Thanks to Milosh Jevremovic for permission to use this stunning image, "My Pain"!
Will it hurt? Neevo thought as he lay back against the sun warmed
rocks.
It will be the last, the worst, pain that you will ever bear. Kirondan
replied, a rough, tender whisper in his mind. And then you will be free. Powerful.
No one will ever hurt me again. Neevo thought with grim
satisfaction. I’ll be with you forever.
Kirondan leaned down and stroked
Neevo’s sleek black hair with his long forked tongue. You have them? He asked, though he knew the answer. They had spent
the past two years travelling the world and collecting the gears. No sorcerer
would have helped if they had shared their plan. No dragon alive remembered a
successful poorvatch. No one had tried in Kirondan’s six hundred years.
Six hundred years alone, until he
found the boy. Neevo had been a child when Kirondan first saw him on the rocky
shore, chasing gulls and running with his arms outstretched as if he could lift
his legs and fly. Kirondan wanted to steal him away that day, but the boy’s
family were too close. If he stole the boy from their sight, he would break the
five hundred year peace. Man and dragon would hunt him down and destroy him.
So Kirondan watched the boy and
waited. He courted the boy slowly, over three years of glimpses, chance
encounters, careful games of hide and seek before he let the boy find him
sleeping in the hidden cove. Their cove.
Three years was nothing to a
dragon. Nothing but heartbeats. And then the boy touched him, and Kirondan’s
heart burst into flame. Ahh…that was love. That was fire. That was immortality!
They spent hours together, every
day that Neevo could run away from home. Every night that he could sneak out
his window and sleep curled under Kirondan’s wing. Kirondan spent those nights
listening to Neevo’s tiny heart pulsing in his chest.
He watched Neevo grow from a boy
into a gangly teen. He saw the bruises from his father’s hand, the hurt in
Neevo’s eyes that faded when they were together. He counted every passing
heartbeat. One day, minutes or years from now, would be the last. He couldn’t
bear to lose the boy. And so he dared to pursue the poorvatch. It was dragon
legend, and few even remembered, much less had details to share.
Finally Kirondan found an ancient
dragon, deeply buried, and brought him a fat sheep to tempt his memory. The
ancient told him of the poorvatch, a sorceror’s powerful spell to bind human
and dragon forever. If the dragon’s heart had already flamed, the human could
replace his own with spelled gears and give the dragon his own beating heart. Bound
together, each would live as long as the other. Kirondan would never have to
watch Neevo grow old and die. He would never have to be lonely again.
It was dangerous. It was
forbidden by dragons and sorcerors alike. It would be painful for the boy. The
ancient said more humans died than bonded. Kirondan heard nothing but It can be done.
TBC tomorrow…
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Dogs in house:
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Houdini
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Time writing:
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~ 1 hour
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June word
count:
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15,196
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