The Vampire Forest

The Caetor

   Scarlet stood there, then turned away from Seth in disgrace. She did not even think once to turn and look at him as he spoke.

    “Scarlet, I only wanted what’s best for you and your forest.” Seth replied.

   “I guess what’s best for my forest... is for you to leave. I never meant for anyone to be killed in cold blood!” Scarlet cried, running into the forest, not caring where she was going.

    Seth stared blankly after her. “I CAN”T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!” He yelled at himself turning away and kicking at the now rock-hard soil.

    Scarlet ran, never looking back. Suddenly, the forest yelled at her full-force. She stopped, it had never done that before. She listened, she sensed something. Something BIG. She heard a blood-curdling growl. She closed her eyes and saw through the forests eyes. She opened her eyes in shock; it was a Caetor, and not just any Caetor, the same Caetor that had burned Firewing’s wing and... killed Starlings family.

   The Caetor roared again. She was sure it was, it was said that they can read minds, she could sense what it was saying from its roar: It was replying to her thought, answering that it was true; he did do that to Firewing and did kill Starling’s family.

   Scarlet was furious, she drew her sword and touched the blade. She recited an ancient chant of power in her mind to the sword: Powers of thy forest, thy wind, water, and earth, I call upon thy power, grant thee sword a mighty force to kill this deadly beast within thy hour.

   The sword suddenly started to glow a bright, forest green, “Now you’re in big trouble.” Scarlet thought to the dragon.

   All of a sudden, it burst out from the trees, right in front of Scarlet. It thrashed furiously at her with its mighty claws.

   “I will not accept fools pride and kill you when you are down, I will kill you honorably in memory of my fallen companions.” She thought to it. The dragon seemed to agree.

   They circled each other. “Sword, guide me.” Scarlet thought to the sword. It lead her to three strikes on the great beast’s weak points, the belly, behind the ears, and the underside of the neck.

   The dragon slashed Scarlet a few times. She ha quite a few on her arms and legs, and one on her back, but she did not give in to the pain. She kept fighting, blocking out the pain. Remembering the day she had found Starling.

   Starling was young, around 2 months of age; she had been up to about Scarlet’s knees. People said it had only been a fire caused by a foolish young dragon. Scarlet had been young, around 30. It was young for her, considering she never aged, and she had now lived for centuries. She had probably been the only one to see the Caetor. She had seen it toast Starling’s family. She had run in, not caring of the danger, and saved Starling, and raised her herself. Starling, her precious dragon had been a dull bronze on the day she had saved her, and now she was a beautiful Gold. The only problem was that most Golden dragos a born with... certain deformations. Yes, they live forever, but most of the have a deformed wing or something. Not Starling, she was a perfect model of a dragon, but she could not grow any bigger than a dragon of 5 years of age, which was only about 3x as big as a modern-day human. Scarlet still loved Starling, like she did all her precious animals.

   Scarlet also remembered Firewing. Firewing and his mother and father had just barely escaped the Caetor. His parents had inhaled to much of the fire’s smoke and had serious burns, which were left unattended, so they got infected. This, caused them to die, and poor Firewing was left alone to grieve over his dead parents. One day, Scarlet had been taking a stroll through the forest and chanced upon the little guy. She listened with the forest to hear what had happened and immediately adopted him and gave him a name, and they’ve been friends ever since.

   “For my friends.” Scarlet thought, “For my family.”

   The dragon attacked fiercely, she countered, he snapped at her, she stabbed him.

   “For everyone who has ever meant anything to me, for all the ones I love and care about, for my love.” Scarlet thought, “He may not realize, but I truly do love him, he does everything for me, he’d give everything up for me, I need to tell him, it confuses him so, that is why he goes mad for me.” With that, she leapt atop the Caetor and stabbed him, “In the name of my kingdom!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, her feeling was so strong, her words swept across the forest.

   Her people gave a great cheer. For some reason, her meaning was suddenly clear to everyone, no need of explanation. The Caetor had been slain!

   The beast lay cold and motionless on the ground.

   “You fought with pride and honor, a more worthy opponent than expected from the likes of you.” Scarlet said gracefully to the dead dragon, and walked back to Daylight Valley to reunite with her people.

   Suddenly, everything came to life again, the trees had renewed full of fresh, green leaves, the grass sprang back to life, and Scarlet’s lively glow returned as she walked into the crowd.

   “Peace has now finally returned to the land, we are FREE!” Scarlet yelled.

   “Long live the queen!” The creatures replied joyously.

   The dead bodies faded away, and the forest grew fuller and livelier than ever and its dwellers celebrated happily, all of the children returned and joined the festivities.

   Seth turned away sadly, and disappeared into the trees. Scarlet followed after him.

   Jordan noticed, and smiled, maybe this did mean that peace had returned to the land, especially to Seth and Scarlet, they had been suffering long enough, now it was time for them to say what they really felt. Today would change everyone’s lives for the rest of their lives.

   Almost nobody noticed that they had left, and those who did, knew better than to interfere. My sisters and I noticed, we all giggled and enjoyed the celebration. We had changed a lot more than one life today, all in... I’m not sure how long it was, now it seemed like time had just slipped away, in a flash. It was over, no more sadness, no more pain, just the happily ever after we had worked so hard to get to. It was finally here.