Shattered DragonFly - Rise of the Dragon Fliers

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something glitter, the air rippled. A shimmer right over the water. It could have been mistaken for a heat wave, but I knew better. As days went, this one was cooler than most. The tropics of Minnimess Cay were known for heat, it’s what made the islands such a great place to live. Made us full of life and laughter and so many colours that I didn’t even know if all of them had names. We had something the other islands didn’t have, especially the mainland, because we had colour.

The rest of the world was cold and grey. Blighted by the magic the Fae had corrupted with their greed. We didn’t have magic here. We didn’t have much of anything really.

No one here was rich apart from the silk merchants and those within the ruling circle, but that was okay because we were safe. And safe was all any human could ask for.

And I loved it here. I did. It was my home.

Turning my head away, I continued walking. Glancing everywhere at once and not really looking at anything at all. To look closely was dangerous, because that’s when I saw it.

Magic.

Signs in the air that no one else could see. The shimmer and shimmy of the air that said I was about to see something I didn’t want to.

Something I shouldn’t.

Magic wasn’t here, that’s why we were safe from the Corruption. We were all meant to be warded against the Rot and greed of the Fae, and yet I had been seeing things my entire life.

The feeling of it creeping up on me was unmistakable. My stomach bottomed out, twisting beneath my skin, and the hairs on the back of my arms stood up on end. And I was feeling all of that now as I walked along the cobbled dockside, heading home to my own bed after a night rolling around in the hay with my lover.

Sweat beaded the skin of my arms, sweat  that had nothing to do with the heat. The feeling hadn’t been this strong for a long time. Not since I was a child. Not since-

In the turquoise blue water of the dock next to me, a splash sound. A splash and cry. Turning sharply I let out a cry of my own as the creature appeared in the water between the hulls of two boats.

No one else hurrying along the busy dock had turned to see what had fallen off one of those ships. Just me, and that’s because I was a fool who had thought a sailor had toppled off board.

It wasn’t a man though. It was just something oddly man-shaped but it definitely wasn’t human. And if it wasn’t human then it was something… Else.

A thing I shouldn’t be seeing.

“Imaginary.” Was what I was told when I was a child, but I didn’t really believe that now. And even if the things I saw were all in my head, it didn’t really make a difference. I shouldn’t be seeing it.

One meant I was crazy, and the other meant I was cursed.

So I refused to see it. I didn’t have to acknowledge it. I didn’t have to keep looking at the weird shininess of its skin as it bobbed in the water and continued to stare up at me with eyes that were too wide and slanted for its angular face.

Everyone knew the stories of the sirens. They lead people to their deaths in the ocean. We were a bustling port town and I had grown up on those stories. It was one of the reasons I didn’t go into the water.

An island girl who couldn’t swim. It was almost laughable but it kept me from being dragged down into the depths by one of those… things.

Screwing my eyes tightly together, I took a deep and shaky breath. Gathering my wits together. If anyone saw what I was seeing then they weren’t saying anything. No one was even looking at me. Which meant they hadn’t seen me look and that was the way it had to be.

“Merya.”

Ignoring the whisper of my name I continued walking. Head and shoulders down. If I could only get to the edge of town then I could run. There was no water in the fields that separated my home from the town. It wouldn’t be able to follow me there.

Every fibre of my being wanted to run now but I couldn’t do that without drawing attention to myself. I already did enough of that as it was. I didn’t look like the others. There was no one on this island that had the colour hair I did. No one who looked back at me with storm grey eyes. It made me extremely popular, and equally hated.

Another splash behind me, and my feet picked up speed. Not running exactly but almost jogging.

From one of the unloading carts, a burly sailor glanced in my direction. His eyebrows lifted. “Merya, are you alright?” Everyone knew me by name even if I didn’t know them. It was hard to be anonymous when your hair was the colour of silver white snow and everyone else’s were shades of oak tree brown.

I nodded, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. If I did, my voice would give me away. He would know instantly that I was in fact not okay, and then he would tell others.

