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@inkhorn

awesome! Here she is so 🙂

 

Mayra

I hummed quietly to myself as I linked my arms through the granite railing. I was at least fifty feet off the ground but the heights didn’t faze me anymore than the bosses thugs did. My body balanced at an angle from the roof like a gargoyle as I looked out at the silent streets. This was the abandoned part of Media Nox, just outside the inner walls, inhabited only by strays and pests. In the distance I could make out the sharp shapes of the skyscrapers. And above that, the glowing district of the wealthy, floating above the lower levels like a massive cloud of platinum.

I knew quite well that the boss knew my hiding spot. He had spies watching my every move. In case I tried to escape of course. Which was ridiculous. I had nowhere else to go. Gaels were now forbidden to own travel documents or transport. Besides he had done so much for me, putting his reputation on the line so he could employ me.

My fists tightened. He was kind to me. I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him. I needed to be grateful, show him that I was grateful.

I needed to survive. Because then all the songs and stories tucked away in my heart would disappear. My culture would vanish. It was already vanishing…

I let out a frustrated growl, and straightened, unwinding my arms. As I did so, I was shocked by powerful gale suddenly blowing through me. I gasped, the force of it causing me to lose my grip. I scrabbled for purchase but it was no use. I fell.  But strangely, it didn’t feel like I was plummeting through the air.  There was an odd lightness in my body as if all the gravity had vanished.

Blackness filled my vision, then a mixture of blinding colours, every colour from the rainbow hurtling towards me like hailstones.

Then my body hit a hard surface. I wheezed, my body trembling from the impact. I shifted each of my limbs. Then my head. And torso. Nothing seemed to be broken. I frowned and sat up slowly.

I stared around me in shock. I wasn’t in Media Nox anymore. This seemed to be a cavern of some sort. An unknown source of light was illuminating the rocky clearing.

That was when I noticed the woman.

She was not much taller than me, but she seemed to be in her mid twenties at the most. She wore strange attire, a dark furred robe befitting that of a queen but also armoured leathers beneath. A warrior perhaps?

Dark red hair was tied and braided back in an intricate hairstyle that framed the rest of her pale face, with a delicate golden circlet. And when I looked closer, past the blue woad painted over her eyes, I saw the scars patterning the left side of her face.

I gaped at her. Who was this? And why did she remind me so much of myself…

”It’s hard to recognise me, I know,” the woman said. She spoke in the western Gael dialect. I started. I hadn’t heard that language – <i>my</i> language – in so long. What was going on?

I swallowed. “Do – do uh I…” I reddened as I found myself lost for words, as usual.

”Still having trouble pulling sentences together?” The woman smiled sadly. “Yeah. It’s pretty painful.”

This woman was speaking to me as if she knew me. As if…

The woman stepped forward, more into the light. And thats when I saw her eyes. One brown, dark as the soil, the other a vivid green.

I felt so sick I couldn’t speak. I clasped my hand over my mouth.

”I’ve forgotten,” the woman said. “The hopeless look I had on my face. Like a beaten animal struggling for survival.”

I shook my head and stepped away, trembling. “You – me…?”

”Well I’m certainly not mum am I?”, the woman said dryly.

I stared at her outfit, looking her up and down. What on earth had I become? Who was this woman sanding before me, dressed in attire like that…

That was when I heard the growl, reverberating throughout the cavern. And a dragon slowly slipped into view, its heavy footsteps causing the ground to tremble. My heart stopped.

It fixed me with eyes that were both knowing and predatorial. Its scales were reddish brown tinted with gold along the spine.

The woman touch the dragon’s snout as he moved towards her. And she spoke in an unknown language unlike anything I had ever heard before. As she spoke, the dragon responded to her, lowering its head as if besotted. Syllable and vowels that didn’t make sense spilling out in a tone that was both guttural and light, pronounced and lyrical.

A language that didn’t exist on this Earth.

The massive dragon fixed its gaze on me, and I wanted to cower. This – this thing was my future?

”You don’t need to be afraid,” the woman – future me – said. “He knows who you are. I’ve just told him not to do anything rash.”

I watched the faint glow within his belly. The power of flames within him no doubt.

The woman stroked the dragon, and smiled at me. In a way that lit up her face in a serene and gentle way. A smile that I never dared thought I would be capable of. “Be sure to watch out for him. He will come to you one day. And believe me, he will be impossible to walk away from.”