A Crone and a Babe

A forest was no place for a dragon. The trees were bunched together too tightly and on foot it was nearly impossible to find a way through. Garrag grunted with annoyance as branches scraped his wings and boulders pierced his feet. Snow swirled around behind him and even through his plated skin the cold crept in.

He had killed a stag from the air and landed in the charred patch of forest to fill his belly, which had been empty for far too long. After he had eaten the entire beast he had caught a strange scent on the air. A smell that he remembered from ages past. A human scent. So he’d followed it on foot, curiosity getting the better of him for the first time in a decade.

As much as Garrag knew that he did not belong in the forest, he was even more certain that this tiny feeble human before him belonged even less. It was small even by puny human standards. Its little legs and arms looked softer than even the newest hatched dragon’s hide.

Garrag had spent as little time as possible around dragon offspring and even less around human young, so he did not know what to make of this… thing, curled up and helpless.

He shifted his weight, rumbling low in his throat, a sound of curiosity and alarm. If there had been other dragons around they might have come over to inspect with him, but it had been just him for years now. He had chosen this part of the world for that very reason. Remote and isolated. Cold. Barren. Just how he liked it.

But now there was a soft little human here. Garrag moved forwards one careful footstep, crushing a small tree under his foot. Humans were easily underestimated. This one might be playing dead. It might be a trap.

Garrag rustled his wings at the thought, sending the snow that had been resting there swirling into the air. He stood up on his haunches and looked around. Standing, he towered over the tree tops by about the length of a human. He peered around, looking through the dense forest, scanning for any traces of others. Fully grown humans were rarely alone, let alone a juvenile.

He turned around to look at the patch of charred forest that he’d made, a sick feeling twisting in his gut. Could he have accidentally killed the parents? No. He would not have been so careless.

Kneeling back down to the earth, he put his head next to the little body. The chest was rising and falling rapidly and child’s skin was a pale shade of blue. Garrag was pretty certain that humans were not supposed to be blue. They could be all different kinds of hues, but blue was not one of them.

Was it sick?

Garrag got close enough that his hot breath blew across the child’s face, pushing its blonde hair back. Rumbling in the back of his throat again, he inhaled and smelled deeply.

It didn’t smell sick, but humans were not like dragons. Their bodies were fragile. Garrag remembered that they could die from the most trifling things. Eating uncooked meat, being too hot or too cold… their delicate bodies dropped dead at the slightest provocation. They built houses made of sticks and stones to protect themselves from the sun and the wind. Garrag snorted, it was hard to imagine having to protect himself from the very elements that kept him alive.

The only thing that ever killed a dragon was another dragon. Or a human.

Garrag narrowed his eyes at the feeble body. It probably needed to be in a stick house or it would die soon. Its parents must be close.

The little body started shaking. Was it possible the colour of the skin was changing? It was looking a little less blue now and more pink-ish. It must be cold, Garrag reasoned, and his breath was warming it up.

Garrag bristled with irritation. He supposed that he would linger until the parents returned. He couldn’t very well leave it here. He grumbled deep in his chest, resigned to this activity. He would give the parents a scare when they got back. His grumbling lessened, thinking with pleasure at the looks on their faces when they came back to collect their youngling and found a dragon instead. Maybe it would teach them to be less careless and not leave their offspring lying about.

Garrag nosed through the trees and found some dry wood that would burn well, placing it next to the child. He made a tiny pile of branches beside the child and then breathed fire onto it gently, carefully avoiding burning the helpless creature. The fire caught and he looked around for some more sticks to make a shelter. He lumbered around in a circle, making a clearing in the forest with his big body, pushing trees out of his way and snapping them down.

He looked back down at the child and hummed with alarm. The fire that had seemed so tiny to him was now a massive bonfire next to the unconscious body. Garrag anxiously spun around and nosed the fire away from the little body before inspecting it for burns. It didn’t look like the fire had gotten close enough to damage the soft skin.

