Dragon Fire

"But I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe."
—Shakespeare, Hamlet

Pain rocked through him, stretching, twisting. His mouth opened to cry out, but there was no sound. His vocal cords were changing and reshaping themselves. He doubled over, writhing on the floor like a mongrel dog, panicking as his body changed its shape around him. Above him, he knew, there was a woman with the face of an avenging angel. She had brought the pain of the changing. But he, or perhaps circumstance, was to blame, for having finally pushed her too far. Too many people had died for either to ever be the same.

“And thus you shall remain, until there comes the one that will give you what you lack, despite your form. You shall have one hundred years in which to undo this curse, else you shall be trapped thus forever.”

With a jolt, the dragon bolted from his uneasy sleep, uncurling from a ball to shudder with the remembrance of pain. Sinuous, he slipped from the faded splendor of the bed he’d slept in for over a hundred years, ignoring the regal ruin of the room around him. Nearly a hundred years of periodic fits of destructive rage and then the subsequent depressions had made its mark on his personal chambers. Dust and cobwebs of the decades were thick, and went unacknowledged. On paws ending with talons better fitted for ripping and shredding than walking, he padded to the only piece of furniture that had been spared, and reared up onto powerful hind legs to see better. A bowl sat upon it, water filling it halfway. Once decorated with ten large roses—they had faded slowly, decade-roses. There was only one left now. The others had been replaced with nine smaller roses, year-roses. They were gone now too, leaving the last rose to fade, surrounded by thorny vines that were counting down his months. Only three vines and the final rose remained, meaning he had but four months until he was trapped forever in this shape.

His household, fortunately, had been spared. They’d been whisked away, lest some awful backwash of power catch them in a spell meant to punish one person. He was thankful for that at least. He wasn’t sure that he could stand being the cause of such horrors in another human being—especially not his family and servants he’d known since childhood.

He was alone, in this monstrous stone castle, and no matter how glad of it, he was achingly lonely. Kept alive in the great stone prison, like a criminal, by the same force that held him captive. Food and water were provided, wood lain in the fireplaces for him to light if he desired. Every door in the place save the one to his chamber would swing open for him—to save him the minor frustration of struggling with handles and knobs, he thought with a bitter chuckle. The furniture could be destroyed only in his chambers—everywhere else, it waited only until he left the room to reform itself, even the paintings. He avoided the gallery now—he hated the paintings. Every single member of his family for ten generations staring down at him, sneering. And the last, with the memory of disappointment and disgust always brought to the forefront of his mind at the sight, was doubtlessly the worst. He avoided it, and indeed most of the rooms now, for the memories were painful at best.

There had been, once, visitors. They had been surprisingly abundant, even in the years after the area gained its reputation for being haunted. They had stayed sometimes, occasionally for several days…until they saw him. He knew not to show himself, to never, ever show himself. Even so, they fled for various reasons, and over the years there were fewer and fewer humans that dared to enter his home.

The winter wind howled outside his windows, snow whipping against the glass in a frenzy. He looked down again, having learned by now not to flinch at what he saw reflected back at him. A long, angularly reptilian face was reminiscent of both a dog’s and a horse’s, with a rigid crest that swept back from his forehead, covered in the tiniest of silver-grey scales, similar to the ones that covered the rest of his body. They interlocked, like the supplest chain mail in the world. Eyes that were dark silver with too familiar hopelessness stared back at him in the water.

His body was the size of a large pony, though longer with the serpentine tail and elongated neck. Wings that could carry him remained folded tightly on his back—bat-like and huge when fully unfolded. He had learned that he could breathe fire, scorching the walls of his once elegant abode. A ridge of tough scale ran along his spine down to his tail, affecting his fluid flexibility not a whit. Compared to the dragons of old—those great fire-breathing, village-destroying monsters from even farther north—he was pitiably small, barely a fourth as large. But he was a dragon nonetheless.

He gazed into the mirror for a moment longer, resigned to the face he saw, now. The first several years had horrified him.

Something caught his attention, some tiny sound or scent on the air. Curious as to the change, he dropped back to the ground and padded toward the door and down the spiral stairs that led to the rest of his prison. The scent was slightly heavier, coming from the dinning room. Something was in his castle, perhaps a visitor. He glanced briefly out a window on his way toward the great hall; the blizzard must have forced them in. They wouldn’t have been here before, so they couldn’t know of him. No one who had found his castle could ever return or give accurate directions back, the enchantment wouldn’t allow it. Whether it was for his safety, or just one more way to punish, he knew not.

On silent paws, he padded to the largest, grandest dinning hall, halting unseen in the shadows. An old man; a merchant, judging by clothes and pack; and his pony were eating heartily beside a roaring fire. The dragon made sure to stay downwind of the pony; he didn’t want to alarm the two. They seemed weary enough without that kind of unpleasant surprise. Instead, with barely a rustle of scales, he turned and retreated back into his dark home