lichen became thicker, webbing across the walls in a more chaotic pattern and everything became brighter, until they reached the centre of the mountain, where the dragon’s nest lay.

The tunnel they’d been travelling through opened up completely into a massive underground cavern. Shafts of light shot through the space, completely illuminating with soft golden light an oasis of life within the mountain. Trees speared towards a roof so high it was difficult to see, with vines and fungi and moss sprawling over and through them. A small waterfall fell from an opening on the other side of the cavern, falling into a deep waterhole before flowing over into a lake running through the trees and out of another opening near where they’d entered. Bioluminescent crystals of all different sizes – some larger than the child – grew sporadically along the walls of the cavern, casting soft colours onto the surrounding nature. And animals. Everywhere, there were birds and lizards and fish and mice and snakes and frogs. All the creatures the child could think of were in that cavern and more that it’d never even dreamed of. An entire ecosystem existed under that mountain, fuelled by the magic infused into the very air by the dragon. The child stood, awestruck, watching everything with a wonder only a child could muster.

The dragon padded forwards, each step a dull thump on the stone floor. Creatures moved out of its way as it moved, clearing a path for it as it went. Even the trees seemed to make way for the dragon as it went. The child moved then, stumbling as it scurried after the dragon, its gaze pulled in every which direction as new things pulled at its attention. Creatures crept towards it in curiosity, shying away as the child neared then peering back once it had passed. Slowly, everything in the dragon’s nest returned to its place; the creatures returned to hunting each other, the plants returned to where they originally rested. The hum of life returned more completely.

Time seemed to pass differently in the cavern. But it did pass. The child started to grow, feeding off the magic around it, as well as small creatures it managed to catch. It grew stronger, faster, and rather good at hunting. The dragon watched on as its child continued to grow, sometimes nudging it away from certain things, poisonous plants that grew in the cavern, larger animals that might feed on the child. Some of the younger creatures joined the child on occasion, hunting, playing, grappling, learning. A constant stream of words came from the child on some days, and some days the child would sit still, longing for a home it didn’t remember well. All the child remembered was the flames. The flames, and the screaming, and the overwhelming stench of fear and pain and death. In the world outside that cavern, time passed too.

Sometimes, the dragon would take the child out into the world to explore, would drop it near a town of humans and let it run free among them, creating chaos and confusion anywhere it went. Sometimes the dragon hoped the child would stay with them, learn from them, live a human life. The child always returned. Everywhere it went, they called it “Seishin”. Spirit.

The years began to feel shorter for Seishin as they grew into adolescence, fighting less playfully with other creatures they had grown up with to assert an order in things, yet the time continued to pass slowly in the nest. Seishin won many of their fights against other creatures in the nest, but was not at the top of the order of things. That was the dragon, followed by other, larger, faster, stronger creatures than Seishin, the dragon watching over them as they continued to grow stronger, faster and leaner.

It was when Seishin reached adult hood that they started to notice differences in themselves compared to other humans. Other humans could not run as fast as Seishin, or fight as well, or hunt as deftly as Seishin. These were givens considering the dragon and creatures who raised them. But the trees also did not bend for them where they walked like they did for Seishin. The animals did not part for them or play with them like they did for Seishin. Things seemed to be swayed by Seishin’s influence. The humans that Seishin interacted with were not an exception to this rule.

Legends began to spread of Seishin. Infused with the power of the dragon who raised them. Soon, the humans began to seek them for the sway they held over things. For the powers of the gods, they whispered. For some time, Seishin fought their battles, influenced their leaders. They saw to the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, all with the help of the dragon’s gifts. Sometimes it joined them, sometimes it did not. Always, Seishin searched. For what, they weren’t completely sure, but battle after battle, empire after empire, they searched. Eventually, Seishin grew tired of fighting the human’s battles, searching for something unknown, and returned to the cavern. Seeking comfort in their nest once more.

Seishin was swimming in the lake when the cavern fell silent. As their head broke the surface, the silence washed over them. for a moment, they wondered if they’d perhaps gone deaf while under the water. The sound of the dragon’s scales sliding over rocks and the rhythmic thump of its feet on the ground reassured them that they hadn’t gone deaf, everything was just silent. A weight settled on their chest as they pulled themselves from the lake, listening for anything other than the dragon’s footsteps.

Movement on the other side of the cavern drew Seishin’s gaze to one of the larger entrances, through which three humans had just entered the dragon’s nest. The one in the middle – who seemed to lead the small group of humans – wore an ancient looking sword strapped to its back, segmented armour strapped to its torso, with braces covering its forearms and shins. The human seemed to move with the ease of someone used to these accessories. The other humans moved less assuredly. They were more wary in their footing and movement. Seishin could see that their armour was heavier, built for protection more than movement. Their swords were unmarred by time. Clean and unnicked and shining with the glint of newness, where the other human’s sword had small cuts and nicks in it from past battles won and lost, it still shone, but where the two human’s swords looked untouched, this one’s was cared for; polished and sharpened.

