Dragonfly by L. Kendecia Bastian (electric book reader TXT) 📕

1

I'm just like everyone else, am I not? I look like them. I speak like them. I am of independent thought and opinion. I can do everything they can.

And yet…

What sets me so far apart from them?

These thoughts were the only ones that bounced from corner to corner in my mind as I stared unseeingly at the painfully familiar but breathtakingly beautiful mountainous scenery in the distance. I was in a Sentry Tower, my gaze moving its slit focus onto the scrapes and scratches that marred the iron bars surrounding me. Often times my dirty hands had collided with those same bars, granting them the marks that stain them to this day. And each time I was dealt back damage thrice its initial severity; all because of the magic seal placed both above and beneath the cage.

An unfamiliar face before mine interrupted my musings for a minor moment, unusual brown eyes locking onto mine. He had hair spun of the richest brass which fell about his head in a messy yet untangled mass. A new recruit, I think, has joined the ranks. He stepped closer, and my mind grew wary, my body tense as a coiled spring. But two spears appeared between us both, meeting at a cross.

"Don't get too close, boy," the guard to my left (I'd forgotten his name over time) warned gruffly. "This one's dangerous."

If I was as dangerous as to how they make me to be, how is it that I had been caged and not chained as well?

Then, a familiar soldier I'd known well by both face and name came into view to sling an arm around the newcomer's shoulders. General Takk, he was. An honorable man, too, but with an ego great as his reputation.

"That there," he told the lad, "is a Dragonfly. The only one of it's kind known to be in existence."

"Dragonfly…?" the youth rolled the word off his tongue, as if tasting it.

To my own limited knowledge, dragonflies were winged insects that possessed agility far too advanced for any earthly creature. It was a remarkable feat to even snare any one of its four wings let alone capture in its entirety. How I had come to be labeled as such continues to elude my understanding.

"A fast one, he is," Takk continued with a nod. "Took the lives of five hundred of our best troops before we could even get a proper arrow into one of his wings."

The brown eyed boy, not at all a minute over twenty years of age than was my own appearance, turned his head to look questioningly at his superior. Takk had not taken his eyes off me, those green orbs filled with both pride and disgust: a combination I've only seen in just about everyone's in this brigade.

"This one had helped win the war against Moisteur," the general added. No matter how much I'd loathed being nothing but a tool to the kingdom of Noirzhe, I took moderate offense to be referred to as the 'helping hand' to the finishing blow. They, of the imperial army, had let me loose under the bind of the cursed seal to obliterate the four thousand man army of Moisteur when Noirzhe was in danger of being overrun.

The other's eyes returned to me with something akin to awe and…dare I say reverence? I saw one of his feet slide about an inch in my direction, but he had stopped himself short at the twitch of the crossed spears. Those eyes, such a strange brown hue, had flickered between both guards with a dim but defiant twinkle before the lad was being led away by the general.

My own eyes had followed as they left across the bridge to another Sentry Tower, belatedly capturing sight of the long bow in his right hand and a sack of what I knew to be enchanted arrows strapped securely to his back.

He was an archer.


***********

I hadn't seen any other new faces, nor had I seen the brown haired lad I'd met mere days ago. I have seen, however, General Takk, much to my distaste. Just yesterday he had leant back against the wall under an archer's window, just to train his gaze upon me. He had not done this since the first few weeks of his being instated as general of the D Brigade: those were the archers and catapults. And even now as before, that gaze roused a feeling of dread in the pit of my belly. There was that light in his eyes that I did not trust; the ever present swell of pride was there, but it was shared, somewhat. There was that self-made pride he always carried with him: his very air of confidence was a bittersweet scent unto my nostrils. And there was his pride in me, I think. I knew that somewhere inside that twisted heart he had some amount of confidence in me, even if it wasn't for my own benefit.

Tonight, though, he was not present as I had half expected. Taking his place at the center of my attention was the full moon outside the window directly in front of me. A condor had flown by, smelling the same stench of animalistic death around the city walls. There was a failed invasion by some insolent hum-- people, trying to overthrow Noirzhe. Only a handful had attempted, though: I had smelt about two hundred and fifty. The City Guard had taken care of that matter.

