Food for Dragons

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Gina pulled her apron down from the hook on the back of the door and put it on. It was heavy-duty, made of canvas and almost ample enough to wrap around herself twice. She pulled the strings around to the front and cinched them into a neat bow.

Gina placed her hands on the wooden workbench and dropped her head in a silent plea. Oh please, she thought, let today finally be the day they eat. After taking a deep breath, holding it, then slowly letting it out, she got to work.

Gina pulled vials of spices down from the shelves over the workbench and cut snippets of thistle, rosemary and thyme from the potted plants under the long row of mullioned windows, mixing, measuring and weighing ingredients. Herbs and unique vegetable preparations were her specialty.

Not long ago, Gina had been a culinary student, excited about beginning her internship. The restaurant she’d been placed at was small, housed in an odd brick tower located in a back alley in the historic part of the city. It was very old, and very, very exclusive. Or at least, that was how the Chef explained it when Gina questioned the unusual architecture and lack of customers.

That first day Chef Zorelio asked Gina to fetch a few more potatoes from the root cellar in the basement. She hadn’t been able to find any, just carrots, parsnips and a few malodorous onions. “No, no! They’re at the back, all the way in the back. You didn’t go far enough in.”

Obligingly, she went back down the narrow stone staircase, Chef Zorelio stomping down the steps behind her. He ushered her back into the root cellar, poking her between the shoulder blades with a gnarled finger to urge her forward.

The root cellar was long and narrow, and there was no light other than what came through the open door, so it seemed reasonable that perhaps she’d just overlooked the potatoes the first time, but surely they couldn’t be so very far from the entrance or the other vegetables?

Just as she was about to turn and say this to Chef Zorelio, a trap door opened and she found herself sliding down a metal chute into pitch blackness. She must have hit her head when she landed. When she awoke she was here, in this wretched tower that resembled the restaurant, yet was worlds away.

The circular room looked like the restaurant dining room, but here it was the kitchen. It was lined with windows that looked out over a vast valley full of trees and vegetation, with no signs of human life for as far as the eye could see. Not only that, but for as far as she could see through the brass telescope mounted on the windowsill as well.

Chef Zorelio was, in fact, not a chef at all. He was a breeder of Dragons in a world parallel to her’s. After a blight killed off the ubiquitous vine that was the dragons’ primary food source, he brought her here in the hope that with her knack for creating unique, flavorful vegetarian meals she could devise a recipe that would tempt them.

Zorelio was desperate, and desperate men were dangerous. He made it known in no uncertain terms that she would remain captive here until her task was complete, or else. Now the clock was ticking and she didn’t dare think about what would happen if she failed.

Dragons could only survive a week or so without eating. But so far nothing Gina concocted had appealed to the picky flying reptiles. Day after day she mixed, whipped, roasted and braised to no avail. Each new preparation was roundly rejected, leaving her more and more discouraged.

The sound of vast wings displacing massive amounts of air in the distance, like muffled thunder, caused Gina to look up from the pot she was stirring. On the horizon, she could just barely make out the shape of the dragon pack, coming closer by the minute.

Making haste, Gina poured the thistle stew into a pail and hauled it to the windows. She threw open the window pane before putting her eye to the telescope. There were three dragons today, two adults scaled in sleek orange, and a smaller one whose scales shimmered with the iridescent undertones of a juvenile.

Gina hefted the pail up onto the sill and stepped back as the dragons swooped in, their leathery wings stretched wide. The adults hovered just beyond the window, plumes of white smoke curling from their nostrils, while the baby dragon came to rest on the window ledge. Gina’s throat constricted; she could see the poor thing was weak from hunger.

The little dragon craned its long neck towards the food, head cocked with curiosity. “Come on, baby,” Gina coaxed. “Just take a bite. I promise you, it’s good.” As the dragon extended its long tongue, Gina hardly dared breathe. Both their lives depended on what happened next.

#flashfiction

#magicalrealism