Second Chances

This piece placed 10th in my group and landed me a spot in round two of the NYC midnight 250 word micro-fiction challenge last year.

Genre. Action. Word.
Fairy Tale. Giggling. Like.

24 hours. Write!


Second Chances

​
Sixteen years had passed since Odessa last laid eyes on the iridescent shimmer of reflected sunlight off dragon scale. The creature had grown, terrifyingly so, though her eyes still sparkled with the same love and kindness Odessa had known as a child, when they had played and giggled together before the dragon’s fire came, before they were to play never more.

Now she watched as her friend was marched against her will, shackled in steel and muzzled, along cobblestone streets toward the castle gates, towards a lifetime of slavery and control. Dragon-breath was a most valuable resource, those who controlled it grew to be powerful rulers. She knew it well, her father was most powerful of all.

Days passed, each morning the dragon marched past, each night she returned, soot staining her nostrils, blood caking her claws. Those eyes no longer shone with love like they once had, and in time, Odessa began to see a darkness creep into their shared glances that once shone with such hope.

Years before, in innocence and youth Odessa lived without rules. The daughter of a king knows no boundaries. Who else could play with a newborn dragon? But the dragon grew wings, and sought the sky, and Odessa thought to help, releasing her friend made prisoner, unlocking the chains, watching her fly. A child sees only the good.

The time had come once more to share the freedom she had known in her youth. To be the child that knows only good.

​Lucien Telford 2021