Re: The Wretched Rite - Round One - The Rose Ring
09-05-2011, 04:11 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.
“Not much of a castle, is it?”
Alice glanced at the rusalka. She was bobbing idly in her pool at about the height of Alice’s waist, dark eyes squinting up at the boxy stone building that sat like a great toad in the middle of town. The dead girl had reached the castle long before Alice, vanishing in and out of scattered puddles at an impossible rate as the Tsote trailed behind. It must be easy not having to walk, she thought wryly. The rusalka had only paused long enough to make sure she was still following.
“The castle doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “As long as this princess of yours in there it could be a fucking box for all I care.”
“In that much of a hurry, are ye,” Adelaide snickered. “Ye’re fixin’ to make me jealous, there. Poor Adelaide, losing all the pretty girls to princesses. Where’s the justice?”
“If kissing you would get us out of here, I’d be chasing after you instead,” Alice replied, scaling the great stone steps that led to the castle’s gate and leaving the rusalka behind. The dead girl squawked in protest as Alice examined the great double doors that barred her way. They were painted a deep forest green and were weathered with age, the paint starting to crumble around the edges of the massive brass bolts the held them closed. Alice frowned. “How the fuck am I supposed to open these? Is there a magic key or somethin’ I should know about?”
“You’re the prince,” Adelaide said, suddenly next to her. “You figger it out.”
Alice jumped sideways in surprise, banging her elbow against the wood with a hollow boom. The rusalka’s grinning face was a foot from hers and her eyes were wide as the sky, big dark pools that threatened to suck her in and drown her. The girl had left the water and was standing on the steps clad in nothing but her long green hair dripping steadily onto the castle’s stone. She smirked at Alice’s staring. “No water in the castle for me to play in, girlie. Y’won’t mind if I go like this, will ye?”
“No,” Alice said curtly, turning away. She could feel a blush starting to rise on her cheeks and willed it away firmly. Giving the door a ferocious kick, she was steeling herself for a full-on tackle when without warning both doors swung open and the Tsote found herself flailing wildly in midair for balance. A sullen-looking darkness gaped in front of her, thick with shadows; Adelaide snickered and stepped into it, giving Alice a teasing look. Her pupils flashed in the darkness like a cat’s.
“Come on then, beauty,” the rusalka said. “Your princess is waiting.”
___________________
Dragons are, as a rule, ancient.
What young dragons do is rarely if ever touched upon in fairytales, as that makes for a poor story. Dragons exist solely for knights to fight them, and no one cares about where they come from. No self-respecting knight would fight a newly-fledged dragonet, much less bother to smash a nest of eggs. That’s boring. There’s no use having a fight if there’s no danger. Dragons are always ancient because only the most ancient dragons are worth writing home about when you hack off their heads and keep their tongues as trophies.
Dramatic as it was to have a centuries-old beast of hellfire, however, it did present some problems. Namely that old creatures wake slowly and aren’t at full capacity for quite some time after that. Normally this isn’t an issue and can even benefit the hero, as a drowsy beast is much easier to slay than a wary one; for the makeshift Prince, though, it did something worse. It did something unspeakable. It kept her from meeting the dragon at all.
The dragon himself (or herself or itself or themself, it never seems to matter) was a respectable old beast with scales as black as a sinner’s heart and horns that curved like a demon’s. His claws were ivory scythes, his fangs were iron spears, and some said his breath was hotter than the fires of hell itself, or at least they would if anyone had ever actually met this dragon before. He didn’t have a name; this wasn’t his story. He had no cache of stolen gold, no magic blood that granted knowledge of the speech of birds, nothing except the princess Red in her tower. In truth, he likely didn’t even know she was there at all. The dragon guarded this tower, and that was good enough for him.
He awoke in the dungeon that we will presume he was always in, wisps of black smoke trickling from his nostrils. He knew there were trespassers in his castle with the unfailing certainty of the omniscience a guardian monster always has of his charge, and he knew that it was his duty to fly up there at once and roast them to cinders. The dragon was tired, though, and old, so very old. He’d suffered centuries, and if this particular tale was anything like the others he’d slept through one more. The trespassers could damn well wait another few minutes while he stretched the kinks out of his wings. He was an old dragon and he didn’t have time to wait hand and foot on every upstart adventurer who wanted to rescue a princess.
