***
It was a week later when Bo went hunting again. He sensed that ground animals were becoming something of a mindless tedium at dinner, so he decided he’d go find some nesting quail for both fowl and eggs. He headed out to the fields where he and his wife would watch the sunset to search. The sun was beginning to set, and still Bo had not found his quarry. He wandered further still, out to the plains where he was sure he would find some of his prize. The trees groaned from the woods as a howling wind began to stir, and thunder cracked overhead. Determined to find something, he continued a bit further.
Sheets of rain began to fall before Bo decided that the hunt was off for today. Thunder cracked again, and he thought he heard something else in the rumble. He paused for a moment, letting himself get soaked as he listened under the wind and rain. The sound came again and sent him into a sprint for home.
His wife screamed.
Bo was a blur through the trees. He prepared his claws for a fight, and emerged in a moment at his grove to find the door of his house splintered on the ground and a creature stalking around outside. It looked like a large lizard, with black fur and red eyes and long legs that gave it an ungainly movement.
Bo shouted and leapt at the demon, catching it behind the head. He realized, as it attempted to snap back at him, that its muzzle glinted a damp scarlet, and its breath stank of decay.
With a well-placed strike to its throat, Bo dispatched the creature before running into his house. He stopped at the door frame as if it were a wall, putting his hand on it to support himself as his stomach flipped. “No,” he managed after a moment.
There was blood all over the kitchen.
“No.”
The stew put was boiling over.
“It can’t…”
Black fur was scattered around.
“You can’t…”
Olea was lying on the ground.
“You can’t leave me.”
Her eyes were open and blank.
“You can’t just leave like this.”
Her belly was ripped apart.
“You can’t just leave me!” Bo wailed. His knees gave out and he slid to the ground and stared at his wife, at the cavern in her body where his children once waited, through wavering vision. He wailed to her, the wind and rain drowning out his cries. He felt sick, from the sight, from the blood of his wife’s murderer on his hands.
“Why do I have to be alone?” he asked in a trembling whimper.
Because you were never supposed to be in the first place, something inside of him hissed back as thunder clapped.
He stared at Olea’s pale corpse, her beautiful face, once full of life and warmth, contorted in horror. He looked at her open belly and the blood that seemed to be everywhere, even on himself. The beast hadn’t just killed her; it had devoured her in the most barbaric way it could, ripping her apart from the center. It had only feasted from there.
His children. Twins. Like Olea, and like him.
He didn’t even have the bodies to bury.
Bo cried himself to sleep in the doorway, letting the storm drown everything out. When he woke, the morning was cold and gray. No birds sang. He looked at the kitchen; everything was as he’d last seen. He staggered to his feet and walked outside. The beast he’d killed was where he’d left it.
He passed through the woods without a word. No tears bothered him as he staggered through the trees, and his gut was tight. Even the air was stagnant.
Emerging through the forest at the hill where Olea and he so often watched the sunset, Bo let himself slide to the ground. He sat there, legs crossed, his blue cloak still over his back, and stared out toward the fleeing darkness of the night. It was some time before he dimly realized that something was poking him.
Bo reached into his boot to remove the irritant, finding his carving knife. The blade was sharp as he held it in his hand, fingering the tip with his thumb as he looked at the sky. The sun crept slowly across the heavens from behind him. I was used to being alone once. I don’t want to get used to it again.
Finally Bo came to a decision as he heard something like thunder approaching. He pressed the tip of the knife over his heart and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he drew it away from him. As he readied to break his own heart for the last time, the land shook beneath him, and his eyes flung open, the weapon falling from his hand.
Before him was a large beast, a huge golden eye on par with Bo’s hazel ones, an equine’s pupil in the center, its head turned like a bird’s. A single horn graced the middle of its forehead, an undulating ivory spear. The beast was covered in white fur, a long tail swishing behind it; not as though on a hunt, but more as in patience. Two large, feathered wings emerged from its back, arched peacefully. The only revealing feature of what lay beneath the behemoth’s fur was its lower jaw; it had no fur, and instead lay beset with black scales.
Bo sat like a statue and looked into the dragon’s eye. They stared at each other for some time before one spoke.
“You are sad,” came a breathless voice. Bo started. The beast had not moved its mouth, and the deep, calming voice had seemed to come from everywhere. “Why? What has moved you to believe your life has no worth?”
“I am alone,” Bo replied, his voice trembling. A tear fell from his eye as his heart ached. The dragon tilted its head.
“I am also alone. Why is this so sad? Many creatures live alone.”
Bo shook his head, closing his eyes. He saw Olea’s face, alive and happy. “I am not alone by choice. My family was killed.” Never again would he see that smile.
“That is sad. But, you are not your family.” Bo looked at the dragon, furrowing his brow and scowling. “You have a purpose.”
“What? To be a monster, and to live my life alone? I would rather finish what I started.” Bo turned his gaze to the fallen blade for a moment.
“No!” The dragon said, attracting Bo’s gaze again. Then, “I have seen it. You have a duty to fulfill. It is why I am here.”
“A duty?” Bo asked.
“Yes. Do you think I would be here otherwise, talking to you in daylight where humans can see me?” Bo just blinked at him, skeptical.
“What duty do I have? Could I possibly have?”
“That of a mentor. There are others like you, you know. Others who do not understand themselves, who fear themselves. Who need to understand how to control what they’ve been given rather than hide from it. One in particular will need your guidance.”
“How can I help anyone? I am broken: look at me. Do I look like I can train anyone in anything but misery?” Bo clutched at his heart with his furred hand, his eyes pleading for release.
“Do not pity yourself. You had a family; that is more than some can say. Do you understand?”
Bo lowered his gaze to his lap. The dragon was right, as much as he was loathe to admit it.
