Mistral: Battle For Majini

Dragon Spirit

But for a moment, the one who now went by the name Grenway did the unthinkable. She permitted a fantasy entry into her source – just a brief romanticized reverie of how she wished things had turned out to be. Those fanciful musings that, previously, she never allowed herself to have, she was giving into them then. Doing so was questionable but, the second she recognized the dragon in the boy, somewhere inside her, a gate had snapped open and released a deluge that promised to carry her away on a tide of much pleasanter things. She wanted to let herself believe that she was powerless to do anything about it.

Simply by looking into the eyes of the dragon staring back at her through the boy's, she was able to erase, albeit momentarily, what actually was and fill its place with what should have been. For that alone, upsetting the order of things was worth it. Visions of a past that never existed wove with depictions of a future that was unlikely to ever be. The picture it created should have been painful but it wasn't. Temporary though the relief may have been, the images moved through her source like a cool balm, soothing a long, unfading ache that had taken up residence there, ages past, and she allowed it to happen. 

Many years ago, she’d been taught two things – sacrifices were necessary and hope was a dangerous sentiment to rely on. For nigh a millenia, Grenway had fashioned her life by those two hard learned lessons; never once encouraging any such silly notions lodgment in any part of her life. Hope, she had come to understand, would taint her source and her purpose. Now, she couldn't help the start of a slow surrender to those feelings.

She'd given up so much for those who called Majini home. Why couldn't she have something that she wanted for herself? Why wasn't she allowed to want and be selfish with her wanting? 

The answer to those questions was a simple thing, unlike everything else in her little kingdom. She could feel logic and reality battling for prevalence over her growing desires. Grenway held on to her daydream because if that was all she could have -- and since that was most definitely the case -- she would enjoy it for as long as it lasted. 

The explanation that she had given to the boy – that they’d fallen onto strange times, here in Majini – was a convoluted but absolute truth. There wasn’t a lie, neither was there any embellishment applied to those words. She wasn’t trying to scare him anymore than she could sense that he already was or run him out of her homeland. In fact, where she stood now, being beguiled by this trespasser, quite the opposite was true. She wanted to keep him. He could be her sole connection to the dragon. 

What she had failed to inform Ejay was that the times that she was referring to were also perilous. His mere presence as an outlier in the forbidden lands bore witness to that. No one to whom the plight of the citizenry of Majini truly mattered could lose sight of the dangers; nor the way the tides were fast shifting.

The same was especially true for the one who now called herself Grenway. It would spell a disaster that they could ill afford in a kingdom already perched on the edge of a precipice. Too much was at stake and yet, Grenway had hesitated to tell the boy so. 

She'd watched the veil open up to receive him. Her intentions then had been to dispatch him on the quickest route back to where he had come from and without any delay. It was the whiff of something familiar beneath all the other scents on him that had stayed her decision. While it wasn’t possible for her to see beyond the thick skirt of darkness she’d been forced to enclose the forest of light within, she’d sensed him there in the meadow by his fear and that illusive something else that presently stared her in the face. If she had been able to detect the  boy, there was every likelihood that others who would use him for the most nefarious reasons had too. And they would come for him. Of that she was certain. She should guide him to a safe haven. Somewhere out of reach of the unseen evil poisoning everything good in the land. Even knowing that, Grenway couldn’t bring herself to pull away from the lure of visions of a life lived less in solitude. 

All it took to begin unraveling the iron-clad stoicism that she'd cultured to manage her expectations and emotions over a thousand year period, was his mention of the dragon.  Her moment of weakness threatened to lay waste to everything that she'd sacrificed and worked so hard to accomplish, for the sake of Majini's continued existence. Years had passed since she’d last glimpsed one of the magnificent beasts and longer still since she’d stood face to face with the most terrifying off all. 

The memory of that fateful day stole her breath. To make matters worse, the rhythmic purr of the red dragon had started rolling off the boy and drifting toward her like the strains of a beautiful melody. The last time she’d heard that sound, it had been used to deceive her. At the moment, none of that mattered. She simply didn't care. All she wanted was to be wrapped up in the music and allow it to whisk her away to the place where he was. 

