Heir of the Dragon

To Be Royal

Consiousness was creeping virally through my mind and my veins. I gradually realized my head was the one peice of me that wasnt pounding or burning...for once. I could feel the cool hardness of stone vertically against my back. I was rougher than the bricks of a cell. It felt like the natural roughness of rock. The chill of metal around my wrists was sickeningly familiar.

Shackles.

This time though, they suspended my arms just a little higher than my shoulders, a little too high for comfort. Not that a luxery like comfort was anywhere near attainable. I couldn't feel my fingers. My neck burned deeply on one side and I couldnt quite count the places on my ribs and stomach that felt like they were leeking wet fire.

I tried to swollow.

It turned into a dry gag. My tongue felt like a desert. I opened my eyes slowly...naturally expecting  there to be some change. There wasn't. I could feel the air against my eyes but everything was inky black.

Wonderful. On top of dying in a cave, being shackled to a rock, and wasting away in a dehyrated heap, I was blind. In a quiet panic I tried to look around. I coudnt see a thing, not a sliver of light.

I began to turn my head, meaning to look at the stone behind me, but my neck screamed and orange swam around in my vision. Gasping, I couldnt supress the raspy groan of agony that escaped my throat. I was shaking and breathing hard. I could hear every sound I made echoing off what felt like a small cave.

"...just kill me," I rasped at the air in front of me. Life hadnt ever been less worth the effort.. The pain wasnt just seeping from my skin, my muscles felt the same as they had the first time I had woken up in the cell, like they'd been pulled much to far then left dangling, still attached to me.

I stared blindly at the black; the hostile blackness that seeemed to be haunting me, dispising it from the very depths of my soul.

Suddenly a verticle sliver of light appeared before me then exploded, forcing me to squint in the blinding white. My eyes burned but I kept them open. I could see! I wasnt blind....I could see.

A blurry black pillar appeared in the middle of the light. I blinked hastily to clear my vision and stared at the sillhouette of a man standing with his arms extended to both sides gripping what looked like heavy red curtains as if he had just flung them open.

A cave with curtains....I should probably get accostomed to surprises sometime soon or I might just spend my entire life surprised.

"Youre awake," The sillhouette said, his voice sounding deviod of emotion and abrupt.

"....A cave with curtains?" I wondered quietly to myself, not quite meaning to ignore him. The man looked back into the room as if checking to see that no one was near. He ducked under the cave roof and took the few steps to reach me in a crouched walk.

" Stand up," He grunted taking one shackle and fitting a key into the back of it. I stared at him blankly. He seemed to actually believe his request was reasonable. The shackle fell from my wrist and clanged against the stone wall. My arm released, I stretched it downward attempting to let the blood run back into it. He moved to my other side and began working the key into the shackle.

" Gradt," He ordered as the last shackle's fall echoed around the cave.

"I..."

I started to explain how utterly impossible and ridiculous it was to think I could stand but he gripped one sore arm and yanked me up toward him.

I screamed in pain as the pull of his arm forced me upright. My skin was eating me, cutting me to peices, and my muscles were ripping apart.

When I finally realized I was falling it was much too late. I shut my eyes tightly and clenched my teeth waiting for the pain to start anew but the cold hard stone never hit me. I felt the weight of my body fall solidly onto his rock hard arms behind my knees and under my back. The world was still spinning but I heard his quiet groan of annoyance as he lifted and carried me in a crouched walk.