Charmer

 

Alsace, Ecomusée, Museum Village, Elsace, Landscape

I looked at my father with a questioning look. He was a man with an endless black hole for a mind. He came up with the strangest ideas, but I never questioned it. This though… this… was too much for me to comprehend.

I watched as the dragon wrapped its tail around his arm like a snake. The dragon had a fire that could be shown through his eyes. A smug grin show on my father’s face.

“You want to become a dragon charmer?”I asked, trying to hide the hint of concern in my voice. The concern showed without a doubt. I know this because he gave me a look of disappointment.

“You don’t want to learn?”

The dragon was still curling around his arm, and I was beginning to worry about the blood circulation. A dragon wasn’t exactly the safest pet you could have. They posed as threats to the entire village. On the other hand, if you didn’t bother them they wouldn’t bother you. That way we could easily co-exist with the beasts.

I sat down, and looked at the floor.

“May I remind you that those things were the reasons mom died?” My father shrugged once again with an uncaring face.

“She messed with them. We won’t do so.”I looked at him with an eyebrow arched.

“And charming one of the young dragons won’t cause some kind of disaster? You know those beasts, they care for family bonds more than anything.”

He shrugged once again, and the dragon flew off his arm and attempted to scratch my face. Out of pure instinct I grabbed a knife for self-defense. The dragon only curled around my leg, and looked at me with less of the fire than I had seen before. I sighed.

“I focus on my studies. I will remind you that you are the war hero of this village. I am expected to take up your role when I am older.”

I gave him an icy stare.

“I do not want to take up your dragon farm.”

 

And so my entire experience with those dragons began. I never grew fond of the dragons, but I did learn a bit. When my father announced his plans, the entire town went up in havoc. I tried to ignore this, but it was hard with the constant questions I was getting. Our town was not big, in fact, it was small. Everyone knew everyone. I loved this most of the time, but not when my father was trying to charm multiple dragons to be at his aid.

Day by day I got used to the fact that my father was gone late at night searching for dragons. A few times I even made my way into the small fenced area where the dragons were kept.

Years passed. I was stuck with the dragons for multiple years. Growing fond of them never grew on me. I was a soldier in training. It wasn’t that we were a country of war, but we couldn’t ignore the hostility we were getting from the bordering country. We could easily be invaded.

I walked to a small shop. A good friend of mine worked there. He smiled when I walked in.

“You’re done with the practice for the day?”

I shook my head, knowing that I would practice alone for the rest of the day.

“Just because your dad is a war hero doesn’t mean that you have to do the same.”

I sighed, sitting down.
“Of course not. I would never follow his path. I’m not considering becoming a dragon charmer any time soon.”

He was polishing some kind of tool. He seemed more focused on that than he was on our conversation.

“I don’t see any shame in trying it. Your father has a hobby. He has multiple hobbies. Is this one any different?”

I let my fist pound on the table. I felt rage come from inside me. I didn’t need to hear this from him. The boy who was saved from the dragons. The boy who was dragged in with blood on his face.

“Of course there is! This obsession of his has lasted four years!”

He calmly continued polishing the tool. He didn’t look up at me. Not that I was used to eye contact. He always seemed to busy creating something for the foreign theory of “Eye Contact.”

“Okay, Okay, I get it. You want nothing to do with your father.”

He looked at me.

“You never come in here without a reason. What do you want?”

I pointed at some hanging meat. I had been sent to restock the food supply.

He gave a small nod without looking at me. He just continued polishing his new tool.

“Put the money on the table.”

I did as he said, and tried to glance over him to see what he was making.

“What is that?”
His eyes suddenly shot up. He smiled, and showed me the strange tool.

“I haven’t come up with a name for it yet, but I want to make something that will make chopping meat and firewood easier.”He pulled a small string, and a knife flew at my face. I quickly dodged, and gave him a sharp glare.

“That’s a great flying knife you made there.”

He laughed, and apologized. He went into a speech about what a great inventor

he was. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. How many times had I heard this before? I wouldn’t deny that he was probably the best inventor around, but his method of creating was strange.

He always hurt himself while doing so. He always seemed to hurt himself while creating the stuff. From flying knives to flame throwers. He had it.

“Do me a favor and go check on your dad’s dragons.”

I gave a small nod, and waved as I walked out the wooden doors.

When I returned my father was not home. I figured he was on another one of his adventures to find the dragons. I pulled the meat onto the countertop, and chopped a bit of it. My father was still away from home at night. This wasn’t irregular.

A villager came to the house and knocked on our door. I opened the door, and looked at the villager.

“My father isn’t home. Come back later.”He looked at me as I tried to close the door on him. I wanted him to leave. I had work to finish.

“What is so urgent?”

He gripped onto my hand. Uneasiness went through me within a few seconds.

“Your father is dead.”I looked at him in disbelief. It had to be a joke. It wasn’t a funny one, but it had to be. A prank. Yeah, that’s what it was.

“Good joke,” I said, attempting to close the doors once again. He stopped the doors from closing with his foot, and gave me a stern look.

“I am not joking. We found your father’s body.” I was enraged. I almost instantly ran towards the dragon pen. It had to be attached to them. A mix of emotions boiled from inside of me. Anger and sadness mixed together into an endless pit. It was the dragon’s fault. It was them who had taken him away. Just as they had taken away my mother.

I ran at the dragon with a knife at hand. I had to end this “hobby” of his once and for all. The dragon looked at me with an expression… it almost spoke to me. I refused to believe its gaze.

The villager came towards me and pulled me back.

“Before you blame anything or anyone take a look at his body.”

Rage engulfed my body like a flame. The smoke clouded my mind until I could no longer see the right path. I gripped onto the dragon’s wing and killed it with a swipe of my knife.

The moment before I killed it, I saw something flash in its eyes. It wasn’t calm. It wasn’t anger either. It seemed to be pity. A dragon would pity me after its race killed off my family?

I held back tears as we walked to the site of the kill. There were people gathered around my father’s body. I pushed one of them aside. I was ready to declare war on the dragons. As my father’s only child, I had the right to do so. Something stopped me.

Not the voice inside my head, not my own common sense, but my friend who had sold me meat in the morning. There were people dragging him away, his arms covered in my father’s blood.

“You should have listened to the dragons.”

By Kali Herbst