In fact, it seemed like the breathing had settled into a deeper and more even rhythm. The blue tinge was almost completely gone from the skin.

Garrag hurriedly built a little shelter out of the trees he’d just felled, protecting the human from the snow that had started to fall again.

It should be covered with furs, Garrag realized. Humans needed to be covered head to toe in the winter time. He remembered that from the war. His rider had been covered in many layers of furs in the coldest parts of winter. Garrag blew out a breath. He did not like to think of Ishba.

Why was this human dressed only in the thinnest layers of summer clothing?

Garrag looked in the direction of his cave. He had furs in his trove. They were useless to him, of course, but he liked to have them anyways. They were highly prized by humans and he liked to have things that were valuable to them. The more valuable the better.

But he couldn’t leave this creature here, could he? It was a miracle the wolves hadn’t found him already and now the fire would draw predators for miles around. No, it wouldn’t last a minute without him.

So, Garrag adjusted himself so that he was curled around the body and he stretched his wing over top, leaving a hole for the smoke from the fire to escape. He tucked his head underneath and breathed into it. It would be as hot as a mid summer afternoon in a few minutes, which is what the child was dressed for.

Garrag closed his eyes, planning to sleep, but he couldn’t help cracking an eye open and looking at the child’s face for a moment. The little body looked more relaxed now. He had turned onto his side, seeking the heat of the fire. His little lips were parted and a trail of drool ran down his cheek.

Despite himself, Garrag purred softly in his chest, remembering years ago when he sheltered his rider on many nights as cold as this. He had been smaller then and his rider much bigger. Then, he had been one dragon of many in a war of men.

He fell asleep then, listening to the breaths of the child and remembering all the times he’d listened to Ishba slumber beside him.

***

Garrag awoke to a most peculiar and unpleasant sensation in his nostril. The small child was up and it’s little hand was wedged firmly up his nose. He pulled his head back and the child cried out in dismay, reaching his hand up towards the dragon’s large head.

The dragon shook his head and then sneezed thunderously, the sound echoing through the forest, the force of the sneeze blowing snow all around the clearing. Garrag looked down at the little beast. The colour of the skin had fully returned to a pinky-tan and the child’s dark eyes were wide open, looking at Garrag in surprise at the sound.

Then, the child started to jabber loudly, pointing and gesturing erratically. Garrag watched the tiny figure for a few minutes before deciding that he had absolutely no idea what it was trying to say.

He needed to get it back to the other humans and he couldn’t wait around forever for the parents. The nearest settlement was miles away. It would be a short flight, no longer than an hour, but the child would not survive a flight without furs. And it was probably hungry, that was probably what it was trying to say. Garrag couldn’t remember if he had any human food in his trove. He might be able to find something, but human food was not something that he collected.

Garrag stood and shook his wings out, sending snow cascading down behind him. He stretched his wings and stood up on his haunches. It was only a ten minute flight to his cave. The child should be warm enough to make it that far. He looked down and saw that the child was looking up at him, frozen in shock. He had probably not anticipated that the beast whose nose he’d stuck his tiny fist into was quite so large.

Garrag scooped him up into his foot, his talons creating a cage. He felt the child moving around but it would not be able to escape.

He pushed off of his free foot and thrust his wings down. The trees bowed away at the force of the air as he shot into the sky.

The child cried slightly, but then fell silent. He might be worried except he could still feel it moving around in his grasp. No doubt looking for an escape. He kept his flight low. He remembered that humans did not necessarily do all that well with very high flights. It was possible for a human to fly among the clouds, but uncomfortable and he didn’t know what it would do to a child.

Once he got to his cave, he slowed his flight and gingerly dropped onto his one foot, awkwardly maneuvering himself within the depths. The last thing he wanted was to have to chase the child through the forest if it made a run for it.

