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Yeah, I know, took me long... and it will probably take as much time to make the next chapter...
I don't have much to say about it, I just hope you'll like it =)
« Are you sure you want to do this, my human ? » She asked
Her tone was far more worried than the last time she pronounced these exact words. It was curious how words could mean totally different things with the proper way of speaking them. Right now, her sentence held a big anxiety, and the young man could easily understand why.
The morning had yet begun in a lovely way. When he had opened his eyes, he was laying on his bed, a bit slimy, and with a peacefully sleeping dragon head on his chest. What better way to wake up but with his loved one? He couldn’t hold back a smile; she was so cute when she slept like this… It was a bit strange though to wake up on the bed, given where he had fallen asleep the previous night… Knowing her, she couldn’t bare the risk to hurt him, even if the venom he still felt in his system would have guaranteed a perfect safety. She had probably gotten him out at some point of the night, feeling more relieved to have him in her arms rather than between her legs… And he surely wouldn’t complain; it was a sweet welcome back from Morpheus’ realms.
Her wake up was sweet too. First her breath slowed down, and a purr made her throat vibrate on his chest. Then her lovely yellow eyes opened shyly and a smile spread across her face when they met his. Before he could say or do anything, her lips spread slightly and her tongue came out, coming to meet the skin of his throat in a long and lazy lick. She would laugh and compliment him on his taste, joking a bit on how nice it was of him to serve her breakfast in bed.
Yes, this morning had been as wonderfully sweet as it could have been… until he told her that he wanted to meet a particular person…
Her eyes had gotten wider, her smile had left her face, and she had even tightened her grip on his body, like she was afraid of letting him go. The simple mention of the person he wanted to see had filled her with dread. And she had asked this question like she wanted to make sure he wasn’t out of his mind as he got out of the bed to clean himself a bit and put on his clothes.
“Yes, I have to.” He replied in a tone that didn’t allow the matter to be negotiated. “For some reasons, I’m expected to go talk to him.”
“Why? Why are you so sure of this right now? It seems like a decision you took in a blink! How can you be so suddenly eager to see this… human?”
She had stressed this last word, like the term ‘human’ was spoken in a despising way. This was a bit insulting coming from her, but he guessed that a dragon couldn’t think of a more pejorative way to qualify what this person represented to her.
“Think of what the ghost told us.” He explained. “His speech on empathy… He really emphasized on the way I felt toward you when I lost my memories, telling that pain was a mean of understanding others. He wanted me to feel like him to better understand his choices, and influence him in a better way. I think that’s the answer to his riddle…”
He was somehow proud to have solved this, which answer seemed crystal clear to him now. Regarding her though, it was obvious that it wasn’t reassuring at all…
“Okay, let’s make this assumption. This ghost wants you to talk to him. Why would you do it anyway?” She asked back. “This human is dangerous, but he’s kept where he cannot do us any more harm. Why would it need to be changed? Would you really go endanger yourself for a being whose motivations are questionable?”
“His motivations aren’t bad…” The young man answered, avoiding her eyes. He had his reasons to give this creature the benefit of the doubt, but he couldn’t explain them without talking about a subject he had been avoiding over the past year. “The last time, he manipulated me for my own good, and I think this is what he’s doing it right now, even if I don’t see how I will benefit from it right now…”
“The last time, he took your memories away!” she said a bit angrily. “How could it be for your own good?!”
“I’m not talking about this time… I saw him, one year ago…” He finally confessed, knowing he couldn’t hide it any longer. Seeing her speechless gave him a weird sensation, the feeling that he had been lying to her… As he felt the need to explain his words, even for the simple reason of making his choice more understandable for her, he came sitting on the bed, looking at his feet. “He was there, the night I ran away from this city to go and live with you…”
“He… helped you to fake your death?” She asked softly, probably feeling that it was a sensitive subject to him.
“In a way…” The young man sighed, understanding that he had no choice but to tell her the truth. “Back then, I was like a living dead. I was devastated at the idea of having lost you, to be forced to continue my life alone in this city… One night, he appeared to me, showing me the door of the warehouse where you used to be caged. I thought it was a hallucination, that my mind was going crazy and made me see ghosts as an allegory of the things I had lost. Seeing him pointing at the warehouse encouraged me in this thought, I must say… When I entered, he warned me that if I went downstairs, I would die, so I had to be sure of my choice. It turned out that he had a more poetic meaning of dying, back then… The choice he made me take allowed me to set the scene of my death, so I would be dead for this city. So… I could say that the way he manipulated me finally was for my own good.”
A heavy silence filled the room, an ambiance that got him quite uncomfortable. He could hear the birds and people out there, like the room was suddenly frozen while the world continued to live. He could feel her stare fixed on him, but he didn’t dare to look at her, staring at the wall.
“Why haven’t you ever told me?” She asked, her voice shaking a bit. At this moment, he felt like a child being scolded by an adult, he had never heard anger affecting her voice like this before.
“I told you, I thought it was a hallucination. And I didn’t want to worry you about my mental state…”
“Not this…” She said with the same, emotionally shaken voice. But when he finally dared to look at her face, what he read wasn’t anger. It was sadness… “Why haven’t you ever told me that it was that horrible when you were alone in this city?”
He looked down with regrets. More than once, he had been tempted to tell her about these days, but he had always kept it secret from her. He could have pretended that it was because he didn’t want her to feel guilty, but he had understood a long time ago his real reasons.
“Mostly because I’m ashamed of it… During these days, I let solitude gaining me, hoping that you would show up one day in the city. But truth was, nothing was holding me back… I didn’t go looking for you, I stayed where I was because I was afraid. I always avoided important matters by running away, and that’s exactly what I did. It’s easy to blame others for our misfortunes, but life only smiles at those who take risks, and live to the fullest. And although I loved you, I didn’t have the courage to do what was right until I was forced to.”
“If I had known that you were so distressed, I would have come and rescued you…” She said with a bit of pity in her voice. “You know, I came to the border of the woods every single day in hope to see you…”
“I know…” He replied, her words only adding to his guilt. “These days… They only happened because of myself, and I know I hurt you as well at the same time. I let you down.”
“No, you don’t understand my point.” She said softly, a strange sad smile on her face. Like she was trying to share more than words, she gently put her paw on the side of his head. “I didn’t have the courage to come in the city either. I was also hurt by the situation, but I didn’t do anything about it either. I was lying to myself thinking that I was offering you a normal human life while you had shown me multiple times that you were afraid of losing me and that you didn’t like living here. You don’t have to be ashamed, because I share the fault of it. Why do you think I never asked you about what happened? I didn’t want to remember that I had cowardly left you…”
Another silence filled the room. This time though, it didn’t feel as sinister, like a strange magic was relieving him from a pain on his chest. He had never considered her point of view, nor the feeling she might have experienced during this month. If he had confessed it earlier, it would have probably spared them a guilt they had probably both secretly carried over a year. But somehow, he was glad to know that they weren’t so different, after all. Maybe was it the reason why they got along so well, because of their mutual understanding.
“Now I remember the other reason why I never talked about it.” He said with a sincere smile.
“And what is?”
“Because I finally had you on my side again, and I preferred to live my new happy life rather than living in the past.” He said, his face brightened by a new smile. “Amaria, when I’m with you, I forget everything bad that ever happened in my life. Your love and support have made me stronger. And this is why I want to do this. I don’t want to run away anymore. I want to prove to myself that I’m not this coward guy anymore…”
He stared into her beautiful eyes, hoping that she would understand. For once, this wasn’t something he did for the both of them; this was something he wanted to do for himself. Could she even comprehend it? So far, all he had wanted to do was for her… And this time, he knew he was being totally selfish. Could she allow him to take a risk when she had nothing to gain in return?
