Dragon Shadow

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. That much we knew. That much we understood. We followed the rules and kept our noses to the ground. We kept quiet and went about our day without bothering each other. It was against the rules anyway to loiter out on the street; get in, get out, and don’t make eye contact with the police officer watching from above over the nearest street corner. Those were the rules.

We needed a written note to be outside for longer than it took to get into or out of our company issued. That note needed to be notarized by a judge and have a written witness. Signed and dated. Picnics were on the bad list. Sunshine and food? Outside? Not even on our brightest of days. Bars are outlawed. Food stores: you’re allowed an hour each week and that includes paying, and your driving there and back is timed. No outside stops; it’s all planned out.

I was sitting inside my living room, drinking a cup of lavender molasses tea and watching the setting sun sink over the tops of the same color same style houses, when the warning bell for nighttime curfew came on. Like a foghorn it blasted down the near empty streets. The guards would drive up and down the blocks double-checking to make sure that nothing and no one lingered outside. If you were found outside of your home after curfew began…there were no warnings. No slaps on the wrist. You would be taken to the palace and locked away until law enforcement felt you’d been punished enough.

I was so engrossed with watching the guards parole the streets out front that I jumped sky high when the dark tones of a male voice spoke from behind me. My house was dark, but I knew the inner caverns like the back of my hand. There was no need for me to turn any lights on. I peered into the darkness and saw a shadow leaning against my kitchen wall, eyes glued to my sitting figure, steam from my cup clouding my glasses. I took them off momentarily to clean the lenses, and when I placed them back on my face, the figure had moved closer to perch on the arm of my reading chair.

The figure was male, dressed all in black, with tufts of hair peeking out from the hat he wore. They had what looked like a stick attached to their hip and were casually watching me to see what I would do as their hand hovered over the stick.

Realizing that I hadn’t said anything yet, staring at the figure, I cleared my throat, “what?”

“I said…,” the stranger began, his voice rising slightly as if he was trying to speak over the rising darkness, “I said, ‘I wouldn’t stand by the windows at the moment.’” They moved forward, coming into the waning light from outside, and I jumped back, pushing back into the wall I was leaning on in my window seat. The figure chuckled at my motion, “it’s probably a good thing that you’re frightened of me. I’m not a good thing to have around.” He coughed awkwardly, continuing softly, “Not recently, at least.”

I almost missed the last part, staring at the brightest golden eyes I’d seen on this side of the government. Only the highest-ranking officials had odd colored eyes like the pair staring at me currently, and as of right now, these eyes were also the first pair I’d seen in person. I unconsciously moved forward, staring into their depths, receiving a shy smile as I unknowingly did exactly what my intruder wanted me to do. He seemed distantly aware of my perusal of him, and only just barely stopped outside of the wall of moonlight rising through the window.

I knew I was safest in my house, but I found myself asking the silliest most inane question before I could stop myself. “And why should I stand away from the window?” So sue me, it wasn’t every day that I had an intruder in my house, and hell, I might be a bit overextended in the idea of my own safety. Just a bit. As long as I stayed in my house and followed the rules, I was safe.

My intruder laughed. He actually laughed. “Because I’m pretty positive they’re looking for me, and you standing by the window looks highly suspicious. Have you not noticed that there has been more security in this sector lately?”

To be fair, I had noticed. Over the last few days, there had, in fact, been more police on the road than there normally was. I remember the feel of their glare spreading over my shoulder blades as I went on my weekly food shopping trip earlier this week stocking up on the only three flavors of yogurt available, and I visibly shuddered. I’d rushed through the purchase of my yogurt and ended up leaving it at the counter in the rush to get home as a result.

I pulled back into the present when the intruder laughed again, less forcefully than before, but that’s neither here nor there. It was still a delightful laugh, and if given the choice, I could listen to it all day and all night.

He scratched the side of his nose, “Let’s just say that they aren’t exactly pleased with me right now.”

My stomach started to slip down to my feet, “Why are you in my house?” I think that was the first relevant question I’d asked of this laughing happy-go-lucky intruder.

He sat down on arm of the chair, running a hand through his hair, “we really shouldn’t stay here for long.” He looked out the window, passed my shoulder at the steadily growing grouping of police vehicles. Looking me up and down, his eyebrows screwed up and he pointed a delicate finger at me, “and you’re entirely too calm speaking to someone who just broke into your house.”