He looked over his trove and then set the child gingerly on a bed. He purred happily as he remembered the conquest that had won him that bed. It had been back in the days when he had sought vengeance. He’d torn apart a pirate’s ship only to find out that he was poor pirate indeed. The captain’s bed was the nicest part of the ship so he’d ripped it clean off the floor. The crew had cried out in horror and then confusion as he’d flown off with the bed and left the ship to sink.

The child was not all that impressed with the bed and he quickly scampered off of it, far more interested in the rest of the treasure that glittered beneath it. Garrag left him to his exploration and looked around for food and furs.

He found the furs quickly, hanging where he’d left them on the wall of the cave. The food was another matter. He rooted through his least valuable treasure pile. He left it near the door. If any humans ever did happen upon his trove they’d be most likely to grab what they could at the door and run away before waking him. He nudged away the wooden statues and silver plates and found a small bag of human food - dried fruits and nuts. Ishba had always liked that. He sniffed it and didn’t think that there was anything wrong with it, so he picked it up gingerly with his front teeth and passed it to the child, who was gleefully rooting through the treasure chests, throwing the coins and jewels around everywhere.

The child looked at bag and then inspected it, poking through the contents. When he realized what it was he sat down cross legged and grabbed handfuls of the food and ate it hungrily.

Good, Garrag thought, it would eat and then they would go. Humans had to eat so often. Another failing of the species. Dragons had to eat only once a week or even once a month if they weren’t using up too much energy.

He’d had to eat once a week during the war. They’d struggled to feed the dragons. They couldn’t produce sheep fast enough to keep all the dragons fed. At first, it had not been so bad, but as the war dragged on and the fighting intensified, the dragons started to starve. He remembered the nights of gnawing hunger. The dragons had started to fight more aggressively. They’d sate themselves on the flesh of the enemy and if there weren’t enough enemies, sometimes the most desperate dragons would turn on their riders. That’s when the humans had come up with the idea of muzzling dragons and that had been the end of the alliance. He would never forget the clink of metal as the humans had produced this intricate silver monstrosity and then attempted to put it on the face of one of the most starved dragons.

The dragons had turned on their human allies, anger scorching their throats. How dare they muzzle a dragon? The indignity of it was beneath even the lowliest dragon. The humans had been forced to put the war aside and join forces against the rage of the dragons.

Garrag’s fury at the muzzle had been no less savage than the others, but he had been equally shocked at the bloody massacre that had ensued. He’d picked up Ishba and flown away as fast and far as he could.

He shook his head, trying to chase away the memories that pushed in. Humans were unpredictable. They couldn’t be trusted to act in a rational way. Which was why he had to get this creature back to where he belonged.

The child had eaten his fill and was now sorting through the food, eating some of it and throwing other bits of it around. Garrag stepped towards the creature, wondering how he was going to get him to cooperate. He needed it to put on the furs somehow. Ishba had always had a way of organizing the furs.

He gently lifted the child and placed it on top of the furs he had laid out, hoping that it would arrange itself. The child only looked around in confusion and then stood up and tried to climb back up his treasure pile. Garrag stopped the child and pulled him back to the furs. The child laughed and rolled over and over until he was off the fur.

Garrag again plucked him back up and put him on the furs. After several more tries, it was clear that the child was not about to arrange itself, so Garrag tried to help. First, he draped the fur over top of his head, but the child just laughed and wriggled out of it. Then, he tried to drape it over the child’s shoulders, but it fell to the side. Garrag snorted in frustration.

Then, he laid the fur down flat and plucked the child up from where he was climbing away and placed him on one end of the fur and then turned him over and over in it until he was wrapped snuggly. He protested with his feeble human cries, but he was wrapped to tightly to do anything about it. Part of the fur came up and covered his head so that all that showed was his little face, twisted up in frustration at being contained.

Satisfied, Garrag took the little bundle and lumbered back out of his cave awkwardly using only one foot and took to the sky. It took a surprisingly long time for the little bundle to stop protesting. So long that when it finally quieted Garrag was concerned that something might be wrong.

He looked down at the little face, which had relaxed and was now looking around the skies with interest. Good, Garrag thought, hopefully that will be all the complaining he would have to put up with.

