The Wings of Nightmares

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Quella guessed that technically, this was still true.

She raised her arm to cover her eyes and surreptitiously wipe the sweat from her forehead. Even though there was no one around her, she felt embarrassed by how sweaty she was. The sun was heavy, glaring down at the Valley as if angered by the rolling mountains. And she had been under its fuming gaze for hours now.

Dust swirled around her, and she wished, not for the first time this afternoon, for the smell of grassy freshness instead. It was, of course, her fault for swirling up the dry dust cloud - more evidence of her excavation was the dirt packed tightly under her nails, coating her skin, and itching between every layer of her clothes.

Giving up on her oasis fantasy, she focused on the large beast in front of her.

It could almost be sleeping.

Its scales gleamed bronze and gunmetal grey, unaffected by the sand and soil. She had read in some ancient report that dragon scales were shatterproof, and so tough that they never sanded down by the elements - even after hundreds of years. Instead the buffing burnished them to an even sharper shine.

The giant form was still half submerged in the ground, its head and one claw-tipped paw appearing like it had ripped itself out of its buried resting place. But it remained still and silent in the strong sunshine. Quella knew that it must have plummeted to the ground so many years ago, and had been forgotten ever since.

Its face was muzzled in spikes, its fangs hidden behind its closed mouth, but she was grateful that the head had emerged. Quella did not want to have to dig by herself to find its face - the most important part for her research.

Then again, she didn’t enjoy looking at anything that had a maw so large she could have stood in it, reached her arms up, and still not touch the roof.

Mercifully its eyes were also shut. She did not know what would be worse - the knee-knocking, potent fear of staring into the eye of the greatest apex predator, or that it would be glassy, cold and forever missing its burning glare.

As if in answer, the sun seemed to heat up by another few degrees.

Quella sighed deeply. And then she got back to her job.

She both loved and hated her job. As one of the few still interested in mythical creatures of the past, Quella was part of a handful of researchers across the lands who still insisted on identifying, reporting and studying the monsters’ bodies on the infrequent occasions they turned up. This, of course, included dragons.

However, this was certainly not a popular career choice. Her parents always listened to her rare updates about her latest findings, but she knew they held an unspoken worry that she hadn’t picked a job that would give her better prospects. Or one that the rest of society didn’t openly think was pretty pointless.

But ‘making a bad career decision’ wasn’t why Quella hated her job. No - that dislike came from the minuscule funding the department was given, along with having to interact with the public when a dragon's body was found.

As if on queue, her battered, chipped and ancient personal detection device chimed once before letting out a sad beep. A new report had come in. And she had a low battery. Quella left it in her pocket - the device was basically as old as this dragon, but the dragon was in far better shape, even in death.

Hundreds of dragon bodies had been poached and used before her department had been created. But now they could, to a degree, at least stop the bodies being tampered with. That was where the majority of their funding went - in finding the bodies and keeping them to study. Quella felt that this was far more respectful than seeing the beasts’ skulls in public parks and squares in cities, or more often, adoring the entrances to the most illustrious skyscrapers.

People didn’t respect any of these creatures any more. The official history was that humans had defeated all dragons long ago. Their species had been hunted down to extinction - like all mythical creatures strong enough to pose a challenge to human kind. The histories painted the picture that humans were always victorious, as dragons were easily outsmarted, killed and forgotten. Now that they didn’t pose a threat and time had washed their battles from being legend, to folklore warnings, to bedtime stories, the few remaining dragon bodies were seen as little more than slightly exotic trophies or ornaments.

Quella shuddered. Just last week, there had been a petition to destroy one of the older dragon skulls in a park, so that they could use the bones to form a climbing frame for children to play on.

A dragon’s grave site as a play park.

That was why Quella had chosen her field. It had been her calling in a way. With a name meaning ‘to kill, destroy or pacify’, it was almost like her parents had set her up for digging through the past, confirming that the dragons had been destroyed, and suppressing her silent rage that everyone had forgotten the sheer terror that a dragon could bring in order to keep the peace.

Her mother and father had naturally said this was untrue, and she had been named after her great-great-grandmother. Quella thought, while this was a nice sentiment, it lacked the drive she felt echoing in her soul. There was something important about this for Quella - like her mind couldn’t rest until she’d seen every last dragon, confirmed it was dead, and let go of her fear.

