It goes against my religion to swear. Any place where there would be a swear word has been replaced with another placeholder word. In case anyone was wondering why the random words were there, or to warn anyone this might bother for some reason. The world that this takesplacein is a combination of medieval and modern. The houses and streets are mostly stone and the clothing is made of natural no electricity or steam motors. All the people have a modern understanding of things at this time. Doctors have a modern medical knowledge and people understand the concept of germs instead of blaming cats or an angry deity. The villages are far apart, and while they do trade with each other, this is the job of traders, so most common people never leave their village, which is fine with them since even though they are being called villages they are more like city-states.
Dean.
My life was perfect up until the day the stranger showed up. Okay, so maybe not perfect, what with the fact that almost the entire village hated me. The village's high priest, Zachariah, and I didn't get along, and, unfortunately for me, the high priest was the most important and powerful person in the village. Anyone the high priest liked, the village went out of their way to please, while anyone he didn't like was despised. Yet things seemed to balance out, seeing how almost everyone loved Sam. The kid was always so nice and thoughtful, it was almost impossible to dislike him.
But that was before the stranger. He was just passing through and only intended to stay for the night, but he ended up talking to one of the priestesses at the common room of the inn he was staying at. The conversation got on the topic of different villages' dragons.
Most of the larger villages had their own dragon, while a few of the smaller ones had an agreement to share a dragon. It protected them, their crops, and the livestock from outside attackers, wild predators, and in the case of the most powerful dragons, the weather. In exchange, the town paid the dragon tribute that differed from village to village. Some gave the dragons tribute every year, while others only had to pay every decade. It just depended on the dragon. Every village I had ever heard of at the time gave things like precious gemstones, weapons, furs, and books. The stranger was very surprised to hear how our village interacted with its dragon. His village gave their dragon specially prepared men for it to pleasure itself with. He talked about how much the dragon appreciated them, how much it did for them, and how rarely they had to pay tribute. After hearing all this the priestess when back and told Zachariah about the stranger's praises of their dragon. He called the stranger and asked him all about the specifics of how the dragon's tribute was prepared and what extra benefits were given to his village. The next day he called a village meeting and announced that they would be giving the dragon a new form of tribute. Of course, no one protested when it came to the high priest or to pleasing the dragon. He didn't give any specifics of what would happen, just said that within the week a fortunate young man would be giving the honor of protecting the village. I suppose it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise when I was the one that was "given the honor" of finding out firsthand how the stranger had instructed the tribute to be prepared.
It was morning when I heard a knock on the door. Two temple messengers and several guards stood on the other side. "Congratulations," they actually told me congratulations. Like I had won some kind of prize instead of being given to a dragon. "You have been given the great honor of serving our village by appeasing our great protector." Honor, yeah right, being given out to be a dragon's plaything was now an honor. More like having an angry high priest who had a dragon to pay and decided to take care of both problems at once, I thought to myself. "You will come with us now to live in the temple for a year so you may be prepared to please the great dragon."
As much as I didn't want to go with them, there was no way I was getting away from those guards, so I went along with them quietly, fully intending to break out later. I wasn't exactly sure what I would do afterward since the village wasn't near anything, and I had Sam to think of because no way in this plane was I just going to run off without him. Unfortunately, they were expecting me to try to get away. I was never left without guards and when I had to go outside they would actually chain me to one of the guards. After they caught me trying to sneak out one night they also started chaining me to the wall while I slept. Being held captive wasn't even the worse part. Not by a long shot.
They weren't kidding when they said they were going to prepare me for the dragon.
They put me in clothes that always felt a size too small, and I was never given shoes. Not that it really mattered, since I was almost never outside. It was always cold. They kept my rooms at a temperature where I could feel it, but not so it would endanger me. Besides my clothes, they gave me nothing to cover myself with. Every day servants would thoroughly bathe me in lukewarm water. I was mostly fed with strange plants and spices, and when I was given meat it was always some wild meat, never from our domesticated animals.
