#this song broke me i am dead deceased screaming crying throwing up | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alizaarches · 7 years

Quote

Growing up, Gin had heard the tales of the dragons of old—how creatures with teeth sharpened like razors and the size of small garbage trucks hunted the land with a vengeance unparalleled to anything seen before. Monsters the length of Shanghai Tower roaming with enough passion to fill the books of Gin’s ancestors. Gin was taught by her grandfather to never trust a dragon. Originally, she’d believed the statement to be a metaphor, in the same way humans were called rats and snakes, but no; he’d meant actual, literal dragons. The beginning of Gin’s bizarre existence took place in a small town in Japan, a long time ago. Her mother gently stroked Gin’s hair as she sang the stories of faraway lands and legendary princesses, while her father handed her a katana and whispered a blessing of good fortune in three dead languages. Her grandfather, full of grief from losing his wife, smiled sadly at her, telling her how much she looked like her namesake, how exactly is the perfect way to sharpen her sword (which was more helpful than the solemn silence of her father), and how to perform a three-fingered gesticulation that wards off dragons. Gin shook her head to get rid of those thoughts, and promptly slammed into a telephone pole. She cried out, gripping her forehead, glancing up from her romance novel, glaring at the pole like it had attacked her. She huffed, put The Ace of Hearts into her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. She walked around the post and continued strolling down the sidewalk with her head held up high. Joking around, she started dancing dorkily to the music in her earbuds, twisting her feet together and falling on her face. She laughed, rolling her eyes at herself, and twisting onto her side to push herself back up. Instead of pulling off the epidemy of grace she so obviously was, she turned her head and made eye contact with huge, bright yellow irises. She screamed, scrambling away from the storm drain, staring in absolute horror. Black pupils in the center of lightbulb eyelets observed her, looking Gin up and down as if calculating the potentiality of a threat, and ducked beneath the grate once more. Gin sat on her hip, panting like she’d freshly run a marathon, and wondered if she’d read too much fantasy. She looked down at her palms, steadying herself, and stood. She picked up her backpack from where she’d dropped it, glanced back at the home of the giant egg yolks, and kept on marching. She plugged back in her songs of the wild and went back to dreamland. Gin wished she could dive back into her card game book—she was just getting to the part where the professional gambler throws a match of poker for the woman he loves—but the road home required many roadway intersection, and she’d rather not get run over by moderately quick vehicles. She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets and attempted to avoid any ponderings of her grandfather, which of course meant she could only think of him. Her mind was filled with the fondness in his voice when he spoke of shenanigans he ensued when he was younger (including a swordfight with Grandmother’s brother, an attempted burglary of his motorbike, and a bratwurst Japanese nun party); the smile on his face when he flipped through old scrapbooks of past memories with him and his deceased spouse; the crinkles of the corners of his eyes when he retells the childhood of his eldest daughter, Gin’s mother. Gin missed her grandfather so much. She looked down at the concrete: one foot in front of the other—left, right, left, right. Watch the breaks in the sidewalk, follow the straight line. She stopped dead. She shut her eyes, a tear crawling passed her willpower. In her heart—her Ace of Hearts (okay, she’ll stop now)—she knew her grandpa was happy, satisfied; he’d missed his Gin (the original one) more than anything, even more than non-crooked legs and the adventure of youth. Gin the Second knew he was content in being buried next to the love of his life. But sometimes she’d catch her mom look at her wedding photo—the two most important men in her life on either side, all smiling like idiots—and fiddle with her Years of Life bracelet: silver, like Gin’s name. Gin knew she wasn’t the only one who missed Grandpappy Kei, but from how her family avoided his death like a forest fire, sometimes it felt that way. She sighed shakily. Crying wasn’t going to bring him back, and she’d had plenty of time to grieve. Her dark eyes hardened, and she, determined, thought, “I am stronger than his. Grandfather taught me better than this.” She forced her legs to move in the familiar path to her cottage through the square. She brushed her fingertips against passing mailboxes and store windows to get a better grip on reality. She reached a fork in the road—she could either go the longer, more wiry direction with heavier traffic and more people that could notice a tearstain and report it to her parents like the police, OR she could go through the peaceful, small patch of woods that could’ve housed Grandmother’s house. She chose the compact cluster of trees, thank you very much. Gin lowered the volume of her music just in case. She carefully breathed in the fresh air, a patch of non-toxified air in a town