Locked Away But Not Trapped

Once upon a time…

Isn't how these things always begin? If there was anything she would know it was that. Locked in a tower like all those classic fairytales, there wasn't much to do outside of cleaning. Lots of cleaning. She supposes she was lucky and was also given a bookshelf and an art space. Give her something else to look at besides a seemingly endless ocean.

Though she still don't know who to thank.

It's been this way since she could remember. Locked away in a room atop a tall tower of stone with a door that remained unmovable and a window that looked out onto the sea.

No name, no memories, no world outside this room.

There is a part of her that wonders if this tower was all there is to the world. Questioning if it just stops and ends at the horizon she can see from the window.

She doesn’t know if that would make things better or worse.

She let out an explosive sigh and threw herself against the windowsill in a move that she was sure even fairytale princesses would be proud of. It felt appropriate given the circumstances.

She’d been questioning everything more and more as time seemed to continue on, a world that either completely forgot about her or a world that never knew she existed at all.

Or maybe the world itself never existed at all.

She groaned, resisting the urge to slam her head against the sill. So many questions, not enough answers. It felt like she kept running around in circles in her mind. Never finding the answer, never finding the end to anything. It was enough to drive any person mad.

And maybe she already was.

Though she had no way of knowing what madness and sanity were considering she had never seen another living creature in her life. Not even a single fish shimmering in the water outside her window. She was completely and utterly alone in the world.

As far as she knew.

That was what really drove her to madness, staring at the horizon as if it held all the answers and yet receiving none in return, silently crying out for a response and hearing only silence.

That was madness.

She lifted her head and stared off at the horizon for what felt like the millionth time since she had awoken in the tower. That small shred of hope still tugging at her mind, telling her that maybe today would finally be the day. She would get some kind of reprieve, some kind of answer to the questions she had been asking seemingly all her life.

It was the same silence she had always heard.

She sighed and felt the familiar pinprick of tears in her eyes but cursed herself for the feeling. What else had she expected? Why should she be upset, cry even if this was the same thing she had been facing every day of her life?

It was pathetic.

It was pathetic that after all this time, she even still had that shred of hope. That she still had that fraying, decaying string that she was able to grasp onto. Maybe that was the true madness of this whole thing.

And yet, she still held onto it.

She slumped against the windowsill with a sigh, running her fingers along the trail of ivy twisting around the opening. She plucked a leaf from the vine and ran her finger along the edge of it.

She rolled her eyes at herself. All this time trapped here, never knowing the world outside and she’s reduced to playing with a leaf for entertainment? She truly was pathetic.

She dropped the leaf with a flick of her wrist, nothing else to do but follow it with her eyes as it floated down to the grass below the tower.

Just then, a tail covered in burgundy scales that seemed to glitter black in the sunlight, disappeared around the corner.

Her eyes shot open and she stood straight, leaning against the windowsill and praying for another glimpse of it. She hadn’t imagined it, right? She couldn’t have. She knew every inch of the view from her window. Nothing had ever changed. Not until then.

She leaned even farther out the window, hoping to catch more of the creature the tail was attached to. “Hello?” She called out, her voice sounding strange even to her from lack of use. She called out again but was only met with that ever present silence.

She chewed on her lip. She knew she might be going crazy but imagining a tail was far beyond anything she’d reached. “Please tell me I didn’t imagine you.” She begged quietly but once again, silence was her only answer.

She leaned out the window again, nearly her whole body out in the open. She had to see it again. She had to know it was real. That this wasn’t all some form of madness she had yet to experience. The sound of rock splintering, cracking open, was the only warning she received a split second before the rock underneath one of her hands gave way.

A scream tore from her throat as she found herself falling from the window, the ground rushing up to meet her in a twisted version of the leaf’s fate. She clenched her eyes shut, waiting for the crash but then…

She stopped falling.

Instead of the unforgiving ground, she was resting on a warm bed of scales, tucked in between two ridges running along a spine. She sat up, feeling herself start to move with the motion of the creature and managed to crack her eyes open.

And she was staring at the same scales that had taunted her from the window.

She scrambled to sit up even more when a voice spoke up, “You’ll be falling again if you don’t hold on, little one.”

The voice was rough from its own struggles but it sent a wave of warmth through her. The first voice she had heard!

She shifted a bit, reaching out to hold onto one of the ridges as she looked up at the head of the creature. Eyes yellow, warm against the burgundy scales that covered its entire body. The scales were the same color as the wings, sprouting from either side of its body and beginning to flap, lifting them both up into the air.

Its razor sharp teeth, horns, and talons were all black and yet she couldn’t find it in her to be scared. In fact, she was overjoyed. She hadn’t been going insane! There had been a creature, a dragon even!

The dragon lifting them both up to the window, a corner now crumbled away from her fall. The dragon’s body twitched, almost as if nudging her back to the window. Her heart splintered in her chest but her body listened, climbing off the dragon and into the room.

“Do I really have to stay here?” She asked.

The dragon cocked its head at her. “Is there a reason you want to leave?”

She nearly had to gape at the creature. Did it not understand what this tower was? She gestured wildly to the single room around her. “This is all I’ve ever known. Silence, solitude, nothing that would even tell me if there was a world beyond this.” She crossed her arms over her chest and let her eyes roam over the dragon once more. “Until now that is.”

The dragon hummed, its own golden eyes looking over the room before looking off to the horizon behind the tower. The one she herself had never even been able to see. “And in all that time had you ever thought to question why?”

Now she was the one cocking her head at the question. The dragon drifted lazily around outside the window. She almost leaned forward to see more clearly but remembered her fall and stayed where she was.

