Carrying it in front of herself with both hands, Dicha crept out of the room and made for the front door of the house, ears straining for any sound that would indicate that her parents or younger brother were awake. They would be expecting her to be heading off to the shop at this time of day, and the basket would give away the whole game.
After what seemed like forever, Dicha reached the door, and then she was past it. With a sigh of relief, she padded quietly toward the village’s north edge, homing in on the tall, white-barked Hava tree that stood not far from the last buildings, the pre-determined meeting point. Its thorny crown stood out against the partially-lit bulk of the mountains beyond, mountains whose equally white peaks were the winter snows’ last refuge from approaching summer.
Cade was already there when Dicha arrived, and the eastern horizon’s orange color suggested that dawn was imminent. He was pacing nervously when Dicha caught sight of him, and that made her smile. The boy was a year older than her, and far more cautious by nature, and though she found his constant worrying more than a little annoying at times it was at least as endearing as it was bothersome.
A moment after she saw him, Cade turned to pace another lap and saw her, and his thin face broke into a smile that completely wiped away the worry. “Dicha. There you are.” He stated the obvious. “I was beginning to think we’d been found out.”
Dicha dashed the remaining distance to her beau and set down the basket next to the roots of the old Hava tree. She put one arm around Cade’s shoulder, standing on tip-toe due to their difference in height. “If I’m going to get caught for doing something, I’m gonna get done doing it first.” She pointed farther into the woods, up the ground’s slope. “Now, c’mon.” She picked up the basket and put it into Cade’s hands before disengaging herself from him and, beckoning, jogging up-slope. Cade, no longer visibly worrying, but instead grinning slyly, followed, carrying the basket far easier than Dicha could.
After ten minutes, the pair slowed to a walk, letting the early morning quiet dominate the scene. Summer wouldn’t begin for weeks yet, but the trees and undergrowth already had most of their summer greenery back from winter dormancy. Most of the forest’s more dangerous plants would have their various vine tendrils, sticky traps, and maws ready for “customers” for almost a month, so the trip was more or less peaceful. Dicha dropped back to walk abreast with Cade, and the boy took the hint and encircled his fingers between hers. There was no real path through the woods, but Dicha didn’t worry about getting back - every child in the village was taught from an early age to follow that big Hava tree home if they got lost.
As the sun rose a bit, the two began to break the silence - Dicha did, anyway. Cade was an excellent listener, but he rarely said more than he needed to. Dicha liked that about him - he was the sort of person whom she felt could be trusted with any secret. The small talk eventually petered out, though - Dicha’s interest became regularly drawn to things she saw around her, and Cade seemed to prefer watching Dicha’s face light up as she spotted things of interest to filling the silence.
The forest finally started giving way to the scrubby, boulder-strewn terrain of the upper foothills about two hours before midday, and here Cade hesitated at the base of a dead Jeinu glue-tree. “Dicha, this is a bad idea.” He said. “Master Vourk said that anywhere bad enough to kill Jeinu trees is bad enough to kill people.” He kicked one of the dry, hard puddles of sap around the base of the stump, and the hardened stuff cracked open, oozing watery rot and a foul, deathly smell.
“Cade...” Dicha took him by the arm and pulled gently. “Master Vourk says a lot of things. Do you really think people come from another world, or believe the stories about dragons living far underground?”
Cade hesitated. “... No.” He replied hesitantly. ”They’re childrens’ stories. There are no such thing as dragons.”
”Exactly.” Dicha caught Cade’s gaze and held it, smiling confidently. ”Jeinu trees are tough, but everything dies. Look, there aren’t any trees at all farther up.”
Cade still didn’t look happy about it, but he did start walking again. Dicha knew he’d cheer back up - after all, she was nearby. She’d always found herself able to keep Cade in high spirits.
Now out of the thicker growth farther back, the two could see up the slope a longer distance. This part of the mountain was scattered with prickly burst bushes and the occasional colorful Legh shredder, but these plants’ hazards were short-ranged even at the peak of the season and were easily avoided. The ground was between these covered in patchy snapgrass, harmless enough as local plants went. Ahead, Dicha saw that the ground leveled off again at the base of a jagged, broken cliff face. She led Cade toward that, determining it to be a good place to stop. After all, it was an hour or so before midday now, and she was quite ready to stop.
As soon as the pair arrived at the cliff face, Dicha bounded ahead and seated herself on a large rock to save herself from the annoyance of sitting on snapgrass, patting the gray stone next to her. “This is perfect!” She gestured around to the cliff, scattered boulders, and flat stretch of snapgrass. ”No-one around... perfect weather... all day to ourselves.”