Somehow, the boy who reeked of fear above anything else had evoked and was channeling the spirit of the red dragon right before her eyes. That he’d done so successfully and with a minimal amount of effort, from what she could see, was a feat worthy of awe and adulation. The fact that he hadn't  been smoldered into a heap of ash at her feet to become a permanent part of the veil and the forbidden lands, a memory to those who loved him, held her baffled interest. 

Grenway c****d her head to the side and studied Ejay – slack-jawed and wide eyed. 

That deep rumble emanating from his chest and growing louder, eclipsed her wonderment and the need to exercise caution. It mesmerized her. The innate part of her true self suppressed beneath the surface and locked within the confines of this form that she'd been forced to take on, as a disguise, responded to it, trying to break free of the barrier she'd used her waning power to erect. She’d had to bury who she was for so long but now it longed for liberation – an alliance with her betrothed to roam free by his side– and mourned the loss of it at the same time.

She could sense his pull like her own source moving inside her, seducing her to give in and reveal herself. If she did, he would find her. The very idea of the two of them united as they should have been, in the first place, gave her a thrill and the only thing required to fulfill what she hadn't given herself leave to long for was to give the boy nothing more than a fleeting. Throwing caution to the wind wasn't her signature but she was this close to doing it; even if it meant throwing the entire realm back into chaos. 

Unable to help herself, Grenway leaned in closer to Ejay. Her hand lifted in obedience to the command of her need, its intent to stroke his cheek – a conveyance of her unwavering affection. Slowly, her trembling fingers crept closer and closer. 

Then the boy spoke, in a voice gruff and a tongue not his own. Rather, the tone was one that she had been acquainted with a long time ago. The language, one she hadn’t heard from anywhere but inside her own head for ages, was like slap in the face -- his rejection, his open denouncement of her -- all over again. The way he'd done it had been cruel, callous and twisted and she'd felt it like a violent attack. The memory of his treatment had left its mark -- a painful scar that hadn't diminished in all this time. 

“We are the red dragon. It is our mission to destroy you. Soon, white fairy,” he spoke. 

His words reached out with the precise cruelty that she remembered well and waved away her dreams of the future that should have been as if it was only a mirage – which is exactly what it was. Nothing more. Nothing less. The life which she had envisioned just now, had never existed. It was a cold hard truth that she'd learned to live with and this boy had almost undone it. 

Her own weakness filled her with shame and regret. She should have been wary and not so susceptible to the enchanting wiles of the creature. 

Grenway snarled at the beast within the boy. She was better off being angry than giving way to the crushing sense of despair that she was all too familiar with. She let her hand flop back by her side and straightened her lithe body before crossing her arms over her chest while she studied his prone from in front of her. 

For the stench of fear that surrounded him, the boy had impressed her. Unfortunately, there was little time left to her to dwell on it or beg answers from him. He'd found a way into the veil. Others would too. She had to get him out of this spirit trance so she could guide him to the place of the order of the relics. Possibly, the could find answers in the old tomb.  

She chanted beneath her breath, words in the old tongue. Speaking the old language was a kind of liberation in its own way and hearing the lilting words of the fairy pulled her lips into a smile. 

It had been too long indeed. 

 The red light receded from the boy's eyes to give way for the dull gray she'd first noted on him. Only those from Casgory she knew had eyes in those pastel shades -- blue and green and gray -- and Casgory was no friend to Majini. For this reason, she wasn't sure what to make of the boy.

Wanting to walk on the side of caution, she ensured a brief pause passed until he seemed back to his senses.

"So, what's your name?" he asked, as if nothing had happened. 

Grenway prayed a prayer of thanks to those who had passed before her that he appeared ignorant of what had just happened. 

"Grenway," she told  him and once she did his features scrunched up mirroring exactly what she'd felt about his name.

His odd expression made her chuckle and she had a thought. There was something about the boy. That observation gave her an inkling of what the dragon had chosen him -- if that is indeed what had happened. 

She would just have to keep his company until she had all the answers. 

"We must leave this place, Ejay," she told him. "Others will come. You can tell me your tale on the way."