Chapter Four: Past Curses Still Potent
If my entries in this were supposed to be at all like Old Faithful, I must have corrupted the geyser and stopped it up enough that no steam could blow for never-ending periods. Then, when it finally did manage to break loose, it would have so much more fury and potency. Enough to knock a man into the distant stars.
…My writing has taken on an enigmatic, symbolic, annoying metaphoric feel. I must not be in my right mind. But that's why I finally returned to this little book once more as well as to chart my annoying dreams.
I can't seem to understand my feelings as of late. I just want to have something that isn't exactly mine, but it means so much to me I can't live without it. And someone else is taking it from me. Someone else is getting what I deserve, what is missing from me. But I can't seem to stop it.
The dragon's eyes glowed green.
In an instant, a boy's purple-gray eyes shone and flashed in determination as a response.
Firmly, Mokuba said, pointing his small finger, "I'm going to get that, Seto."
Incredulous, his older brother peered at the small dragon whose jewel eyes seemed to flash in a smirk. The workaholic scoffed as he glanced down to see just how stubborn his brother was going to prove.
"You said I could choose any store and any item in it. Are you going to change your mind now?" A glint of obdurateness remained in the vice-president's big eyes, but now, an imploring appearance had been the winning (or thieving) emotion from all the others in the poker game trying to win the right to appear on the face.
"I wonder about my own generosity at times."
"What was that, Seto?"
"Nothing. Fine we'll get whatever you want. I just can't believe you'd waste your promised birthday gift—a gift you took months before deciding on—"
"I wanted it to be just right!"
"—on this! It reminds me of the ludicrous puzzle that Yugi Moto has!"
Brightly, Mokuba said, "Well, he did mention this place to me. But he didn't get his Millennium Puzzle here. Anyway, this is a dragon. You like dragons."
Shaking his head as if the words were of no importance, like Mokuba had opted for a cobra snake as a pet and had tried to console his brother it was all right because Seto had liked the letter "s." Completely irrelevant.
"Are you always going to make me regret my promises, kiddo?" Kaiba strode over to the cashier.
"As often as possible." Mokuba grinned up at his brother. "You wouldn't owe me if you would just be home for my birthday once in awhile. So you see, break one promise, got to get another one, right?"
Seto could hear how lighthearted his brother's voice was, but with a pang of a shattered mirror that held simply illusions, he knew his brother was being utterly truthful. And Kaiba realized right then: Mokuba was absolutely right.
"Ye be gettin' the dragon pendant?" The old man ringing them up looked beadily at Mokuba and then Kaiba as if questioning the elder one's sanity in giving someone he supposedly cared about the charm that the boy desperately wanted.
"Obviously. That's what I said."
"Be ye sure o' that choice? The dragon is…connivin'."
"Why would you have something in your shop if you were hesitant about selling it?" Kaiba coldly replied.
"I only be hesitatin' ta whom I sell it, mister. If it be intended for this here young man, then I must question the action. Let me tell ye a tale and then…then make yer choice."
"This oughtta be good." He smirked, crossing his arms.
The senile old fool took on an affected voice, lowering his tone to a conspiring whisper.
"It happened long…long…ago…"
(story)
The old crafter had little left in his life worth remaining on the earth for, but his one reason to linger on a bit longer happened to be the very one that meant the most to him.
He had a daughter, the only child he had, the child of his old age.
Azerjan's wife, who the girl took after, had died when the child was a scant three years old, and since then, the aging man cared for his tender, foreign-looking daughter himself, realizing as he worked on with his fine crafting that he would not be around for long enough to see her safely married away to one or another of the brave desert lads.
But he would see to it she was well-provided for long before then.
This next craft of Azerjan's was the work of his life. All his experience, all his skill that had grown and improved over the years would culminate in this final burst of talent balled and encased in metal for all to see it and admire.
Not of the normal Middle Eastern myths would this creature be made of. No familiar ancient tales would form this shell that would hold his lifetime's work for the rest of all time. He needed something even more foreign, some exotic beauteous creature able to capture the hearts of all those who saw it instantly with its simple wild freedom and untamable spirit. He needed something that would instantly make someone see a dazzling creature that to hold and keep was to kill, and yet, to see it free and wild was to yearn after it always…for that was how he saw his daughter in her freedom. To hold the last vestiges of what he devoted his life for, to represent his daughter's wild, natural spirit, nothing less would do.
Such work was not done overnight.
The slowly moving time that flowed around the sandy areas did not pull to a halt to allow the elderly craftsman extra hours to begin this project of ultimate skill. Many days had passed since Azerjan first became convinced of the work he must do; to the others, he had seemed to be retired, letting his young daughter, barely ten years old, help cook him dinner and keep their hut tended nicely. But unknown to them, the work on his project had begun long ago.
"Daddy, will you ever work on your last great project?"
"I told you Desarqiz, I have already been working a long time on my project. The most important part is making the best decision on what form this next craft will take."
