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tunedtostatic · 1 year ago

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Folktale-inspired story commission for Vermont floods for @cindereleanor, who suggested a lady knight and a dragon and someone who could grant a certain number of wishes. Thank you!

Content notes in the tags. If you'd like to commission a folktale-inspired story, here's my flood commissions post.

Once upon a time, there was a dragon with blue-hot breath and diamond-hard claws who lived at the place where the caves met the mountains and the cliffs met the sea. She would swoop from the depths of the ocean to the highest peaks in the clouds, and at night, she would return to the dragonnests in the rockface high above the waters, and bow her head to let her golden tears drop into the basin at the heart of the nests that kept their magic alive.

This dragon was a creature of curiosity, and sometimes she would talk to the humans who lived in the towns that dotted the landscape. A few times, she flew all the way to a great city of humans to pass messages from the dragons to the most important humans in the city - wary, since there had been a time when humans hunted dragons, and the more important a human was the greater the risk that a small offense could bring those days back.

One day, she was flying inland just to pass the time when she saw a human at the mouth of a cave waving a piece of cloth to flag her down. The dragon alighted, and folded her great scarred wings to perch, respectfully, on her haunches.

"Hail, good human," she said politely.

"Hail, mighty dragon," said the human. "I have heard that sometimes dragons grant boons. I wished to ask if you would consider undertaking a dangerous quest for us."

The dragon had never undertaken a quest. "What kind of quest?"

"A rescue," said the human, and explained.

Once upon a time, there was a Lady Knight who lived in a town of humans in a cave so deep that no one alive had seen the depths of it. There was a subterranean ocean in these caves (the dragon, who loved the ocean, pricked up her ears at this), and it was so deep that even magic could not measure all the way to the bottom. There were also soaring caverns, where sunlight filtered through from the surface.

It was in these caverns that, long ago, a desperate group of humans had made their home. It was a dark and sometimes dangerous life, but it was safe from the dangers of the surface.

"What dangers of the surface?" the dragon asked, forgetting that humans had not only hunted dragons. Sometimes, humans hunted other humans.

She corrected her error of memory quickly, before the human could open her mouth to awkwardly explain it to her. The Lady Knight of the Carrots and Tomatoes, he explained, had been his friend since childhood. She had been born in the caverns, and trained alongside the other knights to protect their people. When other knights had been granted the titles of the Deepest Caverns and the Subterranean Ocean and the Sky Above, she had been granted the title of Carrots and Tomatoes because she quested forth to find better ways to grow the vegetables that the humans of the caverns depended on to survive. One year, she had brought back a new kind of tomato seed. The next year, she had returned with the irrigation research of ten different towns across the continent. The year after that, she had found a magic stone that enhanced the guttering magical sunlight that the vegetables depended on.

The stone had lasted for a few years, but the magical sunlight was continuing to dim. The Knight of the Carrots and Tomatoes had left on a final, desperate quest: to seek out the magician-bird at the edge of the world who people said sometimes granted wishes.

Months later, word had came back that she had found the place at the edge of the world where day became night and heard the call of the magician-bird, and then she had stepped into the seam between night and day and disappeared.

Ever since that day, her childhood friend had climbed to the mouth of the cavern every morning, hoping to see a dragon flying by.

"A dragon's wings can carry it to the place where day becomes night," he said. "And we both have much to fear from the humans-who-hunt-dragons." The unspoken question hung in the air: You would not deliver her to them?

The dragon, much affected by this story, wept one tear, and her insides turned to ice when it hit the ground in a wasted puddle of gold. She sniffed hard to stop crying, and she thought about the human's quest.

"Yes, I can fly to the place where day becomes night. And I will not tell the humans-who-hunt-dragons of my quest."

The human looked hopeful. The dragon tilted her head. "But I have never rescued anyone before. If she is injured, I can heal her with a tear. If she speaks to me, I can speak back. But what does it mean, to rescue?"

The human, who seemed the philosophical type, had to think about this for a few seconds. Then he told her his answer.

It seemed sensible enough, and after a clawed handshake, the dragon flew toward the place at the edge of the world where day turns into night.

She flew for three days and three nights. When she arrived at the edge of the world, she stepped up to the seam in the sky where day turns into night and said, "Hi, hello, hi there?"

The warble of the magician-bird pierced the air all around her, and the place where day turns into night rippled, and then opened.

