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IN THE QUITE CAVE VILLAGE OF SEIRYUU, there is a small community shrouded in fear. It is a fear that has run so deep that since Ara was born, she doesn't think there's ever been a time before. It was the normalcy everyone was so adept too, that not a soul challenged.
The Blue Monster? Maybe Ara would've believed it if she'd never seen him.
Thinking about that chance encounter sends a chill down her back. It'd been completely innocent, an accident one might even call it. The night she'd first found the entrance to the maze. And even as a young girl, she'd always been curious about the Blue Dragon that had supposedly cursed the entire village.
Ara had wanted to know how he was cursed? She remembered the day her entire home had moved. They'd gone from sunny wheat fields to caves deep in the mountain. Ara had discovered more than one room that went too low below the surface, the air only growing thinner and thinner the deeper they went.
She had wondered just how complex the maze was surrounding the dragon and their village. Her mother had warned her about him multiple times. That if she stared him in the eye, the inevitable would happen and she would be turned to stone. But part of her had always doubted these horrifying powers, after all, how could she believe in something she'd never seen before? If he was so powerful? Then where was he?
Venturing into the maze she'd almost been too willing. Wanting to know the truth. The pathway is dimly lit, a few torches here and there. Ara had heard the Blue Dragon's power came from his eyes. She wondered if he needed the light at all to see.
The stone entrance that blended too well into the wall, an entrance Ara wouldn't have stumbled across if she hadn't fallen forward, closed behind her. It made her jump, and she instantly turned to press her hands to the wall, wondering if there was no way out already when it didn't open.
Ara had eventually began to wonder down the stone passageway, holding the skirts of her dress tightly between her hands. The mask on her face made it feel even more stuffy, and her fingers itched to pull it away from her face. In her village, the mask represented her status there. Until she was officially betrothed and married, she would wear this mask, and or until then was she allowed to remove it outside the confines of her home.
That was what village elders told young children. Ara remembered her mother telling her it was to keep themselves from ever risking eye contact with the Blue Dragon. That had been the first time Ara had gotten introduced to the legendary person, and her brain had wondered only briefly if he took offense to their masks.
She knew from birth, the Blue Dragon wore a mask himself. Ara had always wondered what he looked like. If he had fangs in his mouth that would tear her apart. Wondered if she saw his eyes if she'd be turned to stone. Ara wondered if he looked anything like a dragon, or if he looked like her.
