Fiction logo

Legend of the Tiyur

Chapter 1. Inside Her Stomach

By PALAK KANWAR Published 2 years ago 23 min read
3

There weren't always dragons in the valley but a dragon prince. He didn't breathe fire or fly, but he did become fierce like one.

The curse

The Uravara kingdom was nature's gift to humanity. Here, the sky was always calm. The rivers and lands never dried up. The abundance and joy increased with the birth of a prince. After seven years of endless praying, a child was born on a crescent moon. The King and Queen decided to build a garden in the kingdom's heart to celebrate his birth. Only the flowers in rainbow colors were to be grown there. The blossom soothed their pain of the testing time. It took hundred days to complete. On the one-hundredth day, a slender stem with thorns starts growing inside this elysian circle, ripping the delicate violet. An evil eye horns this snake.

The prince would accompany the Queen in the garden on his birthday for the next seven years. He would play around while she would rejoice at the sound of his innocent giggles. She would take pride in his zeal to catch the frolicking butterflies. However, on his eighth birthday, as the Queen looked lovingly at her son, the green stones around her neck quivered. They sensed something. The mighty rocks free themselves from the binding thread, shatter and plunge towards her son.

Just a tip of the prince's index finger was enough to awake the sleeping bud. One by one, the petals unfurl, luring the gullible. As the boy gazed upon, the stems slyly coiled all around him. The thorns became longer and sharper. One of them stabs, and at the same time, the green spikes sink into the prince's skin. Thundering clouds swallowed the sun, and darkness befalls. The Queen lets out a heart-wrenching cry as her moon falls on the ground. The sweet boy of hers had touched a flower never seen before.

She had him, so thought fiend. But before the poison could reach the prince's heart, the thorn was thrown out, split into two perfect halves. The sting sent the prince into a deep sleep. The evil had been halted but not yet defeated. The black flower with silver splattered on its petals bloomed like the shimmering night in its full glory, waiting. She was to come again if the prince was to wake again. The heart of the kingdom was tainted. The garden was sealed with iron curtains. A curse was upon the little prince.

Hope: the little prince was still alive. Sometimes things are not what they seem.

The Black flower will be called the Tiyur, name of ancient sorcery.

Elder brother and The Twins

The king had a step elder brother who was a great warrior. Even though they had the most prominent kingdom, the brother eyed what lay within those huge white walls. The tale talked about a paradise being inside them once inhabited by gods themselves. However, no one knew what the truth was. Many had ventured towards this uncharted land, but no one ever returned. Everyone tried to warn him, but the brave elder brother was sure of his blade's edge since he had won many battles. In the dead of night, he took thousands of his finest men, unaware of the devil.

The elder brother and his men reached the wall as the first sun rays hit the sky. No one had stopped them. He and his men peered around near it, but the keen eyes saw nothing. They all mocked the wide blue sky and the red mud beneath, challenging the unseen. Soon the roars of laughter turned into vehement screams. Not one by one, but waves of men were being cut in half. Their swords couldn't protect them. His skilled soldiers scampered like ants while the elder brother stayed put, spectating the chaos. The helplessness pinches his core.

Drenched in his men's blood, the horrid eyes of the elder brother saw someone standing amongst the dismembered bodies of his men. They all wore layers and layers of iron to protect themselves, but this figure was stark naked. What looked like a red cape on him from far was the gore. As the thick blood slid from his pale face and slick dark hair, the elder brother had hoped to see a monster, but a man just like him walked. Holding a long sharp black stick, he disappeared into the wall.

A year had passed. Day and night, night and day. The elder brother would still think about the man. The man who had butchered his soldiers single-handedly. The elder brother had only known the uncorrupt ways of one’s skilled hands. But the domination he had witnessed that day made him hungry for it. He knew that the inhuman strength belonged to the unholy.

The gods of heaven had taken the secrets to their powers with them before leaving the earth. Humans were never to use them. They were given fertile lands rich in flora and fauna only to live honest lives. The benevolent gods didn't need worshiping but only good deeds from humanity. This was the religion the ancestors followed. They cherished and respected the resources bestowed upon them. No magic or tricks of any kind were humored. However, there were some servants of the shadow world. They were called serpents because the black magic was nothing but a sly web to hurt humans. The king, his father, had banished these servants from the kingdom. He had vowed never to let the fangs of treachery hurt his people. Fate played a cruel joke on the king as his son set out in search of these people.

