A Forest Forgotten:

Enemy of Mankind

Humankind. The dragon scoffed at the name. Mankind. He snorted. The dragon extended his long, winged arms and stretched his gnarled and worn claws out to scrape at the ground around him as the names of his hunters prowled through his mind. Tearing and then pulling the twisted brambles from the forest floor, the dragon drew the underbrush around and over his great scaled back and coiled tail, camouflaging himself as he had for many ages. The day was soon to come, and the dark, canopied forest would be pierced by the shadow-searching rays of light.

It had not always been this way. Once there were many of us, the dragon thought to himself. And like men, some were noble while others cruel. But many times had passed since then, and the cruel had been hunted for vengeance or retribution, or a fool's quest for gold. Then the noble were sought out, stalked, and killed for their hides, their claws, and their teeth. And then there were few. Then, only one. A king among kings, a lord of dragonkind. His own name he had long forgotten. His homeland...long had it been since its destruction. But he had not forgotten the savagery of man. The brutality in his eyes and the lethality of his actions.

The forest had become the dragon's new home. Safe. And secure from the prying eyes of Man and his offspring...ever evolving and changing the world around him. At night the dragon would pull himself out of concealment, spread his wings and, lifting his huge body up from the ground on long and powerful legs, raise his thickly scaled neck up above the tree line. Where once he saw only darkness, with the occasional fire that marked the village or encampments of men, he now saw vast oceans of light where mankind, in his disease-like spread, had overtaken and removed the forests - replacing them with structures of iron and brick that reached to the sky like silver blades punctured up through the earth itself.

The dragon sighed and exhaled a hot, vaporous breath. The dry branches, vines, and heaps of grass and dirt that he had dragged over his body shifted and slid as he curled himself and tucked his head beneath one great wing. He was now completely hidden and appeared to be no more than a thicketed hill amid a dying forest. As the dragon closed his eyes and slowed his breathing to drift into sleep, he thought again of the days of his past. A time when he had once moved freely across these lands. When he had once slept peacefully under the same moon that now glared down upon him like a trespasser in a foreign land. A time when he had a name.

The day passed as any other. The sun moved in its slow arc across a hazy and gray backdrop. Gone were the days of cool breezes, white clouds, and blue oceans of open sky. The machines and developments of Man had poisoned the earth. Acrid winds, gray-black clouds, and a sky that was rarely seen were what remained. Dusk settled across the land as the sun dropped below the high mountains of the West. The dragon stirred. A new night was approaching.

But so was something else. It had started as a scent in the air, something new and not of the land he had claimed as his own these many ages. It was not of the many shining towers far across the fields that surrounded the forest. Nor was it of the smoke that belched out of Man's glowing and sound-filled nights. It was of Man himself. And at this the dragon knew that Man had finally come to take the forest...His forest.

The dragon felt his lungs begin to burn, as did his passionate hate for the race of humankind. His body began to quiver with rage at the thought of the boots of Man treading upon his only remaining sacred ground. His eyes opened slowly, and his lips drew back to reveal fangs the length of a man's arm. The scent grew stronger as the sun completed its arc and vanished beneath the horizon, melting the gray sky into a yellowed bronze - a rusted caricature of the radiant sunsets that once graced the earth's surface. And with the scent now came the steady footfalls of the approaching figure. The dragon sensed them throughout every nerve in his body. Soft, light, steps through the forest. A weary and worn traveler, the dragon thought. He shall never again see the light of day. The dragon felt the growing heat in his chest and the familiar, but long forgotten taste of bitter and acidic fluid in his jowls. Slowly, and with more care and effort than he had put forth in many lifetimes, the dragon began to uncurl his long body. The detritus and broken remnants of scavenged forest slid off the dragon's back and winged arms. Unspooling his long and barbed tail, he let it drape across the forest floor, as thick as a fallen tree and twice as hard. The scent was overwhelming. The sounds of the man were deafening. The trespasser was close. His enemy would soon be upon him.

Lost...and Found

The sun and its faded rays had gone. The moon with its brackish light had yet to show itself. Only the stars, bright and unchanging, lit the sky above and the forest below. The stars, and the multicolored lights of man beyond the field. It was from among those lights, a towering and industrialized city of modern man, unbeknownst to the dragon, where a young toddler and her father had packed their car and gone for an afternoon picnic close to the forest.

