The Dragon's Heart

When dragons are hunted, what does it take to survive?

Written for the Day 5 Prompt of Flash Fiction February.

Source: Pexels

Rain lashes against the stone face of the cave in a torrential onslaught, painting the landscape a bleak grey. Sir Hargrove removes his helm to study the what lies beyond the cave entrance, staying stock still until he’s certain that nothing follows. He rakes a hand through his damp golden locks with a shuddering breath. This may have been the closest call yet. There was no safety in his secret, but he’d rather die before revealing what he knew.

The cave was more tunnel than anything, snaking a long path deep into the earth. Hargrove’s eyes adjust to the dark quickly, not that he needs it, for about a quarter of a mile in, the braziers are lit as if waiting for him.

The solitude of his stroll gives him time to think—time he doesn’t have when he is organizing raid groups, or basking in the moment with his beloved. Still, his mind can’t help but wander to the atrocities he’s committed in the Queen’s name. Visions of blood and flame dance through his head, even as he tries to replace those thoughts with ones more pleasant. Soft lips and gentle caresses. But even those are a temporary balm.

As the mouth of the tunnel widens, Hargrove gazes upon a view he’ll never tire of. The cavern before him sparkles with treasures of untold adventures and a history vast and old. Whether the objects have any value is inconsequential—value is not why these pieces found their home here. They were memories. Not his, but Daphne’s, relics of her unknowable past that Hargrove was determined to piece together. He wished to know every breath of her history.

His gaze sweeps over the trove, but it takes him longer than usual to spot her. Her scales shine a deep emerald in the sun, yet in the damp dark of the cave she easily disappears into the stone. Shivering as though she feels his attention settle on her, she lifts her great, beastly head. Horns protrude from the top of her skull, curving inwards like that of a ram. Her snout is long and elegant, her green eyes sharp and all-knowing.

You’re back, she says into Hargrove’s mind. He’s always found her voice to be more delicate than her appearance, though he can appreciate both for their beauty.

“I am,” he replies, moving to be near to her. He lays a gentle hand on her side in greeting, then begins the arduous task of removing his armor. Since the untimely death of his squire, Hargrove had taken to donning armor that he can secure himself. However, that doesn’t make the task an easy one, simply a manageable one.

“I drew them to the far end of the valley,” he grunts while tugging off a boot. “It was hard to tell in the rain, but I’m fairly certain I wasn’t followed.”

The dragon narrows her eyes, speaking into his mind once more, Fairly certain is not certain. Her deep grumble is perfectly audible.

Disarmed and disrobed as he is, Hargrove looks like a wet dog—miserable and shivering. “I’m sorry, dear one, I’m just weary,” he sighs. “This ruse is getting harder and harder to maintain.”

Thin curls of smoke drift from the dragon’s nostrils, her chest glowing a deep red before she blows a thin stream of flame from her lips. Hargrove doesn’t flinch as the fire spews past him, heat licking his skin. After all, he’s well acquainted with the pit just behind him full of firewood he’s collected.

Warm yourself, the dragon says, and Hargrove obeys, taking a seat near the raging bonfire. And pray you didn’t lead death to my doorstep.

Hargrove’s heart sinks. When he first met the dragon, she was not a dragon at all, but a woman. She was full of laughter and light, and made him feel alive again after burying those dearest to him. Daphne, she called herself, and it was as if she had staunched the bleeding on a wound he thought might never close up. When she transformed into a dragon before his very eyes, he wanted to weep, for there was but one mandate he was duty-bound to uphold. All dragons must be slain.

He lifted his sword, ready to do what he must.

Hargrove, she said then. It was the first time he had heard her in his mind. It is me.

Reconciling his love with the beast before him was no easy feat, but as she explained, she was cursed. She could only be human for a few days each month. Who cursed her, she could not say, for it had been so long ago. She had no hope of a cure, only the desire to hide from those who would hunt her.

He knew his bereavement wouldn’t last forever, and once he returned to the Queen’s service, he would be expected to join the fight against her, his Daphne. And so Hargrove swore to help.

Yet, over the many months betraying his Queen and countrymen to hide his love, Daphne had grown colder. She grew less and less pleased with him as time wore on, despite his grueling efforts. But on those rare nights when she was once again human, she reminded him exactly what he was fighting for.

Now, as Hargrove warms his bones by the fire, he thinks of all the things he adores about Daphne. It feels right to set aside her snide remarks and cruelty, for the beastly curse surely influences her mind, too. She loves him, he knows she does. This reminder runs circles through his mind as the warmth of the fire lulls him to sleep.

Hargrove wakes in a disoriented blur, spurred by the slap of a tail across his back.

They’re here, Daphne mind-shrieks, her anger palpable. In the distance, Hargrove recognizes the clanging of armor and the excited shouts of his fellow knights echoing through the cavern. So someone had spotted him.

Stumbling, Hargrove rises to his feet, holding out his hands in a placating gesture toward Daphne. Her chest is glowing and for a split second he considers that he might be cooked where he stands. Then, something in Daphne’s draconic expression shifts, and the embers in her belly cool.

I didn’t want this, Daphne says. I thought what we had could be enough. But not even you could keep me safe.

“This isn’t the end,” he pleads. “Don’t give up, yet.”

There’s a sharp laugh in his mind as Daphne rises to her full height. Looming above her lover, Hargrove sees now what the Queen fears so much. The dragon’s teeth are as long as his forearm and razor sharp, her claws even larger. She is magnificent and terrible to behold.

Oh, but I’m not giving up.

The last thought that passes through Hargrove’s mind is whether dragons can smirk. And then his heart is ripped from his chest.

When the knights arrive in the cavern of knick-knacks and trinkets, they notice three things right off the bat. First, there is a strange young woman sobbing over her fallen companion. Two, the fallen companion is their brother-in-arms, Sir Hargrove. And three, there is definitely NOT a dragon in this cave.

“Milady,” one of the knights calls. “Are you hurt?”

The young woman wails, her shoulders shaking, and so they approach like one might approach a baby deer. Her hands are soaked in blood as she tries to apply pressure to the dead knight’s wounds, for he is certainly dead. In fact, he’s more wound than person.

“Did the dragon do this?” another knight asks.

“Y-yes,” she sniffles. “Sir Hargrove came to slay the beast, but he was not so lucky.”

“You must tell us where it is,” the first knight says.

“Gone,” she cries, clutching at her chest. “Before he was struck, he wounded the creature. When it heard you approaching, it fled further into the cavern.”

There’s a commotion as the knights scramble to follow after the dragon, leaving the young woman alone with her dead knight. She knows that the further they go, they’ll only find more tunnels and caves, places the dragon could have escaped, for she had carved it herself. And now she will leave it, never to be hunted again, for Hargrove had given her the one gift she had not wanted to take: his heart.

With a sigh, Daphne releases the last secret weighing her down—that there had been a way to break the curse after all.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, consider buying me a coffee! Your gift will help fuel my next story. If coins are scarce, fear not, for likes and comments also warm my heart and inspire me to write new stories for you. Thank you for being here!