Chapter 1: Sacrifice

The seaside village had nothing truly distinguishing about it, and nothing much to see except small shops, houses, and a stone square about in its center. Its population was only a few thousand, and its spread only tens of square miles, not hundreds, as the larger cities had.

In this little town was a healer's shop. In this healer's shop worked a certain Christine Daae, who hummed as she worked despite the rumors flying about her head. She lived in the back room of her shop and lived simply and independently. She had little responsibility, and preferred solitude to chattering fellow females. It seemed they preferred it as such as well.

When it came time for the yearly sacrifice to her home's protector- a dragon that kept away strange creatures like Darks and were-animals- she was not surprised that she should be the one selected to journey to the dragon's lair and be eaten.

That did not mean she was not afraid, or sad, or lonely.

It was dusk on the coast, and she stood before the citizens of her home in the town square, draped in the white ceremonial robes and shivering in her bare feet. "We bestow this jewel and its gold to appease the Protector," the town's leader declared in his shaking, old voice, "and this woman to please the Protector." The white-haired man lifted a complex linking of gold chain and interwoven diamond and placed it around her neck as she gazed about at the estranged sea of faces.

"Above all, we send this gift to thank the Protector for his constant guard." Here, the elderly man pressed a reverent kiss to a large, obsidian-looking plate- one of the Protector's head-scales, left when it had flown over the town to frighten away a pack of Darks over a century ago. With his aching joints and rickety movements, Christine was beginning to suspect that the leader, the oldest man she knew of, had been there. The ceremony continued.

"Who will fill the empty place of healer?" The girl looked out over the silent crowd. Not a single person had volunteered who had medicinal knowledge- her former competitors were obviously embittered at the thought of performing her work in a shoddier fashion than she had, for though a recluse, she'd been the best of healers. Then someone spoke out.

"I will!" It was a young man, all light colored: light eyes, light hair, light skin. Christine looked up. This youth, who obviously had no knowledge of herbs or aromatics, let alone medicine, would take her job? Then she looked down again. She had naught to live for, so why be concerned over her previous life? Let him take the job if he so wished. She was going to die.

"Your willingness is appreciated," the leader said, nodding slowly at him, the folds of skin on his face and neck stretching and refolding. He reminded Christine of an old lizard; perhaps one of the blue-grey ones that infested people's roofs in the winter. The thought made her give a morbid smile. She would pass from the hands of one old lizard to jaws of another.

The leader turned to her and handed her a small sack of the finest foods her town had to offer. They were to be eaten by the Protector as well, as an appetizer before it moved on to the main course: her. He nodded at her. "Proceed to the gates. Here, take a candle," he said, "It is dark, and dark is the time for Darks."

She accepted the waxy object and lit it with the torch that had been erected in preparation for the ceremony. The satchel of food was slung over one shoulder, and she began her slow, dreamlike march. More candles were lit, for each person needed a light to protect them, not only the light of others.

Christine descended the wooden platform to the cobbled street, secretly envying the townspeople for their sturdy shoes. She would have to walk barefoot to the mountain caves over five miles of dirt, rocks, and prickling grass. When she reached the edge of the square, she glanced back. The sea of faces had added little lights to their numbers. Every man, woman, and child had lit one. Some had used the same candle of sacrifice for years, and their wicks were near to burning out. Not a soul was sad to see her go, only expectant and waiting for her to leave.

She turned around again, cradling her candle. She looked at it for a moment, contemplating its meaning. The candle was for protection against Darks. Why should she need one when she would die anyway? And she would not escape, either. An escort would be given to her, just to ensure that she reached the caves, safely or not. So, instead of carrying the plain, cylindrical object with her the whole way, she retrieved her personal candle from a pocket in her white dress and lit it, leaving the plain candle on someone's fence.

Her personal light was a rather pretty thing, decorated with shells and glittering slivers of glass. The wax itself was not yellowish tallow, but of a more delicate (and better-smelling) extract of waxberries, and dyed in sky blue with a touch of indigo. It was small, fitting into the palm of her hand, and the lick of flame dance with every step she took closer to her death. The whole thing was kept in a red glass box, so her light gleamed purple instead of yellow or orange.

It had been made by her father before he died, the last bit of him that she kept. It was her dying statement, really.

She walked, passing neighbors' houses and shops, even her own little home. Her windows were darkened now. In the morning, the young man who had volunteered would claim it for his own. The cobbles bruised and chilled her feet, but she kept her eyes ahead as she strode towards the city limits. Behind her, the people sang a farewell dirge.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, sweet one- let your steps fly to Protector,

We will sing to thee, for your bravery- Let us mourn our loss, and rejoice in gain

Protector will keep us safe, sojourn to his cave- Let us be secure, do not go in vain

Farewell, farewell, farewell, sweet one- It is honor to die for your home

Christine shivered. The song was almost a wail, but they wailed not for her. They were only begging for safety, not her safe return. At last, she reached the gates. There was no moon to guide her steps, only the stars and a dark silhouette of stone against the blackish sky. The last verse of the song was sung, and she stopped, listening to the waves in the distance. They were softer and quieter in reverence of this sacred ritual.

