Prologue: Singing Strings
Birds flitted from tree to tree while chirping their morning tunes. The many insects of the wood buzzed and droned all over. Animals both large and small walked, ran, and sprinted to where they needed to go. All of this noise, all of this clutter, was bathed in the warm orange light of dawn.
An ashen gray teenage dragon stirred in his slumber. Sunlight pierced his curtainless window and stabbed at the drake’s eyes. A soft groan escaped his lips as he rolled over. Though it was too late, he had been awakened and daylight was not to be wasted.
With a short grumble, the worriless wanderer dragged his feet through his tiny wooden hut. One step took him from the center of his bedroom to the door, an opened door later, and Benedict stood on his porch. However, he had to duck to get his horns through the doorway.
The gray beast sighed as he went through his morning stretches, leaning into deep lunges and pulling his arms into awkward positions. As he finished, the drake flicked the door closed with his tail and admired the word carved upon the wooden plane’s surface.
Benedict.
A name. An old name. His name. Benedict smiled at his handiwork. While it took a while to adjust to being a dragon, having claws and splinter-proof scales were definitely plusses in his book. With a light heart and a smile on his face, Benedict snatched the fishing rod from its usual resting place: the spot next to the rock that served as the drake’s porch.
Benedict spun on his heel and strolled down a worn dirt path. Head swaying to an unheard tune, Benedict swept the surrounding brush with his gaze. Eventually, he spotted a white ball of fluff sticking out from a bush by the edge of the dragon-made road. Benedict’s smile grew in warmth as he called out.
“Hey, that you, Sir Pawlington?”
The rabbit tail poofed into the bush before a fuzzy white face poked out. Sir Pawlington had a wrinkled frown that instantly smoothed out into a wide smile as it waved. Then, Pawlington’s eyes went wide before its white body disappeared in a puff of dust.
Benedict cocked an eye-ridge before shaking his head. Another smile crossed his snout as he continued on his journey.
Several minutes passed in silence before he reached his destination, the river. A content sigh escaped the gray drake as he sat down at the water’s edge.
He calmly dipped his claw into the earth directly beside him and came back with a large wriggling worm. Benedict impaled the doomed limbless being on his fishing hook before casting his line out deep into the slow-moving water.
Several more minutes passed as Benedict’s mind descended into a serene static. He saw nothing, heard nothing, smelled nothing, and for the moment, he was nothing. Contentedness spread from Benedict’s chest with a warmth resembling the sweet, poisonous, numbing embrace of liquor.
Of course, this haze didn’t prevent him from feeling a slight twitch in his line. A moment later, a sharp tug came. Benedict reacted by reeling in his line. Several more yanks came from the water, each more desperate than the last, but the misfortunate marine being faced a force with no equal. A power like no other. The Gods themselves trembled at such unbridled strength.
Benedict growled as his face descended into a malicious grin. “I’m hungry, and you’re lunch! No way out noodle brain!”
With one final yank, a fish the size of Benedict’s chest flew into the air. The silvery marine behemoth flopped through the air and the drake was already drooling at the thought of his upcoming meals. The filet-bound future was one that the fish did not agree with and the scaly monster made its complaints known. Benedict stopped its pathetic flopping with a claw that went in one eye and out the other. The flopping slowed, then stopped, and a few moments later even the twitches ended.
Nodding, Benedict went to grab the fish by the tail to sling it over his shoulder. The gray drake turned towards an opening in the treeline directly behind him and went back whence he came.
The trail was the same as before: a small dirt path crowded by underbrush and shaded by trees on both sides that hung over the road. The sun filtered through the leaves in narrow beams of light, the bright spears stabbed downwards and speckled the green corridor, bringing forth previously unseen yellows, brighter browns, and lighter greens. Occasionally one of the small residents of the wood would scamper across the trail: a squirrel here, a hare there, but Benedict saw neither head nor tail of Pawlington.
