Ring

Prelude

It glittered down there at the bottom of the stream. There, down among the pebbles and the smooth, water polished rocks, it caught the light of the summer sun and glowed brightly. Alluring... taunting... hidden for untold years by the remoteness of its bed.
Over the rapidly rushing water leaned an old tree. A long ago storm had washed out sections of the bank and nearly toppled the world weary veteran, but he held on despite it all. New branches balanced him in his odd new position, and new roots again anchored him safely in place. Cooled by the icy water below, the horizontal tree trunk provided a perfect resting place for Arden's restless princess. It also provided the only view of the long lost ring that currently held her interest.
Nearly limp from the heat and thin air, her ever present hounds lay panting at the foot of the tree. A quick dip in the mountain stream had revived them somewhat, but they were more than content to rest here, sheltered from the unrelenting sun by neighbors of the tree that hosted their mistress. Brieanne too had been content to rest a bit and had thought a nap in the tree would be perfect. Then a bright flash of yellow and white down below had caught her eye and now a nap was the last thing on her mind.
They were miles from home, high up in the mountains that ended in Kolvir and the Rebman sea. A series of endless chases and games and Brieanne's ever nagging curiosity had led them further and higher into the mountains then any person had ever ventured ... to Brieanne's knowledge, at least. But, here was proof that someone had once upon a time.
A determined search had produced only one branch long enough to reach the bottom of the stream and it had failed to capture the prize. Finally breaking on her last, frustrated attempt, the pieces had floated away in disgrace.
So now she leaned over the tree trunk and stared hard into the water. She was determined to have the dainty little item, but unhappy with the only remaining way to get it. Both hounds looked up as she moved, compacting herself into a tight ball, only her toes and her finger tips remaining on the tree. Her eyes leaped long the top of the water, gauging the force of the current... measuring the depth of her dive... It was a long pause as she contemplated all the things she would have to take into account to make this attempt succeed. And it would have to work on the first try, she didn't think she could force herself into the water a second.
A series of quick, deep breathes and she plunged in.
The icy water stole the breath from her lungs as soon as she hit it. Sharp, frozen needles prickled painfully along every inch of skin and her eyes nearly froze in their sockets when she opened them to pinpoint her destination. Catching hold of a large jutting rock with one numb hand, Brieanne grabbed for the ring with the other. She didn't feel the tiny cuts her hands received as a result... the nicks and cuts... the tiny tears in the delicate skin around her finger nails as she pushed through the pebbles... But she had the ring.
If she had the air she'd have yelled in triumph. Instead she tightened her fist around the ring, pulled that arm tightly to her, coiled and shoved up off the rock she had anchored herself to with legs she could no longer feel.
Brieanne floundered toward the steep bank. The intense cold sapped her strength, making her movements awkward and ineffective. Cousin to the nirads, who had taken to water like a little otter as soon as she was walking, it was an alarming and wholly unanticipated situation.
Gasping for air as her head broke the surface, Brieanne reached for one of the many craggy rocks that stabbed out into the water. She cried out in horror and disbelief as her numb fingers failed to find purchase and the swiftly moving current pulled her back under.
Mind reeling cold battled panic as she kicked for the surface a second time. She made a nearly blind grab for an exposed tree root, sharp nails tearing at the soft bark, but her aim was poor and again the water claimed her.
The channel narrowed here, the water flowing even more swiftly then before. Brieanne was tumbled roughly from the shoulder of one boulder to the next, each unexpected blow taking its toll as she tried to orient herself and break free. But she had not lived her life as she had without some skill and as a delicate, distinctive shadow passed over the water above her eyes, she grabbed for it.
Though it bent nearly in half, the tiny tree held on with all its might as it caught Brieanne's weight. The added impact of the water would have proven too much for it if it were not for the fact that skill was only a third of what got Brieanne safely through life. Someone else's planning was another.
Smoketreader's teeth sank through the material of her shirt as the graying hound hauled his ward up out of the water. His paws dug through the pebbles and muck as the current tried to take him, but he too was caught in his turn, his weight falling against Briarsting's solid form as the younger hound pushed them both upward. For one painfully long heartbeat, all four creatures struggled against a single foe.
The final blessing in Brieanne's haphazard life however, has forever been luck. And like the reed thin sapling and her dedicated hounds, it held onto her with a tenacity that defied reason.
Climbing up above the lifesaving tree with a numb thank-you for its aid, Brieanne clung to Briarsting as Smoketreader carried her from the other side. The heat rising from the rocks was unbearable and seared each time she touched it, though it would be much later before she would feel the many scrapes she received on the awkward climb up.
Shivering themselves, the hounds whined and licked her face as they danced in place with nervous, mincing little steps.
"G-g-g-o-o-o R-r-r-o-o-o-l-l." She finally managed to order through clattering teeth, and, as the hounds enthusiastically warmed and dried themselves in the tall glass, Brieanne straightened herself up and slipped the ring onto her finger with trembling hands. White and thin, more like bird claws then fingers, the hard won prize sat loosely around her ring finger. It would fit once the blood finally returned.
Her prize as safe as she could make it, Brieanne hurried to follow the hounds example. Her veins showed pale and blue through the now white skin of her arms and legs, matching the colors of her hands, and she didn't need a mirror to know how blue her lips were. Shaking, she managed to strip icy clothes off and laid them out in the grass to dry as best they could.
The hounds were still rolling and thrashing about in abandon, pausing only briefly when she gingerly began mimicking their moves in a desperate attempt to dry herself and restore circulation.
The sun had crossed the high, water cut vale before Brieanne roused again. Tired, but dry, warm and alive, Brieanne sat up and regarded the little bit of jewelry now fitting perfectly on the ring finger of her left hand.
Evenly weighted all the way around, the gold band was unmarked except for three tiny diamonds that sat all in a row. The prism-like cut of the gems caught the sunlight and reflected fierily bits of color off the band and each other. No sign or indication of who it had once belonged to or how it had come to be in such a remote place.
Back in the glade where she had originally entered the vale, she left her still wet clothes to dry on the ground by her bow and climbed up toward the source of the wickedly flowing stream.

