Cursed: Chapter One: Before Our Story Starts

Chapter One

Before Our Story Starts

    I am cursed. That's the only explanation for what happened to me. Why when my parents took one look at me, they threw me out into the snow to die. I wasn't even a day old. Not even an hour old, actually. Just born, then BAM! Lying under a bush under a hazelnut tree. I don't remember much about that night. I was hungry, tired, and alone. Two days later I had already taught myself how to grab the berries hanging from the bush I was under. Then how to roll over. Somehow I managed to survive eating berries and not milk. Soon, maybe a week after, I could already crawl. Just a tiny newborn struggling along in the snow. Thankfully spring came soon. Maybe a month after I could crawl, I could walk. Then climb trees. I may be the only person ever who was able to do that so fast. I'm a fighter. No one will stop me.

    My curse isn't a bad luck curse or a curse that turns me into a witch or something. It's a disfigurement curse. Once I found another village, not the one I had been born in, but one different. I wanted it. I wanted to be loved and protected by other people. I didn't want to have to sleep on a tree branch every day. I was young. Had no idea why I was different. They took one look at me and promptly decided I was some kind of monster. Yelling, chasing me away with torches and swords. I'm pretty sure there were a few pitchforks in there too. Really, people. Some originality please. That's when I realized it. No one wanted me. I was a disgrace to mankind. That night I decided I would never show my curse to anyone or anything ever again. Not willingly, anyway.

    I collected the skins of the animals I had hunted and whittled a small stick into a point. I sewed myself a covering, or cloak, or whatever you want to call it. I couldn't go into any villages, still, since an eight-year-old living in the forest might attract attention. So I protected them instead. Most of them had bad dragon problems. I'm not sure what the dragons thought, but the village folk were Terrified with a capital T. So I hid in the branches and made sure they never got within 500 meters of any village. They would be walking along, when suddenly something would land on their back and forcefully turn them around.

    Although the dragons probably didn't like me very much for that, they gave me an idea. What if they could help me with my curse? They might be the only ones that would understand.

    I hid in the branches, waiting. Two of the dragons had almost become regulars. There was an icy blue dragon and one of those cool color-changing dragons. They both, for some reason, seemed intent on capturing people in the village. That color-changing one (I was pretty sure was a rainforest dragon) was the hardest to keep away. Apparently it could turn invisible. I would have to watch for talon prints appearing in the grass until I could pinpoint its location. But today I was glad for it.

    The two dragons arrived, as predicted. They growled and snorted at each other. The rainforest dragon gestured at the clearing where I usually ambushed it. The blue one cautiously walked to the center and studied the branches carefully. It looked back and they continued the conversation. The rainforest dragon shrugged and pointed back to a mountain in the distance. I was pretty sure that was the tallest mountain on the continent.

    I narrowed my eyes against the sun and looked closer. There were dragons circling the mountain. It seemed like dragons from every single tribe. What were they doing? The two dragons lifted off into the sky and rose up to join them. I quickly slid down from the tree and began running towards the mountain. The dragons there. They could help me.

    "What are they doing now?" I whispered. I was watching the dragons below me. There was an older one and a few younger ones. The older dragon was growl-yelling something to two of the dragons. A brown one and a dusty-yellow one. Desert dragon and swamp dragon. They were...fighting?

    They were dancing around each other, occasionally diving forward to swipe at the other. Strangely enough, no other dragon came in to stop them. Another strange thing, they didn't actually seem to be hurting each other. The desert dragon kept the poisonous scorpion stinger thing on its tail well out of the way, only occasionally whipping it out to have it come back, not harming the other. I also knew that both were fire-breathers. So what were they doing?

    Just then the older dragon gave another command and they broke apart, breathing heavily. They growled something at each other, but not in a mean way. It seemed almost respectful. They stepped out of the way and were replaced by an ocean dragon and one of the red dragons. What were they called? Mountain dragons.

    Suddenly it became clear. "Of course," I whispered to myself. "They're training! Not fighting!" I leaned forward, new enthusiasm flowing through me. This was how the dragons fought when they weren't killing each other. The older dragon began throwing the growl-commands again and I realized something else. They were coordinated. It was giving instructions. Time to unravel them.

    "Grawr groar!" The ocean dragon ducked as the mountain dragon swiped at its head. That meant duck, apparently. One down, approximately two thousand to go.

    "Rawr! Growl!" The ocean dragon abruptly feinted to the left, causing the mountain dragon to jerk away from it, and swung its tail the opposite way, unbalancing the mountain dragon and looking to the older dragon for further instructions.

    "Let's see," I whispered. "That was a feint attack. Maybe, feint to the left? Attack to the right? Let's say feint."

    The mountain dragon and ocean dragon stepped back for the next pair. I looked up to the sky and saw the ice dragon I had seen before flying towards the entrance of a system of caves in the mountain. There was another roar from the air and a black dragon came flying out. Although I hadn't seen any black dragons with those silver teardrop scales at the corners of its eyes, I knew that it was friends with the ice dragons. What had it roared at it? Maybe it was a name.

    A name. If I had friends, what would they be calling me? My mother and father hadn't given me a name. Just the cursed child they had. I need a name. Dragon, since I was watching dragons? Hawk? That sounded cool.

    My eye was caught on a pool in a dip in the rock. I crept towards it and stared into the reflection of my eyes. They were hazel. I had survived under a hazelnut tree the first night. I looked up towards the sky and spoke my name for the first time. "My name is Hazel." Now I belonged. Not with a village. With the world. I was linked here by my name. "Hazel. Hazel. Hazel." It was pretty. And it suited me. And somehow I knew that the world had more in store for me that I could ever have imagined. If only I knew just how much.