The trees were bare and their branches hung low, trailing the ground and casting eerie shadows in the moonlight. The king and his advisor stumbled through the dark forest, the mud sucking at their shoes and the thorny tree branches catching their clothes. Eyes they could not see watched from the deep shadows, and bones creaked with the trees as the wind blew through the barren forest. The boy shivered and unconsciously leaned closer to his advisor, causing them both to stumble and sprawl in the muck of the swamp. The advisor managed to stand first, grasping at a firm branch despite the thorns stabbing his hand. He helped his king to his feet and urged him onward. But when they were both standing, the forest ahead of them disappeared. Instead, a woman stood in front of them, with a tall glimmering wall behind her. A skeletal dragon was reared up behind her, stretching out vine and moss-covered wings. The two stared at the woman and the dragon, its stained bones almost offending the glimmering, flawless wall behind it. The woman motioned to the floor behind the two men where two pale pink cushions rested. The king collapsed back onto the one without acknowledging the woman. Her cold stare narrowed on the king, ignoring the advisor’s thanks.
“A child comes to the swamp,” she started, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders, “but doesn’t speak.”
“Another speaks for him, just as another dresses for him, bathes for him, and acts for him. He is no man, no king, no creature deserving of respect.” the cushion turned into writhing python, constricting around the boy while the advisor pleaded with her.
“Please, we’re here for help. We’ve been wandering for days looking for you. Just help us please!” She stared coldly at the advisor while the boy screamed and struggled against the python. It was the only thing besides the woman they had seen here with true skin covering its bones. It wrapped itself tightly up the boy’s body, covering him from his waist all the way to his head.
“He’ll speak!” the advisor shouted and the python stopped moving, its head rearing up to look at the woman. She nodded sharply to it and it fell away from the boy, slithering to the dragon and coiling in its bones. “Please speak,” the advisor pleaded with his king, bowing low as the king stood, barely reaching the woman’s shoulder at full height.
“I am here to demand your allegiance as war threatens my kingdom. You were once of our blood and so-”
“I owe it to you? To the kingdom?” she raised her eyebrows but neither one answered, so she continued, “You brought this upon the kingdom, upon yourself, boy-king. I have no obligations to you, no loyalties, no ties, nothing. My home, my loyalties, my ties, my obligations, are here.” She laughed, the hollow sound echoing through the space they occupied and the dragon head to seemed to shift and look at them. “In fact, neither one of you will be leaving here alive. Neither one of you will be returning home!” she ducked and the skeletal dragon lunged at them. The two men dropped to the ground as well as the dragon’s mouth surrounded them.
