Dragon's Claim

Chapter 4

The Wyvern Forest. She was here. She was home.

Blinking open her eyes, she was instantly greeted by the characteristic silence that had become the hallmark of the place she had spent her childhood in. It had become this way after the Great Annihilation, a period in the history of Mysteria when all the dark nymphae were being hunted into extinction, her included. The majority hadn't been as lucky as her to have escaped unscathed.

Now, she was back, well prepared for the Butcher of Mysteria to claim her head. Wasn't that a pleasant thought? And, oh, the butcher was her father, by the way. The perfect cherry on top.

Unperturbed by the events of the Great Annihilation, the Wyvern Forest had thrived. Trackless and unexplored, it was a great impenetrable forest. The soil, drenched in magic, glimmered in the starlight. It was bereft of dominion, guarded by a creature who was its protector as well as its ravager. Well, that is what she was told anyway. In all her years living in Mysteria, which neighbored the forest, she had yet to see that magical creature.

A twig snapping behind her reminded her that she wasn't alone, and she knew that the troupe was definitely expecting an explanation, one she was unwilling to provide. She turned around and cleared her throat because that is what they did in the movies!

"Well then! Thank you for the ride. I'd better be going!" she exclaimed, nearly hyperventilating under the dragons' piercing gazes. To her surprise, no one tried to stop her as she made her way towards Mysteria. A place she really shouldn't be moving towards. They just watched her walk away, arms folded across their chests, expressions solemn as if they were the Agents of Shield. It was ill-boding. As long as they watched her, she couldn't diverge from her path, and the most terrible thing was that with their HD vision, she would be visible for miles. This was accentuated by the fact that from the end of the forest to the town of Mysteria, there was no foliage that would block their view, and it was only a 10-minute walking distance. Her only hope was that they would get bored soon enough and be on their merry way. To do whatever it was that dragons did.

She couldn't believe that after months of being on the run, she was willingly walking to her death, and no one even knew.

She could still feel a hair-raising tingling along her spine; the troupe hadn't stopped watching her, and oh god! She could hear laughter and chatter; she was getting closer to the metaphorical guillotine. For a brief moment, she thought how terrible it was that she had learned to think of children's laughter as a sign of impending doom.

Catriona was moving on auto-pilot now. She had dissociated from her body and felt like she was watching it all happen on TV.

She felt, more than heard, the first outraged gasp and then a series of them as she came into the view of people who had once been her family, her kin. There were murmurs around, hushed whispers as mothers demanded their untainted children to return indoors at once.

She moved her eyes through the crowd, and oh, there he was. It was rather underwhelming seeing the butcher after such a long time. He couldn't have looked more unassuming if he had tried, dressed in plain khakis as he was. But wait, she was wrong. He looked as much like a butcher as he was holding that unforgettable machete. It had tasted her blood, that machete, as it had been nearly successful in beheading her. His expression was, well, there was no expression on his face. She had expected a modicum of surprise, at least. However, it seemed she didn't even deserve that from her father. How could this man have ever cared for her? How was it so easy for him to forget that she was his daughter? How could he have stopped loving her as effortlessly as he had?

With their last encounter still fresh in her mind, she expected him to come at her once more, but he didn't; he just stood there looking at her as if he wasn't looking at her, his grip on the machete lax. Did he regret it? Catriona wondered for a brief moment. She wanted to hope that he did. It wasn't easy to sever the bond she had with him, unlike how easy it would have been to sever her head from her body. She wanted to hold onto that bond, no matter how dismal it may be.

Momentarily forgetting that she was practically surrounded by people who hated her, she held eye contact with the butcher. The people remembered the hatred, though; it didn't take long for the weapons to get assembled.

"You shouldn't have come back from whatever hole you crawled out of, you abomination", said an awfully familiar voice. Distantly, Catriona thought it sounded like one of her neighbours, but she couldn't be bothered to follow that trail of thought. She sensed that she was being approached by someone with evil intentions, most definitely, but she couldn't be bothered by that either. At least not until she felt the yank on her scalp as her unbelievably tangled hair was harshly pulled by someone who had a fist wrapped around the messy curls. Then she yelped rather loudly, which, if anyone asked her, was the appropriate response. The nymphae around her thought differently, though. It reminded them that she was less than perfect and undoubtedly graceless, solidifying their hatred towards her.

She stumbled, wobbling to the side as the fist continued to pull at her hair relentlessly. Scraping her knees as she was unceremoniously shoved to the ground, she looked over her shoulder, upwards, to where she could hear a choking noise coming from. Another series of outraged gasps reverberated through the crowd. Paying no mind to the sputtering neighbour in a chokehold, everyone unitedly whispered the same statement.

There were dragons in their midst.

And it was one of the dragons who had her former neighbour's head in the crook of his elbow, applying pressure. His eyes were fixed on her, though, expressions not bothering to grace his face. It was the one who had caught her having a panic attack the same morning. He watched on as that pathetic excuse of a man fought for breath, flailing around, and as she panted from pain and exertion. His eyes, focused as they were on her, had conflict brewing in them.

