And then... There were dragons

As usual... I started writing and things got completely out of hand. Here is a window into my brain. A prompt as simple as "behind closed doors" birthed this: the entire premise for my next fantasy novel. Thank you for the inspiration. Of course, it is far too many words for the actual challenge and doesn't really fit the spirit of the thing anymore, anyway. Here she is, hot off the press of my mind. An incredibly rough draft:

The sun dips beneath the shadow of the mountain, illuminating the sky in swathes of amber glow for a moment that seems to stretch into eternity, before snapping abruptly to a close, robbing the world of the glorious certainty of sunlight. I roll my shoulders and pull the curtains closed. Now that it’s brighter in here than it is out there, I feel the need to hide. I don’t want them to see what I’m doing in here. I journey from one room to the next, running my fingertips along every latch and lock in this god-damned house, pulling each shade, encasing myself in the darkness of night. For a moment I stand in the dark, listening to the brush of wind along the cracks at the bottom of the front door, before pulling the chain of the side table lamp and settling myself amongst the cushions. I pull the portal from where I’ve last stashed it. I left it in a rather obvious place, considering the powerful artifact it is. It slides easily from behind the couch pillow and I settle it along my knees. I shoved it back there when an unexpected visitor had dropped by earlier, banging rudely on the door, pulling me out of a suspended state between here and there abruptly, leaving me feeling more than a little torn for the rest of the afternoon as I sat through boring conversations, offering cookies and tea. I loathed every second, but what was I to do? Shut the door in their face and say, ’Sorry, come back later… I’m visiting my dragon right now?” God. If they could only see who I am behind closed doors. In this fucking life I’m a terribly proper little creature. I try to keep a low profile because I know what would happen if anyone ever found out. People would kill for the kind of power I hold now, resting gently on my lap. Hell, I would kill. Maybe that’s the why of it, really. I know I would kill if anyone ever tried to take this from me. It’s my only pathway… to him. “I’ll be there soon,” I whisper, pulling the case open, running my fingers along the brittle leather edge of the cover.

Pinpricks prickle up my forearms and I shiver at the faint echo of power. The smell of freshly laid straw bedding and wet cobblestones wafts from inside the shimmering silver pool on my lap. The portal is small, only allowing one voyager to pass through for the entirety of their lifetime. This portal and I are bound. It calls to me alone. Mine. Perhaps that is why we’ve been able to keep it hidden for so long. It’s been passed down in my family since the dark ages. And two years ago, when the council met, I was finally deemed worthy. I beat out my cousin Elias for the privilege, and he’s bitter about it, but thank God he has no idea what this actually is. He just knows it was grandmother’s most prized possession. If he knew… my fingers twitch at the thought.

I dip my hands into the iridescent glow, allowing silver to slither over my palms and then I plunge myself in, pulled by the gravity of Arvaith, ripped through the bounds of space in a kaleidoscope pathway of meteorite bliss. Everyone always speculates that travel between worlds would be painful, but they’re wrong. This… this is a feeling akin to climax, that boundless building pressure just before release, so powerful it’s almost painful, but at its core, it is raw, unrelenting pleasure. I smile as I am torn from our world, hurdling at breakneck speed for the Arvaithian cobblestones below. I haven’t learned to slow my descent yet, but I know it won’t matter one bit. He’ll catch me. I’m spinning in freefall for a moment, flipping uncontrollably through the clouds, streaks of flame and stardust trailing behind me like a fiery cape. I am an asteroid on a collision course with the city below. I right myself and will power to my fingertips, pushing against the very lifeforce of Arvaith, willing myself to slow, envisioning earth beneath my feet instead of open sky. I slow…or at least I think I slow…a little. I really need to work on this, but that’s a challenge when I have no teacher. Grandmother is the only other Voyager I’ve ever known and it’s not exactly like I can ask her, seeing as how she’s dead. Harsh. The sky seems to ripple below me, streaks of darker blue along the backdrop of watery grey. An earsplitting grin unfurls on my face. I center myself, allowing the stardust and fire to settle back under my skin. Frigid rain pelts my face, freezing on my cheeks for a moment before running in unsettling rivulets back through my unbound hair. Apparently, the weather in Arvaith is shit today. Caelus swerves closer and I feel the soft brush of the feathers of his underbelly along my forearm. The sound of thunder booming in my ears, causes my smile to grow impossibly wider. “I missed you, too,” I whisper, knowing I needn't raise my voice for him to hear, even up here, even at these impossible speeds. This is nothing. Caelus is faster. I flatten my body, perpendicular to the ground, in a maneuver we’ve finally gotten the hang of after a solid six months of practice. I reach my arms wide, aiming for the patch of navy blue scales just at the crest of his shoulders. The scales are darker here, unbleached by the sun from where his rider sits. Me. I laugh into the wind. He glides under me, matching my speed. I reach and grab hold of one of his spine spikes, settling myself in place. Home. I’m home.