In the lingering silence, one of the men behind her came forward. He was not young, but he had escorted people to the caves in years past. No one questioned his decision. He grasped the young woman's arm and began to walk.

…

They had been walking for an hour now, at a rather quick pace. It was good that their candles were sheltered from the wind by glass panes, for the sea breeze matched their pace and blew Christine's hair about like flapping ribbons. So far, the man leading her had not spoken. Perhaps it was to spare his heart from the sorrow of the fact that he was leading her to her doom. Perhaps he simply did not want to speak.

For much of the walk, she had heard whispers hear and there: Darks. But they would not dare attack when she was so close to the Protector, and holding a light, would they? No. Still, that didn't keep them from whispering the most hideous things in her ears. You will die painfully, one taunted, and no one will be there to hear you scream…

She shuddered. That was horrible, ugly truth- the worst way that Darks attacked was with their words, not their shadowy, liquid forms that ripped one to shreds in seconds. They relished pain too much to let their victims die easily. Yes, she faced death. She only hoped that the Darks would not drive her insane with their seething chatter.

A gust of wind seeped through her robes, making her shiver, and her candle gave little warmth. The miniscule barbs in the tall grass she walked through cut her ankles and scraped against her arms. Then, what little heat she felt against her skin disappeared. The wick of her candle had been reduced to a smoldering ember swamped with wax.

Her yelp of fright went unheard, for already the Darks had closed in, melding their inky bodies to imprison her. She couldn't breathe, or see, or feel anything but the cold and her own struggling.

Yards away, her escort turned around, suddenly aware of the absence of another person's breathing. In the shadows, he melted out of his clothes, flesh rippling into black and joining the torture fest. When he returned to the village, all would assume he had taken the girl to the Protector, his enemy.

For Christine, the world had been reduced to pain. Her flesh was not mauled, but the pain seeped in everywhere, into her bones and her head, rebounding and growing every second. It was the sort of cold one might have after being numb from cold for several hours. It is like dying, but the final seconds are stretched out into eternity, she murmured inside her aching, frozen head.

Everything seemed so slow, and she couldn't open her eyes. Every once in a while, a Dark would dart through her fading form, shouting a pulsing, venomous through her.

You will become Dark when we have consumed you.

You cannot escape, weak human.

You are doomed.

No one will miss you- they will hate you!

At this last exclamation, the world turned to brilliant white fire, burning away the deceit and shadows. She felt warm again, and collapsed in the singed circle, weak, with flickering vision. The grass beneath her had turned to a pile of smoldering ash. Her last thought before she lost consciousness: I should be dead.

A scaly claw reached out and wrapped around the prone girl's waist, lifting her from the embers. The Darks' cold still lingered on her skin like a thermal scar, and the Protector could feel it. The ravenous creatures fled from him into the night at a flash from his fiery eyes.

With a leap and a heave of his wings, he took off for his home. It took but minutes for him to reach his destination and land, hind-feet first, on the worn sandstone. He laid the maiden out on the floor and examined her closely. Her eyes were closed, and her skin bruised and cold. Her lips were blue, too, and about half of her hair had been singed off from his fiery blast. She was close to death.

A rumble escaped his deep chest, and one eyelid snapped closed, clearing his golden eye to see with more clarity. She was barely the size of his foreleg, and obviously a gentle creature, quite unlike the other humans he had seen before.

She did not look like a good meal, nor was she fit for consumption until the remnants of Darks were purified from her skin (not that he would eat her anyway; she was a thinking being, albeit a fragile, annoying one). He would have to keep her warm for the night. Only then would she be of any use to him.

Slowly, almost clumsily, he spat molten stone in a ring about her, making new protrusions of rock where none existed before, like a ring of volcanoes- a ring of fire.

He settled down to wait, contemplating the girl's form through the shimmering waves of heat. From her white robes, she was obviously another 'sacrifice' those idiot villagers had sent to him, hoping for protection from Darks. They were too scared of the dark and everything in it to know it and its weaknesses.

Did they really think him so barbaric that he would eat a human, another sentient creature? Not he. If they wanted to be eaten, they could just throw themselves at the were-beasts and other creatures of shadow and poison.

Stupid humans… He coiled in on himself and tucked his nose into his flank. Perhaps his rather unproductive evening of hunting would be resolved in the morning. His scaled eyelids folded up over his hypnotic pupils and he slept.