He soon realized that thinking like this was insulting her. She wasn’t any dragon wishing to keep her human for herself, and he could read into her eyes that however scary this was for her, she wouldn’t stop him if it was so important to him. She had one of these fake smiles she served him when she made a compromise, the kind of smile she used to try and make him feel like it was completely fine with her. But it didn’t fool him this time either: she was respecting his freedom, but it didn’t appease the fierce fear she carried.
“Just promise me you won’t endanger yourself…” She spoke with softness.
He nodded, but was unable to speak such promise. He leaned toward her to give her the reassuring kiss she needed so much, but he felt that all the nice gestures in the world wouldn’t replace his words.
She hid it, but deep inside, she knew that he tried to dissipate her doubts because he couldn’t clear his…
As they got out of their living place, both acted like they were simply going out for a walk. The sunny day sure helped to fake a normal routine; what a beautiful day to simply enjoy life… But of course, none of them fooled each other. One wasn’t sure of his decision, the other feared the consequences. And despite the light wind that cooled the warmth of this day, the atmosphere seemed heavier than ever. Even the prison of the small city looked even darker than usual.
Turning back now would leave the young man with eternal regrets; he felt it in his guts. He had no choice but to do this, if he ever wanted to find inner peace again. His determination was a bit shaken once in front of the building that looked like a stone monster to him. And the guard, a nearly bald man whose face held the imprints of a life without many laughs, was as welcoming as Cerberus in front of the gates of hell…
He knew that man… and he didn’t like him. One year ago, when the young man started to experiment with Amaria as a captive dragoness, he was the one who had suggested to kill her when she had seemed a bit too… enthusiastic. This was when he had stopped using his services as a guard, and had shortened his tasks to finding the meat to feed her. A man who gave so little credit to a life, human or not, didn’t have a place by his sides. Eager to shorten his interaction with the guard, he summarized the reason of his visit within a few words. A request that the sinister man received with a surprised face.
“You… want to see him?” The guard asked, raising his dark eyebrows. “I’m not telling you what to do, Mr Drake… But if I were you, I wouldn’t get close to that kid. He gives me chills.”
“Do not call me like that.” He first replied, not hiding his annoyance toward this made up name he hated so much. “Has he said anything to give you those… chills?”
The guard sighed and grabbed the keys hanging at his belt. He opened the door of the prison almost in a mechanical way, with a concerned frown on his face.
“Nothing, and that’s the point… He just stays there all day, staring at the wall with empty eyes. And when someone comes closer to his cell, the person becomes his center of interest. It’s a bit scary. He watches you with that… deviant look… and that insane smile… It’s like he’s having a clear picture on how he’s going to gut you off… You more than anyone else should be careful with this little demon…”
“If I remember well, you served me the same kind of advice in the past…” The young man replied a bit bitterly, giving the man a despising look. “And I think ignoring it gave some results.…”
The guard seemed a bit embarrassed as he glanced at Amaria. He probably remembered that this same dragoness would be dead by now, if her caretaker hadn’t decided otherwise. Maybe did he even feel embarrassed, or scared to be in her presence now, but the young man would certainly not sympathize with his feelings.
“I’ll admit that I didn’t know anything about dragons… and I still don’t.” The guard spoke hesitantly, bending a bit in front of Amaria with an apologetic look. “And I don’t question your capacities. But I do question this kid and I think you should be careful with him…”
“Thank you sir, but I already know that.” He answered coldly. “May I?”
He showed the door, like he was waiting for an authorization. Of course, the request was rhetorical. The guard nodded and showed them the way without a word, staying outside while they enter the prison.
“What was that?” Amaria asked him once the door closed behind them.
“What was what?”
“You’ve been rude with this human. He only tried to help…”
“His ‘help’, like you say, could have killed you back then if I had listened to him.” He replied harshly. “Since then, I grew disgusted by people telling me what to do when I haven’t asked them. Especially when they don’t know anything on the matter, and when their decisions are only driven by fear.”
“Still, you could have been nicer…”
He stopped his steps and turned back to face her. He knew she told him that advice with good intentions, but he didn’t want to justify the anger he felt toward this man. However, if she wanted to know so badly, he would tell her.
“All men don’t deserve kindness. People like him were the first to listen to Mr. Devon when he depicted you as a bloody monster.” He spoke in low volume, yet still a bit angrily. “Those who aren’t able to go through their fears and choose death because it’s easier don’t get the right to argue with me!”
“Because he was wrong for me doesn’t mean he’s wrong about this kid…”
“This man is the archetype of the people I hate! They are scared of their own shadow, and they think killing is the answer to every problem! Worse, they are too coward to do it themselves, so they advise others to be as afraid as they are, in hope that they’ll do the dirty work! People like this are the root of humanity’s stupidity. Difference equals scary, scary equals extermination. It’s because of guys like him that humans prefer to kill instead of trying to understand.”
“But still, you think he’s right to not trust this kid. People who listen to scared people are just as much responsible, and yet, I don’t see you hating every scared person in this city.”
“Because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.” He replied in a hard tone.
To this, she first replied with a stare as tough as his tone was. However deep his love and trust was for her, she was always scary when she got angry.
“If it’s true, then you really need to learn forgiveness.” She simply told him, yet her stare turned it into some kind of order. “Humans have killed hundreds of dragons in the past, yet I’m not hating these people, even if some of them probably were in the first lines of the slaughter.”
“Why am I here for, do you think? Why do you think I came into this prison, to talk to the person who probably hates me the most? I’m trying to give him a chance! Do you think I’m the kind to refuse to forgive?”
“No, indeed…” She said, suddenly looking quite thoughtful even if he felt her eyes piercing the depths of his soul. Her stare almost felt like an accusation… “I’ve seen you being nice with people who rejected you once. I’ve seen you replying politely to people who spoke stupid things… So it’s not about this person, nor was it about his advices… So what did he say to make you so angry? What is the little spark that lit that fierce fire in you? Are you scared?”
She was so random on her level of understanding humans… She sometimes couldn’t figure out the most obvious things… and sometimes, like now, she read him perfectly. In a way, yes, he was scared… and that was probably the reason of his anger. Though, now that he thought about it, it was not worth such an emotional storm. It was even a bit childish, but it touched a sensitive nerve…
“He called me ‘Mr Drake’ in front of you.” He confessed, preferring to cut the mystery off. “I’ve always hated that nickname, and I was afraid that you might hear it someday…”
“Why? I think it’s a great name… It almost sounds like ‘dragon’.”
“Precisely… They started calling me like this after you left. And they meant it as flattery. To them, it was a mark of respect toward the man who tamed a dragon” He said, almost spitting that word he despised. “I was afraid you might think that I bragged about it while you were gone, or that I had been playing with your feelings… An old, irrational fear I kept from these days… One more on the list…”
She looked down for a second, like she was thinking of the right words to use. In the beginning, he used to assume that he was the one who taught her everything she had to know about life. But that assumption hadn’t lasted for long. And he knew before she even talked that she was about to serve him a lesson to meditate.
“My human… It seems that you haven’t made peace with that period of your life… I’m a bit ashamed that I haven’t done anything about it earlier, but listen. My mother used to tell me something about that. According to her, there are two kinds of things we forget. The memories we don’t cherish enough, and the memories we push away in hope to never face them again. But the thing is, the second kind will never really go away until you accept to face them. Whatever you’re afraid of, fear, anger, shame, guilt, allow yourself to feel them, allow them as part of what you are. And move on. It’s a bit ironical since I took long to follow that advice, but believe me, it’s the only way you can be in peace with yourself.”