The Ring

"But I still don't know where it came from." Brieanne sat in a sun warmed section of a ruined castle in a dry change of clothes and safely encircled by a set of massive, scaled arms. Gazalarnith rested on his hunches, his long tail swishing back and forth on the other side of the tower wall like some great draconian cat. He rested on his elbows, Brieanne sitting comfortable between, and gazed down at the tiny piece of jewelry she had brought to him.
He had listened to her story with the patience possessed only by very long-lived creatures, and continued to do so as she wrapped it up.
"I climbed all the way up as high as I could and didn't see anything that wasn't just rocks and woods. Then it was just this great big piece of mountain with water pouring out of all sorts of little places and no where left for me to go."
Brieanne described, in her signature style, the narrow multifaceted waterfall that went hurtling down to a small, rock hemmed basin some 20 odd feet beneath her. Churned to a frothy white by the falling water, it had been obscured by a heavy mist and sent clouds of the same rising up to meet her. Hands fluttering, ring glittering, she described details most would not have noticed, from the texture of the rocks right down to the smell of the water.
"I'll have to go back again, maybe. Maybe with some rope or something so I can climb down into it..." Her voice trailed off as she stared accusingly as the silent ring with its little mystery still safely intact.
"Rope? Now why, do tell, would you do something as cumbersomely practical as that?" The dragon inclined his head until the curve of the horns that crowned him were nearly parallel with her body and one great golden eye looked squarely at her. "You could always just dive in and see what you find."
"You're making fun of me." Brieanne gave her friend a sour look. "That's not nice."
Though he lacked the range of facial expressions other creatures had, there was a certain shifting of the plates and scales that armored his face. A crinkling at the corners of the huge amond-shaped eye with its triangular, cat-like pupil. A tilting of his head that brought the other eye into view and his nose almost tip-to-tip with hers.
"Naw!" It came out in a great, rumbling, drawn-out purr that tickled his throat and made him cough. He laughed and coughed and tried to regain his normal composure. It was like listening to a very vocal, mostly contained earthquake. Bits of the faulty wall were shaking loose and tumbling down to the court yard before he stopped.
"I tease you only when you have no thoughts in your head." He still looked too amused for her liking and Brieanne scowled up at him. "But. Did it ever occur to you, that diving in might be unwise?"
"But I was just going straight down and then I was gonna get right out." Brieanne pouted, shooting hurt looks up at the dragon who wasn't behaving at all like he normally did. "It was just a few feet so it should have been easy. Just the water was so cold...."
"Just." Gazalarnith shook his huge head and looked at her. All traces of humor evaporating with a single word. "Just nearly killed you."
"And, as pretty as it is, the ring is not worth your life dryadling." The words were as soft as he could speak them, and he gently touched the tip of his snout to her head, his breath ruffling her hair as he did. "Those responsible for you must not know these things, or else they would never sleep for worrying."
Brieanne cocked her head and looked up at him, thinking of Gerard and her brother. Her father had been gone for nearly 8 years in a war she still didn't understand and those two had been left with the task of raising her. She didn't think it was so much work. She took care of herself mostly.... But sometimes, she admitted, she really didn't think at all.
"No... they know... I tell them too....." Brieanne made a face as she pondered the possibilities.
"Then you give them gray hair." The dragon's droll tone came from deep within him and shook the wall again.
But Brieanne was getting uncomfortable and decided she was done with the discussion. She made a tsking sound and waved her hand through the air to dismiss the whole conversation.
"I don't want to talk about it. I want to listen." She held the tiny ring up, the gold as inviting to the dragon as her trees were to her. He was more then happy to oblige.
The ring had a bright, happy sound and even after his friend had returned home, the dragon continued to sit and regard it. There was nothing like gold to a dragon, but this had been acquired in a most unusual fashion and he couldn't help but dwell on that as he entered his lair. Even as he lay coiled on his hoard, the music lulling him into a light, meditative sleep, a single thought kept occurring to him.
A gift. Someone had given him a gift. It fascinated him and no amount of head shaking could make the thought rest easy.