#achi writes

[kariachi]

“Excuse me, are you a sir, a ma’am, or otherwise?” The light tapping of it’s jaw with their boot drew the dragon’s attention more than the words. It’s great eye cracked open, pupil narrow. A growl rose in it’s throat.

“I’m trying to be polite,” the human said in response, their own eyes narrowing and hands planting on their hips. “This is my pasture you know, and I have to get the sheep through that gate.” With a smoking snort, the dragon’s eye slipped back closed, earning it a proper kick that it didn’t even seem to notice.

“Damnable flying lizards,” the human grumbled. Arms dropping to their sides, they gave a huff of their own. Turning on their heel, they stormed back down into the valley.

They’d be back a few hours later with the doors off a barn and a can-do attitude.

[kariachi]

It caught the trail blocks away, twisting over itself in slippery, languid movements. Moved passed quiet minds and laughter with the simple single-mindedness of a being that knew only the easy hunt. Long body of shadow slinking after the scent of booze and bloodlust.

Food stomped down the road, growling cracking desires into the night. No mind to the not-food that moved out of its path, nor to what slipped forward to wait. To snatch in the spot no eye could see, no camera catch, instinct acting without thought.

When the corner was turned, there would be clean clothes, clean shoes, clean concrete. That night, through luck, through chance, many would sleep peaceful.

It would sleep full.

[kariachi]

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“There’s a dragon.”

It took a moment for the words to really sink in, freezing his pen on the papers in front of him. His face twisted as he looked up, something too concerned and confused to be a sneer.

“Dragons aren’t real, Sargeant.”

“If you would like to explain that to the one at the gate, sir, feel free. I, meanwhile, seem to have caught something and will be calling out for the rest of the day.”

[kariachi]

Wealth is not for men to hoard, it is known. For it is drug from the ground by dragons and to the nests of dragons it eventually returns, filled with history and emotion enough to spark, to be distributed again when it has gone dull and empty. Metals, precious stones, exist to pass from hand to hand and so they do. Wealth that lays dormant, that gains no story, brings nothing but agony for the holders, brought on the wings of dragon searching out their due.

For this reason the approach of a dragon, despite most major castles and estates having halls specifically to host them, is always a little more tense than other grand guests.

[kariachi]

He would have had to be deaf and blind not to notice what people said about his choice of bride. Talk had, of course, been inevitable. She was born far beneath his station, and she was hardly worth acknowledging. She was foreign, and so she was a potential spy. She was powerful, and so he must have been lured in by promise or coercion. Her second visit to court had involved her walking directly up to the king and alerting him that his (fool, in her own fond words) crown prince had tried to marry her in secret, and this was the chance he was getting to allow things to go forth publicly. A sure sign that she had aspirations above her station.

As if he hadn’t had to fight all the way to get her to accept his suit. A foreign prince didn’t have it easy proving he was serious about his desire to marry a lady of lower standing, not unless the lady herself was also prone to flights of romantic fantasy, and she’d had no time for some random young royal trying to ply his way into her bed. Not when she had business to attend and more believable suitors to consider.

No, their wedding day had been years of valiant effort in the making. Of honest laughter at his jokes and refusal to bend to his expectations. Of quiet pride and hard work. Wild pranks and endless compassion. He had spent at least a month’s hours all together practicing his poetry to at least pretend to match her brilliance, sighed after her beauty in the afternoon sunlight. Traveled out to see her often enough she’d taken him to task for it and forced him to start bringing trade offers and the like at the very least so he could make himself useful to their peoples. And he knew that work wasn’t going to stop once this wedding was over and she was his, only that the bar would be set that much higher with him as her husband and her a lady of such greater responsibility.

It was going to be wonderful, and he had every intention of celebrating with every fiber of his being.

Tomorrow he could go back to shutting all those courtiers up.

[kariachi]

‘Just kill the dragon’ people said. ‘Then you get the riches of it’s hoard’ people said. They never described the dragon. People wouldn’t take these jobs for any of the cut if somebody actually told them what they were walking into. Scales as thick as your hand, that’s what you were walking into. Claws the size of a small child. Teeth you wouldn’t even experience given the size of the damn mouth and throat.

It wasn’t even a good hoard! The way it was described brought to mind piles of coins and jewels. Endless glittering facets, stacks of crowns, ingots of gold and silver. Not a mess of ore and rough chunks and fragments of crystal and precious stone. All reeking from the scent of the remains of prey in the cavern leading to the pile.

Plenty of people tried their luck. The vast majority spent five to ten minutes inside before just turning and walking away.

[kariachi]

Quick piece of horror writing.

~~

The city had gone dark three days before. In power, yes. Private generators still worked, as long as the fuel held out. The population had flocked to box stores, community centers, courthouses. Already plans for consolidation were being formed, to build fortified clusters around the vulnerable hospitals. Groups made their way through the streets, bringing survivors and goods from hold-out to hold-out. But it wasn’t just the power.

The sun, the stars, the moon hadn’t come out in three days.

Just a dark sky in which you could make out just barely deep brown clouds floating passed like nothing was wrong. Like phones weren’t dead. Internet wasn’t down. Engines wouldn’t start. No way to get in touch with the rest of the world, if there was a rest of the world anymore, but to head off under your own power. Hope the pigeons in the air were something someone trained. That the… things couldn’t survive outside the city limits.

Slithering, oozing, crawling through the roads and alleyways. Filling the space, from building to building. Stalking. Searching. Grabbing whatever living they found with spindly claws and dragging them inside screaming before they-

 Together, the city gave a soundless prayer.

“May someone help us soon.”

[kariachi]

There was something sickeningly thrilling about finding yourself covered with blood. About the brutal racing of your mind settling enough to see the matting of your fur, feel the remaining grit of meat and bone under your tongue. Those moments, when you were just enough in control of yourself to feel the shame lodged like sharp teeth inside your gut, but not yet down from the rush. When the beast was still just too keyed up, the echo of whatever had let it loose still barely ringing, to settle back beneath your skin. You wanted to lock yourself away, even as you licked your handspawsclaws clean. Knew just enough to know what you would find if you went into the sideroom you didn’t dare enter, even as your hackles slowly lowered with a growing certainty that all was well.

You wanted to scream.

You were so proud.

NobodywasnobodywasnobodywasnobodywasYou were safe.