Confessions
Skye woke with a jump. Glancing around she recognised the trees from last night. She’d remember lying down though. God her head was foggy. She remembered landing in the forest. Simmons had led her away from the dragon then… then… he’d turned into a man! A very naked man. She remembered watching him reaching for his clothes, straining to see his face then everything was blank. Why couldn’t she remember anything?!
“Morning. Are you ok Skye? You seem slightly pale.” Simmons was stood nearby looking at her with some concern.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just can’t remember much from last night.”
“I’m not really surprised. You were a bit of a zombie last night. I suppose it has been a trying time for you.”
“I was a zombie? I swear I was watching the dragon and he turned into a man.”
“A man… Skye you must have been dreaming. You followed me into the clearing and then fell asleep. I had a hard job getting you to eat anything before you slept.” Her voice went an octave higher and she refused to look at Skye gathering up her basket.
“Anyway the dragon is most definitely still a dragon. He can take us back now.”
Skye nodded in response, sure that she was keeping something from her.
It didn’t take them long to fly back to the house. Once he’d seen them safely off his back the dragon wandered back off towards his cave. It didn’t make sense to Skye. He clearly had a good relationship with the people in the house yet he preferred solitude unless they needed him. Surely he must want company?
Following Simmons into the kitchen she found Mel and Phil standing talking to two other men. One was tall with a shaven head, the other slighter with brown hair. One of these was clearly Fitz though which she wasn’t sure. She was granted her answer when Simmons flew towards the taller guy, flinging her arms around him and crying:
“Tripp!”
“Told you she’d be excited to see you.” Grinned the other guy.
Spotting Skye hovering beside the door, Phil introduced her.
“Skye the person grinning like an idiot is Leo Fitz. The other guy who Jemma is currently clinging to is Antoine Triplett who everyone calls Tripp. Guys this is Skye, the new sacrifice.”
She couldn’t help but blush slightly at that description but the others put her at ease. She was quickly included in the conversation and learnt that Tripp had been travelling for a while searching for someone he and Grant knew. He’d apparently escaped from a local jail so Tripp had gone to try and recapture him. Only him and Grant knew most of his hiding places but they were all empty so Tripp had returned to confer with Grant about what to do next.
Which made the fact he wasn’t around even stranger. She’d expected him to be here when they got back but she’d yet to see any sign of him. The others didn’t seem to think it was strange and just replied he was around somewhere whenever she asked.
It wasn’t until later that night that she actually found him. She was heading upstairs to her room when she bumped into him, literally.
“Oh I’m sorry. Oh hey Grant.”
“Hey Skye. Don’t worry about it. Are you ok? Simmons mentioned you weren’t feeling well this morning.”
“Oh I’m fine. My mind was just a bit foggy.” She was keeping her missing time to herself. Something was going on with that and she was going to get to the bottom of it!
“I’m glad to hear. I also see you meet Tripp.”
“Yeah he’s nice. I missed you there though. Everyone celebrated him coming back. Mel even made a cake.”
“Yeah well unfortunately I was busy. I’ll catch him later.” If she hadn’t been looking for it she would have missed the small hesitation in his reply. There was clearly something else going on.
“Are you ok though? Tripp mentioned your mentor had broken out of jail. Garrett was it?”
“Yeah. It’s difficult as he did a lot of terrible things but we’ll find him again. He’s one of the reasons Tripp and I live here.”
“Really?”
Smiling slightly at her interested he beckoned her down the corridor and into a room that she assumed was his.
“Make yourself comfy. It isn’t really a conversation to have in the middle of the corridor.”
“You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to you know?” She replied as she sat down on a chair. The room was simply decorated, almost stark. It didn’t look like he spent much time in here.
“It’s fine. Beside sometimes it’s good to talk about these things. Anyway neither Tripp nor I had the best of childhoods so Garrett picked us up. We were going to train to be knights under him. Tripp and I became like brothers, we spent that much time together. Unfortunately what we hadn’t realised was that he was committing atrocities. We found out when a sorcerer called Fury informed us of what had been going on. We helped him lock Garrett up and then headed out here. We wanted somewhere out of the way to think. In the end we found somewhere we could actually do some good.”
“You feel like you need to pay penance?”
“I did some bad things Skye. If I can help people then maybe I can remove some red from my ledger. I did bad things for Garrett. I dragged Tripp down with me so it’s the least I can do.”
“Does he feel the same way?”
“No. He thinks that he has some blame as he didn’t notice but it wasn’t him that did these things.”
“Do you take everything on yourself?”
That surprised him. Seriously the more she learnt about him the more she wanted to hit him. He seemed to think everything was his fault.
“I did things I shouldn’t have done, whether I knew it or not. Therefore I must pay for it.”
“I wonder if others would see it like that? Besides isolation isn’t the best thing for anybody.”
“The isolation is necessary though. Anyway I’d bet you’re tired so I’ll let you get to bed.” On that enigmatic note he helped her to her feet and then lead her back to her room.
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Over the next few days Skye became certain Grant was avoiding her. Anytime she caught a glance of him he hurried away. Maybe he thought she’d be shocked or angry with him for what he had told her. She wasn’t but she still couldn’t understand why he needed the isolation. She was certain there was something else going on here.
However, she’d been kept busy helping out everyone else in the house. She’d helped Fitz with his newest invention by passing him tools when he needed it. She’d collected food for Phil and helped Simmons tend to villagers ailments. She’d even tried to help Mel with cooking but after nearly burning down the kitchen she’d been forbidden from entering it ever again unless it was too eat. Everyone had assured her she was welcome to stay at the house with them and didn’t need to do anything but she wanted to earn her keep.
After the fourth day she’d had enough. It was very clear that Grant was ignoring her. Wanting to know what his problem was she followed him. It was early morning just before sunrise. She wouldn’t normally be up at this time but she’d had to sit up and wait to even catch a glimpse of him. Finally he’d emerged from his room and headed towards the dragon’s cave. Which was weird in its self, she’d noticed most people avoided the cave as much as possible.
Creeping into the cave she was surprised to see there was no dragon in sight. A pile of clothes lay beside the path and she could see Grant was swimming in the lake.
“Skye what are you doing here?” He cried angrily noticing her standing on the path.
“I wanted to talk to you. You’ve been avoiding me.”
“You can’t be here. You need to leave.”
“Why? It’s not like the dragon is dangerous. So what if he comes back?”
“Skye.” He uttered her name like a plea.
She wasn’t leaving. She’d waited up this long he wasn’t going to escape now.
A sudden groan from him had her starting forward.
“No! Stay there.”
She couldn’t just stand there. He looked like he was in agony, curled in on himself. Then as she watched there was a flash of light like she remembered from the dragon changing. It became so bright Skye was forced to close her eyes. Eventually once it had died down Skye slowly opened her eyes. Stood where Grant had been was the dragon, his head hanging like he was ashamed. When hand rising to her mouth she sat down on the floor hard.
“You’re the dragon?”
Suddenly Tripp was there in front of her gripping her arms. Kneeling in front of her he checked her pulse before ensuring he had her attention.
“Let me explain.”
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