Dragon Fire

There is no such thing as bravery; only degrees of fear. —John Wainwright

Several miles away, the merchant was breaking the news to his beautiful daughter, weaving a story about a horrible monster, a dragon, and his great fortress. Belle’s eyes were wide with the appalling tale her father was telling.

“It—It hasn’t harmed you, Papa?” Her worried eyes swept over his compact body, searching out any sign of pain or mistreatment.

“No, no, my dear, I’m perfectly alright,” he assured her, but an anxious frown dogged his expression anyway. What would the dragon do if he didn’t do as he’d inadvertently promised—send Belle up to that drafty excuse for a ruin? A trickle of sweat slid down his spine at the thought, despite the chill winter air.

“What? What’s wrong?” Panic flashed, swift as lightening, through her mind. Not her father too! She’d lost her mother to illness when she was a helpless child—she wouldn’t lose her father too! Not to something as cruel and unnatural as a dragon.

Lines of anxiety etched themselves across her father’s forehead and dug deeply beside his mouth. “Belle, dearest Belle, you must understand. I had been trespassing when it caught me—I promised to return to the castle for—well, I promised to return. I leave tomorrow, early.” He caught his daughter’s hands, tried to chafe some warmth back into them. He’d think of something, surely, that could deliver them both from any harm.

Belle’s eyes grew wide and she shook her fair head in dazed denial. “No. No—that can’t be—why? What possible use could a dragon have for you?” Terror clutched at her throat with ripping claws—she refused to watch helplessly as another of her family disappeared, never to return.

“I don’t know, dear heart, but I have to go.” He would find some way of talking the dragon out of claiming either of their lives. He had to.

“No! No—um—I’ll go! The—the village depends on you to deliver goods to the city and bring back materials. You can’t just disappear into this monster’s clutches,” she cried in a panic.

Rhys’ eyes grew wide with horror. “No, Belle, absolutely not! No, no, a hundred thousand times no!” the merchant seemed unable to think up anything more convincing, so great was his terror that she would unknowingly fulfill his non-promise.

“Please, Papa—let me do this—”

“No! I forbid you from giving yourself to that monster, Belle! Forbid it! Do you hear me? You can not do this—for the love of God, the damned thing would probably eat you, Belle!” He clasped his youngest daughter by the shoulders, gave her a gentle shake. His wily old heart lurched horribly at the thought of his girl, his Belle actually going to that beast. He had never even dreamed of actually giving up his beloved daughter. No matter how much she frustrated him by reading incessantly, refusing to socialize or marry. No matter what that…that thing tried to threaten him with or do to him. His daughter would not be sacrificed for him. That he had promised the dragon her life, accidentally or not, not long ago was neatly forgotten; instead, only the dragon’s demand for her rang in his ears.

***

Nevertheless, before dawn the next morning, while her father still slept uneasily, fully resolved and carrying no more than a change of clothes and a miniature of her family in a little satchel, Belle slipped out of the cottage, saddled Armel, and sent him trotting in the direction that her father had come the morning before.

* * *

At dawn, the dragon was disturbed by hoof beats on stone, and the faint creak of the gates swinging inward. He blinked confusedly, surrounded by the dust and paper of the library, before everything from the day came back with a rush of foreboding. Sucking in a lungful of dusty air, he pushed himself up from the stone floor, too accustomed to soreness to complain about the tension in his long neck and across his shoulders that came of sleeping on stone. He left The Faerie Queen where it was on the floor, open to the page where he’d finally dozed off at, and padded toward the door of his sanctuary.

By the time he was downstairs, the hoof beats were fading away again. He hoped to the gods that meant she had taken one look and fled.

Let her be gone—better that she go without ever seeing…

He was in no such luck. Barely before he could leap for the shadows, the massive front doors swung open, hinges scraping open with a noise like the end of the world, revealing the girl he’d seen briefly in the basin.

With anguish ripping at his gut, he saw that she was even lovelier than she’d been in the basin. Somehow, that only made it worse. Early morning light poured in behind her, highlighting her features rather than casting them into shadow. It gleamed like fire off her long, wind-tossed hair, turning it to flame as it framed her finely boned, heart-shaped face. Her eyes were amber, the exact shade of good whiskey.

He shrank away instinctively from the light as she strode forward into his domain, trying to tell himself that it was for her sake. If he could perhaps spare her, spare her that first dreadful sight of him until she’d settled a bit maybe…

He threw shut the door on that particular train of thought with immediate revulsion. What am I thinking? I want her gone, back to her father’s cottage, back to her own life.

