The Last Treasure

On a barren mountainside glowing pink with sunrise, two fairies worried at the entrance of a rock-hewn tunnel that gaped hungry and silent.

“Go on, then,” urged the fairy dressed in ivy leaves. His silken wings scattered refracted light across the landing as he flitted back and forth, back and forth.

“Just give me a minute, yeah?” the other said, running damp palms down the petals of her iris tunic.

“You said yourself this hoard’s been abandoned. Nothing to be afraid of, right?”

“I know! I know it’s probably completely safe, I just…!” Iris paused and glanced at Ivy. “You go first.”

“This was your idea!”

“Ok, ok, fine! I’ll go, I’ll go, but if something happens to me, you’ll have to live with that guilt for the rest of your life.” The purple-clad fairy lifted her chin and straightened her wings, flew in a circle once, then disappeared into the tenebrous maw.

“Ohh,” Ivy moaned, then darted in after his friend.

Deep in the stomach of the of the mountain, on a bed of gold coins and precious gems, an ancient beast dreamed. Great armoured legs twitched; reptilian eyelids fluttered. Its sulfurous breath quickened as it met a grand crescendo that jolted it onto all fours, whipping its tail through the shadowed towers surrounding its nest.

The resounding clatter of tumbling metal seemed to adjust the beast to its waking world. It blinked around at the vast cavern, lit only by intermittent cracks in the mountain’s shell and overflowing with a millennium of hoarded treasure. Dampened, the dragon flicked a dull bronze urn at the foot of its nest and curled in on itself to savor the soft ping.

The stagnant air rippled almost imperceptibly, sending a tingling down the dragon’s scales.

“Ouch! Watch where you’re flying, you bumblebee!” a windchime voice cut through the darkness.

“Sorry, I can barely see anything! Ugh, it kind of stinks in here, doesn’t it?”

“Focus! It might take days or even weeks for us to search this whole place, so we have to be efficient.”

The silent shadow slowly unfurling in the center of the cavern was lost on the intruders.

“Any luck?”

“Not really. I think we should bring a fire bug next time so we can properly look around.”

“Would this make your search a little easier?” a deep voice growled, bright embers spilling from the serpentine face above the fairies’ heads.

“WAAAUUGGGHHHH!”

The dragon swept the fairies into a birdcage cloaked in sooty cobwebs and tossed it onto a pile, stirring up a cloud of ash that set them coughing and spluttering. An upturned vanity bloomed with flame from a fallen ember, illuminating the great beast in an ominous vacillating light.

“HOW DARE YOU ENTER THE LAIR OF LAVINIUM?”

The mountain shook with the gravity of Lavinium’s roar. The fairies clutched each other and trembled on the cage’s filthy floor.

“SPEAK!”

“W-w-we-we were l-l-looking f-fo-f-“ Ivy stumbled over his wooden tongue.

“For a p-powerful ancient relic of The Fae,” Iris continued bravely. She took a deep breath, choked down a cough, and squared her wobbly shoulders. “The Monarch Throne. It contains deep, old magic, and-”

“-And you thought to seek glory by recovering it for your people, I’m sure,” Lavinium sneered, dark tendrils of smoke curling from its nostrils. “It matters not. For intruding, you must face the consequences. I have no appetite for fairies, so a simple execution will suffice.”

“We’re not seeking glory!” Iris insisted. “We truly thought this hoard was abandoned, and we’re terribly, terribly sorry! It’s just- our people were so weakened by the humans’ raids, and now that they’re gone, we’re finally getting to rebuild. We’re only looking to recover what was taken from us! Please, do you- is the Monarch Throne here?”

“And why would you care to know if you are to die regardless?”

“Please!” Iris dropped to her knees to beg properly. “If you have it, please return it to the fairies, then you can come execute us all you want!”

“I don’t want to be executed!” Ivy whispered hoarsely.

Lavinium considered this. “…Yes, it is in my possession,” it finally said.

“Then-!”

“But I will not relinquish it.”

“Why not?!” Iris cried.

