The Dragons Bride

I was only but a young waif when I lost my humanity and my birth name. I don't know what my name was before My fifth summer. Being only just a babe, the Kings of the galaxies chose my family to curse. We lived on the outskirts of our village, my mother, my father, two older brothers, and a newborn sister. We didn't have a lot, but we were content with our lives. Being only five, I believed, while not in gold or jewel, we were rich in our love and joy for one another. But at the end of my fifth summer, my family fell ill. Tis was a horrid disease, known as "The Wilds." It's not a common illness, but as its name states, it drives the victim into bloodlust and madness.

It started with my father. He was a lean, tall man, with a mouth covered with black whiskers and dark hair. As the sun began to set, he came home from his daily hunt. He carried no skeer, but a thin boned dog hanging dead over his shoulders. Since we were one of the few folks who did not eat bone dogs, we simply burned its carcass and settled inside. Mother discovered father had been bitten by the dog and went to tend to his injuries. My brothers and I watched as she lathered her tongue in healing and cleansing herbs and slathered her father's wound with her saliva. After tending to father, she served us a skimmed stew of snapples and skeer. If I knew it was going to be my last true meal…I would have savored it.

The next day, father was moaning and yelling, and so was mother. My brothers knew what was wrong and lept to heal them. I simply watched as mother got worse, and then screamed as she dug her nails into my infant sister's body. I don't think she knew she was holding the baby. All I knew rich blood dripped from her, and she was screaming. It was a terrifying sound. Father was still moaning, but his moans shifted to snarls as he leaped from his place of rest and lunged for one of my brothers. He bit him.

"----Go into the back room. Don't open the door unless I say so. Go, now!" Both my brothers ordered me into the back room we used for storage. It was dark, but there were casks of water and cider, dried fruits and roots and spare blankets. As I locked the door behind me, my brothers screamed horrid noises, and my infant sister was wailing so hard.

For four days, mother and father's screaming was chaotic. I never heard my brothers after the first night, as did my infant sister. By day three, father was snarling and growling, fighting to enter the backroom. Mother was doing the same. Luckily, they were too mad with the disease to try to bust the door down. To my young ears, my parents sounded too much like feral dogs fighting over a snippet of meat.

Day four began with hearing my parents huff and whine. I remained quiet, only imagining the terror going on with my family.

Day five. There was only silence. And a horrid scent of rotting meat and coppery blood. But I still clung to my brother's words. I remained hidden in the back room.

I didn't have to wait long for others to find me. By the time the sun began to set on the fifth day, Villagers came to my home, all of them angry and fearful. They were incredibly cruel as the men of the village carted my family away to be burned, while I was shuffled towards the cleansing pond by the women. Never have I felt such cruelty as several women dunked my frail body over and over and over, trying their best to wash away whatever sickness my family had, from me. They scrubbed me, scoured my flesh raw. My skin red and in places, bleeding. I was dragged from the pond and given a flat, dull dress of scrubbed burlap. I cannot remember if I cried or not, it's quite possible I did, but after the horrid cleansing, I was taken over to our wooly swine pens and shickener coops, then shoved into the arena.

For one long week, I slept and lived in the sty. Surprisingly, the shickeners and wooly swine were very kind to me. Many wooly sows allowed me to eat the slop with them and some whelping dams let me, nurse. The occasional shickener will allow me to eat some of their eggs and strips of shed flesh. And as the two mooned nights overcame the violet sun, I was wrapped by shickener feather and wooly swine fur. However, as I lay in the pens, watching the bright night sky, I would cry and mourn for my mother, my father, and siblings.

As the second week began, I was pulled from the pens, covered in dried slop on my hands, and smudges from dung and dirt on my skin, back to the cleansing pond. The same cruel women scrubbed me raw once more and sheared my hair ruggedly short. They dressed me in a clean burlap dress and scurried me off to the county center. The headman, who is a fat and greedy bull of a man, glowered at my shaking form.

"So this is the only living being of the family? The same family cursed with 'The Wilds?'" No one spoke. One woman smacked the back of my head. I then realized he was speaking to me.

"Yes sir. Can I…Can I go home now?" I asked. The headman threw back his bulbous head and laughed, a cruel sound, as sharp as a new obsidian knife.

"You have no home, waif. To prevent the spread of the illness, we have burned the house down and discarded the burnt bodies. You have nowhere to go." He was sneering at me!

"But… but… Where will I go?" I asked, knowing I sounded downright pitiful as my voice was weak and rough from my sorrow. The head man stood straight, raising his head with a wicked gleam in his black eyes.

"I have made a decision. You will live in the swine pens, eat as a swine, live as a swine, treated as a swine. If you are truly clean off illness, we can allow you to have a cabin of your own. Prove to us you are healthy, And You shall be given back your humanity. But for now," He knelt to my face, his oily face and rotten breath making me scowl from his stink. He gave me a grin, too many rotted teeth in one mouth. Grabbing my thin arms, he stood, lifting me off the ground and again to his face.

"You no longer hold your birth name. From now on, you are called Hyll, for that is what you now are." I bowed my head, lamenting my fate, quite a feat for one so young. A shepherd walked near me and tapped my rear with a slender crook, startling me from my woe. He clicked his tongue three times.

"Come Hyll, back to the sty with you. Come!" He tapped me a bit harder, making me move. I glare at him. In return, he swatted my rear much harder, making me yelp.

"Pens, Now!" He was herding me back to the wooly swine pens! I fought to cry, but in the end, I wailed as I was corralled and locked in the pens, and wooly sows sniffed and nudge me as if I was a shoat. Burying my head into my skinny raw limbs, I cried. And kept on crying, until the violet sun sunk, and the twin moons rose to cascade our world.

