Bathed in Red
Heart pounding in his chest, Monté rushes through the gardens. A shadow to the left causes him to turn right, running past the hedges and further into the gardens. A growl from ahead causes him to stumble, turn back to the cross area he just passed and head inward to the fountain. He runs into the clearing, the waters of the fountain red from the crimson moonlight. The fountain is in the center of the gardens, it has benches, a game table, and is wide open with nowhere to hide. Monté, frantic, dashes to the benches and crawls under one.
A few moments later a shadowy figure emerges from a second path leading into the fountain area, stalking slowly looking for its prey. Monté holds his breath as the figure walks around the clearing growling to itself. It walks to the area Monté is hiding and he can feel his hands start to shake, his heart racing faster than a rabbit running from a ghoul. The shadow passes by the bench, and a few agonizing moments pass before Monté hears rustling further in the hedge maze. He breathes out the breath he was holding and crawls out of his hiding place. He heads to his secret trail that no one else knows about when a shadow is cast over him. He slowly turns, blood going cold in his veins. He looks up into the glowing red eyes and screeches, turns to run but is grabbed. He feels the evil fingers dig into his side, and knows it is all over, he lost, his life finished. The tickling begins, and he can’t hold back the laughter, the painful laughter. His mother caught him again, she always gets him, but he always tries to get out of bath time. Who can blame him?
After she tortures him for what seems like an eternity, laughing that evil, beautiful, laugh of hers, she blessedly releases Monté. Though maybe the tickles would be preferred to that face, she looks at Monté with the ‘you are in trouble’ mom-face, that face is scarier than any monster he’s seen in the guild’s books! The only way to defeat that sort of monster is with a ‘but I am so cute’ kid-face, and Monté has perfected those. He gives her his best smile and hugs her tightly, whispering “I love you so much mommy” and she melts. She looks down at him, her eyes no longer reflecting the moonlight and are their beautiful chocolate brown, and smiles at him “I love you too sweetie, but it is bathtime now.” Monté, not knowing when to admit defeat tries one last ploy and pulls at his mother “Dance, let’s dance!” he shouts, jumping around her.
They tangle as she tries to get up and they stumble, right into the fountain, with a splash. They spit and sputter, Monté unable to control his laughter, sucking down water in the process. Monté catches a glimpse at his mother as she struggles to right herself, and either by a tick of the night’s red moon or by pure anger, he is sure her normally multi-colored hair is burning red. As she pulls herself and Monté out of the water, she curses under her breath, looks at her soaked clothing and her soaked son, and just laughs. “Well I guess we both need to visit the baths now son, and I was supposed to attend a meeting before the banquet in town tonight. Well, the old geezers will just have to wait then,” she chuckles, picking up her soaked child and heading to the baths.
After their baths, they walk through the guild halls to the kitchens for dinner. Not all guild members lived at the guildhall these days, most of the Metal Dragons, the high ranking members, lived in Sanctium, the town that built up around the guild. With how the local humans often sneer at Monté though they were better off living here. As the High Dragon, she has influences in the guild and town, but her sweet boy was not like others, heck Faye children were more accepted in the north than a half-demon child was anywhere. But that half-demon boy way her entire world and regardless of how he came to be, he was her miracle. She looks down at his frizzy, ear-length hair and smiles messing his hair with her hand. Monté groans, wavings at her evil hand. He wanted to cut his hair short but she insisted he keeps it long as it makes him ‘so handsome’ but as soon as he is allowed it is getting cut.
Monté takes a deep breath “mmm, something smells good,” he takes another sniff “Maybe roast pork?” Monte’s sense of smell always surpassed his mother’s, well any human for that matter, but as she sniffed the air she thought she could smell the pork as well. “Oh, Bentri and Bilto did say they were going to make a feast for those that didn’t go into town. I bet it will be good” Monté’s eyes light up “And sweets!” he shouts running ahead, hoping to get to the kitchens for a treat before his mother can stop him, he did see Bentri cooking sweets earlier and she had promised him one, so it was fair if he ate one before dinner.
