You may be wondering, what is Writersverse? It is the name of the writing group I am a part of which speed writes every Thursday. Like the Spider-verse, each of us are given the same topics, (i.e. Spider-man) but then are given just a short amount of time to come up with our own original stories centered on the topics.
Story #4
Time limit: 1 hour
Genre: Romance
Theme: Good
Prompt which must be in the story: Dream
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When I was ten years old, when I met my knight in shining armor.
The day started like any normal summer day for me. I remember my mother taking me to the local city park where she would let me and my adventurous imagination run free while she had a break. And it was there, under the blue plastic slide, that I met Lance for the very first time.
He was older than me, by only one year, but that did not dissuade my young restless heart. He was busy piling wooden sticks on top of each other, exclaiming how the land under the slide was now under the protection of Sir Knight Lance. He brandished his stick-built sword and readily whacked it against the metal poles of the playground equipment as if defeating giants and enemy knights.
I watched as the sunlight beat down upon his blond messy hair, his green eyes alight with excitement and determination. My heart inside skipped a beat when he looked up at me, after slaying a particularly large giant and stated, “Knights need a dragon to fight, want to be my Dragon?”
I grinned and took up the role of playing the dragon until the late hours of the day when my mother called for us to leave. I waved goodbye to Lance, announcing, “See you tomorrow!”
And tomorrow did come. Lance and I played Knight and Dragon for days until one day I asked Lance if the Knight would rather live peacefully with the Dragon instead of them fighting all the time.
He pondered my offer for a bit, then nodded and decided that a Knight and a Dragon could defeat giants better together than apart.
So as a team, we fought the giants and helped bring peace to the land under the slide.
One day, Lance had a clutch of dandelions in his hands as I wandered over to his castle. He got down on one knee and with every childish trope of copying adults, asked me if the Dragon would marry the Knight.
The Dragon graciously accepted the flowers and said yes.
In my child’s mind, I knew from that moment on Lance and I would fight giants together forever. Yet, what children believe and what really happens are two very different things.
I did see Lance many more times that summer, and even the summer after, but when my mother suddenly took ill and my father moved my family across the country, my childhood friend and all his adventures disappeared.
Gone was the Knight who fought giants and defended his land under the blue plastic slide. Gone was my Dragon self who fought alongside the Knight. Banished to the depths of my memories, lost over time.
Until, this morning.
I had awoken with a start, my dreams mixing with reality, until I blinked away my weariness and processed what I had dreamed about.
I had dreamed of Lance as a Knight and me as a Dragon. It was a strange dream, filled with shards of memories from my childhood.
I laughed off the dream, summing up to my brain being weird and began to go about my day.
I was now eighteen and focused on going to the college of my dreams, the University of Northern Michigan. I had worked so hard to keep my grades up and to receive as many scholarships as I could, nothing was going to deter me from my goals.
Well, I thought nothing would, but like when I was a child what I believed and what really happened were two very different things.
Night after night I began dreaming about Lance and the kingdom under the blue slide. At first, I just ignored the dreams, but as they continued I decided to ask my dad about Lance.
My dad did not remember the boy who played as a Knight and me as a Dragon, but he knew that my mother would take me to a park near their house when I was ten while he was at work. He pointed the park out to me on a map.
At that point, I was satisfied that I had in fact met a boy named Lance at the park and I assumed that would be the end of my dreams too.
But I was wrong.
The night that dream happened, everything changed.
I had been on my first leg of my journey to college and had been asleep in the car while my dad drove.
This dream started like all the others, but then there was a sudden bang and a crunching noise and I felt like I was falling in my dream.
When the falling sensation stopped, I looked around to see dark clouds covering the sky, and a fierce wind was ripping at the trees. I looked around at my surroundings and realized I was at the castle underneath the slide, but the stick-built walls and turrets looked huge and well put together. Everything seemed as exactly as I remembered it as a child, but on a grander scale.
I looked around, trying to understand where I was and what was going on when I looked down at my hands to see; claws.
Panicking, I held my hands up, looking them over and around at my arms. All of my skin was covered in green scales like a lizard.
That’s right, I thought, I am a Dragon.
As a calmed down, I looked to my right to see a giant figure looming up in the distance. Startled, I watched the giant reach down and knock over one of the towers of the castle.
Wide-eyed, I watched as a man, mounted upon a white horse, changed at the giant, his sword slicing into the giant’s ankles.
With a crash, the giant tripped and fell. Shaking the earth around me.
The knight turned his horse towards me and began to ride at full speed in my direction.
Flinching, I covered my face has the Knight and the horse pulled up alongside me.
“You are here!” The Knight joyfully announced from under his helmet, “I have waited for so long and you have finally come to join me! How I have missed you!”
He jumped off his horse with a clang and hugged me.
“What?” I started as the Knight was looking at me, “Lance?”
He grinned, “I am glad you remember me my Dragon Queen! Come there are many giants to fight!”
“Wait. Wait.” I breathed in suddenly, “This is all just a dream, you are not real, I am just here for a bit…”
He looked at me confused, “Have you not realize it yet? This is no dream. This is our home my Dragon Queen.”
I looked around confused and a bit scared. Yet the way Lance smiled at me and his look of concern made me question why I was scared.
Suddenly, I felt dizzy and my memory was hazy. What had I been doing before Lance arrived? Sitting in a… car? What was a car?
He was right, I was the Dragon Queen. No matter what I had been dreaming of before. We had giants to fight.
I took his hand and then jumped behind him on his horse. I spread my wings, feeling the wind rush beneath them.
For years Lance and I fought giants, standing side by side as husband and wife. At times I dream of a world I cannot quite remember. A world of blue slides, college dorm rooms, and that horrendous sound that brought me to this world.
Even though I don’t remember everything, I do know this. That I met Lance when I was a child, and since then we have been fighting giants side by side. Forever.
Pondering Author 