Dipping a Toe into Fantasy…

Remember this week’s Road Trip Wednesday? We were blogging about places to get inspiration, and I babbled about sleep and posted this picture:

Isn’t that a cool picture? Kind of inspirational in itself. In fact, Angelica Jackson commented: “Colin, I would never get to sleep again if that’s what my muse looked like!” To which I replied: “I know, Angelica! But it’s a great picture to illustrate how unforgettable a good story can be. I mean, when she wakes up the next morning with dragon footprints on the floor, and troll hair on her nightgown..? Oh my, there’s a lot of metaphor there… and that picture definitely could inspire a story…”

Guess what? 🙂

THE NIGHTMARE

Troag shivered. He hated dragon magic, but it was the only way he could enter the house. In fact, Troag didn’t have much affection for dragons at all, but he couldn’t use dragon magic without one.

“Is this the correct location?” the dragon said, his voice ethereal, as if the wind could speak. Troag looked around, still orienting himself to the sudden change of location. A moment before, they had been standing outside his cave-home in a dark recess of the woods. Now they were in a long corridor with dark wood paneling, lit only by the flaming torch in Troag’s hand which, amazingly, had survived the journey without going out.

“Yes, yes,” Troag said, grumbling the words as trolls tend to. “And keep your voice down, Naire!” The dragon frowned. “Stupid scaly beast!” Troag muttered.

They walked with caution, Troag in front with the torch, looking for hidden corners or any place where a human might be lurking. Troag wasn’t equipped for a fight, and as a young dragon, Naire was more prone to flight than fight, despite his huge size and fiery breath. The dragon walked behind Troag, trying his hardest not to let his clawed feet scrape the wooden floor, resisting the temptation to swish his tail, which would easily take out the walls.

Suddenly, Troag stopped; his stubby nose drew several short sniffs of air. His mouth, which usually looked like that of a grumpy old man, turned up at the edges.

“Here,” he said, pointing a grubby fingernail at the door immediately to their left. “It’s here. Definitely here.” He grunted with excitement.

“Shall we both go in?” said Naire, eyeing the doorway. It was an easy fit for the troll, given he was about half the size of most adult humans. But for the dragon, it might be a squeeze.

“Don’t be stupid!” Troag growled. “I need you to keep watch.” Naire nodded, and took up as good of a sitting position as he could in this cramped environment. He ruffled his scales. “And don’t take that tone with me, dragon!” Naire turned away from Troag and rolled his eyes.

A large drape hung just inside the door. Troag crept toward the edge and peered around. It wasn’t a large room. There were some small tables, a chair or two, and a mirror on a wall. In the middle, a young lady in a long white nightgown lay sleeping uncovered on a soft mattress. Her skin was pale like porcelain, and her fair hair spread out in curled waves over her pillow. Troag watched her chest rise and fall, and observed her eye movements, or lack thereof.

“Sound asleep,” he mumbled to himself with a half-grin. He walked toward the edge of the bed and held the torch over the sleeping girl. “Nasty looking thing,” he said with a grunt.

There were two unlit torches in brackets on the opposite wall. Troag lit one and replaced the other with his own, lighting up the room. The girl stirred, but didn’t wake up. Troag rubbed his hands.

“Now, let’s see where this creature has hidden it.”

Troag picked through the items on the tables. He opened drawers, and rifled through clothes that hung in a wardrobe. He lifted the rugs on the floor, and tapped the walls, checking for hidden compartments. After thoroughly searching every inch of the room, the only place left was the bed and its occupant. Troag ran his hand along the length of the mattress, averting his eyes from the girl’s face. He spread his hands over the top of the mattress, getting as close to the girl’s body as he dared, pressing down. Convinced there was nothing hidden in the mattress, he looked down at the girl. Troag closed his eyes and grunted. Slowly and gently, he slid his hands under the girl’s body, feeling the kind of pleasure one gets sliding one’s hands into a bucket of slugs. As he reached her pillow, he could feel his stomach heave. It was all he could do not to vomit his supper. The regurgitated remains of raw quail would have been sure to wake her up.

He stepped back and took some deep breaths until his stomach settled. His eyes scoured the room, looking for somewhere he might have overlooked. He hissed and grunted, frustrated. Then he looked down and noticed a small gap between the frame upon which the mattress sat and the floor. There was no way he could see under there without lifting up the bed. He took hold of the corner and pulled. The bed rose, but just as Troag was about to look under, he saw the girl begin to slide. He quickly lowered the bed. Now the girl’s head and arms hung over the edge of the mattress. Troag scurried over to where her head was and checked that she was still asleep. He sighed with relief at her closed eyes and steady breathing. He needed to see under the bed, but how could he do that without her falling off? The fall would surely wake her up, and she would see him. And the consequences of a human seeing a troll were not to be contemplated lightly.