Garrag flew over miles and miles of forest. He continually scanned, looking for signs of humans in the area. The mystery only thickened as Garrag flew. How could a tiny human have made it so far? It was impossible.

Finally, in the distance the human settlement appeared. A large barricade around a ramshackle collection of buildings. All made of sticks and stones.

Garrag roared to signal his approach. He did not have any interest in alarming the humans by dropping into their home without warning. In the distance, he could hear the cries of human voices. A sound from a distant past and yet so familiar to him.

As he approached, a volley of arrows flew towards him, falling short. This is why humans were ridiculous. Always armed. Always ready to fight.

Another volley of arrows was loosed and as they approached he released a small wave of fire that incinerated the arrows mid-flight.

He landed on one foot in the middle of the human encampment, surprised at how small everything was. It had been a long time since he’d been among the humans and he had grown substantially. The humans surrounded him, their swords held out, as effective as children with wooden blades.

He extended the small human, bundled up in the blanket and deposited him in front of the humans. They looked between Garrag and the child in astonishment, their eyes wide with fear and confusion.

Garrag knew that he should leave, but he wanted to make sure that they would take care of the child. Make sure that the parents knew not to leave the child alone in the forest again.

One of the men approached cautiously, looking at the the child’s face in shock. The man was drawn and gaunt. The bones of his face stuck out sharply, leaving him looking hollow and haunted.

“It is the child we sent,” he said, his voice filled with awe. He looked up at Garrag and then crouched into a low bow before backing away.

“What does this mean?” Another man asked.

There was a moment of silence and a woman came forwards, tentative and balancing shakily on a cane, “The god has come back, bearing our sacrifice. Perhaps our offering has been accepted. The winter will finally break.”

Garrag grumbled in confusion and the humans took a step away. He noticed that no one had yet reached for the child.

“No,” another woman said, her voice sharp, “It means that he is displeased with the offer. I knew we should have offered three children. The gods prefer sacrifices in threes.”

Sacrifices? Gods? Garrag did not understand.

“No,” the first woman said, hobbling forwards, “It means he has accepted it. The famine will be lifted. Our crops will grow. And we can return Teio to his mother.”

“Why does he not move then?” One of the men questioned, “He must want something.”

Garrag shifted backwards, perhaps he should leave.

“He wants a killed sacrifice,” the woman with the cane asserted, “He must be displeased.”

“Find more children,” the man with the haunted face said, “And we will kill this one. His presence must be a good sign.”

Garrag rumbled, convinced he must not understand properly. Fury pooled hotly in this throat and he spread his wings out, trying to caution the humans.

“You do it,” the man said, passing a sword to the woman with the cane, “If you are certain this is the right path forwards. You do it.”

“Well we have to do something,” she said, “Or none of us will survive.”

The woman dropped her cane and took the sword and approached the child, limping heavily on one leg.

As she raised the weapon over her head, Garrag’s leg shot out and he grabbed the child with his large foot. A roar of pure rage erupted from his throat and he spewed flame into the air. He stood up, tucking the child behind him and away from the humans.

Nothing had changed. In the hundred years since he’d been in isolation nothing had changed. Hunger and fear were the twin guiding stars of human action and they would never rise above it.

Garrag looked down at the woman who would have made the child a sacrifice. Fire wound tightly in the back of Garrag’s mouth. He looked down and saw dawning understanding and that familiar old fear just before Garrag released a blazing inferno down onto her. A wave of heat and the smell of burning flesh made the humans stagger back, but no one could look away from the spectacle.

Without looking back, Garrag sprang into the air, clutching the now screaming child tightly in his claw. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do, but anywhere was better than here.

***

A week later, spring came and melted the snow from the trees. Game returned to the forests and the rivers filled back up with fish. The berries came unusually early and in abundance and the whole town feasted.

A crone and a babe, they told each other. A crone and a babe was the sacrifice demanded by their angry god.