Pearl

It is a much forgotten truth, that upon any piece of earth where dragon blood is spilled, nothing will grow for a thousand years. Such is the manner of things.

Even now there is a spot in the foothills of Scthalail, the size of a small clearing, that lies barren. No sepal crested blooms dart lithely from the soil, no verdant grass springs lush and vigorous across the land. The hardiest weed spurns the place, in favor of some more accustomed ground. The dirt is singed to whiteness, scorched and desolate under the roving sun.

All around the sorry spot life goes on. A river flows through the vale, fed by the snowmelt of the surrounding mountains, a thousand shades of murky, unsettled sapphire. On either side of the heaving banks, stretch long fields of wheat and rye. The sweet grasses perfume the air and cover the land in carpets of undulating copper and gold.

But the silent ground in the shadow of the mountains is frozen in time– a melancholy place, silent and still– for all of nature knows intimately how to mark a serpent’s passing.

***

The Dragon, Baerengia, was not expecting to find much among the wreck. Plague, famine and war had rolled through the little village at the edge of the Vale in quick succession. Most of those who narrowly escaped death had fled hastily in the direction of neighboring towns– the more ambitious of their party making for the far off towers of Ashaere, which sat along the sea.

Tribute, it seemed, would be difficult to come by, with the humans fleeing in every direction. But it did not goad her terribly that the village folk had stolen away, taking their measly livestock with them. Baerengia knew how to wait. She was nearly a hundred years old, and could expect to live another four centuries, if allowed. Old enough to know how to sustain herself when domesticated prey was difficult to come by. She could snatch stags as they grazed in tranquil pastures, or lay a hold of wolves who strayed away from the rest of their pack. She had even been known to tear some unlucky bear apart, when she was in the proper mood.

No, the human diaspora did not trouble her. They would return to the Vale when the time was right. And in the meantime, she would foray into their newly relinquished territory, to see what might be pilfered.

All dragons are collectors of treasures great and small, and Baerengia was no exception.

Circling low over the town, she marveled at the delicious silence. No birdsong came from the adjoining forest, and no laughter permeated the chill air atop the village green.

The only sound was the delicate hush of her wings slicing steadily downwards until she landed, with a quiet thud upon one of the grimy, dirt packed streets.

The dwellings were sad, narrow structures, a grim patchwork of clay and straw and stone. A few of the doors hung open on their rusted hinges as though beckoning the Dragon inside. She ignored them, slipping nimbly through the wide dusty roads, her eyes alight with dissatisfaction. Perhaps there really would be nothing for her here.

She wound her way past the butcher shop that reeked even now of blood and gore, past the dying embers of the forge which once served the local blacksmith. She paced the abandoned stalls of a now vacant market, the air perfumed with old incense and rotten fruit.

She stopped at last, on the very edge of the village, beside a sinking abode, so slanted it seemed to be sloping into the ground. Even so, the walls were overgrown with moss and lichen, and wildflowers sprung playfully from the roof. Foliage burst up all around the perimeter in great green stalks, and for a moment, Baerengia simply sat still, transfixed. The house hummed faintly, in a manner that would almost certainly be indiscernible to human ears. But the dragon knew it for what it was: magic.

Warily, she sniffed around the threshold, noting the electric, singed quality of the air. In another moment, she pushed her head in through the open door, ducking low so that her glinting horns would not scrape the roof. It took only a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

The room was modestly arrayed, furnished sparsely with a cot in one corner and a rickety table in the other. Various pots and cauldrons were pushed up against one wall, and a mud-stained rug was laid out pathetically along the floor.

Upon that rug sat a child of unspeakable loveliness.

Her hair was rendered from the finest braided gold, a few stray strands of which cascaded softly across her shoulders. No amount of grime could obscure the noble majesty of her expression, so cool and opalescent that for a moment the Dragon wondered if she carved from stone. The lines of her face were angular, the forehead expansive and impossibly pale. Only the faintest touch of rose upon her cheeks betrayed that she was a living, breathing child and not something carved from stone.

The girl’s face was smudged and flecked with filth. Her eyes, hard shards of burning cobalt, grazed across the Dragon’s body, the exquisite molding of her lips slipping open to reveal the darkness of her mouth.

She looked to be about two or three, although the Dragon knew little of how humans aged.

Around her neck, hung on a leather cord swung a pendant. An amulet really. The Dragon knew it for what it was at once. A spell, probably a protective one.