At four years old, she had already become quite the adventurer, climbing over all the furniture in their humble apartment and finding all the best hiding places where her dad would always find her, but not after looking for a long time. She loved the outdoors and the grass between her toes in the park that lay at the center of the great city. Her father, a solitary man, but one of great character, had loved, cherished, and taken care of her from the moment of her adoption and treated her as his very own. He saw how his daughter loved the artificially natural beauty of the enclosed park and vowed to take her on a trip out of town to see the great trees and surrounding fields of the last forest.

It was there, in that field, on the edge of the shadows thrown by the ancient trees, that the girl and her father were set upon at their picnic by men of the city - a murderous gang with no regard for human life, or any other. She had run, while her father fought wildly, tearing her away from the men with his own bloody hands and holding them back, more to keep them from catching his daughter than fighting them, as they stabbed him repeatedly.

The young girl ran, crying, but not screaming, toward the darkness of the looming giants.

There, through a small, door-shaped opening in the foliage, she disappeared into the recesses of that forgotten wood.

It was the child's footsteps that the dragon heard as she moved slowly through the undergrowth. It was her steady breathing that the dragon sensed throughout his wooded realm. It was her scent, one of fear, that seeped into the dragon's skin like rain bleeding into the forest floor. For centuries it was the scent of destruction, despair, torment, and killing. Of hiding and foraging and secluding. And finally of hating and burning fury.

But many an age had passed since the dragon had seen man. Though he knew the scent well, he found that something smelled different with this one. He struggled to recall as he straightened his legs and stretched his back upward to his full height, spreading his immense winged arms as the broken and dead foliage slid off his great body. The human drew nearer. The dragon extended his back and reared his neck up to its highest position, almost brushing the leaves of the canopy overhead, and waited.

But what happened next was not what the dragon had anticipated. The scent became overpowering as the human pushed through a tangle of brush and weed and into the manufactured clearing where the behemoth of old now stood like a sentinel of Hell. But this was no hunter. What now stood before the dragon was no armor-clad warrior. It was no fearsome king or knight out to test his strength and greatness by slaying the last dragon of this world. This was no man at all. Standing before the dragon, her brightly colored clothes torn and ragged, was a human child, a very young female of man. For a moment the dragon's fire and heat of revenge did not sway and his instinct to kill remained as his lips drew back and his sword like teeth flashed like white coral against a dark sea floor. But then something else came over him. As he stared down at the youngling, he felt a sense of both pity and sorrow. For surely this child knew not the ways of war but in her small eyes, that looked up at his own in more wonder than fear, he sensed a... loneliness. And despair. The dragon's eyes softened and the heat in his gullet subsided as he bent his head down and lowered his body to get closer to the child. Something deep and hidden for ages inside the dragon's mind had awoken. He felt compassion.

The little girl did not move. She stood staring at the giant before her. Fear did not cross her young mind. Instead, she was filled with a sense of relief at no longer being alone. And amazement at seeing in front of her what she had only known from her storybooks. A dragon. She watched as the creature bared his teeth at her before they receded again, and all that remained was his immense green eyes that looked down at her. Nor did she run when the dragon lowered his head and brought his great snout down from the tree line far above to within reach of her tiny body.

The dragon sniffed, a great rush of air that pulled at the child's torn shirt. She did not cower or run away. It was the blood he smelled first and again there was the rising sensation of battles from many times ago. He felt his own blood stir and a heat rising in his chest. But the spilled blood did not belong to the child. It was the blood of her family. A father perhaps. The dragon's senses were keen and had not tarnished over the ages. He smelled the fear within her. But not a fear of him. Of something else. Of others. The dragon sniffed again, pulling the air through her, and clouding his mind with the scent. Tears. Sadness. Loss. For a moment the dragon felt himself waver in his thought. The child...so much like himself.

The dragon's head and face eclipsed all else behind him as the girl saw that he moved closer to her. She remained still as his nostrils moved and she felt a rush of air all around her, almost pulling her into the creature's nose. She saw the tilt of the dragon's snout as he seemed to be considering her. Another great whiff of air blew through her, and she saw the dragon's eyes widen and then soften again. She felt a sense of calm pass over her then. A sense of understanding. A sense of hope. Without another thought she reached out her tiny arm and placed a small hand, scratched and dirty, upon the dragon's nose. She felt the dragon jerk, but he did not recoil. Softly, she slid her hand across the iron-like skin of his nose as he turned his head slightly and brought one great emerald eye into her view. She saw a softness there. She saw and felt a caring much like her father in that moment and in a sudden overwhelming sense of sorrow, she collapsed and fell to the ground in a deep, coma-like sleep.

