Fairy Tale Gone Bad

The Prophecy:

Hella tied the last strap on Victor’s armor. The metal shone like water in the sun. She checked every buckle and ring. The leather creaked under her fingers. She kept her face calm, though her hands trembled. This was the day she had prayed for since childhood. The day the prince would slay the dragon. The day the road through the mountains would open again. The day the kingdom would breathe. She told herself her own life did not matter, not if she could help him win.

The night before, she had sat with her parents by the hearth. Her mother’s hands twisted the edge of her apron. “Stay behind him, Hella,” she said. “Guard him as you promised. Come back if the gods allow.”

Her father stared into the fire, jaw tight. “If the prophecy is true, we give you for the kingdom. Do not shame us.”

“I won’t,” Hella whispered. She wanted to argue, to ask if they would miss her, but the words caught. She pressed her lips together and let the fire answer instead.

The hall the next morning hummed with whispers and incense. Priests walked in slow lines with bowls of herbs. Smoke curled around Victor’s head like a crown. Hella held his helm for a final polish. She spoke the old prayers under her breath, words learned beside the nursery fire, words repeated in the yard with aching arms. She and Victor had trained together since they were small. She ran the tracks with him, lifted the weights, took the same bruises and oaths. He learned bold strikes. She learned to guard and guide. He learned to lose himself in battle. She learned to watch for the moment to save him.

Victor’s voice broke the silence, soft enough only she could hear. “When it’s done, Hella, they’ll sing about me.”

She glanced at him, searching for a jest, but found only certainty in his grin. “Yes,” she said. Her tone was flat, unreadable. She turned back to her work, hiding the twist in her stomach.

The prophet’s story ruled the land. One child would kill the dragon. The other would die to make it possible. That was what the elders repeated. That was what the songs promised. Hella carried that story inside her bones.

She placed the helm on Victor’s head. He smiled at her through the slit. His eyes were wild and bright, like the paintings of saints. The hall cheered. Hella stepped back. Her hands felt empty and cold.

They left at dawn. The sky was pale and clean. Frost blurred the fields. The town gathered at the gate to watch. Bells rang. Hella kept her gaze forward. Victor rode a black horse with white feet. Hella walked beside him, carrying the pack. She wore leather and chain, not plate. No cloak of blue. She did not need it. It would only slow her. She would not be the one to stand in the final light. She would be the shadow behind him. That was the plan she had lived for years.

The journey:

The wind hissed off the peaks. The road grew steep and thin. Pines clung to the slopes. Snow lay in the gullies like old linen. By noon their breath came hard. Hella counted steps in sets of one hundred. Victor sang hymns and boasts. It kept the wolves away, and it kept his courage hot. At night they camped in hollows of stone. They warmed their hands over small fires. Hella cooked and mended. Victor slept with his blade close. When his dreams grew violent, she woke him with a touch. He smiled each time and said he was ready. She smiled back and said yes.

On the third day they met a trader who had lost two mules in the pass. “Thunder under the ice,” he warned. “Bones in the snow.” Victor laughed and promised him gold upon return. Hella asked about the caverns. The trader drew a rough map on the frost with a stick. Three mouths. One sinkhole. A stream that ran hot then cold. She folded the map into her mind.

On the fifth day the mountains opened into a bowl of black rock. Smoke drifted from a cleft like breath from a sleeper. The ground stank of iron and rot. The stream ran warm and left red crust on the stones. Hella knelt and touched a wet stain. It smeared between her fingers, dark and tacky. Old blood. Victor lifted his sword, and the weak sun flared along its edge. He looked grand. He also looked heavy. Hella kept her worry quiet.

That night they ate little. Dried meat. Flat bread. The stream water was foul. Hella spat it out. She checked Victor’s straps again. He turned his head, and she saw only her own face in the metal—thin lips, harsh eyes, a girl who had traded laughter for strength. She felt a twist in her chest but said nothing.