“Well, you haven’t exactly given me a reason to doubt you yet…other than breaking into my house.” I placed my cup on the windowsill, moving passed my intruder and into my kitchen. I fiddled with the knob for the over-stove light and turned around to look at the man. He seemed decidedly normal for a law defector, but how would I know. I followed the rules. I wouldn’t know a law defector from a law follower unless they had some glaring neon sign over their head.

He had golden eyes, dark gray hair hanging in waves around his pointed ears. His fingers twitched towards the weapon attached to his back. The appendages hung over the metal coated and barbed staff as if he was unsure of whether he wanted to wield it or not. His black leather long sleeved shirt blended in all too well with the shadows that he hugged. The pants were a soft fabric, but form-fitted to hug the curves of his legs.

I huffed, leaning against my stove, the light sprinkling over the soft contours of my face making my already dark blue eyes brighter. I was glad that I hadn’t decided to change into my pajamas early; pink and purple dinosaur pajama pants were not the proper attire to meet unknown house intruders. I could see my intruder giving me the standard full-bodied look, up and down, and I knew that my jeans and T-shirt passed inspection when he brought his eyes back up to my face.

He breaks into my house, starts ordering me around, and then has the nerve to inspect me like some damn vegetable in the supermarket? “Why are you in my damn house?!” I could feel warmth spread over my cheeks, listening to shouting voices outside my home. What the hell was going on? This was a quiet sector of the kingdom created by the king and his wife. “You break in, scare me, and then calmly chat with me? Who the hell are you?”

Narrowing his eyes, my intruder spoke softly but in a clipped manner, “I’m just a nameless feature in the kingdom, and you’ve become my kind patron.” He stepped forward but stopped, paused, as my hand unconsciously grabbed the cool teakettle from my stove, getting ready to hurl it towards him. His eyebrows crashed together over his nose, “I would suggest putting that back down.”

“Why?” I could already feel my arms coming back down, even though I fought the urge tooth and nail. I could feel the slosh of unused water rolling inside the kettle.

My intruder’s eyes followed the downward motion of my arms until they were back at my sides. He released a breath he had been holding, and his eyebrows retreated to their original location on his face, a small smile sliding into place. Well, he certainly was full of expressions.

I could still feel the lingering coolness on my body, as if someone had slid an ice cube slide down my arms. “How the hell did you do that?! I was going to toss my kettle at you!”

“I knew exactly what you were going to do.” My intruder’s eyes flashed for a split moment, expression changing once again, “and I stopped you from doing it. Nothing more; nothing less.”

I crossed my arms, jutting my hip out in defiance, “If they’re looking for you, what makes you think I won’t walk outside, wave them down, and just have them come and get you. You’re in my house.”

Another delicate laugh, and I couldn’t help the shiver that ran down my body, “If you went outside and turned me in, without a doubt, you would be in more trouble than I would. Trust me when I say this, until I leave your house, if they find out you’re with me while they’re searching for me, you would be a universe of trouble. Trouble that you would most likely not be able to get out of. The kind of trouble that can get you placed in front of the king and queen both.”

“What do you mean?”

It was his turn to prop a hand on his hip and jut said hip out in defiance. A delicate smile flashed across his face momentarily before his flash-forward expressions locked down. He stared me down with those golden eyes, and I felt the solid heat of them. It dawned on me that he had his hand splayed out on his hip, and my eyes were drawn to the black gloves blending in with his pants, glued to the fact that he seemed to be missing some fingers. A smile started to grow on his face when he realized that I’d seen and what he so blatantly showed me.

I shook my head, “No.”

“Oh, yes.” His smile became a grin.

“But, no…” I sounded less sure of myself now, “How? Why?” It wasn’t possible. It honestly couldn’t be. It was astronomically outlawed. There were separations for a reason.

“I can’t really get into ‘how’ and the ‘whys’ right now, but I can try to keep you as safe as I can as they search for me. After all, I am in your house.” He had a full-on grin, slightly pointed teeth glinting in the light from my stove top. “To answer your earlier question, the reason why I’m in your house is because yours was the only one that had no lights on. It was pitch black, and it was the perfect hideaway from law enforcement.” He paused, scratching his nose, the grin still riding his face, “It’s actually safer for me to travel during the day. My eyes reflect the light, and I look more natural wearing sunglasses during the day than wearing them at night. I can blend in more.”

