Northern_Lights_2016

9 Locked in a tower with no one to show her a smile or supply her warm food and comfort? Alone without a voice and a place to go, with only the fangs of a vicious captor to keep her company? With no one to protect and cherish her for the lovely woman she is? I won’t stand for it! You are truly what the legends call you, a monster! Unhand Lucretia and give her to me! I will take her as my wife and she will never endure such a nightmare again! I will pledge my life to her until the day I die!” Lucretia felt her insides ignite and tighten within her, bringing her anger to a boil and awakening something primal within her. Without thinking she stormed out from the behind the door and out into plain sight, brandishing Verioth’s blade in both hands. “Lucretia!” Verioth whipped his head around, “the signal!” “I can’t listen to this inane babble any longer! This man speaks nothing but lies! How dare you disgrace Verioth with such uncouth behavior!” She stepped onto the edge of the pinnacle and placed a protective hand onto one of the drag- on’s horns. “It is me you seek, is it not, Sir Honorable Knight of the King’s Order?!” “Lucre—” the man opened his mouth to speak, but Verioth was quick to spit a ball of flame in his direction, effectively silencing him. “It is fortunate your pledge ends today — lucky for you, you’ve stepped into a graveyard, and I’ve already been kind enough to prepare your grave!” “L-Lucretia, you’ve really aligned yourself with such a monster? B-but why?!” “Protect and cherish me? Were those your intentions the night you abandoned your chivalry and assaulted me rather than protected me, knight? That place was a prison, and I’ll not go back alive!” Smoke and ash created an ominous cloud in the sky that swirled overhead their ravaged battlefield, eery silence replacing the thunderous cries of the previous battle between man and dragon. Somewhere in the distance, a large slab of cement detached itself from the castle and shattered to the ground below. “Now,” Lucretia murmured, her voice barely a whisper. She cast the dragon a steady gaze. “Is now okay?” Verioth stood still as stone, and for a moment Lucretia swore she saw him tremble. He gave her a steady nod of his tremendous head. “This is the last you’ll see of your precious princess,” Lucretia declared, and slowly lifted the blade with quivering hands. Both the knight and dragon watched with equal attention. No one moved. Carefully, she angled the edge of the blade between her ribs. She hesitated for only a moment, smiling one last wry smile before forcing it through her body in one deliberate and bloody motion. As blood drenched her hands and her vision blurred, she began to feel something else stirring within her — something that was not the calming throes of death reaching out to her. Something invigorat- ing. Something that lit her veins on fire and made her feel more alive than ever before. Power. Soft flesh hardened and gave way to scales. Delicate, gentle hands cemented into vicious, curling claws. Petite and frail frame were replaced through slow, painful shifts and jerks by a towering frame that made the once enormous cas- tle look like a child’s plaything. Her new eyes granted her unprecedented vision that made her think that humans may just be better off blind. The metamorphosis complete, she looked down at her companion, who now appeared as her equal rather than her superior. The cowardly human had already begun to take off in the opposite direction, running clumsily across the para- pet and lowering himself onto the wall in hopes of escape. They would say later that the mighty dragon had clutched the princess in its wicked claws while she cried for her knight to save her, that the dragon was too vicious, too menacing — that the brave knight had to watch his princess die before meeting his own untimely end. They would not know that the ruined castle was her home, that the vile dragon had been her only friend, that he had watched over her more faithfully than any cowardly knight. They would never know that she didn’t need to be saved. Lucretia leaped from the pinnacle and spiraled down, down towards her target, every nerve in her new body feeling electric. A mighty sound burst from her chest as she bore upon the sniveling knight and caught him between her gaping jaws. “My skin is iron. My will is steel. I will destroy anyone who touches me.”