valleyboys

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But that was before Kieo Harrickson managed to pull off the most dangerous stunt that any valley folk had heard of since the Resistance.

Here is the thing about dragons. You can’t steal one. It just doesn’t work. You can steal sheep, or horses, or equipment, magic if you’re lucky- I’ve had practice on all fronts- but there is a difference between a horse and a fucking dragon. The only tame ones are kept at the palace, and even getting near that place is a death sentence. At least, it should be. It once was. I guess times have changed, and it’s Kieo who changed them.

Here is the thing about Kieo Harrickson. I don’t know how, but the kid can talk himself into or out of just about anything. There’s an intensity to him, a sort of magnetism, a certain charisma. He has a way about him, a demeanor that makes it like he can get just about anything under the sun once he’s set his sights on it. So when he first started getting interested in dragons, anyone with half a brain could see where it was going. He started making little ones out of wood and scrap metal, enchanting them to spit fire or move around. Kieo’s magic is good with inventions, and he never lets anyone forget it.

We work well as a team. When he first got to town, I must’ve been about twelve, and he couldn’t have been much older. He just showed up out of the blue one summer day, a child as lanky as our neighbors' new foals, with skin the color of the chestnuts sold at the market. He was good at talking, good at fixing things. And as I said, he had this way about him, even as a young one. People couldn’t help but be transfixed by him. He had a sort of cheerful nature with a forceful undercurrent just below the surface, perhaps surprising in one so small. So it wasn’t long before he was living with the old clock maker and doing odd jobs for folks in the valley. If you asked him where he was from- which we all did, for a while, with juvenile fascination and awe- he’d grin and shrug, tawny eyes crinkling up at the corners. So people stopped asking after a while and just accepted the strange boy who had made himself at home in our town.

I was the one who first introduced him to the value of acquiring things for free. This is called thievery by most, unfortunately. But he’d do the talking, I’d move in the shadows. He was a quick talker and a quick thinker and I had quick hands, able to shift fruit and bread from market stalls to beneath my cloak without anyone noticing. The problem was that he never knew when to stop. There was always something bigger, something better. There was always a new challenge.

“I’m off to get a dragon, I think,” he announced one day, casual as anything. We’d been smoking cigarettes outside of the old blacksmiths shop. (I didn’t much like the taste, and they made me cough, but I relished any chance for his company.) At first I might have thought he was joking, except his eyes were fixed on the ground, and he seemed lost in thought. I coughed nervously, exhaling smoke. When Kieo thinks too hard, it’s never a good sign. Last time I saw him like this was before the races last spring. He gets quiet, eyes far away, which I’ve come to recognize means he’s working on a plan that doesn’t involve me. This generally means it’s a plan I won’t approve of. Watching his thoughts form is like watching the spring hatchlings at old Bertie’s farm, their silhouettes shifting beneath a thin shell- just barely visible, waiting to break free and cause havoc. Sometimes he’ll go on trips without me and come back with animals or supplies or enchanted machine parts. No one knows where he goes, and I’ve learned to stop asking.

“We should sign up for the race,” he had mused that spring, the morning sun drying the dew from the long grass as we wandered through the fields.

“We don’t have anything to ride,” I said. He grinned. The sun had shone off his eyes, making them the same color as toffee, or maybe amber. “Don’t worry.”

Now, Kieo speaks in code sometimes. This particular phrase could be translated into “I am going to leave without you and do something stupid and dangerous.” Another translation would be “You should definitely worry.” I remember sighing, already resigned. The dewdrops had soaked through my shoes, despite the sun. “Come back safe.”

That was last spring. I didn’t see any sign of him until the day of the race. Everyone was lined up with their carts - I remember being enthralled by the shimmering cloud of butterflies pulling the cart of Tifani, the witch’s apprentice. The blacksmith had brought an armored bear, a lumbering creature from the north. Peder from three doors down had enchanted six barn rats into a sled team. I had scanned the crowd for Kieo, impatient and nervous, until a thundering of hooves in the distance caught everyone’s attention. There was a winged horse from the palace pulling a guardsman’s coach. And low and behold, there was Kieo, on top, looking pleased as punch.

We were banned from the race.

He took it in stride, seemingly unbothered. I'm sure he just wanted the attention that comes with a good entrance. The old clockmaker, though, boy he was pissed. He always grumbles that keeping Kieo around is more trouble than it’s worth, but everyone knows he doesn’t mean it. That’s the thing. Everyone loves him. We can’t help it. And he knows it. So the horse stayed. It’s kept outside the clockmaker's workshop, and Kieo lets the valley kids feed it and pet it when he’s around.

The valley folk were worried guards would show up, and the Old Man warned Kieo that he had better return what he stole. I didn’t hear the exchange, but apparently, Kieo convinced him there was no danger.

So by the following summer, everyone was waiting on his next stunt, and I think he knew it. And so he started making dragons. And I started smoking cigarettes. And the group of us that hung around with him around the valley knew trouble was coming the same way the clouds rolling over the hill in the winter means a storm is about to hit.