And that was the heart of it. The idea of live, wild dragons haunted her nightmares. Dead bodies she was fine with, and actually marvelled at them a little when they were in pristine condition. So why couldn’t she let go of her unrealistic terror, like everyone else in society already had? Was it because she was around their bodies more than others? Or had she always been afraid of them? Quella wasn’t sure any more. All she knew was that every dragon body was proof that the war with them was over. And it felt right to mark the final deaths of these great beasts, than to have them destroyed.

This specimen in particular was an odd one though.

The Valley had been scoured for any dragon remains several generations before her (probably during the time of her great, great grandmother). Although it was still far away from the nearest city, and leagues from the metropolis, the Valley had been the site where one of the last dragon battles had raged. It used to be a popular school visit, until the fear of dragons had left society, and now only one train craft ran out this far a day.

But how had this monstrous form been missed?

Stooping to grab her canteen and take a swig, Quella studied the creature again. The front half of its body roared out of the ground, one forearm outstretched, with talons as long as she was tall. It was at such a strange angle that its wings were somehow still fully emerged in the ground, and its head resting upright. And it still managed to tower above her.

Gods breath, see this thing fly towards would have given you a heart attack even before it had opened its jaw to swallow you whole.

The curse accidentally left Quella’s lips as she moved her weight to other hip. She itched at her once white linen shirt, now stained to a sandy colour. Something else annoyed her about the situation.

It wasn’t just that this dragon had been somehow missed in over several hundred years.

It was that someone had tipped them off anonymously about it.

There were rare occasions where she had turned up to sites to find people crawling all over a dragon's remains, staking their claim to use it in their property (even if dragons were visually the equivalent of forgettable statues or boring history displays, their bodies were structurally useful). And the bigger the dragon, the more people there would be.

And, quite simply, this was easily the biggest dragon Quella had ever encountered.

She raised her hand and absently patted the scales nearest her. The hard plates were warmed under the sun, interlocking perfectly.

It didn’t make sense that someone would alert the tiny deceased mythical creature research lab and not claim it in the same sentence. Even monetarily speaking, this dragon’s talons alone would cost a pretty penny on the black markets, let alone its scales and skull.

A sudden gust of cold air raced through the Valley, bringing sweet relief to Quella’s heated skin. However, she wasn’t quick enough to raise her scarf to escape the dust it brought with it. Her face was peppered.

She avoided hacking a cough, but did suffer the specs flying into her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she managed to peer up and look to her right, back between the ridges of steep mountain that made up the Valley. Strange to have that cool blast of air, however welcome it was.

Strange was apparently the word of the day.

Frowning to herself, Quella continued to stare into the distance as her eyes stopped streaming. She had logged the dragon’s facial dimensions already, along with colouration, claw and spike sizes and scale pattern. She had had to make up its age, given she could see nothing to identify it other than “massive”. The largest and oldest dragon she had seen before had been only 25 meters and catalogued at about 70 years old. She would have to return to the archives to see if anyone else had encountered a dragon anywhere near…she estimated at least 50 meters from snout to tail end. Of course, that was still a guess, given she couldn’t see where its tail ended.

Sadly her work today had several more categories also left blank, including deterioration (seemingly none), wingspan (“unknown but probably terrifying” would only be criticised as hyperbole by her mentor) and reason for death. There was none of the telltale chemicals found in the dirt around the dragon so far, which would indicate that it’s blood had been spilt years ago. This left a bit of a mystery if it hadn’t died of a puncture wound. Centuries ago, humans had built machines to launch metal missiles, with enough power to puncture through dragon’s softer throats and membranous wings, which had turned the tide in winning the war over the beasts.

A silly thought flitted across Quella’s mind again, as she reexamined the angle of the body. Could dragons die of old age and rise to the surface of the ground, like giant icebergs in the sea?

No. More likely it was poisoned. She would test the dirt again for blood, and for signs of toxins. And she’d check again along its throat for any dips where bones might have been crushed. Or perhaps it had suffocated or drowned - she’d have to scan its mouth for that bit though. Maybe she’d just try to take a sample scale, if she could find a loose one.

Quella dropped her hand from holding onto one of the beast's spikes and twisted back to the body.

And Quella realised that she had never come close to imagining how true fear would actually feel.

A great, burning orange eye pierced her to the ground. Fire swirled behind the black slit of a pupil, roiling with power. And a voice rumbled through her mind so hard that she almost crumpled to her knees.

We return.