He rushes through the halls and turns a corner towards the kitchen’s back entrance, when he slips, hitting the ground hard. Monté groans, who would spill water outside the kitchens and not clean it up he thinks to himself. The water is very warm, he puts his hand in it to push himself up and notices it is very sticky, and the smell, why did he not notice it before? Fresh sweets overwhelm his senses but the metallic scent of blood is unmistakable now that he sees the red covering his hands. The door to the kitchens is broken and hanging oddly to one side, a hulking figure blocking out the rest, all Monté sees are the horns.
The horns scrape the top of the door frame as the monster ducks to pass through the doorway, tossing a limb body behind it. Monté, mind whirling, tries to get up, but the blood causes him to slip and fall back, he screams, but the monster keeps moving towards him. Seemingly out of nowhere, at least to Monté but in reality, from down the hallway where she came running at Monté’s scream, his mother lunges onto the enormous monster. Her lithe form warps around the monster’s torso, her legs going over its large shoulders, her arms reaching up to grab its horns, and then she curls in, then out bending backward, forcing the monster into a flip. In the middle of the flip, his mother extracts herself from the beast and dives forward, rolling next to Monté. In a fluid motion, she grabs Monté into her arms and leaves the monster to struggle to get back to its feet.
His mother grabs him tight to her chest, shushing his whimpering cries. Seeing monsters in the books does not prepare one for seeing them in life, and at the age of four, Monté had never seen any of the living monsters the guild members would talk about. She whispers in his ear “Don’t worry my sweet I am here, I will protect you,” as she rushes away from the living quarters and towards the armory, the monster close behind. They pass a few empty corridors when she cries out, stumbling to the ground but manages to hold on to Monté.
She protectively tucks her body around her small child as she hits the ground and slides, a trail of blood smearing the ground in her wake, a large knife sticking out of her shoulder. They slide to the end of the hallway, which turns to the left, the armory just ahead. Madritha uncurls herself and whispers, blood on her lips “run my dear, run to safety. I will protect you” she yells the last part, removing the knife from her shoulder and pushing her son down the hall.
Monté sees her leap at the monster, ducking a swing of its massive sword, and brings the knife, its silvery blade almost glowing, up and through its face tearing out its eye. The monster screams and thrashes out at her, wildly swinging its large sword. She leaps over a lumbering swing and slices the monster’s calf muscle.
Monté starts to run down the hall, the sounds of battle behind. Where is everyone, Monté thinks to himself, then remembers the banquet his mother was supposed to have gone to in town, where most of the guild would be right now. Monté slows panic that no one else would be here sinking in, then a yelp turns him around.
The monster, bleeding black blood from several small cuts of the knife, lunges forward with its large sword. Monté’s mother slides to the left of the lunge, just as she begins her dodge the monster reverses its grip, steps to its left, and changes the direction of the blade. The blade slides across Monté’s mother’s side before she can dodge fully. She stumbles forward and a large foot meets her chest, sending her flying into the wall. She crashes to the ground, blood flowing from new wounds. Monté cries out and rushes back to his mother. He picks up the dropped knife and stands in front of his mother protectively, hands shaking wildly. The monster laughs, a thick gurgled, evil laugh as it stalks slowly to Monté. It says something in an alien tongue that freezes Monté’s insides, as it points its large weapon at Monté. The monster stalks forward, sword raised for a deadly blow when a flash of red from behind warns of a sigil being active. Over Monté’s head, a spray of fire hits the monster in the face, causing it to scream and drive out of the way.
The spray of fire sets the drapes and tapestries in the hall ablaze, the red light of the moon spilling into the hallway, shadowed by the bright flames licking hungrily at the wall decor. Monté looks back at his mother and his breath catches, she is aglow in red light yet cast eerily in shadows, a shimmering white mist is flowing around her seemingly connecting to her very soul. Monté has read about NOME, the magical essence that allows one to use magic, but rarely does one see it manifest like this.
