Naomi Lastrucci
The Silver Queen and Other Dragon Tales
A Collection of Short Dragon Stories
Copyright © 2018 by Naomi Lastrucci
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
First edition
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For Marjorie and Luca, my greatest defenders,
For Chelsea and Tiffany, my favorite pains,
And for Brent, who made me his queen.
Contents
Here there be dragons!
Defender
Beastly Pains
The Silver Queen
Bonus Short Story
The Stories Continue!
Letter from the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Naomi Lastrucci
Here there be dragons!
Hello, dear reader, and thank you for checking out The Silver Queen and Other Dragon Tales! This book contains three short stories, all of which feature—you guessed it—dragons as the main characters. If you’re curious what they’re about, here’s a brief synopsis of each tale:
Defender is a story about a battle between a dragon and a knight, as told from the dragon’s point of view.
Beastly Pains is a story about a boy who finds himself cornered by a dragon and must negotiate his way out of being eaten.
The Silver Queen is a story about a young outcast dragon desperately looking for a way to fit in.
All of these are edited versions of stories I’ve shared online in the past (under a pen name). These stories are not connected to each other, so feel free to read them in any order you like. Of course, if you’re not sure where to start, I do recommend reading them in the order they appear here. Hint: There’s a reason I chose The Silver Queen as the title of the book!
I hope you’ll have as much fun reading these stories as I did writing them. Enjoy!
Defender
There he is, right on time. Sun at his back, steel armor gleaming, sword and shield at his sides. Same as all the others. I only hope he’ll end up like the others too.
They say the arrival of a knight is always a welcome sight. Just not to me. It’s hard to get excited about seeing a hero when you’re one of the villains who made him.
Every time they come here, I ask myself the same questions, only to hear the same answers echo in the back of my mind. What is he doing here? He came for you. Why does he have to attack me? Because he stands to gain from your death. What did I ever do to deserve death? You exist.
How is that fair? I’ve never even seen him before! Yet here he is, charging straight at me, white horse carrying him full speed into battle. I resist the urge to sigh for the thousandth time. Why is it always white? Are horses color-coded for service? Or is it the same horse every time? It doesn’t matter. The animal isn’t why my heart is nearly pounding out of my chest right now.
I stand my ground and turn to face the knight head-on, ready for what’s become routine over the past few months. As always, I take a deep breath and will myself not to let my fear show. The slightest sign of weakness and you’re roasting on a spit for the next royal feast faster than you can yell, “Dragon!”
The knight shouts at me as he draws nearer. I can’t catch all the words through his closed visor and the whistling mountain wind, but I know what he’s saying. Every knight comes here for the same reason. Everyone wants to be the hero who slew the dragon and saved the kingdom.
What difference does it make to any of them what I do? It’s not like they live on the farms I scavenge. None of them know the pains of hunger when winter turns the valley into a barren wasteland, not when they get to feast in the warmth of their castles and manors every day of the year. They don’t care if we deserve a chance to survive, so long as they get their precious gold and glory.
I’d explain myself if I thought he could understand me. It wouldn’t matter; they never listen. Not one of these buffoons has ever bothered trying to reason with me or hear my side of the story. All they see when they look at me is a monster who’d sooner scorch their heads off than look at them. So that’s what I give them.
The knight stops before me and raises his sword and shield. Time to defend. I open my jaws and let out a thunderous roar, then unleash a jet of flame at him. The fire hits the shield and flares up over the knight’s head. It burns his helmet for sure, but it won’t ignite him or his horse. Practice makes perfect.
Before he can lower his shield, I bring my tail crashing down inches from his horse. The animal rears and throws its rider off, then turns and gallops back down the mountain. Good riddance. Funny how the “noble steed” always gets scared off in the first minute. That’s the easy part.
The human staggers to his feet and faces me again, sword and shield still in hand. He opens his visor for a moment, so this time I can hear the words he yells up at me.
“Your days of destruction are over, foul beast! Prepare to die!”
I’d scoff, but I don’t want to egg him on. Days of destruction. Foul beast. Prepare to die. As if I haven’t heard these words a million times already. I have to give him credit for his bravery, though; most of them run away as soon as they lose their horse. Not so tough on two legs.
I tower over the knight and stare him down, ready for his next attack. He runs forward with his shield raised, but I step back and fire another burst of flame over his head. He ducks and rolls as if it would have hit him, then he swings the blade at my front claws. It cuts but not deep enough to sting. I’m lucky these fools value courage and adventure over wit. If they ever choose to bring long-range weapons and go straight for my eyes, throat, or heart, I’ll be doomed for sure.
The knight hacks at my claws twice more, then shuffles back when he sees me open my jaws again. He dives to his right to dodge the next fire breath, followed by a wide swipe of my claws for good measure. In seconds, he’s on his feet again and rushing out of my line of sight. It doesn’t take me long to figure out where he went.
