Optional Text Prompt: During the time of dwarves, D’veen was not a safe home to dragons. They were often captured and held in cages. Seen only as beasts, instead of intelligent, complex creatures. Write a story or poem about a dwarf who takes pity on a caged dragon and decides to help them escape…
Down into Kazra’s Deep Bram went,
With iron key held tight,
Through ancient halls of dwarven stone,
And hid his face from sight.
The dragon lay in dwarven chains,
Its wounded wing hung low,
Where broken scales and blackened blood
Marked every hammer blow.
He’d heard the tales since he was small,
Of dragon’s ruthless flame,
Of ancient beasts that dwarven folk
Had learned to curse by name.
Yet underneath the mountain stone,
When stone engulfed the day,
That hated beast had sheltered him
And would not turn away.
Its battered wing had borne the stones,
Its talons split and bled,
While rock and timber thundered down
Upon the dragon’s head.
Then dwarven miners found them there,
And wrath had filled the hall,
His father cried, “The beast has struck!”
He’d said no word at all.
He could have told them what it did,
And speak one simple truth,
But hatred learned at father’s knee
Still held the frightened youth.
And so they bound the dragon fast,
And dragged it through the stone,
While Bram, who knew the creature’s deed,
Had let it stand alone.
Now every wound beneath those chains
Was his as much as theirs,
Each broken scale accused the dwarf
Who watched from shadowed stairs.
The dragon raised its weary head,
But neither growled nor stirred,
And somehow that was worse to bear
Than any hateful word.
“I let them think you wounded me.”
His voice was scarcely sound.
“I watched them chain the one who kept
My blood above the ground.”
He drew the key with shaking hands
And knelt beside the chain.
No deed tonight could make things right
Or take away its pain.
“They taught me I should hate your kind.
I thought their hatred true.
But when the mountain came for me,
The beast was never you.”
The iron lock fell open then,
And echoed through the deep.
The dwarf bowed low beneath the guilt
That he alone must keep.
The dragon slowly gained its feet,
One ruined wing held tight,
Then passed the dwarf without a sound
And vanished in the night.
He watched it cross the mountain path
Beneath the moon’s pale scar,
Until its wounded shadow passed
Beyond the western stars.
No song could make his silence brave,
No tale could cleanse that stain,
He only knew he’d spoken late,
His silence caused this pain.
For guilt may never loose its hold,
Nor sorrow make amends,
But even those who fail the truth
May choose how silence ends.
By Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly
Written for The Circus Dragon & Bradley Ramsey August Challenge
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By Heather Patton · Launched a year ago
A creative space with over 170 enchanting stories and poems. I write fantasy, folklore and genre bending prose that can step off the path into comedy, adventure or the unsettling at any moment.
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