…

Erik- dragon, also known as Protector- opened his eyes and was suddenly making eye contact with his rather battered catch, the 'sacrifice' from the night before. Her shrilling echoed about the cave and stung his ears, which were folded inside his head under a thin scale. He snorted- of course she would react as such. He was probably far more fearsome than she'd been told, and his size did nothing to deter her fear.

He had to move forward slightly to stand, but the skittish little creature took it as an advance, ran to the edge of the cave, and pressed herself against a cleft in the wall as if that would hide her from his imagined wrath. Silly thing. He opened his mouth and breathed the morning air. He would not let some insignificant squirt spoil his morning.

"Are you going to eat me?" Christine asked, peeking out from behind a small ledge of rock. She had woken early, as always, and finding herself surrounded by a ring of red-hot rocks and thoroughly bruised, had begun to explore as the great dragon slept most soundly. She had abandoned the now ruined food sack and tentatively stepped closer.

She had not imagined that the beast would wake and stretch its mouth wide, a mouth that could swallow her arm whole.

Suddenly the very air about her reverberated with a sound, and that sound made her quite calm. It was like the sweetest horn, but magnified, and with a melodic quality to it.

I do not eat humans. Come to me.

Christine felt herself utterly bewitched. Without her consent, her feet walked her into the open and took her so very close to the dragon. His breath further ruffled the top of her curls. She barely registered the huge teeth that brushed her shoulder as the Protector breathed her scent in, examining her with the sensory organs around his nose and mouth.

Erik sniffed at the young woman. She smelled sweet, but still sick with Darks' flesh wounds and scrapes against sharp things. Perhaps he would keep her in this trance and make her clean his home and all the ticklish places he couldn't reach when he cleaned himself. Yes, it would be work to maintain another being's health, but worth it. Besides, his catch of wild goats and deer was more than enough to feed one tiny human. He spoke softly- he had found by long experience that his standard communication of growling and body language did not go over well with soft, fleshy humans. What is your name?

In a rather sleepy voice, she answered: "Christine Daae."

Stay here. Do what you must, but do not leave. And he left the cave with a great rattling of claws and buffeting of wings.

He flapped quickly at first, to gain height, but soon glided smoothly, absorbing the sun's warmth. If I had left her for the Darks, she would have become one of them, more trouble for me and for the other sentient species abroad in this world. Better, then that she should be my slave than an evil spirit. He was only justifying himself, he knew- he would have kept her anyway. It was quite interesting, to be able to study a human up close without them cowering and running away in fear, even if Christine had done just that at first. The voice-hypnosis was usually something he used on his prey, not something he considered a person.

If he so wished, he could entice a doe to walk straight into his jaws, or persuade a mountain goat that being roasted alive was something desirable.

He preferred not to use that extreme unless it was mid-winter and he was starving, for the thrill of the hunt was quite irreplaceable. It did not compare to flight, or breathing fire, or (heaven forbid) cleaning the dirt, dust, and parasites from his scales. He was by nature a predator.

Below him, a herd of deer grazed near the brush-covered hills, an easy catch.

He swooped down, lighting the brush so that the herd scattered and ran towards the open grass. They were such simple creatures, to be more afraid of fire than the giant flying lizard rushing upon them from above. He snatched a faun from its mother, ignoring its cries. Perhaps he was being heartless, but such was his nature- it didn't hurt to consider that the young mother would survive to have more fauns, possibly two at a time. Then he would have more to eat in the long run. If he had killed the mother, the faun would have died anyway.

He dispatched the struggling mammal with a clean bit to the base of its skull and held the carcass in his front claws as he flew back. He did not like to have blood dripping down the front of his neck, as it was messy, and quite unsanitary if he missed spots while cleaning up.

As he returned to the rocky entrance of his home, he glimpsed the girl. She was directly in his favorite landing spot. Stupid girl, he growled to himself, must I teach her about the importance of landing smoothly as well as how to clean scales?

He alighted on a patch of boulders and spread his armored lips in a rather bloody, frightening smile. The faun's body fell from his mouth with a dull thump against the gravel and stone. Well, human Christine, I expect you know how to prepare venison?

…

Christine had halfway woken from her strange stupor a few minutes after the Protector had left, somewhat dazed and wondering why the thought of a dark-colored, fire-breathing reptile did not frighten her any longer. After that, she had taken a walk deeper into the caves, but found it far too dark to be safe and had returned to the sunlit spaces.

A few minutes later, she had been faced with a bloody-clawed Protector, who grinned at her and asked in his strange, ethereal voice if she knew how to cook a deer.

It was all very strange.

"I know how to prepare venison." She looked at the dead faun and struggled to clear the haze from her head. It was very hard to concentrate when looking at the contrast of golden, beautiful eyes and a bloody maw.

Take your fill. I am told that humans eat much, and grow little. The daze had faded somewhat, so she had to know, and asked the same question she'd asked just minutes before.