Ego was a thing to forget when one shared his life with a dragon… Under her feral appearance, under her naïve and innocent way of seeing the world, she carried a wisdom that often made him feel like a child in comparison… She was right, of course she was right… She was always, so, so right that it was a little annoying sometimes. But ignoring her advices would have been his biggest mistake. Wordless, he just nodded with bit of shame.
“You’ll teach me…” he said with a little laugh “I think I would have appreciated to know your mother…”
“To be honest, I think she would have appreciated you only for lunch…” She giggled a bit. “But I think I understand better why you want to go there and meet this kid. You want to make peace with your past, and I’ll help you with that. You’re still sure that this is what our ghostly friend wants?”
“I’m not sure this is what he wants, but I know this is what I want.” He sighed, not even sure that he meant these words. But the last door was in front of him now, and he had to do it. “Are you ready?”
“Nope, and I never will be for that.” She replied with a smile. “Let’s go.”
At least, he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with his decision… With these not-so-reassuring words, he pushed the door of the last room, feeling like he was opening Pandora’s box…
The cell itself was quite small. It was actually a single room separated in half by a range of bars which included a locked door. On the other side, Mr. Devon’s son was seated on some sort of bench built in the stone. When his visitors came in, he glanced at them before staring back at the wall, a little grin extending on his face.
The young man never knew his age, but he was probably around his sixteen by now, an age of anger, confusion, and violence even with the most peaceful teenagers… He could only imagine the madness boiling in that body, but this was a storm he had to fight…
“Hello kid…” The young man tried to engage the conversation. But the prisoner didn’t reply. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“What is yours?” He asked coldly in return.
“It’s none of your business…”
“And mine is none of yours…” The teenager replied, standing up to face him. “Still, I’m curious. I looked everywhere. I even found your birth certificate, but the only name on it was ‘nameless warrior’. Don’t you have a name, or have you erased it?”
The conversation with the child of his worst enemy hadn’t lasted more than a minute and he had already touched a sensitive subject… This kid might look like a sixteen years old kid, but he had inherited the annoying side of his father… He probably tried to get him on his nerves, he had to be careful. And honesty was a good strategy on this matter. If the kid sensed that he hid something, he would dig deeper…
“I have a name. But there is a law in this city that allows a man to change or simply not wear one if he wants too. Usually, you have to justify your choice, but I was so meaningless back then that no one even blinked when I did. When I trained in the city’s army, they called me the nameless warrior.”
“So you do have a name, under your glorious and fake title… Interesting…” He smirked. “The nameless warrior… you could have found better…”
“Why is that so important to you?” He asked in return, trying to hold back his desire to open this cage and slap this kid like he deserved. But he wasn’t a fool, he knew that the prisoner sensed his anger, as if their mutual hate sang in a silent harmony.
“Because I want to know the name that I will despise until my last breath! The name of the most despicable man that ever lived in this city!” He ended his sentence with a spit that the young man avoided in extremis.
“Yeah… I quite understood that you held a grudge on me when you tried to kill me… But I’m here to fix that…”
“Ha! Now what is that?!” the boy laughed with despise. “You think you can… fix… what you’ve done?!” He then grabbed the bars furiously. “Why don’t you come in here to discuss it?”
The scene was really weird for the young man. It was like… seeing a nightmarish version of a story he yet liked to remember from time to time… The madness in the eyes of the prisoner could have easily frightened anyone else. But he knew too much to get impressed by such animosity.
“First, let me tell you that this kind of threat never impressed me.” He said calmly. “And Amaria here could testify of it.”
“Please, I don’t want to get involved…” The dragoness intervened with obvious worries. Two humans verbally fighting probably held something scary for her, especially with her lover involved. But the young man simply ignored it.
“Second, yes! Fix this!” He resumed toughly. He wasn’t going to let this kid he had the slightest leverage on him, even fear. “You’re in this cell because you can’t let go of a stupid fight that was only between your father and me! I’m trying to give you a chance to have a life, instead of rotting here! Do you really think your father would like to see you there?!”
The face of the boy changed. For a second, it almost looked like contrition. But then, he rose the head, facing his opponent with this weird, calm smile, and these piercing eyes… He was boiling inside; that was obvious. But he wore this strange face like a mask to hide it, like a volcano ready to burst, to better focus all the hatred he contained. And when he spoke, he almost sounded appeased, empty.
“The fire wasn’t the cause of the death. God… I read the autopsy file so many times that it’s written clearly in my memory.” The kid chuckled sinisterly. “The remaining organic tissues seem to indicate that the teeth were extracted before the fire started, making a clear identification impossible. To bear the pain of the extraction, the victim had to be unconscious or, more likely, already dead. After further investigation, it appears that the skull has a neat cut in the back and between the eyes orbits. From the shape and the weapon that has been found next to the body, it appears that the blade is what killed the victim. It has most likely entered from front to the back of the head, causing an instant death. Ringing any bell?”
The young man remained calm, but inside, a storm of mixed feelings raged. He could feel Amaria’s astonished stare planted on him, but he simply couldn’t look at her. However justified his gesture was, even if it was self-defense, he had indeed killed a man, and had never told the dragoness. Maybe was it to hide from her the worst side of him, but he knew quite well now why he actually kept these things to himself.
He felt guilty… It didn’t really matter what he thought about Mr. Devon. If anyone had asked him, he would have gladly confirmed that this fat crazy old man deserved death. But there was a difference between wishing for someone’s death, and being the one who caused it. He had thought about that night countless times, wondering if there was another way. And every time, he had convinced himself that he had done the right thing. No one could blame him for defending his life at the cost of his aggressor’s!
Yes, but he wasn’t proud of the way he had used the turn of the events to serve his own interests… With the body of the man he killed, he saw an opportunity, the opportunity to disappear, to fake his death. And for this, he had, indeed, done all that was needed so people would think this body was his. He was even surprised that no one brought it back earlier, two enemies disappear, one body is found, and the other reappears alive, simple mathematics and deductions… If he had given it a thought earlier, it would have been obvious that the first one to throw it to his face would be the one who probably suffered the most from it…
But it was done, now… What mattered was here and there. And what mattered, was to fix this situation without making other victims.
“I respected your father.” He simply told, trying to focus on positive words instead of admitting the cruel truth. “We had our differences of opinions, but I know that deep inside, all he wanted was a safer world for this city, and for you…”
“You stop that now!” The kid burst against the bars. “You seriously think you can convince me that you had any respect for my father?! You killed him! You mutilated his dead body so you could get away! And today he’s still buried under a grave with no name! How could you pretend that you had the slightest respect for him, after taking not only his life, but also every single drop of dignity he still possessed?!”
The kid huffed like a monster. His eyes were so swollen in hate that they looked like they were going to pop out of their orbits.
The young man understood, of course he understood… He also had lost his parents a bit more than a year and a half earlier. These feelings, he had also felt them. Sadness, loneliness, anger… Anger was so easy to feel when there was someone to blame…
He didn’t know what to reply to that… If he told the truth, he knew that his lack of proofs would make him sound like he was trying to avoid the responsibility of a terrible act. And beautiful lies weren’t a worthy option either… The kid seemed to be cursed to consider him like an enemy, at the cost of his own freedom.
“Mr Drake?” A voice called him from behind, saving him from having to reply. Yet, this interruption only intensified the anger he felt.
