Scales

• Aylee Bennam, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

Scales
The water rippled as the sapphire blue dragon broke the surface. It’s eyes shone like rubies in the sunlight, shadows dancing on dappled leaves. Drops of glittering dew fall from sunny petals. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” murmured the Redlin next to me. We live, work and play in this minute paradise, under the eternal protection of the Great Wyrm, a sapphire blue Lake Dragon. For centuries, he has been close friends with the Wise One, an ancient elder who travelled afar in his youth. He met the Great Wyrm on one of these journeys, and their everlasting friendship began. We live in peace and harmony, with only the occasional drowning to worry about. There is one, however- the Dark Mage. Her anger is channelled into magic, making it more deadly than the most potent poison. The sky goes dark, into a bleeding crimson. The Dark Mage is here. She carries the Ruby Sabre, which can kill on contact- and plunges it into the Great Wyrm’s tail. He cannot help us now. “Oh, no, the Protector is wounded.” She remarks, sarcasm dripping from her words. “What will you do now?” Her tattered cloak is one of deep ebony, and she swishes it around as she glares ominously at the faeries. “No-one answering? Well, I’d better do it myself, then.” She clasps her pale hands together, mutters something inaudible and points at the lake with her long, withered fingers. It is immediately turned to Shadow, and inky creatures crawl out, their rotten teeth bared in a menacing snarl. The terrorised the village, destroying huts and inking the fay. There was no hope for them now. No hope for life, no hope for freedom. They would all die in this empty shell of a village. All the children, they would grow up in this ghastly place. The Great Wyrm was beckoning, but only one saw, a small Redlin child. He came forward, and the dying dragon whispered to him. “You are the hope. Take this scale and save the village… please…” He heaved a great sigh and dissolved, sparkles of glittering dust falling to the ground. In his place was a single glimmering scale. The young Redlin knew what to do. He would seek out the Dark Mage and touch the scale to her skin. She would disintegrate, just like the Great Wyrm. “Yes,” he decided. “I will do that” He would be the hero of the town, and everyone would adore him. They would live in peace and harmony and… Just at that moment, he was torn from his fantasy. The scale still shone in his palm. “Move!” someone yelled, and just in the nick of time, too, or he would have been sliced apart by the Dark Mage’s sabre. She approached the young hero with her head held high, and plucked the scale out of his hand. She rolled it about between her fingers, her raggedy gloves protecting her skin from it’s touch. She held it up in front of the Redlin, taunting them, daring them to take it. She tossed it up into the air, and it fell, down, down, down, onto her bare foot. She let out an ear-splitting screech, then she was gone, reduced to no more than a speck of dust. The globs of black ink clambered back into the dark lake. It flowed out into the ground, and returned to normal. The bleeding sky went deep indigo, then back to a clear blue. Huts rebuilt themselves as if by magic, and new trees and flowers grew up out of the dead ones. It was almost like the Dark Mage was never there. A hazy shape appeared over the lake. “Thankyou,” it murmured, before fading away into nothingness. It wasn’t the same though, not without the Great Wyrm in the lake, protecting them from danger. The scale. The child remembered the last gift from the Great Wyrm. He closed his eyes and tossed it into the lake. A shimmer appeared in the water, and multiplied until the whole lake was shining. The Great Wyrm had been reborn. The people were safe, and… this was their home.