The Dragon Queen // (Under Revision)

Liodito Sun

A tall, lithe figure strode down a hallway, lit by candles on either side that cast amber light and long shadows across the walls.

Life is like a long tunnel. There's darkness. There's fear.

There's temptation. And there is failure.

As the figure passed through a shaft of candlelight, sharp steel strapped to her back flashed beneath it. Her long green hair stirred against her dark-skinned shoulders. She walked with practiced authority, but her mind was swimming in utter turmoil. As she walked, only one thing was flashing through her head.

In a little less than two months, she was going to die.

But through all the hardships of the tunnel, there is something propelling us humans to reach the light at the end of it.

The girl paused. She was remembering something. Where had she heard that before? That voice, it was feminine, low and soft. A blurred face swam in her mind, but she couldn't place it. After a few moments of struggling, she gave up. She couldn't remember. She never could.

The words continued to ring in her ears. She stared down the hallway ahead of her. The door that led to the courtyard outside was rimmed with golden light. Light at the end of the tunnel?  She scoffed. There's no light where I'm going. There was never any light for me. And that's why...that's why I'm going to end it.

She quickly walked to the door, attempting to chase all thoughts of death away, but to no avail. 

"Tsuyoi! Where are you?" Fukuo's voice chased her down the empty hallway and the weighty thoughts out of her head. Tsuyoi paused, her hand on the door that led to the courtyard outside. Was it time to train again already?

Noroi, she swore, glancing behind her. Her patron wasn't yet in sight, but she heard her soft footsteps echoing down the hall. She pressed down the anger she felt surge through her. What was the point of doing anything anymore? She was going to die, and everyone was acting like nothing was wrong.

I refuse to let them smile at me ever again, she seethed. I will end it. I refuse to die on anyone else's terms.

In her anger, a memory began to creep up. A pool of blood. Her right hand was burning and trembling, desperately clutching a shortblade in the rain. The sky overcast, dark gray, and brooding. Everything was gray...

She shut it out. No. Not now. The bare, blurry memories she could conjure were always those bad ones. She wasn't in the mood. She ignored her patron's summons and pushed the door open. The bright afternoon sun blinded her for a moment, and she relished the tingling sensation it left on her eyes. She stepped outside, letting the warm sun soak into her brown skin. It was out here, in the Liodito sun, where she could forget her problems, however briefly, even with a breeze that smelled of winter skirting the treetops.

Tsuyoi headed across the courtyard to the clearing she'd roped off for her swordsmanship lessons. The Gigakubwa trees here were slashed, their bark carved away from years of practice. Years of burning shoulders and bloody palms, years of repetition to perfection. She paused while she was reaching for the hilt of her longblade, gazing at the largest tree with her head tilted thoughtfully. The bark's carved-out sections started down lower than the rest of the trees. Her Illan. Her own personal connection into the massive forest network that spanned across her homeland.

A soft smile flitted across her lips, her eyes drifting across the weathered bark. How could I have ever been that small? Immediately, a sadness washed over the nostalgia. These ten years have really flown by, she thought. In two weeks, it'll be all over. Nothing I do will matter anymore. Nothing I did ever mattered. How could it have? She rubbed her hand over her left arm, tracing her flower-patterned tattoos absentmindedly as her mind spun. The green flower buds and the swirling tendrils that connected them from the wrists to the shoulders on both of her arms were permanent reminders of what was to come.