The young man breathed deeply to resist the urge to punch this stupid guard in the face. Not only did he keep on using this name he hated so much, but he also intervened without even announcing himself beforehand.
“What?!” He asked with a clear tone of threat. “I’m kind of busy right now…”
“I’m sorry to disturb you… It’s Mr Bolner. He asks you.” The guard replied a bit sheepishly, probably sensing the tension.
“Does it have to be right now?”
“Oooh… Watch out! We got an important person right here, the head of the city himself requires his services…” The kid teased him, sitting on his stone bench with a nasty smile, arms crossed. “I should be honored that he prefers to spend time with me…”
“You, SHUT UP! And YOU!” He exploded, turning to face the guard with anger. “I asked you a question! Is that really urgent?!”
“M… Mr. Bolner told me you might say that…” The lame guard fidgeted nervously. “And he told me to say… that it depends on the value you give to every life in this city…”
Bolner and his riddles… The young man wasn’t in mood for politics, morals, or any life lesson of any kind! But the sense of these words did worry him… Bolner knew that! The massive warrior hadn’t become the hero of this city with his sole muscles, he was a master in military tactics. And What better manipulation tactic, than making a man play his game?! Sometimes, he really hated the head of this city, who seemed to know every leverage he could play on him.
“Fine! Amaria, let’s go get this over with!” He said authoritatively without even measuring the violence of his words. But he would apologize to her later. For now, he was too angry to think straight. A kid who turned his kindness against him, Bolner who interrupted an argument he was already losing, sometimes he really felt like fate was playing a bad joke on him.
As the guard escaped the room, almost running to not face the anger of his guest, the young man quickly walked out as well without even a glance to the kid, Amaria following him. Boiling, He walked without looking back, trying to contain his frustration.
“Well, looks like he won…” The dragoness dared to break the silence, with a curious lesson-telling tone for someone who usually avoided to worsen his moods.
“Amaria, not you… Not now…” He sighed, mentally exhausted by the events.
“Yes, me and now!” She replied firmly, interrupting his walk to push him against the stone wall and maintaining him with a strong forepaw. “You let him play with you! You let him use your weaknesses against you! Hah! So much for getting rid of misplaced guilt, like you always taught me!”
“I killed his father! Of course I feel guilt!”
“This man was the most despicable this city probably ever saw and you know that!”
“So what? To this kid, he wasn’t! He was his model!”
“Then what?!” She spat, her teeth making a little ‘clac’ at the end of her sentence. He might know that she wouldn’t hurt him out of anger, but she was pretty scary. “You really want him to keep that model? A man who tried to murder you, you could at least mentioned you killed him in self-defense!”
This left him astonished. He had never told her, not a single time… Her assurance left no doubt that today wasn’t the day she learnt that he had killed Mr. Devon … How could she know that he was originally meant to be the victim that night? Of course she probably knew that he wasn’t the kind to kill in cold blood, but if she based such a deduction of this simple assumption, this was quite impressive… too impressive to be a simple guess…
“So… You knew? How?” He asked her, surprise appeasing his anger in some way.
“Of course I know… My human, sometimes, when you look really concerned, I watch into your memories when you sleep… So I can finally know what’s tormenting you…”
“You can… do that?” He let out, half amazed and half outraged. He felt a bit like she had broken into his privacy… But he actually didn’t know if he could feel angry at her for that… How many times had he wished to know what she had in mind?
“I always respected your secrets, I never looked for anything else than the matters of your worries.” She simply replied, apparently calming down too. She even released the pressure of her paw and removed it from his chest. “I know that this have been a little obsession of yours for the past year. That was why I was truly worried that you wanted to come here. I knew that you weren’t ready for this… And I should have trusted my gut feeling, obviously.”
He observed her with mixed feelings about her words. She had just told him that she occasionally read his minds, and it didn’t even seem abnormal to her… This made him even wonder if he had any secret to her, actually. A predator, in every aspect… She knew her prey perfectly.
More than that, she had curiously never attempted to talk to him about this, while she knew that this was a matter of deep concern to him. For a creature that always tried to fix things that weren’t even a problem, this was a strange behavior.
“Why haven’t you simply told me? I would have listened to you…”
“The biggest proof of love, my human, is to know when to let the other live, and when to respect the silence.” She replied with a sad look. “Would you have truly listened to me if I told you that this night wasn’t your fault? Would have you listened to me if I had tried to make you face your demons? That night hurt you deeper than you ever cared to admit, even to yourself. But it happened, and you have to live with it as part of your story. Accepting the unacceptable is a complicated, it’s a long path that only you can take. I’ll always support you, but I can’t do this work for you. To be honest, I don’t know how long it will take… but there’s one thing I’m sure of: As long as you’ll carry your burden with shame, bad people will be able to use it against you, just like this kid did…”
Once again, she expressed her wisdom with such natural… This was true, and so obvious. It even sounded simple in her maw, but he wasn’t sure that he was capable of what she advised…
“I don’t know how to do this…” He lowered the head. “I always avoided to kill… Kind of lame coming from a guy who trained to be a warrior, isn’t it?” He chuckled ironically. “I can’t stop telling myself that I had the choice. I could have knocked him out, I could have run away… But I killed the father of this boy, in self-defense of course, but because I only considered this option. Doesn’t that make me a bad guy?”
“I can only give you the true reasons of your guilt, but it will be up to you to work them out.” She conceded, in sincere will to help. “You feel guilty because you used him in plain lucidity to make something you consider horrible. And you feel guilty because you identify to this kid, who’s now an orphan just like you were after the murder of your parents. These are good reasons, but you’ll have to accept that in order to achieve things in life, you sometimes have to get dirty in the process. And you’ll have to get in your tough head that you and this kid are not the same persons. You do not feel the same, you do not react the same way, and you surely are not as good on the inside.”
“Private joke?” He giggled a bit, a way to hide his vulnerability.
“I’m serious…” She replied. “Don’t assume he’s an innocent who must be protected and saved from himself. He tried to kill you, and did many other things before he had an excuse for that. I’d forgive him if he truly showed a reversal of heart, but keep in mind that not everyone wants to be saved. You don’t have to protect this kid from the truth, and actually, I see no other way that you can change his mind. I won’t allow you to go back there until you close the breaches in your heart, until you’re ready to face him for good.” She then softened her tone when she noticed his sheepish face, and gave him a little lick on the cheek to make him rise the chin. “Don’t be too hard with yourself… Evolving, learning, getting better, everything comes in time… and patience is your best weapon to not get lost in the process.”
“I consider myself lucky to have my personal beacon when I’m lost.” He said with an apologetic laugh. “I’ll figure this out in time, indeed… and meanwhile, I have other matters to free my mind from the pressure.”
“Yes, and speaking of it, we should get going…” She said, eyeing on the exit and making a sign of the head as an invitation to follow her out. “They will suspect something…”
He nodded, and she moved on, taking the lead. As he followed her, he began to seriously question his decision to help that kid… She was right, he wasn’t ready for that… How could he face someone he was too ashamed to look in the eyes? Maybe he had misinterpreted this ghost’s words… Maybe there wasn’t even a riddle in his words, and he just wanted to make fun of him. Who knew…
However, he was glad he had learnt once again that he could always count on his beloved dragoness in hard time. Even when it came to telling him the harsh truth with complete honesty. Thanks to her, he did feel like he was becoming a better man. But like she said, the path would be long to take.
Meanwhile, he could always appreciate how lucky he was to have her by his side.
“So… I’m better on the inside, heh?” He chuckled behind her, and she would look over her shoulder with a playful smile.
