The breath of the final dragon

Buried unconscious, the town awaits its awakening and trial.  Two hundred years and still we work on it.  I’m the only one left from then and the desire is almost dead.  Even in me.

I stand in the empty memorial square, the fire from the dragon beneath burning before me.  I think of those who died as my spells failed.  

My work can be done from afar, I haven’t seen the dragon since they built over it.  Today, feeling wistful enough, I finally descended.

It had been magnificent in its fearfulness when it fell.  It seemed small now.  Its scales had mostly fallen, its sides were swollen, red.  Eyes that had blazed now glazed shut, lashes alive with parasites.  Its talons were cracked, blunt or shed.  And the pipe that took its breath away to burn for our sense of justice..

I saw only pain, my anger at what it had done finally fading from my heart.  

My hand opened and I produced a long lance, pushed it deep into the creature’s chest, stopped its movement forever.

Free myself now, I left the town to further forget what we had done.  Would they even notice the flame’s death?

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an act of justice) or Ice Element (include a act of mercy)) and had a word count limit of 190-199 Words.  

Eternal Flame Memorial (Nizhny Novgorod). Creative Commons 4.0 photo by Andrew Shiva.

93 Words: Regrets, I've had a few

I watch a lotta toons with the kid before work, he can’t sleep.  Seen a couple with this REALLY stinky plant, that's how I recognised it.  Could tell it was right on the verge of flowering and stinking the place out.  Its owner was a green type, you know?, this was terrorism, I thought. 

So I just did it.  Picked it up like a football and ran and ran, like Forrest.  

At the surface I stopped as the cold air hit me, unsure what to do.  Before that it had been a dream.

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an animal) or Ice Element (include a plant)) and had a word count limit of 93 Words exactly.  

Train. Photo by Engin_Ayurt

160 Words: The Pause

She leaned in and said, “Come here, Blessings, my child.  The Orisa are all with you this day.  None more so than Eshu.”  She pulled back and fixed me with an unknowable stare.  

My mother has always been known as the trickster in our family and it’s just like her to offer such a mysterious blessing.  Eshu, often mistranslated as satan for so long, is himself a trickster, but also a teacher, instructor, leader.  He has positive and negative energies.

Knowing my mother didn’t entirely approve of Tzain, I worried that she meant to curse us, to send me to his home full of concern.  That pause consumed me whole and took me so far from the bliss I’d been feeling that, before she broke it, I could see how both sides of the coin could benefit.  

“But only the good parts,” she concluded as her face broke in the biggest, cheekiest, smile, and I returned to the bliss renewed.

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a mysterious blessing) or Ice Element (include a mysterious curse)) and had a word count limit of 150-160 Words.  

A Yoruba bride and mother. Photo by Fhadekhemmy

8 Words: Untitled

With his tattooed back, he always had ours.

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a mischief maker) or Ice Element (include a protector)) and had a word count limit of 200 Words with no minimum.  

“Pescaria no Parque das Timbaúbas” Juazeiro do Norte, Brazil. CC3.0 photo by MacioFeitosa

Untitled

I was in love with every member of our unit.  Like the Thebans and Spartans centuries before we were encouraged to form links of all kinds to keep us together come what may.  Warm kisses as we groomed our steeds were one of the many perks.

Now this fakery of a fantasia is how I live.  Recreating the events to remember my boys.

They came out of the mountains one bright afternoon, the sun behind them, masking their great forms.  They breathed fire on towns and villages, making charcoal of everything in their path. 

We rode forth, one of many units trained just for this.  Our lances in hand, we galloped across the sands to meet the beasts head on.

The first we met was easy but then it was little more than a baby that had wandered away from its pack.  Together we fought, moving gracefully through our practiced moves, firing the balls from our lances that would subdue and ground the creature for the wizards to finish off.  

We smiled and cheered together at our victory.  The last time we would do so.

Hours later all my boys were gone.  It's mother came and slaughtered us.  We were supposed to meet up with other units to take down one so large but it came at us so fast, so fiery and furious, that we didn't stand a chance.  

My boys fell one by one until only Nigel and I remained.  He had been my first, way back in basic, a simpler time, a simple love as we waited for the other three couplets to join.  They made us complete, allowed us more enjoyment, more love.  Yet each pair always had that extra little something special.  And so Nigel looked me deep in the eyes as he saved me and sacrificed himself.

Not long after, horrifically soon after, the Wizards found a way to put the dragons to sleep without a fight and it was all over.  Of course, it is the fighting that the crowds want to see re-enacted and where I sought to form a new unit.  But none of these boys were there, this love is ersatz in comparison.  

It is of Nigel, mostly, that I think of when we bed down together each night.

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (love found) or Ice Element (love lost)) and had a word count limit of 250-260 Words.  I failed entirely to complete this on time and didn't want to edit down, so failed completely with the word count, too.  

Fantasia in Morocco. CC photo by Maxim Massalitin.

75 Words: The Photo

The photo was how they found her.  It took only a few moments of joyful abandon to miss the tourist taking a picture.  A date, the food, troubles ever so briefly forgotten.

Such an innocent moment.  A photo for a travel site.  

People never think about the background, who might be found by the government bots, tracked down, disappeared.  

Not forever in this case, of course.  

Thank goodness.

Her revolutionary days were still to come.

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a revolutionary) or Ice Element (include a droid)) and had a word count limit of 75 Words:

“Khao Tom Pla” Uttaradit, Thailand. CC4.0 photo by Takeaway

Frozen Air

In a dinghy under the sheer cliffs of a glacier we searched for survivors.  We all pointed at the holes, planned searches of the ice caves.  Never did we think that it was in the air itself.

My crew all went in the same way, one by one.  First their eyes would freeze, their stares fixed into the distance as their screams began.  Then their noses would fill with ice, their lips would harden, crack and then break before the frost worked along their tongue, changing their screams into something more horrible as its edge deadened and it went flat.  Finally their throats were closed and the screaming ended alongside their life.  Before their bodies rested lifeless, all this ice thawed and evaporated as if never there.

Once only I remained, my ear turned cold and I heard them. 

A cold, hard whisper chilled me to my core and told me to leave.  “We are here now.  Never return.”  

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Written for Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element  (include something in the air) or Ice Element (include something in the water)) and had a word count limit of 150-160 Words:

“Arena Glacier” Antarctic Peninsula. CC3.0 photo by Godot13