full of air pollution and quite a lot of gasoline. She raised her arm and touched the hanging trees of maple, beautiful in the weather of this time of year, blending in with the orchards of cherry blossoms and magnolias. The ground was invisible, covered in colorful fallen leaves. She adjusted the pack on her back and wondered that if she ran away from Casa de Mori, how long would she survive in this part of the woods? How long would it take before the authorities found her? Before anyone found her? To her right, a branch cracked. She froze. With the caution of prey to an unknowing hunter, she turned her head, slowly. For the second time that day, she found herself staring into eyes the color of the smiling yellow sun she’d used to draw in the corner of prepubescent illustrations. The creature glowered back, fearlessly, and raised its head in a show of dominance—a challenge. Gin broke eye contact in response. Instead, she stretched her neck to examine its body; she wasn’t sure what she was expecting. An owl the size of her bedroom? (No, its body was long, and lean, and it lacked the bodily feathers.) A Bombay cat? (The likeliest possibility, and even that was a stretch. A domestic animal prowling like its untamed counterpart in the woods? It also didn’t help that a Bombay cat could not possibly be the length of a pickup truck.) Gin moved her scrutiny further down its figure—a scaly, muscular spine with white spikes popping out like shark’s teeth; a tail, swinging, a weapon curling gracefully like the smooth agility of a feline; a form so dark it blended in with the shadows of maple trees (noticeable by the black spot on the otherwise very pinkish reddish earth); legs the height of the pole Gin had run into; and wings the size of a man’s parachute, as leathery and inky as the raisins of her homeland, relaxed in the way the calm before a storm was relaxed—an uneasy stillness before the ball will drop. The beast took a careful step into the light—a very minute spot uncovered by the canopy of branches overhead. Gin’s eyes widened. It was—predictable, because her life was as ironic as the soap operas her mother loved to watch, minus the secret incest and bastard children from illegitimate sibling/spouse/parent/person—a dragon, matching the pictures from Grandmother Gin’s tomes of folklore perfectly. Its razorlike teeth was covered by an unintimidating close-lipped smile, and its lightbulb irises closed as it bent its head over in a show of docility, seeming to only want peace with the human girl with clumsy tendencies and long, dark hair. Beware of the legends her grandfather drilled into her naïve little-girl brain of malicious dragons, Gin gulped. She tightened her grip on her backpack straps, and walked forward, as softly and as docile as the dragon itself. Dragging her feet on the ground, she could only hear the dragon’s breathing, the sole sound in a silent forest. She reached up, a pale arm outstretching in a gesture of trust. Inwardly, she was screaming at herself—a single signal of ceasefire from an intelligent monster (who could be tricking her into becoming willing prey, casually strolling into her own death) and she was going to possibly very eagerly sacrifice her own limb? Too late now. “Hi,” said Gin. “Please don’t kill me.” The dragon opened one eye and glanced at her like it was questioning her intellect. If it had eyebrows, it would’ve totally raised it at her with enough sass one could convey with an eyebrow. Her hand touched its jaw, gentle, apprehensive. It leaned into her touch. A glare of light reflected into Gin’s iris, making her startle. She frowned, before ducking her head slightly. A collar was wrapped tightly around the dragon’s neck, with a silver nameplate engraved with affection: ASA. “Asa,” Gin whispered. “Like the flower? The Morning Glory—Asagao?” The dragon—now known as Asa, a feminine name, so Gin assumed the dragon was female—shook her head. Gin wondered what Asa stood for, but dismissed it, blaming her deadly curiosity. She’d never been able to resist a good mystery, and typically drove herself insane while trying to solve the enigma. She stroked Asa’s scales like she was petting a puppy. In comfort, the dragon yawned, showing off her long, triangular white-gold fangs. Gin’s heart climbed into her throat—her grandfather. The thousands of times he’d spent his life describing to Gin every menacing detail of a dragon’s claws, of the wide, intelligent catlike eyes, of the teeth sharpened like razors, ready to bite anything and everything in half, taking pleasure in doing so. Asa sensed her discomfort, and nudged her, purring. Gin could only mindlessly caress her backarmor, flashing back to happier times, where her family wasn’t grieving, and her life wasn’t a series of ones and zeroes—coded, replaceable, and predictable. “Where did you come from?” Gin forced herself to ask, swallowing back the urge to start running. Scurrying away from a dragon like a frightened deer would not solve anything, especially with a creature that could chew her up and spit her out. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?