That’s what happens you insist on formality. Inconvenience.
___________
The hall of the great castle was brighter than Alice would have expected from the initial darkness they’d met. Stained glass windows bathed the area in a range of smeared red and blues, illuminating walls draped in threadbare rags that might once have been tapestries. The hall could fit a crowd of hundreds, but at the moment it was bare except for Adelaide, Alice, and a century’s worth of dust. Their voices echoed until they were convoluted murmurs that lurked in the castle like ghosts.
“S’colder than a witch’s tits in here,” Adelaide complained, shivering. She’d left a trail of murky water throughout the entire castle, peppered by the occasional sad weed or two. Her skinny arms were wrapped around her torso so tightly that her nails were digging into her flesh. “Tha’s not part of the story.”
“Oh, you’re an expert now?” Alice said. She wasn’t cold, but neither was she constantly dripping with water. “Well, do me a favor and tell me where the fuck the princess is. I’m not searching this whole fuckin’ castle just ‘cause you’re half-cocked on some stupid story that you can’t even get straight.”
Adelaide just grinned at her. A red spear of light from the windows fell across her face and turned the water running down her face to blood. “Someone’s in a dread hurry, it seems t’me. What’s this royal chit got that I don’t, huh?”
The rusalka gave her hair a shake and Alice was suddenly aware that she was standing a lot closer than she had been, close enough for her to smell the cool plant-like scent that rose off her speckled skin. Her bare chest (when had she uncrossed her arms? Alice hadn’t seen it) gleamed faintly under the water, and her hair was clinging to it and her back and her hips and her arms as they wrapped around Alice’s shoulders. For a moment she was too stunned to move. Adelaide’s skin was smooth and cold against hers and the girl’s face was an inch away, all delicate bones and freckles and fangs. They weren’t so bad, she found herself thinking in her shock. They might even be cute, those little fish teeth. They wouldn’t hurt th-that- much- when-
She came to her senses all at once and shoved Adelaide away with a cry of anger. “What the flying fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Adelaide shrugged. “S’worth a shot.”
“Fuck you!”
“I was hopin’ to eat you, actually, but that’ll do. You were askin’ about the princess?” She pointed to a shadowy staircase at the side of the hall. “I’m guessin’ the girl’ll be in the tower. Best get t’climbing.”
Alice glared at the smiling rusalka, but couldn’t find anything to say other than a tangle of mismatched swears that only made the fish-toothed girl grin wider. “You,” she seethed, “keep your hands to yourself.” She turned sharply on her heel and stalked up the staircase to the waiting Red, doing her best to ignore the snickers coming from behind her.
____________
The dragon knew when his moment had passed. It was the sort of thing that came with being an omnisciently localized guardian.
He could still stop them, these two intruders. It wasn’t too late at all, despite him having missed his entrance. He could almost feel them climbing the tower staircase, step by agonizing step, with nothing to stop them but dust and each other. It would be terribly easy to fly up there and roast them both through a window. Like swatting flies with a flamethrower. So easy. So very, very easy.
So easy, in fact, he just flat-out couldn’t be bothered. He was a dragon, for god’s sake. What were two tiny morsels, more or less? The both of them together didn’t even make a tenth of a usual meal. And so what if they were in his tower? He’d guarded it for centuries. Nothing changes, nothing changed. He was an old dragon and he didn’t have the time to watch over every inch of it. Let these two go on their way. It wasn’t like he had anything worth stealing.
Besides, the dragon thought as he stood up and scratched his dorsal spines against the dungeon’s cavernous roof, what were two against twenty? He may be ancient but he could smell the sweet scent of red blood as well as he ever had. All the while he’d been sleeping in this hovel of a castle, a town had sprung up and visitors had arrived. Sweet fleshy humans and others as well, yes. He could smell them. He could smell them all and he was hungry, he was starving, he hadn’t eaten in a century. What were two little morsels against a feast like that? What were they to him at all?
The dragon destroyed the dungeon wall with a single sweep of a mighty talon and leapt into the air, black wings blotting out the sun as he rose like a specter of death above the town. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he began to circle like a monstrous vulture, fire dripping from his Mercedes-sized jaws as he eyed the specks of color sprawled across the landscape. Pitiful offerings, to be sure. But beggars can’t be choosers and sometimes neither can dragons.
