The beast hissed, its claws enveloping you, “Many humans have tried to bargain with me. Some offered gold for their life, others companionship…. even love. What useless thing will you try to offer me for yours?”
The serpent came into the valley when the seasons sharpened like a knife. At first it feasted on livestock that strayed too far from the homesteads, but as the months grew shorter its appetite only grew until it was not content with mere calves and the occasional ewe.
In the dark shadow of its wingspan ten houses could fit. It descended upon the hills and swooped low with a body longer than the longest road, carrying off their shepherds and millers in its claws. The sound of screams grew all too common.
Your mother locked all the windows and doors, keeping you all in once your brother failed to return from the butcher one spring day. He was the eldest of so many little sisters in a house with no father, but he loved them all twice as well and would never have dreamed of straying from the path of his return.
He was not the only one who failed to find his way home. Neighbors and friends all shared the same terrible fate.
Without bones to bury, hope festered in your blood until it turned caustic. Cousin after cousin went up the mountain with their swords and their pitchforks, emboldened by the stories and desperate with soured hope.
No one returned.
Foreign knights rode in on brilliant horses, but none ever returned. Magic casters with parties of stalwart friends adventured up in lively groups, only to never be heard from again. In the beginning you had believed it was only because these adventurers were not strong enough, and you all just needed to hold out until the strongest one came to your valley, but eventually this hope soured too.
“You should not fight against it, but speak with it,” a visiting sorcerer proclaimed, standing up in the village square. “I possess no great combative powers but I can do what others could not, I can speak with the beast. I can strike a bargain with it.”
Few believed in the man but he was given a house, one that no longer had a family to clean its chimney, and some meager funds to pay for his services the first night. Unperturbed by the lackluster welcome, the visiting sorcerer shut himself up and prepared his space for the ritual with precious crystals and candles that burned purple smoke. No one thought much more of his promises, but everyone heard the roaring from the dragon that night.
True to his word, no more people were taken off the road. A week passed and there was a terrible, bitter hope that began to bloom between the people. Each night the sorcerer performed his ritual and each night the dragon agonized but never came down the mountain.
“But this will not last forever. I am bargaining with him, but he will soon demand a payment for his patience,” the magic caster explained.
Anyone with a loved one asked him what they could do with the same, desperate eagerness.
“I will speak with him once more tonight, but my lodgings are meager and the magic is exhausting. I should require fatty meat and strong ale and a fine house to cast my magic.”
That’s how it began.
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