He kept a steady pace, once more bobbing his head to an inaudible tune, and gazing into the forest. Birds chirped, rodents chittered, and the wind howled. Benedict listened with rapt attention to the song of the forest, the boreal ballad, drowning out the secret that he would never share. Benedict sighed as he absorbed the discordant harmony.
It took him about half an hour to arrive. Benedict was breathing heavily and his heart beat against his ribcage. The fish was far heavier than he originally thought, but he’d live. A few seconds later he passed his abode and went down another trail. This one lasted for all of a minute before it widened into a circular clearing. At the center lay a circle of rocks that was filled with ashes and surrounded by a ring of dirt.
Benedict trudged closer before he dropped the fish to the grassy ground with a satisfying splat. He rolled his shoulders and twisted this way and that. Finished with his stretches, Benedict strolled over to the fire pit and grabbed a metal spike. With a single jab, he drove the metallic spit in through the fish’s mouth, and all the way through with the end jutting out near the tail.
With the thunk of metal on wood, Benedict dropped the spit onto a pair of holders that would have kept the meat just out of the fire, if there was any right now. Seemingly unsatisfied, he strolled around the nearby forest for a bit to gather wood.
When he returned from his jaunt, he found a tiny wooden wolf hopping up and down below the skewered fish.
“Now now, little one, that isn’t for you.”
The timberpup spun to face Benedict and barked at him. However, before he could respond, the living pile of wood rushed him, pouncing upwards, trying to get its leafy tongue all over Benedict’s face.
“Oh ho, down boy, yes you can have some later, but I’ve gotta cook it first.”
The little pup growled and Benedict responded with a scowl.
“Don’t take that kind of tone with me, little one! Do I need to talk to your parents ‘bout manners, hm?”
The tiny wolf whimpered as it bowed its head.
“Aw, don’t worry bout it little guy, just don’t act like that again, capiche?”
The timberwolf yipped happily as it bounded around the dragon.
Benedict stepped past the feisty sapling to set the wood in his arms under the fish. After tossing the wood down, the drake took a deep breath in, and let loose a torrent of orange flames upon the firewood.
The wolf jumped back, hackles raised and teeth bared. The little wooden creature kept its distance as it flicked its gaze between Benedict and the fire. However, Benedict just rolled his eyes.
“Little one, that wood isn’t your kin, and I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”
The wolf remained in its spot.
Benedict sighed before saying “Fine, be like that then, means more for me.”
With a smile, the drake turned back towards his lunch. For a few minutes, the pup held its ground, but the odors of roasted fish and the grumbling of its stomach eventually dragged the timberwolf forward. The thing shied away from the dragon, but it was still closer than before.
Benedict paid the standing puppy no mind as he stepped forward and snatched the spitted fish right off its holders. He tore off a chunk of the tail and tossed it to the wooden wolf, but kept the rest for himself. The drake sat down with his prize in his lap, steam still coming off the meal. With a toothy grin, he brought the fish to his mouth… and spat it right back out. The drake grabbed at his tongue, trying to massage the stinging out of it.
“ ‘ot ‘ire ‘rooh o’ i’side, ‘ot ‘ire ‘rooh o’ i’side.”
The drake shook his head as his eye ridges came together in anger.
“Gah, I still don’t get how I can breathe fire but not eat hot food.”
Before Benedict could continue on about the illogicality of it, a white blur dashed out of a nearby bush. When the high-speed object came to a stop and the dust cleared away, a rabbit was revealed. Sir Pawlington hopped in place while he waved one of his fluffy paws above his head, revealing a bundle of thin plant fibers.
“Oh, so that’s why you were in such a big rush.”
Pawington hopped up next to Benedict, set the cargo down, and sprinted back into the woods. Benedict sighed at the display before he eyed his meal once more.
A single claw extended from its natural sheath and Benedict used it to slice the fish open. Steam bellowed out from the creature’s innards. After the thing cooled down, brunch went on without a hitch. Though the wooden wolf did try to come back for seconds. However, all it took for the thing to leave was Benedict shooing it away.
