One of these days I am going to get my first Friday Fiction posted on Friday again, but today is not that day! I wanted to have this up as early as Saturday but one part of the story was really fighting me and I had to re-write it three different times until it worked the way I wanted it to. It’s still not perfect, but I wanted to actually get this out before any more days passed. I hope you enjoy!
An Emerald Hoard
Luz squinted as the dark tunnel he and his cousin were traveling through suddenly opened up in front of them, bright light streaming through the entrance. He blinked rapidly until he was able to see again, eyes widening as he breathed out “Oh, wow.”
His cousin, Link, stopped short next to him with a soft gasp, staring at the massive expanse of brilliant green that spread before them.
Luz had heard that dragon hoards were as diverse as the dragons that hoarded them, and that every one of the ancient dragon hoards were breathtaking. No one had ever found the hoard of the the Emerald Mistweaver, let alone reported back about it, so Luz hadn’t been certain what to expect. He had hoped the hoard may have something to do with magic, considering the great sage had said that the Emerald Mistweaver hoard was where a cure could be found for the blight ravaging their homeland.
He still hadn’t expected this.
It looked like an ancient forest was growing in the cavern. Trees with massive trunks, so large Luz was sure not even three of him holding hands could reach around them, rose over their heads. The tree branches spread out and intertwined to make a green leafy ceiling over them. The branches themselves also appeared green, dusted with different colors of moss and lichen and draped with thick flowing vines that wove a tangled web overhead.
Here and there must have been breaks in the canopy as they could see spots of bright white light piercing down into the shade under the trees. The light that filtered through the leaves made the air seem to glow green and gave the under canopy an otherworldly glow. Directly in front of them was a wall of shrubs, staggered so they would not be impassable but large enough that they would be difficult to navigate, and just beyond them rose a massive green hill covered in more moss. Here and there large flowering plants could bee seen rising between the shrubs, bravely putting forth one or two brightly colored flowers.
It was a riot of green in all its many shades and shapes, interspersed with brief flashes of brilliant color.
“Just how…” Link trailed off as he stepped forward, taking in the massive wall of green and growing things sprawling in every direction, eyes focussing on one of the columns of bright light to their right. He moved further into the cavern, squeezing between the overgrown shrubs and one of the trees that sprawled to the right of the opening they had stumbled upon, ducking under a large clump of hanging moss. The sound of Link passing was muffled by the thick carpet of leaves on the floor around them, each step strengthening the scent of damp earth and the faint scent of decay. “Where did they get sunlight this deep into the mountains?”
“Link!” Luz hissed after his cousin, hesitating just inside the cave mouth. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a crystal in the ceiling! It’s glowing, that must be where the sunlight is coming from.” Link’s voice got further away as he spoke, clearly moving further into the cavern flush with green and growing things. “Do you think it’s magic, or do you think that there is an actual crack that the light is coming through and being amplified in the crystal? I mean, I guess it would be magic either way, just the kind of magic that would be different.”
When it was clear Link would not be coming back Luz followed after his cousin with a curse, ducking under the moss and nearly tripping over the trees roots. “Link, wait, this is a dragon’s hoard. You can’t go wandering around here. What if you stumble into a trap left by the-” He cut off as he moved past a large flowering plant and nearly ran into Link’s back, eyes catching on what had caused his cousin to freeze just as he finished his own sentence “dragon.”
What had looked like a hill rising above the plants was looking back at him with a large golden eye nearly as large from lower lid to upper as he was tall. It watched him, pupil minutely contracting and expanding as it observed the two of them. Every thought Luke had promptly fell out of his head, leaving him frozen and weak-kneed as his brain tried to think of something, anything he could do.
“Please don’t set us on fire,” Link blurted, apparently having regained his sense before him.
The dragon eye regarding them blinked lazily. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t use fire here. It would be much easier to eat you.”
“Please don’t eat us either,” Luz hastily added, brain finally grinding back into motion, trying to remember exactly what the great sage had told them before they set off on their quest. They hadn’t received any prophecy of fighting or killing the dragon at the time, so they had (apparently, mistakenly) assumed that when they got to the hoard the Emerald Mistweaver would either be dead already or out, terrorizing the country side. Since fighting hadn’t been foretold, then maybe they could talk their way out of this. Two gangly, ill equipped teenagers certainly wouldn’t be winning in a fight against a dragon.
“We came here looking for something that would help our home, we’re suffering from an outbreak of the Crimson blight, and we were told we could find a remedy here.” Luz rushed out. “Do you have something here that could cure the blight?”
“I do.” The dragon answered easily, observing the two of them. “However there is nothing you could pay me for them. Gold and gems have no interest for me.”
Link and Luz exchanged a glance, and then Link lifted his apothecary bag, filled with a mixture of herbs and seeds he used in his remedies. “How about with a trade?”
