“Ayame, please!” Hana whispers harshly into her daughter’s ear. “You don’t have to do this. There’s still time. I can get you out.” Hand in hand, fist clenched tightly around her daughter’s slighter frame, Hana scans the other Ryushi Clan tributes and their warrior parents for listening ears as they traverse the dark tunnel towards the arena floor.

“Mom, no.” Ayame shakes her head, squeezing her mother’s hand once as she whispers back. “I have to do this. You know that. It’s the only way.”

“You’re wrong.” Hana stops, pulling her daughter into her arms.

“But the Clan needs –

“You are what the Clan needs.” Letting out a frustrated breath, Hana traces the shape of her daughter’s close-cropped hair, high cheekbones, and rounded jaw with a gentle yet callused touch. “So much like your brother.”

“Mom,” Ayame sighs, covering her mother’s hand with her own, “have faith.”

“Ayame,” Hana mocks, matching her daughter’s exasperated tone. Knowing she’s fighting a losing battle but refusing to send another child to slaughter, Hana kisses her daughter on both cheeks, then rests her forehead against hers, breathing in the familiar leather and steel scent that mark the Ryushi Clan as warriors, laced with something floral that has always been uniquely Ayame.

“Mom.” Ayame watches from the corner of her eye as the other tributes exit the tunnel. “Mom, I have to go.”

“You don’t.” Hanna steps back just enough to meet her daughter’s eyes. “But I understand. Just…remember who you are. You are my daughter. You are strong. And I love you.”

Ayame rolls her eyes. “I know, Mom. I love you too.”

Kissing both her mother’s cheeks in a quick goodbye, Ayame pivots swiftly on sandaled feet and races to catch up to the other tributes already congregating on the arena floor. Hana watches her daughter go, waiting until she’s sure she’s out of earshot before allowing her frustration to ebb through her fists. The jagged edges of the convex concrete walls tear at the flesh of her knuckles, but Hana relishes the slight bite of pain. It reminds her that she is still alive. That Ayame is still alive. And resolves her to do whatever it takes to keep them that way.

xXx

Coarse, pale sand reflects the light of the rising sun in the open air of the Culling’s dome-shaped death pit. Spectators fill the risers that boarder the pit, taking their seats to watch the annual show. Parents, siblings, those already proven worthy of the Clan and granted warrior status, and those yet too young to participate, look down at the twenty tributes from behind an iron railing. All but Hana, whose broad frame stands hunched over the railing, knuckles white from the death grip she has on the bar.

Ayame shakes her head, knowing that, if she could, her mother would strangle that iron barrier to get to her, signing both their death warrants with the blatant act of treason. Her mother may be a general, but even she is not exempt from Clan law, and after her brother’s death at the last Culling, Ayame expects the guardsmen lining the stadium aisles will be keeping a closer eye on the only warrior in the Clan to put blood first.

Twisting the pommel of the broadsword clutched tightly in her right hand, she meets her mother’s searching ochre eyes with her own. Have faith, she mouths. Slowly, her mother nods, loosening her grip on the railing, but not stepping away.

A whistle sounds, drawing the tributes’ attention to the far side of the arena where a guardsman stands before an iron gate, blocking off the mouth of a twin tunnel to the way the tributes had entered. In a short, clipped tone, they run through the rules of The Culling.

“Tributes, warriors, Chief,” the guardsman nods to each group as they address them, “welcome, once again, to The Culling. This year, twenty tributes have reached the age of Culling, where they must prove themselves worthy of a place in the Clan or die trying.”

Ayame swallows, knowing it’s not just her life on the line. Her eyes stray to her mother again, hardening her resolve. For Mom’s life and Hiro’s memory, she decides, turning back to the guardsman and their opening speech.

“A Ryushi warrior’s worth is measured by their usefulness in a fight against our Clan’s greatest enemy. Dragons.” They pause again, the speech much more dramatic than in years past. Ayame resists the urge to roll her eyes at the guardsman’s theatrics, clearly enjoying this small powerplay. “Today, you will all be responsible for contributing to the felling of one such beast. Fail to land a scathing blow, and your place in the Clan will be forfeit. Land the killing blow, and you will start your warrior career a rank above the rest.” Ayame shivers at the malicious gleam the comment ignites in a few of the other tributes’ eyes. Fear that the dragon may not be her only opponent on the arena sands tenses her already taut muscles. She’s loathe to kill a comrade, but another glance back at her mother’s barely restrained form reminds her of her promise, stiffening her spine against what she may need to do to keep it.

“Kamisensou be with you.” The guardsman invokes the Ryushian war god’s favour as they inch back towards the safety of the still-open gate. “Release the dragon!”

