A Slave to Fire (LeatrixSage x A Monster)

[LeatrixSage]

The evening was already settling hot and humid across the valley and the miniature city that sat by the river that cut down it’s center. A bend in the river had cut out a deep chunk of land that turned the Sandbar Township into something a small port city a few dozen miles inland from the ocean. It was that deep, wide river that was the life’s blood of the valley. All trade came up the winding Current River from the ocean, unloaded in Sandbar, and then fanned out across the valley to the smaller villages and far off keeps of the power and wealthy. The people here knew her as Enyo, the ravening goddess that had come down from the highlands as a small girl in seek of vengeance a decade before. She hadn’t seen the village in years and coming back to it made her unusually moody.

Either side of the wide valley was framed by mountains so high the people claimed they were the bodies of long dead giants and titans that had displeased the gods. It was those highlands that had been her home once. The homestead her father had built had sat just below the easternmost peak, where the sun would be sliced in half as it raised over the valley far below. As a girl, she had believed the sun had slept in that dreary old mountain. The scent of burning pine still brought out memories Cora would have rather long forgotten, along with the faces of her loved ones, and their twisted expressions.

The wagon creaked as the wooden wheels settled into the ruts that pitted the muddy road that led through the main gate of the new walls that protected Sandbar. They hadn’t been built when she had known the village in her youth, and by the looks of the rubble that was left of the western gate, the walls seemed to have failed at their job. In the distance she could see tendrils of smoke rising from still burning shops and homes, sandstone turned to char and ash, and piles of dead being stacked and prepared for burial. There must have been another attack while she had been on the road, and some of the good people of Sandbar were packing up their meager belongings into sacks and leaving. There was a small tide of them leaving by the main gate as the wagon she’d hired for the last leg of journey shuttered down the road. She had seen many smaller groups of people making their way deeper into the valley, headed for larger cities and the sense of greater safety that they offered. This group was just the most recent to give up on their homes and run, the same as they had done in the face of any trouble that came their way. She pitied them for their hardship, and she hated them for their weakness.

The governor of the township was under a lot of pressure from the crown to put an end to the dragon problem that was slowing trade. After the recent wars, the country’s coffers were in no fit state to handle the burden of a breakdown in trade routes. When he had been unable to offer up a sufficient defense, the crown had forced the penny -pinching bastard into sending out for dragon slayers. Cora had been two weeks away in Welbourne, learning the battle tactics of the elves that had once dominated the small kingdom, when she caught wind of the goings on. There hadn’t been a dragon in the valley since she had left it, but knowing one was back… she felt honor bound to return.

When the wagon rocked to a stop before the half-smoldered Inn, the copper haired woman snagged her traveler’s pack and her swords and hopped down. Mud and clay splashed beneath her feet and sucked at her boots as she walked. It seemed the whole township had been doused in water in their attempt to keep everything they knew and loved from going up in flames. It was hard to believe a single dragon had caused so much destruction in so short a time. Only juveniles were given to roaming, but the waste this one had left in its path suggested the beast had to be a young adult at least. She doubted the attacks had been going on for very long without word getting out sooner, but an adult traveling to a new place was simply unheard of. Once they established a den, they didn’t leave it. It made the entire situation much stranger than she had first suspected.

“Enyo,” a cry went up that brought her attention to a well-dressed young man that hung on the edge of a boardwalk and waved frantically in her direction. “Lady Enyo, over here!” It seemed the little prat had trouble with getting dirt on his shoes, and instead of walking to her, he was alerting the entire damn town to her existence. Cora felt every pair of eyes within earshot turn her way and measure her worth. Each man and woman was trying to decide if they believed the stories, or if she looked like the warrior they’d heard whispered about, or if they thought she could even be Enyo at all. They made her skin crawl.

“It’s Cora,” she hissed at the man as she stepped up onto the board walk. She was not above stepping on his pristine shoes as she pushed past him, particularly when he was barely taller than her and obviously as soft as a noblewoman. “You are the governor?”

“His son,” he groused, obviously miffed at his ruined shoes, but fell into step with the woman all the same. “He sent me to catch you, there is no time for your meeting, and he demands-“his voice caught and the little man swallowed as Cora turned to face him. He had watery blue eyes, like those of a sick horse, and he couldn’t quite meet her steady gaze as he dried his sweaty palms by whipping them over his shirt.

“He demands?” she prompted, her tone tight, clipped, and controlled. She’d spent a fortnight trying to get to this measly little village, and now she had the sense they were about to tell her that there was no place for her here.

