Dragon Fire

Prompt: Write a story or poem about a shower bringing joy to someone. You may interpret this any way you like! It can be a rain shower, a shower of money, a shower of gifts, you name it... let your imagination run free.



The great beast's wings blocked out the pale, silvery glow of the moon as it circled overhead. For a few moments an unfathomable darkness fell across the village, a shadow cast on the blackness of a chill Autumn night. Most of the village slept; the only light was that of the small, guttering lamp that Mina was using to find her way to the pig pen at the back of the Inn. It had been a busy night and the slops overflowed from the heavy pail as she lurched along. She clutched the handle with both hands, her head tilted to the side to hold the lantern stick against her shoulder. A shiver ran through her tiny body as the cold night air bit through her ragged clothes. She paused, curious as to the cause of the deepening darkness, instinctively aware that something was far from right.



         The air exploded in a wild torrent of heat and light that rushed around her, enveloping her little world in an instant. There was a loud crack as the heavy pail hit the ground, splitting and spilling its contents all over the path. Mina staggered, her eyes temporarily blinded by the sudden light. Her sleepy mind was jolted awake, but stupefied by her sudden appearance in this Hell of chaos and confusion, which only moments before had been her familiar, uneventful, peaceful village home. A blood-curdling screech pierced the night sky, akin to the harsh screams the eagles emitted as they hunted on the nearby plains, but intensified a thousand times. Everything slid into focus as her mind gained control of her flailing, panic stricken, streams of consciousness, centring her attention on the bearer of this ominous voice. 'A dragon' she thought, as she watched the gargantuan, reptilian silhouette spiral upwards through the air, smooth as silk and silent as the moon. For a few, slow seconds she watched in awe as the beast sped higher, vanishing forever into the blackness beyond the light of the flames. The beast was gone so quickly and noiselessly that it may never have been there at all. She might even have believed it an apparition dreamt up by her sleep deprived mind were it not for the fearsome, roaring, searing reminder of its indubitable reality that it left behind.



         She began to act on autopilot, her subconscious taking the reins - not trusting her rational mind to prompt action were she allowed to think or feel. The slops bucket lay cracked and useless at her feet. She knew there was another pail on the front porch of the Inn, used for the farm folk to scrub the dirt off their boots before entering. The inn was aflame though, and her strength was so  slight that she doubted she could carry the full pail far, let alone be much use filling, hoisting and refilling it to dampen the flames. Instead, she ran to the small outbuilding near the pig pen, in which the patrons kept all manner of useful and useless objects together in a large shambling heap. She'd seen the yard boy drag an old hose from that shed to wash down the muddy wheels of the carriages that occasionally rumbled into the yard. She briefly wondered what had become of the yard boy and Mrs. Billy, the Inkeep, as she raced toward the little building. They had been downstairs still, closing the bar and counting up, so she supposed they'd made it out of the front door when the dragon-fire hit the roof. She was unsurprised that none of them had thought to check on her well being, she was barely noticed at all in the Inn, until something went wrong.

         She dropped the lantern with the slops pail, no longer requiring its pitiful light to see. She yanked the stiff old door of the shed with both hands until it juddered open, its rusted hinges squeaking grudgingly as if they resented being woken up. 'oh shush' she said 'can't you see this is an emergency!'. Her vision was greeted by a huge mass of dusty, battered, sorry-looking farm equipment and disused household debris. The old hose was the only thing in there she had ever seen used and accordingly it had been thrown on to the very top of the pile of junk.



The last month had seen Mina's tenth harvest and she was small for he age. She had an iron determination though, and if she wanted something badly enough, nothing ever stopped her getting it. She launched herself at the heap, scrabbling to gain a solid foothold amongst the anonymous objects and pulled herself up. She stood on the tips of her toes, stretching out to her full height. Her cheek pressed against the cushion of a smelly, flea ridden sofa, stashed in the shed for who knows what perceived future purpose. Reaching as high as she could with her free arm, she felt her fingertips brush the hide, outer layer of the hose. She gritted her teeth, grunting as she tried to boost herself an extra inch, then her hand enclosed the circumference of the tube. In that moment, she was victorious; in the next moment, she was falling. More accurately, the heap was falling. The junk had become so twisted together that it formed a sort of solid mass, teetering on the edge of stability. She had added the final weight needed to bring it crashing down. She let out a squeak of terror, the only sound capable of escaping her traumatised lips right then, screwed her eyes closed and prepared herself for impact. She seemed to float, poised, suspended, for an interminably long time. People always said that time seemed to slow in the moments before you died and your life flashed before you, but this wasn't like that. She had stopped.  “C'mon, quick Mi, ger'off that thin'”. She opened one eye and had never been happier to see her friend, Luca, the blacksmith's boy. He stood, feet planted firmly on the dusty floor, head bowed between his strong, wiry arms that were holding the teetering pile in place. “Ah canna hol' 'er much longer, Mi” he entreated.

         Agile as a small mountain goat, she leapt clear of the heap and out the door, maintaining her grasp on the end of the hose. Luca gave a final great heave, reversing the heap's motion long enough to spin out of the shed after her, before it came crashing down. She gave him a sheepish half-smile as they tugged the now easily accessible length of hose free. Luca coiled it around his shoulder, then they took off at a run, past the burning Inn, towards the pump in the middle of the village square. The Inn sat to the right hand side of the square, beside the bridge. Its large yard backed onto the river. It had once been a coach house, in more prosperous times, and was so positioned to allow easy access in and out of the village.