The elder brother knew that his father had confiscated the spell containing scripts and hidden them somewhere. After searching for days, he caught hold of a map in the king's chamber inside the statue of the bowing lady. It was rolled and put between the space of her folded hands. It showed the location where the last one-eyed serpent lived. He galloped towards it.

A huge rock floated three inches above the ground. The elder brother entered it, and in the dim light, he saw a male torso with a half-face and no limbs seated on a dark gray stone. The elder brother had hoped to meet a living being. The rotting lips opened before he turned his back, and a hoarse trembling voice told the elder brother to take the eye sitting inside its hollow head. He said that what he seeks is not his destiny but his sons. He instructed him to wait until they were eighteen and then go to the white walls. Victory will be his. When his sons are born, he must drop their blood in the eye for them to bind; then, he should never again touch it. This will make his sons the mightiest of all. The eye was round and lustrous, with black veins all inside it. It looked nothing short of a precious pearl. As soon as the elder brother left, the rock crumbled and dusted away.

The white lady with her hair touching the ground held the baby in her hands with golden drops rolling down her cheeks. This was the statue of the elder brother's mother, who died in childbirth. The king had her figure built within the serene lotus pond outside the elder brother's chamber. The gold was to emphasize the happiness his birth had brought to the ailing mother and her sacrifice. The rare blue lotuses growing inside the pond were her favorite. As the serpent had foretold, the elder brother became the father of twins and did what he was told. He then kept the eye inside a golden box and dropped it in the thriving spread.

The elder brother became the king. Prosperity and blessings touched his feet, yet he ached to break those white walls. The guilt of losing a thousand men and the distressing carnage bored a hole in his ego. He was obsessed with making the twins the finest gladiators. He had forgotten they were his sons. He had never placed a loving hand on their head, and neither did he notice that they no longer bled. When the twins turned eighteen, he rushed to seek revenge the next day. This time he didn't take his sword with him. The elder brother reached the white walls with his sons and waited for the man to attack them, but nothing as such happened; instead, the wall shattered into tiny pieces, and he gasped at the sight in front of him.

The dry, hot wind of the desert pierces the elder brother as he stares at the sheets of burning sand. He then freezes, his shocked eyes roll back, and he starts having visions. In a prosperous kingdom like his, an unknown king is looking at the heaps of gold in angst. His eyes laced with a hunger for more. A prince stands beside him, having the same handsome face as the man who had killed his soldiers. Then the scene shifts toward the same king bowing in front of a beautiful woman. He promises her anything if she can give him a never-ending treasure. The woman tells him about the floating mountain.

Along with the prince and soldiers, the king enters a large rock. The very same from where the elder brother had got the eye. In front of him lay all kinds of gemstones. The gold coins and the jewelry filled the entire space. The drooling king picked a handful of it and saw more gold replacing it. No matter how much they all took, twice the amount was added. The king clenches his fist in triumph; indeed, he has found the everflowing source of wealth. His son attacks him from behind, cutting open his head.

Next, the elder brother sees the withered lotuses in the pond. The black stems with spikes crawled everywhere. Silver hair on a pretty face rose above the water. The smooth velvety dark petals cover the white skin. It was the same woman. A large thorn came out from her stomach, severing the statue of his mother. The woman called herself YECKIN, the overlord of the shadow world. She told the elder brother that she had cursed the king he saw to live as such until he passed on the eye. The barren land was once his kingdom. She scoffs at him for believing the suffering king and sacrificing his sons for the wealth that didn't matter. Now that he has fallen into her trap, the same fate awaits him. The twins face their father. The light in their eyes had gone, and their hair turned frosty. The elder brother caresses them before the twins pull him apart while he foresees the ruthless ravaging of his empire through their hands.

Greed: blinds a man from seeing the true treasures of life.

Ego: overpowered the elder brother's ability to sense what was right. It misled him.

