~ 18 ~

The Princess in the Hanging Cage

I flipped in the air and thrust my feet into the ground, breaking miniature craters into the stone flooring, cocking my arms at my sides as I roared my existence. It didn't matter who heard me. If the whole kingdom below charged up the mountain. I'd defeat them. I'd defeat them all.

Something flooded through me. Power and strength, energy and will, fueled by that feeling, powered by that thought. It ceased to be a debate of logic or actuality. Just the empowering feeling that, no matter the foe, they wouldn't stand in my way.

Through having that belief, first, one was able to make it into a reality.

I stared down the cave, spacious even for a dragon, its sides, dressed in gold and treasures, chests and swords and cannons, whatever a dragon could hoard. The amounts grew as it carried forward, yellow flames burning across the walls, illuminating the hanging cages.

My heart clenched at them.

The cells hung from chains well above the ground, each container of different sizes, the skeletons—and still decaying remains—of captured humans and beasts within them. It clicked within a second. He never killed anything not spurred to life. But he would cage an animal with a beast, a beast with a human, a human with a human, with no doubt a false promise that the victor could leave.

He'd watch them fight and kill.

Then devour the winner.

"Like my display, do you?" As'gar chuckled from the back of the cave, sitting on a throne carved from the stone. His golden muzzle peeled into a self-satisfied snarl. "I don't clean out the cages as it shows my prey just how serious I am. It's a delight seeing them freak out at first. Then come to accept the rules of existence as I have given them."

As'gar rose from his seat to the cage hanging closest to him. "I must admit I understand your respect for this princess. Lacking life experience, she has a fire within that is unique." His claw reached for the cell, like it was nothing more than a cord to a bulb. "It took a few hours more than most for her to speak. She seemed convinced that you would come, but... it seemed like she hoped you wouldn't as well."

He chuckled as his claw swallowed the cage and, from between its bars, a head popped out, appearing between his talons. It looked like a guillotine, and a fire burned within me, hatred spreading across my expression.

"She'd already accepted death," As'gar calmly said as his talons closed around her neck, forcing me into stillness. She was screaming something. Words that I did not hear. Only the power bloated inside of me. "But couldn't bear to have forced another to join her. She makes a good pet—a spindled ornament. Knowing she's forced to watch me at all times, there's a pleasure in that."

His claw released the cell as he looked to it, and I charged forward with a silent flap of my wing, uncaring for his words. He seemed to be speaking like me, joking like me, acting in a way unlike a dragon.

The voice had been right.

"So why have you come here, dragon?" As'gar asked with his eyes closed, laughing louder than before—bloated by a powerful reason as well. His claw slapped her cell, which spun and swung, throwing the princess against the bars. "Don't tell me it's just to die. Because that would—"

I didn't give that piece of shit a chance to spout another word of bullshit as I pummelled my elbow into the side of his face, forcing his eyes to open and blood to spurt from his nose, the force throwing him to the left. I stomped my foot to the ground, stabilizing myself, clenching my stomach to maintain my hold.

Then I grabbed his head with my other claw, cocking my arm back before thrusting it forward, smashing his face into the back of his throne, again and again, uncaring of the red splashing across the cavern's walls.

After three smashes of his head against stone, I gasped for breath, choking from the exhaustion, as the other dragon held himself well in my hold. As'gar coughed, suffocating as well. It was followed by mad cackling, though, as he fished for words.

"Not... bad." As'gar wiped his mouth, and I let him, still catching my breath. "This is what I'd been waiting to see from you. What I had wanted you to do the moment I first stepped into your cave. But that breath you seemed to have lost." Something tickled and snapped and clenched to the back of my head, an arm that he had snuck behind my back. "Let me help you catch it!"

With a great force even I was incapable of, As'gar thrust me forward, with the strength of a giant, smashing my head against the wall, exploding stone across my face, creating a hole that locked me inside of it.

"He-heh... w-what's... what's the matter?" As'gar continued his laughter, muffled through the stone. "Able to attack... but still unable to sustain one?" Pulling my head from the crater, he thrust me into it again, with all his might, releasing me after I'd smacked into it.

Everything whirred within my vision, a constant rotation kept even with closed eyes. Pain blared inside my head as slices of blood stretched across my forehead. I stumbled back, wanting to vomit, to pass out to avoid the pain.

But my feet stomped into the ground as I drank the pain instead, unleashing another roar as more of my mind started to fade, that fire within... burning through my senses. Everything became straight as the corners of my vision warmed. I stomped forward again, charging after the golden dragon, seeing him wipe his muzzle.

"Is that how it's going to be?" he asked while cracking his neck, pebbles pouring from his neck, as he readied one fist into the palm of another. "You won't win this."

Both of us charged at the other with cocked fists, both willing to fight like humans for the moment, his left claw meeting my right claw in the middle, the force breaking through both of our arms. We recoiled a step, but stomped it back forward with another throw of a fist. We connected again, except we pressed our fists against each other this time.