My roar echoes through the mountain air. I don’t have to look to know how deep his sword cut into my tail; I can smell the blood from here.
Gritting my teeth, I dig my claws into the earth. Now he asked for it.
In a flash, I whirl around and swipe my wings against the ground. The left one connects with metal, sending the knight reeling back several paces. Somehow he lands on his feet and blocks the flame breath I sent after him. Impressive.
As he steps back into a defensive stance, I glance down at my tail. The sight of the open gash makes my stomach turn. I can’t remember the last time a sword cut deep enough to expose the meat beneath the scales. Still, I was lucky this time: any deeper and I might have lost one of my strongest weapons.
With a low hiss, I narrow my eyes at the human. He readies his sword and keeps his gaze fixed on mine. He must be intensely focused because he doesn’t react to my wings spreading again.
I flap my wings once and knock him down with the powerful gust. As he staggers to his feet, I lunge forward. He dodges again with a wild swing and the blade catches my foreleg, staining the ground with more blood. At least this wound doesn’t sting as badly.
There comes a point in every dragon-knight encounter when the battle becomes a dance. Fire, wind, and metal begin to blur into a familiar sequence until you fi
nd yourself going through the motions. This is the dangerous part, when your confidence whispers lies that it’s safe to lower your guard. The worst mistake is relying solely on your attacks to win you the day. The one who falls is the one who stops defending first.
Leaping back from another lunge, I face the knight to see him raising his sword yet again. This time I see the familiar signs of fatigue in his movements. Finally. Time to end this.
His battle cry rings out as he charges. I roar and open my nostrils to emit a stream of smoke. He vanishes into the black curtain, but a few coughs are all the signal I need to secure the upper hand.
I swing my tail around and knock him out of the smoke cloud to the ground beside me. He falls on his back and the sword and shield slide out of his reach. Before he can recover his breath, I pin him to the earth and bring my face close to his. At last, I see the satisfying fear in his eyes.
A deep rage within me bares my teeth at him before I can stop it. His pitiful cries for mercy do nothing to cool the flames flaring up in my throat…
And then a small glimmer of green flickers in the corner of my vision, coming from up the mountain. My eyes are still fixed on the knight, but the savage rage in my throat vanishes as quickly as it came. Lucky for him.
Suddenly calm again, I stare through the visor into the wide, terrified eyes of the man pinned beneath my claws. My rage may have subsided, but my bared teeth haven’t. Never show weakness.
“GO AWAY!”
I shout the words in my native tongue. He doesn’t understand them, but I know he’ll get the message. Dare to return and I won’t be so merciful next time. That’s a promise.
I lift him and drop him on his feet, then I roar in his face until he bolts off in the same direction as his horse. Turns out he’s not just the bravest challenger so far; he’s also the fastest.
With a deep sigh, I scoop up the fallen sword and shield and carry them over to a nearby chasm. It’s always satisfying to hear that metallic ring whenever I drop new items into the pile of lost weapons. Two more pieces for my collection today. Not bad at all.
I take one last look down into the forest, then I turn and walk back up the mountain. At the entrance to my cave, I find the sight I already knew would be waiting for me: three hatchlings poking their heads out of the cavern, scales as green as mine glinting in the light of the sun. It’s only too obvious by their nervous expressions that they were watching the whole time.
“What did I tell you three?” I say as I walk past them into the cave. They all look down as they follow me in.
“Stay inside, it’s dangerous,” they recite in unison.
My children follow me past the charred carcasses of two half-eaten sheep. I smirk at the sight of the scorch marks on the nearer one’s head. They’ve been practicing.
I settle into the corner of the cave and spread my wings to invite the little ones in. The feeling of these three curling up in the shelter of my embrace reminds me why every fight is worth surviving. They put on brave faces as they settle in, pretending they knew all along how the battle would play out, but I can see through their masks. They’re always relieved to see me home again.
I catch my oldest looking at my tail, so I drop my wing and herd him over to join his siblings. Never dwell on the scars of a battle, I always tell them. Only the victory. My wounds will heal overnight, anyway. One of the many perks of having dragon blood.
“Mama?” says my youngest as I cradle my children under my wing. Her wide green eyes betray the fear hidden in her voice. “Will they ever leave us alone?”
I hear the same question after every battle, either from her or one of her brothers. The best I can ever do is smile and reassure them as best I can.
“We’ll see.”
Mothers are supposed to protect their children, even from the truth. The truth of why they’ll never get the chance to meet their father. The truth of how I anxiously await the day they can fly so we can make the long journey over the mountains. The truth of how dire our situation truly is until then. I know the people in the valley. They won’t stop until I’m dead or the kingdom runs out of glory-hungry idiots. And the kingdom never runs out of idiots.