Every clink of the chain as one gate lowers and the other gate opens grates against Ayame’s skin. Anticipation raises the fine hairs there, her heart slowing to meet the gate’s rattle. The other tributes stand ready. Knees bent, weapons drawn, facing that same gate with varying degrees of fear, determination, and awe. For most, it’s the first time they will have ever been this close to a dragon. And for at least half, it’s likely the last.

The dragon’s snub nose and sea green whiskers are the first to catch the sun’s rays. Thin yellow lips peel back to reveal thick, sharp fangs that dwarf the tributes’ steel blades to toothpicks. A low, menacing growl echoes up the domed arena, carrying with it the acrid scents of stale vinegar and overcooked eggs. Saliva beads along its forked tongue and drips to the sand below, hissing on contact and rising again in thin billows of tear-inducing smoke.

Ayame takes an unconscious step back, recognising that acidic substance as the venomous spew that killed her brother at the last Culling. Adjusting the pommel of her broadsword in her right hand, she palms the set of throwing daggers strapped across her leather chest plate as the dragon continues to unravel its serpentine body from the opposite end of the arena.

Thick, yellow brows furrow over large, pale blue eyes slashed with a hard, almost-human glint of pain and rage.

Pain? Ayame thinks, squinting against the light refracting off the dragon’s aqua-coloured scales. By the time her vision clears, the dragon is halfway out of the tunnel, and she has no more time to ponder what she may or may not have seen lurking within the beast’s eyes. If she wants to save her mother from doing something stupid, she has to kill this dragon quickly and with as little injury to herself as possible.

The full length of the dragon’s body is enough to circle half of the arena. Its powerful tail swishes in jerky movements from side to side, disturbing the once pristine sand. It stalks forward on four short legs, each ending with three-taloned toes, no doubt surveying its prey.

Ayame supresses a smirk.

Prey, she thinks, extracting a throwing dagger between fore and middle finger, meet predator.

Springing off bent knees, Ayame wastes no time getting out of range of the dragon’s venomous spit. Her comrades follow suit, splitting down the middle to surround the dragon on either side, weapons raised for a chance to slash at its soft underbelly. But the dragon is quick. It swivels its thick neck and flicks its venom out with a powerful thrust of its forked tongue, catching the tribute at the end of the group in the back. Their leathers start to melt. Panicked, they try to remove the burning fabric before the venom can find skin. Ayame bites the inside of her cheek and turns away from her comrade, knowing his fate is sealed and if she were to help him, hers would be too.

Not a moment later, the charred scent of burning flesh joins the already gag-inducing perfume of eggs and vinegar. At least it was quick, Ayame relents, capitalizing on the opportunity to hit the dragon while it's still distracted by the smoking corpse. With quick fingers, she flicks the thin blade clenched in her left hand at the dragon’s outstretched neck and slices her broadsword up in a wide arch, managing to open two small wounds in the dragon’s underbelly. The dragon rears back, shaking loose two tributes that had managed to mount the beast. Ayame watches, helpless as the first manages to catch themselves on one of the dragon’s fin-like spines, but the second slips from their grip and falls with a sickening crack. Alive, but injured, the tribute leans heavily on their left foot and broadsword, dragging a broken ankle behind them.

Ayame swallows, knowing that she’s at least partially responsible.

A garbled, high-pitched cry startles her from her reverie and redirects her attention to the threat before her.

Learning from her fallen comrade’s mistake, Ayame quickly sheaths her broadsword at her hip and unsheathes two throwing knives. Once clenched in each hand, she races around to the dragon’s middle, out of reach of both its venomous mouth and muscular tail. Taking a running leap, Ayame launches herself at the dragon’s scaled side, driving her daggers into its armoured flesh. Blood begins to ooze from the shallow wounds as she slowly makes her ascent up to the dragon’s spine-covered back. Knowing her best chance is to hit the heart, she lowly bends down to remove one sandal, still gripping an embedded dagger in her other hand for support.

Sandal gone, she drags the bottom of her bare foot across the dragons back in slow, wide arcs, seeking out the spot with the strongest beating vibrations. Inching forward one dagger at a time, drowning out all the other sounds of battle, the acrid scent of fear, the metallic tang of blood and acid in the air. Ayame focuses all of her awareness into that one bare foot. Finally, she finds the spot where the beat is strongest. Releasing the daggers to unsheathe her broadsword, Ayame stands, needing to garner enough force to pierce through the dragon’s thick hide and stab its heart clean through. Both hands clenched tight around the hilt, she lifts the pommel above her head, arching back to double her momentum. At the full arc of her spine, she contracts, making to slam her broadsword down to the hilt. But the dragon moves violently to the side, avoiding the advances of another tribute, and Ayame slips from its back, the uneven purchase from her single sandal and the top-heavy weight of the broadsword working against her as she tumbles to the ground.

Everything is quiet. Dark.

Then suddenly, chaos.

Shouts erupt from the stands, a pile of bodies converging in one spot while slender hands struggle to find purchase on the railing.