—If a girl screams in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does she still die? Asa nuzzled her hand for her attention, and answered her question, glancing up to the sky with lightbulb irises. Gin nodded. “I should’ve guessed. Can you imagine Sensei Mei’s face if a dragon strolled into the Plaza? Walked straight into the Ki’s without a single—er, roar? Do you guys roar?” Gin got chatty when she was nervous. It was a Mori thing. Asa blinked slowly at her, one eye at a time. Asa turned her massive body around in a circle and sat down like a dog, her fat legs stretching out as a pillow for her resting head. A dragon trusted her—why? How did the monster know Gin wouldn’t be cruel to her? Wouldn’t hook her nameplate and sell it to the nearest shady buyer? Wouldn’t survive if Asa attacked her, and throw her backpack as a distraction, run back to the Plaza and scream for the Dragon Hunter crew? Gin smiled a little, ironically. The Dragon Hunters were a story her grandfather used to tell her—ethereal warriors made specially to protect the world from dragonkind. Along with the stories of Clarity’s Lover; The Killer, Master, Brother; and What One Gives (the written tales of a woman falling in love as a girl, growing up, and returning “home” to discover her former lover was blinded by the one he trusted most; that of a man who’s only solace in life is his sister, does whatever it takes to save her from herself, including murder and training someone to do his bidding; and that of a guardian angel who falls for a human—figuratively—and gives everything for him, only for him to point a weapon her in face. There are different versions, the American movie version says a gun, the traditional version says a Kama, the odd remake from Spain just claims he strangles her with his garrote wire—and kill her), the Dragon Hunters was a legend, a story told down through generations. Gin really wasn’t sure why those myths were the details she thought of as she contemplated why she’d earned a dragon’s trust, but she was told before she could never truly focus on one thing, always having a wandering mind. With Asa sitting directly in front of her, as innocent as a puppy and as intelligent as an owl, it probably wasn’t a death wish to drift off into dreamland again. Gin knelt. She stroked the head of a dragon. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry. I zoned out, right? My family calls it my ‘dreamland look’. They say I daydream for longer than normal person does, usually at ten minutes a time. I don’t ever realize I’m doing it. I just think, and apparently that’s weird.” She sighed, shaking her head. “You don’t care, do you?” She grinned self-deprecatingly. Gin had a realization. “Huh. I never told you my name.” For some reason, Asa perked up at that. “Yeah? You want to know my name?” For the first time, Asa the Dragon looked shy. She nodded, reluctantly. “Okay.” Gin pet her. “Well, my name is Mori Gin, I’m a Sagittarius, and I like hot chocolate.” Asa glanced up. Her eyes, yellow as a Tokyo Banana, looked almost human, if without a natural coloring. Abruptly, and very, very unexpected, a voice popped into her head, as clear as the music in her headphones: “I am Asa, and I am a Virgo.” Gin stared, shocked. “Did you just—?” Gin asked the dragon. “Did you just TALK TO ME?” Reasonably, she was freaking out, if more mentally than physically. Because, as everyone is aware, dragons cannot talk. “Or am I going insane?” which was another option. “You are not going insane,” said Asa, gruff and fiery, which was what a dragon’s voice apparently sounded like. “You told me who you are.” “I … I told you my name!” “It qualifies.” “‘Qualifies’!” “Yes. My former handlers … well, they manipulated my neural programming so I can only speak when someone introduces themselves to me. And for being what I am… . My handlers wanted me under a leash, to say the least.” Gin’s stomach dropped. “Asa, what is your name short for?” Asa looked down at her claws. “Asashin.” “‘Assassin’. Your name is ‘Assassin’.” “Yes. My handlers were not kind people. They intended to make me into a monster. You know what that feels like, I think.” Gin’s jaw clenched. “I have many questions. Who are your handlers? Why do they want to make you into an assassin? Why are you here? Where did you come from? What do you want from me?” “I do not want anything from you.” With a single thought to the grandfather that taught her everything she knew, she spoke a prayer, apologizing, for she knew he was all but throwing a riot in his double gravestone, Gin made a decision she knew she’d either completely regret, or thank herself forever for doing so. “Can I ask a favor?” “That depends on the favor, Miss Mori.” Gin smiled. (I’m sorry, Grandfather.) “I want to fly.”

The Dragon Rider, by alizaarches

Hello everyone. Guess who’s back, back, back! Back again! Anyway, I decided to try to write my first sequel. This is the sequel to The Dragon Hunter, with Naomi. This time we follow a girl named Gin, and she just wants to fly (because the word “ride” has been ruined for me).

Again, I just want to stress I do not want to be offensive. This is only briefly based on Japanese culture. This one takes place in Japan, but I sincerely do not mean offense. I simply wanted to write some fun fantasy, with weird relatable protagonist and a puppylike pet dragon.

Asa was inspired by the dragons Aithusa (Merlin, the TV Show), Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon), and Bombay cats. You could probably tell the similarities. I also made somewhat subtle and also non-subtle references to fandoms. I’ll let you guess which ones.

3 notes · View notes