For a second my feet paused. What could he tell the others? That crazy Merya was up to her old tricks again? That her mind had snapped and she was jumping at shadows that weren’t even there? It wasn’t exactly a lie, but I didn’t want to go through that again.

One time up in the healers palace was more than enough to last a lifetime.

“Merya, come to me.” The voice said again, this time more tangible. Not the wind talking to me but something else. Something with physical lips and a mouth, and by the sound of it too many teeth.

“Come before-”

The sound of something wet reached my ears. A huge body hitting the cobblestones. I turned before I even knew what I was doing and there it was. On the ground before me. Oil slick black scales that were dazzlingly beautiful under the bright tropical sun. And it was human, in shape, except for the tail- or was that tentacles?

I raked my eyes over the creature. I didn’t know what the Fates to call the things on its lower half, but I did know I didn't want it to touch me.

Pulling itself along the rough ground on slim arms, it edged towards the man who had asked me if I was okay. A man who I didn’t know, but who was kind enough to be worried about me.

“It’s time to come home, Merya. Now.” The raspy wet voice said again.

I backed up a step, almost tripping over some netting that I didn’t see and a shriek left my mouth.

“Leave me alone!” The words tore themselves out of my mouth. Ragged in their desperation.

The sailor's head snapped around to me, his look questioning. Holding his hands up he shook his head. “Have it your way. I was just asking.”

Swallowing hard I tore my eyes away from him and back to the creature.

“I will kill him.” It hissed. “I’ll kill them all, you have to come home.” Black soulless eyes met mine. “I’ll kill them all, every person you love, until you come home to where you belong.”

At my side my fists clenched. “This is my home. This is where I belong. Go away.” Scooping up the nearest thing to hand, I waved it threateningly. And the salt rusted metal of the axe caught the sunlight as I swung it in an arc.

“Are you threatening me girl?” The sailors eyes narrowed into slits and he took a threatening step towards me.

I shook my head. Of course he would think I was. He couldn’t see what was inching closer to him with its claw like nails outstretched and ready to tear him apart.

Only I could see that because I was-

I was what? Crazy?

It sure felt that way.

“Put the axe down!” He cried out, his leg sliced from knee to ankle. Blood splattered his feet.

“Leave him alone!” I swung again, my arm muscles screaming from the weight of it. “Just leave him alone. Leave all of us alone! This is my home, I belong here.” Tears threatened to engulf me but I refused to let them fall. If I did then something worse would happen.

If I was the only one who could see it then I had a duty to protect my friends, even if they didn’t know I was their friend.

“Did you just cut me? Stupid, stupid-” Menacingly he took a step forward and lashed out, before I could tell him I wasn’t the one to cut him. I hadn’t been close enough to even scratch him let alone slice him open. But he was in pain and afraid, and that made men dangerous.

His closed fist hit me straight in the cheekbone, and pain exploded out of it. Tumbling back hard, I landed on my back on the fish gut covered cobblestones.

“Bitch.” His foot came down into my spine as I tried to roll away from him. Not that it did any good, I was still seeing stars from his punch, and moving fast enough to evade his kicks was impossible.

The blood from his cut leg sprayed over me. Flecks of it splattering over my face. Sobbing, I curled myself into a ball. Taking the kicks. Taking the punishment I knew I didn’t deserve.

I had tried to protect him, and look at what that got me. I should have just let the creature rip him apart with its bare hands. He deserved nothing less than that

Through tear studded lashes, I watched as it smiled. “See how they turn on you. You don’t belong here. You never have, and you know that.” His grin grew wider. “Say the word Merya and I’ll end him, for you. All you have to do is-”

A look of triumph swept across its face as I opened my mouth to do exactly that. And then I shut it again.

I would take the beating. I would take it all, because the alternative was so much worse.

“You’re going to kill her Marsh.” Someone, and I couldn’t see who it was through my tears, pulled him away from me but not before he lashed out with his booted feet one last time. I felt something snap in my body. A crunch that was so loud I was shocked that no one else could hear it but me.

