Labyrinth

Labyrinth

  By K. Weikel

  Labyrinth

  K. Weikel

  Copyright © 2014 by K Weikel

  Dear Reader, 

  if you get to Dragonia, look for a girl with dark hair walking around with her dragon that answers to the name Moonshine okay? We are sick. And we’re not getting better. 

  if I die we both die. But if she dies I will die too or I will be cursed. 

  Please help us. 

  - starfire. 

   

  P.S. I’m only nine.

  Chapter 1

  August 28—my birthday. 

  My dragon Moonshine and I flew to the river to catch some fish, the hunger too much to bare. It took half the day, but we finally caught three of them and started a fire with Moonshine’s dragonbreath in a pit I dug. 

  I handed two fish that had finally finished cooking to Moonshine. She realized after she ate them that I’d only had one and looked over at me guiltily as I held out the other half of the last one. 

  I smiled and said, “It’s alright, Moonshine, this is enough to fill me up. You need your strength.” 

  She snorted and placed her head on her talons. 

  Yeah, right… you need it too… she told me. 

  Dragons and their dragon riders communicate with each other through thought. That’s one of the first signs that you two are bound together and meant to be together. 

  I walked over to her and patted her neck. 

  “Wanna go fly?” I asked her. 

  Moonshine’s eyes lit up. 

  The only other thing that loved to fly besides me was Moonshine. Which I guess was good, because she was a dragon after all. 

  I laughed again and jumped onto her back. She blew out the fire in one quick breath, and her powerful muscles carried us above the trees and, soon, above the clouds. 

  Scrape the river! I told her. 

  She gleefully obeyed. 

  I bent down to touch the water with my fingers, and saw fish chasing us, trying to nibble them.

  I giggled. 

  Moonshine looked back at me and chuckled as the wind whipped my black hair all around me. 

  I looked up.

  But not quick enough. 

  “Moonshine! Look out!” I screamed. 

  When she looked up, it was too late. 

  She twisted her tail around to push me off, and smacked right into the cliff wall. She burst into flames and then disintegrated into a million tiny little pieces that floated down with me. 

  I felt the water swallow me up. I was kicking and screaming, losing more and more air from my lungs, but I didn’t care. I just lost the only thing in my life. I had nothing but my dragon. Nothing. 

  I couldn’t see which way was up or which way was down. I was spiraling in an endless mass of bubbles. My head was whirring like a tornado. Only one thought had remained in my mind through the confusion and spinning as I blacked out. 

  It’s over. 

   

  “Come on, Girl,” someone whistles. “You’ve got to go get your scales cleaned.” 

  Four years had passed and I figured out my fate. I didn’t die, obviously; I was, instead, cursed with being a water-dragon for eternity—or at least until I die, which I’d much rather. 

  I’ve always have nightmares of that memory ever since that night I ‘supposedly drowned’ at age nine. 

  When I’d turned into a dragon, a farmer found me upstream and unconscious in the Resverbreak River, the one I’d fallen into. He had strapped me to his wagon to sell me. He eventually took me to this wretched place—the Dragonstables. No one knew at all I was a homeless little girl named Starfire. They called me Blackfire, because I was ‘mean’ and I never answered when my caretakers called me. If only they knew it wasn’t my real name… but I guess they just thought I had a black heart made of coal or stone or something. Others called me Stupid or Brainless because I was stubborn, or Black Rose because of my pink-and-black-spotted body. 

  They all saw I was miserable when I first stepped foot in this place. They just didn’t know why, is all, and they didn’t care, either. The Dragonstables are one of the most expensive dragon captivities in all of Dragonia, and supposedly the best. They didn’t understand how I was so unhappy in a place like this. 

  I think I’d rather them not know why. Then they’d just rub it in my face and call me a pansy. 

  Moonshine… she was a great dragon. A rare water dragon. She was bright sky blue and almost ten years old. She had had a golden star right between her eyes and a long tail with a fin at the tip that was shaped like an oak leaf. She was everything I could ever ask for, especially since I had no family to go to or be with. 