“Ah, that you travel to the highlands right away,” he continued, voice quivering in a way that made the warrior smile at him as if she were about to eat him alive. “We have a horse for you, and you can take any provisions you need. There is a small Inn at the foot of the mountain where you can rest for the night-“

“But, you are afraid the Dragon will hear a slayer has come for him and he will reign down terror on your sad excuse for a city?” she finished for him, already knowing the story. It was typical, but it still raked her nerves raw. He was just a coward, she couldn’t expect anything more of them. How many of them had ever even seen a dragon before? Where she’d been killing them since she had been a child. She couldn’t blame them for their fear, they didn’t know any better. They needed people like her, but they feared her as much as they feared the dragon.

“Fine,” she sighed, relenting because she was exhausted the small man was too easily spooked to be interesting. “Lead the way.”

He was all too happy to see to her every whim, so long as she was leaving, and by the time she rode out of Sandbar, the sun was beginning to set over the valley. The twilight hours were the safest to travel, few species of dragon could stand the light of dusk and dawn. They saw brilliantly at night, and as well as an eagle during the day, but in twilight, gold and blue hours, they seemed to rely more strongly on scent and sound, and most wouldn’t fly until it had passed. She’d be at her destination well before the sun had truly set if she kept a good canter, and she had dried meat to eat along the way so that she could sleep as soon as she arrived.

Tomorrow, she’d scale the mountain and seeks signs of the Dragon.

 

[A Monster]

Far off in the mountains, deep in cave systems carved out of rock and stone through fire, claw and magic, a great beast stirred. He was easily twice the size of a fully grown Elephant in the lands to the far east, sitting on a mountain of treasure larger than a small castle. His eyes were glazed over as he stared into nothingness, the cavern egg shaped above him, the walls filled with massive tunnels that lead to the different parts of his lair, with the main entrance a massive hole in the very top that led to a normal cave that ended in a several hundred foot drop down to his lair. Even though very well crafted by the beast, the simple structure and the fact there were only dozens of extra chambers instead of hundreds showed that this was still a home in the making due to his displacement.

Unlike the more simple monsters of the lands like Manticores and Orges, a Dragon often did not settle for a hole in the earth filled with a bed, instead forming what almost resembled an anthill out of the rock and stone, leading to different entrances, air tunnels, scrying chambers and places to store special items of the hoard that deserved their own room, or risked being crushed or burnt by the Dragon. The main room however being where a Dragon would spend most of their spare time, basking in their own glory.

Genkai seemed to be staring into nothing, but instead his eyes were merely seeing a land that was outside of his mountain range with a short ranged scrying spell. Watching 'Lady Enyo' with interest, curious as to what a lone Slayer was doing all the way out here. Yes, he had been awfully ashamed and furious with the defeat at the hands of the other Dragon in the area, but he had escaped with himself and his most prized possessions intact. Drak'Nal surely didn't mean to kill him this soon, and in a manner this brash?

After muttering words that a human couldn't fully hear, as the language of the Dragons wasn't even fully within the human range of hearing, much less understanding, his vision lit up with various colors as he scried on the girl. Seeing things in the plane of Magic, the trace Elemental Magic within the grass and wind around her, the Arcane traces of power within her, which all living beings held but only few could tap into. But along her back shone an astral being, made out of pure Magic, gently feeding itself off of her natural life energy. Not enough to drain her much, worse case scenario she may need an extra nibble of food to feed the awfully efficient traveler. It was a magical construct made by the rival dragon, a long distance scrying beast. While with the proper materials one could see and her things from far away, it wasn't hard to erect barriers against such magics. This being, however, would let the other dragon see and hear everything she did, counter magic or not.

"So, he means to send a sacrificial lamb to scout me out...? I shouldn't be surprised..." He muttered, his eyes blinking and refocusing on the real world. He knew that the entire area around his lair was Drak'Nal's, but also knew that he was safe for now. The other dragon didn't seem him as much of a threat, a mistake that he would make sure to rectify sooner or later. But allowing him to intrude into his lair and let the other dragon size him up in his situation was not something he intended on allowing. With a growl he shifted on his gold, looking upwards at the hole in the ceiling.

He knew that the Slayer at least knew what she was doing, and that she was bound to have taken place in a few hunts, maybe even killing a few whelps herself. But with the knowledge that she was little more than a scout in actuality, he knew that she stood little chance. Without the magic of another dragon surrounding her to guide and empower her blows to the correct places, and with no backup, he should be more than able to make up for the disadvantage that the low light would give him. Not that lighting was something that couldn't be solved in a field and with plenty of fire.