"Are you going to eat me?" Her curiosity was giving way to a more reasonable fear. Even if she had been sent for the very purpose of being consumed, she was not quite ready to die.

The dragon seemed quite annoyed, chuffing and narrowing its eyes. She noticed vaguely that its mouth did not move as it spoke. I do not eat humans. Christine looked one more time at the bloodied body before her and moved aside as the beast she had called Protector her whole life slid into his dwelling.

"Then what will you take as payment for your protection of my village?" her voice dwindled as his snout grew closer to her face, baring just inches of yellowing, bloodstained teeth. "Do- do you protect the people?" She shivered, rubbing her bare arms. The scrapes from the sharp grass itched and stung.

I do, but I do so with my presence. You humans are so very dense to believe that you would employ me for one small, inedible scrap of flesh per year. The condescending tone left her rather indignant, but she did not show it. This creature could incinerate her if he so wished- or at least, she assumed it was a male. You may pay with your services. You will clean me and cook for me. There was no question, only a statement and order.

He turned about and lowered himself into a sphinxlike position, laid his head down on his great claws, one eye open to watch her. If you attempt escape, I shall not hesitate to separate your limbs from your body and burn you to ash. With that ominous threat, the shining eye was covered from below with its scaly eyelid.

Christine swallowed, fear clearing her mind. She could not escape, and she did not want to die. What was there for her except a life in fear of the 'Protector'? She swallowed again, this time to digest that fear. If she was going to die soon, or live alone, she had best get used to her situation.

Instead of troubling her captor for fire, she trod back to the dead faun. It looked sad, and gruesome, with the puncture mark of a canine straight through its chest. Taking a shard of rock in her hand, she silently skinned the little animal.

The once-molten stones that had kept her warm overnight were still blisteringly hot, so with these simple tools, she cooked and ate. But how would she cook the rest of the meat? Would the Protector be angry and kill her if she did not prepare the meal properly? If she asked for a fire, would he burn her alive?

Her eyes turned to the bag of food she'd brought with her, and an idea crept into her conscious mind. She unlaced the satchel and looked at the dead animal again, still rather repulsed by the thought of doing a butcher's job, but took her stone knife up again and gutted the meat. Her mouth twisted into a grimace as the warm, bloody organs spilled out with puddles of blood.

The red fluids coated her hands as she cleared various parts from the deer's abdominal and chest cavities. Then she took a long look at her hands. They looked as if the town's artists had painted her red with ochre. What would her gentle father think? Would he think her a resourceful girl, or find her too base and fearful to escape such a fate?

She pushed such thoughts from her mind. Her priority now was to survive, not to dwell in sadness and languish.

…

Raoul looked around the herbalist's shop and breathed in the smell of the various plants, some living, some dried, and some fermented. He knew a little of what healers did from his mother, who had often tended to his various injuries, but where to start? An entire shop did not come with an instruction manual.

He knew alcohol was to numb and disinfect a wound, so he located the store of mulled wine in the top left cupboards and took a small sip. It wasn't bad, but it had obviously been made for medical purposes.

He rifled through the largest drawers and found that his fingers did not fit into the drawers' handles as they should have. It was as if he was not welcome in the shop, and this was not where he belonged. But I do belong, his heart cried, for as I have loved Christine Daae, so will I love everything that is left of her. I will know her at last.

The day was growing late, now, and sunlight poured in almost vertically from the multicolored windows of the quaint little store. Having thoroughly searched through the front of the shop for all the necessary supplies and taking inventory, his time had been eaten. He had not had time to eat, or to rest, for almost five hours.

It was not the work of a young man from an intellectual family. He would surely lose face in the sight of his father, but he cared not. Here he was, immersed in the life of the woman he'd been infatuated with for most of his twenty-seven years, and she was not here to speak with him.

The fading sunlight caught on something: the metal corner of a black, secure box, sitting under layers of odd baubles. Curious, Raoul stood and looked again- and it was still there, as solid and real as his own hands. Christine was never quite so real- always alone, always immune to the ways of the people around her, he thought sadly. She was dead now, but perhaps she lived in her little shop still, where he was with her in a strange, unfamiliar way.

His fingers grazed the ceiling as he reached for the object, which had a thick layer of dust on its lid. It was hidden behind a stack of parchment, so he brushed the ink-stained papers aside, letting them scatter over the simple dirt floor.

The box seemed to defy his fingertips as the dust floated up in wisps around him when he cleared away various useless trinkets. How many years has this lain here? Is it some relic from when Christine was born? At last he pulled the stubborn container from its place on the shelf and blew the dirt particles away, sneezing.

The lid was clearly labeled: DO NOT OPEN.

Well, Raoul thought, there is nothing to do but open it. I am a step closer to knowing Christine Daae. It did not strike him as eccentric that he should be seeking to know the deceased.

No, it was not strange at all.