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Lady and the Dragon

Short story By: CharlesLeeMcCabe

The Lady is a fallen angel that has taken a village of humans under her protection. In this story, she has to battle a dragon that has taken to feeding off of the herds of her village.

Submitted:Dec 23, 2010    Reads: 56    Comments: 0    Likes: 1   

Not all angels that fall to Earth do so as punishment. Some choose to fall out of a belief that they can do more good as a semi-mortal, than as an entity. At least, that's what the Lady told herself as she was dodging the claws of the angry dragon. The beast had been ravaging the livestock of 'her' humans for the past two months, and they couldn't afford to lose so much as one more beast from their herds. At this realization, she went out into the hillside looking for the monster that had been ravaging her tribe. After three days of hunting, she had nearly come to the conclusion that the monster had moved on when the winged horror lunged out of a ravine directly behind her. With a smile and a nod, she recognized that the creature had been hunting her, just as she had been hunting it.

With the smile still upon her lips, she let loose with her battle cry as she flung herself at the creature, sword high and wings poised to take her in whatever direction she needed to go. After an opening blow that would have toppled a legion of human soldiers, the Lady found herself looking into the eyes of pure madness as the beast charged her with the intent of either running her down, or getting close enough in to use its deadly fire breath. She wasn't going to give the monstrosity the chance! As soon as the abomination was at a full gallop, she folded her wings and shot underneath its legs, slicing at parts that looked much softer than they turned out to be. After coming out from under the beast, she had just enough time to realize that she had used two of her better moves on this overgrown gecko, to next to no effect. Just as she was sizing up the back of the creature, scanning for possible weak points, she barely had time to duck as it swung its massive tail at her head. No. After barely avoiding the deadly appendage, she realized that the thing hadn't been aiming at her head at all. It had been aiming at her wings, and it had actually managed to knock the sword from her hands. The weapon flew off into the underbrush, and out of sight. This was a bad turn of events, to say the least. Even though she was coming to realize that she had little hope of victory with her sword, she had no hope of defeating this foe without any weapon at all.

This filled her with an idea that was just so crazy, it sounded like something the playwrights in her village would write up for the evening shows. However, at this point, she couldn't very well afford to dismiss any ideas just because they may seem silly. Taking flight, she gained an altitude that would take her out of the dragon's immediate line of sight as she prepared her surprise for the beast. Examining herself, she found that she had just enough scratches and cuts sustained in the fight that she just might be able to pull this idea off. With one part of her plan evident on her very skin, she set to work finding the perfect messenger for her deadly message. Reaching behind her back she ruffled through until she found the very thing that she was hoping for. Pulling it from behind her back, she returned her attention to the beast on the ground, only to find it no longer on the ground. Not seeing the scaly creature in front of her, she only had a moment to fold her wings and drop towards the ground as one claw full of talons ripped through the air where she had been a bare instant earlier.

Dipping the tip of her weapon into one of the deeper cuts on her arm, she kept an eye on the dragon, waiting on the right time to put this new plan into action. As the dragon reached its apex in the sky and started to dive back down towards her, she did what any of her generals would have been at a loss to explain. She charged. Drawing back her mighty arm, the smile reappearing on her face, she let loose with her weapon of choice just as she dipped underneath the massive belly of the dragon once more. For a moment she thought that her idea had failed just as her previous attacks had, but as she was turning to try and find her sword in the underbrush, she heard the monster shriek as it hit the ground and found its strength fleeing before it. It had worked. She couldn't believe it. Such a simple thing, and it had brought down such a legendary foe. She could now say that she had seen just about everything. As the dragon fell dead onto its side, she saw where the unlikely weapon had embedded itself. Sticking out of the dragon's neck was something so small and seemingly fragile that she had to strain just to see it.

The feather.

She had remembered that the blood of a semi-mortal could burn through most any substance on earth, and that her feathers had very sharp quill tips. Combine the two and she might just have a weapon sharp enough to make it through the hide of the terrible beast. As she landed, she dug through the underbrush, retrieved her sword, and went over to her worthy foe. Stopping just shy of the things massive head, she sank to her knees, placed her hands on either side of the great creatures head, and let fly with a chant song that she had learned before falling. The words of the chant themselves could not be understood by any mortal mind, however, and everyone within the boundary of the valley felt overcome with both feelings of pride and sorrow. The song was always sung at the death of a worthy foe. And the Lady felt that this dragon was as worthy a foe as any she had ever faced, and she was truly sorry that she had had to end its existence. Finishing her song, she placed her forehead as near to the forehead of the dragon as she could and whispered, "In some other life, we will meet again."

The ritual finished, she started about the task of readying the dragon for transport back to her village where she would see that the creature was honored in the ways that she was taught many eons ago. This would be a celebration that her people would never forget. Thinking these thoughts, her smile came back and she started the long task of carrying the dragon back to her village for the festivities.