“You knew joy, and you know control. Others need that. And would your family want you to join them so soon?” Bo thought back to the conversation that seemed lifetimes past already. I would wait. I am patient. And I could watch over you.
Olea would not want to watch Bo kill himself.
Finally, Bo shook his head. “No.”
“I expected not.”
Curiosity began to prick at Bo as he returned his knife to his boot, glancing up to the dragon. “Who needs me?”
“One who is not yet born. You will meet him if you look for him, but you will have to live until then. Do you understand?” Bo nodded. “Good. This boy will be important. He will be a new breed; an alteration to the rule.”
“Rule? What rule?”
“The rule of mixed blood.” The dragon seemed to gather its thoughts for a moment, closing its eyes. “The rule that says that a half-breed will show both sides. The rule that says that if demon blood fights for its place, it will always win. This rule—the one your body so obligingly accepts.” Bo removed his left arm from his lap as the dragon opened its eyes again and turned
them to it.
“So, he is… not yet born?”
“No. And he will remain as such for a long, long time. You will need patience.” The dragon’s eye seemed to search Bo for something—seemed to expect something.
“I will wait.” The dragon lifted its head and nodded, content to simply lie beside Bo and look at the sky. Bo finally heard the birds in the trees.
“Good. Now, what is your name?” The dragon glanced at Bo and swiftly turned away, avoiding eye contact.
Bo gave him a skeptical look, but was mildly amused, despite the new emptiness that still throbbed within him. “You know so much about me and my future, but you do not know my name?”
“I am prophetic, but this does not mean I am omnipotent.”
“Then, I am Boelik.”
“Boelik? You seem as though the name is estranged.”
“I have been called…something else by my wife these last five years.”
“I see. So you are returning to who you were before, are you?” The dragon stared him down now, anticipating his answer.
“For now. But I will remember what she taught me.”
The dragon nodded. “Remembering is good. Never forget, even the things that hurt. In fact, those are the most important to remember.”
“I know,” Boelik sighed. He then turned his gaze up to scrutinize the beast before him. “And who are you? And, after that, what are you? You seem like a dragon…almost.”
The beast snorted. “My name is Dayo. I am a unicorn-dragon.”
“A unicorn-dragon?” The very thought of such a creature made Boelik snort in amusement.
“Laugh if you please. But my mother was a dragon and my father a unicorn.” Dayo shifted in place, and seemed to set his jaw. It was difficult to tell under the fur.
“I’m sorry,” Boelik apologized, though now he was more amused—if only by the dragon’s pouting. He saw Dayo relax some. The two sat and watched as the sun burned through the dreary clouds, bits and pieces of its rays reaching the ground near them. Eventually they both fell asleep.
Boelik woke underneath of a heavy layer of feathers. He shimmied his way out and saw the dragon sleeping. “Dayo?” he asked softly. It was getting to be evening. “Dayo?” The dragon’s eyes flew open and darted to Boelik, their gaze immediately softening.
“Boelik. What is it?”
“I need to bury my wife. And I need to know—should I stay here? Is there any reason?” Dayo raised his head and swung it over to Boelik.
“Unless you want to stay near your wife’s corpse, no. There is not any reason for it. And I doubt your wife would want you to stay just so you can be near her bones. Let her body fall to nature: you can live and keep her alive in your memory.”
Boelik nodded and got up, guilt and relief swirling inside him. “I understand.” Then a nagging curiosity caught his tongue. “Also, how do you speak?”
Dayo rumbled, and Boelik discovered that it was a laugh as a wave of foreign amusement ran through him. “I use a method that allows me to connect with another’s mind and speak.”
“I see.” He didn’t understand, but he had enough of an idea. Magic.
“Is that all?”
Boelik nodded. “I believe so.” And he turned away.
“Oh, and Boelik?” Dayo said as Boelik began to walk away.
“Yes?” Boelik asked, turning back around.
“If you happen to find any demons and kill them, it is best to erase evidence of their existence. Demons are attracted to carcasses of their fellows. And…” Dayo said, hesitating for a moment. “…the human race is fragile-minded; demons and dragons are falling to myth. It may be best to keep it that way. You understand?”
Boelik gazed at Dayo for a moment before answering. “Yes, I understand.”
Boelik walked back to his grove and his house. He brought out his wife, carrying her like the day he first brought her home. Boelik carried her to the hill and laid her there while he dug her grave with his bare hands. Dayo was long gone.
Once the soft dirt covered Olea for her eternal rest, Boelik went back to the house and dragged the dead demon inside.
He moved to his shed, removing his beige cloak and putting dried meat in it in a bundle. After he was finished, he looked at the garden, at the home he’d made for himself and then at the one he’d made for more. And he set it all on fire.
Glowing ashes lit up the sky like smoldering stars as they rose. Screams echoed in Boelik’s head, and crickets outside of it. Staring, he watched for another few moments as the fire burned all that he’d known for the last five years. The first place he’d deigned to call ‘home’ since he’d been a child. The first place in a long time where he felt loved. And then he pulled his cloak tighter and walked away, letting the fire consume all evidence of his life there.
That night, he sat in the calm breeze by Olea’s grave and whittled until the sun rose. In the morning, he took his supplies and checked on the forest to make sure his fire eliminated everything it should have. It had, and only just: the rain before had prevented its spread. Boelik left the pile of coals behind, walking over to his creek and looking down at it for one last time as his shadow passed over.
He eventually ended up at Helena’s house. Outside of her door he placed his night’s work—a small wooden fox. With that done, he left the forest for the last time, headed away from the village.
The trees moaned behind Boelik as he left their protection once and for all. He glanced back at them for a moment before turning around and putting the hood of his navy cloak up and walking away. He did not look back again.