renaissance
Written for August Fic Challenge 2023, Prompt: Verdant. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
Quinn lies in a clearing at the edge of the young forest, not too far from the castle walls. Overhead, the skies are not, in fact, full of smoke, but are once more a pretty pale blue mottled with fluffy white clouds. A few colorful birds flit by, chirping happily as they settle in the trees. He smiles.
The world had been wrong for so long.
For years, it had been covered in the ashy greys of bombed cities, the charcoal blacks of skeletal forests, everything scorched into ruins. Everywhere, the fires burnt with the eerie orange glow of smoldering embers.
For years, the dragons had reign over the new reality, devastating all life until so little remained for them to feed upon that they'd nearly destroyed themselves right along with the Earth. Animals were scarce, humans even more so when attempts to farm their own crops were nearly hopeless in such charred ground.
Until, finally, it had changed.
Quinn and a handful of other survivors had made a last ditch attempt to take down the source of the dragon problem, killing the Bull in what was left of London. There was finally an end in sight. The remaining females that didn't starve or cannibalize each other were swiftly hunted down and destroyed. No more would take their place.
And so the world had slowly begun to heal.
The weeds had come back first, popping up through the ruined soil despite the length of their dormancy below. Grass came next, and soon the fields were lush and verdant once more, flowers adding to the colorful array. Slowly saplings started to appear, the first signs of new tree life spreading across what had once been rich forestland. Animals started appearing again, the last survivors appearing from their hideaways much like the humans did – birds and squirrels and rabbits and deer and foxes and other wildlife began a long overdue reclamation of the forests. Cats and dogs once again settled at the sides of humans. Horses, cows, goats, pigs, chickens all corralled back into pens. The smoke finally faded from the sky, the air and water both clearing of the damage done by so much fire. They'd started planting as soon as they could, tended their crops without the constant risk of dragon fire swiftly bringing it all to ruin. They'd all started to settle in this new world, this new life.
"Quinn! Look!" someone calls, but the high, shrieking giggle of one of the children does not alarm him the way it used to as it snaps him out of his daydreaming. He looks over to the nearby stream, where several of his charges are splashing each other with the cool, clear water, laughing with joy. He is so happy to hear them be so noisy – no longer forced to stay silent and still to keep from drawing the attention of the dragons, eyes on the sky at all times. Hell, before, they had barely been allowed outside at all. Now, they are finally free to be children; to run and jump and play.
He sits up on his elbows and watches as, one by one, Creedy hefts the younger ones into the air, letting them land in the deeper water with big splashes. They all emerge with fantastic grins and beg him to do it again. And again. And again.
"Okay, that's enough for me," he tells them at last, to a chorus of disappointed groans. Luckily, one of the older boys steps in to take over his child throwing duties. Creedy crosses the grassy clearing to join Quinn, settling at his side to dry off in the sunshine. "I might be getting too old for that. Who'd have thought," Creedy wonders, "That'd we'd ever last long enough to be 'too old' for anything?"
He looks to the other man now, lost in the pretty pale blue of his eyes, all the familiar lines on his face, the traces of gray that have crept in at his temples and in his scruffy beard. "However we managed, I'll take it," he answers. The memories hit him regardless of how long it's been since the castle fell, still haunting his nightmares. He is well aware that Creedy nearly did not make it. Quinn had thought Creedy dead, then, the loss the impetus behind his need to go after the Bull that took him away. There was only vengeance fueling him then, what else did he have to lose without the man he'd loved for years at his side? And he'd managed it, too. He'd killed the Bull, and, then, morosely, he'd returned to the castle ruins and – and then he found Creedy there, alive and well, not well, but alive.
Ten years and he still can't believe it. Cherishes every second he gets with Creedy when so many others did not survive to be with their loved ones in the new world. He pulls Creedy close, hands careful over the sensitive burn scars on his neck, and kisses him soundly.