Midnight Blood

A sharp, tearing, ringing sound sliced through her dreams. She shifted and huffed out air, hoping the sound would move on and leave her to rest. It didn’t. It lingered, rising and falling, shrill and earsplitting. She growled. How dare some obscene creature disturb her rest! Did it not know she had travelled far, that she was tired, and it was making her angry? 

She rose, stretching her limbs, and began pushing through the trees. Branches snapped and ground against her hide. Leaves rained down around her, and she impatiently shook them from her eyes. The fresh smell of splintered wood began to fill the air as sticky sap clung to the sharp edges of her jewel-like scales. She sighed in added frustration. It would take her a long time to get it all off. 

The sound became closer with each step. It rose and fell, sometimes loud on the wind, other times softer. Something about it tugged on memory strings she had long left loose. 

She sniffed. The night air had the taint of blood. It left its cloying stench in her nose and made her scales shiver. Other scents swirled in the wind: sweat, fear, and damp fur. She huffed again, smoke trailing from her nostrils. Clearly, she had chosen the wrong place to rest.

A flutter of movement caught her eye, and she focused on the ground. A human was beside a long toppled tree among the ferns and fallen leaves. A woman. The woman lay on the earth awkwardly as though she had tripped. Her lifeblood leaked onto the leaves and into the soil. The rasp of her breath was evident even over the wailing sounds. For that is what the noise was. 

She moved closer and, using a talon, rolled the woman onto her back. A small human child was wrapped in blankets and protected by her body. The child’s desperate cry turned into a whimper, and it clung to its ragged blankets. The woman shifted, causing a sharp wheeze to escape from between her lips. Her pale hand groped for the child, drawing it closer to her again, even though the effort caused more blood to stain her torn dress. 

The sight of the woman and child brought forth memories she had locked away long ago in the dark recesses of her mind. She felt her frustration fade. Lowering her head, she gazed at them. A pinch of relief ran through her as she realised that only the woman was hurt. But she could hardly tell what colour the woman’s dress had been, it was so stained with blood.

A new sound caught her attention. The yap of dogs cutting through the forest's midnight chorus and causing the night's insects to cease. How hadn’t she heard the infernal creatures before? She raised her head and watched as seven dogs appeared in the trees.

They sneered and paced before her. One raised its head, calling for its master. Their eyes caught the moon’s light as a cloud shifted across the sky, and deep growls vibrated from their chests. She returned one, letting it rise from the bottom of her breast through her throat and teeth. It was louder and more threatening than theirs. As it should be. They slunk back, continuing to move around her, teeth bared. 

One leapt forward, nipping at the point of her tail. She roared at it, flicking her tail and sending it into a trunk. It lay whining on the ground. The others kept their distance, learning from their idiot comrades' mistake. Their hackles raised. 

The clumsy sounds of humans seeped through the trees. Their feet and voices raised as they followed the calls of their hunting dogs. She could hear the clunk and shriek of metal as they moved. 

“Help…”

She turned her attention back to the woman and found that she was looking up at her. Her golden eyes were clear and focused as they drilled into her own. Tears pooled in their corners. 

“Help… her…” She breathed, her voice rough and desperate.

A dog howled. A human yelled. 

“Please… save my… baby….” The woman reached out, her blood-coated hand stretching towards her. “Please…” 

She could see it in her eyes. The feeling she would never forget. The one that had long ago torn her own heart in two. She looked at the child again, the small human who was just beginning its journey through this world. She still remembered the fire carried on the winds, the horrid fighting. The cries and roars rang in her ears. The scent of burning flesh. The pain as her mate fell from the sky. The deeper agony had come as she watched her precious eggs destroyed. Her sweet little one, who had just left his shell, torn from her as though he had never been. 

A yell brought her back, and she whipped her head around. The humans were in the trees, cased in their dull protective casings. Weapons in their hands all pointed towards her. 

