Dragon

by JunoMagic
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-ShareAlike license

Dragon

‘Oh, a kite!’ exclaimed the young soldier, delighted.

The boy on the meadow in front of him jumped and nearly let go of the string. The man could have slapped himself. He hadn’t meant to scare the boy. They were supposed to demonstrate to the village people that it was truly peace now. And that, even though they had won the war, and although they were here to stay – to form the defeated and occupied country and its people according to their ideals – the war was over, once and for all. They wouldn’t take out the hurt left behind by the war on widows, orphans, and doters. Those were their orders.

To be perfectly honest, he hadn’t expected the country that had spawned the Scourge to have villages like this – without electricity, without a sewage system, well, without any modern conveniences at all. And the people! At home not even the lowliest loiterers in the Lower Cities were that starved, that dirty, and that infested with lice, fleas, worms and worse. The Healers at the mountain-fort were working overtime, and the Magicians barely stopped to breathe, chanting their charms against sickness and plague day and night.

The soldier hadn’t particularly enjoyed fighting the war. But somehow he had expected that winning it would feel better than that. Well, initially the euphoria of victory had been rather grand. Before he was stationed here, in this remote (but strategically important) mountain-fort. Before he’d seen firsthand that the promises, which had lured these people into war and vileness had long since grown hollow. As hollow as these children’s cheeks and their hunger-bloated bellies, as thin and brittle as their stick-thin arms and legs, their spidery fingers.

And the women. Widows, all of them. Not one man would return home to this village, none! Worse than that – they were not the first hostile army to pass through these lands. The soldier didn’t want to know what those who had preceded his troops had done to make a woman he’d asked merely for the way to the temple to lay down her baby in the mud, and then to lie down herself, spreading her legs for him, while closing her eyes. He couldn’t forget the glimpse of scars he’d seen before he’d awkwardly pushed down her gown and pulled her back up on her feet, face hot with shame.

His sister had lost her husband, too, in this war; a fine man he’d loved as a brother. Yet she still had a home, her honour, a job, a family, a future. While these people … He recalled what he’d heard an aged veteran saying at the victory parade: ‘Only the dead have seen the end of the war.’ He hadn’t understood what that meant, then. Now, that proverb resonated in his every heartbeat. The hatred that had sustained him throughout the war grew cold and stale. Now, as he wandered about the village, ‘showing presence and strength’, he wondered how life could ever get back to normal here. If that was possible at all …

He’d heard that before the troubles had started, this region had been famous for their long-haired goats and their silky wool. Now, no goat was left. Nor men to work the barren fields. Gardening as mainstay – for a family that might work, but not for a village, and not when women and children were already weak with hunger. Damn.

In the spirit of his orders – always remain in charge, at all times keep a safe distance, but demonstrate our good will – the soldier had tried to entice the children with a few oranges thrown their way the day before. A Yuletide present from his sisters and their families, sent north from the warm orchards of the South.

He’d thought the starving children needed the oranges and the vitamins they had to offer more than he did. While the food at the fort wasn’t terribly good or satisfying, he had one warm meal per day, usually stew, and plenty of it.

The plan, while well-intentioned, proved ill-conceived.

It soon turned out that the children had never seen an orange before. After some puzzled hesitation, they’d begun playing with the orange fruit, throwing them back and forth between them, thinking them toys, balls for a game of basket ball or hockey.

When he’d approached them to show them their error, they’d thrown down the oranges and fled.

And right now, it didn’t look as if his encounter with the little boy and his kite would go over any better. Damn. How was he supposed to ‘show presence and good-will’ if everyone did their level best to run away and hide as soon as he approached? Not that he blamed them; he was a soldier, after all, and belonged to the victorious troops occupying their country. Maybe he’d killed their father, their uncle, their brother, their son? He shuddered. It’s what soldiers do, he thought, as if he was trying to answer the question himself. We kill. And besides, your father, uncle, brother, son, they’d have killed me if I hadn’t killed them first.

For some reason, that explanation didn’t really satisfy him.

He put a big smile on his face, so big that it felt more like a grimace than a smile, and cheerfully clapped his hands, then pointed at the kite again. ‘That’s a very beautiful kite you’ve got there!’

