“The king requires an audience with your son Mr Lightbearer!” a soldier said on the porch of the manor. My dad, being the sleepy head he is, was still half asleep when the soldier knocked at the door this morning.
“Ok let us change and we will comme with you.” my dad said in a confused voice. His confused expression always managed to make me laugh. He had his eyes squinted, yet his brows weren’t frowned. Plus, his mouth was always slightly open. Truly a work of art.
“No sir, only your son has to come today.” the guard repeated. My dad was still waking up so he had to explain a little further. “Your son is expected by the king at the front gate of the capital.”
“It’s ok dad, I can manage this and you should go back to sleep. You look terrible.” I said with a grin, leaving my still confused dad behind.
“Where is the carriage?” I asked while the soldier mounted his single horse. “The king said that he was waiting for you with an assembly to show them the one that was responsible for his liberation and that you had to come by your own means to impress them.” the guard answered, still clueless about what he was about to see.“Our king is quite special isn’t he?” I said with a smirk, “That man has figured it all out.” I told myself.
“Yes… I guess he is.” the guard said, still wondering why the king would want to see a brat like me to begin with.
“Hey! Do you want to have a teaser of what the thing that is going to impress is?” I asked the guard that was now mounted on his horse and already halfway through the gate. “Yes of course!” the guard said excitedly.
I took a bit of momentum before I started running at a speed a human being shouldn’t be able to stop and passed by the soldier on it’s horse, scaring the mount at the same time. I then jumped the higher I could before yelling, “Shape!” and transforming into my dragon form. As I flew away I could see the soldier laughing and clapping his hands in a joyful wonder over what he had just seen.
A few minutes later, I could see the attroupement of various people of the city, the lucky one were outside the city gate closest to the king they could be while the others were with the guards on the walls. A lot of them were looking elsewhere or chatting with their neighbours, so I decided to make my presence known.
I roared as loud as I could to get the attention of the people down below. It worked pretty well, so well in fact, that some archers bent their bow to shoot me, but the king raised his hand in a sign of halt and signed to stop. I decided to show off a little by doing a loop in the air and diving down before landing a few feet away from the king and his crowd in a cloud of dust and dirt.
When I landed I could tell that some people were terrified, mostly adults weirdly. The king was about to speak when a little child not older than six emerged from the crowd and ran towards me. I looked at the mother of the child, I could see she wanted to run get her child but she was too terrified. When the child arrived at my feets he looked up in awe and wonder at the majestic beast in front of him.
“Are you a dragon?!” the little child asked with the same expression as before. Before I could answer his first question he asked another one. “Can I touch your scales?” I spoke to him in my draconic voice as gently as possible to not scare him. “Of course you can!” The boy, unfazed by my voice, approached my front body part. “Can I call it an arm since I walk on all my four legs?” I asked myself. The boy after touching my front leg said. “WoW it’s so smooth!” I then asked. “Do you want to touch my snout? It's even smoother.”
Without missing a beat, the child answered “Yes of course!” I lowered my head enough for him to gently pat my snout. The little boy then said in admiration. “WoW, it really is smooth” I saw that citizens were still frightened by my form and the little kid’s mother was shivering and she could only stare at the fate she imagined in her head. “Little one, since you were so kind as to give a warm welcome here I will give you a gift.” I said in hope that it will help release the tension in the air.
The child looked and said. “A gift? I don’t need that, seeing you here was enough of a gift for me.” I looked in awe at the maturity of this six years old child. “I still wish to give you one.” I said before touching his chest where his heart was and said “I will give you this blessing. May you grow strong and courageous to face the ennemis that you will encounter in the future. May you grow kind and empathic to help your friends in the future. Me, Ithan Lightbearer the dragon heir, I give you this blessing.”
As soon as I finished my sentence a ray of blessed light illuminated from the sky and engulfed the little boy in it’s light, The little boy had a scared yet reassured face and when the light stopped a sigile appeared on the back of his neck, a silver star crossed from the top by a golden sword. The sigile wasn’t very big, the size of an adult thumb, but it held an immense power that only he would ever be able to wield.
When the light of the sigile faded, The little boy thanked me and returned to his mother. His mother had a grateful smile and bowed before making her way to her son.
There was a small whisper in the crowd, people were still afraid of me but were slowly feeling safer. When suddenly, I heard several horses running in the direction of the town. At first, I thought it could be a group of adventurers coming back from a dungeon, but they were approaching the city way too fast. That is when I noticed that the horses on the back had footsteps way too heavy to be horses, the first horse and it’s rider were being chased by someone or something.