“In every possible meaning, my human… In every possible meaning…”
I don't have much to say about it, I just hope you'll like it =)
« Are you sure you want to do this, my human ? » She asked
Her tone was far more worried than the last time she pronounced these exact words. It was curious how words could mean totally different things with the proper way of speaking them. Right now, her sentence held a big anxiety, and the young man could easily understand why.
The morning had yet begun in a lovely way. When he had opened his eyes, he was laying on his bed, a bit slimy, and with a peacefully sleeping dragon head on his chest. What better way to wake up but with his loved one? He couldn’t hold back a smile; she was so cute when she slept like this… It was a bit strange though to wake up on the bed, given where he had fallen asleep the previous night… Knowing her, she couldn’t bare the risk to hurt him, even if the venom he still felt in his system would have guaranteed a perfect safety. She had probably gotten him out at some point of the night, feeling more relieved to have him in her arms rather than between her legs… And he surely wouldn’t complain; it was a sweet welcome back from Morpheus’ realms.
Her wake up was sweet too. First her breath slowed down, and a purr made her throat vibrate on his chest. Then her lovely yellow eyes opened shyly and a smile spread across her face when they met his. Before he could say or do anything, her lips spread slightly and her tongue came out, coming to meet the skin of his throat in a long and lazy lick. She would laugh and compliment him on his taste, joking a bit on how nice it was of him to serve her breakfast in bed.
Yes, this morning had been as wonderfully sweet as it could have been… until he told her that he wanted to meet a particular person…
Her eyes had gotten wider, her smile had left her face, and she had even tightened her grip on his body, like she was afraid of letting him go. The simple mention of the person he wanted to see had filled her with dread. And she had asked this question like she wanted to make sure he wasn’t out of his mind as he got out of the bed to clean himself a bit and put on his clothes.
“Yes, I have to.” He replied in a tone that didn’t allow the matter to be negotiated. “For some reasons, I’m expected to go talk to him.”
“Why? Why are you so sure of this right now? It seems like a decision you took in a blink! How can you be so suddenly eager to see this… human?”
She had stressed this last word, like the term ‘human’ was spoken in a despising way. This was a bit insulting coming from her, but he guessed that a dragon couldn’t think of a more pejorative way to qualify what this person represented to her.
“Think of what the ghost told us.” He explained. “His speech on empathy… He really emphasized on the way I felt toward you when I lost my memories, telling that pain was a mean of understanding others. He wanted me to feel like him to better understand his choices, and influence him in a better way. I think that’s the answer to his riddle…”
He was somehow proud to have solved this, which answer seemed crystal clear to him now. Regarding her though, it was obvious that it wasn’t reassuring at all…
“Okay, let’s make this assumption. This ghost wants you to talk to him. Why would you do it anyway?” She asked back. “This human is dangerous, but he’s kept where he cannot do us any more harm. Why would it need to be changed? Would you really go endanger yourself for a being whose motivations are questionable?”
“His motivations aren’t bad…” The young man answered, avoiding her eyes. He had his reasons to give this creature the benefit of the doubt, but he couldn’t explain them without talking about a subject he had been avoiding over the past year. “The last time, he manipulated me for my own good, and I think this is what he’s doing it right now, even if I don’t see how I will benefit from it right now…”
“The last time, he took your memories away!” she said a bit angrily. “How could it be for your own good?!”
“I’m not talking about this time… I saw him, one year ago…” He finally confessed, knowing he couldn’t hide it any longer. Seeing her speechless gave him a weird sensation, the feeling that he had been lying to her… As he felt the need to explain his words, even for the simple reason of making his choice more understandable for her, he came sitting on the bed, looking at his feet. “He was there, the night I ran away from this city to go and live with you…”
“He… helped you to fake your death?” She asked softly, probably feeling that it was a sensitive subject to him.
“In a way…” The young man sighed, understanding that he had no choice but to tell her the truth. “Back then, I was like a living dead. I was devastated at the idea of having lost you, to be forced to continue my life alone in this city… One night, he appeared to me, showing me the door of the warehouse where you used to be caged. I thought it was a hallucination, that my mind was going crazy and made me see ghosts as an allegory of the things I had lost. Seeing him pointing at the warehouse encouraged me in this thought, I must say… When I entered, he warned me that if I went downstairs, I would die, so I had to be sure of my choice. It turned out that he had a more poetic meaning of dying, back then… The choice he made me take allowed me to set the scene of my death, so I would be dead for this city. So… I could say that the way he manipulated me finally was for my own good.”
A heavy silence filled the room, an ambiance that got him quite uncomfortable. He could hear the birds and people out there, like the room was suddenly frozen while the world continued to live. He could feel her stare fixed on him, but he didn’t dare to look at her, staring at the wall.
“Why haven’t you ever told me?” She asked, her voice shaking a bit. At this moment, he felt like a child being scolded by an adult, he had never heard anger affecting her voice like this before.
“I told you, I thought it was a hallucination. And I didn’t want to worry you about my mental state…”
“Not this…” She said with the same, emotionally shaken voice. But when he finally dared to look at her face, what he read wasn’t anger. It was sadness… “Why haven’t you ever told me that it was that horrible when you were alone in this city?”
He looked down with regrets. More than once, he had been tempted to tell her about these days, but he had always kept it secret from her. He could have pretended that it was because he didn’t want her to feel guilty, but he had understood a long time ago his real reasons.
“Mostly because I’m ashamed of it… During these days, I let solitude gaining me, hoping that you would show up one day in the city. But truth was, nothing was holding me back… I didn’t go looking for you, I stayed where I was because I was afraid. I always avoided important matters by running away, and that’s exactly what I did. It’s easy to blame others for our misfortunes, but life only smiles at those who take risks, and live to the fullest. And although I loved you, I didn’t have the courage to do what was right until I was forced to.”
“If I had known that you were so distressed, I would have come and rescued you…” She said with a bit of pity in her voice. “You know, I came to the border of the woods every single day in hope to see you…”
“I know…” He replied, her words only adding to his guilt. “These days… They only happened because of myself, and I know I hurt you as well at the same time. I let you down.”
“No, you don’t understand my point.” She said softly, a strange sad smile on her face. Like she was trying to share more than words, she gently put her paw on the side of his head. “I didn’t have the courage to come in the city either. I was also hurt by the situation, but I didn’t do anything about it either. I was lying to myself thinking that I was offering you a normal human life while you had shown me multiple times that you were afraid of losing me and that you didn’t like living here. You don’t have to be ashamed, because I share the fault of it. Why do you think I never asked you about what happened? I didn’t want to remember that I had cowardly left you…”
Another silence filled the room. This time though, it didn’t feel as sinister, like a strange magic was relieving him from a pain on his chest. He had never considered her point of view, nor the feeling she might have experienced during this month. If he had confessed it earlier, it would have probably spared them a guilt they had probably both secretly carried over a year. But somehow, he was glad to know that they weren’t so different, after all. Maybe was it the reason why they got along so well, because of their mutual understanding.
“Now I remember the other reason why I never talked about it.” He said with a sincere smile.
“And what is?”
“Because I finally had you on my side again, and I preferred to live my new happy life rather than living in the past.” He said, his face brightened by a new smile. “Amaria, when I’m with you, I forget everything bad that ever happened in my life. Your love and support have made me stronger. And this is why I want to do this. I don’t want to run away anymore. I want to prove to myself that I’m not this coward guy anymore…”
He stared into her beautiful eyes, hoping that she would understand. For once, this wasn’t something he did for the both of them; this was something he wanted to do for himself. Could she even comprehend it? So far, all he had wanted to do was for her… And this time, he knew he was being totally selfish. Could she allow him to take a risk when she had nothing to gain in return?