He groaned as he stood up.
“I think that-”
A loud belch shook nearby trees and sent distant flocks of birds into a panic.
“-was a bit much.”
The dragon picked up the strong, stringy fibers and started lumbering off. The vibrant greens blurred around him and the golden light of noon turned the air into a sparkling haze. His dazed and dazzled eyes made no note of the movements of the forest as he hiked down his path.
Benedict’s vision came back into focus as he neared his home. He stood at the opening into the woods and smiled at the scene.
His little cottage was made from a huge amount of thick vines tied around a quartet of trees in close proximity to each other. The great oaks being the pillars that held his walls up fit the names carved on them well. Or so Benedict thought.
Just as he was about to step out, he heard a woodpecker begin its staccato assault on a tree. The rapid-fire clacks filled Benedict’s ears and he froze on the spot.
His eyes dried out quickly under the strain he put them through, scouring every bush, dark crevice, and little nook and cranny that could hide an enemy.
A fire ignited in his chest as his throat constricted. Quick, deep breaths tore through his throat as Benedict desperately tried to calm himself, leaving a sore mess behind.
Tense muscles coiled, ready to jump to cover at the slightest twitch.
The woodpecker stopped its vigorous pecking for a moment to examine Benedict. A chirp accompanied a tilt of its head as it continued staring at him. After a few moments of quiet, Benedict managed to pull himself together with a shake of the head. A weak smile crossed his lips.
“I’m sorry little one, but could you do that somewhere else please?”
The tiny bird hopped from place to place on the branch it resided as it chirped at him some more, all the while pointing a wing at the hole.
“I’m sure it was, but-”
Benedict took a deep breath before continuing on.
“-but it really causes me some issues, so could you please, just find somewhere else?”
The bird dipped its head in thought before shrugging its wings and flying away.
Benedict sighed in relief as he shuffled over to a workbench that jutted out of an opening in the vines that made up the walls in his house. His bundle of soft fibers made no noise as Benedict set them down. He eyed the plants with annoyance before sighing.
“Sooner I start, the sooner I finish.”
With that, he began the agonizingly slow process of threading the plant matter into usable string for his favorite instrument. After Benedict got the pattern down, he let his mind drift into the same daze it took on at the lake. However, every once in a while, a claw would slip, or a fiber would get stuck, and Benedict would have to zone in again.
Each time his zen-like state was broken, Benedict’s patience grew thinner. Each catch of the fragile thread cost him his bliss. Every time his claws slipped so much as an inch, he had to waste more effort on correcting it. Those damned strings would not allow him peace.
After a couple of hours of fiddling with the unholy strips of fiber, Benedict finally set down a complete string. He sighed and leaned onto the bench, careful to not accidentally pull it out of its bearings.
A moment later, Benedict straightened and snatched the string to head inside. With barely a few strides, he strutted around the corner and into his home. A moment of searching led his gaze to a lustrous, polished wooden box. Inside lay his baby, the love of his life, his most prized possession.
Benedict reverently flicked the clasps open and lifted a violin out. The instrument was a chestnut brown, held no patterns save the natural grains of the wood, and shone with the bright orange light of a setting sun.
A grin split Benedict’s face as he brought a matching bow out from the same case. With a single stride, he left his home once more. Instead of dawn, he was greeted by dusk. Orange covered the distant horizon but bled to a deep royal purple, and a midnight blue heralded the coming night.
A few steps later saw Benedict standing in front of his abode. With a gentleness that one used with newborns, he fiddled with the knobs on the instrument's head and occasionally drew his bow across the vibrating strings. The background noise of the forest began to quiet as Benedict finished tuning. With violin and bow in hand, he began to play.
The bow whispered across homemade strings in a slowly descending bass. A sharp high note would punctuate the end of every descent but lead into another deeper stroll downwards in the octaves.