The week before Tribute day everyone seemed to go into overdrive. I was given much more food that mostly included meat. In fact, I was given so much that I had a hard time eating all of it, but they made sure I that I did, and I didn't want to find out what lengths they would go to, to make me eat it. Every day, after my bath the servants would pour some weird oil all over me. The day before Tribute Day I was given water but no food, which partly explained why they had forced me to eat so much at the previous night's dinner. However, if I thought any of the things that happen to me over the last year was the worst they could do, I was proven to be very wrong on Tribute Day.
The tribute was always given in the morning, right after the sun finished rising. In order to get me prepared and there on time, I was woken up early, because apparently, they had a long list of things to do to me to please the dragon. First up on that list was to shave every hair off below my neck, secondly, they washed me so thoroughly that I almost laughed at myself for ever thinking the other ones fit that description. Next, they once again covered me with oil, but this time they made sure that the oil covered all of me. Over the oil, they lay down some kind of spice or something like that, and I had to just stand there for a while covered in this stuff before they washed it off. Finally, I was dressed in a loose white robe that was so short I wondered why they even bothered to give me anything.
After all of this had been done, Zachariah came down to inspect me and declared that I had been properly prepared as if he actually cared about something other than getting rid of me. While I was certain the stranger had told him to do all this to the tribute beforehand, because no way was he that creative, I suspected that I was only prepared because Zachariah wanted to make me suffer as much as possible. Like giving me over to be a dragon's toy wasn't enough.
I was brought outside where there were three wagons waiting. The guards put me in the middle one before chaining me to the floor. One of the wagons was filled with the priests and priestesses that would take part in the ritual or were just high enough to come for no reason other than wanting to watch. The third wagon was filled with the normal tribute for the dragon, although not as much as usual.
The ride to the Tribute Spot was far enough away as to not get the village involved, but close enough that the priests weren't inconvenienced, no matter what they said about choosing the spot because it had the proper ground or whatever other excuses they came up with.
I was completely terrified, as any rational person would be to be handed over to a dragon. However, I was determined not to let anyone see that, most of all Zachariah. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I forced myself to sit straight and glare defiantly out of the back of the wagon. Every second of the trip seemed to drag on forever, while simultaneously going by too fast. When the wagon came to a stop, I was left with two guards for what could have been minutes or hours.
When they came for me, it took all of my strength to not collapse in a shaking pile of goo. I was still determined to not let them see how scared I was on the inside. I saw the reason it took so long to get me was that they were setting up the ingredients needed for the ritual and arranging the rest of the tribute. The tribute was made up of several baskets, most of them filled with gold, but some that had other precious stones on top, and the middle one was on a shield. The baskets were arranged in a semi-circle around a gold-plated table. It had four legs that met in the middle with four curving pieces go from the middle to each side of the circle. Normally the table wouldn't have been anything special, as things like this were put out regularly to give the dragon some variety. Considering I was today's variety, the table made my stomach clench in dread.
The guards tied ropes around my ankles and wrists before putting me up on the table. Each rope was tied down to the curving middle so that I was spread eagle. The ropes had been tied as tight as possible, so I couldn't move more than my head and twitch slightly.
Zachariah went around and lit all the torches that gave off a scent which is what told the dragon when the tribute was ready. Somehow that made things worse, as I then realized that the spice I had been covered in earlier was the scent of the dragon's tribute.
"Oh great and powerful dragon, mighty protector of our village, please come to us and accept our tribute as compensation for all the work you do for us," Zachariah said. Some of the priest and priestesses sang in the background while other went around lighting smaller bowls of spice and poured water downed spice over the baskets of gold.
Nothing happened, no dragon suddenly appeared. No one seemed nervous, and they all seemed to be settling in. If they weren't concerned with the apparent lack of dragon, and they looked like they were getting comfortable for a long wait, that meant that not only was I tied up, mostly naked, spread eagle, half-starved, cold, covered in dragon tribute scent, and about to be given away by my own village to be a dragon's sex toy, but I had to lay here, possibly for a while, to wait for it to come. Every time I thought things couldn't get any worse they somehow managed to.