They entered the cave at noon. The light died fast behind them. The ceiling dripped. Scales lay scattered on the floor like coins. The air stank of smoke and fat. Hella moved along the side, eyes sharp. Victor strode down the center path. His boots scraped. His plates clanked. The noise woke the dark.

A rush of heat rolled over them. A shape broke from the black. The dragon moved like a collapsing roof. Its head swept low. Its teeth shone like knives. Victor raised his shield. The jaws closed around him. Shield and man vanished. A snap rang out, sharp as breaking wood. Then silence. Only the drip remained.

Hella froze. Her heart slammed and then went soft. The world narrowed to a thin grey line. She stumbled backward. She could not look at the smear on the stone. She pressed herself into a crack between boulders. The dragon sniffed the air, claw scraping along the floor. Then it turned and slid back into the dark.

Hours passed. A trickle of water froze and thawed over her hand. At last her thoughts returned in fragments. A face. A field. A bell. The path behind. The path ahead. She tried to stand but her legs shook. She pressed her knuckles to the stone and breathed. “The prophecy… it lied,” she whispered, voice hoarse in the dark. The words stung her throat. Saying them made them real.

She hid for three days. Hunger marked the hours. Light crept along the cave mouth and faded again. She drank the iron water. She chewed strips of leather and dreamed of meat. She slept and saw stone teeth. She woke with her hand on her knife.

On the second day she crawled to the cave mouth. The wind rolled dust in pale sheets. Far below she saw the road. She could turn back. She could tell the court the prince had fallen. Another mission would be sent in spring. The thought tasted of shame. “Would they just send another boy?” she muttered, her voice lost in the wind. She slid back into the dark.

On the third day tears came at last. Silent, emptying her. Afterward came stillness. She had done all she was told to do. She had brought him here. She had been ready to give her life. It had not mattered. The story had failed. The words had lied.

She remembered the years of training. Victor had mocked her for the books she read after practice. She read them anyway. Knights from deserts and ice. A woman in a blue cloak who killed a fire drake. They had written of weak seams in scale. Armpit. Belly. Jaw hinge. They had written of patience.

The memory burned steady in her. If the prophecy could fail, then skill could save. Small facts could save. Her own hand could save.

Hella stood. Her knees cracked. She ate the last of the bread and felt strength return. She stripped her armor, checked every link. She oiled her blade. She bound her hair back. She whispered Victor’s name once, then let it go.

She studied the three mouths of the lair. The central mouth belched smoke. The left gaped wide and stank of water. The right lay low and narrow. Smoke never touched it. A vent. A tight run. A way only she could take.

She scouted at dusk. The right passage bent sharp. A basin sank at the bend. A jag of rock hung like a tooth. She touched it. Sharp. Firm. She smiled without joy. She pried up stones with a broken spear. She built a ring. She dragged brush into a mat and smeared it with carrion grease. She worked until her hands bled. By the third dusk the trap stood ready.

She stripped her kit to the barest pieces. Short sword. Long knife. A hook tied to cord. Leather wrapped around her arm. A scarf for smoke. She left Victor’s blue cloak behind. It would only catch. She ground her blade sharp as breath.

She slept. She dreamed of a great eye that opened until she fell into it. She woke steady.

At dawn she stood before the central mouth. She threw a stone into the dark. “Schicksal,” she called. Her voice was level.

Heat came. Then the scrape of scale. The vast head pushed out into the light. Eyes like resin. Breath that stank of tar and salt.

Hella ran. She made herself prey. The ground shook under its weight. The dragon followed, filling the arch. Its tail tore trenches. Fire burst from its jaws. She ducked into the narrow run. Heat slapped the stone behind her.

She reached the bend and leapt into the basin. The dragon lunged after her. The jag of rock bit into the hinge of its jaw. Blood spilled hot and black. Hella screamed in effort. She hurled the hook into the wound and pulled. The head jerked down. She drove her sword into the slit beneath the beard. Steel cut deep. She stabbed again and again. Heat charred her sleeve. A tooth tore her back. She did not stop.

