The Rugged Edge

Grey Dragons - Chapter 1: First Quilled Words

Present

July 10, 791

.. .. ..

Golden ringlets: hark! they grew

golden as most golden shade;

Grey, that melancholy hue,

was now forever gone.

Oh joy! Not grey, not grey, but joy.

Not grey, not grey, but joy.

Not grey, never grey, but joy.

Everyone clapped as I finished my song and curtsied.

"That was amazing," Ise said, and I hopped from the stage, tucking my violin away in its case.

She looked so dazzlingly pretty, bathed in a white gown, with her golden curls brushing her shoulders. Her silver tiara rested on her head as though she were a doll, and her delicate wedding veil was thrown behind her. Next to her, Geraint was indescribably happy, his eyes glittering as he held her hand.

I only smiled. I seemed to do that a lot. "What should I do now? I've spent so long working on this that I don't know what to do now that it's over."

"You write a new song," said the queen.

"But I've written so many songs," I said. "I'd really like to try something new."

Ise thought a moment before saying, "Write a story. Write your story."

"My story?" I asked.

"Of course," she said.

"I can try," I said after a moment spent thinking. "But my story wouldn't be very interesting. Not as interesting as yours."

"Quinnie," Ise said, laughing. "You were the one that made me smile for the first time. You made my story interesting. Yours can only be better."

I thought a moment, and was just about to give up when an idea rose into the front of my mind.

"Alright," I said. "But I'm going to need some help. My story can always do with other stories to make it complete."

.. .. ..

October 8, 791

.. .. ..

I placed the quill on the paper and left it there a moment, deciding how to start.

It had been two months since Geraint and Ise's wedding - plenty of time to talk to everyone I needed to talk to. I fingered the huge stack of notes I'd gathered; other stories to add to mine that I had gathered from my friends.

I was actually doing it! I was writing my own story. Two months of notes would, I knew, increase as I wrote, until it was a staggering amount of parchment to sort through. Still, I had enough to start.

But as I sat by Vereniva's open parlour window, I continued to meet the problem: how to start.

I sat there, thinking. I remembered all of the stories I had heard in the last two months. All of them were touched by what Ise called the "Grey." All of them were beautiful, and would take thousands of pages to fully tell. And all of them, I thought, needed telling.