When the notes reached their lowest point, Benedict yanked the bow across to flitter between two extremely high notes. Only to begin the descent once more.
However, before the progression could cross the middle pitch, he reversed the melody. Bringing the string of music higher and higher. Benedict held the last note for a moment before dropping to a bass octave again. He beat a slow, dramatic rhythm against a nearby log with his tail as he pulled long strokes from the singing violin.
The tension in the air built and built as the music grew more and more intense. The melody began to quicken and raise in pitch once more, leading to Benedict beating the hollow log faster.
The finale began with a drawn-out high note that bled into a fluttering descent that trilled through the upper octaves and slowed in the lower ones.
The piece ended with a simple trio of ascending notes.
Benedict had closed his eyes during the performance and when he opened them, he laughed. He found himself surrounded by all sorts of denizens of the wood. Everything from timberwolves to tallows were present. Benedict even saw Pawlington jumping all over the crowd.
The applause was a deafening series of howls, chittering, chirping, and even buzzing from the smallest of the crowd. When the cacophony died down, Benedict smirked.
“I suppose that means you like it, hm?”
He got another thundering reply, and with a laugh, Benedict spoke.
“An encore? Wonderful!”
And so a set of strings joined the orchestral majesty of the boreal ballad, sung by the followers of the forest Everfree.
Author's Note
special thx to my editor
UnamusedWaffle - Fimfiction
(Yes, he was even needed in the author’s note).
DarthBall - Fimfiction
Spring's first chapter - from dark crevices, crystals shine. From a burning sun, most benign.
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Spring's first chapter - from dark crevices, crystals shine. From a burning sun, most benign.
The sun of dawn shone with an orange-gold light. The warm glow permeated the barren rocky field, highlighting the jagged edges of the terrain. A brisk wind howled across the stony tundra and Benedict could almost pick out individual grains of dust trailing the currents of air.
With a sigh, Benedict lowered his gaze from the glorious horizon down to a hole. The opening in the ground was only slightly wider than his arm. He laid down right next to the earthen maw and plunged his claw into the gaping darkness. His tongue slipped out the side of his mouth as he felt around the miniature cave and grunted when he brushed against something smooth as glass.
With his goal found, Benedict began feeling the extra-smooth rock, searching for the base of the special stone. When he found it, his claws sliced through the outcropping’s base before lifting the cargo out.
Benedict's lips were split by a wide grin when his gentle claws lifted out a sky-blue crystal. With a flick of the hand, the gem was tossed into a woven basket that sat next to him.
Benedict got up and began walking to another hole in the ground. The next hole spat out an emerald, the next held another sapphire, then a strange sort of spicy quartz, and finally, a fire ruby!
For hours, Benedict roamed the land of seemingly dead rock. When he reached a particularly jagged-edged hole, Benedict began his mundane ritual once more. However, when he reached the prize this time, he froze. The crystal had cracks all over it and if Benedict were to pull it up, he knew that the crystal would be a sickly mix of smoke gray with pitch-black covering the cracks.
Benedict sighed as he reached into his basket to bring out a potion bottle. The glowing fluid swirled with all of the colors of the rainbow and tiny cracks of electricity arced around the liquid’s container every once in a while. Tentatively, he reached into the crevice once more to pour a few drops onto the sick crystal.
With a small grunt, he sat up and began searching the grounds for more of the dying gems. After several hours of this, Benedict glared at the surrounding landscape, as if…
“Of all the irresponsible things that idiot does…”
Benedict shook his head before beginning to march into the nearby Everfree. He ignored the chittering wildlife that scampered all around him and he barely acknowledged the darkening of his surroundings.
A scowl grew on Benedict’s face.
“Do they really think that’ll get rid of me?”
The wind howled; it whispered, screamed, and whimpered in a whirlwind of anxiety. The trees grew faces that contorted into twisted smiles and toothy grins and vines slithered around the forest canopy like a horde of snakes.