“She attacked me with an axe. Opened my leg up. Crazy bitch.” He struggled to get away from the men holding him. Desperate to finish what he had started and put an end to me once and for all.

“Everyone always said she was mental, but I didn’t want to believe it. Running around talking to things that weren’t there.”

Weren’t there? I wanted to scream at him that they were there. In fact it was right behind him. His blood was still dripping from nails that were too long for its human hands.

“Then take her in. Call the healers. They will treat her up the hill like they did last time.” He was yanked back further. Out of striking range.

The healers- a shudder ran through me. The hospital wasn’t a place of healing, it was a place of torture. I had spent two days there when I was fourteen and that had been more than enough. Their healing techniques had been enough for me to learn quickly to hide what I was seeing. To act normal, and I had done a pretty good job until recently.

“People like her should just-”

Die. He was about to say die. Like being different to them made me less. That I deserved to die just because I wasn’t the same as them.

This was my home. I didn’t know any different, but the creature was right. I didn’t belong. Not here and not anywhere.

“You’re right but that’s not how we do things. We don’t kick girls to death on the street like animals. We aren’t the mainland. Stay and I will get a warden and a healer. You can bring charges against her that way.” A pair of unfriendly eyes swept over me. “It wouldn’t be the first complaint they have had about her. Maybe this time Ezra will do something about it.”

My eyes flew open. Ezra. If I was afraid of the hospital and their “healers”, then I was terrified of her. She was a queen without a crown. She ruled but didn’t have a title. Her name was enough.

I did not want to be on her radar. No one did.

“No.” I clawed myself up much like the creature had done. “Please, no.” My pleads fell on deaf ears and I knew it. They would either send me to the hospital, where they would break my mind; or they would send me to Ezra, who would break everything.

“Is there a problem here?” A familiar voice said from somewhere behind me, but I didn’t need to turn to see who it was.

I didn’t have a mother.

I didn’t have a father either.

All I had was him. Haelex.

My adoptive father, my teacher and protector.

“Her, Haelax.” The sailor spat and a glob of it landed on my cheek. “Your pet needs to be kept on a leash before she hurts someone. We are calling for the healers. It’s clear that you can no longer control the crazy.”

Haelex stepped over me, standing between us like some kind of avenging warrior, and he seemed to tower over everything around him. The air dropped two degrees in a second.

“She is a girl. She-“ His head snapped to the side and locked on the creature. He saw it too.

I wasn’t the only one.

Relief flooded my chest. Haelex saw the creature which meant it was there. I wasn’t crazy.

So why couldn’t the others see it? Why just the two of us? We were both outsiders here, although Haelex was respected where I was shunned.

“Fine. We will expect a visit from the healers.” He shook his head. “And from Ezra if she feels the need to come out for something so petty.” He crouched down and helped me to sit upright. My broken ribs cracked painfully.

“Petty, her attacking me isn’t petty. She came at me with an axe.”

Keeping his arm around my waist, Haelex heaved me to my feet before turning back to the gathering crowd. “Under law a woman is allowed to protect herself with deadly force if she is threatened on these streets. And we have all seen the way you have looked at her in the past.”

I blinked in surprise, and the tears that had gathered on my eyelashes slipped down my cheeks.

“Call on Ezra. We will be waiting.” Haelex ducked his head down, his words only meant for me. “Can you walk?”

I nodded.

“Good. Go.”

Confused, I turned my head up to him as a splash sounded. Who had Haelex just ordered to go? Me? The sailors? Or the creature that had just disappeared into the water. A creature that only me and him could see.

Fates, my life would be so much easier if the others could see and then they would realise I wasn’t crazy.

“What was that?” Someone screamed from the dock edge and they rushed over to watch the creature as it slipped into the depths.

“We need to go home now. We need to leave.” Haelex moved forward slowly with me hobbling behind him. “It is no longer safe here.”

It had never been safe here, not for me. Not really, but I understood what he was saying. Risking a glance behind me I saw the sailor look over from the dock edge. His eyes locked with mine.

He had seen it. I could see the fear in his eyes.

The fear and the hatred. And both were aimed directly at me.