He soon realized that thinking like this was insulting her. She wasn’t any dragon wishing to keep her human for herself, and he could read into her eyes that however scary this was for her, she wouldn’t stop him if it was so important to him. She had one of these fake smiles she served him when she made a compromise, the kind of smile she used to try and make him feel like it was completely fine with her. But it didn’t fool him this time either: she was respecting his freedom, but it didn’t appease the fierce fear she carried.
“Just promise me you won’t endanger yourself…” She spoke with softness.
He nodded, but was unable to speak such promise. He leaned toward her to give her the reassuring kiss she needed so much, but he felt that all the nice gestures in the world wouldn’t replace his words.
She hid it, but deep inside, she knew that he tried to dissipate her doubts because he couldn’t clear his…
As they got out of their living place, both acted like they were simply going out for a walk. The sunny day sure helped to fake a normal routine; what a beautiful day to simply enjoy life… But of course, none of them fooled each other. One wasn’t sure of his decision, the other feared the consequences. And despite the light wind that cooled the warmth of this day, the atmosphere seemed heavier than ever. Even the prison of the small city looked even darker than usual.
Turning back now would leave the young man with eternal regrets; he felt it in his guts. He had no choice but to do this, if he ever wanted to find inner peace again. His determination was a bit shaken once in front of the building that looked like a stone monster to him. And the guard, a nearly bald man whose face held the imprints of a life without many laughs, was as welcoming as Cerberus in front of the gates of hell…
He knew that man… and he didn’t like him. One year ago, when the young man started to experiment with Amaria as a captive dragoness, he was the one who had suggested to kill her when she had seemed a bit too… enthusiastic. This was when he had stopped using his services as a guard, and had shortened his tasks to finding the meat to feed her. A man who gave so little credit to a life, human or not, didn’t have a place by his sides. Eager to shorten his interaction with the guard, he summarized the reason of his visit within a few words. A request that the sinister man received with a surprised face.
“You… want to see him?” The guard asked, raising his dark eyebrows. “I’m not telling you what to do, Mr Drake… But if I were you, I wouldn’t get close to that kid. He gives me chills.”
“Do not call me like that.” He first replied, not hiding his annoyance toward this made up name he hated so much. “Has he said anything to give you those… chills?”
The guard sighed and grabbed the keys hanging at his belt. He opened the door of the prison almost in a mechanical way, with a concerned frown on his face.
“Nothing, and that’s the point… He just stays there all day, staring at the wall with empty eyes. And when someone comes closer to his cell, the person becomes his center of interest. It’s a bit scary. He watches you with that… deviant look… and that insane smile… It’s like he’s having a clear picture on how he’s going to gut you off… You more than anyone else should be careful with this little demon…”
“If I remember well, you served me the same kind of advice in the past…” The young man replied a bit bitterly, giving the man a despising look. “And I think ignoring it gave some results.…”
The guard seemed a bit embarrassed as he glanced at Amaria. He probably remembered that this same dragoness would be dead by now, if her caretaker hadn’t decided otherwise. Maybe did he even feel embarrassed, or scared to be in her presence now, but the young man would certainly not sympathize with his feelings.
“I’ll admit that I didn’t know anything about dragons… and I still don’t.” The guard spoke hesitantly, bending a bit in front of Amaria with an apologetic look. “And I don’t question your capacities. But I do question this kid and I think you should be careful with him…”
“Thank you sir, but I already know that.” He answered coldly. “May I?”
He showed the door, like he was waiting for an authorization. Of course, the request was rhetorical. The guard nodded and showed them the way without a word, staying outside while they enter the prison.
“What was that?” Amaria asked him once the door closed behind them.
“What was what?”
“You’ve been rude with this human. He only tried to help…”
“His ‘help’, like you say, could have killed you back then if I had listened to him.” He replied harshly. “Since then, I grew disgusted by people telling me what to do when I haven’t asked them. Especially when they don’t know anything on the matter, and when their decisions are only driven by fear.”
“Still, you could have been nicer…”
He stopped his steps and turned back to face her. He knew she told him that advice with good intentions, but he didn’t want to justify the anger he felt toward this man. However, if she wanted to know so badly, he would tell her.
“All men don’t deserve kindness. People like him were the first to listen to Mr. Devon when he depicted you as a bloody monster.” He spoke in low volume, yet still a bit angrily. “Those who aren’t able to go through their fears and choose death because it’s easier don’t get the right to argue with me!”
“Because he was wrong for me doesn’t mean he’s wrong about this kid…”
“This man is the archetype of the people I hate! They are scared of their own shadow, and they think killing is the answer to every problem! Worse, they are too coward to do it themselves, so they advise others to be as afraid as they are, in hope that they’ll do the dirty work! People like this are the root of humanity’s stupidity. Difference equals scary, scary equals extermination. It’s because of guys like him that humans prefer to kill instead of trying to understand.”
“But still, you think he’s right to not trust this kid. People who listen to scared people are just as much responsible, and yet, I don’t see you hating every scared person in this city.”
“Because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.” He replied in a hard tone.
To this, she first replied with a stare as tough as his tone was. However deep his love and trust was for her, she was always scary when she got angry.
“If it’s true, then you really need to learn forgiveness.” She simply told him, yet her stare turned it into some kind of order. “Humans have killed hundreds of dragons in the past, yet I’m not hating these people, even if some of them probably were in the first lines of the slaughter.”
“Why am I here for, do you think? Why do you think I came into this prison, to talk to the person who probably hates me the most? I’m trying to give him a chance! Do you think I’m the kind to refuse to forgive?”
“No, indeed…” She said, suddenly looking quite thoughtful even if he felt her eyes piercing the depths of his soul. Her stare almost felt like an accusation… “I’ve seen you being nice with people who rejected you once. I’ve seen you replying politely to people who spoke stupid things… So it’s not about this person, nor was it about his advices… So what did he say to make you so angry? What is the little spark that lit that fierce fire in you? Are you scared?”
She was so random on her level of understanding humans… She sometimes couldn’t figure out the most obvious things… and sometimes, like now, she read him perfectly. In a way, yes, he was scared… and that was probably the reason of his anger. Though, now that he thought about it, it was not worth such an emotional storm. It was even a bit childish, but it touched a sensitive nerve…
“He called me ‘Mr Drake’ in front of you.” He confessed, preferring to cut the mystery off. “I’ve always hated that nickname, and I was afraid that you might hear it someday…”
“Why? I think it’s a great name… It almost sounds like ‘dragon’.”
“Precisely… They started calling me like this after you left. And they meant it as flattery. To them, it was a mark of respect toward the man who tamed a dragon” He said, almost spitting that word he despised. “I was afraid you might think that I bragged about it while you were gone, or that I had been playing with your feelings… An old, irrational fear I kept from these days… One more on the list…”
She looked down for a second, like she was thinking of the right words to use. In the beginning, he used to assume that he was the one who taught her everything she had to know about life. But that assumption hadn’t lasted for long. And he knew before she even talked that she was about to serve him a lesson to meditate.
“My human… It seems that you haven’t made peace with that period of your life… I’m a bit ashamed that I haven’t done anything about it earlier, but listen. My mother used to tell me something about that. According to her, there are two kinds of things we forget. The memories we don’t cherish enough, and the memories we push away in hope to never face them again. But the thing is, the second kind will never really go away until you accept to face them. Whatever you’re afraid of, fear, anger, shame, guilt, allow yourself to feel them, allow them as part of what you are. And move on. It’s a bit ironical since I took long to follow that advice, but believe me, it’s the only way you can be in peace with yourself.”