I scratch Caelus in his favorite spot, right between where his wings meet and he slows, ceasing wing beats and gliding to a gentle pace. We soar above the city, circling twice before Caelus seems to change his mind and continues on a straight path for the mountains to the east. “Hey!” I call, “I need to get my stuff at the stables.” The only reply I receive is a growl so low I merely feel it in my legs instead of hearing it. Dread builds between my shoulder blades at the sensation. “Okay. I guess we’ll talk first, then,” I sigh as if I actually have any say in the matter. He’s a freaking dragon. We land on a plateau just above the foothills. Caelus and I learned not to journey to the upper peaks after an unfortunate encounter with a Rogue on the slope of Illsgath last month. I shiver at the memory of the untamed dragon, teeth snapping and sulfurous fire singeing the hairs on my arms as I’d clung to the ledge she’d so kindly shoved me off with the whip of her tail. Thank the heavens for Caelus, who’d flown under me as my fingers had slipped, catching me awkwardly along a wing. I’d rolled into place and we’d flown for the stables faster than ever before with the echoes of the Rogue’s screams chilling me to the core. I think she may have been guarding a nest. There is still so much to learn.

Caelus rolls his shoulders in a gesture I’ve come to know as, “Get off of me right now, or I will roll over on you.” I oblige. I hop off in one smooth movement, landing on the ground in a silent crouch near his forefoot. World-hopping isn’t the only power that comes with being a Voyager. I’ve been unusually coordinated since my first journey. I think it had something to do with where I’d landed. I hadn’t known how to navigate then and I’d crashed through the atmosphere of Ortus and landed in a bone-crushing heap at the base of the largest tree I’ve ever seen. I’d lain there for what felt like an eternity twitching my broken fingers and trying to breathe around the shards of bone poking my lungs. It couldn’t have been more than seconds (I would have died otherwise, duh), before my wrecked fingers met with the bark of the nearest root, protruding from the ground. And then the tree had spoken to me… Something Caelus hasn’t even managed to do yet. “We are Mana,” a voice deeper than the core of the Earth whispered, “We have been waiting since the birth of the universe for your voyage. We have foretold your coming in the tides of time. We have written you into the fabric of worlds untold. Go forth. Walk, Elethea. You are made new.” I’d opened my eyes and found myself healed. No. More than healed. New. I swear I grew taller, which was impossible, of course, since I’m 25 and haven’t grown so much as a millimeter since seventh grade. My hair was longer, too, brushing along the curve of my spine in auburn tendrils when it’d barely reached my shoulders before. I felt…amazing. I swear my skin glowed. And then the power had coursed, beating like a pulse beneath my skin, screaming in wave after wave of pain, filling me, splitting me, shaping me into something other. Something new and wonderful and terrible and… wrong. Something was all wrong. It felt like a chunk of me had been ripped out, gone forever from this universe, shredded from the soul of me. Then the fucking tree had laughed; a sound akin to the screaming of a dying animal, “Go, Elethea. You must mend. You will find the missing piece in a world unknown. He will catch you when you fall. When the fabric of the universe grumbles it’s discontent and your hope is dead. You will meet him in the sky. Find him, Elethea, before they find you.” And with that incredibly cryptic bit of advice, they’d shoved me back through the hole in space and time. I’d found myself sprawled on the couch, with the portal case upended on the floor, silvertine shreds oozing onto the rug. I’d scooped it back in and slammed it shut, locking it into the safe grandmother had kept it in and ignoring it for a month, too afraid to venture back in.

The clicking of Caelus’ impatient talon on stone is enough to bring me back to the present moment. I clear my throat and meet the shrewd gaze of his huge blue eyes. He narrows them into menacing slits. God. He is beautiful. Caelus is small, for a dragon. The crest of his shoulder a mere four feet above my head. His long body curls in serpentine impatience, tail draping down the side of the plateau. He is the color of the bluest sky, scales sun-bleached everywhere on his back, except where I sit. Along his underside, he is a hue darker blue, until scales thicken on his chest and sprawl into a cascade of pure white feathers along his underbelly. His talons are curved, more than two feet in length and glimmer keratin silver, matching the spiny protrusions down the length of his back. His leathery wings span the distance of the rockface, coming to points with more keratin spikes at the ends. Bursts of white feathers litter the upper edge of his wings, fading into an expanse of blue that unfurls as he flaps at me in irritation. He looks like an angry cloud. God. He is beautiful, I think again. He grumbles, low in his throat and gestures with a wing at the darkening sky, barely missing my head. “Hey!” I chastise, “You did that on purpose!” A purr that I’ve come to know as Caelus’ laugh vibrates the ground before cutting off abruptly. He swings his head back and glares again. My shoulders slump. “I know.” I venture forward and he lowers his head so I can place my hand on his forehead, “I am so sorry I’m late.” Another grumble. “I had…visitors.” He growls. I rest my head against his for a long minute. It feels like I can almost hear his thoughts like this, but out of all the ‘gifts’ that damn tree gave me, it didn’t give me the ability to truly speak with my dragon. I run my hand along the curl of his horns, “Forgive me?” Quiet stretches. The only sound is the steady thump of Caelus’ heart and the patter of rain pooling around us. I shiver and Caelus sighs. He gently bumps me with his head. I’m forgiven. I vault onto his back and we take to the sky, wings beating and then soaring once more to the stables of Arvaith. To war.

(AI art used for the attached image)