As the Purple sun rose and set over the years, I learned to adapt to my new home, and my new creature friends and family. You are probably wondering what skeer, shickeners, and a wooly swine are. But first, a bit of Razenya, my planet, history:

Razenya was a rural, yet ravishing planet, thirteen light-years away from another similar planet known as Earth. From what history I learned, Earth was becoming too deadly for humans. After a certain insect called "bees" went extinct, the world began to die. After 139 years of deadly drought, the people of Earth found a way to leave their dying planet. 200 planetary ships, the size of an ancient ship known as "The Titanic" carried what was left of humanity across the galaxies. Thirteen light years they traveled, and it took 342 years to reach Razenya. When the Earth humans arrived, they "discovered" another race of human-like beings Native to the planet. The Razenya humans were not very different from the Earth ones. Same internal organs, skin density, ability to breath oxygen like an Earth folk. Childbearing also the same, but there are some differences. A Razenyan, or Native, had lavender or soft blue skin, light-colored hair of various shades of black, grey, violet or red, occasionally a rare folk will have pink hair. However, a major difference with Earth folk and Razenyans is Razenyans can live up to 2,000 years.

The Earth folk were severely outnumbered by Razenyans. To every Earth folk, there were 200 natives. Razenyans were and still are very welcoming to other races. Because of this, Many Earth folk rely on Razenyan citizens for food, land rent, architecture, and industry. From what history tells, many if not all Earth folk built massive floating cities only for Earth folk and their descendants. Pure Earth Blood only. The Earth folk looked down on native Razenyans, believing that Earth folk are superior, more beautiful and wealthier than the natives of Razenya. That is why they made the floating cities, so Earth folk don't have to inhabit Razenyan soil. On occasion, a small band of Earth folk will travel and "tour" Razenya for fun. Not often though.

There are a few bands of Earth folk who will intermarry with a Razenyan, my mother being one. My father is a native Razenyan…was a native Razenyan. My mother was an Earth descendant. So, my siblings and I are crossbreeds. My mother, despite being Earthborn, loved Natural Razenya. She loved the beauty of the silver-leafed trees, the emerald rivers and brooks, the skeer, cigs, wild shickeners, wooly swine and the other amazing creatures of our homeland. But now I'm getting carried away.

The creatures I live with now, the wooly swine and shickeners, are the main livestock of many Razenyans. Skeer is one of the most popular wild meats.

From the Earth's livestock literature, A wooly swine is very similar to an Earth swine or pig, but instead of fuzzy or stringy hairs, it produces thick and luxurious wool. A wooly swine sits nine feet high at the shoulders and can weigh up to 2.36 tons. Razenyan farmers don't use wooly swine as much as a meat source than something else. Locals can gather the shed and sheared wool to spin clothing, bedding and, if woven correctly, housing material. A wooly swine also gives twelve gallons of milk a day, which is very sweet and used for candies and cheeses. Despite their size, wooly swine are very docile and takes four years to reach maturity. You can walk up to a wild wool swine and the creature will share its food. Many times, wooly swine will even share its food and wool with local predators. Wool swine don't produce a lot of meat, so when it is culled for food, its blood is prepared and made into blood cakes; the bones, which are almost equivalent to diamond strength, are then soldered and carved into tools, weapons and household items. The teeth, which are golden ivory, are sold for currency and jewelry.

A shickener however, is a type of prey dragon, and stands at five feet tall, weighing 200-550 pounds. This creature breeds once every five years, so to have a flock over five is treasured. A Shickener is an omnivore and eats anything, but mostly soil, insects and bark of the silver trees. The feces of the creature are prized, used for medicine and fertilizer for crops. The unique feature of a shickener is it can shed its flesh. By doing so, a shickener can be harvested for meat without slaughtering the animal. A shickener can shed 50 to 130 pounds of meat a day. The flesh then regrows over 10 hours. The flesh can be safely devoured raw as the meat is so rich, it cooks itself. As for eggs, shickeners lay edible eggs in clutches of 12 a week. A fertile egg will be poisonous to be consumed. Since shickeners are prey dragons, their incredibly soft scales and feather-like, are used to spin Razenyan silk and armor.

A skeer, according to Earth books, looks like an Earth deer, but with major differences. For one, Skeer are notorious carnivores, mostly just small rodents, lizards and birds, but are known to ambush infant swine and shickeners. They are even known to devour their kind. They are a menace. But they make tasty meals. A skeer is about the same size as an Earth reindeer and have very fatty flesh. The bones are very soft, and when hunted, are popular for teething toys for infants. All of the skeer is edible, except the antlers. The antlers are formed when a toxic fungus takes root. The bigger the fungal antlers, the strong the skeer. Female skeer though, they are three times the size of the males, and fungal antlers are missing, but the fungus is grown on the female's rump like a cape and hangs low to allow fawn to suckle the toxic sap.

My village is different in how we tend to our livestock. For one, the whole village tends to the flocks, all benefiting from the shared chore. Even me.

For the thirteen years, I've been revised as a sow, I do my best to tend to the flock as well, many of the shoats I train to stay still when sheared, and many a sow shared their milk with my starving self. Since I now usually carry a shoat or two, which can weigh 50 to 80 pounds apiece, I am rather strong. Sometimes stronger than the men of the village. As a rule, for being a human sow, I must keep my hair short and shorn. I'm allowed to weave and spin my clothing from the wool, but I only gather the shickener feathers for the masonry. Thanks to my diet consisting of whatever the swine eat, I am healthier than the other girls, and I'm not picky about what I eat.

Sometimes I wish for my family to come and take me away. But I know that'll never happen. Anyway, that's my backstory. My name is Hyll, the bipedal swine girl.