Ego was a thing to forget when one shared his life with a dragon… Under her feral appearance, under her naïve and innocent way of seeing the world, she carried a wisdom that often made him feel like a child in comparison… She was right, of course she was right… She was always, so, so right that it was a little annoying sometimes. But ignoring her advices would have been his biggest mistake. Wordless, he just nodded with bit of shame.
“You’ll teach me…” he said with a little laugh “I think I would have appreciated to know your mother…”
“To be honest, I think she would have appreciated you only for lunch…” She giggled a bit. “But I think I understand better why you want to go there and meet this kid. You want to make peace with your past, and I’ll help you with that. You’re still sure that this is what our ghostly friend wants?”
“I’m not sure this is what he wants, but I know this is what I want.” He sighed, not even sure that he meant these words. But the last door was in front of him now, and he had to do it. “Are you ready?”
“Nope, and I never will be for that.” She replied with a smile. “Let’s go.”
At least, he wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with his decision… With these not-so-reassuring words, he pushed the door of the last room, feeling like he was opening Pandora’s box…
The cell itself was quite small. It was actually a single room separated in half by a range of bars which included a locked door. On the other side, Mr. Devon’s son was seated on some sort of bench built in the stone. When his visitors came in, he glanced at them before staring back at the wall, a little grin extending on his face.
The young man never knew his age, but he was probably around his sixteen by now, an age of anger, confusion, and violence even with the most peaceful teenagers… He could only imagine the madness boiling in that body, but this was a storm he had to fight…
“Hello kid…” The young man tried to engage the conversation. But the prisoner didn’t reply. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“What is yours?” He asked coldly in return.
“It’s none of your business…”
“And mine is none of yours…” The teenager replied, standing up to face him. “Still, I’m curious. I looked everywhere. I even found your birth certificate, but the only name on it was ‘nameless warrior’. Don’t you have a name, or have you erased it?”
The conversation with the child of his worst enemy hadn’t lasted more than a minute and he had already touched a sensitive subject… This kid might look like a sixteen years old kid, but he had inherited the annoying side of his father… He probably tried to get him on his nerves, he had to be careful. And honesty was a good strategy on this matter. If the kid sensed that he hid something, he would dig deeper…
“I have a name. But there is a law in this city that allows a man to change or simply not wear one if he wants too. Usually, you have to justify your choice, but I was so meaningless back then that no one even blinked when I did. When I trained in the city’s army, they called me the nameless warrior.”
“So you do have a name, under your glorious and fake title… Interesting…” He smirked. “The nameless warrior… you could have found better…”
“Why is that so important to you?” He asked in return, trying to hold back his desire to open this cage and slap this kid like he deserved. But he wasn’t a fool, he knew that the prisoner sensed his anger, as if their mutual hate sang in a silent harmony.
“Because I want to know the name that I will despise until my last breath! The name of the most despicable man that ever lived in this city!” He ended his sentence with a spit that the young man avoided in extremis.
“Yeah… I quite understood that you held a grudge on me when you tried to kill me… But I’m here to fix that…”
“Ha! Now what is that?!” the boy laughed with despise. “You think you can… fix… what you’ve done?!” He then grabbed the bars furiously. “Why don’t you come in here to discuss it?”
The scene was really weird for the young man. It was like… seeing a nightmarish version of a story he yet liked to remember from time to time… The madness in the eyes of the prisoner could have easily frightened anyone else. But he knew too much to get impressed by such animosity.
“First, let me tell you that this kind of threat never impressed me.” He said calmly. “And Amaria here could testify of it.”
“Please, I don’t want to get involved…” The dragoness intervened with obvious worries. Two humans verbally fighting probably held something scary for her, especially with her lover involved. But the young man simply ignored it.
“Second, yes! Fix this!” He resumed toughly. He wasn’t going to let this kid he had the slightest leverage on him, even fear. “You’re in this cell because you can’t let go of a stupid fight that was only between your father and me! I’m trying to give you a chance to have a life, instead of rotting here! Do you really think your father would like to see you there?!”
The face of the boy changed. For a second, it almost looked like contrition. But then, he rose the head, facing his opponent with this weird, calm smile, and these piercing eyes… He was boiling inside; that was obvious. But he wore this strange face like a mask to hide it, like a volcano ready to burst, to better focus all the hatred he contained. And when he spoke, he almost sounded appeased, empty.
“The fire wasn’t the cause of the death. God… I read the autopsy file so many times that it’s written clearly in my memory.” The kid chuckled sinisterly. “The remaining organic tissues seem to indicate that the teeth were extracted before the fire started, making a clear identification impossible. To bear the pain of the extraction, the victim had to be unconscious or, more likely, already dead. After further investigation, it appears that the skull has a neat cut in the back and between the eyes orbits. From the shape and the weapon that has been found next to the body, it appears that the blade is what killed the victim. It has most likely entered from front to the back of the head, causing an instant death. Ringing any bell?”
The young man remained calm, but inside, a storm of mixed feelings raged. He could feel Amaria’s astonished stare planted on him, but he simply couldn’t look at her. However justified his gesture was, even if it was self-defense, he had indeed killed a man, and had never told the dragoness. Maybe was it to hide from her the worst side of him, but he knew quite well now why he actually kept these things to himself.
He felt guilty… It didn’t really matter what he thought about Mr. Devon. If anyone had asked him, he would have gladly confirmed that this fat crazy old man deserved death. But there was a difference between wishing for someone’s death, and being the one who caused it. He had thought about that night countless times, wondering if there was another way. And every time, he had convinced himself that he had done the right thing. No one could blame him for defending his life at the cost of his aggressor’s!
Yes, but he wasn’t proud of the way he had used the turn of the events to serve his own interests… With the body of the man he killed, he saw an opportunity, the opportunity to disappear, to fake his death. And for this, he had, indeed, done all that was needed so people would think this body was his. He was even surprised that no one brought it back earlier, two enemies disappear, one body is found, and the other reappears alive, simple mathematics and deductions… If he had given it a thought earlier, it would have been obvious that the first one to throw it to his face would be the one who probably suffered the most from it…
But it was done, now… What mattered was here and there. And what mattered, was to fix this situation without making other victims.
“I respected your father.” He simply told, trying to focus on positive words instead of admitting the cruel truth. “We had our differences of opinions, but I know that deep inside, all he wanted was a safer world for this city, and for you…”
“You stop that now!” The kid burst against the bars. “You seriously think you can convince me that you had any respect for my father?! You killed him! You mutilated his dead body so you could get away! And today he’s still buried under a grave with no name! How could you pretend that you had the slightest respect for him, after taking not only his life, but also every single drop of dignity he still possessed?!”
The kid huffed like a monster. His eyes were so swollen in hate that they looked like they were going to pop out of their orbits.
The young man understood, of course he understood… He also had lost his parents a bit more than a year and a half earlier. These feelings, he had also felt them. Sadness, loneliness, anger… Anger was so easy to feel when there was someone to blame…
He didn’t know what to reply to that… If he told the truth, he knew that his lack of proofs would make him sound like he was trying to avoid the responsibility of a terrible act. And beautiful lies weren’t a worthy option either… The kid seemed to be cursed to consider him like an enemy, at the cost of his own freedom.
“Mr Drake?” A voice called him from behind, saving him from having to reply. Yet, this interruption only intensified the anger he felt.
The young man breathed deeply to resist the urge to punch this stupid guard in the face. Not only did he keep on using this name he hated so much, but he also intervened without even announcing himself beforehand.