Whenever the nomadic people crossed the desert and chanced upon some other tribe, Azerjan went to speak with the elders to see if they knew any more stories than he himself did. Story after story, legend after legend was told, and still, Azerjan became no closer to finishing—or even starting—his most important project. As his tottering gait grew shakier and his breathing rattled longer in his lungs, Azerjan knew he needed to decide on things soon.
It was then, at one of the desert oases, that Azerjan met the stranger.
Light-colored hair so foreign to his people was openly visible, no head garment covering the skin for protection and tradition. The clothes were odd, not the long, flowing garments that helped one feel a cool breeze even in the stillest moments. Skin pale where the sun had not burned it harsh red was as the shining moon—the moon that offered a small respite from the blazing, bubbling sun, the moon coldly looking down on the nomadic people as it grinned coolly from afar where no warmth reached the people.
From sweltering lava air to ice being swallowed in every gasp: so night followed day. The desert was a harsh life, even for those who grew up in the climate.
The tribe would have been completely baffled and astounded, but this stranger had a similar appearance as Desarqiz herself…and her mother. Azerjan's wife had indeed been a rare person in the desert land, her origins a mystery and one he never discovered; his wife had been around for too short a time to give him much other than the one girl before her passing. Her looks had warranted her much staring, and in the more daring young men, fights on who would get the beautiful foreigner. That was part of the reason Azerjan was preparing ahead of time for his daughter's own path to adulthood.
For this new stranger, the desert had nearly taken his life, remorseless and detached in its vast domain where everything living had the pseudo-death appearance anyway. One more carcass left to mold in the parched air meant little to such a harsh ruler.
The nomads paused ever so slightly in their accustomed trudge to the known oasis, someone hefting the body up once a stir of life was found on the strange, wheaten-haired interloper.
At first, Azerjan kept his distance from the strange figure who seemed like a collection of bones covered in a pale death shroud, hair mimicking the clinking gold his people wore occasionally for decoration. Would the man even be able to understand them? Would he know any myths that would incorporate his dream?
So, slowly, Azerjan watched the foreign man gain back his health and walk among them, voice slipping over their language, but having a fundamental grasp of it. And despite his calm exterior and schooled expression, his cool gray eyes held some well-known demons back from the safety of consciousness. The craftsman and his daughter were not the only people to hear the man thrash in his sleep.
Many strange, ill-sounding words were released every night when the stranger slept, crying out in his foreign tongue about some evils that happened to always flicker at the back of his mind in the day and completely enwrap him in their hooked hands to face their hungry devouring visages.
Days had passed, and the man was better able to communicate in the language, which he had known some of before the nomads ever discovered him. Yet, his dreams were always in the foreign tongue. And it was there that Azerjan heard the word the man said with utter fear, awe, and honor all at once.
"Dragon!"
It was mixed in with a jumble of other words, but once spoken, that cry from the man reverberated in the craftsman's ears even as the others tumbled to the far recesses of utter darkness and decayed at once. Dark eyes looking around, the man found his daughter's glittering eyes wide and listening, and she whispered the word to herself once more.
"Dragon."
The first ominous blow to the crafter's spirit struck him terribly, and he knew that even with the foretelling of such an evil essence, this was the route he would go.
Azerjan approached the stranger the next day, asking as simply as possible about what he had been dreaming. "What is 'dragon?'"
The man stared at him, the usual daytime shutter of his eyes vanishing and the panic piling up before he could take a breath and calm himself.
"Creature. Monster. Stories." He shuddered despite himself.
"Tell, explain."
"It…" he wrapped his hands around a clay cup holding his mushy brew of breakfast. "It murders, destroys. Takes over the world." He ended in a stream of his own language, but Azerjan just looked calmly at him and waited for his trembling to lighten.
The craftsman said the foreign word again, then mimicked being strong and powerful, raising his brows when he was finished.
"Yes, dragons are strong. Scary. And yet…beautiful and awe-inspiring." He searched for simpler words to explain himself. "Uh…pretty, honorable, humbling." Reaching for a dry plant that would never be reborn in the infrequent rains, he sketched a figure in the smooth sands. A blast of something powerful came out of its long-toothed jaws, and from the waving lines of it and shape of it, the element was fire.
Some creature able to breathe fire out of its mouth? What mystery was this? Azerjan suddenly smiled; this was the indeed the creature he wanted to give to his daughter. She would encase its wild spirit and embody its flaming brilliance, and by following its example, he knew he would not have to worry over her wellbeing when he was gone.
The forging could now begin that he knew what form the amulet would take. For so long, nothing had seemed to be going on at all over his craftsman's forging fire. But now, as the sun sank in the sky once more, Azerjan heated it up once more to emblazon the inside of his open tent the same fiery color as the sky. At dusk, the hour of when the beast rose in the foreign man's dreams, was when this craftsman began work to create his own.
The lump of strange metal he had bought long ago, costing him all his savings, was finally going to gain a form and illusion of life.
A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews last time! They all made me so happy and put a smile to my face...