The Gift of Beauty | ONC2020

Chapter 7

"No."

Dust was coming up from the ground, where the sword had hit. The dragon lay motionless beside it, his eyes fixed on Brandon. The sword had gone past him, sinking into the ground. The dragon didn't even have a scratch.

Brandon pulled his sword from the ground, and walked away from the beast.

Suddenly, the creature started thrashing around. The ropes managed to hold it, but it was close. Brandon didn't dare to guess what would've happened if the ropes had been normal, not kept together by magic.

When it was clear that the dragon wasn't going to break free, it paused its struggle. Instead, it began to speak. The creature's voice was deep, and grating. The effort it cost him to speak was obvious.

"W... Why?" the creature said.

Brandon hesitated. Rose had said that dragons were intelligent, but he hadn't expected them to be able to speak. No in a way that he could understand, in any case.

And then there was the fact that he wasn't sure why he had done it. Why he hadn't killed the dragon. He had more than enough reason to. After all, it was terrorizing the villagers, raining down destruction on them. More than that though, he needed its heart for the dress.

But he couldn't. He wasn't a murderer. And killing a dragon would make him a murderer, no matter how good he thought his reasons were.

"The egg," he finally said. "I wouldn't just be killing you, would I? I would be killing the youngling in the egg as well. It's just a baby, a baby who hasn't done anything wrong. Who hasn't even had the chance to do anything wrong. I can't live knowing I'm the reason that it's dead."

"Brandon - think about what it did," Rose said. "It's destroying the village, ruining people's entire lives. If we just let it be, we are responsible for that. We could've stopped it."

He hesitated once more. He had been so sure of himself. So sure that killing the dragon was the wrong thing to do.

But Rose's words made sense. If people died because of him, because he refused to act given the chance, then the responsibility for its actions fell on him as well. He didn't know. He needed more time – time to think, to figure everything out.

"Vengeance," the dragon suddenly said. It spoke easier now that it had rested for a bit. But the voice sounded just as deep and threatening as it had before.

Brandon sighed. "You're not really doing yourself any favours," he said, annoyed.

The dragon shook its head. Or tried to, at least. Rose's ropes still held him firmly in place. "The attacks on the human's lair were vengeance. I meant them no harm. Not... Before."

"Before?" Rose asked.

"Before they killed her. Alisa." The dragon growled, and tried to spread its wings, but the ropes stopped it from moving. When the creature finally calmed down again, it continued pseaking as if nothing had happened. "The humans killed her. They showed no mercy. So why should I show mercy to them?"

"Who is Alisa?" Brandon said.

For a moment the dragon hesitated. Brandon saw tears running down its face.

Finally, the dragon spoke. "Alisa is - was - my mate. My partner, my love and my everything. Alisa is the one who laid this egg."

"And they murdered her," the creature said, its voice becoming darker, and more aggressive. "They came when I was away. I couldn't protect her. They came to kill her, because of her golden scales."