With a mighty flap of his wings, the dragon went up into the air. He flapped slowly and sparingly, most of the flight in him magical in nature, very quickly flying up the shaft of his cave, and turned out of his cave entrance and into the mountain ranges. After a slight adjustment he turned towards the smoldering husk of a town that he had burnt into nothingness, knowing that the agents of the rival dragon would be there too. From the looks of it, he may need to do another attack to fully drive them all out and give him a comfortable territory to make do in. Slightly lower than that, far in the distance, he knew that the Slayer was travelling towards him, even if he wasn't able to detect her with his eyesight quite yet. He started to speed out of the mountains, his figure at first appearing as a speck in the dying rays of the sun. But within minutes he was out of the mountains, and began to take a lower flight path, along the road towards the mountains. Knowing that the Slayer was somewhere here, but merely hard to detect with the sunset at his back. So he would merely have to delay the battle, and perhaps drive her towards an area that he lit up himself. Genkai sped over the plains, closer to where the Slay would likely be travelling....and past her. He flapped his wings harder, his magics propelling him along at an even greater pace. Flames gathered in his belly as he darted towards the village.

It took less than 5 minutes to go along the trail that took the Slayer the last few hours to go down, and into the village. The pitiful defenses of the town were very meek, and with good reason. A repeated attack this soon was almost unheard of, and was almost certainly meant to be taken personally and to flush the Slayer out of hiding. Whether if she respected the beast's intellect to accept this as a possibility was unclear. But that didn't matter much, the beast instead drowning the town in flame. Whatever didn't burn was crushed, and anything that sizzled was devoured. A massacre unfolding on an already unlucky town, and if gone uninterrupted, no survivors would be left. Nothing but rubble would be unscathed.

 

[LeatrixSage]

The powerful bay Cora was riding snorted and tossed his head as she was trying to relax in the saddle and take a drink from one of the wine skins she had been given. The cool liquid missed her mouth as the horse skittered sideways and splashed over her chest to soak into the leather of her jerkin.

“Hey,” she fussed at the horse as she jerked the rains and pressed her heels into the horse’s sides. He jumped as if he meant to bolt and she tugged his head back to keep him from darting off the road.

“Hey now, hey now, hold!” she shouted at him while she looked around for whatever had spooked the horse. A simple stick in the grass that looked like a snake could set off a skittish beast, but he seemed like a solid, dependable horse. As she calmed him, she leaned forward to stroke his neck, but she couldn’t see anything that would have set himself up.

“What has you so upset?” she murmured as she slid from the saddle. The bay wasn’t moving anywhere without her leading him by the nose, and she wasn’t about to waste her energy trying to force him. As they moved along the road the sun sank a little further behind them as they made their way toward the mountains. The small hunter’s cabin that was her destination was a shadow at the foot of the mountains when the horse tossed his head again and began to dance behind her. At the same time, she sensed, more than heard, some change on the air.

“Hush now,” Cora soothed the bay as she hopped back into the saddle to avoid being trampled by him. He turned a quick circle and she pulled him back. It seemed unlikely that an ambush would spook the beast, the smell of men shouldn’t bother him, and the valley was among the safest in the kingdom before the dragon had arrived.

The Dragon.

Cora yanked the horse’s head around and kicked her heels into his belly to spur him forward. He leapt beneath her, and then his hooves were chewing up the earth as they flew. Long before she saw the dragon, she heard the beat of his wings, felt the air warm with its presence. Tucking herself low over the neck of the bay, Cora urged him to run faster. It was a rare dragon that would risk the vulnerability of the twilight. It had to be a reckless youth, or a very confident elder. But, why would an elder risk the loss of its hoard to relocate?

This is all wrong.

The bay screamed as it slid to a sudden stop, and then reared to kick at the sky just as the golden beast roared into life over them. The dusk light his scales shown with a copper light over their darker golden hue, and then he was gone as fast as he had appeared. The bay continued to dance and scream beneath her as she watched it streak across the valley toward the small port city. Immediately the urge to chase after the beast tore her through her, but Cora viciously tugged the horse’s reigns until he was faced the hunter’s cabin again. Running off to seek the beast would just get her killed. Either by the dragon itself, or the people of Sandbar that would blame her for the attack.

“It’s too soon,” she fussed as she nudged the horse back into a gallop. “If I go now, I will die.”

Slowly, the driving will to seek out a confrontation bled away, and Cora settled into a steely resolve. She wasn’t there to save human life, she was there to kill a dragon, and she had to be alive if she meant to do that. So it was that she leapt from the horse’s saddle and dragged the frightened beats into the small pin by the cabin while the township went up in flames to the west. Beyond the city the sun was deep beneath the horizon, the twilight hours nearly gone and night fast upon them, but the towering flames seemed to light up the darkening night sky.

Cora wasted no time in gathering her gear off the frightened bay and pulling saddle and blanket from his back. There was no warm water to give him, so he would have to go thirsty while she boiled a few pots of water to warm the water in the trough. Drinking the icy water would make him sick, and she was careful to tie his reigns so that he couldn’t reach it.