Such inconveniences.
“Not much of a castle, is it?”
Alice glanced at the rusalka. She was bobbing idly in her pool at about the height of Alice’s waist, dark eyes squinting up at the boxy stone building that sat like a great toad in the middle of town. The dead girl had reached the castle long before Alice, vanishing in and out of scattered puddles at an impossible rate as the Tsote trailed behind. It must be easy not having to walk, she thought wryly. The rusalka had only paused long enough to make sure she was still following.
“The castle doesn’t matter,” Alice said. “As long as this princess of yours in there it could be a fucking box for all I care.”
“In that much of a hurry, are ye,” Adelaide snickered. “Ye’re fixin’ to make me jealous, there. Poor Adelaide, losing all the pretty girls to princesses. Where’s the justice?”
“If kissing you would get us out of here, I’d be chasing after you instead,” Alice replied, scaling the great stone steps that led to the castle’s gate and leaving the rusalka behind. The dead girl squawked in protest as Alice examined the great double doors that barred her way. They were painted a deep forest green and were weathered with age, the paint starting to crumble around the edges of the massive brass bolts the held them closed. Alice frowned. “How the fuck am I supposed to open these? Is there a magic key or somethin’ I should know about?”
“You’re the prince,” Adelaide said, suddenly next to her. “You figger it out.”
Alice jumped sideways in surprise, banging her elbow against the wood with a hollow boom. The rusalka’s grinning face was a foot from hers and her eyes were wide as the sky, big dark pools that threatened to suck her in and drown her. The girl had left the water and was standing on the steps clad in nothing but her long green hair dripping steadily onto the castle’s stone. She smirked at Alice’s staring. “No water in the castle for me to play in, girlie. Y’won’t mind if I go like this, will ye?”
“No,” Alice said curtly, turning away. She could feel a blush starting to rise on her cheeks and willed it away firmly. Giving the door a ferocious kick, she was steeling herself for a full-on tackle when without warning both doors swung open and the Tsote found herself flailing wildly in midair for balance. A sullen-looking darkness gaped in front of her, thick with shadows; Adelaide snickered and stepped into it, giving Alice a teasing look. Her pupils flashed in the darkness like a cat’s.
“Come on then, beauty,” the rusalka said. “Your princess is waiting.”
___________________
Dragons are, as a rule, ancient.
What young dragons do is rarely if ever touched upon in fairytales, as that makes for a poor story. Dragons exist solely for knights to fight them, and no one cares about where they come from. No self-respecting knight would fight a newly-fledged dragonet, much less bother to smash a nest of eggs. That’s boring. There’s no use having a fight if there’s no danger. Dragons are always ancient because only the most ancient dragons are worth writing home about when you hack off their heads and keep their tongues as trophies.
Dramatic as it was to have a centuries-old beast of hellfire, however, it did present some problems. Namely that old creatures wake slowly and aren’t at full capacity for quite some time after that. Normally this isn’t an issue and can even benefit the hero, as a drowsy beast is much easier to slay than a wary one; for the makeshift Prince, though, it did something worse. It did something unspeakable. It kept her from meeting the dragon at all.
The dragon himself (or herself or itself or themself, it never seems to matter) was a respectable old beast with scales as black as a sinner’s heart and horns that curved like a demon’s. His claws were ivory scythes, his fangs were iron spears, and some said his breath was hotter than the fires of hell itself, or at least they would if anyone had ever actually met this dragon before. He didn’t have a name; this wasn’t his story. He had no cache of stolen gold, no magic blood that granted knowledge of the speech of birds, nothing except the princess Red in her tower. In truth, he likely didn’t even know she was there at all. The dragon guarded this tower, and that was good enough for him.
He awoke in the dungeon that we will presume he was always in, wisps of black smoke trickling from his nostrils. He knew there were trespassers in his castle with the unfailing certainty of the omniscience a guardian monster always has of his charge, and he knew that it was his duty to fly up there at once and roast them to cinders. The dragon was tired, though, and old, so very old. He’d suffered centuries, and if this particular tale was anything like the others he’d slept through one more. The trespassers could damn well wait another few minutes while he stretched the kinks out of his wings. He was an old dragon and he didn’t have time to wait hand and foot on every upstart adventurer who wanted to rescue a princess.