As the man slowed his struggle, he was abruptly pushed aside, resulting in him landing on the ground rather roughly, right on one of his arms. A sickening c***k echoed, seemingly, through the entire town. The sound seemed to have unfrozen the flock of people that had been gaping till now. They gasped and took a step back. Apparently, unless it was to kill their own kin, the nymph-kind had no problems displaying cowardice. However, it was nigh impossible to go against the dragons; she would give them that.

The nymphae and the dragon-kind were not at odds with each other. Throughout the centuries, they had been civil, if somewhat ignorant, of the other's existence. Catriona wasn't sure how this altercation would affect their formally peaceful and informally non-existent relations.

In a dramatic display of power, the heads of the nymphae entered the clearing, the crown parting to let them through. There were three of them, all tall, all men with a holier-than-thou attitude towards everything.

Patriarchy at its finest.

They all wore elaborate gold headdresses and breastplates with gold paint circling their wrists and upper arms. When Catriona had not been an outcast, she had called the three heads, the Three Perpetuals. The tallest of the three, Sylvester, who was also the second-in-command, was perpetually mean. The third-in-command, Rayvon, a man with an utterly forgettable visage and proportions, was perpetually bored, and the first-in-command, Copernicus, a man with a gaze so withering, flowers refused to bloom near his house, was perpetually arrogant. Catriona was unsure if they even had the capacity to display any other emotions.

Each of them was holding a staff with some sort of crystal ball at the top, the importance of which had eluded Catriona all these years.

"You have no business here, young dragon. Now, I'll forgive you for assaulting a member of my tribe, but you must vacate this clearing immediately with a promise to never return." Copernicus said, banging his staff on the ground, expecting no argument from the dragon, who was still very much concentrating on Catriona.

Heaving, Catriona stared back, fear was apparent on her face, as was confusion. She was grateful that they had helped her get to her homeland, but going this far to protect her was something she couldn't digest. In her opinion, going against an entire species for someone you have only known for 48 hours was a bit excessive, but here he was.

"You have enamoured him then? Is that it? Turned him into your slave, have you? It's not like we expected anything more from an abomination like you, but to have made it happen so soon? Has to be a record of some kind." Her mother spat at her, shielding her young, impressionable siblings from view.

If horror had a face, it would be Catriona's. She knew that her mother saw her differently after her mutation came to light, but this level of derision was something she never expected, not from her. Broken-hearted, she said nothing as she willed the ground to swallow her whole.

"That is right. I am her slave. And now, I will take my leave with a promise of never to return, but she will come with me."

Catriona whipped her head around to stare at the dragon in bewilderment. Sylvester inhaled for patience. Everyone present knew that a dragon couldn't be bullied into submission, so his attempts at domination wouldn't work. Catriona wondered briefly how Sylvester was handling this, as he was used to being the ringleader in all situations. The presence of Copernicus most definitely contributed to him not engaging in any direct altercation with the dragon, not that he would have won considering the odds.

"We cannot allow that. This girl has been branded a traitor; she must be punished accordingly. If let free, she would only spread ruin with her corrupted blood. You must leave alone and at once. There will be no further negotiation regarding this; my word is the law." Copernicus stated, his voice having turned gravelly from disuse.

Witnessing the entire scene from behind the veil of perception, Catriona felt a jolt run through her body as her assaulted neighbour's broken arm grazed her thigh as he convulsed across the ground in no doubt what was unbelievable pain given how twisted his arm was. The land, freshly muddied from the recent rains, left its imprints on the man's rumpled clothes. Wet grass and deadly insects native to Mysteria making a home in the seams. Aware and uncaring still, Catriona let the events unfold. Or maybe she was numb; she was uncertain.

"Your word matters not to me or my kind. If any of you try to stop me, I would advise them to be prepared to suffer severe bodily harm." The young dragon, whose name still eluded Catriona, replied in a kingly manner in extreme contradiction to his behaviour earlier in the day when he had been involved in the elaborate sport that is fire-breathing.

With that rather valiant display, the young dragon had successfully sealed the mouths of the entire nymph-kind. Catriona's gaze called for his attention like an ancient power, and he surrendered to the call. Walking over to her, he bent low, helping her up from where she was sprawled across the grass.

He pulled her up rather abruptly, making her stumble as she used his perfectly sculpted chest to support herself. Having armoured himself against her questioning gaze, the dragon whose name she still didn't know grabbed her upper arm, turned on his heel and headed off in the direction he had appeared from, keeping her in tow. His demeanour left no room for argument. Stumbling to keep up with him, Catriona turned her head to look at the people she had known her entire life. No, she hadn't known them, as was clear from their multiple tries at sending her off from this world.

It was similar to a thunderstrike when she comprehended that she was alone in the world. It was probably the worst feeling she had ever experienced. Suddenly, being sent off from the world didn't seem like such a terrible idea, which was ironic because she had been running around everywhere trying to survive.

She followed after the dragon, completely numb, not uttering a single morpheme. Wherever he was taking her had to be better than everywhere she had been till now.