The Dragon's Bane

XXX

Évrard D'Aboville-The Creature 

This has been the worst kind of "love story" all along. I'm not sure how I got it into my head that I was on an adventure. One's imagination might even stretch to call this tale a fantasy but no, this was a romance of the worst sort.

Her soft features disrupt my thoughts. Her ever-changing scent overwhelms my already powerful olfactory senses. And I...hesitate. Pausing for the briefest of moments. Yes, I confess to being a lost soul, hidden behind a closed door, in a black room. Watching her in isolation. One-sided. Obsessive.

It has been some years since anyone has slipped passed my high, guarded walls. It has been many more since I truly felt much of anything except boredom.

"Get a hold of yourself man!" I growl at the silence. These 'feelings' aren't real. They do not truly exist. It is a fabrication resulting from the misuse of magic and a well-placed blood bond. That much I'd learn from eavesdropping on Maelys' conversation with Izmir. It is much likelier that she wanted me to hear. She wanted me to know that none of it was real.

The truth of who Izmir is and my want of her is clouded at best. And the search for these answers has weighed and multiplied my trials infinitely. In her stead, uncertainty has found me and left me wanting.

"So what!" I shout. My voice echoes against the cave walls and boomerangs back to me. I'm attempting to empty myself of this ruinous frustration.

In order to deal with this little annoyance, I vented... and perhaps acted a bit rashly. So fucking what? I drew a longbow and hit a short audience. Boiled a little scandal water and spilled some secrets publicly all over Sabien's lap and perhaps forever ruined an age-old friendship. Not to mention turning my back on my king makes me a traitor and turncoat of the worst sort. Yet I still chose to protect her, going against everything I know and every instinct I had, but so what?

So what! I pace the short distance blindly. Why should anyone care that some groundlings learned something they otherwise shouldn't have and now Izmir is in more danger than she was before she met me!

So fucking what- I hardly finished the thought when my mobile vibrates in my pants pocket. I answer. The caller took a tone. I, in turn, took a tone back. We hung up. It wasn't cordial. That is fine with me. I didn't do any of this to make more friends. I did it for her and her alone.

But shortly before this hagridden caller, a visitor came to the mouth of Maelys' cave. That they found it through her maze of protective spells was in itself a testament to the visitor's power or that of their masters.

A delivery was to be made. Some hobbledehoy with a noxious smile and uneven chin delivered the most unwelcomed ultimatum via his on-high Lords. And they hate when I use the name but fuck them in the ear and out the mouth. The Oriens! A lot I'd tangled with before and hoped never to come across again.

We come full circle to my earlier comment on making what might be considered a rash judgment with subsequent swift action. I put my fist through the courier's skull. I CRATERED it. It is with me now, as I make my way back to Izmir and Maelys. I wore his viscera glove wrapped around my knuckles.

I pulled back the chunks and licked my fingers. I wasn't supposed to do this. Oh...I really wasn't. If there are rules. Don't "shoot" or in this case eat the messenger is right up there at the top. So maybe for the first time in my life, I am in real trouble.

"Oh for God's sake! Who have you killed now?" Maelys was the first to see me or so I thought.

I caught Izmir's face just in time to see the horror register in her features as she struggled to hide it. She'd never seen me as I truly am and now that she's seen she would always regard me with that same fear and apprehension. A fact I knew from experience.

"Évrard what have you done? Why did you do this?" Izmir asked with a mixture of shock and disgust. It made it easier to ignore all the feelings I'd contemplated earlier and protect the chink she'd made in my armor.

"They wanted the monster...not the man. So they got exactly what they asked for." My voice was flat and distant when I answered. She very nearly visibly recoils when I toss the head to a side.

"Ah! Did you have to hit me with a corpse's head? Was that really necessary?" The head fell near her but in no way reached her. Izmir reached for a nearby cloth and wiped vigorously at the tiny blood splatters on her blouse.

I raise an eyebrow feigning disinterest whilst working hard to suppress a morbid and inappropriate smile. "Necessary, no, but funny, yes."

"You needn't kill him, Évrard" Maelys began while conversely disregarding the corpse entirely. Literally stepping over it to warm herself near the fire.

"He was a messenger from The Oriens. He came issuing threats which I do not take kindly to." I stalk to Izmir. Her eyes go as wide as saucers as she cringed trying in vain to make herself small. I snatch the cloth from her hand and begin to clean myself off. Her thoughts came in turbid waves of confusion but mostly terror.

"Still you didn't need to kill him." She squeaked in a small voice.

"She's right," Maelys added. "It was cruel and cruelty is not attractive."

My eyes held Izmir's as I said, "I am not human. I never was. So why are you expecting me to behave like one?"

Her expression changed while she took time to prepend on my words.

"Yes, we are all aware of what you are Kindred but he was a messenger of a Supreme Immortal. They will not take kindly to this affront. Perhaps we could make some gesture of peace?"

"No, them and all their lot can fuck all the way off. They will never have peace from me. I'd rather be dead." I folded my arms obstinately over my chest.

Maelys gave a chortle, "Then have I got news for you."