The Girl’s Dragon Part I by Drake Richards
A girl finds companionship with a scaled monster. , Temur felt an arm nudge his side, breaking him out of his nap. “Hm, what?” he asked, but the other guard simply pointed down the moonlit road. There, not far distant, he spied a lone traveller in a long cloak, walking towards Keystone’s gate. The stranger rode no horse and carried no pack, but simply walked with a long, steady stride.
“He’s coming from the east road,” Temur observed.
“I know that,” his partner replied. “I can see. Do you think it’s a Scale?”
“He doesn’t look like one,” Temur observed. “Too tall, not wide enough. Besides, there’s no tail.”
“But he’s coming from the east.”
The reminder sent a chill down Temur’s spine. He nodded. “I’ll head down to inspect him,” he said as he strapped on his sword. He walked down the long stairway within the tower, descending the spiraling steps with care. Soon enough, he reached the gatehouse, where he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. As he leaned over, a gloved hand pushed itself into his view, holding four golden coins. Temur’s eyes widened, and he jumped backwards in surprise. The stranger stood taller than he had anticipated, an entire head over Temur’s not-diminutive six feet. Temur could hear nothing from the stranger, not even a breath or the clink of metal.
“Ah,” Temur stuttered, and glanced at the gold again. The stranger’s hood was drawn completely over his head, obscuring his face from view. “S-strange time to enter, yes? Where do you come from?”
The hooded figure remained still, holding out his open palm. Temur looked at it, as wide as his entire head, then looked at the stranger, then back at the gold. He nodded, carefully took the coins, and walked back up the stairway. After a stopping several times on the way up, he slumped down into his chair at the top of the gate, wheezing noisily.
“Who was that?” the other guard asked.
“Nobody,” Temur responded between breaths. He slid two of the coins across the table. The guard shrugged and stuffed them into a purse at his belt.
“It’s just one man,” Temur mused aloud. “He won’t cause any trouble.”
Below them, the cloaked man strode carefully through streets, throwing up small clouds of dust as his cloak whispered over the ground. The orange glow of firelight from the windows on either side of him filled the chill night with a warm presence, one which he drank in gratefully and quickly he passed. The small groups of people wandering about eyed him warily, but none stopped to accost him. Otherwise, Keystone remained quiet and still.
Beneath the hood, dark and beady eyes scanned the stone-sided buildings. His ears strained for any sign of his quarry, and when a peal of laughter sound from around the corner, accompanied by the low voices of singing men, the stranger hurried towards the source. The heavy cloak barely stirred as he turned sharply, weaving between houses expertly, guiding himself by the light of the moon and the drunken hymn. Before long, the alleyways emptied into a wide road lined by establishments marked with signs, most of which still held candlelight within. One in particular caught the stranger’s attention: a squat, two-story building filled with light, out of which poured sounds of merriment. The painted sign in front of it proclaimed “BUKING STALION” in bold letters over a carved horse.
The stranger skulked backwards into the darkness of the side street, watching the tavern’s door. A woman stood outside, dressed in simple clothing. She spoke something to most men who passed her which did not catch the stranger’s ears, but he guessed it must have been a grave insult, for most men spat upon her, laughed, or shouted.
As the minutes passed, most of the tavern’s occupants filed out into the night. The girl spoke to none of them, but leaned against the wall with her head down. Even so, the memory of insult lingered, and the men accosted her drunkenly as they stumbled away. Eventually, a heavily-muscled man in a rough and stained tunic strutted out of the tavern. Seeing the girl, his face grew dark instantly. The man screamed at her incoherently and swung his arms about until the girl had fled down the street. “Nobody here needs your ‘help’, whore!” he shouted after her.
The stranger emerged from his hiding spot in the darkness, causing the man across the street to jump in surprise. “Apologies for the ruckus, sir!” the man called out, bowing extravagantly. “Come in, sit by the fire and warm yourself.”
The stranger’s hood regarded the man for some moments before turning and heading down the street. The man stood there, shocked. When the stranger had disappeared out of earshot, the man scowled at spat in his direction, then returned to the tavern.
The stranger found her in a side street between two crumbling shacks. She sat with head bowed and knees close to her chest, rocking gently as she sobbed in long, hacking bouts. Like a shadow, the tall figure kneeled next to her quietly. He fished within his cloak and pulled out six golden coins, which he tapped against the girl’s frame. She jumped instinctively, slapping at his arm.
The girl looked up at him. Her eyes widened, and her mouth stood agape. “Who are you?” she asked.
The stranger did not respond, but merely picked up the coins where they had fallen and proffered them to the girl again. Wiping away her tears with one arm, the girl peered at the coins through reddened eyes. His gold glinted in the evening light, like a small mound of fire bathed in ice. The girl looked up at him again, shaking her head vigorously as she locked eyes with the darkness within his hood.
“It’s too much, sir,” she muttered hastily. “Please, I can’t-”
He grabbed the girl’s thin wrist gently, turning her palm up. With a cascade of flickering moonlight, they plinked into her hand one by one. The stranger slowly closed her fingers about the coins, then let go. The girl’s arm trembled. Her small chest heaved with every breath, and starlight reflected in fresh tears upon her cheeks.
“Fine,” she whimpered. “Just follow me.”
Rising on shaky legs, they walked through Keystone’s narrow alleyways. Only silence passed between them until they had come to a cluster of rugged stone walls. “In here,” the girl remarked as she ducked through a thin cloth. The stranger followed, but had to bend low to enter. Inside, moonlight filtered between the smattering of straw which remained above them. The stranger looked about until the girl coughed.
“It’s not very much,” she explained, looking up at him, “but you won’t need to be standing for long.” She smiled weakly at him, but the stranger did not move. “Should we start, then?”
No response. She paused for a moment, frowning, then reached behind her. Her dress grew slack, and she gave him a coy smile. She began to tease the dress from her shoulders, twirling about as she did so. The stranger followed suit, and removed his hood. When the girl turned back around to face him, she screamed. She backed away to the far side of the hovel until her bare back bumped against the rough wall, arms crossed against her chest. The stranger crouched low, peered around quickly, and put a long clawed finger to his lipless jaws. Her scream echoed about the empty streets, but no calls answered it.