That’s what happens you insist on formality. Inconvenience.
___________
The hall of the great castle was brighter than Alice would have expected from the initial darkness they’d met. Stained glass windows bathed the area in a range of smeared red and blues, illuminating walls draped in threadbare rags that might once have been tapestries. The hall could fit a crowd of hundreds, but at the moment it was bare except for Adelaide, Alice, and a century’s worth of dust. Their voices echoed until they were convoluted murmurs that lurked in the castle like ghosts.
“S’colder than a witch’s tits in here,” Adelaide complained, shivering. She’d left a trail of murky water throughout the entire castle, peppered by the occasional sad weed or two. Her skinny arms were wrapped around her torso so tightly that her nails were digging into her flesh. “Tha’s not part of the story.”
“Oh, you’re an expert now?” Alice said. She wasn’t cold, but neither was she constantly dripping with water. “Well, do me a favor and tell me where the fuck the princess is. I’m not searching this whole fuckin’ castle just ‘cause you’re half-cocked on some stupid story that you can’t even get straight.”
Adelaide just grinned at her. A red spear of light from the windows fell across her face and turned the water running down her face to blood. “Someone’s in a dread hurry, it seems t’me. What’s this royal chit got that I don’t, huh?”
The rusalka gave her hair a shake and Alice was suddenly aware that she was standing a lot closer than she had been, close enough for her to smell the cool plant-like scent that rose off her speckled skin. Her bare chest (when had she uncrossed her arms? Alice hadn’t seen it) gleamed faintly under the water, and her hair was clinging to it and her back and her hips and her arms as they wrapped around Alice’s shoulders. For a moment she was too stunned to move. Adelaide’s skin was smooth and cold against hers and the girl’s face was an inch away, all delicate bones and freckles and fangs. They weren’t so bad, she found herself thinking in her shock. They might even be cute, those little fish teeth. They wouldn’t hurt th-that- much- when-
She came to her senses all at once and shoved Adelaide away with a cry of anger. “What the flying fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Adelaide shrugged. “S’worth a shot.”
“Fuck you!”
“I was hopin’ to eat you, actually, but that’ll do. You were askin’ about the princess?” She pointed to a shadowy staircase at the side of the hall. “I’m guessin’ the girl’ll be in the tower. Best get t’climbing.”
Alice glared at the smiling rusalka, but couldn’t find anything to say other than a tangle of mismatched swears that only made the fish-toothed girl grin wider. “You,” she seethed, “keep your hands to yourself.” She turned sharply on her heel and stalked up the staircase to the waiting Red, doing her best to ignore the snickers coming from behind her.
____________
The dragon knew when his moment had passed. It was the sort of thing that came with being an omnisciently localized guardian.
He could still stop them, these two intruders. It wasn’t too late at all, despite him having missed his entrance. He could almost feel them climbing the tower staircase, step by agonizing step, with nothing to stop them but dust and each other. It would be terribly easy to fly up there and roast them both through a window. Like swatting flies with a flamethrower. So easy. So very, very easy.
So easy, in fact, he just flat-out couldn’t be bothered. He was a dragon, for god’s sake. What were two tiny morsels, more or less? The both of them together didn’t even make a tenth of a usual meal. And so what if they were in his tower? He’d guarded it for centuries. Nothing changes, nothing changed. He was an old dragon and he didn’t have the time to watch over every inch of it. Let these two go on their way. It wasn’t like he had anything worth stealing.
Besides, the dragon thought as he stood up and scratched his dorsal spines against the dungeon’s cavernous roof, what were two against twenty? He may be ancient but he could smell the sweet scent of red blood as well as he ever had. All the while he’d been sleeping in this hovel of a castle, a town had sprung up and visitors had arrived. Sweet fleshy humans and others as well, yes. He could smell them. He could smell them all and he was hungry, he was starving, he hadn’t eaten in a century. What were two little morsels against a feast like that? What were they to him at all?
The dragon destroyed the dungeon wall with a single sweep of a mighty talon and leapt into the air, black wings blotting out the sun as he rose like a specter of death above the town. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he began to circle like a monstrous vulture, fire dripping from his Mercedes-sized jaws as he eyed the specks of color sprawled across the landscape. Pitiful offerings, to be sure. But beggars can’t be choosers and sometimes neither can dragons.
Such inconveniences.