Cursed: Chapter Six: Something Goes Wrong

 Okay, I've figured out a few more storylines. I'm not sure what their names are, though. Maybe I should come up with something.

Chapter Six

Something Goes Wrong

    I rubbed my forehead. Who knew how hard it would be to get dragons and people to cooperate with each other? I felt like a bridge. Suspended over water, braced against both the sides, and being trampled on. A few of Winter's friends (or not friends, as Winter said, but I didn't believe him for a second) came to visit and we had to explain to them what was going on. Thankfully Winter had enough tact to keep me out of the conversation. I didn't want to be announced to Pyrrhia yet. Then there had been the effort of keeping the observatory folk under control. A few of them said they had never seen a dragon before in their life, besides Winter and sometimes Kinkajou, and the arrival of four other dragons didn't exactly help.

    I lay down. That had been a very hard day. I wasn't complaining or anything, but honestly. Dragons are kind of like people. With scales, teeth, claws, and the occasional venom or fire or frostbreath or whatever. Why couldn't they see that? All I wanted to do was sleep. But unfortunately, my brain had other things in mind. Such as staying awake and listening to the crickets. And the wild animals. And the leaves. And the footsteps. And the- Wait. Footsteps?

    I sat up. Moonlight filtered through my doorway. Winter had offered me a house in the observatory, but I shot him down, saying I did not intend to live in a giant glass dome with people who are probably terrified beyond measure by me. And they would be even more so if they knew I was the cursed child my parents threw out. Some of them had bound to be from my parents' village.

    I crept to the doorway and silently climbed the tree, making no noise. I slid along the branch until I was hanging over my doorway, and waited. Soon a figure came in sight. He was wearing some kind of camouflage cloak, I think. It was hard to tell in the dark. He looked around and quietly peered into my house. Not seeing any movement, he came out and started quickly into the woods. I hesitated for a moment. Follow the strange, creepy guy with camouflage clothing and also probably get caught and have who knows what done to me, or just go back into my house and pretend this never happened? Guess which one I did.

    The problem with the little common sense I still had left was it was slowly dissolving. That's what happened when you talked to dragons and fought a beefy guy at least three times your size. I moved through the treetops as nimble as a squirrel. My senses were turned on full. Avoid that dead branch there, go this way to avoid that jump here. The figure walked in front of me and I could tell it was a man by the way he walked, confidently too, like he knew this forest as well as I did. I was puzzled at this. The only way he could know that was if he had been here as long as I had, and I hadn't seen him once. Or had I?

    The figure stopped, so suddenly I almost passed him. He reached into a leather sack around his waist and removed a scale. It looked exactly like the one I had found outside my house. He placed it on a large boulder and leaned against a tree, waiting.

    I pressed my back against the trunk of the tree. I had also seen a few NightWing students at the Jade Mountain Academy practicing their signature disappearing-into-the-shadows thing. Let's see if I can remember this. I hunched, raising my knees to my chest and wrapped my cloak around them, hiding any bright or noticeable parts. Don't move a muscle. Even if someone looks at you like they see you, don't move. Eventually they'll think you're a weird branch or a trick of the moonlight or something.

    The man under the tree sighed and rubbed his forehead, much the same as I had thinking about the observatory folk. He must have some kind of uncooperative person or people like I did. "Yeah, Mom," he said, startling me. "I'm trying."

    Trying? What was he trying to do? And where was his mom? I was so caught up in thinking about it, I didn't notice the other man until he was standing before the first one. "Guardian," he said.

    "Leader," said the first man, apparently called Guardian or something.

    "How is your charge?"

    Guardian seemed to consider this for a moment. "Truthfully, she's pretty much the same as always."

    Aha, I thought. So his charge, whoever she is, is the one frustrating him.

    Leader chuckled. "Is that so? I'm not sure if that's good or bad."

    "I'm not sure," Guardian said. "One moment it seems like she has a straight path to freedom, and then the next it's like she's heading backwards."

    Freedom? What is she, a captive?

    "Is that so?" Leader was silent for a moment, looking at Guardian. "And what do you think of that?"

    Guardian shifted uneasily, thoughts most likely whirling in circles in his head. "It's hard, Leader."

    "Oh?"

    "All the time I'm worried about her getting hurt or doing something that might hurt other people. I think she really wanted the dragons' help with getting rid of it."

    I blinked, a feeling of a kind of deja vu washing over me. I wanted the dragons' help getting rid of my curse, too. Was Guardian's charge cursed too? I realized Guardian was still talking.

    "When they couldn't, she got really depressed. She..."

    I didn't need to hear this. I knew what had happened. Leader said exactly what I was thinking.

    "Tried to kill herself."

    Guardian jumped, startled. "Did the scouts see it?"

    "No. Although some have tried desperate measures like that. If you feel like you are not ready, you may stop. I'm sure many would like to take your place. All you must do it ask."