That was true. It was a magnificent kite, obviously hailing from the distant past of happier days. Rainbow-coloured stripes outlined a shape that looked almost like a living thing as it moved in the wind, bright mane and tail fluttering.

When he didn’t do anything else, except stand there and watch the kite, the boy relaxed minutely. Still tense and wary, he at least remained where he was, spinning the kite into the sky.

The kite dipped and soared, twirled and whirled, the purple and yellow and blue, the only bright colours left in a world turned monochrome in shades of black and grey, hunger, death and decay.

‘How beautiful,’ he repeated once more, this time with a heartfelt smile. The wind was strong, abrading his face and irritating his eyes; he had to dash away moisture away from the corners of his eyes quickly.

The boy looked at him and said something unintelligible. The only word he understood was ‘kite’.

The soldier frowned. He spoke the main language of this country well enough, but he just couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the dialect people used up here. At a loss, he nodded enthusiastically, and said: ‘Yes, it’s a great kite. Really great.’

‘He says it’s not a kite,’ an amused, ancient voice wheezed behind him.

The soldier whirled around, sword in one hand, pistol in the other. Behind him, the kite crashed out of the sky with whistling hiss and nasty crunch as it hit the ground.

In front of him stood one of the doters of the village, an ancient man with only one eye, and legs that barely supported him anymore. He leant heavily on two wooden canes.

Heat rose to the soldier’s face. Feeling extremely stupid, he sheathed the sword and fumbled the pistol back into its holster. He hoped the kite had survived the sudden landing. Awkwardly clearing his throat, he asked the old man, ‘If it’s not a kite here, what do people call it?’

‘Dragon,’ the old man replied. ‘It’s a local legend. The people who live here believe they are descended from the dragons of the mountains, you know how those tales go – once there was a beautiful maiden and a dragon fell in love with her … Of course it ended badly, as such things are wont to do, and with the dragons suddenly so tame and friendly with the village here, the people from down below started hunting the dragons, thinking them easy prey. Eventually, the dragons had to flee and hide high up in the mountains. But they left a gift behind.’

‘A kite,’ the soldier breathed, caught up in the old man’s tale.

‘Indeed,’ the ancient one nodded. ‘To carry messages to our ancestors, like the prayer flags of the valleys. That boy probably asked the dragons to come back and help us in our time of need.’

The soldier swallowed dryly. That was about the very last thing they needed, an attack from a herd of wild dragons. ‘And will they come?’

The old man’s turned an inscrutable smile toward the soldier. ‘Maybe they are already here,’ he rasped, then winked at the soldier, his amusement at the soldier’s shocked gasp tangible. ‘Or maybe I should rephrase: maybe that which they should come to give us is already here.’

The soldier frowned. An underground movement? Could the old man possibly refer to forcible resistance against the occupying forces? But why would he even hint at something like that to an enemy-soldier?

‘Hope,’ the old man said mildly. ‘Help.’

Eyes twinkling, as he added, ‘Oranges.’

‘Oh,’ the young soldier said and felt more stupid than ever. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the boy standing behind him, the kite, thankfully undamaged, clasped in his arms. The soldier cleared his throat again, and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Then he asked: ‘What’s the word for “dragon” in the local dialect?’

Song of the day:

No links today, since there’s just too much stuff about dragons online. Instead, my two favourite dragon quotes, both by Ursula K. LeGuin:

Things change:

authors and wizards are not always to be trusted:

nobody can explain a dragon.

Farther west than west
beyond the land
my people are dancing
on the other wind.

– The Song of the Woman of Kemay

…and my wish for you today is:

XD I wish you a very merry Christmas,
a happy Hannukah,
a wonderful Yuletide,
a festive Wossname – whatever you celebrate, may it bring joy to you and yours!

And if you don’t celebrate anything at all,
I hope you have a great day and a wonderful week! XD

Since not even 24 friends have dared to leave a comment for taking part in my “Christmas Extravaganza”, I have gifts left over.  🙁

… so if you’d like to receive a print of some original art or a surprise gift from me, please mail your snail-mail addy to juno AT magic DOT ms. First come, first served—I’ll put up a notice as soon as all 24 gifts have found a good home.