The Dragon King

Fire. Screaming. Roars of fury. Then nothing. It wasn’t the heat of the fire, the terrified screaming of unseen people around her, or the horendous roars from above that always woke Narrie from her consistent nightmare. It was the absoluteness of the nothing that followed. One moment everything horrible was happening. There was a fire, people were dying, there was a horrible roar from above, and suddenly everything is gone as if it had never even existed. Simply nothing. Narrie never told anyone about the dream. After all… it was just a dream.

This time the nightmare had woken her up at dawn. She couldn’t see outside from the loft, but she could hear the stable hands beginning to rummage around for the horses of nobles that had boarded them for the night while others worked to feed and clean out the stalls of those staying longer or that actually belonged to the towns folk. With a big sigh Narrie shifted the blanket from her body and sat up slowly, listening as her joints popped in protest to sleeping on the hard wood.

She blinked away the sleep from her striking silver eyes and shook her head a bit to try and wake up as she adjusted to the pre-dawn light of the loft. After a few minutes of listening to the snorts and neighs of horses and the almost constant stream of curses and profanities that seemed to leak their way through the grooms’ mouths, she made her way over to the small chest that held all three of her simple outfits, two books that she had never read (and probably never would), and a silver necklace that had been left to her by her mother.

Ignoring the necklace and bypassing the books she grabbed her favorite loose fitting grey shirt and light brown pocket pants. She loved these pants especially because they were covered in pockets up and down the legs and she could fit a lot of random little things in them without tying up her hands or arms. She stripped out of her sleeping clothes and pulled on that days wear as quietly as she could. She wanted to avoid alerting anyone that she was awake for as long as possible. Because when someone found out that she was up…

“NARRIE!”

That would happen. Narrie cringed as the high pitched shriek of her aunt came from the adjoining kitchen just to her left. Although she was in the loft and the wooden walls and the hay all around her should have softened the voice it really didn’t help when it came to her aunt Amelia. She was just special like that.

Narrie quickly grabbed a tie for her short (but still long enough to get in the way somehow) black hair and raced for the ladder. It would be easier on everyone if she hurried to her aunt’s calling. At the bottom of the ladder she greeted some of the stable hands that were more awake than the others, waved to her friend Stef, and zigzagged her way to the inconspicuous door that lead into the kitchen.