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Her name is Sothandei. Named for Sothoryos which lies north of her home. And she is ten summers when she finds the beast.
Her father has told her not to go into the dense valley in the east. The Lord of Harmony cannot protect you there , and she doesn’t understand it. Not truly. Not when she is told that the butterflies will protect her. Not when her Uncle has told her many stories of places far worse than her home. Ones that left her afraid of the darkness.
Only her home is peace. It is safety, and maybe that is why Sothandei does not listen and journeys towards the valley when her eleventh summer approaches.
“Sometimes we must be reminded that there is good in the world.”
“But isn’t every place like ours?”
“Oh my sweet butterfly. I wish that it was.”
In the valley there is shadow. Dark shadows that seem to move and flashes of red that she catches in the corner of her eye. She can hear no animals. There is barely even the sound of plants and trees moving in the wind. There is only this dull silence that threatens to consume everything.
However, despite how dark and terrifying it is, it is just as beautiful as any place in her home. The floral trees bloom in rivers of oranges and yellows. The water swirls clear against limestone in the sunlight. Only further north, past the butterfly fields, does she find something that she has never seen. Rocks covered in thick soot, and beyond the black melted rocks towards the north there is a figure looming amongst the butterflies. She is scared at first. She has never seen an animal so large before, and yet when she meets its eyes something tells her to not be afraid. So she waits and she leaves and when the flowers bloom every two weeks she returns.
There is good in this world , she thinks, as she throws a piece of her fruit at it. It never eats it, but she knows that it knows what she is trying to do. Even when its growls at her or sends a gust of wind that not even the butterflies can fly against.
“You are not a beast.” She tells it when it finally lets her press her hand against its black scales. “A dragon is not a beast.”
“Will you tell me of our family? The ones that didn’t survive being in chains?” It is her question that she presents on her summer of ten and three. It is one that she ask over sweet nuts and tart lemon fruit from the west.
“There was one that did--rumors--I will tell you of it on another night. One less solemn.”
“Could you at least tell me one story? Just one!” She pleads as the skies turn from blue to orange and her father agrees with a brighter look on his face.
“How about one of dragons?”
When her summer of ten and six passes she has been to the valley enough to form a routine. She offers it sweet nuts instead of fruits. She tells it stories of slaves being freed from chains and ones with peaceful endings; the stories that her father and uncle told her. She ask it questions knowing that she will never get a response. And sometimes, at the sun sets in the west, she imagines what it would be like to see the Narrow sea fade away into the rich soil in the west. The soil with rolling hills and castles and rivers and grasslands.
Sothandei stays until the sun begins to pass and she ask the dragon one more question before she is to return home.
“Have you ever flown west? I can only imagine what it must be like to fly.”
A part of her wishes the dragon would let her fly with it. A part of her wishes to never leave her home. It’s easier to chose when the dragon leaves their spot before her -- flying away from her path to her father.
A part of her wishes to see the west only perhaps it was better this way.
As the year begins to end and the cusp of winter shows once again with the soft chill that carries in the wind she goes to the valley one last time until the next summer begins.
The dragon meets her in the same spot, expecting her to appear, and when she does she knows something is different. It’s stance has changed. It lets her get closer than any time in the past when she was briefly able to touch its snout. She can finally see the scars that litter its body.
This dragon has not known peace , she thinks as it puffs warm air into her face.
“Would you like to hear a story? I’m afraid I won’t be able to meet you for a long time.” Sothandei assumes that it would say yes if it could speak. That it would expect nothing less from her.
“I had an Aunt once, my father tells me, one that broke from her chains and sought peace. She lived here, in Naath. I think you would have liked her.”
“A large black beast has been killing the sheep in the south.”
“A shadow has been crossing through the sky since winter came.”
“There is a creature that breaths of death.”
Sothandei is ten and eight summers when she goes to the valley again. This winter had lasted longer than the last, and the rumors that were whispered in the streets was that something had been hunting in the south. There were no predators in her home. There was only one that she knew would leave marks of soot against the stone. Only it had never flown south before; it had never left the valley.
When she goes to their spot she almost expects to wait. A small part of her wonders if it will ever show up again at all if she is to wait. Only she doesn’t because once she steps over the rocks she sees its large onyx form.
“I’ve missed you.” She tells the dragon as it lowers its head towards her own. “I’ve been thinking of a name for you. I don’t think I can keep calling you dragon.”
And she waits to name it. Waits until the summer breaks into heated nights as the butterflies fill the skies.
“Missandei. After my Aunt. Do you like it?”
Missandei , and that is all that it takes to change what they had been.
“Did dragons ever have riders?”
“Throughout history there have been many. In the west they remember the three that conquered them. Here in the east, there is only one remembered, the one that freed them.”
The first time she rides Missandei she is terrified. She clutches on to whatever she can and she screams as she descends into the trees. She falls--more times than she can count--just to pick herself back up to rise once again. Flying upon a dragon is the most challenging thing she had ever experienced and yet as Missandei takes her high into the clouds it is the most rewarding experience.
Sothandei returns home with wind burns against her arms and cheeks. There are bruises upon her thighs from riding that compare nothing to what she experienced with her first horse. And she returns home in the warm nights feeling exhausted to touch the ground. It is a tasking thing to hide. Expecially with the prospects that come from nearing what is considered womanhood in Naath. Only it is something that she cannot give up now as she continues to meet Missandei in the valley.
“ Fly .” She whispers to her as she sits and she expects to fly into the clouds or east into the soft streams that bend through the trees. Only Missandei takes her elsewhere--somewhere far North--where she had only seen the dragon go before it had first ventured south.
She doesn’t understand it. Not at first as they land into a meadow of flowers. Purple and white. Blue and red. A beautiful meadow that seems unfazed by the previous winter. Hidden by the floral trees that hide away its presence from the rest of the world, and amonst the flowers at the center is a body. There is only bone. The remains of someone that had not breathed into the world for a very long time. Her remains are eclipsed in a leather dress that is weathered by time, and red cloth that has long since faded. There is only one thing that remains in unblimished condition as she unhooks it from the body. One single moment before Missandei roars in what Sothandei can only think to be grief.
A three-headed dragon , Sothandei thinks, I wonder what happend to you?