The Beasts That Make Us

Time to Leave

    Sera awoke with a guilty pang in her chest. She could never remember if that dream was based on reality or not.
    It was time to pack, time to prepare. It was time to leave. Sera couldn't waste any more time or someone else would die.
    Clifford's journal mentioned a man named Dagwood and that he used to be friends with Clifford before the obsession with the Black Dragon completely consumed him. Dagwood was a blacksmith and knew how to fight.
    In the journal, Clifford wrote:
    I have been sparring and training with Dagwood for months now. He used to believe that it was so that I could impress Clementine. According to him, I needed the help after all these years. Today, I told him the truth. He knew I was researching the B.D. but had no idea what I was actually planning. I had to tell him, though. I needed his help. He was the only one that could craft a weapon potentially strong enough. He, of course, refused. He said that I was crazy and that I "couldn't really be chasing after a story, could I?" I should have expected that. Not even he could understand...
    He felt as lonely as I do, Sera thought.
   Sera figured Dagwood was the best place to start, as long as she didn't mention what she intended to do.
    Asking Clementine about where he lived would have been useless, so Sera was relieved that the journal had a map showing where his house was. However, Clementine still managed to disrupt Sera's attempt at leaving.
    "Where are you going?" she asked, blocking the front door.
    "None of your business," Sera replied trying to move around her.
    "Of course it is, I'm your mother."
    "Since when has that mattered to you?"
    "Excuse me?"
    "Forget it, just let me go."
    "Serafine tell me where you're going or-"
    It was, of course, Clementine saying her full name that made Sera snap.
    "Or what? What are you going to do? I'm twenty-one years old. You can't do anything to me that will make it appear as though you're finally acting like a mother, whether it's disciplining me, which is laughable, or keeping me from leaving to protect me from danger.
    "You've never cared about me a day in your life. I have been a disappointment to you and everyone else my whole life for something I couldn't possibly have controlled. If I leave and never come back, you wouldn't even be able to pretend to care."
     Clementine stood in the dim hallway, dumbfounded. Sera had never spoken to her that way, not really.
    "Move out of my way."
    Clementine stepped aside and watched Sera leave with her eyes wide and her mouth agape.

•••

   As Sera walked the path leading out of Galena, her hands still shook from her confrontation with her mother.
    She expected no one else to ask questions, or to even notice she was leaving. She was wrong.
"Hey! Overripe! Where ya' goin'?"
    Great, Sera thought. Someone else to infuriate me.
"Oh, hey c'mom! I just wanna make sure you're not gettin' into any trouble."
It was Buckthorne and his friends. They closed in on her, blocking the path and any route of escape.
"Finally decided to run away and find a nice cliff to nose-dive off of?" Buckthorne asked mockingly with a grin on his face, his huge friends chuckling around him.
"Sorry Bucky, I don't have enough middle fingers for you today so I'll just be on my way" Sera replied, trying to push past them.
Damn it, she said to herself. She knew she had crossed a line by calling him "Bucky." She had to be more careful.
Buckthorne and his friends were dangerous. They were all much larger than her despite being about the same age, and they along with everyone else in the village carried a hatred for her that she could never understand. It was a kind she could never reason with even if she tried.
"What did you just call me?" Buckthorne said slowly.
His gang circled closer around her.
"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. It just slipped out-"
"Well that's too bad because I still heard it, so it doesn't matter if you meant it or not."
Buckthorne flicked a gesture at the guys around them. One grabbed Sera's arms and pinned them behind her back. She struggled to get free without any success.
Buckthorne was leaning close to her face, trying to intimidate her.
"Ya' know, you keep going around pissing people off like this and you're gonna' get yourself killed."
Sera's blood chilled.
"Galena doesn't need a rotten little apple like you, Serafine." Buckthorne continued, "No wonder your father went crazy and ran away into the forest. He prolly' got himself killed on purpose just to avoid the shame of having a late-bloomer as a daughter."
Sera spat in his eye.
Buckthorne didn't even flinch. He wiped the spit from his face and started to signal something else but was interrupted.
"That's enough," sounded from behind them.
It was Glenn. You've got to be kidding me, Sera thought.
"Let her go," he said.
"Make me," Buckthorne threatened.
Glenn stiffened, then pointed at Buckthorne. Suddenly, Glenn's giant brown dragon charged from behind him, following his finger with teeth bared and eyes wide.
Buckthorne cursed and called for his huge friends to release Sera as they started to run.
Glenn whistled at his dragon and it stopped in it's tracks, it's tongue hanging out like a dog's.
"You didn't have to do that," Sera said to her brother, annoyed, after getting her bearings.
"Yes I did," he said as he calmed his dragon, not turning to meet her eyes.
"You don't always have to save me. Stop saving me, Glenn."
He turned to her, terror striking his face like lightning.
"I'm never going to stop saving you, Sera, but you can't keep putting yourself in danger like this!"
"I just want people to stop looking at me like I'm disgusting! And I want you to stop looking at me like that!" Sera shouted at him.
"Like what?! Like you're my family and I'm terrified every time you piss someone off just to prove something?!"
"No! With pity in your eyes, like all I am is someone you need to protect! Stop looking at me like that!"
"I can't. All my life, it's been my job to protect you because you won't let anyone else close enough to."
"I didn't ask you to protect me. I don't need anyone to protect me. I can take care of myself, I could break you or anyone else with my bare hands."
Glenn's voice lowered.
"Yes, you probably could. But then you'd have broken fingers, and no one left who wants to love you."