Dragon Knights Fan Fiction ❯ Twenty Themes ❯ Rejection ( Chapter 10 )

Warnings: The sad story of Rath and the Dragonlord's relationship.
Size: 5.76kb

Sorry for the gap in updates, but I've not been well recently. My brain goes to mush when I get sick and hopefully it doesn't show here. A lot of the themes I've written have had angsty or sad stories, but that's what the themes have inspired. I should hopefully post a new story next week. I've have a readied draft for a while, but I'm reluctant to publish until I've a few more chapters written.

Lykouleon looked at the small, pink mass in his arms and frowned again. He shifted the bundle around, trying to find a more comfortable way to carry it. A small squeal came from the blanket. He prised it open and looked into that grumpy face. It still hadn't cried; the squeal was the only sound he'd heard from it so far, so the baby couldn't be human. Human children wailed all the time, from what he'd seen of them. This baby was so quiet that Lykouleon wouldn't have noticed him without Crewger. The ice-demon had taken Lykouleon's sleeve in his mouth and led him to the corpse of his twin, Illuser. Enough had died, and Lykouleon would have avoided that sight if he could - another loyal servant falling because the dragon lord was too cowardly to fight the demon king himself. Resigned, he'd reached down to attempt a proper burial of the body, when it twitched. Lykouleon had jumped back, afraid that some necromancy had taken poor Illuser and turned him to evil once more, but the body didn't rise. When he had cautiously circled the body, he had seen a small, naked and bloody baby kicking the body as hard as possible.

Lykouleon didn't know how, or why, the baby had been born, but he definitely wasn't human. The dragon lord wasn't an expert on demon propagation, but the child couldn't be Illuser's either, at least, not entirely. Royal blood had many effects, it was poisonous and meant death to those who touched it, yet it had freed Illuser and Crewger from the spell that had bound them, perhaps it had also given Lykouleon an answer to the problem that now plagued his heart. Perhaps the child could take up the dragon lord's burden when he died.

But first, he had to introduce the child to its new mother... and hope that it wasn't the evil he feared, but the future for his tribe.

He pushed open the door with his foot, poked his head around it and smiled at her before following through with the rest of his body, carefully cradling the child under his cloak. Raseleane smiled. She usually carefully posed herself - her emotions were displayed artfully, like an artist arranging features on a portrait. Since her rescue from Nadil, her face was more open and Lykouleon knew that she was truly happy to be with him. They had finally started to open up to each other and support each other.

"My lord," she sighed, a pleased smile coming easily to her lips, as she came towards him, her arms wide for an embrace.

She frowned when he dodged the hug, still unsure of their new relationship, but mollified by the light playing in his eyes. Then he lifted his arms and shook aside the cloak that kept the child from her eyes. She stared at it, emotion fleeing and the painter staring before a blank canvas once more. She lifted her brush and furrowed the brow, narrowed the eyes and twisted the lips.

"How could you?" She spat the words at him. "How dare you?"

As she pushed past him, Lykouleon fumbled, but caught the child before he dropped it. The door slammed and he stared into the sullen eyes of the only hope left for the dragon tribe.

I'm a demon! I'm a big scary demon! Rawrrr!" The boy reached up on tippy toes, twisted his fingers into claws and growled at the raven-haired dragon. "I'm going to eat you."

"Will you?" said the dragon, with a grin. "Well, I'm a brave knight and I will slay you." He pounced at the boy, reached over and tickled him.

"No! No!" he laughed. "I'm a demon. You can't defeat me!"

"You're not a demon, Rath" The cold voice cut through their play. The black-haired dragon unfurled himself and bowed. "My lord," he said.

"You can be a knight, Rath, but not a demon, never a demon!" Lykouleon shouted, marching up to the boy and towering over him.

Rath smiled. "Do you want to be the demon then?" he said shyly. "I'll be the knight and we can fight." He held out a bent stick to the stern dragon lord, who knocked it out of his hand.

"I'm too busy to play games," he said, turning away. "Ruwalk will play with you."

Rath watched him leave. The other dragon picked up the stick.

"Do you want to be the demon again?" he asked.

"No," replied Rath, flatly. "I'm a knight."

Even the dragon lord can't do everything himself," Lykouleon said, with a kind smile. "So it's important to treat people well, give them challenges and tools so that they can do their job better. Even if you want to, you can't handle everything yourself. A well-trained and loyal subordinate is worth far more than cutting your time into smaller and smaller pieces."

Rath stared out the window. Lykouleon peeked past him. The day was overcast, the grounds were empty and the leaves on the trees had yet to turn. He smiled again and walked to his pine cabinet before opening a drawer and pulling out a long, thin bundle, wrapped in a deep blue cloth.

"I had Alfeegi take this from the vault. It was my grandfather's sword and it's one of the finest blades we have," he said, releasing it from the cloth and hefting it. He ran his fingers up the blade and over the etchings on the metal. "I thought that it might be an appropriate gift for a newly confirmed knight."

He laid down the cloth and lovingly rested the sword on top of it, but Rath didn't even glance over.

"Do you want to try it out? I have some free time, what do you say? Would you take me on as a sparring partner?" he asked, his voice light, but his face strained.

"Can't, I'm too busy," Rath muttered.

The sword broke three days later.

This was my tenth theme. I'm halfway through!