“What?!” He asked with a clear tone of threat. “I’m kind of busy right now…”
“I’m sorry to disturb you… It’s Mr Bolner. He asks you.” The guard replied a bit sheepishly, probably sensing the tension.
“Does it have to be right now?”
“Oooh… Watch out! We got an important person right here, the head of the city himself requires his services…” The kid teased him, sitting on his stone bench with a nasty smile, arms crossed. “I should be honored that he prefers to spend time with me…”
“You, SHUT UP! And YOU!” He exploded, turning to face the guard with anger. “I asked you a question! Is that really urgent?!”
“M… Mr. Bolner told me you might say that…” The lame guard fidgeted nervously. “And he told me to say… that it depends on the value you give to every life in this city…”
Bolner and his riddles… The young man wasn’t in mood for politics, morals, or any life lesson of any kind! But the sense of these words did worry him… Bolner knew that! The massive warrior hadn’t become the hero of this city with his sole muscles, he was a master in military tactics. And What better manipulation tactic, than making a man play his game?! Sometimes, he really hated the head of this city, who seemed to know every leverage he could play on him.
“Fine! Amaria, let’s go get this over with!” He said authoritatively without even measuring the violence of his words. But he would apologize to her later. For now, he was too angry to think straight. A kid who turned his kindness against him, Bolner who interrupted an argument he was already losing, sometimes he really felt like fate was playing a bad joke on him.
As the guard escaped the room, almost running to not face the anger of his guest, the young man quickly walked out as well without even a glance to the kid, Amaria following him. Boiling, He walked without looking back, trying to contain his frustration.
“Well, looks like he won…” The dragoness dared to break the silence, with a curious lesson-telling tone for someone who usually avoided to worsen his moods.
“Amaria, not you… Not now…” He sighed, mentally exhausted by the events.
“Yes, me and now!” She replied firmly, interrupting his walk to push him against the stone wall and maintaining him with a strong forepaw. “You let him play with you! You let him use your weaknesses against you! Hah! So much for getting rid of misplaced guilt, like you always taught me!”
“I killed his father! Of course I feel guilt!”
“This man was the most despicable this city probably ever saw and you know that!”
“So what? To this kid, he wasn’t! He was his model!”
“Then what?!” She spat, her teeth making a little ‘clac’ at the end of her sentence. He might know that she wouldn’t hurt him out of anger, but she was pretty scary. “You really want him to keep that model? A man who tried to murder you, you could at least mentioned you killed him in self-defense!”
This left him astonished. He had never told her, not a single time… Her assurance left no doubt that today wasn’t the day she learnt that he had killed Mr. Devon … How could she know that he was originally meant to be the victim that night? Of course she probably knew that he wasn’t the kind to kill in cold blood, but if she based such a deduction of this simple assumption, this was quite impressive… too impressive to be a simple guess…
“So… You knew? How?” He asked her, surprise appeasing his anger in some way.
“Of course I know… My human, sometimes, when you look really concerned, I watch into your memories when you sleep… So I can finally know what’s tormenting you…”
“You can… do that?” He let out, half amazed and half outraged. He felt a bit like she had broken into his privacy… But he actually didn’t know if he could feel angry at her for that… How many times had he wished to know what she had in mind?
“I always respected your secrets, I never looked for anything else than the matters of your worries.” She simply replied, apparently calming down too. She even released the pressure of her paw and removed it from his chest. “I know that this have been a little obsession of yours for the past year. That was why I was truly worried that you wanted to come here. I knew that you weren’t ready for this… And I should have trusted my gut feeling, obviously.”
He observed her with mixed feelings about her words. She had just told him that she occasionally read his minds, and it didn’t even seem abnormal to her… This made him even wonder if he had any secret to her, actually. A predator, in every aspect… She knew her prey perfectly.
More than that, she had curiously never attempted to talk to him about this, while she knew that this was a matter of deep concern to him. For a creature that always tried to fix things that weren’t even a problem, this was a strange behavior.
“Why haven’t you simply told me? I would have listened to you…”
“The biggest proof of love, my human, is to know when to let the other live, and when to respect the silence.” She replied with a sad look. “Would you have truly listened to me if I told you that this night wasn’t your fault? Would have you listened to me if I had tried to make you face your demons? That night hurt you deeper than you ever cared to admit, even to yourself. But it happened, and you have to live with it as part of your story. Accepting the unacceptable is a complicated, it’s a long path that only you can take. I’ll always support you, but I can’t do this work for you. To be honest, I don’t know how long it will take… but there’s one thing I’m sure of: As long as you’ll carry your burden with shame, bad people will be able to use it against you, just like this kid did…”
Once again, she expressed her wisdom with such natural… This was true, and so obvious. It even sounded simple in her maw, but he wasn’t sure that he was capable of what she advised…
“I don’t know how to do this…” He lowered the head. “I always avoided to kill… Kind of lame coming from a guy who trained to be a warrior, isn’t it?” He chuckled ironically. “I can’t stop telling myself that I had the choice. I could have knocked him out, I could have run away… But I killed the father of this boy, in self-defense of course, but because I only considered this option. Doesn’t that make me a bad guy?”
“I can only give you the true reasons of your guilt, but it will be up to you to work them out.” She conceded, in sincere will to help. “You feel guilty because you used him in plain lucidity to make something you consider horrible. And you feel guilty because you identify to this kid, who’s now an orphan just like you were after the murder of your parents. These are good reasons, but you’ll have to accept that in order to achieve things in life, you sometimes have to get dirty in the process. And you’ll have to get in your tough head that you and this kid are not the same persons. You do not feel the same, you do not react the same way, and you surely are not as good on the inside.”
“Private joke?” He giggled a bit, a way to hide his vulnerability.
“I’m serious…” She replied. “Don’t assume he’s an innocent who must be protected and saved from himself. He tried to kill you, and did many other things before he had an excuse for that. I’d forgive him if he truly showed a reversal of heart, but keep in mind that not everyone wants to be saved. You don’t have to protect this kid from the truth, and actually, I see no other way that you can change his mind. I won’t allow you to go back there until you close the breaches in your heart, until you’re ready to face him for good.” She then softened her tone when she noticed his sheepish face, and gave him a little lick on the cheek to make him rise the chin. “Don’t be too hard with yourself… Evolving, learning, getting better, everything comes in time… and patience is your best weapon to not get lost in the process.”
“I consider myself lucky to have my personal beacon when I’m lost.” He said with an apologetic laugh. “I’ll figure this out in time, indeed… and meanwhile, I have other matters to free my mind from the pressure.”
“Yes, and speaking of it, we should get going…” She said, eyeing on the exit and making a sign of the head as an invitation to follow her out. “They will suspect something…”
He nodded, and she moved on, taking the lead. As he followed her, he began to seriously question his decision to help that kid… She was right, he wasn’t ready for that… How could he face someone he was too ashamed to look in the eyes? Maybe he had misinterpreted this ghost’s words… Maybe there wasn’t even a riddle in his words, and he just wanted to make fun of him. Who knew…
However, he was glad he had learnt once again that he could always count on his beloved dragoness in hard time. Even when it came to telling him the harsh truth with complete honesty. Thanks to her, he did feel like he was becoming a better man. But like she said, the path would be long to take.
Meanwhile, he could always appreciate how lucky he was to have her by his side.
“So… I’m better on the inside, heh?” He chuckled behind her, and she would look over her shoulder with a playful smile.
“In every possible meaning, my human… In every possible meaning…”
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Western Dragon
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 32.5 kB
Listed in Folders
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