“Something is coming.” I said in my deep draconic voice.
“What is it my friend?” the king asked in a concerned voice, his blond brows were furrowed.
“A horse and it’s rider are being chased by a group of something else too heavy to be horses but going at the same speed.” I said with my eyes closed to better hear steps that the creatures were taking.
“Can you tell who the rider is?” the king asked.
“No I can’t, not from this distance.” I said while halfly listening to him.
“I will go see what is going on and try to help the person in danger.”
“Ok. Do you want us to send some knights with you?” the king asked with a king like look to the knights that were accompanying him.
“No they would be too slow and they would get in my way, I wouldn’t want to hurt them.” I said calmly but firmly.
“Ok then off you go my friend.” the king said.
I turned around and gave him an agreeing nod before taking off.
From here, I could see the scene very clearly now that I was up in the air. There was a hooded rider on the horse,I could only see the cape it was wearing. It was chased by three menacing orcs that were riding some kind of giant boar with red eyes The orcs kept yelling things at the rider in monster tongue that I couldn’t make out because they were talking too fast. The rider had a crudely made arrow logged in it’s shoulder and it was riding at high speed directly towards the town. Was it seeking help? Was it an enemy? I did not have enough time to think about this, I had to act quickly or the horse would tire and the orcs would catch up, so I began my descent.
My strategie was to fly right above them to scare away the orcs and if it was an enemy, the rider as well. As I flew above them and roared to scare away the orcs the rider turned around and looked at me. She was a woman in her middle ages with platinum blond hairs and a once beautiful dress that was now covered in blood and mud. I barely had enough time to study her, because she turned back and focused on the road again.The orcs got scared away, as I expected, but the woman deviated from her course as if to lead me away from the city. I followed her and not long after the encounter, her horse ran out of strength and collapsed out of fatigue.
The woman got pinned under the exhausted horse and couldn’t move, I landed a few feet away from her so as not to scare her but she still began to panic and try vainly to push the creature off of her. Five minutes later, she was still trying to move the creature, so I decided to study her. She had long platinum blond hairs, a body that in her young years would have made all men’s turn around, her face smooth yet dirty, she had blue eyes that were popping out because of her hairs, her lips that looked like they were once beautiful and plump now looked dry and cracked. Now that I had studied her enough and she had calmed down, I decided to help her.
When I began to move, the women closed her eyes as if to accept her fate, but when I removed the animal off of her, she looked at me with a confused look. The sun was setting and the orcs, if I left her alone, would return. I began to hum a light recovery melody. When I finished, she looked at me and said, “Thank you dragon, but why are you doing all this?”
“I may look like a dragon right now but I was once human and I know how it feels to be hopeless.” I said simply with my dragon voice.
“Huh… I think I should head back now.” she said with a confused look.
“I am going the same way as you, so do you want a ride back to town?” I asked casually.
“Yes sure but what about my horse?” She asked.
“Don’t worry, I can carry you both.” I said with a little flap of my wings.
Two minutes later the woman named Solem was on my back and the horse that I had magically put to sleep so that he wouldn’t be scared, was snoring loudly in my front paws. I deployed my wings and jumped high enough so that my wings wouldn’t hit the ground. We began flying at a low altitude because of the incapacity of human lungs to breathe the thinner air higher up.
A little twenty minutes passed before we reached the city, the sky was getting darker and my passenger had been sleeping for the whole journey. The journey was a lot longer because of the low altitude that we were flying at. When we arrived close to the city I sent a mental message to Solem telling her that we were arriving and asked her where she wanted to be left.
“I need to get to the castle.” The middle aged woman said with a serious expression on her face.
“The castle? For what?” I asked confused.
“It's a private matter, if you don’t mind.” She said with a sad face.
“Ok as long as you're not plotting to kill the king.” I Jokingly said.
“No of course.” She said before whispering under her breath, “No, I could never do this to him.” I knew that this was not meant for me to be heard, so I didn’t ask questions.
We soon arrived at the castle gate and when the guards saw me, they saluted. I let the women off my back and as soon as she stepped foot on the ground, The guards rushed to her and pointed their halberd at her neck. One of the guards said. “You have no place here traitor!”
I transformed back into my human form and asked, confused. “Someone can mind explaining to me what is going on?”
The guard that had yet spoken told me with a heinous voice. “ She is the former queen of the sun kingdom Solem Kirkston the traitor.”
End of chapter 5
Comments (0)
See all