Baerengia, beguiled by the prettiness of the creature, made to move farther into the hovel, but her broad, scaled shoulders caught roughly in the entryway.

The child watched her impassively, her expression glassy.

Tentatively, the Dragon extended the length of her long arm so that her clawed foot was face up. The gesture was obvious, inviting. And after only a moment of hesitation, the girl slipped her own miniature fingers into Baerengia’s waiting palm.

Now the bond was open.

Who are you, little thing?

The girl’s eyes clouded, tempestuous as the sky outside. She seemed uncertain. Perhaps she had not yet learned to speak.

Show me. Baerengia encouraged, eyes narrowing, offering a few visions of her own through the link. A few of the memories were hers, and some were those she had received from others of her ilk, back when dragons were not quite so uncommon as they are now. The view of the Vale from a thousand feet up. The damp, dripping walls of her cave, which glittered cozily with heat and treasure. A clutch of scaled eggs, slate gray upon a nest of crags, young which would never hatch.

Go on. She pressed.

And in the next moment, the child did.

A dozen images flashed before the Dragon’s eyes as the girl clutched her palm. A woman with the same cobalt eyes singing softly as the child drifted to sleep. The sensation of being held, of being loved. A bonfire on the village green, under a ceiling of glittering stars. A man, eyes bleary with drink, stumbling through the door to the hovel, his voice shrill, his fists clenched. The woman pleading. Panic. The feeling of having nowhere to hide as the man moved closer, his breath reeking of mead.

Without warning, the link flickered and died, terminated, though the child still gripped the Dragon’s talon tightly. This sort of thing happened, Baerengia knew, often enough with children who had been forced to witness impossible things. The memory simply destroyed itself. Merciful, really.

So you are alone, she hazarded.

The child watched her silently, her eyes like torches.

So am I, Baerengia offered finally, Can I look at your necklace?

She reflected the image of the girl’s pendant through the bond, accompanied by her desire to appraise it.

Shifting, the child moved slightly closer. If she squinted, Baerengia could read what was etched upon the stone which dangled along her collar.

The runes were to the point.

Whoever takes what is not theirs shall find themselves punished.

Baerengia shivered slightly. She had heard of such spells being placed upon infants to protect them from the Fae– for those mighty folk were rumored to swap them out for changelings. It was an ancient practice.

But surely such a curse would not extend to her. After a moment, she decided.

The Dragon had not expected to find much among the wreck. But the human child was so prettily formed, like some kind of well-loved jewel, tucked away so carefully inside the hovel, that Baerengia decided that she would treat her like one. She would abscond back with her to the cave where she slept, and keep her among the other valuable objects in her possession.

What are you called? She hummed through the bond, not really expecting the girl to answer.

And when the child failed to offer anything in response, the Dragon decided for her.

Pearl, she thought to herself, pleased with how easily the name had occurred to her. Something in the quality of the child’s pallor, in the strange translucence of the child’s pale skin.

Yes, Pearl suited the girl. In a fluid motion, Baerengia severed the leather cord so that the amulet dropped to the dust at their feet. It glimmered there for a moment in the shadow of the hovel. Pearl’s eyes regarded it softly.

Leave the necklace there, sweet thing, she asserted through the bond, and after a moment the child swallowed, and glanced away.

Huffing contentedly with the day’s find, the Dragon coaxed the girl from her place on the floor, and out into the twilight. Before the small, shivering girl could think to move away, the dragon gripped her firmly, but gently in her talons and lumbered into the darkening air in the direction of her cave.

***

The child grew quickly, or perhaps it only seemed so to Baerengia, who was ancient by mortal standards. After a few months had passed, the Dragon found she was quite used to the girl, and even enjoyed her company.

Pearl, for her part, was a quiet, reticent creature. An easy child. When she eventually began to speak, her voice was low and mellifluous, and Baerengia was warmed to hear it. She sustained the girl for a time on dragon’s milk, and when that no longer seemed practical, foraged for fruits from the abandoned orchards. The sharpness that had characterized her gaze in toddlerhood became softer as she grew, growing dreamier in quality as the years drifted by.

When Pearl did not feel like talking, she would simply press her hand to the jewel hard scales that ran along Baerengia’s shoulder, and the two would speak in a manner beyond language. Theirs was an exchange of emotions, sensations, of being itself.

That the child was not like other humans was obvious. Something in her manner was queer and uncanny, entirely too cold.