I digested his long statement, realizing that I had a creature in my kitchen that was part of the species that had overtaken our land. He was part of the species that had overtaken the human species, populated their lands, and basically had become overlords, lording their government and rules over the people in the valley. Of course, there were settlements of humans that fought back; they were few and far between, but they still existed. They were just super secretive, hidden away in random spots, and god awful difficult to find.

I found myself shifting and moving forward, going to sit on the arm of my chair, near where my intruder was leaning. I looked him over… really looked him over, and other than the hands, which now looked human with five fingers, and the eyes, which now looked like an amber color, and the teeth, now looking less pointed than before, there wasn’t anything to distinguish him from the humans and not humans. He pointedly let the glamor drop right next to me, and his eyes shown bright as sunshine in the dark with his pointed tooth grin.

“That is unsettling…,” I moved to lean a little straighter on the arm of my reading chair as my brain caught up to me. “You are not fully dragon.”

He shook his head, “No, I am not.”

“You are not fully human.”

“Clearly not,” he laughed, shaking his head again.

“And yet…” I stopped, my brain supplying the scenario that I didn’t want to realize. He was half-dragon/half-human…we lived in a dragon-run society, and he was running from the dragons. Good gracious…what did he do to piss them off ?

“Good god! What did you do?!”

He chuckled, grasping his staff, “That’s part of the how and why of the situation. I can’t tell you that just yet.”

I sniffed, turning my head curiously to look at him, “Just yet?” What exactly did he mean by that…?

He turned to fully look at me and looked up out of the window behind me at the exact moment that a police officer shined a light into my house. His eyes lit up like diamonds reflecting all over the wall, and we both heard a panicked, excited yelling outside. Large stomping of boots, trampling all over my begonias that I painstakingly spent two hours every day getting written documentation from a judge to garden in my own yard. What a waste of pretty flowers.

“I think you should put on shoes and grab identification if it’s handy.” His face was turned away from the window, looking towards the backdoor, contemplating the distance.

I pulled on my sneakers sitting by the back of my front door just as a large bang caused me to jump back. A hand on my shoulder stopped me from falling backwards and pulled me up. He asked, “ID?”

“Upstairs.”

“Too far. We need to go.”

There was another large bang on my front door, and I knew if they got in, things would not run smoothly for me. I looked towards my intruder, standing by the backdoor, looking cautiously at me with a human hand held out.

“We need to go! Now!” The urgent tone in his voice spurred me on, and I found myself moving across my threshold unconsciously again without even a second thought as my front door shattered on the third bang and we were on the loose out in the dark.

“I don’t even know your name!” I yelled out as I was dragged across my yard, over the fence into my neighbor’s yard. We stumbled over toys on the ground; she’d been given the chance to procreate with another human.

He dashed over fence after fence, practically flying, and I wondered if he had wings. It didn’t seem important as the flashlights of law enforcement searched wildly for our forms. We hid in a playhouse, closing the plastic shutters against the blinding searchlights, flattening ourselves on the ground. We were only a few houses away from my own.

“Do we…,” a hand, smelling surprisingly of tanned leather, vanilla, and cinnamon covered my lips, not daring to stare out the window. His eyes gave him away once; he wouldn’t risk it with me. He shushed me lightly, and I didn’t dare to move again.

We laid on the ground for what felt like hours, the green grass floor giving off a light scent of dew in the early morning time. I could feel the warmth settling around us. The lights had moved off an hour or so before. I relayed as much to my intruder, kidnapper, and savior. He hmmed quietly, cautiously not looking up.

I stared off in the direction we had come, “Can I go home?” I desperately wanted my bed, and the adrenaline was setting in. I was cold and wet and confused.

“I’m sorry, but your home has been compromised. You were seen with a dragon in your house afterhours. You’re not as much an accomplice as I am.”

Huffing, I snorted in annoyance, spitting out in an angry whisper, “I don’t even know what you did! How am I an accomplice?”

“It does not matter; It never will to dragons. We are stubborn, bull-headed, and stuck in our ways and mindsets.” He lifted his head, sniffing the air, “It is morning; we must leave. I can hear the children waking up.”