Sunday, June 23, 2013

Prompt: The Gears of My Heart Will Never Be Broken (part 1)


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…


Dogs in house:
Houdini


Time writing:
~ 1 hour


June word count:
15,196

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