“Well, how interesting,” one said. They stepped in front of a pine tree, their armour catching the moon showing its polish greater than the rest. She could not tell if the human was male or female. All she knew was that they made her scales crawl. They radiated dark like their very soul was rotting away. “Kill the dragon, its head will make a fine addition to my wall. Leave the bitch, the wolves will have a joyous time finishing her off. Take the child, our illustrious Emperor will take great pleasure in ensuring she suffers for her people’s sins.”

The humans moved, stepping closer and spreading out. Moving through the trees to circle her. Their numbers were greater than she had thought. Who was this woman and child that so many soldiers would be sent into the mountains after them? She knew little of the triflings of the humans. Their affairs often passed her before she could even take note of them.

She growled again. The warning rippled through the air. They hesitated, stalled in their movements. She could smell their fear, it pulsed like sweat from their pores. Arrows sprang from the darkness and sliced towards her. They ricocheted off her hide, battering her scales and leaving sharp pricks of pain. She allowed her fire to come forward and as she growled again it danced between her teeth. 

She heard it. The twang of bowstrings, the whistle of arrows as they sliced through the air. She released the dazzling jet of purple-tinted flame; drowning the humans, disintegrating the dogs and trees in its wake. She let it pour from her maw. Wood popped and crackled as the flames climbed up the ancient trees. Dogs yelped, falling under the scorching fever and fleeing into the safety of the forest's depths. The humans did what they could to resist. She could feel their magic, though not all could hold out against her. The forest was now aflame. They would soon enough break through the burning wall she had created. But it would be enough. 

She turned back. The child was hiding within the blankets, silent and still. The woman was clinging to the child, sheltering it from the heat. Her breathing hollow, the blood flow less; the woman was paler, her lips blue. She could feel the cold as she lowered her snout to the woman’s sweat-covered brow. 

She pressed her mind towards the woman, circling her consciousness with her own. She saw her, all she knew, all the truths she kept within. All that had been and all that could have come to be. She saw her past deeds, her loves, her losses. And with her, she felt a kinship that could never be spoken with words. Only those who had shared their losses would ever be able to understand. 

Fear not. She said, sending the words and conviction into the woman’s mind. I promise to protect her. I will not allow them to have her. I will make sure she grows strong. I will make sure she becomes who she is meant to be. She felt the peace that settled through the woman as she breathed her love and final goodbye.

She took in the memory of the woman. The deep black of her hair, her shining golden eyes and sun-kissed skin. The soft fragrance of sweet flowers that come in spring. Her skin's smooth touch and the warmth it would have held. And she put it away, stored it with the memories she had seen in her mind, for when the time would be fitting to share them. 

The humans were beginning to break through the fire. She could feel their magic and hear their yells. She caught the trembling, weeping child up into her talon. She held it closer to her core fire, wanting to take the night's chill away from its slight frame. 

She couldn’t take flight from here. The trees were too close, even with the fire tearing through them. The branches would do nothing other than tear her wings apart. The flames would seek to bring the child into their clasp. She began to retrace her steps, pushing back through the frustrating brush, as she was only able to walk on three legs her going was slower. 

The humans were coming after them. Their boots bet at the ground, their armour and voices throbbing through the night. The remaining dogs were close to her tail, their needle-like teeth trying to gain purchase. 

Her head broke into the clearing where she had landed, and she prepared herself for flight. The exhaustion she had felt earlier had evaporated. As her magnificent wings spread out, she shifted her weight onto her back legs, ready to leap to the safety of the glittering sky. A sharp pain erupted from her left wing as an arrow passed through it. She growled. 

These puny, cruel humans were not going to defeat her.

She jumped. When she reached the apex, she pushed her wings down hard, gritting her teeth against the pain. More arrows came. They collided with her scales, bruising the soft skin underneath and grazing her wings. She beat her wings again, the tips scraped the trees and then she was above them. Two more powerful strikes had her out of the human's reach. She circled above. The forest was burning. In the light of the flames, she could see the woman’s final resting place. It was not the funeral she deserved but allowing the dark creatures of the night to take her was worse. As she circled again, she swooped down and let loose a torrent of fire. It rippled between her teeth and rushed toward the trees, the ground, and the woman. She banked and turned south before the streams of human magic could catch hold of her.

