Failure
#1 of Drabbles
A lady knight wishes to appease worrisome townsfolk by slaying the nearby dormant dragon.
This is a short little drabble I wrote, concerning a human knight and her encounter with a dormant dragon that she intends to slay. EDIT: I apologize for the wall of text. I can't seem to add the right spacing/sizing.
Purple glints in the filtered few rays of sunlight, glancing from craig to shimmering scale. Sword raised and poised, the lady stares at the monstrous beast before her. Regal in the way it holds its head, neck arched deeper than even the prized stallions kept in the stables of royalty. Wings unfurl, like the ebony creature might take flight to flee from its would-be assassin, but the movements are slow and deliberate. Like a bird, raising wing and increasing to intimidating heights, only this beast needs no display.
Outmatched in size and strength, the townsfolk tell her that only the nimble feet and noble courage of a wolf at heart can fell such a creature. The celtic insignia adorning her breastplate acquires a sudden weight. Perhaps the three wolves, connected with weaving knots etched into metal, will not provide ample protection.
Finding urgent expectancy in those black eyes, the gaze matches her own for inquisition. Maybe the knight is only mind-sore from the weary weeks of travel, but Savannah fancies an inkling of intelligence in those brooding eyes. Large as saucers, but no less human in the way debate rolls behind the slit pupils of a dragon. Stark and unsettling, the realization lowers her weapon an inch.
She is beautiful.
An enigmatic mystery, a boggling fascination for a woman accustomed only to the dull arrays of common animals, a mere moldy bread and brine water existence. With a subtle movement of the head, colors dance and bounce off the cavern walls in ways no stained cathedral window can capture.
Straining emotion passes over her features with the clenched and grinding jaw of a woman in conflict. Lines crossing over her brow, deep furrows of crippling regret spread over her troubled face. If this is a monster, then why make her astounding in beauty? Why is she not gnarled and unholy in appearance, like the fabled demons of old?
To end the life of such an astonishing creature would be criminal. To deprive the world the honor of harboring such a divine fascination would be selfishly hedonistic... All for recognition, reward, and respect. For all her training and turmoil, the knight cannot.
Fingers tighten around the hilt of her sword, but battle never comes.
Neither does the beast raise a fang against. So why has she not devised to light a fire to her armor, bake the foolhardy knight from the inside out, and devour charred bones for this petty intrusion? It would be despicably easy, the woman now realizes, to die at the talons and rage of a dragon. The stories have not done her magnificence justice. She is unmatched in both splendor and power.
Hands trembling with the brutal realization of her own faults (for shame in lack of completing her duty-bound quest, not fear), Savannah nods her head once in token to the shimmering scales, then lowers her sword. With a breath and heavy head, she turns her back to the beast as if to accept defeat, to accept the flickering flames that are sure to come, well deserved and ravenous for flesh.
And when they do not, the disappointed woman walks on, clinking armor echoing off of stone and empty hollow.
A failure.