         The square was an awe inspiring sight. On all sides towering walls of flame engulfed everything; florist, smithy, grocers, butchers, bakers,..brothel. Everything. They were lucky, in a sense, that the dragon's long stream of fiery breath had caught here, where most of the buildings were businesses, uninhabited in the dead of the night. But the flames would spread quickly if they weren't bought under control, then the houses would start to burn. Houses that contained the frail and bed-ridden, women and children. With all able hands helping to quench the flames, there remained no one to help these people to safety. Beyond the houses stood the grain sheds, perhaps an even more alarming risk. The stores were piled high, the village's entire harvest stashed away, counted and apportioned, ready to be sold at market or kept to see them through the encroaching winter. If this was lost, so were they all. It had not been a plentiful harvest and so they could not rely on the charity of neighbouring villages. They would all be reduced to abject poverty, many of them starving to death in the streets. Mina knew she would be out on her ear, even the table scraps she survived on being too great a cost for Mrs. Billy to spare in such hard times. She had no family -  her father a traveller who'd passed this way once, her mother dead in child birth. She could not hope to survive if the grain stores burned.

         Someone had reached the bell tower of the old church and great, sombre peels rang out over the roaring din of the flames. Smoke billowed and swirled in vast, nebulous clouds stinging their eyes and making them choke. Desperate cries could be heard as people swarmed about the square, running back and forth in an endless dance between the pump and the flames. They carried all manner of pails, pots and containers; old Mr. Bucks even filling his chamber pot at the pump. Luca pushed his way through the wild eyed crowd, brandishing the end of the hose as though it were a mighty sword. A great cheer went up as the village folk saw what he carried and the hose was quickly accosted by stronger hands, hooked up to the pump and uncoiled. Tobias, the smithy slapped Luca roughly on the back “tha's a quick thinkin' lad,” he bellowed, grabbing the pump handle, his strong arms tirelessly lifting it up and down. Mina lost sight of Luca as she was battered by the swarming crowd surrounding the little pump. The pump had two heads, so the people kept coming, but people were running the other way too, down to the river to fill their pails, over and over again.  It was all Mina could do to remain standing. Feeling useless and alone, she squirmed through the desperate crowd, out into the smoke filled square.

         She stood quietly in a side road, watching in awe as the village men and boys battled together to save their burning home. Every time the flames began to be beaten back, they seemed to find some new fuel and reignite with fresh vigour. She could not say how long the dance lasted, time seemed to stand still, though it felt like an eternity. Tobias pumped hard, his huge muscles used to working for hours on a forge, but she could see the other villagers starting to flag. 'Please, no' she thought 'The flames can't win. My pitiful life cannot be over so soon. I'm destined for adventure, not for starving in the gutter'. She had talked and dreamed with Luca about making their escape, many times. He was 'prenticed to Tobias for one year more, but after that he would be given his tools and sent to make his own way in the world. This small village had no need of two smiths and Tobias had many years of work left before he retired. Luca would be making his way to one of the free cities, where work could always be had. Best of all, he'd be taking her with him! Luca was thre years older, but was the son of her wet nurse and foster mother. They were as good as brother and sister, and all that each other had in the world since his mother's death. They only had to wait one more year. 'How could the fire come now and ruin it all?'

         The battle between the villagers and the flames had reached a stale mate; it was not spreading, but nor was it relinquishing its hold on the village. It seemed, now, only a matter of time until the villagers lost. After all, humans had a limited supply of energy that was already lagging. The more they lagged, the stronger the flames grew; getting hotter and brighter the more they engulfed. 'Perhaps it would have been better to have been crushed' Mina thought, 'at least that would have been quick'. Her heart began to despair and she thought of running. Perhaps she could make it as a cut-purse, if she made it to a large, bustling city where anonymity ruled. It wouldn't be much of a life, but it would be life. She wondered what Luca would think of her for even contemplating such a thing. He was a simple village boy, but he had the heart and nobility of a knight. 'Better to die starving and good, than live a hundred years of vice' he'd say. He was pious too, believed the good you did in this life mattered. She would be on her own and probably die anyway, if she went. What did she know of the way to the city or how to survive on the road? 'Nothing; nothing at all.'

         A deafening crack tore across the sky, drowning out the yells of the villagers and the roar of the flames. Mina's heart jumped into her throat. 'Oh no' she thought, 'this is it; the beast is back!'. Then she felt it. No one had noticed the clouds rolling in and blotting out the moon, preoccupied as they were with the ongoing fight. Huge, heavy drops of beautiful rain began to fall, hitting her forehead, her hand, her nose; then all at once the downpour overtook her, drenching her right to the the skin! “YEEEEAAAA” she cried, a wordless scream of relief and indescribable joy, spreading her arms wide and raising her tear streaked face to the sky! She hadn't realised she'd been crying, but it didn't matter now, the rain water mingled with her tears, washing them away; just as they mingled with the water from the villagers pails and washed away the flames. Her tears became tears of happiness, as she stood and cried, and cried.