The War General

25

Ivy.

Five-year-old Ivy stood in the middle of a black abyss surrounded by thick dark clouds of nothingness. Beneath her feet were the wild waves of a tsunami that had swept her under. But now that the storm had settled, she was pulled to the surface finally able to breathe again. It was not hot or cold, nor was there light seeping through the black sky as she looked around in fear. She was lost, scared and frightened as to how she had gotten here. She wanted to get out, to jump into the bed of her mother and father. To cry and tell them the bad dream about her being all alone. They would comfort her, coddle her and tell her everything would be ok. That it was just a bad dream and none of it was real.

Tears began to spring from her eyes as she began to travel forward, each step she took caused a ring of water to ripple beneath her tiny foot.

"Mommy? Daddy, where are you?" Her quiet, frightened voice echoed so softly. "I'm scared, I don't want to be alone again." She says thinking back to the time her mother locked her in the closet for missing a step during ballet practice. Rose had perfected the dance weeks ago while Ivy was still struggling to point her toes properly. It was clear that Ivy was no ballet dancer.

"Next time you let those girls in your class outshine you, you won't be coming out for a week. Now be a good girl and sit quietly, your father will check on you later... I love you." With that her mother shut the door and scared of a punishment worse than the next she sat quietly in the closet with her head between her legs crying.

"She still loves me." Ivy remembered saying. "She does it because she loves me."

"Please, I promise I'll do better." The little girl sobbed as she wrapped her arms around herself searching for a comforting warmth. "I'll be a good girl, just like daddy says."

Five-year-old Ivy found herself walking for hours and when her feet began to hurt and her lungs began to tire, she took a seat on the water.

She cried in her hands for many hours.

No one was coming to save her, no one was coming to protect her from the darkness, no one was coming with a guiding light to bring her back home.

Suddenly the water underneath her feet began to vibrate and she could feel the still air pick up around her. The wind whipped through her short curly afro, a cause from getting a sickness that fell over her father's kingdom. Amongst many other symptoms her hair had fallen out causing her mother to cut it short.

Ivy lifted her head and wiped the tears from her eyes, the most beautiful creatures stood before her watching her weep.

Dragons.

There was a red one, scales the color of a flame with eyes like molten lava that seemed to glow in the dark. There were bones sticking from its head covered in skin and in the shape of a melting crown. The other stood beside the red one, this one a grayish blue that reminded Ivy of a foamy sea. Their eyes were the same color as their skin and the crown they wore on their head was sharp and pointed with jagged edges.

"Ivy." The deep voice that fell upon her ears was omniscient, coming from every which way. Yet she knew it was the red dragon that was speaking to her.

Her eyes widen as she sat there rigid unsure of what to do. She had never seen a dragon before and this one scared her. "P-please don't hurt me." Her little voice wavers.

"We are not here to hurt you." The dragon assures her by bowing its head. "We are only here to warn you of the dangers ahead."

Ivy sat on her knees with her hands touching the water, she looks up at the dragons curiously wiping the tears from her eyes.