The Fall of Dragon Haven - A Dragonkeeper Fanfiction

Yara Yu

"Look! Look!" The little girl beamed holding out her handwheel. The old woman smiled encouragingly at her granddaughter. The little girl was learning to sew on this trip in an attempt to heel her boredom at the silk stall. She spent the long days learning to thread flowers into her handwheel cloth. She had a budding talent for it at just 5, but it would be a few years before she would be allowed to sew onto silk.

The girl's older brother peered over at the cloth. "What is it meant to be exactly...?"

Her chubby cheeks balled to the sides as she proudly proclaimed, "A dragon!"

Yara's eyes met with her grandsons. He had Anh's eyes. Words weren't necessary to say that the applique likened more to a squashed worm than a dragon, but they both nodded kindly at the little one.

"Wow! It looks just like one!" The boy said before turning around and cringing.

The old woman felt a small pang in her heart. She drew her scarf across her face to hide her scarred cheek. It had been over 63 years since the Black Thunder slashed her face with his claws in a fit of rage. From time to time, she could feel the flesh tear apart again as it had then.

Yara Yu was a small, stooped woman now with a weathered face. Her once beautiful and thick hair had long greyed and was now falling out in clumps. She likened to cover it with a scarf, one of many she had made over the years since she began cultivating her own silk. At 81 years old, she had lived a long life, and she could feel her time was nearing. Her son had begged her not to travel to Mang this year for the markets as she was growing too weary and frail.

But Yara's heart still beat with a fierce determination. She fought against everyone to travel one last time to Mang, was once the lively city of Jining in the near past of the Qin Dynasty. They relented. Yara had been a silk merchant for over 60 years, had travelled to the nearby city annually to sell her wares escorted by either her son or her grandchildren. It was a routine she knew well, and perhaps, they concluded, pride encouraged her to do so just one last time.

But she wasn't here to sell silk.

Yara waited until the following morning, while her son and grandchildren were still asleep. She threw on her scarf and took her time getting her shoes on with her shoehorn. After a great struggle, she hobbled out of the room. The floorboards squeaked under her stead. She froze, hearing the rustle of sheets where her grandson slept. She grimaced, fearful she had woken him with the creaking floorboards. She waited until she was sure he was sleeping again before taking her leave.

The sun began to rise over the sleepy city of Mang as Yara made her way down the cobblestone path. She was headed for a small tea house on the outskirts of town. She had fought a great battle within for over a year now and had settled to meet someone there. She knew Anh would have never forgiven this meeting. Her family would not have approved, nor would Lao Longzi, Danzi or Lu Yu, whom she hadn't seen in over 30 years. She had kept the correspondence between herself and this man hidden from all.

He was waiting for her on a small table in the corner of the teahouse. She knew him immediately for he had not aged a day. He was a foul sight to behold with leathered skin, black teeth and yellow eyes. Worse was his smell, rancid from the hides of animals he wore, and the apocophory of decayed bodily fluids he subsisted off. Yara felt ill seeing him but took a seat before him.

It took her weeks to remember the name of the sorcerer village where he came from – Wucheng. It took even longer to convince a squire to bring her message to the filthy town, and she wasn't sure he had would have received it at all. He was the necromancer who had poisoned her dear friend, Mrs Zhu, decades before. He had accosted them later while she was pregnant. Now, here he was here, but this time at her request.