She stepped through.

She had wondered whether it would be day or night on the other side of the edge of the world. It seemed to be neither. A strange fog filled the air, and birdcalls echoed from all around her.

"Who are you?" came a call from one side.

"Who are you?" came a chirp from the other.

"Who are you?" came a human voice from in front of her, and a human stepped forward out of the mist.

She wore simple clothing made from the same fabric as the human from the caverns, but tattered, with a mail shirt hanging unevenly over her ragged tunic. Her feet were bare, and the dragon could see that she had cuts on her feet from the stones on the ground.

"Hello, uh, hail, greetings," said the dragon. "Are you the Lady Knight of Tomatoes and Carrots?"

The human smiled. "I was."

"Ah. Neat! I see." The dragon thought about how to proceed. "What are you now?"

"We are the Magician-Bird Of The Edge Of The World," said the human, and the birds from above, and the birds from below.

"Well. That might be less than ideal, because I'm supposed to…"

The dragon thought for a second. She thought about what she would do if she needed to ask for something from the other dragons and thought that their answer would be "No." She thought about the human from the caverns, who had climbed each day to the mouth of the cave, and about what he had asked her to do.

"I'm supposed to ask her something. Can I talk to her for a minute?"

"You have made your request," the birds and the human sang. "This will be your only wish."

The Lady Knight blinked, and the dragon reached out one scarred wing to steady her. "Okay. Okay okay. Your friend, the nice bookish guy, that one, she asked me to "rescue" you, and I asked him what that was, and he said…"

She thought of the other human's words. Well, I guess I would have said that to "rescue" is to make it so that someone who was in danger is not in danger anymore. But she is a knight, and she chose that danger of her own free will. She did not come back to us, so my fear is that she is no longer free. I guess "to rescue" would be to make sure that she has a choice.

"He said he wants you to be able to choose what to do," explained the dragon. "So what do you want to do?"

The human reached one hand and gripped the dragon's scales. Then she said, "Grab me and fly to the place where the seam opens. Then I will speak. Then you fly. Ready?"

"Yes! Uh, ready."

The dragon flew to the place where the seam meets the sky, and hovered, flapping her great wings.

She could see that the Lady Knight's eyes were beginning to grow dim. But in the minute's final seconds, she turned and called, "I no longer ask my wish!"

The seam split. They tumbled through.

They flew for three days and three nights, until they arrived at the caverns and the dragon brought the Lady Knight back to her friend, and perhaps if the Lady Knight were not a Lady Knight, the story of the Lady Knight and the dragon would have ended there.

But though the Lady Knight and her friend spent the next year scrambling for other smaller magics to keep the crops growing, one day when the dragon was dozing near the edge of the nests she saw a familiar human walking toward the rockface.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed.

"Well, I am a knight," said the Lady Knight. "And you are my friend. So I've come to rescue you."

"How would you rescue me?" asked the dragon. "I am a dragon. I have blue-hot breath and diamond-hard claws. I can swoop from the depths of the ocean to the highest peaks in the clouds. You are a human, confined to danger and darkness."

"Do you remember what you told me, when you came to rescue me?" the Lady Knight asked. "I do not have blue-hot breath and diamond-hard claws. I cannot always keep you out of danger. But I have a sword, and I know a town far away from here where we can sleep peacefully tonight, and I have come to offer you a choice."

The dragon looked at the nests, and she looked at the Lady Knight, who had tears on her cheeks. She thought about a town far away, and a subterranean ocean, and the Lady Knight's friend, and what it would be like to let her own tears fall without having her wings scarred for every tear that did not fall into the basin. "Yes," she said finally. "I think I would like to see that town."

The Lady Knight climbed onto her back, and drew her sword in warning. The last thing the dragon saw of the nests was the other dragons clustered around, watching them take flight.

They flew to the mouth of the cave, where the Lady Knight's friend, who was in her own way also a knight, was waiting with a list of tomato farms and a packet of seeds. Then they flew to the town where they could sleep peacefully that night, and then they flew onward, and they did not always live happily ever after, but they lived.

#flood charity commissions #thanks again!#editing this was funny because it was like. hope no one thinks the subterranean ocean is going to be plot-significant!#i just think they (subterranean oceans) are neat #content notes -#injury #abuse #possession

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