“Because it is mine,” the dragon said simply, yawning a fresh torrent of sparks over its hoard. “Principle, tradition… You are too young to understand such things.”

“I’m 142,” the fairy protested.

“And I have lived twenty of your lifetimes,” Lavinium thundered, looming imperiously over the cage. “Know this: a dragon is its hoard. The two are never separated, not even by death. Those who disturb my hoard shall be punished; so it is, so it shall always be.”

“Mm,” Ivy whimpered, his knees knocking together as he gripped Iris’s arm in an iron vice.

Desperation flared in Iris’s chest. “Wh-what if you were to add a new treasure to your hoard? To replace the Monarch Throne, and- and freshen up around here?”

“All the human ruins have been scavenged since their demise,” Lavinium brushed off. “There is nothing more to obtain.”

“Not human.” Ivy clenched her tiny fists and stiffened her resolve. “Elf treasure. The Evergreen elves have been hiding something away from the rest of the world. No one knows what it is, but from how they’ve been acting, I think it must be really special.”

A flame of infernal laughter erupted upwards. “Your ignorance is astounding. Only humans were worth plundering. Only humans deserved it. The greed and hubris that condemned them were the very things that created such magnificent treasure. And now that my old enemy is gone…”

Lavinium sank back onto its haunches. It reached out and stroked a rusting suit of armour, examined the grimy residue left on its talon. “No one ceaselessly hunting my treasure for riches, or my hide for glory. No one decrying me a monster and cursing God when I act the part. Those foolish, contradictory creatures with their obsessive suffering. In their absence… is peace.”

The fairies flinched at the punctuating clatter of Lavinium flicking a tarnished crown against the cavern wall. Lost in thought, it lumbered around the cavern, pawing through its hoard treasures and murmuring to itself.

“What are you thinking?!” Ivy hissed while the dragon was preoccupied.

“I think I’ve seen something like this before,” Iris whispered back.

“What?”

“Ivy, look around you! Dragons are supposed to have pride in their hoard, right? But this place is…” she trailed off.

For the first time since entering Lavinium’s lair, Ivy took in his surroundings. In the wavering light of the burning vanity, the so-called ‘treasure’ could at best be described as decrepit. Everything the light touched was covered in ash, rusting, rotting, or broken. He looked down and realized he was much the same; blackened with soot and sticky with spiderwebs, he and Iris looked as if they had been lost to the recesses of time in what was turning out to be more of a tomb than a treasure trove.

“It’s like when my cousin tore her wing and couldn’t fly anymore,” Iris went on. “Everything in her life went to seed. She was just… too empty to care anymore.”

“Comparing your crippled cousin to a dra-gon feels a little…”

“That’s obviously not the point, Ivy!”

“Ok, ok, but what does this have to do with the elves?”

Iris sighed. “How badly do we want the Monarch Throne?”

Ivy paused. “We’d do anything for it,” he said quietly.

“Yes.” Iris nodded with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, so please forgive me for trying.”

“Perhaps…” said Lavinium suddenly, returning to the present and its prisoners, “perhaps one last attempt at gaining a new treasure would do me well. The Evergreen elves…” A pause. “I never have cared for elvish beings. Such feeble peace-touters. If they really do have some treasure hidden away, as you say, then that makes them hypocrites, and I loathe hypocrisy.”

The fairies glanced at each other.

“Should I find something worthwhile, you may have your throne or your freedom. Not both. Use the time I am gone to make your decision, for I am not a patient being. If, however, this is a waste of time and energy…” The dragon’s lips curled and its throat ignited.

Ivy whimpered.

Without another word, Lavinium wove through the maze of junk and took off down the tunnel, leaving the fairies in a flickering silence.

“Oh, Iris…”

“I know, I know.” Iris’ head dropped into her hands as she sank to the cage floor. “I just… I know. But I had to. Our people need that magic… your father…”

Ivy bit his lip and frowned. A tear cut down his sooty cheek as he knelt next to his friend and laid his head on her shoulder.

After a moment, Iris rested her own head against his. “I wish you weren’t here, Ivy.”

