Short Stories

Cyanide and Thorn

  Thorn sighed as she returned to her office after a long, stressful day. Scratch that, the entire month had been one of the most stressful experiences in her life. It had been 4 weeks since Cyanide began asserting his will over those in the justice system, finding and killing criminals with startling efficiency. Thorn had just finished giving a speech about the issue, hoping to quell the divisiveness of the entire ordeal.

It was at night when Thorn stepped into her office. She approached her desk, then stopped as she saw a shadow behind it. They made no effort to conceal themselves, they just stood extremely still and looked at the queen. The door shut behind her, and the queen tried her best to stay calm as she realized she had fallen into a trap.

"Quite the speech," the dragon said in a voice that seemed so obviously artificial. Thorn straightened herself.

"Who are you?" she demanded, carefully watching the other shadow that she could only see through the corner of her eye. "What do you want?"

"You're smarter than that," the dragon said, sighing when they received no response. "We are the poison, that will cure."

"Cyanide," she realized, and though she couldn't see the dragon, she could sense that he was smiling. "So what? Are you here to kill me because I disagreed with you?"

The smile vanished, and the other dragon in the corner of the queen's eye snarled. "Even after trying to catch me for weeks you still don't know anything about me?" Cyanide shook his head. "You should know by now that I only target those who deserve it."

"Did those dragonets deserve it?" Thorn questioned.

"They're still alive aren't they?" Cyanide countered. "I only touched them once, and that was to pull off of the dragonet they were beating. Then, I threatened them, helped the dragonet home, and went on about my business."

"So what are you here for?" Thorn questioned. Cyanide gestured for her to take a seat, but the queen did not move; she stood stubbornly in the center of the room. A plume of flame came from the vigilante's mouth, lighting a candle on the desk and providing some light.

This was no dragon. Not like any dragon Thorn had seen anyway. The dragon in front of her was mostly sandwing in terms of shape and color, but his face was covered by some sort of green mask with large white eyes, that looked less like a mask and more like it was part of him. The same green substance covered all of his legs up to his elbow and replaced his tail barb with a black and green spike.

"I would really prefer it if you sat," Cyanide said politely. It infuriated the queen how polite and calm he was while she was trying not to yell.

"There is a dragon behind me," Thorn said. "Tell them to move next to you."

"Hemlock," Cyanide called, and the shadow moved next to Cyanide. This one was a female sandwing and had all of the green and black markings as Cyanide. There are two of them? The witnesses only ever report one... Thorn wondered as they moved toward the desk and sat down. "I would first like to say that I have no intent on hurting you in any way unless the situation arises where I deem it necessary. Regardless, I will not kill you here, or ever. Despite your transgressions and failures, I still believe that you are the best thing to happen to the Kingdom of Sand since Queen Oasis."

"However," Hemlock interjected, "we believe that there are improvements to be made."

"You came here to make suggestions?" Thorn asked skeptically.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Cyanide admitted. "But that is the main idea."

"You are murderers," Thorn said bitterly. "You believe that you have the right to judge the worth of a dragon's life based on their transgressions. Why would I ever help you?"

Cyanide stare at Thorn hardly. "Hemlock, would you please leave us?"

Hemlock looked at Cyanide questioningly, but Cyanide gave her a look and she obeyed, climbing out the window.

"I'm going to be blunt," Cyanide said, leaning toward Thorn. "Your justice system has failed and will continue to fail. My first 89 targets were rapists, killers, and abusers that went through the system but came out fine. Do you know why they get out? Because dragons are too scared to speak up for themselves, and so they spend the rest of their life scared, walking down the street looking over their shoulders as the perpetrator lives problem-free. It's time for them to be scared, for a change."

"So you kill for fear?" Thorn asked. "You kill to keep them afraid so you can control them. That sounds like something a tyrant would do."

Cyanide shrugged in frustration. "Imagine this. You are the proud mother of two beautiful daughters, with your husband who has been there for you since school. You want your children to be more culturally enriched, so you travel to Possibility, where dragons from every tribe live. But, you just so happen to go there when the attack happens. You rush to get your family to safety, but then the children disappear. You frantically search to find the things you love in the world, and in the process, your husband dies in front of you. You find out later that your children were also killed, and the person who killed them is being called a hero. Can you imagine that feeling? Well that's what hundreds of dragons felt on the day of the attack, and you did nothing! You paid them to compensate, and then left it alone! I watched! I watched for 2 years as he was celebrated! Decorated as a hero when he was just a killer! He killed the bad guy, but at what cost?!"

Thorn could only stay silent as she was almost pushed back by the rage being radiated by the dragon in front of her. Cyanide pulled his claws across the desk, creating long marks on the wood. "You say that I'm a psychopath? A heartless killer? Tell me, when you ambushed me during one of my kills, how many guards do you think I could've killed?"

Every single one, Thorn thought, remembering how one of her generals had told her how tentacles had sprouted from his back, taking hold of soldiers and thrashing them around.

"Correct," Cyanide said as if he could read her mind. "Now, how many did I kill?"

"One," Thorn said.

"And he was later found to be selling classified information to gang leaders, right?"

Thorn stayed silent, pushing back to urge to admit that Cyanide might not be so bad. But it was no use, she could tell that the dragon in front of her knew everything that was going on inside of her brain.

"That wouldn't have warranted a death sentence," Thorn argued.

"Then he would just have kept going until it did," Cyanide retorted. "I took care of it before the harm was done."

"So what would you say we do?" Thorn challenged. "Kill any criminal who comes our way?"

"Stop the investigation," Cyanide ordered. "Tell the police to back off, and stay out of our way, so we can punish criminals without interference."

"And what about when you kill someone that isn't guilty? What about when you make a mistake?"

Cyanide laughed heartily. "Thorn, I have killed 173 dragons so far and have been 100% accurate. Do you believe that I am just incredibly lucky? I have my ways of being sure."

"You just have an excuse for everything don't you?"

"You call it excused, I call it justified."

"I will not help you," Thorn said definitively. "But what I will tell you is this: I will hunt you down, and I won't rest until you face the crimes that you've committed!"

Cyanide didn't look angry... He looked more disappointed than anything. Then, he sighed, put up his talon. Something thick shot from his talon and wrapped around Thorn face, smothering her snout and invading her body.

"I was hoping we could come to an agreement," Cyanide said as Thorn fell to the ground trying to pull the thing on his face off. "Don't worry, I will not take your right to choose, I'm just giving myself a stronger one.

Cyanide went out the window as the thing on her invaded her, latching onto her consciousness and bonding its life with hers. Thorn screamed, but the thing seemed to absorb the sound. The last thing she heard before passing out was an artificial voice, almost identical to the one Cyanide spoke with.

"You... Are... Compatible..."