“Easy now,” she whispered to him as she worked. “It has no interest in us. Hush, now, easy boy,” she talked slowly, spoke gently, about anything and everything, to keep the horse quiet as night fell over them. Within the cabin she had a small fire burning, and after boiling a few pots of water, she unlashed the horse to let him eat and drink his fill while she turned in to cook herself a warm meal. In the distance, the roar of the great fire was a like a storm rumbling over the valley. While she believed it was safe to assume the dragon had little to no interest in her, she kept the pair of slender swords she carried strapped to her waist.

In case the beast did come calling, she would be ready for a fight. What had yet to be seen was rather the beast came in the form of a dragon or as a man, and what it would take to kill it.

 

[A Monster]

Genkai devoured and destroyed everything in the village. Eating whatever pitiful survivors were left and reducing every building into rubble, taking the frustration of having to relocate out on this village. Dragons almost never moved due to the immense pride of owning such a large area, and the fact that a hoard was hard to transport outside of extensive teleportation magic, which was simply inefficient for large quantities of goods and treasure. So a chance to lose himself in his rage was a very welcome one.

After an hour or so of this, the beast calmed down. The fires starting to die out due to most of what was burnable already destroyed by his previous attack, and what seemed like everything dead. A few stragglers could be buried under the rubble or ran off in the chaos, but the chances of anyone resettling this area anytime soon were incredibly low. The beast now satisfied with his work, looked over the village and the area surrounding it, seeing there was no signs of the dragonslayer returning to deal with him here. "Mm...she is either very smart, or very heartless. Perhaps both." He muttered as he spread his wings, the irony that he was speaking of heartlessness not lost on him as he finally took flight and soared above the plains.

His eyesight scoured the fields, starting to head back to his lair. Usually a dragon would never spend this much time dealing with a single dragonslayer, especially if they knew that the slayer was not magically empowered by another dragon in secret. But the beast flying above started to hatch a plan to try to reclaim his territory, and the woman below could help prove useful for it. Plus, a new...plaything could just relieve some pent up stress from the relocation.

It took some time of the dragon following the path before he spotted the small cabin far down at the base of the mountain. His acute senses still spotting the small firelight and the horse outside of the shed. After silently flying by the beast circled far overhead, his shape began to alter and warp as he began to descend. Genkai's golden scales dulled and fused together, slowly starting to turn into a tan skin as his shape grew smaller and smaller, wind rushing in to take up the mass he previously took up. His draconic figure warping slowly into one of a man as he fell, ragged, charred clothing forming as he landed a few miles away from her cabin, in the direction of the village. Knowing if he showed up too soon he would draw suspicion. Starting to walk with a chuckle, wanting to have fun with this.

It was a few hours before he stumbled up to the cabin, panting and on wobbly legs after he decided to dash the last mile for the full effect of being an innocent bystander merely running from the disaster. His eyes a dark gold, and hair a light bronze, mimicking his natural form. Poor villager clothes on him, half torn and burnt away. "H-Hello...!? Is anyone here!?" He asked hoarsely, walking up to the door and knocking on it weakly.

 

[LeatrixSage]

The fire was dying down in the hearth, but the glowing coals were still giving off more than enough heat to cook a few thin strips of meat hung over the edge of a copper pot. The sun was gone, the moon was high, and yet the small city still glowed in the distance as it burned. She was far enough away that the roaring blaze sounded like little more than wind rustled leaves. What bothered her more was that she had neither heard, nor seen the dragon. She thought for certain she would have hear it trumpeting it's victory across the valley by now, or else at least have heard its flight back to its lair. While the little port town had been flowing with enough gold to be worth something, she strongly doubted it had ever known a treasure worth the attention of a Dragon. It made the repeated attacks, and the final, devastating assault, feel so out of place that Cora simply could not relax.

So, when she heard ragged breathing and footsteps outside the hut, followed by a broken, breathless voice, she felt no sympathy. When Cora stirred, it was out of irritation and a sense of unease. Dragons were, after all, tricky beasts. Like all magic, they were deadly, uncontrollable, and untrustworthy. It wouldn't be the first that had played such a trick on her. Of course, they usually went for playing helpless children rather than grown men.

"Go back to your village and burn," Cora hissed quietly from inside the hutt as she approached the door. There was no latch or bolt to keep it shut, only her own weight as she leaned against it to look between the slats of wood. In the bright light of the moon, she could make out the shadow of a man that appeared to have lived outside the walls of Sandbar. His clothes, now charred and smoldering in places, looked to have been torn and ragged longer before they had caught fire. The flesh beneath showed no signs of burning, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Unusual as it was, it could still be a trick.

"Who are you?" she snapped loudly as she watched him, her deep brown eyes seeking out the little details to see if the man moved like the wrestch he seemed to be, or if he carried a noble bearing. She sniffed the air, and smelled burnt hair, but not the filth that would normally cling to one so low as he seemed to be. "Don't you know being here brings you closer to the Dragon, not further away? Take the horse and ride south, get out of the valley. I cannot help you."