  She was my dragon and I was her rider. When there are both together, the rider has a special power that the dragon gives them. Mine was telepathy. I could read people’s mind, but only people without a dragon. I was also born with a power, which goes hand-in-hand with my dragon-given power that carried over when I became a dragon.

  I can speak through thought. All I have to do is point my thoughts at that person, and they can hear me. 

  I don’t do it at all anymore, though. Not since Moonshine… and besides, I wouldn’t want people lining up to become my rider. It just doesn’t work that way. I think.

  When Moonshine and I were together, when I was on her back, we controlled water, we could do anything we wanted—the sky was the limit. When we were together, starvation was forgotten. Worrying about a home disappeared from our minds. The pain and suffering was drowned out with our laughter. We had grown up together, and when Moonshine died, and hit the face of that cliff, my heart was taken, ripped out of my chest, stomped on, and stuck in a meat grinder. It was torn into pieces, shattered in my chest. Now every breath I take is in regret, every time I fly, I feel my hatred toward myself. My long, thin body is curved with my feelings every time I move. My scale colors were thought to be the colors of the light I would find through the thickness of this misery—so my caretakers said. My eyes are—and will always be bright blue, the color of Moonshine’s scales, the color of my dead dragon. 

  People say that dragons can cry, but I’ve tried, and this dragon doesn’t. Can’t.

  My feelings are crushed by the dragons and their riders, and every time I “hear” them talking back and forth, it rubs more salt into my already-festering soul. I despised them all, including my caretakers. I hate all humans, and I’m not one of them anymore, so why should I care?

  Most of all, I hate, what I hate so much, are the people who, when they try to ride me, would curse when I disobey them or beat me because they’re losing their money in a bet or a challenge. 

  I had had enough beating before all this. 

  When I was five, I was black and blue from head to toe. My stepmother kept nagging at me to make lunch and do all the chores (I felt like Cinderella, and I wish I was as lucky as she was, but she was from an earlier time and a different place…). I was tired of it, and I told her she was going to have to find a maid because I was going to run away. 

  She had laughed and said, “Where will you go?” 

  “I don’t know,” I admitted honestly. 

  My five stepsisters laughed with my stepmother, and I retreated into myself and shuffled off to scrub the bathroom. 

  When I was six, she killed my dearest father. 

  So when I found out, that night, I jumped onto Moonshine and we flew and flew for two straight days. We ended up landing in the woods. 

  When we had let go of each other, we fainted right there from exhaustion. When you ride a dragon, your hunger and energy mix together, giving you half of the amount you would normally have. But when you let go of each other, that weight comes back twice as hard and hi
ts you right in the stomach. 

  That’s the downside about riding.

  Chapter 2

  “Everyone has a special ability. Sometimes the same as the ones given to superheroes, and sometimes, like us, you have a dragon. Sometimes we have no idea we have these powers until we breathe our last breaths, or if we are cursed. 

  “If our dragon dies, we go on to live either to be cursed, or we die with our friend.”

  I can my mother’s voice just as clear as if she had read those words out of this book to me yesterday. 

   

  “CRACK!” 

  I take to the sky, startled by the snap of the whip. A royal sits strapped to my back. It’s the snotty, “I’m better than you are” Princess Anastasia Ray Quebec. She hits me with the whip over and over, just because her hair was falling out of place, it seems. Brat.

  “CRACK!” 

  The stinging sensation between my eyes blinds me for a moment.

  I lose my temper. 

  That was the last straw. 

  I land. 

  She jumps off and runs to her parents. She looks horrified. 

  She should be. 

  Fire starts to spurt from my nostrils. 

  Oh, how I abhor humans. 

  “I want that beast’s head!” She points her finger at me as I take a step closer.

  “Anastasia! Back away from that horrid creature!” The Queen cries, her English accent thick as can be. 