    Guardian bit his lip and studied his boots for a moment, so deep in thought he probably wouldn't look up if I dropped the boulder next to them on his head. I twisted slightly to see his face. He was tempted, I could tell. His charge must be tough. But then a change came over him. He stiffened and narrowed his eyes, clearly determined now. He looked up and looked into Leader's eyes. "No, sir. Hazel can't survive without me watching her. I've driven lots of bears and wolves away from her house while she was sleeping, and know everything about them. Someone else might not. I can't risk it. Please let me stay with her."

    I didn't stop to hear what Leader would say. I was already climbing as fast as I could back to my house. I had to get out. I couldn't understand. Guardian's voice was echoing in my head, again and again. Hazel can't survive without me watching her. Hazel. Hazel. Hazel. Guardian had been talking about me.

    "Hazel!" I blinked open my eyes. Sunlight was streaming through the open doorway. Morning birds were chirping outside and I caught myself wondering if last night's episode was a dream.

    "Hazel!" someone called again.

    I sat up, yawning. "Over here!" I replied, voice still husky with sleep.

    Loud footsteps came towards me and Winter appeared in the doorway. Or more like his lower half. The doorway wasn't dragon-sized. He lowered his head to look in. "There you are."

    "Yep. What are you doing here?"

    "The scavengers in the observatory seem really tense today, like, more than usual. Yesterday they at least started moving into the dens I made for them, but today they just stay in a huddle, apparently really nervous."

    I frowned. "It wasn't because of you?"

    "Probably not. I mean, they didn't look at me once."

    I got to my feet, careful not to bang my head on my low roof. "I'll see what I can do."

    "All right." I slid off Winter's back. "What's wrong?"

    The observatory folk were huddled together, conversing in hushed whispers. One of them looked up when they saw me, and I recognized Robin. "Hazel?"

    Yeah, something was definitely wrong. "What is it?" I walked over to them. They were clustered in a nervous oval around something on the ground. A very familiar something. I gasped, clapping a hand over my mouth. Lying on the ground, still and lifeless, was Bull, the villager who had run at me yesterday. "What happened?"

    "We don't know," someone said. Judging from his voice, I was pretty sure this was the Moss guy from yesterday. "We woke up and he was gone. We found him out here, lying in a puddle of blood."

    "His, or someone else's?"

    Someone else shook her head. "We don't know, but we're pretty sure it's his."

    Great. A murdered villager (who happened to be the leader, no less) found lying dead in a pool of his own blood. What had happened?

    "Winter?" I asked in Dragon. Some of the observatory folk jumped, still not used to hearing someone speak in growls.

    "Yeah?"

    "Were there any other dragons here yesterday after I left?"

    Winter frowned. "Kinkajou stopped by, and then Qibli also came to visit. Why?"

    Kinkajou and Qibli. Not good candidates. Kinkajou was a vegetarian, and Qibli probably wouldn't have eaten or hurt any of Winter's scavengers. I growled softly and stepped back so Winter could see Bull, or what was left of him. Winter gave a startled yelp. "Oh, three moons! What happened?"

    I had heard the dragons at Jade Mountain say "three moons" before, and was pretty sure that was their version of "oh, jeez" or "oh my gosh." "No one knows. They found him this morning." I waved my hands in a dismissive motion at the observatory folk. "Shoo. Winter and I will find out what happened to him."

    They hesitated and someone asked, "Should I be worried that we're trusting a fifteen-year-old with this?"

    I glared at him. "Excuse me, I taught myself how to walk in one month, protected my village from a ton of dragons for years and haven't actually ever had a real conversation with a non-dragon before now, and I turned out fine. I've probably done more things in fifteen years than you'll ever do in your lifetime. I'm pretty sure I can figured out who -or what- killed this guy, thank you." I glared daggers at him until they all edged away nervously.

    Winter leaned over my shoulder. "How did he get hurt?"

    I grimaced, reluctant to put my hands in a vat of blood from a guy who attacked me yesterday, but did so anyway. I rolled him onto his back, with a lot of straining, I might add, and examined his back. "Huh. I don't see any marks."

    "None?"

    "Winter. I'm pretty sure 'I don't see any' means 'there are none.'"

    "Right," said Winter sheepishly. "Could it have been a disease? One that makes you cough up tons of blood?"

    "Not that much blood." I sat back on my heels and brushed my hair out of my face. "Something about this doesn't seem right."

    "Yeah. I can't think of anything that could attack that silently and not leave a mark. And he must have died quickly, too. He didn't make a sound, according to them."

    I blew out a long breath. "Yeah." I could feel the wheels in my head turning. "Or..." Hit with this sudden thought, I turned him back over onto his back and splashed a bit of water from a mini lake thing Winter made in the center of the observatory onto his neck. "Aha." As the water cleared away the dried blood, I could see clearly what had killed him. Two fang bites on his neck, still oozing black venom.