Monté’s mother steps past Monté, blood still trailing from several wounds, and faces the monster. It stands, looks at his mother, and smirks, saying something in its foreign language. To Monté’s complete surprise his mother responds in that same gurgled tongue. The monster looks Monté in the eyes and says something else, eliciting a growl from his mother.
Clouds block out the red moon and the monster charges. Monté’s mother draws glyphs in the air faster than Monté can comprehend. First, a ball of fire forms in the air and shoots out at the monster, a red and black shimmer forms around it, reflecting the fire harmlessly to the side.
A blue glow that turns light blue and a chill fills the air, followed by spiked pillars of ice shooting from the ground. The monster growls, smashing its sword into pillar after pillar as they get closer to it. Its eye widens in what might be called fear, when an ice shard hits its arm, frost and ice rapidly spreads up to its elbow. The monster panics and tries to wipe off the ice but it just spreads to that hand as well. The monster shimmers a violent red and black, breaking the ice apart and stopping its spread.
The monster growls and charges forward in anger, sword raised high. Tendrils of vines crawl over the ground and grab at the monster, stopping its charge. The monster slashes at the reaching vines using its strange black and red shimmer magic to block others. While the monster is busy fighting the vines, Monté's mother makes two more sigils. Lightning and ice shards crack out of two streams flying at the monster, lighting the hallway in a blue and yellow glow.
The monster dodges to the side avoiding the spray of ice, but the lightning finds the metal of its sword and happily runs down the blade, to the handle, and into the large beast, sending it flying against the wall. Monté’s mother takes the dagger from Monté and stalks to the fallen and twitching monster, her glow starting to fade, and the blood no longer showing on her body. Madritha drives the blade down into the monster, but its large hand intercepts the silvery blade.
The monster shoves its hand forward, taking the hold of the blade and wrapping its long fingers around Monté’s mother’s hand. She tries to pull away but the monster is too strong, it twists its hand and shatters his mother’s wrist. She cries out but the monster yanks her up as it stands, turning the scream into a whimper. Refusing to give up she kicks up at the monster’s face but it grabs the leg with its other hand and snaps it, bone ripping from the skin. She screams as the monster lifts her until she is eye level with it, its one good eye glaring at her as it says something to his mother in its language, turning Montés blood to fire. His mother spits in the monster's remaining eye and is rewarded for her defiance with a fist into her face, several times until she lay limp in its hand. The monster laughs and says something mockingly in its language as it tosses her across the hall.
His mother hits the wall and crumbles into a heap, fresh blood flowing around her. Monté rushes to his mother, shaking her to get up, begging her to be okay. The monster removes the dagger and stalks forward, licking blood off its fingers. Monté feels his mother stirring and looks at her broken and battered face. “My heart” she whispers “I will always love you, you are my blessing, you are my soul, don’t ever forget you are special. More special for how you came to be, for what lies inside of you. Don’t hate, live with love my sweet, live with love.” The knife descends, Monté feels a burst of pain in his shoulder. Monté screams, his mother screams, the hallway bursts alight with a magical light. The monster shrieks in agony, the world trembles, everything spins and distorts in Monté’s head.
As the light fades and Monté’s eyes readjust, he realizes he is on the other side of the hall. He looks around for the monster but only sees his mother lying in the rubble of a blown-out wall. He rushes over to her, shaking her limp form, to no avail. Her eyes stare at the ceiling sightlessly, her chest is unmoving, her skin oddly sunken and dull. Monté shakes her “Mommy? Wake up mommy. It is safe now mommy. Please mommy I need you. I need you, I am scared,” but she would not move, would not look at him, would never call him ‘her sweet’ again. Monté lets out a wail, gripping his mother tightly. He cries, holding her until everything goes black.