  I’m almost glad I don’t have an accent. 

  “Silvolsia!” The King calls his dragon to him. “Loronzo!” The servant shuffles over to him immediately “Make sure no one ever rides this dragon again! It almost hurt my poor little girl.”

  “Father?” A soft voice floats over the chaos. “Might I try?” 

  A boy, looking about fourteen comes from behind Silvolsia. 

  I calm down enough to look in that direction.

  He has long brown hair and deep brown eyes. His skin is tanned, not too dark, but also not ivory white. 

  “No, Robin! We don’t want you killed!” The King’s voice cracks. “You’ll be running the kingdom after I die.”

  They walk off, cradling Anastasia’s elbows. The boy stands, staring at my scales. Suddenly, I feel self-conscious. 

  “Come, Blackfire. What got into you today? You’ve never been that nasty before.” My caretaker shoos the boy away. You would never have guess he was royalty by the way he dresses. 

  When I get to my stall, the caretaker shuts the fireproof glass door and gives me one last look. 

  “Good girl,” he says, and walks off. 

  In the Dragonstables, everything is dragonproofed and fireproofed. Some of us have tempers and like to spit fireballs to tell the caretakers to leave us alone, which is why things are the way they are. Other things, like the glass windows in the back of each stall, are for customers who are looking to buy a dragon. It gets hard to see through them every now and then, because each dragon has a color to their breath, which stains the glass over time, and the caretakers have to clean or replace it. It’s quite a hassle, but I’m glad I don’t have to do it. 

  The only fire it can’t withstand is the GoldenStar Dragon. It has a blaze that is hotter than the sun. There was also the Frost dragon that has breath so cold, it could crack metal. 

  The only problem with these doors is that I can’t see through them from inside the stall. They’re like two-way mirrors. 

  Which is the number one reason why I have a ball of fire in my throat ready to singe whoever is entering.

  Robin opens the door and pokes his handsome face through. 

  Stop it, I scold myself. He’s a human. You hate humans.

  Oh, but I can’t help it. My dragon-sized heart fluttered when he shushes me. 

  “Easy, Blackfire, easy…” he steps closer. “Easy.” 

  I’m not a horse, you know! 

  I let him get closer. 

  He sticks his hand out and brushes my neck. 

  A chill slips down my spine. 

  “Wow,” I hear him murmur. “A rare water dragon.” 

  Smart, I openly think. 

  I see him jump. 

  Oops. 

  “Who’s there?” He looks around the stall, searching for the voice he heard in his head. “If you’re a spy, then you’d get out of here unless you don’t want your head anymore!”

  Silence. 

  Hello? I think towards him. 

  “Who are you?” He looks around, and then sits down, a look of realization on his face. He knows the voice was in his head. 

  “I think I’m going insane,” he chuckles to himself.

  Dragonrider, I think to myself, He’s my dragonrider!

  I’m Starfire, the dragon behind you. You are my dragonrider.

  He turns around and looks at me. 

  I sit proudly, my neck elongated and my shoulders back. Why am I excited? Is this possible? I’m not even a real dragon. I’m, like, a fraud.  

  He stands up and walks over to me, my heart fluttering again.

  “Only one way to find out,” he says, more to himself. 

  I nod. 

  Can you hear me? he thinks to me. 

  I nod and he takes five steps back. 

  Now? 

  Yes, I tell him. 

  He steps out of the stall. 

  Can you still—

  Yes! I chuckle. 

  “Ow…” 

  Sorry, I smile. 

  Smile? I smile? I didn’t know dragons could smile. Then again, I’ve never had the urge to. 

  He comes back in and we stand staring at each other for a while, thinking with an invisible wall between us. There are two kinds of thoughts: private and open. Private are ones only you can hear (and people like me who have the ability to see past that if I wanted to), and open where anyone with a talent like I do or their dragon can hear.

  Finally, he says, “I thought your name was Blackfire.” 