The tail smashed stone. A rock struck her temple. She fell to a knee, then forced herself up. She leaned her full weight on the blade. A bell-sound boomed in the depths. The head sagged. The body thrashed, then stilled. Smoke rose in threads. Silence again. Drip. Drip. Drip.

She staggered, laughing and sobbing. She bound her wound with a strip of scarf. She touched the cooling jaw. She cut free a scale the size of a platter and wrapped her blade.

She stepped into the light. It felt like a new world.

The New Prophecy:

Two days later she reached the road. Each night she cleaned her wound with melted snow. On the third morning she saw farms. Smoke rose from chimneys. Crows picked at the last apples.

She reached the village at noon. Bells rang. Faces turned toward her. Joy flashed and then died. They looked for Victor and found only her and the scale.

Murmurs rose. Men stepped forward with hard eyes. Women clutched shawls. A boy pointed at her bloody sleeve and cried. Hella lifted her hands. “The road is open. The dragon is dead. I made a trap. I killed it.”

Silence answered.

A man spat at her feet. “You failed your prince.”

An elder shook his head. “The prophecy said one must die so the other could win. You broke it.”

A woman hissed, “The crown will fall into war without him.”

A farmer in the back shouted, “Better to starve with honor than eat with shame.” Another voice snapped, “She brought ruin.”

Hella’s face burned. “Gold will return. Caravans will cross the pass. Armies will eat. The prophecy didn’t kill the dragon. I did.” Still they turned away.

She went to her mother’s door. It stayed shut. She set the scale on the step. She waited until the light faded. No one came out. At last her father’s voice rumbled through the wood. “You were meant to guard him. We gave you for him. And you bring back only yourself.”

“I brought you freedom,” she said. “I brought you life.”

Her mother sobbed inside, but the latch never moved.

At dawn she climbed to the temple. The prophet sat grinding herbs at a low table. His eyes were cloudy but sharp. She told him what had happened. She demanded the truth.

He listened. He nodded once. “I saw a death and a victory, not whose. I spoke it over both children. Your parents chose who would be hero. I did not correct them.”

Hella stood still. A silence opened inside her. Then ease. The story had been a net. She had been the fish. The net was torn. She was free. She thought of Victor. She grieved him, the boy quick to laugh and boast. She wished him peace.

She thanked the prophet and left him to his herbs.

Hella walked through the market and out the western gate. No one stopped her. The scale on her back shone like a dull moon. She did not wait for a trumpet or a banner. Snow stung her face. She smiled into it.

She reached the pass by dusk. She built a fire behind a broken wall. She ate bread and cheese. She drank clean water. She cleaned her sword and her wound. She wrapped the scale in her cloak. She lay back and watched the stars.

Before dawn she rose. She laced her boots. She bound her wrists. She braided her hair tight. She looked east, back to the bells and fields and the door that never opened. She looked west, toward wide roads and unknown cities. She thought of people who had never heard the old story. She thought of people who had. She felt no fear. Only a hunger for the path ahead.

She set her foot on the stones. The wind tugged at her. Her breath smoked before her. A hawk cried above the ridge. The sun rose red through cloud. Hella did not pray. She did not bow her head. She walked.

The road bent and the world opened. Hills rolled out. A river cut like glass. Somewhere a girl was learning to hold a sword. Somewhere a boy bent over a book. Somewhere a mother told a tale of dragon and hero and cost. Hella hoped it would change by the time it reached the far coast.

She touched the wrapped scale. It was cool, solid. Proof. Not of destiny, but of choice and work and breath.

Hella went on. The story moved with her now. It lived in her steps, her scars, her callused hands. She saw every path as a question she could answer herself. She did not look back.

Across the mountains lay new lands. She would learn them, fight only when she must, speak truth when she could. She would stand as herself, not as shadow.

Once she had tied the last strap on another person’s armor. Now she tied the bindings on her own wrists. This was not another person’s moment. It was hers. She stepped into the morning and kept going.