But Troag had to look under that bed. He grunted and walked back to the door.

“Hey, Naire,” he said, poking his head into the corridor, “get your scaly anus in here.”

It took some squeezing, but Naire managed to push his large body through the doorway without much damage to the door frame or the surrounding walls. Once inside the room, he stretched his neck and looked around the drape to where Troag stood beside the bed. He smiled at the female on the bed, her legs and torso slender and elegant.

“What happened to her arms and head?” said Naire. “Did you get hungry?”

“No, idiot lizard!” said Troag. “Its dangling off the bed. Besides, it’s hideous. I wouldn’t dream of putting something so foul in my mouth.”

“So, what do you need me for?”

“I need you to look under the bed, while I keep the human creature from falling off.”

“And how do you propose to do that, Troag Tralligtail?”

Troag thought for a moment. He really didn’t want to have to touch human skin. And her nightgown was thin enough that if he were to grab her legs, he would be able to feel that warm flesh. It made his hairy skin crawl. He wiped his hands on his tunic in disgust at the thought. It was then the idea hit him. He carefully climbed up on to the bed, and sat his tunic-covered bottom on the girl’s stomach. Her breathing became slightly shallower, but she didn’t wake up. Troag grinned.

“Now, lift up this bed!” he said. Naire frowned.

“You’ll have to apply more weight than that, my furry friend.” Troag shook his head.

“There’s no way I’m putting my bare feet on that… thing!” he said, pointing to the girl. Naire cocked his head.

“I’m telling you, Troag Tralligtail, when I move that bed, it will take your full weight to stop her sliding off.”

“She’ll wake up under the weight!”

“Not if we’re quick.”

Troag looked down at the girl sprawled in front of him. His stomach started to churn again, but he swallowed hard. Then he noticed that the way the girl was draped left him plenty of room to put his feet on her rib cage, and her rib cage was not nearly as fleshy as the rest of her. It was still unpleasant, but it would be more tolerable. Troag carefully shifted himself around, and placed his feet on the girls chest. He could feel the ridges of her ribs under his thick hairy feet, and their gentle rise and fall as she continued to sleep.

“Get on with it,” Troag snapped at Naire, “before I throw up.”

Naire shuffled further in and gripped the edge of the bed, gently lifting it high enough for him to be able to stretch his head underneath for a good look.

“Well?” said Troag, a cold sweat on his brow.

“I see something,” said Naire. “It’s glinting in the light–looks like silver.” Troag’s eyes lit up.

“Can you grab it?”

Naire shuffled a little further in so he could stretch out his other arm. Dragons are incredibly elegant in the wide expanse of the sky; but in a confined space, they are as graceful as an elephant. With a little effort, however, Naire managed to reach under the bed and retrieve the silvery object. He lowered the bed back down, and Troag got off.

“Give it-give it-give it!” he said, snatching at Naire’s talons. Naire sighed and handed the silvery object to Troag. He grinned a wild, spiky-toothed grin.

Troag studied the object’s handle, checking the intricate pattern that had been etched with great precision–a signature of elven metalwork. He glided his fingers over its thin, sturdy bristles. He then dragged it over his head, his arms, and his legs, sighing with pleasure.

“Never,” he sighed, “never, never take a troll’s hairbrush.” Naire shook his head and chuckled to himself.

“How did she steal it from you?”

“Someone sold it to the human, probably. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. When a human has something that’s a troll’s, it’s thieving. I should kill the creature.” Naire sighed.

“Just let her sleep, Troag Tralligtail. We need to leave.”

Troag extinguished one of the torches and retrieved the other. They then left the room, and, with a shimmer of dragon magic, vanished.

###

Caveats:

1) I called this “The Nightmare” because that’s the name of the painting. There’s a piece of flash fiction I wrote back in April called “Nightmare.” Obviously these are not the same. I could have come up with a different title for this, but a) I wanted to recognize the painting, and b) I’m not very good with titles, so I took the lazy way out. It’s just a bit of fun for my readers anyway.

2) Fantasy readers/writers will probably cringe at this attempt of mine to enter their world. I’m sorry. This is not my usual genre. But it seemed like a fun idea, and it was. And that’s just the way I work–I go with the idea, regardless of the genre.