The contemplation: sharp wit and the ability to reason are also needed to become a true warrior. Only if the elder brother had asked himself why his life was spared on that day.

Yeckin: a potent evil force disguised as the night flower, uses human blood. Through which it stays until the end. Thus, even after the twins, it could come for the prince.

The awakening

The prickly stalk hooked into the boy's leg dragged him through the mud. He starts to lose consciousness, but the screams of the people around him keep him awake. He tightly holds the sword that his elder brother had left. He somehow gets up on his dwindling feet and swings the steel twice his size at the monster. The sword didn't reach him, and before it could hit the ground, a man with no face rushed toward him. He picks him in his arms, and then everything blurs. When the boy wakes up, he finds himself on the top of a mountain. The cool breeze tingled his wounds. Beside him lay the blade. There was a poorly looking cottage a few feets away. Four old blind women took the little boy and looked after him as if he was their son. Their love and affection were something he would always cherish. He was fifteen when these women passed away.

This boy was the King. He had survived the rampage led on by the twins and Yeckin. As directed, he collected the four green stones, the sword, and a notebook with a discolored string of cloth tied around it. He reached the uravara kingdom and joined the army. His hard work and diligence led him to become the general. Then King of the uravara kingdom grew to like him and married his only daughter to him. When the queen became pregnant, the King tied the four stones around her neck to protect her and the child. He knew these were not just regular stones in his heart as the older women weren't either.

The King had recognized the black flower. It belonged to the same evil that took away his home. He was afraid that his son might never wake up and the uravara kingdom would also fall. However, at the same time, he couldn't make sense of why they were not attacked yet. He had alarmed his people about the deadly blossom. The soldiers were deployed outside the iron walls. The garden was lit on fire in hopes of killing the venomous thorns and stopping their spread. As the little prince sleeps, the King gets desperate to seek answers. He even tried to open the notebook given to him by the old women, but no matter how hard he tried, the tie on the cloth only grew firmer.

The wind cools down the king's mind as he stares at the starlit sky. The moon's glow suddenly reminds him of a similar aura surrounding the man who had saved his life. Because of the brightness, he couldn't see his face. He felt that the man and the sword were somehow related. He flung the blade into the sky with all his strength. The king had not even regained his posture when the sword was returned, impaled next to him. An angelic voice speaks through the clear sky. It tells the king that his son has yet to fulfill his destiny. A long, arduous journey awaited him. The sword belonged to his son as the notebook belonged to her. King was relieved that the heavens were looking out for them.

The little prince curled up in a fetal position had started to grow. The king and queen didn't want the keen eyes prying, so they kept him inside a secret chamber only they knew. They were happy and tense at the same time. Their son was changing but into what?

On a new moon, a loud, raging snarl shakes up the peaceful sky of the Uravara kingdom. The prince had woken up on his sixteenth birthday. A tall boy with an athletic build stood before the King and queen. His caramel skin with red undertones was covered with many bluish-green thick stones. Their edgy peaks glistened even in the dim light of the chamber. On his beautiful rugged face, one eye was more prominent and different. The flaming lemon circle had a burst of dark rust with a vertical slit inside it. His silver locks made the King apprehensive. The startled look mixed with worry draped the King and queen's faces. After a few seconds, the queen slowly walks to the divine creation. With each step, her heart beats faster in the turmoil of what if he doesn't remember them. She carefully touched her son's hand and stared into his eyes upon reaching. The boy bends and entwines her in his massive arms.

The stones saved the prince's life. They used the poison to further empower the evolving prince. Diamond cuts diamond.

Yeckin

The awakened prince was named VIYARC after the God who had turned himself into a ferocious fire-breathing creature to destroy the evil spun out of his fury. As the story goes, God went against the caution and created humans. His love for them soon started to fade. True to their nature, the mortals sinned, angering their creator. A surging rage would torment God as time passed, urging him to destroy humankind. Still, he believed that humanity would prevail. This unknown vitality was overpowering him. So he pulled this ferocious darkness out of him and concealed it with magic containing symbols and signs known only to their world. He didn't want this energy to be around him and gave this book to a sage, asking him to hide it.

