Dragon Song

An arrow’s shaft protruded from just below the chink in her armor, most of it snapped off but enough left to see that it was yet there. She couldn’t feel it. Besides, she had more important things to focus on. Like not drowning; she could see it through the grate on the deck, water pouring rapidly into the brig, threatening to drag the ship down to a frigid, watery grave. They would have to abandon the vessel, or else be buried with it there in the sea.

“Captain!” a voice called over the din of battle that suffused the air around them, a clamorous chorus of steel against steel. She drew her attention away from the arrow shaft to the voice, mind still a little blurry from the wonder of the steel head embedded in her shoulder. “How near are we to the shore?”

The man addressed as ‘Captain’ thrust his blade into the belly of his unfortunate assailant, nonchalantly tipping the dead man over the edge of the ship’s rigging and directing his attention to the knight. “Too far to swim.” The man’s reply was somber, his face as grave as a funeral pyre. He was a mountain of a man, garbed all in leather and a massive, wide-brimmed hat. As much the vision of a pirate as she had ever heard described, all haggard and wind-worn and pock-marked. He thrust one boot into an oncoming attacker’s face, knocking the man off the deck, and thundered down the stairs from the quarter deck. “But if you want your lass to live, you’ll send her on a’fore these sods take ‘nother shot at ‘er-”

His sentence was interrupted by a cannon ball, which carried only half of him to the stern of the ship. The girl screamed, not in fear, but in a rage and anguish audible even over the tumult of the storm, howling gales quieting just a moment to allow her voice to be heard. The knight scooped her up, sprinting away from yet more massive balls of lead that peppered the drowning carcass of their ship, and thrust her into a dinghy.

“NO!” she screamed, but her protests proved in vain as the rickety little boat careened off of the deck and down to the water below.

 

It had been at least a few hours when she finally came to, head splitting and eyes burning from the salt of the sea. The slow, steady thud, thud, thud of her little boat gently striking a rock is all she could hear besides the gentle roar of waves crashing against a jagged, rocky shore. She peered up, eyes following the cliff’s edge, looking for somewhere to climb where she might find purchase to grip and clamber up the craggy face. She rolled off of her back carefully, not eager to rock her tiny vessel, and pushed herself to her knees. The climb would not be fun.

Her left arm felt as though it were on fire, but she paid little heed to the throb, instead slowly drawing deep, even breaths as she climbed, mentally cataloging each movement. Her plate armor felt heavy on her shoulders, the steel blade at her hip and bow on her back only adding to the drag of the armaments on her climb. But yet she pressed on, one push and pull after another, pausing only as needed to catch her breath, take a swig from the canteen on her hip, and continue on. She found herself simply thinking to pass the time, dwelling for brief moments on the men and the ship and whether they had survived, only to force her mind to change direction and circle back to those she’d left when her uncle had forced her to be spirited away. The last though was interrupted, rather rudely, as she found herself at the top of the cliff, but unprepared for its uneven footing, which sent her tumbling down onto the rock and sliding into the stone cauldron beyond it; her blade came unhooked from her belt, her bow snapped in twain, and she finally came to a pause as she struck a scaly pillar, abruptly ending her inertia. She lay her eyes on the thing that had blocked her continued descent, and found herself staring at a beast.

The beast, enormous, winged and scaled, leveled two great, slitted yellow eyes at her. Slowly she stood from her perch on the ground, and spread her arms, palms holding the sky, silver gaze locked, unwavering, on those great eyes. Her weapons were out of reach, and she was alone.

“Child of mine enemy, what dost thou seek in the Far Reach?” it purred, almost bemused. The language in which it spoke was foreign, and she knows its not her own, but she could feel the words the thing spoke, the resonance vibrating in the hollows of her heart.

“I seek only to pass,” she replied evenly. The monstrous creature hissed what she presumed to be a laugh, and tendrils of smoke and steam spewed from a sharp, scaled snout. She didn’t blink.

“You are brave to come so far from Ishgard.”

She shook her head. “I’m not of Ishgard. I am a child of the ice and sea. Please let me pass.”

The creature stared at her long and hard, a piercing gaze she could feel in her chest; she could feel it burning her, but she stood fast, unwavering and unbroken. “A child of the ice and sea,” the rumbling voice echoed, a deep shudder of boulders crushed together. She nodded, and the creature continued to stare.

She inhaled deeply, parted her lips, and began to sing; the beast, though watched her with the intent of a hungry predator, amused for the moment but prepared to pounce. “And old man by a sea shore, at the end of day,” she chorused. Her voice trilled and sailed. The great creature watched on curiously, canting its head. “He gazes the horizon with sea winds in his face. Tempest-tossed island, seasons all the same. Anchorage unpainted and a ship without a name.”

One great, clawed foot stepped forward; its eyes were perfectly level with her, growing closer and closer, eying her like a cat might eye a shiny bauble or trinket: curiously, but without the need to bat the thing.

“A sea without a shore for the banished one unheard,” the song continues. Her voice wove through the air like a serpent through the sea, a lovely dance of lyrical notes waltzing and dipping and swimming through sound. “He lightens the beacon, light at the end of world. Showing the way lighting hope in their hearts, the ones on their travels homeward from afar.

“This is for long-forgotten, light at the end of the world. Horizon crying the tears he left behind long ago….”

The yellow eyes narrowed in scrutiny, absorbing every detail of her fair visage, her armor, her wild, red hair, and the silver eyes that held their gaze so defiantly. Another hiss of laughter, this time filled with mirth, escaped its maw. “You share with me your songs,” it observed, encircling her with its great body and long, armored tail. “What is your name, child of the ice and sea?”

“Enambris,” she replied, and bowed.

“It is a great pleasure, little rose of the north,” the creature offered its own bow, dipping its massive head. “I would ask that you sing for me again. Share your song with me, and I will share my wings with you.”