Dragon Quill

Moving Trees and Thornless Brambles

The father had asked the boy about the oracle many times before he told him anything. The boy had taken to sitting stock still with a blank look on his face, and that worried the father. It had once been very hard to catch the boy sitting at all, and even if you managed to do so, it was always very obvious that his mind was working to make sense of something or put two and two together. Something inside of him seemed dead now, and the father was furious at the oracle for it.

The boy left the village after a few days. His eyes weren’t as bright as they had been before. His steps were heavier. He could have been setting out to play in fields and observe bugs and plants and life in general – but instead he was being sent to kill a dragon, who, for all he knew, could be quite a pleasant dragon after all.

Before he had left his father had given him a sword. It was the only weapon the family owned, and they had no armor to go with it, which the boy had always thought was odd. Both of them blinked away tears when they said goodbye. He thought of their parting as he walked down the dirt street. He was still crying, but he wasn’t all the way aware of it. He thought of death, too: death for himself if he failed to kill the dragon, and death for the possibly-pleasant dragon if he didn’t fail to kill him. It was a very bleak situation to be in, and he wondered what would happen if he refused to do it. The trees twitched angrily as he wondered, and a root rose and whipped him across the face. It was just a small root, but it hurt, and he thought he was bleeding. He hurried to rid his mind of the apparently dangerous thought – a cat was on the road, so he thought of cats, instead, and walked with one hand pressed against his cheek.

He had never walked for so long in his entire life, and he hoped he would never have to again. Of course, it had been less than a day at that point – but it was a day without company, and the thought of killing a dragon put him in no mood to do anything but sulk. When the sun began to go down, he thought: I suppose I should have brought a tent. He walked a little further and found a space on the side of the road shaded by writhing trees that seemed much more alive than the regular kind of trees that couldn’t really do much in terms of moving. Beneath their branches was a bed of brambles.  Thankfully the brambles had lost their thorns. He saw several small dark things hopping slowly around a corner, but wasn’t sure he saw them at all, and then he thought he must just be tired, and he should really get some sleep, and isn’t this bed comfortable? Much more comfortable than a bed of brambles has any right to be. Perhaps it’s only because they’re the oracle’s, and they’re scared to be anything but the best, because he’s so mean.

And then he was asleep.