Doctor Strange - This One Summer

Trust

Taking it Seriously

Hazel sat in the courtyard under the moonlight, and the great dragon curled up on the veranda behind her.

"I forgot you can't translate dragon tongue for everybody," Hazel murmured wistfully.

"Iin taroh," the Ancient One hissed in reprimand. (It's dangerous.) She still wasn't over Hazel nearly blurting out a direct translation to the masters during their meeting that evening.

Hazel glanced over her shoulder. "Then why can I speak like a dragon? I'm just as human as everyone else in this sanctuary."

"Vahzah," the Ancient One looked up at the full moon. "It's true. But you come from a very different school of thought than my disciples."

"Daar los?" Is that it?

Hazel stared at the still, willowy figure-so elegant as she lied on her throne of stone and dirt. Her scales were an indiscernible pale color, but her eyes... Unconsciously, Hazel began to reach out a hand. What would those scales feel like? But she drew her hand away abruptly when the Ancient One snarled at her.

"Min hiin golt!" she snapped. Know your place.

"Daan golt?!" Hazel shot back. What place? "You don't treat me like a mere student, or as a master, or any typical follower. That's what you just said!"

The dragon rose, her body contorting under the veranda smoothly like a ribbon. She darted out of hiding and past Hazel quick enough to stir up the fallen leaves in the courtyard and make the bells rattle frantically. When Hazel opened her eyes again, the dragon was gone without a trace, and all in the courtyard was still and silent again. She glared at the ground and scolded herself. This wouldn't do.

After her abduction, Hazel took combat classes seriously. However, that worked against her more than it served her. She trusted no one and reacted more out of panic than skill. No one wanted to spar with her, and even Mordo-usually so patient in his ways-found himself growing irritated at the girl. He offered to train her privately in the evenings, but she wouldn't hear of it.

"With you?" she demanded. "Forget it."

"I would never harm you, Hazel. All suspicions against you were put to rest when you were taken. That, and..." he glanced at a few of the students whose gazes had wandered to the master and witch. "I think a few of the students have grown fond of you."

Another sigh from the American girl.

"Now, try again."

Trust

2:34 a.m.

Hazel feared leaving her bed tonight. It had been staring at her for hours now. The Thing huddled in the corner under a mud-stained, white bedsheet. Two holes had been cut or torn in the bedsheet, allowing make-shift eyeholes for the thing beneath it to stare at Hazel. It was deathly still, and had Hazel been anyone else, she would've dismissed the creature to be a mere pile of laundry. However, she knew better. There hadn't been a sheet there when she went to bed.

2:28 a.m.

This wasn't fair! Hazel would be stuck in this moment forever—no, the moment would rewind again and again, leaving her in eternal nighttime—unless she moved.

She took a breath. Then another. The air suffocated her, freezing and frigid. Tentatively, as if she expected to be grabbed by the ankles and dragged under her bed, Hazel touched her toes to the hardwood floor and began inching towards the doorway. The head of the thing in the bathtub tilted just slightly as it followed her every move. If she could just get to the door before she bolts, she might be able to move faster than it.