Storm Bringer

Nathan tucked the bundle delicately down into his pack. The shop keep frowned down at him, ringing her cleaning rag in her hands and glancing out the window for the hundredth time since he had entered the shop.

               “I’ll be fine Jess, stop worrying.”

               “I can’t help it, it’s in my nature to worry. I’m a worrisome person. My mother said I was the most unnerved child she had ever seen. Slept with a lamp on until I was 14 years old ya know? I still do sometimes in fact,” Jess rambled as she bent down to fuss over Nathan’s cloak.

               “Stop clucking over him,” Brutus called from his work bench.

               Jess scowled down at Nathan’s boots as she repacked his bag again but didn’t give her husband even a glance over her shoulder, “The storms are getting worse out there. I heard two people were struck by lightning on the road. Right on the main road leading into town. Dead. They are just lucky their bodies weren’t sucked up by one of the tornados.”

               “Dead doesn’t sound very lucky,” Brutus said, this time drawing her gaze and ire. She lifted her polishing grease as if to throw it at him but Nathan drew her attention swiftly.

               “I go out into the Waste all the time but I promise to be safe. I do need to go before they close the gates though,” Nathan insisted as he hauled his bag up onto his shoulder, careful not to crush the parcel against his back.

               “How far is your walk?”

               “Not far.”

               “Can you be there before sundown?”

               “If I leave now…”

               “Maybe you should-“

               “Jess, that’s enough love. Let the poor man go before he decides not to shop here again,” Brutus said. Nathan gave him a thankful smile as he pushed open the door, Jess trailing behind him still frowning.

               “Okay but…”She said lifting a hand up to her round face seemingly trying to calm her own worries.

               “You have a new shipment of cloth coming in from the East soon right?”

               “Yes,” Jess said quietly.

               “Then I’ll be back for another order, save me the best fabric that comes in. Something in gold if you have it,” Nathan promised.

               “Don’t die, you’re our best customer,” Brutus called after him, holding a hand up to signal a goodbye.

Through the window Nathan could see Jess rush over to smack her husband across his shoulder for his callous, which made him smile. It was nice to have someone worry about him. Nathan had no family to speak of and no chance of getting a wife of his own. His employer would never allow it. Throughout Westcliff people were tying down displays, herding livestock into shelter, and latching heavy, oak wood shutters across their windows to try and ready their houses for the onslaught of storms that plagued the region nightly. The western lands had always been subjected to turbulent weather but the storms had been getting worse and more frequent over the last decade.

Nathan managed to make it through the walls just before they closed for the night. Outside of the protection of the city the wind whipped at him mercilessly. He pulled his scarf into place over his face to help protect it from getting chapped while he was out in the open but once he made it to the passage he would be safe. Well, safer. Stinging rain pelted down on him in a deafening sheet as he turned off the main road and trekked through the swampy grass towards an outcropping of rocks. The first two times he had made this trip he had managed to miss the entrance to the cave passage which nearly killed him. The first time he went to the wrong hillside entirely and was almost swept up in a tornado. A heavy frost had hit the area the second time, making the landscape look completely different. That trip he lost a toe to the frost bite. Now he could sense to magi that shrouded the entrance so he could make the trip blind if he had to. Which was fortunate since the rain was making it nearly impossible to keep his eyes open now.

After several hours of walking, night had completely fallen across the Waste. Six times during his hike the sky had lit up above him with blinding, white light and an echoing crack. He closed his eyes against each flash and sent up a silent prayer he would get the chance to open them again. Westcliff was far below him soon, just a collection of lights on the horizon beneath the blanket of fog. Nathan walked through what would appear to be a wall of solid rock to most and into a sort of natural hallway to his master’s home. The heavy air in the passageway blanketed him in a comforting heat, the humidity becoming denser to further he went in. Thick beads of condensation slid down the natural rock walls and formed warm puddles on the ground. The ceiling raised gradually as he followed it around and into a large cave. He dropped to his knees at the entrance, bowing his head deeply and awaiting recognition to rise. The air around him shifted, blasting him with hot air.

               “You are soaked,” a dismissive voice called to him from the shadows.

               “It’s raining still,” Nathan answered from the floor still.

               “I hope my treasure has not been damaged.”

               “Of course not, it is safe in the enchanted bag you gave me,” Nathan assured her, pulled the pack off of his shoulder and gently pulling out the wrapped package.

               “Open it for me.”

               “I didn’t hear a please,” Nathan said, flicking his now only damp hair from his eyes.

               “I do not owe you a please mortal. You owe me your life remember? That is why you do my bidding.”

               “Fine, open it yourself with those giant claws of yours. Good luck not scratching the porcelain.”

               The cave around him began to quake and the air grew hotter still. Sconces around the room lit up with blue flames, casting shadows across the room. Behind Nathan a set of armor clatter to the ground and something slithered through the dark. A large, scaled face appeared before him. The Howling Gust of Death, Tempest the Storm Bringer lay before him. She filled the cavernous space easily and would have been incredibly intimidating if she wasn’t laughing.

               “Fine, please show me,” Tempest said as she turned her head to fit beside Nathan to watch him delicately undo the cloth confines her new doll was currently homed in.

               “I think you will be especially pleased with how this one turned out,” Nathan said holding the doll up in his hands. The green patterned dress popped against the doll’s dark features. The hair was tied in intricate braids to show off the pointed ears and even the tiny bow strapped to the doll’s back was carved with impressive detail.

               “A wood elf! I don’t have one of those yet,” Tempest said, her huge, golden orb like eye flicking over the doll.

               “You know I always thought dragons only collected gems or bones before I met you but I guess you all will horde anything huh?” Nathan said.

               “What would I do with a dusty pile of bones? I want only beautiful things in my lair,” Tempest said, turning to follow Nathan to the shelves where the rest of her collection sat displayed. “Oh did you get a chance to stop by the glass blowers shop to and see if they have any more of those flowers made?”

               “No and I am not going back into town either so don’t ask. I almost drown getting up here.”

               “Don’t be so dramatic, it is just a bit of rain,” Tempest said using her nose to turn the new doll on the shelf into just the right position.

               “And lightening that is striking people down on the road. You are a storm dragon, can’t you do something about it when I go out at least?”

“I could if the rains were natural but the weather that falls in these lands is cursed. It is a magic that I cannot control,” Tempest said gravely, raising her head to look up at the ceiling which was enchanted to reflect the sky above it.

“You are a dragon, one of the most powerful magical beings in world. What can cast magic that even you can’t undo?” Nathan asked.

“An angry god.”

From the suggestions of an unusual collection (dolls) and a weather condition (thunderstorms).