Eyla stepped out through the front door and looked out over the village. It was pretty much like every other morning. People walking to and from the docks, feeding the animals, some people were going hunting. Eyla took the hampers her mother made and started walking.
"Remember to take the hampers that are broken with you back so I can fix them", her mother called.
"Yeah, yeah", Eyla said.
It was always the same. Bring the hampers to the docks for the fishermen to bring on to the ships to put the fish in, and bring back the ones with holes in them. Her mother had made hampers for years, and for years she had brought them to the docks, or given them to others, like hunters or the butcher. Sometimes her mother also made smallerhampers for berries.
One time when Eyla was little, she was carrying a big hamper full of fish on the docks, and fell and all the fish went back to the ocean. Some of the children made sure she wouldn`t forget it in a hurry, and some of the adults too actually. But it was a long time ago.
As she now was carrying several big hampers she had some trouble seeing exactly where she was going. She bumped into someone, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the guy was actually moving closer to her.
"Hey! Watch it!" he said.
That was Ben. Not her favorite person, and she was definitely not his.
A few steps out on the docks, someone tripped her. She could hear the laughs and knew it was on purpose. She threw herself forward and managed to grab the hamper that was rolling towards the water before it fell down.
"Hamper delivery!" someone yelled.
It sounded like Tork. Not her favorite person either.
"Or she is sacrificing them to the ocean", he continued. "Maybe she thinks we`ll get more fish that way."
People laughed. The thing was, she wasn`t really that clumsy. They made her look clumsy. For some reason, some of the people her age had always thought it was fun to make fun of her. Maybe it was a good thing she wasn`t a hunter. She would probably put an arrow in someone by mistake, or they would make her.
Before she went back to her house, she looked up at the sky. She saw some dark dots circulate. Dragons? If it was dragons she hoped that the fishermen wouldn`t have to encounter them. Dragons breathing fire on the men on open ocean could never be good.
Since she didn`t have any hampers to bring back to her mother today, she walked away from the docks and followed the water. After a while she stopped and climbed up on a big rock and sat down. She took out a notebook and a pen from the back of her skirt and looked out over the ocean. The water was calm, the sky was blue. She started drawing and was somewhat happy with the result. She had always liked drawing and was pretty good at it too.
Eyla decided to go back to the house before her mother started wondering where she was. She was in her early twenties, but her mother still had a tendency to worry about her sometimes.
Before she opened the door to the house she looked to the left, at the cliff at the end of the woods. It was a high cliff, but not that wide. She had decided she would climb it someday. She had to get over her fear of heights and she had to do something a little more drastic than climbing a tree. She looked out over the ocean again and saw dragons in the sky. They were far away and didn`t seem to come closer.
It had been a while since the last time the dragons attacked the village. They came every now and then, took some of their animals, set houses on fire. Sometimes people got badly hurt or even killed. But it was a lot worse five or six years ago. They still had to be on their watch, but not like they used to. Eyla hoped this didn`t mean they would be attacked agan.
When the fishermen came home in the evening, Eyla was happy to hear they hadn`t encountered any dragons. They had seen some dragons in the sky far away, but the dragons had never taken notice of them.
But Eyla was still worried that seeing dragons would mean another attack. She didn`t know if anyone else shared her worry, maybe she was the only one. It had been several months since the dragons came last time. Seeing them didn`t necessarily mean they would be attacked.
When she went to bed her worries were gone. No one talked about dragons and it had been a nice evening with food and music.
The next morning it was the same as the day before. Going to the docks with hampers for the fishermen and bring back the ones with holes in them. This time Eyla was more careful and didn`t get tripped or pushed by anyone.
Eyla decided to climb the cliff today. She could as well do it now as any other day. When she came back to the house her father was gone. He was the chief, so maybe he had a meeting for something. She told her mother she was going for a walk in the woods, maybe draw something. She would be gone for a while. Her mother told her to be careful.
Eyla usually walked in the woods by herself. She had never had any real friends, but she didn`t really mind anymore. She was used to it now, and sometimes she liked being alone.
The woods were quiet. In a way it made her nervous, cause it gave her time to think about what she was going to do when she would arrive at the cliff.
It took her almost an hour to walk through the woods. When she came out from the trees she stopped and looked at the cliff. It was high, very, very high. But if she could do this, she could do anything.
She walked up to the cliff. It was even higher than it looked at a distance. But she had to do it. So, she started climbing. One hand and one foot at a time. She looked up, saw where to put her hands and feet, but was careful not to look down.
Eyla took a deep breath, moved her hand up and placed it on a projecting part of the cliff wall. This was harder than she thought. She rested for a couple of seconds. She breathed out in a sigh and pulled herself up, but the part she was holding came off the cliff wall and at the same time she lost her foothold. She hung on with just one hand. Her heart was beating like a hammer and she was terrified of losing her grip and fall the long way down. Why had she decided to do this? And alone. Now she was probably going to die.
She swung her body towards the cliff again and got a new grip of the cliff. Her heart was still beating like crazy, but she had to make it to the top. There was no going back now.
When she finally reached the top she breathed out of relief and just sat there to calm down. Then she got up on her knees and then up on her feet. The view was amazing. You could see so far. On her right she could see the village far down there. Straight ahead a river coiled up.
"Wow."
She never knew it looked like this. It was beautiful. Now she was glad she was up here. She took a few steps and squinted. Was that a dragon?
She was closer to the edge than she thought and suddenly she felt the ground move under her feet. Her eyes went from right to left as she realized what was happening. The ground disappeared under her feet and she fell into thin air. She screamed in horror and groped after something to grab, but there was nothing there.
Something was sticking out from the ledge and she grabbed it. She held on to it and then started wondering what it was she was holding on to. It was dark blue and looked like a tail. The short moment of relief of getting something to hold on to, changed to fear as she was lift up. She held her breath, waited anxiously to see what it was. Her eyes were wide open. That was a dragon! It was big and blue and looked at her with cold yellow eyes. Eyla hardly dared to breathe and didn't dare to think about what would happen. Either way she was going to die.
Then it flickered its tail and she screamed as she flew up. She landed on the top of the cliff and crawled away from the edge. But the relief was very short, she could hear the wingbeats come closer. She turned around and saw the dragon land only a couple of feet away from her. She crawled backwards until a big rock stopped her.
The dragon stopped in front of her and stretched out its head towards her. She hardly dared to breathe and her heart threatened to jump out of her chest. The dragon sniffed at her and looked at her. She meet its eyes, it was hard to look away. He, or she? was scary beautiful, but mostly scary.
Eyla felt something she couldn`t describe. The dragon blinked a few times, lightly shook its head and blew on her before it turned around and flew away.
Eyla was breathing heavily, still scared, but relieved that she was alive, even though she didn`t understand what just happened.
She stood up and just stood there to get here breathing to slow down and her heart to beat slower.
"How did you get up here?"
She quickly turned around and saw a black dragon. She screamed and stumbled backwards and slipped on a stone and fell. She quickly sat up and moved backwards a few steps.
