of golden hearts and pyrite scales - #YAFantasy

of golden hearts and pyrite scales

Once upon a time, a kind-hearted king was led astray by the greedy whispers of his crony noblemen. Becoming deaf to his people's pleas, he enjoyed the finest luxuries while his kingdom suffered from droughts and poverty; his heart was bought out by his greed.

It was only fair, an old, wise witch decided, that the king be brought to justice. Living on the outskirts of the land, she had little interest in the governance of the kingdom. But a dirty, starved orphan had stumbled upon her little cavern in the woods, and her hardened heart had mellowed in his presence, only to fill with rage upon hearing of how he and his deceased family had suffered.

The kingdom was falling apart, and the old witch had no option to intervene for the sake of her favoured young boy's future. And so she cast a curse upon the king.

Long before, the quest of slaying a dragon was a rite of passage for all brave knights worth their armour. Revered as powerful but vicious, deadly beasts, a dragon was the natural foe of any king, a harbinger of destruction and suffering for the people. Fortunately for the king, his ancestors had long since hunted them out of existence.

So when the king's long-awaited first child was born, it was to the king's horror that a screeching, bloody, scaled, winged dragon appeared from his wife's womb.

The king immediately chased the filthy, horrifying creature out, killing all who had witnessed its existence but few, and tried over and over to father another child, to forget the cursed beast's existence. But years passed, and he could have no other: his sole child was the enemy of the people, a dragon.

The dragon retreated to the mountains in the north, sequestered itself far away from humanity, a ticking time bomb the king refused to deal with; instead, the king ordered nobody to step foot in the north, not to keep his people safe from the cruel, savage beast, but because the dragon was still his son.

His only child was a horrid beast. The king wept day and night, wondering why the world was so cruel. A heartless ruler he may be, but he was still a father, and as a father, he suffered dearly.

Meanwhile, the old witch's adopted child was not suffering any longer—in fact, he was doing quite well.

Once he had been fed, cleaned, and soothed, the boy was chipper and happy. Ignorant of the old witch's black magic and the stigma surrounding it, he was brave, playful, and adventurous.

In fact, he was too valiant. Despite her best efforts, the old witch could not dissuade him from wanting to become a knight and fight for the good of the kingdom.

"The kingdom is old, unjust, corrupt," she pleaded. "You will suffer as a knight. Your talent will be wasted and unappreciated."

But in the face of youthful stubbornness, she could only watch as he went off to join the military, passionate and innocent.

It hurt to see him return, months later, disheartened at the corruption he saw and faced. She listened as he recounted the tale of how he had been punished and humiliated by the general for saving and defending a child who had killed her cruel captor.

The frustration of the pure, good-hearted boy she had raised took precedence over her disdain towards the kingdom. Reluctantly, the witch decided to help the young boy—nay, the young knight—regain his honour.

The knight was shocked to hear of a dragon still in existence, but the old lady had never been wrong, so he trusted her word. He also trusted her when she swathed him in layers upon layers of heavy armour and instructed him which mountain he was to climb.