It was a bit past noon when something finally happened. I knew it was just past noon because I had watched the sun climb up all day and it was now passed its peak and shining right in my eyes, which of course I could do nothing about. Then I heard a sound like thousands of bats flying in unison. Apparently, the others heard the noise too as they were all getting up and whispering excitedly. The sound got louder as the dragon drew closer. The dragon flew in front of the sun covering everything with its shadow. When it landed, the ground shook. Without bothering to look around it shook itself, flaring out its wings, and snorting.
The thing was absolutely, flipping, gigantic! Of course, I had been told what the dragon looked like, everyone had heard the descriptions, but just hearing about the dragon was nothing next to seeing it up close, and soon to be, far too personal. Its scales were a shimmering black turning dark purple and back as the light of the sun reflected off of them. Its neck towered up high above me, supporting a head the size of a large house. On top of the head were two spiraled horns, and eyes so big that, even from this distance, I could clearly see where the blue of a clear lake with a thin layer of ice over the top. Starting just under the horns was a ridge of spikes that ran down the middle of its back, ending at the spade-shaped tip of its tail.
The dragon picked up its head and looked over at the tribute put out for it. I knew the exact moment it saw me, its eyes locking with mine. It reared up on its hind legs and fully spread out black, leathery, bat-like, wings. Each wing was so massive that I couldn't see where they ended. I probably could have built a mansion, given land in the dimensions of just one of those huge appendages.
It stretched its neck up as high up as it could go, spines flaring, and roared. The sound was deafening, the echo coming from the forest amplified it even more. This seemed to not be its normal behavior going by the sight of the priests, priestesses, and guards all cowering away from the thing. It walked over to me far faster and more gracefully than a creature its size had a right to and lowered its head down to me. At this point, I was too far gone to even scream. The thing then sniffed me, its shockingly cold breath pouring over me. As if it sniffing me hadn't been enough for the thing to be satisfied, it stuck out a long, forked, pink tongue and licked up one of my legs. Its saliva was slimy, sticky, and as cold as its breath had been. The thing then tilted its head back and let out another earth-shaking roar. Apparently now satisfied it picked up one paw big enough to crush a house without even noticing, and cut the ropes holding me to the table with claws longer than my entire body. It then quickly dipped its head down and picked me up so fast I had no time to react, not that there was much I could have done, what with the dragon already on top of me and the fact that I was currently paralyzed with fear. I heard it spread its wings and then take to the air.
Its mouth was freezing cold, and every breath that came out puffed over me like an icy wind. Something inside me snapped just then. I started kicking and scratching at anything I could reach. A small part of me knew that if it wanted to, the dragon could ground me between its teeth or just swallow, but the larger part was screaming at me to do something, do anything.
The dragon suddenly stopped going forward and just hovered in the air. It was apparently getting annoyed with me, so it grabbed me with one of its paws. The paw was arranged much like that of a bird of prey, with three taloned toes in the front and one in the back. The black talons closed around me in a vice-tight grip before the dragon dropped its paw back to the normal position and continued with its flight. The sudden, sharp drop down made me almost glad I hadn't eaten in a while because it certainly would have come back up right then.
I immediately stopped struggling, now able to see the drop. It would kill me. No questions asked. I would be dead. But wasn't death better than being a dragon's sex slave? My fear of heights said to just stay as still as possible, don't encourage it to drop you or accidentally fall out of its grasp. However, a much larger part of me was screaming to get away from the dragon at any cost. I started struggling as much as I could, but my internal debate was quickly proven moot when the paw didn't even twitch. I don't think the dragon even noticed. I finally gave up any hope I had ever had of getting away from the dragon. The only thing I could do now was watch as the ground flew away below me and let the mind-numbing terror take over.