Fabledyr's Visitor

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. In fact, for many years, the five famous teapots in Mrs. Botkin’s tea shop were the closest things to dragons anyone in the town of Fabledyr, or the whole Valley, had ever seen.

Botkin’s Teas, run by Mrs. Botkin herself and her son, Leaf, carried a reputation for being one of the finest tea shops in the Valley. Nestled on a side street on the south end of Fabledyr, its simple stone exterior and thatched roof gave no hint of the charms held within. Only the black sign, Botkin’s Teas, signaled locals and travelers alike that her famous teas were hidden inside. Once through the door, guests were greeted by small tables covered in bright silk cloth and a mingling of herbal and floral aromas. The shelves, lined with teas of Mrs. Botkin’s own design, offered customers unusual choices: borage and broom bark tea, rarespice and amity leaf, elder root and emperor’s rose.

And on the very top shelf, above the rows of tea, sat the five famous teapots. Although they were different colors (blue, green, red, black, and gold) each one was shaped like a dragon. Their tails curved to form the handles, and long serpentine snouts served as spouts from which the steaming liquid would pour. Each scale had been intricately pressed into the ceramic, and you could see veins painted in the almost transparent wings wrapped around the pot’s body. The eyes that peered out from the spout were inlaid stones, and many customers swore the dragons’ gaze followed them around the room, as if they were alive, trapped inside ceramic. Occasionally a bold soul would attempt to purchase them, but Mrs. Botkin refused to let the pots leave her tea shop. Instead they graced the shelf with their magisterial forms and collected dust.

Until one fateful day, when a mysterious visitor entered the shop. Mrs. Botkin was trying to keep her flyaway brown curls underneath her cap while she deftly brewed a pot of sea berry tea for two ladies chatting at a corner table, and Leaf was daydreaming about playing knurr and spell instead of sweeping. The door rattled open and a tall imposing woman entered. Her exact age was impossible to determine, but the crows feet around her eyes and steel grey streaks through her hair suggested she was no longer young. She was dressed from head to toe in black damask and pushed a black perambulator. Leaf peered inside expecting to see an infant, or perhaps a small dog, but it appeared to be empty.

“Hello, yes, how can I help you?” Mrs. Botkin asked with a pleasant smile.

The smile quickly faded, however, when the woman did nothing but point a bony finger at the row of dragon tea pots and said, “I’m here for the teapots.”

“Oh, those aren’t for sale, I’m afraid. They’ve been in my family for generations. Can I offer you some tea?”

The woman slowly walked to the counter where Mrs. Botkin stood until their noses were inches apart.

“You mean your grandfather stole them,” the woman hissed. “I’m not asking to buy them from you, fool, I’m taking them back. Do you even know what the symbol on the bottom of them means?”

Mrs. Butkin spluttered. “My grandfather didn’t steal! It’s a C. …For Codwell Ceramics.”

The woman let out a mocking bark of laughter. “Codwell Ceramics indeed.” She then opened her mouth and a strange guttural noise emerged, not quite a word, not quite a growl– and everyone else in the room seemed to become immoble. The woman marched to the shelf and carefully took all five teapots and put them in her perambulator. She walked out of the shop and down the road without a backwards glance, taking the teapots outside for the first time in decades.

When she disappeared from sight, the four people left in the shop snapped out of their trance. One of the women in the corner was the first to speak.

“I know who she is. She’s the Countess Colcraft, come back to take residence in The Manor.”

The Manor was a small stone castle perched on a forested bluff overlooking the town of Fabledyr. In the summertime, when leaves were on the trees, the townsfolk could barely make out a turret or two ascending out of the forest and toward the sky. Even though it was owned by royalty it had stood empty for countless years. Until now.

Mrs. Botkin and Leaf looked at eachother. They both knew royalty was not to be challenged, and that they had lost their famous teapots forever. The shop was never quite as successful after that day. Customers still enjoyed Botkin’s fine teas, but everyone said that the shop never seemed as extraordinary.

What was extraordinary was the sightings that began to occur shortly after. A shape blocking out the stars on a clear night. Large trees unearthed, despite the placid weather. A glimmer of scales in the forest. And a large serpentine form wrapping itself around the manor’s tower. Townsfolk began to say that the Countess had brought dragons with her. But several residents of Fabledyr noticed that the glimpsed creatures had the same coloring as the five famous teapots whisked away from Botkin's Teas that fateful day.