This virtuous person had renounced worldly pleasures and had become immune to the sufferings plaguing the human mind. The sage had recognised the evil enclosed within those pages and the havoc it would create if caught in the wrong hands. He buried it deep beneath the place where he sat and meditated. No one ever knew, and the secret died with him. Many years later, a poor man with five daughters came to live on the mountain far from the main village. This was the same place where the sage had stayed. He built a small cottage there and attended to his livestock. The five daughters looked after the house and did farming. One day the youngest daughter found the book while preparing the soil for the plantation.

She couldn't understand what was written on those yellow pages. Still, she didn't discard the book and kept it with her. An unsettling feeling started to grip her. She would often dream about the symbols carved on her skin. However, the ones in the book were different from what she would see in her visions. It took her some time to realize that the symbols she saw were inverted. One night, the younger sister took a knife and etched a sign in reverse. The blood soon disappeared, and so did the logo as if her skin had swallowed it. She had a significant scar on her head. It vanished, and her skin cleared up. She could feel her body change. The once plain Jane had turned into a beautiful woman. She had always desired to become pretty like her sisters. Shocked to see what these scriptions could do, the younger sister started using them for money. She would engrave them on the people's skin while they were blind folded. Each one had its significance and fulfilled the wishes accordingly. Slowly the bound energy was getting released.

The younger sister woke in the wee hours. Rose from her bed, removed her clothes and started incising the symbols on her skin with her nails. She couldn't stop and neither did her screams. The four sisters barged into her room and saw a pitch dark windstorm bearing many faces entering her mouth. The younger sister fainted. Just when everyone thought that it was over, she got up and ran out of the cottage. Her body was starting to get big. She grabbed a bird, bit its head off and ate her. The agonizing cries could be heard from the distant village.

Aggressive canines filed the mouth, and the wings grew on her back. The large hands and feet characterized by sharp claws hunted the poor souls. It wasn't just the younger sister who had changed. The men and women who had the signs carved on them, too, turned into the harrowing beasts like her. Seeing the terror, God took the avatar to save humans. The younger sister flew with her army towards the four-legged enemy. The fire burned their wings while the fangs bore holes in their skulls. The heaven shook with the screeching sounds and the earth bathed in the black blood of the vile.

The vigorous dragon had vanquished the army, but the leader couldn't be overpowered. The injuries did not stop her. She gouged the dragon's eye and ripped his scales laden thick skin. Seeing no other way, the dragon swallowed the huge monster. A violent burst outrages as the sun rises. The evil had merged with its maker. The dragon nor the monster were ever seen again.

All except the woman carrying a child had turned. She had taken the help of the symbols to get pregnant. As the child grew up, he could easily remember these markings. He used them to awaken the wicked. He was the one who led the greedy king to YECKIN. The name meant to hurt. The magic that had captured this dark force was used by it to harm humans giving rise to sorcery.

The four sisters had a similar dream in which they saw a small puddle filled with crystal clear sparkling water inside a cave. They were shown the location. The sisters reached the place and drank the water as told. Afterward, they could see something written on the empty surface. They all heard a voice telling them to chant these words repeatedly. They would be rectifying the mistake made by their younger sister. The sisters obliged. With time they lost their eyesight but were able to see beyond. The wise sage had devised a way to overcome the destructive energy.

The words on the surface hidden by the water were a ritual to revive the dragon. Sage had chosen the sisters of pure heart to carry out the task. In the green stones, this power was contained. The king was saved by the sage so that his bloodline could be cleansed. The little prince was to battle Yeckin. The evil born to kill the man had to die at the hands of the same. It was all God's plan.

The sinking

Viyarc reached the garden. It was time to take revenge. He had instructed his parents not to let anyone near the iron walls, and if after three days he did not return, they should, along with others, abandon the kingdom. With a heavy heart, the king and queen bid him farewell. The dragon prince stared into his mother's eyes and smiled her way one last time. He knew.

The flowers in silver and black were everywhere. It looked as if the sky had fallen. His arrival had woken the stems and thorns. The prince let out a sinister roar before chopping the pouncing vines. The thorns could no longer penetrate his skin. The soil below started to breathe and ruptured with twins emerging from it. Before the scattered mud could even reach the ground, the twins shed their skin. The bloodless interlaced muscles beneath stretched, enlarging them. While they were growing, both threw their barbed spears at the prince.