Cade took the hint and set the basket down in the grass, then stepped over and seated himself next to Dicha, casually putting his arm around her shoulder. ”And look, you can even see the village.” He pointed, and Dicha followed the gesture to a familiar white crown far downslope, next to which she could see a cluster of roofs barely visible around the canopy of the ever-present, predatory forest. ”We’re only, what, six miles from it? Five?” He said, as if to reassure himself, and gently drew Dicha closer to his side.
She didn’t resist the embrace - far from it, the girl’s face grew a sly smile and she turned to face Cade, their faces in close proximity. ”Far enough.” She whispered, and Cade took the hint (he was getting better at that) and kissed her.
Dicha responded enthusiastically, by Cade’s reaction a bit more so than he was expecting, and accidentally bowled Cade over and off the rock, despite her small size and slight build. The two were so tangled in each other that she fell too, and both landed heavily but harmlessly in the snapgrass. Dicha felt dozens of the plant’s stalks crush under her weight, and of course the surviving stems snapped their coils at both of them, but snapgrass couldn’t even draw blood on a newborn with its strikes. Dicha had to laugh, both at the plant’s futile snapping, and at herself and Cade for falling. Soon Cade was laughing too, and rather than get up they just lay there for several moments, the laughter subsiding to chuckles, and then petering out entirely. Dicha stayed perfectly still, laying on her back, until the snapgrass’s primitive reactions subsided, content to stare up at the clear midday sky and the cliff looming over her. She focused on a shadow near the top - a hollow, or perhaps a cave?
Cade rolled over then, stirring the grass back into its bothersome fit of fruitless stinging, and got to his knees, offering a hand to Dicha to help her up as well. She took it, letting Cade help her to her feet, then without missing a beat, she jogged a few yards farther back from the rock face and craned her neck up to look at the shadowed spot. From the new perspective, Dicha was sure the shadow was a cave. ”Hey Cade, think we can climb to that?” She pointed.
Cade looked, shielding his eyes from the sun. ”I suppose?” He replied cautiously. ”If we get hurt this far from town...”
”Cade, you can’t always think about the worst case.” Dicha walked back toward him while he was looking up toward the cave, and put her arms around his neck from behind. ”Come on, think of the view from up there. And the privacy.” She drew out the last word suggestively.
Cade didn’t need to be hinted in this direction twice. ”I suppose that climb won’t be too bad.” He said with mock resignation.
Dicha kissed the back of his neck and let go, grabbing Cade’s hand as she ran around him and pulled him toward the cliff face. Its jagged, irregular surface, she decided, would make the climb more of a scramble, and she was already mentally mapping a path up the outcroppings and ledges in its face.
Dicha had scrambled up to the first ledge large enough to sit on, about eleven feet up, before she realized Cade was still at the bottom, standing over the picnic basket with his arms crossed, looking up at her Dicha pursed her lips in thought - she’d forgotten the bulky container, and it seemed a shame to have to leave it.
Cade, though, pointed past Dicha and picked up the basket with his other hand. ”Put it there.” He stepped below her and held it up as high as possible. It barely reached the height to which Dicha’s feet dangled. Seeing this, Cade tossed the basket up the last two feet to Dicha’s waiting hands. The weight nearly wrenched her from her perch (which elicited a gasp from Cade), but Dicha just laughed and got the basket into position, then climbed up to the next stopping point.
In this manner, the pair juggled themselves and the basket all the way up to the shadowed spot Dicha had spotted. Exhausted from the climb, they sat for over a minute at the mouth of the opening, looking out over the mountainside and the wooded hills below. Eventually, Cade started unpacking the basket, spreading out the blanket and taking out the food Dicha had packed. While he did so, Dicha rose to her feet and walked a few paces back into the cave, curious as to how far it went. As she moved farther from the light streaming in the entrance, she became aware of another source - a faint, golden illumination from around the cave’s curvature. ”Cade, there’s light back there.” She said, turning around.
Cade cut off a chunk of cheese and got up, meeting Dicha part-way inside to see what she was referring to. After a moment of letting his eyes adjust (during which time he munched on the cheese in silence), Cade nodded. “Yeah. Maybe it has another entrance farther up?” He suggested.
Dicha shook her head. ”Don’t think so. Come on, let’s look.” She put her hand to one wall as a guide and, with careful steps, proceeded toward the light.
”Dicha, wait...” Cade started, but apparently decided she wasn’t going to be deterred and followed, equally carefully.
After about twenty steps in almost pitch-darkness, when even Dicha began to worry that the next step would put her foot into a hidden chasm in the rock, the tunnel again began to lighten. As Dicha finished navigating the curved tunnel, she saw that the light was coming from around another bend a little ways farther in, this one tight and abrupt. In addition to the light, which looked to be as bright as a bonfire but not flickering, she began to notice heat - not unpleasant as much as soothing. Dicha inched up to this abrupt corner and peeked around to see what the light was coming from.