  To the humans here, yes. To my birth parents, Starfire. I tell him. 

  “Your movements… they’re so… human. Why?” 

  I was born a human. Now I’m a dragon in this stupid place. 

  “Ah,” he says. “Is this—” he motions to us, meaning the bond between the dragonrider and the dragon, “—possible?” 

  I shrug. I guess so. 

  “My name is Robin,” he says after a quick moment. 

  Prince Robin, I correct. 

  “Sadly, yes,” he sighs. “My father won’t let me ride you. He won’t let me ride any dragon until I’m fifteen.” 

  Like your sister? I laugh. 

  “Yeah,” he chuckles. “I’ve seen peasants younger than nine riding dragons like the dangerous Blade Dragon.” Robin sighs again. 

  I feel sorry for him. I’d been riding Moonshine since I was three, and up until I was nine… the accident… the cliff… 

  I shake it off. 

  Hop on, I tell him. I won’t tell anyone. 

  He laughs then stops it short. 

  “The owners—” he says.

  Say you’re taking me for a test-ride if anyone asks. 

  He nods and saddles me up with the gear in my stall.

  We start to walk and someone does ask, but we get by scotch-free and walk all the way to the water fountain behind the valley of bluebonnets. 

  “Okay, Starfire, we’re out of sight.” 

  Get on. How old are you anyway? I ask out of curiosity. 

  “Thirteen,” he responds. 

  A faint whispering floats by my ears. 

   

  …A bond is tied…

  …A knot is broken…

  …A dragon-girl is taken…

  …In a princes’ heart that’s broken…

  Did you say something? I ask Robin. 

  “No.”

  Then it comes once again. 

   

  …The more time
…

  …That is put together…

  …The more it will hurt…

  …When they are not together…

   

  I look around, but nothing is there. 

  So I just ignore it. 

  Chapter 3

  “Oh! This is high! Terribly, very terribly high!” Robin yells over the wind. 

  Scared of heights, much? I ask. 

  “Well…”

  And you wanted a dragon? 

  “Robin! Prince Robin? Where are you?!” 

  We have to land, I tell him. 

  “Why? If we land, I’ll be too scared to come back up—”

  Your mother is calling you.

  I take a steep nosedive and land. Robin quickly gets off and starts to unbuckle my saddle. 

  I shake him off and tell him, Go! I’ll be fine. Hurry! 

  I take to the sky, flying above them. 

  “Prince Robin! Where in the world were you? We were worried sick! That beast could have hurt you!” 

  “I’m alright, mother,” he says as she envelops him in hugs. “Really.” 

  “Mother!” I hear the daughter cry. “Look! It’s that wretched dragon!” 

  I bolt to the stables. 

  I hear the beat of wings as Silvolsia lands. The royals come storming in with Robin trailing behind, trying to stop them. 

  I hide in the darkest part of the barn and shrink myself down as much as I can with my big body. 

  “Where is she?” Anastasia cries to the caretaker. Then she spots me and points. “Father!” 

  They head toward me, and I hold my breath as a memory comes back. If I could cry... 

   

  My stepmother was in the process of beating me, when there was a knock at the door. She brushed her hair back with her hand and straightened herself up. I hid in the furthest corner of the room. She stood talking for so long, that I fell asleep. When I woke, her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was red with anger. She had the stick with thorns and gashes all over it. She brought it down and—

  “Take that, dragon!”

  The king cracks the whip, and I cringe away, feeling the breeze from the blow. 

  I’m sorry, Robin… I tell him, looking at the floor. 

  I don’t know what I was thinking... It was stupid to let him fly... I shouldn’t have even told him...

  “Father!” Robin gets in the way.

  No!! 

  It all happens in slow motion. The king brings the whip down, and Robin steps into the line of fire. I take a breath, and then... pain. 

  Both of us fall to the ground and cry out in pain. A red, bloody gash starts to bleed on both of our shoulders.