Blaze in the Darkness | ✔

Chapter One

I've wondered what the outside looks like for a long time now. When one was stuck in a container where they can reach from one side to another with their nose to their tail, one began to think. I could still remember it, in the beginning. The smells, the light, the trees, and the rain. I didn't know how much time had passed, but my memories passed with it.

Like most days, I sat on the smooth surface of my tiny home and watched all the other creatures. Their glass bottles, jars, and pots on the various shelves in the room. Some of the creatures stared back. Others simply slept. Quite a few pacing nervously.

I resisted the urge to join them. Something was off, and it terrified us all. For as long as we'd been there, the Beast Collector had come to watch us every day. Sometimes he brought others of his kind to stare at us with him. Often, they had the same vicious look in their eyes as he did. This was the longest we hadn't seen him or his companions.

To calm myself, I paced circles in my small bottle. My tail of fire dragged on the glass behind me, swaying from side to side on the beat of my nerves. I had walked this track many times, and knew it by heart. Wooden wall. Stone wall. Wooden wall. Open side. Wooden wall. Stone wall. Wooden wall. Open side. And the entire time, glass all around me.

I paused at the wooden wall, glaring at it. Decades ago, the horned blacklion and the leviathan got into a fight. They hated each other so fiercely, they nearly managed to knock each other's bottle over. When the Beast Collector walked in, he quickly placed small dividers between every single pot, making them unable to see their neighbours. Now we could only look one way: forward. It prevented fights, but it also kept us from communicating from one side of the shelf to the other.

We used to hold conversations by moving our eyes, our tails, or claws, paws, or wings. Now, we were too far apart to do much. We could still make funny faces at one another, but the other side of the room was far away, and the light reflected off the other bottles, making them seem opaque. The large movements we could make got boring after a few years. Instead, we had to resort to pacing, staring, and sleeping.

I paused my pacing when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. Two people walked into the room, one male and one female. Both dressed the same way as the Beast Collector, in shades of brown, red, and faded gold. I had seen them quite a few times with the Collector. Most of us had listened closely to every conversation they had, either out of boredom or curiosity.

Within moments, all the bottled creatures were up. I could only imagine that they mirrored my worried stance. If visitors showed up - especially Vesmai mages - it was bad news. It was even worse news when they were without the Collector. That had never happened before.

"A shame Ethye died so soon. He could've collected more of them had he lived," the female said, glancing at the shelves.

"Well, I'm not going to miss him." The man with the mark of a dragon claw on his belt and shoulder pads picked up a bottle. A wolf bared its fangs at him, its black fur seemingly turning to smoke at the edges. He turned it over once before putting it down. "He had his use, but that's all good I can say about him."

Although we had learned not to show we could hear them, there was a lot of movement around the room. Ears swivelled and wings unfurled. I had thought he'd be there forever - all of us had.

Thankfully, the woman didn't seem to notice the sudden activity. Her gaze slid across the different bottles. "Then don't say any more. We all know how secretive and protective he was of his 'great' collection. He barely has any earth creatures, let alone so-called great ones."

"They were probably too much of a bother to display. They like to burrow." The man moved forward, walking down the lines of shelves.

The woman hummed in reply, rubbing the scar on her cheek. Her gaze swept over me, and my hackles raised involuntarily. Her eyes were so dead, yet also filled with hatred, as if the rage was the only thing keeping her alive. It was a terrifying combination. I was glad when she moved on.

"He was foolish. He shouldn't have tried to steal the creature of another mage for his collection. But now, all of this is ours for taking." He reached out, taking one of the bottles. The purple dragon inside let his wings flare up, fangs and claws at ready. The mage just ignored the beast, repeating the process until he had left over a dozen gaps in the perfectly filled shelves.

The woman, having watched him silently for a while, finally spoke up. "All dragons, I see. Not much of a surprise."

"Everyone has their preferences," the man replied calmly. "You simply value mud, dust and rocks higher than grace and power of a dragon."

"Tsk. Where would your graceful dragon make a den if there was no ground to land on?" She picked a few bottles for herself when the man didn't bother to reply. Most of the containers filled with earth creatures, crystals and rocks growing from their bodies. I whined when I saw that the ent had been taken. He had been my friend, trying to cheer me up by dancing with his branches and growing flowers when I was sad.

The female mage then moved the remaining bottles around so all the gaps on the shelves were filled. As if nothing ever happened. As if a dozen of bottles filled with terrified creatures weren't on a table behind them.

"I got all I wanted out of here. You?" she asked.

The bottles, containing creatures that I had known for ages, vanished one by one as the man muttered spells. When all of them were gone, he looked at his companion. "Yeah. Let's get those buyers and make some extra money."

Without so much as a glance back, the two walked out of the room, leaving me and everyone else in stunned silence. The Collector, dead? And we would be sold? I could see my questions mirrored in the body language of the creatures on the opposite shelf.

I was still frozen in shock, trying to think of the consequences, when the sound of footsteps penetrated the glass barrier around me. Over half a dozen people entered a room, along with the two mages.

"The creatures you saw above are nothing compared to these. These are alive and moving. As you know, you do not have to feed them, nor do you have to let them out. They can function as interesting fish in a miniature aquarium. They can also be sold or transported much more easily than their full-sized counterparts," the female rattled off. Her way of speaking about us ignited a fury inside me that I didn't dare show.

The man took a step forward. "We can either sell these by shelf or by the bottle. We'll start with this shelf. Bidding starts at twenty gold - you are getting eight of them in one go, after all."

And so, the bidding commenced.