The chamber beyond was bright - dazzlingly so, and the heat that bombarded her face was stifling, somehow without losing the soothing character that it had farther back. Dicha saw a silvery ovoid object sitting in a depression in the center of the space, surrounded by a ring of glowing, coruscating yellowish crystals - the source of the golden light - their points all facing in toward the ovoid object. To Dicha, the ring looked like nothing more than the nests built by egg-hens owned by some of the villlagers. The object itself was smooth to the point of being reflective, like the constable’s ceremonial armor, but dotted with splotches of matte brown, almost like rust. Not that any constable would ever let his ceremonial garb rust.
A touch on her arm reminded Dicha of Cade’s presence. She pulled back from the corner and turned to face him. ”What’s in there?” He whispered.
”You tell me.” Dicha stepped back, and Cade took a turn glancing in for a long moment. When he turned back, he had an expression of characteristic worry on his face, which Dicha frowned on. ”Let’s go, Dicha.”
”What?” Dicha put out a hand to stop him. ”What is it?”
”Looks like a nest.” Cade replied quietly. ”For something big.”
Dicha nodded excitedly. ”I thought so too!” She pushed past Cade. ”Too bad it isn’t. Nothing lays eggs that big.”
”Dicha, wait - ” Cade tried to grab her arm, but missed, and Dicha, swimming against the heat-thickened air, headed toward the ring of crystals.
Up close, Dicha got a better sense of scale. The ovoid was about as high as her knees, and the crystal ring, though irregular, came up to perhaps two thirds of that height.
”Dicha!” Hissed Cade from the entrance. ”What are you doing?”
Dicha turned around to respond. ”Cade, there’s nothing dangerous here.” She smiled reassuringly, beads of perspiration from the heat forming on her forehead. ”Look.” With a deft hop, she was inside the ring, and when she turned back to Cade he had a look of horror on his face. ”Oh, come on, Cade, there’s nothing that lays eggs this big and we both know it.” She reached out and rested her palm on the ovoid object, withdrawing it immediately when it proved to be as hot as a stockpot over a cook-fire. ”Ow.” Dicha muttered, nursing her slightly singed palm.
The ovoid shuddered, and Dicha could feel it in her feet. She stepped back in surprise, and the cuff of her pants snagged on one of the crystals, bowling her back over the ring onto her back. The crystals were hot too, and Dicha could smell the cloth of her pants singing before she rolled her legs onto the stone floor.
”You all right?” Cade asked, at her side in an instant, heedless of the danger, offering her a hand to help her up.
”Yeah... It moved.” Dicha said to Cade, more curious than afraid still, as he lifted her to her feet. ”Careful, it’s all hot.” She gestured to the crystals and the egg-like object.
Just then, the object made a rattling sound, and its silvery exterior became a spiderweb of cracks. Dicha and Cade both looked at it, just in time to see the shattered pieces of the shell break apart and fall away from something covered in yellowish goo and squirming.
”It was an egg!” Dicha gasped in amazement, not really feeling any fear of anything that was just born.
Cade, though, tugged her back. ”Let’s go. Now.” He pulled Dicha back.
”Wait, let’s see - ” Dicha started to protest, but a warbling chirp from the squirming thing interrupted them both. A long, snouted head on a spindly neck rose from the morass, still dripping golden ichor, and fixed two huge eyes on Dicha. Underneath the fluids, the creature’s head was covered in shiny, silver scales.
Untangling itself, the ungainly creature clambered over the crystals, seeming to ignore their heat, slowly approaching her. It had four legs, a serpentine body ending in a long tail, and two batlike wings folded up on its back. Dicha recognized the shape immediately, though it was Cade who hissed its name. ”Dragon!” before pulling Dicha back again. It wasn’t very large - perhaps five feet long, most of its length being neck and tail.
”Cade, wait.” She pulled her arm from Cade’s grasp and held her hands out to the creature, which cocked its head curiously. Despite the stories of these creatures destroying whole villages, Dicha thought it was rather adorable. ”I’m not going to hurt you.” She said, in the same tone she used for talking with young children in the shop.
The dragon seemed to understand, because it closed the distance and nuzzled its nose against Dicha’s hand. She flinched, expecting it to be as hot as the egg it came from, but found its skin to be no warmer than the air in the chamber, though it did leave her hand and forearm smeared with sticky goo.
Dicha giggled a little, shook off the goo, and stroked the top of the dragon’s scaly head gently. It responded with a chirped pleasure note and wrapped its body around her legs, extending its head up to allow Dicha better access to continue. She looked over to Cade, who wore what she thought was a rather comical confused expression, his brow furrowed as his brain processed what he was seeing. ”Okay, so Vourk’s right about some things.” Dicha admitted. ”But he’s not gonna believe this!”
This story written for Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com.