The humans had all paused when they’d entered the cavern, staring around at the sight before them with much the same expression as Seishin, they suspected. Seishin watched from afar as they beheld the power of the dragon’s sway over the things around it. Though the humans had always looked upon Seishin with wonder and curiosity, and perhaps some fear too, they had yet to truly witness the power of a dragon in full force. There, in the cavern under the mountain, the beauty of its power was on full display.

The middle human, the leader, was the first to snap out of its awe, its eyes returning to scan the cavern. Soon, it spotted Seishin, standing in plain sight near a grove of trees. The other two humans continued to survey the cavern, dumbfounded by the sight before them. the sole focus of the leader was on Seishin and their movements. Seishin stalked towards the humans, testing, inspecting them. The scent of the air in the cavern changed swiftly from the natural, sweet smell of wildflowers and the musk of animal fur to the sharp smell of fear. Seishin figured it came from the two humans on either side of their leader. The dragon watched from the trees as its charge moved with a predator’s intent towards the other humans. Seishin had never before attacked a human, but no human had ever invaded their territory before. These humans had come ill prepared to face Seishin and their dragon kin.

The humans had yet to pull their swords when Seishin attacked. The leader went down first, with some struggle, as Seishin bit and tore at it, scoring deep gouges in its neck. The other humans watched on in horror as their leader was reduced to a coughing, bloody mess. When Seishin looked back up at them from the broken human on the ground, they backed away, their hands rising in a defensive, calming manner. They had seen enough. Seishin had done the work they needed to do for now. They watched as the humans dragged the struggling leader from the cavern, making empty promises of secrecy as they went. Seishin could almost sense their insincerity. Unfortunately this was not one of the gifts the dragon had unintentionally gifted them upon taking them into its care.

It took Seishin under an hour to make a decision. The decision to leave the nest. They had not left the nest for longer than a few days at a time since childhood, but now that their presence was placing the nest in danger of discovery and harm, it was time for them to leave. The dragon had never been particularly affectionate, raising Seishin as its own, but leaving them to learn things on their own, to fend for themselves within the bounds of the cavern. It would take them to hunt in distant forests, to test their survival skill in a less controllable environment. It had prepared Seishin for the most basic challenges they may come across in the outside world. Others, they would have to learn on their own.

It had been several months that Seishin had been in the human world before they started to realise distinct differences. The most significant being how quickly time passed. While growing up in the nest, they had watched people live their whole life out and die of old age as Seishin remained youthful, slowly growing to adulthood. For the most part, Seishin had believed that humans simply aged at different speeds to each other – each human growing at a rate determined by their own unique genetic makeup. This did not seem to be the case, as Seishin realised when they walked past a pond one day, glancing at their reflection to see wrinkles starting to show on their face. The first signs of age. Seishin had stopped and stared at their reflection.

It had only been a few months since they’d left the nest, but their aging process seemed to have been sped up due to the time freeze they had experienced in the nest. When Seishin had thought back to their time in the nest, they had quickly realised that, when they’d gone for long stretches of time in the nest, they didn’t seem to age. It was only when the dragon took them out into the world, or they chose to go out themselves, that they’d noticed growth, from childhood, to teenage hood, to adulthood. These changes had all happened quite quickly.

Desperate to retain what they had while they were under the dragon’s care, Seishin had returned to the nest, only to find it bare. The life that had once inhabited the cavern under the mountain had grown still. The trees were wilting, the vines and fungi that had once grown on them brown and stiff. No animals but those one would find in any underground space inhabited the space. All that was left were the brilliantly coloured bioluminescent crystals, and even those seemed to have dimmed without the dragon’s presence.

Seishin had briefly mourned the loss of their nest, before getting up and resuming their search for the youth they once had. They started in the surrounding cities and towns, their aging slowing the older they got, but continuing faster than the average human. Everywhere they went, whispers of the great Seishin, who had birthed and destroyed empires, followed them. On, their search continued, taking them to the farthest reaches of the earth and back again. They searched for their lost dragon and its nest. Until at last, the dragon came to them.

Seishin was old when the dragon sought them out, frail and dying in a cottage at the edge of a cliff. They had a view of the ocean, reminding them of the beauty they had seen in their life, and the beauty they had lost in ignorance of their surroundings. For the first time in Seishin’s life, the dragon spoke to them.

“Have you found what you were seeking?” Seishin watched the dragon from their bed, a smile creeping across their face. A shriek sounded from the room over, followed by a small child running into the room. Its mother hurried after it, stopping it short before it ran into the dragon. Seishin looked at their grandchild, then back at the dragon.

“You know, I think I finally did.” The last words left their lips so quietly a slight breeze would have carried them away, as they drifted slowly to sleep.