A Little Background
Similar to my nymph short story, I found myself inspired by my friend’s book. The journey of his main character pulls me in every time I read the drafts, the side and back stories, and when we brainstorm about it. So much so I decided to pay a tribute, of sorts, to his character – and tease my friend by blindsiding him with a story of the main character’s progeny.
Dragon’s Daughter
Part I
They said my looks came from my mom. Judging by the way that men adored me and women reviled me because of how men looked at me, she must have been some beauty of another world.
They said my honor came from my dad. He must have been a revered and beloved ruler given how strangers and familiars looked to me to always do the right thing when others wouldn’t.
They never said where my power came from. But they knew. They just didn’t want to believe it to be true. Yet there was no denying it. Anyone who’d seen me in battle or channel magic saw it. Try as I might, even through my thick, amber hair, it was visible.
Three streaks of violent orange and gold tore down my cheek like a controlled inferno.
The unmistakable sign of dragon claws.
Part II
The streaks lit up the cave. One red like lava, one orange like a setting sun, and one gold like the veins mined by the stout and sturdy. They stretched across the cracked, moss-covered wall. The person casting the light stood fifty feet away, staring at the wall in awe. The person hadn’t done anything except enter the cave to hide from marauders pillaging the nearest village.
The person put the hand over her face and the light streaks disappeared, sending the cave into blackness. She removed her hand and cave illuminated as the mark of the dragon lit the wall and invoked the terror of a blood moon.
The rapid, steady drip of an unseen water falling into an unseen puddle matched the beating in her heart. The markings of her magic, of a family unknown, hadn’t lit up since a time she didn’t want to remember for fear of breaking down again.
A firm, raspy disembodied voice asked, “Who is there?”
The amber-haired lady stepped forward into the cave, her steps echoing around a place bigger than anything she’d seen. While the claws lit the chamber, the edges of the cave remained black like a cloth wrapped around the eyes. The cave could have gone on for miles or mere feet. There could be a thousand people in here or just a few. As her mind rushed with worry, so did her heart with beating.
She said meekly, “Hello?”
“I asked a question,” the voice demanded.
She couldn’t tell where it came from, but when the words echoed, the light from her scarred face pulsed brighter. “I do not give names to those who do not show faces,” she said with more confidence.
A rustling to her right made her jump. She turned and with the turn the light from the dragon claw scar lit the ceiling above. However, it was complete darkness from the ground up to far above what she could reach. More rustling and she tensed in preparation for a fight that never came. Instead two copper-colored eyes blinked amidst the black. She inhaled sharply as two more blinked just below the first two. Then another set blink below those.
“You are not a fool then. Your mother would be proud,” the voice said.
Swallowing down her fear in hopes her beating heart would flatten it, she took a couple steps towards the eyes. “What do you know of my mother?”
A gurgle of a laugh filled the chamber as distinct sounds of hooves scuffed the cave floor.
The magi expected to see a horse or some beast of burden to step out of the shadows. The expectation brought her comfort. The expectation was wrong. The seemingly floating, copper orbs moved slightly to the left then the right as the creature walked toward her, the shadow pulling away from the wall with the movements.
She stumbled backwards and tripped on a loose rock. The crash was hard, painful, and embarrassing. Yet all those emotions paled at the shock of what stood before her.
Part III
The scales were rough to the touch, but not so much they hurt. It reminded her of being a kid when she’d play in the gathered piles of burnt yellow leaves under the ancient tree.
“Your mother wished you to have them,” the voice announced. Its hooves echoed slightly as the creature shuffled in the cave floor dust.
She had given up on attempting to penetrate the shadows that imprisoned the creature. Only the copper colored eyes shone toward her in brief intervals. So long as the shadows kept it at bay then she needn’t flex the flaring light from the scars on her face.
“Why would she want that?” the magi asked while running her fingers along the scale edges.
More sounds of shuffling in the dirt touched her ears. This time, however, the creature sprinkled magic in the movement, imbuing the air. Once the magic hit the magi’s hand, her finger electrified with the scale.
Flashes of images melting into one another hit her mind with a violent rage. A sword dragging across the ground, casting sparks into the sky like firelight. A grieving female, cradling a fallen kin, watching the sword sparks bring color to the ashen hair of the sword bearer.
“She wanted you to remember,” the voice whispered. The creature shuffled again, imbued the air again.
The flashes continued. Feminine hands found the handsome, chiseled face. They held it with love. Hair like vines brushed against hair the color of clouds. Then pointed ears filled her mind attached to the angular face of a race long gone into the wasters of deserts and swamps. He tended to the gashes on the cheek of another. Gashes that were unmistakably similar to—
The loud pounding echo of the stopping hoof broke the flood in her mind, muting the magical binding of lightning that connected to the scales. She sharply exhaled a breath she hadn’t known was locked away.
“I-I-,” she stuttered, catching another breath. “I know your name.”
The creature’s laugh gave her a warmth she longed for since her first moment as a child seeing an embrace of a parent. A parent she’d never know.
“You know a name I once held,” the creature responded. “In a time I once walked.”
Hands shaking as hard as her words, she said, “He called you Iris.”
“Your father was the best of men.”