The dragon stared in astonishment as the child fell forward onto the ground and her breathing softened to less than a whisper. She had touched him. His reaction to the touch stunned himself. She had felt sympathy for him. And something else. Love? The dragon reared his back and pulled his neck back up to its full height while stepping backwards, rumbling the ground beneath his clawed feet. He had peered into her eyes and saw it. An enormous feeling of helplessness was within the child. A lost soul beaten out of this world and left to his care, as he had been left to the uncaring world.

As he stood, staring in amazement at the unmoving, save for the steady but soft breathing, of the child, he was suddenly aware of something new. Something more sinister. It was the scent of death, of spilled blood, and of violence. It was the sound of men and the odor of their brutality. The fire of his ancestors sparked inside the dragon's breast.

Vengeance

The two men crashed and stumbled their way through the now dark forest. One had enabled the flashlight of his cell phone to light their path as they cursed and tore through the woods, swearing at the kid and calling her obscene names, knowing they should not have allowed her to get away. She had seen their faces. They were close. They could see the snapped branches of her fleeing path in the dark, highlighted by the phone's blue glow, and had found more than one shred of torn pink cloth from the girl's shirt. They pushed forward, stomping through both live and dead branches. An occasional This way or That way was muttered by both while they tracked their prey across the ancient wood. Somewhere ahead of them they could hear the cracking of leaves and sounds of rustling in the forest. They knew it was the kid and they were ready to put an end to the night and return to the city with their spoils. Their pace increased to a run, jumping over fallen logs in their path as they neared what looked like a clearing ahead.

The dragon's eyes shifted from an emerald green to a flaming orange as the heat of generations of hatred began to boil over inside him. He looked down at the girl child and felt a sense of protection for her, a sense of duty, and suddenly, a sense of love. At that moment the two men came rushing into the open area, slashing with short blades through the weeds and vines of the wall of green that surrounded the dragon's encampment. Their strange blue-white torch beam moved quickly across the clearing, scanning the ground and trunks of trees all around. The dragon did not move. Instantly he saw the men as flesh and bone, clothed in loose fitting garments unlike the knights and warriors before them. But his keen eyes, with renewed vigor, saw the men also as red and yellow glowing fires of body heat against the cool blues and blacks of the forest around them. And he smelled their blood, hot and burning. But it was not only Their blood he found penetrating his senses. It was the smell of innocent blood, the same that was on the youngling. It was the blood of the child's father...on the hands of the men.

As if the final piece to a puzzle had placed itself within the dragon's mind, he at once saw the full story laid out before him. Of a lost child, a murdered father, and the men responsible. And still he remained unmoving, watching the men below him as they prowled and searched his lair. It was then that the young girl awoke. And from her mouth one word was uttered. The men turned instantly, their blue light whipping across the forest floor and settling on the moving body of the child. The dragon sensed instantly their meaning. He could feel the aggression of the men rising as they moved slowly toward the girl. The men then drew their blades. It was this final act, as the glint of steel reflected upon the dragon's fixed eyes, that his wrath became unhinged.

The dragon's heart became ice. His body became fire. His purpose...vengeance! As a quiet flame roars to brilliant and all-consuming life with an added fuel, so the dragon's full presence became a paragon of hatred, horror, and a dealer of death upon men. The forest exploded in an orange-white light as the dragon's heat turned his armored hide into a cataclysm of hardened and living magma. The men fell backwards, both terrified and astonished at the sight of something they dared not believe. The heat emanating from the dragon's body alone scorched the leaves of the forest and sent a shockwave of raging hot air across the faces of the men and throughout the entire forest. The dragon stepped forward with a giant stride, landing one clawed foot beside the girl and shaking the ground with a rumble that caused the deadened limbs and loosened leaves to drop from the canopy above.