“All these years,” The dragon started, the rumble of its voice contrasting its movements. “And you never thought to ask why you were here? Or even how you’ve survived seeing as you were left alone?”

“Of course I have.” She snapped back. “It’s all I’ve had to do!”

“And yet you haven’t realized that you haven’t tried to leave.”

The words froze her. “What do you mean?”

The dragon stopped its lazy circles and came back to hover in front of her window. “You have spent all this time in this tower and you never tried to leave. You just assumed you couldn’t.”

Her eyes widened and she felt her knees weaken. “Are you saying that I could’ve left all this time?”

The dragon gave her a slow nod. “Your mind was the only thing keeping you here.” It raised an eyebrow. “Why do you think you were able to fall out of the window?”

Her heart stopped. Her mind was racing. She wanted to scream and curse. She wanted to curl up and give in to death entirely. She didn’t know what to do in that moment. All those years, thinking she was trapped beyond saving only to find out she could’ve left at any time.

So instead, she rushed to the door and with only a simple push, the door opened. She let out a laugh, not out of humor, but from the sheer insanity of this whole situation. It felt like everything and nothing all at the same time. Everything she’d ever wanted but thought she would never get.

And now it was as easy as just pushing open the door.

She moved to take a step down the stairs but the dragon’s voice cut through, “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

She whipped around to see the dragon poking its head in the window. She furrowed her brows. “What else would I want?” She gestured to the door. “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Maybe so but another question you should be asking yourself is why.” This only made her more confused. “Why you were put here. Why you were kept away from the rest of the world.”

Her throat tightened. She hadn’t ever asked those questions. She hadn’t even thought to. But it still didn’t change the fact that she had been trapped there her entire life. And only now realized she could’ve left the whole time.

“It doesn’t matter why.” She started but the dragon cut her off,

“I believe it does.” The creature squeezed into the window and perched itself on her bed, curling up like a loyal pet. “I doubt you would still want to leave if you knew why.”

She scoffed. “The reasoning does not change the fact that I have been stuck here for years and I didn’t even know there was a world outside until you came around.”

“And maybe it was better to stay that way.” The dragon argued, its golden eyes watching her as it rested its head on the mattress.

“How would it be better to stay locked up than free?” She demanded, her fists clenching by her side.

“The world is not kind to women like you.” The dragon said, quieter than anything it had said before. “Perhaps you were put here to save you from that fate.”

The words froze her. She had never thought of it that way. But that couldn’t be true, could it? In every story she ever read, a girl was not put in a tower for good reasons. That had to be what was happening here. It was not simply because someone wanted to protect her. It couldn’t be.

She fears she would descend further into madness if that were the case.

She straightened her spine and clenched her fists at her side, lifting her chin so that maybe the dragon wouldn’t be able to see these thoughts swirling around her head. “That cannot be the case.” She insisted. The dragon merely raised an eyebrow. “There is no good reason to keep me locked up here for all this time. But I do intend to find out the true reason.”

The dragon huffed, the slightest bit of smoke escaping its mouth. “I have already told you the reason.”

“You have told me something but I doubt that is the actual reason.” The dragon went to say something but she shook her head. “I have spent far too long trapped here when there is a whole world for me to know and understand.”

The dragon could do nothing but watch as she stormed down the stairs, toward the world that would be as unforgiving as the tower itself. Maybe even more. The dragon let out a sigh and rested on the mattress.

She would return. One way or another.

~~~~~

It had been three days.

Three days since she had left the tower. The dragon remained in the room, keeping it orderly as much as it could and preparing for her inevitable return. And she did return.

On the evening of the third day, the dragon was settling in for another night when it heard a female voice calling, “Please!”

It recognized the voice almost immediately. It flew out the window and around the tower to see her stumbling over the path to the tower she had left only days before. But now…

Now she had seen what was truly out there. And it showed.

Her dress was now torn and the bottom was splattered with dirt and dust as if it had been dragged through… the dragon didn’t want to imagine. Her hair was mussed and tangled and the dragon even spotted a few bruises on her face and arms.

The dragon felt pity for the girl. It had tried to warn her but she was so determined to escape. And now she paid the price.

The dragon flew over to the girl, checking her over for any serious injuries it missed. She whimpered and wrapped her arms around herself. “You were right.” She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

The dragon bowed its head sadly. “I wish I hadn’t been.” It responded.

She let out another whimper and her arms tightened like they were trying to keep her from shattering completely. The dragon nudged her with its nose, attempting to comfort her in the small ways that it could.

“Take me back.” She requested quietly.

The dragon nodded and she climbed up onto its back, slumping over as if she couldn’t keep herself upright anymore. The dragon wouldn’t have blamed her if that was the case. Being as steady as it could, the dragon lifted them both up, flying them back to the window.

She only seemed to clutch tighter onto its ridges, not willing to let the creature go just yet. The dragon understood the silent request and slipped into the room. A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders as the dragon walked her to the bed.

She rolled off onto the mattress but kept a hand on the scales. “Would you mind staying with me? Just for a little bit longer?”

Her voice wavered with something akin to fear and the dragon felt a pang of heartbreak for her. It wasn’t hard to imagine what would’ve caused her to feel like that.

“Of course.” The dragon nodded and curled up next to the bed, allowing her to keep a hand on its back. Almost acting as a grounding technique. It was sure she needed it. It let out a breath before asking, “Did you find what you wanted?”

Another whimper. The dragon glanced up to see her burying her face in the blankets like she was trying to hide from the world.

Her hand started to grip the scales, nails scraping underneath each one and trying to find purchase. “If that is the world I would escape to, I want to stay trapped.”