My stomach had turned my attention to the fact that I was hungry, and another serving of owl meat wasn't going to cut it. The steel platter lay in a forgotten corner, the meat gone cold. I am not one to complain but I grew tired of the same thing over and over. Even if I ate what was given to me, my hunger would not be sated. I wanted something new.

I wanted to hunt.

As the thought ran across my mind, I felt my teeth grow sharper and my tongue split a bit down the middle. My vision expanded and I felt my tail brush against the cage floor. But no more than that for my strength seemed to dart from me, the cursed seals on my prison using my lost energy to strengthen themselves.

A guard turned his head to look at me, only to roll his eyes and continue his duty on watch. My teeth receded a bit, and my eyes went from slits back to the round ones they usually are when I'm human. My tail and forked tongue remained behind, however, my body still craving new meat. But my focus was grabbed by approaching footsteps, loud enough to alert the guards here, as well.

"Who goes there?" The man to my right called out.

"Just an archer," came a voice from beyond the door to the left of the tower room. The man on the other side of the door sounded familiar, though I could not assign face to him through my red rimmed haze. One of the guards walked toward the door and let the man in, who carried something on a covered platter with a scent that lapped teasingly at my nose.

The tray was set before the cage where I sat, my eyes glued to it as a hand lifted the dome shaped lid. The scent ran me over and I felt a low growl against the back of my throat. I smelt a hint of fear from all three of the other occupants in the room but they were the least of my concerns.

The iron door was opened and my tail carted the tray in toward me no sooner than it was able to fit through the doorway. Upon closer inspection, however, both the scent and sight of it made me ill.

Human meat.

My eyes snapped up to look at the one who brought me this and my glare wavered a bit. It was the archer from before. He kept his eyes on me, his body holding the fear that could not find room to share with the other conflicting emotions swirling in those unusual depths. One of them I identified as the usual pride, but somehow it was…different.

"They said he'd eat whatever is given," he said, directing the unspoken query to one of the guards but keeping his sights on me still.

"Usually," the one on the left swallowed after nearly yelping his reply. "What's so different about the meat you gave him?"

"I've no idea." I smelt the lie on him before he uttered those false words.

"You knew it was human meat," I hissed at him, my voice raspy because of its lack of use. I made no move to attack, but backed away from the tray.

"It can talk?" The other guard gasped, but I ignored him.

"I don't eat human meat," I said, still affixed my gaze to the young one. "The butchers know it."

At that moment, the steel doors opened and in stepped the man who usually brought my tray. This time, I knew the scent to be of deer meat: I hadn't had deer in ages. I felt my eyes narrow and I looked from the man to the boy, to the foul meat and back at the archer.

I pushed the tray out of my cage but said nothing more. This boy was up to something.

"What are you doing here, Roderick?" My feeder, Glen, asked. "I'd sent you to the lions to feed them the meat of the attackers. Not him!"

The archer seemed to relax his stance, much like the guards after Glen came in without a hint of fear about him. He may have been wary, but he was not afraid of me. He was the only one not afraid of me.

"I'm sorry," the archer, no, Roderick, said meekly, though his scent was anything but sincere. "I misunderstood."

Like hell.

My brows furrowed as the archer took his leave, watching his retreating back until the metal door shut firmly behind him. I returned my attention to Glen as he asked the guards themselves to leave. They had both looked at him dubiously, as this was but their third time guarding me. They did as bade, however, both standing just outside the tower room.

Glen squatted before me, opening the cage door all the way to let me out like he'd always done every once in a while. I stepped out and stood to my full height, almost towering over the stout butcher. I nearly stretched my muscles beyond their limits, wincing as one in my leg protested painfully.

Glen only chuckled as he watched. He was like a father and a friend to me over the past ten years and I've always been grateful to him. He'd taught me everything about the castle and its layout and some of the most amazing tales anyone, young or old, would kill to enjoy. He took it upon himself to be the one who fed me, only sending others in his stead when he could not make it.

"I thought Roderick was better than the dimwitted boys I had as my assistants," he said in the acute rasp that layered his aging voice. Glen was not a young man. Near to the age of eighty, he was.

"Sorry to say, but you had been sadly mistaken,"