Cursed: Chapter Three: Like an Injured Bird

Chapter Three

Like an Injured Bird

    Winter's reply hit me harder than anyone, even me, could have guessed. Not only were my high hopes shattered, but it felt like something in my chest was too. I had always wondered why people relate feelings to their heart, and know I knew. There was an iron hand gripping my chest with superhuman strength. I hadn't realized how much I had relied on the dragons helping me.

    Death would be better than this. That was what I was thinking when I finally made my way back to my house which consisted of a large hole in the ground in between two roots of the tree I had been climbing when I saw Winter earlier that day. I curled into a ball on the thick moss floor. I didn't exactly have a soft feather mattress I could sleep on. And I waited. Waited to die. The world didn't want me. I didn't want me. I was a disgrace to the people and the dragons. I didn't fit anywhere. My parents tried to kill me, the dragons couldn't help me, and the village folk called me a monster and chased me out of their village. Where else was there? The ocean? No. Even that had dragons in it. The sky, too. But I couldn't be a disgrace if I was dead.

    I'm not sure how long I stayed in my hole-house cave thing. Weeks, maybe months. I just couldn't starve myself slow enough. I deserved more pain for existing. My thoughts took on a downward spiral, like a bird with an injured wing. Or maybe more like a whirlpool. Something dark lay at the bottom, and I was getting closer to it with every passing second. Sometimes I could catch glimpses of a giant golden gate. I knew what it was from the villagers' conversations. The gate to the Afterlife. I was getting there. Finally, the world would be rid of their shame.

    I even thought once there was someone in my house with me. I must have been more delirious than I thought.

    "Hazel!" It was a boy's voice, maybe around my age. I couldn't see him, and I didn't want to. "Hazel! Wake up!"

    I closed my eyes tighter. I couldn't reply, and didn't want to. I didn't want to do anything but die.

    "Hazel!"

    Go away, I thought. Let me die.

    A pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "Hazel! Wake up! You can't die!"

    Oh, I can't? Watch me.

    "What ever happened to the girl who wouldn't give up? The girl who could learn to climb trees in half a year? The girl who learned how to speak Dragon?"

    How did this guy know that? Maybe he's my conscience. Why's my conscience a boy? I was getting more delirious by the second and was pretty sure my spirit was slipping out of my body.

    "Hazel, you can't die. You have a destiny. Fulfill it, Hazel! Hazel! HAZEL!"

    My eyes flew open. It was midmorning. No one was inside. No one was there. But the boy had been real. Also, I didn't feel like dying anymore. I had a destiny. I couldn't abandon it. I stood up and walked outside. The sun shone through the leaves and dappled the ground below. The moss was thick and royal green. Birds sang and squirrels chittered. I was pretty sure I could also hear a wolf a ways off. Why did I want to leave? Who cares if no one wants me? That doesn't matter.

    Something glittered in the corner of my vision. I bent down and picked it up. It was a scale. Like a dragon scale or something. It was a beautiful mix of blues and purples, so close I almost couldn't tell the difference. It didn't look like any dragon species I knew of. It also had layers. Small layers like a shell or a fish scale. Seventeen layers.

    I looked down at it. The answer was there, prickling at the edge of my mind, but I didn't want to face the truth. I'm not sure why, even now. Why didn't I want to know it? Wouldn't it have helped me? Or maybe I just wasn't ready. Maybe I wasn't ready to face it. I wasn't ready to face the truth.

    I stuck the scale into one of the pockets in my cloak and started climbing up the tree. Now I could do it without fear that Winter would see me and take me to the observatory. Actually, I should go see him. He might be worried.

    I sat on top of the boulder and looked down at the IceWing. He had slipped away from everyone else and was practicing battle moves by himself. He was good at pretending it. He even seemed frustrated at parts, spinning around as if he had lost his attacker. I watched for a few minutes then reached out and tapped him. "You're doing it wrong."

    Winter spun around. "Hazel! What was I doing wrong?"

    I frowned in concentration, thinking. "Well, you kept dodging out of the way as if dodging something that a normal dragon couldn't reach that far, and it couldn't have been RainWing venom, because that was a bigger range, and somehow I don't think icebreath affects IceWings as much as it does the other tribes, so that must have been fire. So that would be a SkyWing, MudWing, SandWing, or NightWing. It couldn't have been a SandWing, because it didn't seem like there was a poisonous stinger which they would have been using, and it was one dragon, so probably not a MudWing, since they usually fight in groups, so that would be a SkyWing or a NightWing. Also, your attacker apparently kept disappearing into shadows, which I doubt SkyWings can do, so that must be a NightWing. But then that last move you dodged was a SeaWing move. So unless the NightWing suddenly sprouted glowing stripes and gills, you were doing it wrong." I grinned at him. "Right?"

    Winter blinked. "That is creepy. How long have you been watching us?"

    "I dunno. I first saw you when I was twelve, and I'm fifteen now, so three years."

    "Fifteen? You're older than I am. You're an adult now?"

    "No. Eighteen is technically adulthood. Humans, scavengers, don't live as long as dragons on average, but become adults later."

    Winter considered this. "Scavengers are more complicated than I thought. Honestly, I thought it was kind of thought the mind of a scavenger was squeak, squeak, squeak, AH! That's a dragon! Run!"

    "Eh, pretty much. That is, if you change those squeaks to complicated math formulas and stuff. For some people. Honestly, they think you're the stupid ones. The dragon manual is basically, this is a mountain dragon. They are very dangerous and breathe fire. But maybe you can hide and it will forget about you. WARNING: There has been an abnormal amount of different dragon types in the mountains lately. Proceed with caution. Blah, blah, blah. They probably don't even know you can build houses." I slid off the edge of the boulder so I was standing in front of Winter. "I was thinking I could help you with your scavenger observatory."

    "I thought you didn't want to be there."

    "I don't want to be part of it. I'm good for helping you, though. Maybe a translator?"

    Winter sighed. "That would be useful. I don't speak Scavenger, or Human, as you call it, but it doesn't take a genius to know that they're terrified."

    "They're stuck inside a giant glass dome with giant dragons watching them every second of the day. Wouldn't you be? Especially after seeing a dragon materialize out of thin air and grab them?" I paused, thinking. "Or maybe once they're settled and calm you could open it and they could share with everyone else that there's a good place to live where the dragons won't eat you. That might work."

    "Are you sure they won't just run away?"

    "Nope. But they do have families. Most people do." Most people. You don't, Hazel. You were abandoned. I shook off the thoughts. "And I might be able to convince them. They might listen more to a crazy, wild, cursed girl living in the forest than a dragon. Maybe."

    "It's worth a shot." Winter motioned west. "The observatory's that way."

    "Great. All we need now is to convince a ton of terrified people to stay in a giant, overrun-with-dragons, glass dome thing and at the same time trying not to tell them I'm cursed and supposed to be dead or they won't listen to me." I grinned. "No problem. Give me two days."