All the display did was make Benedict growl. He trudged through the undergrowth and swatted away vegetation that got too close. Blood-curdling howls permeated the woods and the forest’s faces started whispering things, terrible things. However, after having witnessed the horror that is Hawaiian pizza, it did little to faze him.
Several minutes passed with the forest’s hostilities berating Benedict, trying to get him to leave, to go home, to leave them alone. However, Benedict would forge on no matter the opposition.
Eventually, he reached the edge of a cliff. Benedict peered over the side and saw the stairs leading down. He hopped from the precipice onto the first step, his scaly feet slapping against the hard rocky ground as he descended. Less than a minute later, Benedict found himself standing before the mouth of a cave. The gaping abyss ahead stretched up and up and up, the ceiling was almost thirty feet in the air. The wide opening was dominated by a glowing tree made of gems with roots sprawled across the floor like an elaborate spider web.
Benedict shook a finger at the tree like a scolding mother.
“What have I said about leaving things to fester?”
The glassy beads that hung off of the branches chimed in slow and low tones. The crystalline trunk glowed an ocean blue. Benedict sighed as he put a claw to his eye ridges and tried to rub away the beginnings of a headache. He stepped just past the entrance and began to stalk towards the tree
“I know that you say that you’re sorry, but you keep making the same mistakes.”
Benedict threw his arms out wide as he shouted at the tree.
“How am I to believe that you really are sorry if you don’t fix the issue?”
The crystal pillar assumed a red hue as the chimes beat out a fast rhythm.
“Now don’t you take that tone with me bud! I’m worried for you. Yes, I know that you can take care of yourself, but you aren’t invincible! The gem rot proves that if nothing else does! Seriously, all I want to do is help, but…”
He reached the sentient stone plant.
“But you need to tell me the issue! I can’t do much if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
The mineral-made plant reverted to its blue coloring while it let out a drawn-out jingle of sadness.
“So. You’re. Gonna. Tell. Me. When. You. Need. Help! Capiche?”
Benedict punctuated each word with a jab of the claw to the tree’s trunk. The vines of precious stone tinkled a soft, accepting trill before tolling a question.
Benedict heaved a sigh, let his shoulders go slack, and his head drooped before he answered.
“Yes, Harmony, we can.”
With that, Benedict smiled at Harmony before he began his trek home. The forest was quiet and bright on the return trip; the gnarled faces were gone. The vines stood still, and the howls had quieted. Light had begun to pierce the canopy again and, as a result, the forest’s greens brightened to their usual lively colors.
Benedict’s woven home took a short time to reach, the violin took even less time to find, but the hike back to the tree took over an hour. Once he reached the mouth of the cave Benedict flipped open his violin case and lifted the instrument out. He plucked the bow but elected to hang it from his horns instead of carrying it normally.
Benedict sat down on a rock to begin twisting knobs and testing strings with gentle claws. However, Harmony decided to chime a loud impatient note at Benedict. In response, he scowled at Harmony and took his musician’s bow from his horns.
The tree tinkled a happy upbeat rhythm until Benedict violently sawed at his violin’s strings. The resulting cacophony resembled a team of drills grinding against bone rather than music. His ear flaps folded back and the tree turned emerald green.
Benedict stared at the tree for a moment before going back to his tuning. This time Harmony busied itself with… something while it waited.
After finishing with the knobs, Benedict drew his bow across the trio of strings one last time. The first string was slightly too low, the third-string was slightly too high, and the middle one was just right. He smiled at his handiwork before standing to face Harmony.
His smile from before stretched wider, exposing sharp teeth in some places.
“Ready?”
Harmony gave an affirmative chime.
Benedict took a deep breath while fanning his ear flaps out. The wind’s whistling was just within the range of hearing as it blew through the cave. Water dripped in a steady beat, the soft splats giving a base for everything around him. Birds twittered off in the distance as they flitted about their afternoon activities and he could even hear the creeks of ancient trees that grew above Harmony.