Mom.

Ayame tries to speak. Tries to tell Hana that she’s ok. But her head is pounding, and her throat is raw, and her vision keeps swimming in and out.

Mom, she tries again, nearly spewing her own stomach acid onto the now dark red sand. Slowly, her body comes back to her as she flexes her fingers and toes. Nothing broken, thank Kamisensou, she prays, dragging herself up to a sitting position. But her relief is short lived as she drags her eyes across the scene in front of her.

Hana struggles to fight off the entirety of the Ryushi spectators, barring her from leaping over the rails to get to Ayame’s side. Three tributes stand back-to-back, swords raised as they hack away at the dragon’s lashing tail. Two more run by the dragon’s head, moving in unpredictable patterns, drawing its attention away from the last who inches slowly up the dragon’s neck to the soft spot at its crown. Ayame can only hope that the part she played was enough to be considered among the victors once that tribute’s blade hits home. She watches as the setting sun glints off the raised steel, throwing fractals of light across the stadium’s concrete walls.

Something shifts. Someone cries. The dragon bounds for the gate.

Luckily, this tribute managed to grab hold of one of the dragon’s tall spines before being thrown from its back too. But the moment is lost, and the tributes will need to find a new tactic.

Ayame struggles to her knees, finding her broadsword in the sand not far from where she lay, she stabs the end into the ground for support as she stands on shaking legs.

“Mom!” She finally manages to screech. A sound so loud it seems to echo into the walls, drawing the attention of the spectators.

“Ayame!” Hana screeches back, flinging the last spectator off her and launching for the rails.

“Mom! Stop! I’m OK!”

Hana stops, but does not move away from the railing, one leg already on the other side. She glares at the guard that approaches her, gnashing her teeth as he slowly backs away.

“Come on, Ayame. Finish it.”

Ayame nods, taking a few, deep breaths into her aching lungs, she lets herself feel the pain for one more moment, then swallows it all back down into her stomach to spew later. For now, her mother is right. She has to finish this.

Abandoning her broadsword in favour of her last two throwing daggers, Ayame stalks forward, eyes homed in to that spot she found before. This time, she’ll approach from underneath. Stab up through its soft underbelly and rip its heart out with her bare hands if that’s what it takes.

The dragon seems distracted. She muses. Good.

Taking her position underneath the dragon’s belly as it rears its front legs up, she sets to toss her first dagger into its chest, when she finally spots the source of the screeching.

A smaller, greener version of those same aqua scales, fin-like spines, and serpentine form slams against the bars of a small cage embedded into the stadium wall. Sea-green ichor oozes down the concrete as the infant dragon screeches again.

“A baby.” Ayame announces, shock freezing her in place. She glances up at the parent dragon, eyes so full of anguish. Her own eyes widen as she realizes why she recognizes that emotion in the dragon’s pale-blue depths. She turns, ochre eyes finding hers, reflecting that same pain. She turns again, decision made, and launches both daggers into the air, snapping the latch off of the gate and severing the Clansmen’s carotid simultaneously.

The infant dragon tumbles from the high cage, too injured to right itself. The parent dragon launches forward, catching the babe in its jaws, trampling two more tributes in its wake. Instantly, the dragon launches into the sky, undulating its serpentine body as if the air were water and it an avid swimmer.

Ayame’s eyes follow the dragon as it soars away with its young.

“It could have escaped. This whole time. Every year.” Her mother’s voice reaches her from much too close. Hana kneels by her daughter’s side, pulling her into her lap and stroking her hair gently as she starts to hum an old lullaby.

“Mom.”

“Hush, child. All will be well.” She says it with such confidence, Ayame can’t help but give in, the pain from her fall finally catching up to her and she sinks into blissful darkness.

Hana continues to hum as the Clansmen close in, knowing she cannot fight them off and protect her unconscious daughter, she gives in to her fate, eyes wide open, hand still stroking her daughter’s hair. Steel surrounds them, blocking out the light of the setting sun. Folding herself over her daughter in a last-ditch effort to save her, Hana bracing herself for the searing pain of a thousand cuts, her muscles go rigid in anticipation, her eyes slam shut without her permission. And she waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Cold air raises gooseflesh on her skin as she pries her eyes back open to find the ground far below them. Slowly, she drags her eyes up to the talons gently cradling her and her daughter, the aqua scales running up a thick neck, to the yellow whiskers floating in the breeze.

The dragon. She realizes, clenching her daughter closer to her.

“What are you doing?” She yells over the wind. “Where are you taking us!” Whether the dragon does not understand her or chooses not to acknowledge her please, it continues its flight, taking them further and further away from the only home either of them have every known.

“Don’t worry, Ayame. Everything will be alright.” Hana promises her unconscious child. “You did it, just like you said you would. You are my daughter. You are strong. A warrior in your own right. And I love you.”