Yes, he assured himself as he followed the girl silently from the shadows; he wanted her far from him. She was a dangerous beacon of a hope he had no business encouraging. Still, there was some part of him that wanted her to stay, wanted the chance to fight his destiny, and that part of him was proving difficult to subdue.

The girl—Belle, that fierce sliver of his mind hissed, her name is Belle—wandered through the castle, apparently aimlessly, pausing at various pictures of especially important ancestors that had warranted a place outside the gallery to make faces, and poking into dust-coated rooms.

This random study continued for the better part of an hour, until they found themselves in front of a pair of large, intricately carved wooden doors. Over them, Aut disce aut discede was inlaid in onyx in the gray stone. An inexplicable hollowness gripped his insides, knowing that she had so quickly found his library.

She chuckled at the Latin motto that he had ordered inlaid months before his transformation, meaning ‘either learn or leave’. The dragon watched, troubled, as the door swing open for her like she were an old friend. That little part of him, the one that had fought for her staying, was gave a smug “humph”, as though to say ‘I told you she was important’.

With a shiver at such a blatant use of magic, still unaware of her silent host, she entered—

—and gasped aloud from the wonder of it.

Shelves nearly fifteen feet tall ranged around the large room, with more along the walls stretching straight to the vaulted, painted ceiling. Ladders of rosewood made access to the higher shelves easy for someone of human size—the dragon had gone without those books that he couldn’t reach for fear of knocking over a shelf or damaging one of his precious books.

Belle rushed forward, a small cry of pleasure flying from her lips as she gazed around at the literary splendor. With the elation of a true bibliophile, she spun around, to see all she could, no doubt—and caught sight of him instead, lurking in the doorway.

Immediately, he braced himself for her scream of terror, his entire body contracting at the certainty of her imminent rejection.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t one. Not even a whimper came from the girl. Puzzled, he lifted silver eyes to gold, seeking her reaction. Silver darkened to charcoal when he saw the terror and revulsion swimming in those whiskey-hued eyes of hers.

“You—you’re him, aren’t you? The one my father—” Her voice quavered a moment, and then firmed again, as though she refused to show him a moment’s weakness.

Trapped by her, dazzled so that he could not blink, or even look away from her, he dipped his reptilian head into a nod.

“He—the village needs him—I came instead.”

Again, he nodded, the loathing that faced him paralyzing, keeping his eyes on her, no matter how desperately he wished to turn away from her and her revulsion. He would have preferred it by a million times if she’d merely screamed.

“You—you won’t harm him—will you?” she asked hesitantly, her eyelashes sweeping down to guard her eyes, as though she feared that the question would give him ideas. It was enough to break the spell, and both relieved and aching, his eyes slid shut for a moment before he forced them back open.

“No, I won’t harm your father. I’ve no use for him.”

The girl seemed startled by his sudden speech, for her generous lips fell open for a moment, and her eyes widened.

“You’ve the run of this place, child, save the northernmost tower.” His tower. “Your needs will be dealt with accordingly—you need only to concentrate on what you want. I would have your word that you will not leave the outermost walls, though,” he continued, in his distant-thunder voice. She had no horse now, no reliable method of transportation—and the woods were deadly during the winter, when wolves and other predators roamed, and prey was scarce.

Belle spluttered a moment, terror forgotten, at the demand and at the diminutive he’d used. “I would have your word that you’ll do nothing to harm the villagers, or me, before you begin demanding things of me!”

It amused him, in a faintly bitter way, that she thought he could leave the castle. At the same time, it ripped at his pride, what little there was left of it, that she thought, even unknowing who he was, that he’d attack the village that his family had once ruled, protected, and provided for.

“You have my word on the matter. I care little for the villagers, and I have even less interest in allowing harm come to you. But you may not leave the outermost walls until spring at the very earliest…not unless you tire of living.”

With that, he turned and padded away.

* * *

Belle stared after the dragon, frozen in place by the threat that had just been issued. Icy terror blanketed everything else for a minute, anger a slow burn beneath, until she forced it forward. Anger was better, more constructive, than fear. Far, far better to be furious than petrified, and she had so much she could be furious with. The treatment of her father, the threats against them both, and that nasty little prick her pride had received when that damned lizard had called her a child.

Unwilling to follow after her ungracious host, she allowed her anger to simmer, and went back to the books, finding solace among them. Taking a beautifully bound copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—a favorite of hers—she sat and allowed the story to take her away to England, to King Arthur’s time. Maybe, when she had a chance, she’d search out a tale that covered Saint George’s slaying of the dragon.