Higher in the skies the wind howled a high-pitched screech, wolves growled as they prowled the wood, and a mighty river rushed by in the distance. However, one noise dominated the rest, holding Benedict’s attention in a vice-like grip.
The low rumbling of the earth made itself known to him. The muted crashing of tectonic plates, the slow grinding of stone on stone, the groans of strained rock that echoed through the deep, all of it roared in Benedict’s mind, consuming him in the violent, imminent movements of the world itself.
Benedict’s mind recoiled at the vast expanse of noise and began to focus on the dripping water.
Drip
Benedict inhaled.
Drip
And he exhaled.
Drip
In…
Drip
Out.
He repeated the cycle a few more times before bringing his bow up to the strings. He squinted at the shimmering lines of tightly woven fibers before drawing out a single note.
The singular note held the same pitch as a foghorn but held less power. However, every time it echoed, the one-note base would gain strength. Each echo, each refraction, each moment of repetition, built up into its own little symphony.
Tension in the air mounted as Benedict began to feel the note thrum in his chest, the vibrations shaking his lungs and rattling his ribs. With a flick of the arm, Benedict sliced a high pitch note through the air. The shrill second voice cut right through the base like a knife through hot butter. However, it wasn't quite right. The notes were just a half-step off of perfection; a mere breath away from heartbreaking harmony.
Benedict repeated the movement. One long, low note was cut off by a higher one while scaling up and down the ladder of pitch. If it were put to paper, the melody would resemble a pair of snakes made of beads slithering through tall thin grass.
The long notes echoed around the cave as the tree began to glow. The high pitch squeals that parted the air were mellowed out, almost as if Harmony was blunting the edge of a knife.
The echoing base continued in its off-key hum as Benedict began a new tune. He brought his bow across the violin in a simple three-note ascension, one for each string. The first note was too low, the second was thrown off by the first, and the third ground against the first two like claws on a chalkboard. All the while he would alter the pitch just a whole step or even a half-step in one direction or the other.
Benedict began walking around Harmony, taking careful steps as to not break pace. He began tapping a divot in the wood of his violin’s neck, keeping time with the drops of water.
He continued the procession of notes, releasing a full triplet with every drip of water. The first notes he’d played were still repeating but the sharp highs had started to line up with the triplets, punctuating the ending of each with a melodic blade. However blunted Harmony had made them, the swords of sound danced to the beat of water, and the lower notes droned a ground-shaking bass. The melody would shift one way or the other but only ever so slightly.
Benedict was a third of the way around Harmony when he switched again. He snapped the bow across the third string to whip out a high note before jumping to the low string and ending with a soft transition to the center.
When Benedict reached the two-thirds mark in his hike ‘round Harmony, he began to bounce between two notes; the same two notes. At first, one note would hold out for an entire beat, then two would share the space, then four, and so on and so forth until he was violently sawing away at the instrument with his bow.
As Benedict ended his trek, back where he began, he shifted his focus from the two-pronged trident from before onto a singular point. The violin's highest string sang the same note over and over again. Harmony cut off all of the echoes except for the first movement of the piece so that the swords of sound could punctuate the spears of melody’s triplets while the hammering base would accompany the drawn-out note that would follow.
Benedict and Harmony followed the pattern a few times before ending.
He flopped onto the ground and sighed. The muscles in his back that surrounded his shoulders ached, his arms felt rubbery, and his fingers seemed to barely stay attached to their respective hands.
“Phew, this was a fun one.”
Harmony shone a sunny yellow in response. Benedict chuckled before deciding that while the stony floor was hard, it was currently the perfect place for a nap.
Benedict fell into the land of dreams as the last piece of the discordant symphony faded from his mind.
Author's Note
please spread the word of this fic! I wish to share Benedict's little life with the WORLD!
and don't forget to comment, I love seeing em. :)
