random etchings

Dragon

Tatiana was prepping her ritual room for a night of spell-casting when an alarm warned her that she had company. She snapped her fingers and the image of her visitor appeared in her crystal.

It was Sir Kerberos, her childhood protector who had escorted her from her father’s home when she sought a teacher of magic, and remained by her side during her seven long years of apprenticeship.

But she had outgrown the need for such a minder. He, and her father, needed to learn that she was grown, a capable sorceress—not a child in need of guidance and correction. Last month, she had finally snapped, and in the midst of an argument had opened a portal to send him home to her father’s castle.

She had been sorry afterwards, when she realized that she had only her familiar to talk to, but as the days had passed, she knew she had made the only possible decision. He would be in danger if he kept throwing himself into situations that a knight was not trained for.

For a moment, she considered ignoring him standing there at the bottom of the stairs to her lair, but she knew if she did, he wouldn’t go away. He had always been stubborn.

She appeared in front of him in a puff of smoke. He was holding his sheathed blade in both his hands.

“I told you to depart.”

He knelt before her and held out his sword. “My princess, the king forbids me to leave thee. I am thy guardian.”

Tatiana made a gesture of repudiation, refusing him, although her heart was heavy.

He bowed lower, laying the blade on the ground at her feet. “If I should leave thee, he has sworn to take my sword and my head with it.” He lifted his helmet from his head and looked up to her with his bright green eyes. “If my death would be pleasing to thee, pray, take my head, now. Do not send me away from thee.”

Tatiana’s hands shook. Why was he making this so hard? She could not imagine a world without him in it—he had been her only friend during her long apprenticeship, her only confidant. “My battles lie within the unseen realms. How can you protect me there?”

He closed his eyes. Tatiana was glad she did not have to see them cloud and darken with understanding his own helplessness in her world.

Suddenly, Tatiana could feel forces gathering around them, and she raised her shields, looking around for the threat. It was centered on Kerberos. She stepped back in amazement as her childhood comrade grew, his armor melting into the form of a dragon, still kneeling in front of a sheathed sword.

She looked up into the dragon’s clear, familiar, green eyes. “Sir Kerberos?”

“I am thy guardian.” The vibration of his voice rumbled through her. “Wherever thou needest me, I will follow thee. I will protect thee.” A single blood red tear trailed down his dragon face. “Please, do not send me from thy side.”

Tatiana's heart soared as she bent to accept her dragon knight’s sword.