“Mm, I also wish I wasn’t here.”

This tugged a quirk from the corner of Iris’s rose petal lips. “But… I’m also glad. After almost half a century, we finally found the Monarch Throne. Heh. Just imagine the look on old Oakie’s face when a dragon comes and drops off the throne.”

“Our names will go down in Fae History, probably.”

“I guess Lavinium was right about us seeking notoriety, then,” Iris said, stroking the soft down of Ivy’s hair.

“Do you think Lavinium would deliver a message for us?” Ivy asked. “To say goodbye?”

“…We can ask.” Iris winced as she failed to keep the doubt from her voice.

The two fairies huddled together as the vanity slowly burned itself out. They shared fond memories and expressed their regrets while the light dwindled, and when the fire finally died, they were enshrouded in the somber peace of knowing and accepting their fate.

The sound of enormous leathery wings beating air down the tunnel broke the stillness, and they gripped each other’s hands and held their chins high.

A ring of fire billowed out to the cavern walls, igniting inlaid sconces and bathing the cathedral of neglect in warm light. Lavinium wound through the freshly illuminated junk piles with light, almost dainty movements, before disappearing from the fairies’ line of sight. Faint sounds of rustling and rummaging were all that alerted them to the dragon’s vague location within the lair.

“Seems like it’s in a good mood,” Iris whispered, ignoring the confusing blend of guilt and hope that rose in her throat.

Ivy nodded agreement. “But I didn’t see the treasure, did you?”

Lavinium emerged from the depths of a mound with something small cradled in its palm. As it drew closer, Iris felt herself grow cold with despair.

“Oh, no…” Ivy breathed.

In Lavinium’s hand was a fairy-sized throne that held the memory of magnificence, but was now, along with everything else in the stony crypt, suffered from age and disuse. The once lustrous monarch butterfly wings were now tattered, veiny husks of dust, and the spell embroidered in golden flax silk was frayed beyond recognition.

“Fret not. Despite its appearance, there is still some magic in this item. Feel it for yourselves.” It set the throne down and unlocked the birdcage with a deft talon. “Now go, restore this to your people.”

Ivy’s eyes widened. “You-you’re letting us go?”

“Would you prefer to stay?”

The fairies flew out of the cage and grabbed the crumbling throne before Lavinium could change its mind. Warm strength raced through their arms, setting their tiny bodies aglow with long-forgotten magic.

“Oh!” Iris sighed softly. Shifting the throne to one hand, she bowed deeply in midair. “Thank you, thank you! We- all the Fae- are forever in your debt.”

“Indeed, you are,” Lavinium agreed. “And I will demand repayment. Soon, I imagine.”

The fairies gulped in unison.

“Um, p-pardon me, Your Fieriness,” Ivy squeaked, giving an awkward half bow as he spoke. “What- sorry, what was the treasure the elves had?”

Iris glanced at the tunnel, itching to flee but equally curious about whatever it was that had awoken Lavinium so thoroughly.

Lavinium’s mouth stretched open, revealing several rows of iron dagger teeth forged strong and sharp over the centuries. The fairies realized with horror that it was smiling.

“Come,” it said, turning away from them. “Witness the miracle.”

Hesitant, yet unable to stop themselves, the fairies followed the dragon to the heart of the lair. There, sleeping soundly upon Lavinium’s enormous gilt nest, was a small child wrapped in a blanket of woven pine needles.

Iris gasped as the child turned its head, revealing an undeniably rounded ear. “What? How…?!”

Ivy flew backwards a few paces. “No, no, no, no…” he muttered, shaking his head.

No longer paying the fairies any mind, the dragon stroked the infant with a gesture that could almost be described as reverent.

“All of this is your legacy, little one,” Lavinium cooed. “The elves would have tried to tame your wildness, but I have set you free.”

They turned and fled.

Red-rimmed eyes on the vermillion horizon, the two fairies worried at the exit of the rocky tunnel that regurgitated them into the evening air. The tired throne swayed softly between them.