Blue Flames- Prologue: Monsters and Goddesses

He wasn’t going to kill her; he knew that much before he’d even begun hunting her down. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do it, but the idea just didn’t sit well with him. After all, the war, the destruction, and the chaos she had caused were taking place in order for her to take back what was rightfully hers. “If anyone has the right to destroy the earth, it would be the deity who created it in the first place,” he reasoned. Still, he would have to stop the goddess from achieving her goal; there was no question about that.

It had taken him years to design the trap, decades to construct it, and centuries for him to get her to fall for it. In that time he had chased her around the globe, through forests and meadows, sprawling cities and bone-dry deserts, over treacherous mountains and into the vast abysses of the sea. Finally, he had her right where he wanted her.

“Vengarteria!” he cried, his voice reverberating off of the cold, cavernous walls and echoing into nothing. He stepped further into the cave, and the sunlight from the entrance behind him faded into complete darkness. His sapphire eyes and midnight blue scales began to glow faintly, allowing him to navigate the twisting tunnels running deep into the earth. A low, unearthly voice called to him in the creeping darkness. Despite the cavern, the voice did not echo at all; he heard it only in his mind.

“Dear grandson, do you seek death?” Vengarteria hissed, “How could you be so foolish as to seek me here, in my own lair? Only my minions and I reside here, and you will surely die!”

He had known for some time while traversing the caverns that her monsters were watching him through the dark. They were everywhere, in every rocky crevice and around every corner. He couldn’t see them, but they had to be there; this was their domain, after all.

“If it is truly so easy to vanquish me here,” he retorted, “why haven’t you done so yet? Admit it, foul spirit, you fear me!”

His retort was met only by silence. Even the constant drip of water from the ceiling seemed to all but halt at his words. He felt the weight of the silence as dread creeped across his scales, making him shiver with anticipation and fear. Suddenly, he found himself being bombarded by creatures of darkness from every direction. All he could hear over the monstrous roars was the sound of the Earth Mother cackling at him in the depths of his mind as her minions overwhelmed him and took him captive.

While they pinned down his wings and dragged his massive body deeper into the earth, he lamented that they were so close to the surface. He didn’t want to risk some unwary creature stumbling into this den of evil.

“I’ll have to ensure that this place is closed off from the outside world somehow,” he thought.

Vengarteria’s laughter slowly began to silence in his mind the longer he offered no resistance to his feeble captors. He felt her probing his mind for his scheme, but he had hidden and protected it within the recesses of his mind where it would be nearly impossible to reach, even for someone of her power. The more time that passed the more desperate she became to break the vault of his mind, but he kept her out with ease.

Finally, her dark minions had brought him far enough into the earth that even if he were to escape from them, getting out of the underground labyrinth would be nearly impossible without also being recaptured. Of course, when he inevitably defeated their master her minions would be rendered useless and scatter like rats.

“Set him down, and guard every route out of here!” Vengarteria announced, this time her voice echoing just like all the other sounds in the cave. They obeyed, and he was finally free to stretch his neck and tail for a moment before what was sure to be the final showdown between himself and his grandmother – the being who had made the earth and all life on it so many eons ago.

“What are you hiding from me, little dragon?” she asked. “I must admit, I am curious.”

“Only my plan to defeat you for eternity,” he replied with false confidence. He had never seen her in the flesh before, and he was absolutely terrified, although perhaps “in the flesh” wasn’t entirely correct. Vengarteria, as she was known to all who were knowledgeable of such things, was a life without body, without form. She faded in and out of existence as she pleased and answered to no one. She was a goddess, and here she was before him; a swirling, glowing mass of green and black and brown plasma.

She cackled again, hovering closer and engulfing his body in her gaseous being. Suddenly he found himself in the realm of his mind; an archive filled with maps, with books, with memories and history, and his whole being condensed into boxes and shelves. There, in the center of it all, was a vault made of blue flames, which he himself had constructed. Vengarteria tried to open the vault, smashing into it over and over again, but to no avail. In his mindscape she had taken on a new form; a corpulent old woman with black skin and green hair and eyes. His form, too, appeared human. He was instantaneously teleported next to her, and next to the vault. “Open it! Open it now or I will kill you from the inside!” she shrieked.

“You’ll kill me regardless, so why should I give you my best kept secret?” he shouted back. Agonizing pain blasted through him, forcing him to his knees. He could faintly detect the sensation of his body sprawled out on the cave floor, laying in a puddle. Insatiable burning raked his body and mind. For a moment it made him wish that he wasn’t immortal.

“Alright! I’ll give you the key!” he wailed in agony. The horrible searing ceased, and he held out to her a flaming blue key. She snatched it from him and unlocked the vault as quickly as she could, rushing into it all at once. She was puzzled to find that it was empty. Then the door shut behind her and the locks clicked back into place.

Immediately he found himself in the real world again, still laying on the floor of the cave. Before him was a barred cage made of swirling, bright blue flames. Only moments ago the cage had been a vault, and he had summoned it from the depths of his mind into reality with his foe still trapped inside. She said nothing, and he took her silence to mean victory. She was trapped, he had won, and that was that.

“You think that I will be merciful toward you for not killing me, don’t you?” she asked, “You cannot possibly be so naive as to think this cage will hold me forever.”

“Well, considering that I am the only one who has the power to free you - which I never will - yes, I do think that this cage will hold you forever,” he replied smugly.

“Just as insolent as the day you were born,” she tsked, “what a foolish little dragon you are. There may be no one else of your power now, but there will be someday. I see it as clearly as I see you before me now, and I will prophesy it to you!”

The caged deity absorbed every speck of light in the room, as if she radiated darkness, until the cavern seemed to disappear entirely and the two stood facing each other in an empty void. She began to expand and fill her cage until it seemed to creak with the task of containing her. Her voice rang both in the room and all through his mind so that it was inescapable.

“You will produce two offspring, yes, two heirs to the power of the blue flames! One will ally themselves to me and rescue me from my confinement, and their body shall be a greater vessel to me even than you once were! The other heir will try to kill me and their sibling, but only one of them may stand, and their battle will be so great and vicious and mighty that it shall determine the fate of the whole earth!”

Without another word to his enemy, the mighty blue dragon, sole wielder of the blue flames, climbed back up out of the cavernous maze and into the open air and moonlight. He flew away to rejoin the other gods who had aided him in the task of vanquishing their maker.