The child whimpered. She kept a firm but tender grip on it. The dark landscape sailed by below, the hills covered in trees. The silence was disturbed only by the hoots of owls. She kept her strokes steady, letting the air currents carry them over the land and away from the smoke, the humans and danger. Soon the child became still, the deep breaths indicating it had fallen asleep. She grazed her mind over the child’s wanting to keep out the terrors that were sure to come.

It had been a long time since she had been with humans. She had escaped the fighting that had taken her eggs and her mate. She had hoped the horrors would take her too, but they hadn’t. She had kept flying long after her muscles had begun to ache, and exhaustion had begun to wind its fingers into her. 

She couldn’t remember landing. She could remember waking and finding humans there, looking at her. She had been afraid of them. The Elder’s had always said humans were evil. Everything they touched was ruined. They were nothing but cruel. That they destroyed everything around them. Determined to make the world in their own shape. 

She had tried to scare them off, tried to leave, tried to continue her journey away from pain to oblivion. She hadn’t been able to. Her wings were heavy. The movement had sent shocks of pain surging through her being. So she had decided to let the humans take her, for that is what they did. They took her kind as a prize. She didn’t mind. It would be better than this thundering pain inside her. 

They hadn’t. They had brought some sort of salve, which they had placed on physical wounds she hadn’t even known were there. It had stung but soon took the pain away. They brought her food and water. They lit a fire nearby at night to keep the dark at bay and chill away. A boy had sat nearby and read to her. Telling her the human tales of heroes, princesses and adventures. The boy had blanched when the stories told of humans defeating dragons, but he had changed them and rewritten them into new, much better tales. 

He visited her every day, spent hours talking to her, first keeping his distance, then getting closer until he sat beside or on her. He told her everything, all the things that annoyed him and all the things that excited him. His warmth had begun to melt the ice that clung to her heart. On a night when a great storm had swept through, he had come running to her carrying blankets. He had wanted to shelter her from the rain, protect her from the storm, but it was she who had ended up drawing him under her wing, defending him against the horrid weather. 

Those humans had shown her kindness and love. They had saved her in more ways than they would ever know, and that was a debt she would never be able to repay. She had decided to stay after she had healed. She had watched the boy become a man. Watched as his parents aged, his siblings left, and as he fell in love. She even helped him rebuild his house when another far worse storm had tried to sweep it away. 

Until one day, he came running to her; his son trailing behind him with tears on his cheeks. She had thought he was coming to tell her his second child had entered the world, but panic and grief had filled his eyes. He had told her she must go, that other humans had heard about her presence there, and they were coming to slay her. To take away her power, her name. 

Tears had filled his eyes as his arms circled her neck, as he promised that he and his kin would never forget, that she would always be welcome. It again tore at her heart to leave this new family she had found. To leave the place she had begun to see as home, where she had once again found her spark. As she had left, she had seen the men, the soldiers on the road heading towards his home, and had made sure they saw her. She had ensured they followed her and would not destroy more of those she loved. 

She had wanted nothing more than to return over the years. She had passed over that valley many times. She had seen him grow old from a distance, with grandchildren circling his ankles. She watched his son grow older, teaching his children the lessons and telling the stories his father had told him. She longed to join them but didn’t, as the thing she wanted more was their safety. 

Human lives were brief. They glowed so bright, brighter than any of the other races, and yet lived such a short time, but she would always carry them with her. 

Now she held another human. One who, like her, had lost everything. One who had so much to give to the world. And she would not break the promise to the woman, the child’s mother. She would protect and help it get to where it is meant to be. She would find them a safe place and a loving home to grow. Then she would help them correct the balance that had been tipped.