One swift sweep sliced the huge rods approaching with lightning speed. The prince had easily maneuvered their attempt to pierce him. Seeing this, the giants together lunged at him. Their large fists were pounding at the prince to crush him. The prince avoided them through his rapid movements. Even though the twins couldn't match his agility, the frequent jabs of the swords didn't slow them either. It seemed as if they were immune to the pain. The prince leaped higher in the sky, and the stones dug into the twins' eyes. The poison-laden spikes froze them. It was the same toxin that made the prince sleep. This distraction gave the prince the time to behead one of the twins. He cut open the fallen twin's heart and consumed it without wasting any second. The stones soak up the power, increasing his strength. He, too, became a giant, and so did the sword. The other twin came out of the stupor. He and the prince stood face to face.

Thick black stems with thorns coming out of the giant's mouth ruthlessly tore his jaw apart. A white face adorning delicate features and lush silver hair rose from inside him. The same velvety black and silver flowers covered her. The dark eyes on that serene face had inverted triangles glowing inside them. She stared at the dragon prince with a smirk. History had repeated itself. The dragon prince raised his sword to strike at her. The silver from the petals formed a dense blanket of dust around him. He couldn't see or hear anything. As it cleared, he found himself standing near a riverside. He saw a small girl with golden hair reaching out for her reflection. Suddenly a hand appeared out of the water and grabbed the girl, trying to pull her in. The dragon prince wanted to rush to her aid, but he couldn't move. The girl then turned her face around and shouted at him to wake up.

As the prince came into his senses, he saw himself being dragged by the stems into a dark whirlwind formed on the ground. The prince didn't fight to release himself and sank. Afterward, the cavity started to get bigger, pulling everything around inside it. The iron walls, too, were rooted and sucked in. Just when the ground outside the walls started to crack up, the sword came flying and got impaled on the ground. From the mammoth balde grew two bluish green thin lines that circled the darkness. There was no further damage. The uravara kingdom was saved.

Yeckin was waiting for the prince to awake so that she could possess the newly formed power. When she couldn't do that through his blood, the evil entrapped him. The Dragon prince had let her. But why?

I'm Armarese, the daughter of the king and queen of the Uravara kingdom. Viyarc is my brother. I was 11 when I had a dream in which I was standing next to a river. When I looked down at the water, I saw a silver-haired boy being dragged by black ropes to a dark hole. His eyes were shut. I yelled at him to wake up. I wasn't aware that the boy was my dear brother.

I told this to my parents, who said nothing but handed me a notebook. It had an eye drawn on it. I untied it and found empty pages inside. On the same night, I dreamed about four women with cloudy eyes asking me what I had learned. I woke up after this and saw the notebook open. The curse was written on top with gold, following the saga of a fallen prince.

I would read it often. I hoped that more was to come, but the rest of the pages stayed blank. Then I started to scribble down what I thought was the correct inference to be drawn from these occurrences. If it weren't right, the black ink would not be absorbed, and the other incident would not appear. It continued like this until the sinking. With great perseverance and insight, I could lead. It took me five years to get to the final page.

This notebook belongs to me. The things I know no one else does. The inverted triangle the prince saw was the dragon's eye showing him the way. One corner of the triangle is himself, and the other is me. To fight her is his calling and to kill her is mine. Together we uproot Yeckin from within. The dragon has held her down all these years, but the sword has started to rust. We are running out of time.

I had tried to enter the sinkhole, but the bluish-green lines wouldn't let me. No one could go beyond it. But tonight, I was going to take a leap of faith. You see, I had found a way. There is more to be written on these pages. I would bring back my brother, waiting for me inside her stomach.

Fantasy
3

About the Creator

PALAK KANWAR

I am a simple person that has dealt with mental issues. Writing gives me focus and helps keep unnecessary thoughts at bay.

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insights

  1. Compelling and original writing

    Creative use of language & vocab

  2. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

  3. Easy to read and follow

    Well-structured & engaging content

  1. Masterful proofreading

    Zero grammar & spelling mistakes

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.