Sometimes I wonder if I should just kill the knights. It would be a much simpler solution to two problems at once. My children have never tasted human before…
But with good reason, I’m reminded as my sons and daughter press their bodies against mine. I don’t want to set a bad example. It’s hard enough living in a world that thinks you’re evil. We can’t afford to lose all reason by living up to the hype. Too many of our kind have gone down that dark path, and it never ends well.
Still, looking down at my children’s innocent faces, I have hope that it won’t always be this way, that someday empathy will triumph over fear and our attackers will learn to tolerate us. Maybe even accept us.
Until then, all we can do is defend.
Beastly Pains
“No! Please don’t!”
Alexander opened his eye a tiny crack. Where he had seen a flash of green scales, he now saw only rows of long, razor-sharp teeth.
“I’m sorry!” the boy cried, shutting his eye again. “Please don’t eat me!”
“Silence, human!” The dragon reared his great head and let out a roar that shook the earth. “I want a straight answer this time. What were you doing in my lair?”
Opening his eyes, Alexander was relieved to find that the teeth had vanished. The rancid smell of brimstone breath, however, still hung in the air.
“I— I wanted to prove myself.” There was no point in hiding it. The boy looked up into the dragon’s eyes, mustering every last ounce of willpower he had to keep his tears at bay. “My frie— I mean, the other boys said I couldn’t do it. They laughed at me, called me chicken. Same as always. So I snuck in to steal a piece of treasure. Just one!” he added hurriedly. “I only took one. But I’ll never do it again, I promise! You can have it back. Just please let me go!”
The boy recoiled as much as he could while trapped under the dragon’s heavy claws. He flinched at the sight of the teeth reappearing.
“And what made you think you could get away with it, human?”
“I… I…” Alexander averted his gaze. “I guess I didn’t.”
The dragon narrowed his red eyes.
“What did you take?”
Tentatively, the boy reached behind his back, reflecting on his situation as he did so. He was a seventeen-year-old physician’s apprentice. What did he know about dealing with dragons? Nothing. Why had he embarked on this quest in the first place? So he could prove the bullies wrong, that he wasn’t a coward? Nothing was worth this. Now he was going to die a painful death, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
Alexander pulled the stolen treasure from his bag. The sunlight caught the golden hilt and steel blade of a perfectly crafted longsword. The boy flinched again as the creature’s mouth opened wider, bracing for the killing blow…
But it never came. Instead, the dragon let out a thunderous sound that Alexander soon realized was a laugh.
“Clever. You’re much sharper than the last human who tried to steal from me. Took a bag of golden dinnerware. Much too heavy, made the most terrible racket when he fled. A real nuisance, that one. He didn’t even taste good.”
In the midst of his terror, the tiniest shred of intrigue surfaced in the back of Alexander’s mind. Yes, he had indeed chosen a sword so that he might be able to defend himself should he be caught. It wouldn’t have been too hard, either; a palace guard in his youth, his father had taught him how to handle a sword in the face of danger. He just hadn’t counted on the dragon ambushing him halfway down the mountain.
The boy lifted his arms to offer the sword lying flat across his trembling palms. The dragon scrutinized him.
“You’re a curious sort. Most humans put up a fight at this stage.”
The beast lowered his head and opened his jaws to take the blade. Alexander didn’t dare flinch
this time, knowing that one false move could be his last.
Gently, gently, easy does it…
But the moment those giant teeth touched the hilt, the dragon winced. The weapon flew from the boy’s hands and stuck into the ground mere inches from his face.
Alexander stared up at the dragon, frozen in shock over almost losing his left ear. The beast reared and let out a roar that shook the trees around them.
And that was when he saw it.
“How did you get that?”
The dragon looked down to see the boy pointing up at his face.
“What?”
“That swollen spot.”
“This?” The dragon slid his tongue over the upper gums on the right side of his mouth. “What’s it to you, human?”
Alexander recoiled again. Don’t get cocky.
“Just curious,” he replied as politely as humanly possible. The dragon hesitated, but much to the boy’s relief, no flames emerged from the creature’s jaws.
“It’s been hurting since I ate that herd of deer two full moons ago. Haven’t been able to bite right in weeks.”
“Let me see it.” At the glare the creature shot him, Alexander quickly added, “Please.”
The dragon moved closer and opened his jaws. Summoning his courage, the boy stared fixedly at the teeth before him, until at last he found the problem.
“I can fix that.”
The dragon scoffed. “How?”
“It’s easy.” The boy was surprised by the confident smile that tugged at his lips. “There’s something stuck in your teeth. All I need to do is scrape it out.”
“What with?”
“Um…” Alexander looked awkwardly to his left. He could already see the beast shaking his head from the corner of his eye.
“I don’t think so.”
“But it’s perfect! I’ll be careful, I promise.”
The dragon glared at the boy. “How do I know I can trust you?”
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