The Dragon Without a Heart.
Elena Jim, Group 3: Fiction, Shatin College
lowing celestially down the river, the waters reflected each and every beam of light blazing from the
fiery orange sun.
The Guardian of the Great Wall sighed. The waters never ceased to taunt him. The need to feel
the cool liquid on his tongue was insufferable.
Alas, such salvation was inaccessible to him. The seemingly palatable water had to be part of
the punishment: only to look, but never to touch.
Not only had his boredom progressed, but his sentence as well. Even though he had absolutely no
companionship, no recreation and no lover, he wasn’t bothered much by this.
A single memory darkened his life, a memory that haunted and persecuted and burdened him. No
matter how many times he tried escaping from it, it had permanently affixed itself into his mind.
The memory was alive and fresh, the clearest attribute from his past life. At full force, the colours flew
towards him, more agile than a bolt of lightning. All in a hazy, chromatic blur. He welcomed it with open arms.
The morning before it happened, he recalled the rise of the sun. It was the most beautiful, most
mesmerizing sunrise he had ever witnessed. The horizons morphed from a cold black to a warm, welcoming
pink in a matter of minutes. He could almost taste the bitter night air turning sweet.
The awaiting of the Esteemed Council was barely tolerable. Being the first preternatural dragon of
known existence – when he suggested this, his mother scolded him: “Different,” she insisted – he had sparked
some interest. Hence, the Esteemed Council was nearing closer, advancing into the vicinity of his home.
No one knew how he came to be, not even the best medical practitioner of the village – the only
explanation for the Guardian’s existence was a ‘stroke of luck’. At the time, however, he wasn’t the Guardian of
the Great Wall. He was named Fu-Xin, which, in direct translation, meant Lucky Heart.
Since birth, he was forced to subsist as a dragon with the heart of a human. There was no cure for his –
Father refused to believe otherwise - illness. After all, every illness could be cured.
He shouldn’t have inhabited the Earth, nevertheless survived. Without the necessary predatory instincts
required for dragons, the coven refused to accept him. When he scoured forests for meat, instead of feeling
rapacious, he felt sympathy towards his prey. Anguish, even.
All the other dragons his age avoided him, as if he had – was - the plague. Although it was in every
dragon’s nature to protect the valleys and bring peace to China, it was unknown of what his fate would be.
The former Guardian of the Forbidden City, Ah-Lam, was less perplexed than her colleague – who doubled over,
baffled - when they finally met him.
“
How do you do, young one?” Ah-Lam circled him. Her red scales were polished and luminous,
twisting and twirling as she moved. Her teeth, though a tint of yellow, were prepared to pierce througt h he flesh
of anyone who questioned her authority.
Fu-Xin stayed silent, stiller than the bodies of those lying in coffins. He chided himself for not washing
the night before, despite his mother’s reminders. The horns on the crown of his head, gold on their best days,
were faded brown and blunt from searching headfirst through forests. His scales, in addition, were equally
unsatisfying: dull and disarrayed from staying out in the sun for too long.
“
She asked,” the dragon to her right hissed, “how do you do.”
His father prodded him from behind, soundlessly forcing him to speak. “G-good. Healthy.” Stuttering
was not a healthy sign.
The dragon to Ah-Lam’s right, the former Guardian of Shi Huang Di’s Mausoleum, cast an
unimpressed frown at Fu-Xin. His demeanour expressed it all: his lips, curled and sneering, his eyes, icy blue
and scornful, his scales black and glossy, immaculate without a trace of dirt. He was the famous He-Ping.
“
Healthy, you say?”
Fu-Xin knew his capabilities were rather limited; compared with other dragons his age, his strength
was significantly unequal. Customary to tradition, once a little dragon hunted his or her first boar, the dragon
was granted the responsibility of defending an area of China. It was a life-long sentence, a century: 100 years.
“
Fai,” He-Ping greeted, directing his attention towards Fu-Xin’s father. “It has been a while.”
Fai moved forward. “So it has. Welcome to our home.”
The cave was isolated from the clan of dragons nearby. It was average-sized; a bed of sand blanketed
the crusty jungle floor, contrasting the smooth walls that were on brink of collapse.
F