"I might be a more slender dragon," As'gar started to roar as he panted as well, and we punched sanctimoniously, both of our fists meeting again. It became a test of strength, of endurance and might. We held at that moment, one not daring to give any ground. "But you're malnourished. Frail at the bones. What little muscle you have will squish as I break them!"

Blood and sweat poured over my eyes, but I couldn't wipe them away, forced to see through them. That ugly golden face loomed closer, like a snake flashing its tongue—before it went for the lunge. I knew not to listen to his words.

"I do enjoy pushing you to your limit... letting you come so close to victory." As'gar lowered his head, baring his fangs. "But this is a game of endurance. You won't hold. I'll—"

Without warning, As'gar lunged toward me, and, as he was lost in the movement, I brought my foot to the left of his legs—and swiped them from underneath him. His eyes widened upon being yanked backward. He slipped and fell, and I pulled back my claws as he instinctively reached for any sort of hold.

I obliged him by raising my left arm over my right shoulder and, clocking it right, knocking the back of my elbow into his face. The force knocked him to the ground, enough to bounce him to an explosion of stone beneath. It stole his breath, jarred him, as he struggled to find himself on the floor.

This is it. Do it! Stomp in his face until nothing remains!

I raised my foot over his form with all the weight buried in my leg, the repeated force that I would bring into his limp form, reducing him to various colours of mush. I imagined him without a face, skull and brain, caved in. The view horrified me at that moment. My leg hung in the air.

As'gar cackled on the ground.

"Fooool." Before I could react, his claws reached for me, one tearing into my ankle, the other claiming on my bottom. "Don't you know? Hesitation is deadly."

I was lifted into the air, struggling to find balance as I was picked up, As'gar rising beneath my body. I flared my wings helplessly as he curved me in the air and, with a thrust, drove my head with a crash into the cave's ground. My head broke against the stone, my neck, searing in pain, various cracks that snipped at my spine.

Momentum carried the rest of my body forward as it slammed against the ground. I repressed the urge to vomit, everything spinning. To move felt like turmoil in every regard possible. Sounds doubled. Footsteps: multiplied.

I nearly cried as I had failed, unsure if this was it.

"What a shame! You had it, too, if you were willing to forgo whatever would be crushed beneath your foot." I somehow rolled onto my stomach, fighting to straighten the world, to look ahead to my foe. I saw three of him, two forms floating around his walking frame, the cave starting to swirl. "Strength doesn't matter if you're not willing to use it. Power is irrelevant if you do not have the body to possess it."

I threw a claw forward, forcing my talons into the stone, pulling forward, even though doubt cooled my fire. Reality started to blend back in after my defeat. It had to be ignored, denied, in time of action. To have it constantly blaring would deprive one of victory.

But when you have failed, it returns with a vengeance, whispering all that you feared...

...now becoming a reality.

"Do you want to know how I came to learn of your princess? It was a curious request—something not often directed at dragons." I crawled forward, nearly puking as I did so, as As'gar limped to the back of the cave. "It was those pests who live beneath my mountain. Some of them had the gall not only to awaken me from slumber—but to request something of me as well."

As'gar reached the hanging cell of the princess, while I pulled myself forward again, trying to rise—but falling onto my chest. He chuckled at me before looking at the cage. It gripped with a claw again, squeezing it. "Those men were a lacklustre breakfast. But I listened to their plea all the same. Should they be willing to sacrifice themselves for a few words, well, then even I had to listen to them."

His left eye squeezed. "They seemed to believe that we had a pact of sorts. Don't know what gave them that impression. But I nodded so they would carry along. It was then they told me of the Emerald dragon's sudden activity. And how, no matter what, the princess had to be recovered unharmed.

As'gar held the cage against his chest, the bars creaking as they bent inward. I coughed out blood while rising on my knee. My head still throbbed and my vision pulsed. Everything inside of me swirled, and I wasn't sure if I had the willpower to straighten myself.

"I had thought, just as you might, that these were sweet creatures, wanting to rescue the maiden and return love across the lands." His laughter darkened into cackles. "But little did I know that those pests take after me after all! They offered me everything in their eventual power for her safe return."

He pulled the cell from his chest, crushing it further in his claw, the princess, in the middle, watching the bars close in. Astria shook her head and pushed her back against one side, placing one foot, then another, against the other side.

Even though it was pointless against such a great force, she chose to struggle anyway.

"For, after being returned to the prince, he would absorb her very existence and become powerful enough to rival even I." As'gar blew into full-blown madness as he howled, vibrating the cave, unloading loose debris. "You've gotta give it to a kid that offers you his men as a snack and asserts a promise like that! He even confessed to why we are all here. Why you, I, this princess, those two kingdoms... why we're all here on this stinking island!"

He spread his arms to the side in taking a stance, snapping the chains to the cell, holding it inside his claw. I tried to rise on my knee, but couldn't, only able to plant my other foot forward. As'gar watched my attempts.

"This island," he nearly spat, "of weaklings."