This week on Odd Prompts, I challenged Cedar Sanderson to tell us what’s hidden amongst the wildly patterned tiles. My prompt came from Becky Jones, who asked me to explain the horrifying sight of a dragon carrying a human.
Flemming scowled at her easel and bit her lip, letting out an unladylike snort. She didn’t know why the view wasn’t magically transposing itself onto the canvas. The view itself was exceptional, after all.
She stood on a stone balcony several hundred years old, with enough wear to make it nostalgic and feel like home but not enough that one had a sense of danger. The balcony itself had graceful pillars that arched, supporting a roof loosely woven of grapevines. Careful pruning of the natural lattice by the gardener meant filtered daylight shone through, perfect for midmorning painting.
Roses twined up the stone legs of Flemming’s distant ancestor, buds opening layers of shell-pink with centers of a pale yellow reminiscent of aged books. Their scent wafted sweet and floral from his endless watch over the stairs to the grounds below. The balcony’s ivory stone railing overlooked a view to the orchards, next to herb and vegetable gardens that were laid out with mathematical precision.
Beyond, a valley filled with shades of green now that the last of the morning fog had slowly disappeared, overpowered by gentle sunrays and soft light. Moving splotches of white sheep roamed in the distance, urged on by spotted dogs and the children deemed responsible enough to move past egg collection and message delivery duties. Mountains covered in a mix of towering evergreens loomed in the distance, jagged under an open azure sky. A deep blue river bisected the scene, its meandering path burbling and life-giving.
In short, Flemming could not ask for a more picturesque setting for her new hobby. It would, however, help if her new hobby would cooperate.
Palette in her left hand, she took an exaggerated step toward the canvas, currently filled with splotches of approximately the correct color in each location. Biting her lip, she extended an arm, paintbrush tapering to a blob of paint, and stabbed at the work. It left an emerald streak behind.
Baring her teeth in a rictus grin, she tilted her head and squinted luminous, faceted eyes toward the new addition. Yes, that was better. Extending the palette like a shield, she smashed the brush through the next color and continued, tail twitching merrily.
An hour later, she had both made progress on the painting and frightened one of the gardeners into fainting. And – Flemming stopped with a jerk that nearly put a mountain in the wrong place. She’d painted Giselle into the sky without meaning to do so, but with one horrifying addition.
She glanced up. Yes, there was her friend, winging her way inbound, presumably for the landing area near the statue of Great-Uncle Fjorinak.
Flemming hissed, and steam came from her ears. There was a human on Giselle’s back! An abomination, intolerable, an insult to all dragonkind. Her tail lashed rapidly against the stone floor, scales flashing in the filtered sunlight.
She tossed the palette aside. It landed against the balcony with such force it shattered into several pieces, smearing paint against the pale stone. Brush still in hand, she stomped over to the landing pad.
“What is the meaning of this?” she shouted at her friend, and then drew in her breath, horror-struck.
Giselle looked at her miserably, thick rope twisted around her body. “This idiot tried to lasso me, Flem. Like a common cow. Not even from the good herd for feast days. Like the cull herd that always has at least one calf accidentally drown itself.”
“You’re not cull herd,” Flemming protested automatically, staring with unblinking amber eyes. Her paintbrush dangled loosely from her claws.
From Giselle’s crimson side, a human covered in metal banged her ribs with a sword. “Stop that, you little twerp,” she snapped.
“Did the human keep doing that while you were in the air?” Flemming asked curiously. “He must not want to live.”
Giselle snorted. “Well, I’ve brought you a snack, then. Get me out of these ropes, would you? And what were you doing when I winged in? You looked like you were fencing with a board.”
Flemming’s mouth gaped open with toothy grin, similar to the one that had caused the gardener to faint earlier. “I’ve taken up painting,” she said proudly.
The metal-clad human stopped banging on Giselle’s ribcage and turned his head toward the sapphire dragon. Flemming glared into the darkened visor. “Do you have opinions, human snack?”
“I’d love to see your work,” Giselle said warmly. “But after you get me out of these ropes. Flem, please.”
“Of course,” Flemming said. She set the paintbrush at the statue’s feet and moved over, slashing a claw at the ropes.
Giselle sighed in relief as the tangled ropes came free and piled at her talons.
Her free hand snagged the metal human’s shoulder as he got to his feet. She pushed him toward Giselle, claws digging into the pauldron with the creak of tearing metal. “Here’s your snack.”
“Our snack,” Giselle said. “You can have the head. Now, let’s see this painting –”
“Wait, wait, wait, hang on,” Marcus said, interrupting his older sister’s tale. “Dragons can’t paint. This whole story is ridiculous.”
“Of course they can,” Sarah insisted from her lofty eleven-year-old viewpoint. “They have the internet. She watched instructional videos.”
“Fine,” he said with a grumble, breaking off a piece of his cookie and leaving crumbs on the table. “Dragons can have art. But knights are s’posed to win.” Marcus stuffed the cookie in his mouth.
“Not from the dragons’ point of view,” Sarah pointed out primly. She eyed his crumbs with distaste and picked up her own gingerbread man, careful not to smudge the frosting.
He grabbed a second cookie and frowned up at her with grumpy brown eyes. “The knight’s not a snack.”
Sarah dunked her gingerbread man into a glass of milk head first. “Isn’t he?” She bit off the head before it could disintegrate and gave her little brother a toothy smile.
Marcus’ eyes lit up. Smashing the cookie down on the low table, he let out an earsplitting roar. “Let’s play dragon next!”