Sometimes the Dragon would catch the girl staring dreamily out of the mouth of the cave, her eyes dull and lifeless.

Sometimes the Dragon wondered if the girl had a soul.

***

Pearl began straying for long periods from the cave, traversing the rocky mountain paths and jagged crags of the surrounding hills while Baerengia hunted. Sometimes, she drifted into the nearby forests to bathe, and would be gone for hours at a time.

When she did return, her look was more vacant than ever– even more inaccessible than when she had disappeared.

This unnerved the Dragon, who wished the girl might remain shrouded in the safety of the rocks.

Where have you been? Baerengia would ask, claws balanced upon the open carcass of a deer, when the girl appeared at the mouth of the cave one evening, her drenched golden hair hanging in white tangles down her back.

Nowhere, mother. Just along the stream. Pearl would return, her own eyes glassy and indifferent, perfect impenetrable reflections.

The girl had always been given to silence, but this was somehow different.

Baerengia wondered vaguely if Pearl might have met someone. A human companion, perhaps. But she swiftly dismissed the idea. There were no humans in the Vale any longer.

And so when Pearl left the cavern, she did not stop her.

When the girl did speak, it was only to ask peculiar questions.

Why is it just the two of us here, all alone? She might inquire, her haunting countenance perfectly unreadable.

Dragons are solitary creatures, I’ve told you this. Baerengia would return tersely.

And what of mortal men? They are social, aren’t they?

Enough now, Pearl.

Why do you keep me here, apart from everything?

Enough.

***

One morning, dawn broke across the foothills, and Pearl had not returned to the cavern. A strange burning, quite apart from the usual fire inside of her, seemed to course through Baerengia’s body.

Where are you? She cast out, to no avail.

She rose anxiously to her feet, shaking the night from her unfurling wings. Outside the cave came the sound of a twig snapping.

Pearl?

She moved languidly into the open air, blinded temporarily by the sun. She could smell the girl off somewhere nearby, she registered vaguely. But there was another scent too. Like sweat and cedarwood. Her muscles tightened and sulfur rose in her throat. There was another human waiting for her. A man.

Before she could turn to face the threat, she felt a prick in her side. Pain blossomed from the point, unfurling in waves. She whirled around, as another blow landed and then another. Shrieking with rage she moved so that she could see her attacker.

More armor than flesh, was her first thought. The boy had a helmet on which disguised most of his face, but she could make out hateful, determined brown eyes behind the shimmering metal. Fool.

Where was Pearl?

She let loose a torrent of flame in his direction, which he narrowly dodged, leaping for the cover of a nearby boulder.

A coward, she thought to herself. She would have to deal with him later. Years had passed since she had glimpsed mortal men in the Vale, to say nothing at all of knights.

In the ensuing silence, she appraised her wounds. Blood gushed from her side alarmingly. How could she have been quite so distracted?

And where was Pearl?

At that moment, the girl slipped out from behind a rock, her cobalt eyes wary.

A wave of relief washed over the Dragon as she examined her daughter, checking for any obvious injuries.

Are you alright? Are you injured? She pressed, frantic.

The girl shook her head, her expression shell-shocked. She opened her mouth and shut it again.

And in that moment, the man struck again, thrusting the tip of his sword between the length of her ribs.

The pain was almost overwhelming.

Crumbling to the ground, she gasped, incapable of summoning her usual fire.

She was vaguely aware of Pearl pressed into her side.

I’m sorry, the girl hummed through the bond, Lancelot promised he would make this quick. I’m so sorry.

Lancelot.

Baerengia could hardly think through the haze of blood and agony, but she had the sinking sense she had been betrayed.

The words of that long ago warning came back to her.

Whoever takes what is not theirs shall find themselves punished.

Her eyes rolled so that they could examine the knight who knelt cautiously beside her daughter, watching as she bled out.

She might have laughed.

Whoever takes what is not theirs shall find themselves punished.

The fool of a man would find that this was true enough, she thought, before succumbing to the pull of the darkness.

***

It is a much forgotten truth, that upon any piece of earth where dragon blood is spilled, nothing will grow for a thousand years. Such is the manner of things.

Even now there is a spot in the foothills of Scthalail, the size of a small clearing, that lies barren. The silent ground in the shadow of the mountains is frozen in time– a melancholy place, silent and still– for all of nature knows intimately how to mark a serpent’s passing.