Life

Three days I’ve been looking for it. That damned dragon.

All around the forest, billows rise from burnt trees as if bleeding smoke. The wind blows through them, kindling put out fires like red capillaries glowing through the bark.

I landed a hit on it, that despicable reptile. I could hear its wings tangle as it tried to retreat, descending slowly.

Wounded dragons are like injured cats; you have to go look for them, hidden and afraid. But still dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

I rubbed two ice stones together until my flare ignite in a whirl of blue iceflame, then started walking along the charred trails.

When those massive wings cast a shadow over our village, I knew exactly what it was looking for. Everyone in the village knew. Or rather, who it was looking for.

“She’ll be the death of us!” terror oozed from the villagers’ voices as I cut the umbilical cord with the same knife with which I’d cut down so many creatures of darkness and ice and fire.

“Leave her by the cliff, the dragon will come for her.” They urged me, “so long as she lives, we’re all in danger.”

My baby’s skin was as dark as theirs. Her hair just as charred. But her eyes… her eyes were two emeralds glinting in the dark.

When I was a curious little girl, I rummaged through my mother’s medicine chest. I found many gemstones, but despite everything I’ve heard of emeralds, I could not find a single one. So many gems in her apothecary, yet she wouldn’t dare carry an emerald.

“Emeralds,” my mother explained, “fix infertility. That is why dragons are drawn to it, more so than diamonds.”

Perhaps that is why I was raised a warrior. Even my mother could not cure my destiny.

In the millennia past, dragon numbers have dwindled. Volcanoes are not as active as before, and dragon eggshells become more brittle and finer. Maybe that is the reason their cruelty and boldness bolstered.

When the dragon arrived, its claws tearing through the fields, my baby didn’t cry. She just looked at me, her eyes full of trust.

I’ve been a warrior all my life: I was born this way.

“Warriors are not meant to be mothers.” The village chief asserted, “It is contrary to their nature. That is why they are born infertile.”

You see, warriors are not like the rest of the people; they are born and die, yet they do not produce offspring. Stories of heroism and glory are their only legacy. We are clad in armour that obscures the trajectory of our human body, our vulnerable flesh, our desires.

There was only one man who saw the real me through the heavy armour I wore day and night: my child’s father, a healer. Like my own mother.

And he loved me, armour, and all.

But even massive armour cannot hide a belly full of life.

"She's not a true warrior," the evil tongues rattled, "a real warrior would not be able to be with child."

And so, my stories of heroism died away, as if they never existed. But I didn't care; I didn't need them anymore. Nor did I need the villagers.

And when the flames splashed from the dragon's maw, burning everything in their path, something I had never known before awoke in me; a power that felt stronger than any fighting spirit I had ever known in myself: the need to protect.

"Save us!" They screamed, but they didn't ask me to use my weapons, they demanded I gave up the baby.

It was the first time I used my sword against them; I pushed them away when they tried to tear the baby from my arms. I broke necks, I tore the arm of a warrior who had fought alongside me all those years.

As the air around us clouded and swirled with the flap of the dragon’s mighty wings, my eyes met my mother’s gaze: “You have the power to save your baby.”

“How, mother, how?!” I shouted.

My mother answered soundlessly: she licked a drop of blood running down her chest, and her tongue shone red like the rubies she used for healing so many of the villagers. Like the rubies adorning the hilt of my sword.

“Rubies are powerful,” she once explained, “they grant courage and confidence to carve your own path.”

My daughter’s father knew other healing methods. He didn’t believe in stones, herbs, or constellations. He hated the thought he could not help someone only for missing a gem or that a patient must wait for the right season in which the flowers bloomed and had no patience to wait for the stars to properly aligned.

He healed with his hands, with touch alone. “For my hands,” he once explained, “I take everywhere with me.”

Suddenly, I knew what I must do.

The wings flapped once more, and I fell to the ground. When I lifted my head, I could see my baby clutched in the monster’s claws. I ran after it into the burning forest, taking my bow and sword.

No longer trapped inside my bulky armour, I raised my woollen shirt as I ran. I took the tip of a single arrow and coated it with life itself: mother’s milk.

Through the smoke and dust and burnt canopy, I aimed, then let my fingers, still painted white by the milk, let loose the arrow.

She’s close now, I can feel her; the milk drips from my breasts, its smell different from the smell of the love that sends us into battle.

The Dragon is there, lying on the ground. It vomits boiling lava, bleeding acid from dark veins.

My milk is poison to this creature of death and destruction. It will die. Painfully. My baby laying besides it, one eye torn, crying and screaming.

The dragon’s eyes meet my gaze. It begs me to put it out of its misery, but I sheathe my sword.

I will not kill it, for that is an act of mercy and love. I’ll let it die, wallowing in the poison of my milk. Then I’ll nurse my daughter, so that our new life may begin.