The child made no sound. The men screamed, both dropping their blades and the blue light which paled in comparison to the sun-like body of the great dragon. Their screams died away, echoing beyond them through the forest like the final words of the dead. The dragon brought another great clawed foot forward and his body lengthened as he drew closer to the men. He stood like a wall of steel and flame above the young girl. His spiked and hammered-iron tail swung about with such speed and fury that it cleaved many of the forest’s thickest trees in half, sending them crashing to the forest floor one after another like the rapidly beating heart of the forest itself.

The dragon looked down upon the men. The slayers of history. The usurpers of ancient kings. The murderers of fathers, and the destructors of...families. At this the dragon roared and the trees bent to the ground as if bowing to his mighty presence. The men, regaining their sense of flight, scurried to their feet and began to run, stumbling over each other, knowing only death behind or life ahead. One man saw an opening in the tangled brush to his right and made for the small gap, running as fast as he could, screaming in terror. The other, heedless of his companion, continued forward, tears streaming from his eyes as he yelled out for help.

The dragon could smell it upon them. He sensed that it was no longer hatred that the men felt. It was the purest taste of fear. And he bathed in it. With a sure and swift leap forward the dragon seemed to hover motionless in the air, floating above and beyond the small girl, and landing like an earthquake in the path of the running man. The dragon's eyes, crimson red now, spread its wings and arched its back. It reared its head and long, curved neck back and then sprung forward like a snake striking its victim.

The man had almost made it to the line of trees bordering the clearing when a darkness closed around him. It was a darkness of heated breath, sword length white fangs, and a red, twisting, and fire spewing forked tongue. The man's screams were silenced as the mouth of the dragon closed around him.

Turning back to the other man, the dragon could hear his heavy breathing, panicked cries, and pounding heart. He could smell the sweat, tears, blood, and fear of the man as the latter dashed through the opening in the undergrowth and out of sight. With another leap and a single beat of his massive wings, the dragon soared across the forest floor and landed with a thunderous crash onto the ground at the edge of the forest clearing. The man had disappeared into the heavily entangled woods. Pulling himself up to his full height and lifting his neck and head nearly to the canopy, the dragon roared with a great and ferocious bellow like that of the greatest earthquake and most violent crack of thunder combined. His body began to glow red as the heat manifested throughout his entire being. The dragon's eyes burned with a fiery red-orange glow and his wings drew back as he readied himself to loose a volcano. Throwing his head forward and down, parallel to the ground, the dragon's mouth opened, and a tidal wave of fire erupted from his jowls.

The man heard the roar behind him, but he knew to keep running and never look back. The tangled limbs, vines, thorned bushes, and outstretched branches tore his skin, ripped his clothes, and ravaged his face as he pushed through it all in a total darkness. He ran and fell and then pulled himself to his feet and ran again in a frenzied panic. Suddenly he felt the ground shake and he fell again. He felt the earth move under him and felt broken pieces of wood and leaves dropping from the forest roof down upon him. He remained motionless, hoping beyond reason that the sound and shaking of the forest floor was that of it rifting itself apart and swallowing the monster whole, taking it back to whatever Hell had birthed it. He listened intently. A full and complete silence had settled over the wood. It was then that he felt what seemed to be a sucking of air against his face and body. Then it changed direction and he felt it against his back, only warmer. Heated. He then realized he could see the forest around him. The great tree trunks were glowing with a faint reddish tint that changed steadily to an orange hue and then finally to a bright white. He felt the air, burning and super-heated, so that sweat burst out across his face, hands, and back. Pulling himself to his feet, the man turned to face the oncoming heated light. He stared directly into the core of an inferno, engulfed in a tsunami of fire and ringed by a blaze of crimson flame. In this instant, the man could only open his mouth to scream as his body, along with a great strip of the forest, became ash before the sound passed his lips.

The dragon's eyes blinked slowly and the color of red fire became a vibrant yellow, then a subtle orange, and finally back to an emerald green. He closed his mouth and drew his body and neck back up and surveyed the long stretch of missing forest. Like a hallway of fire, the trees on either side of the newly created forest road hung like flaming sheets – tearing and floating upwards into the darkened forest sky before fading from yellow to black and disappearing as quickly as they had begun.

A Child's Gift

With a slow and deliberate movement, the dragon turned back to the youngling. She was awake. And standing in the spot where she had fallen. She had felt the movement of the dragon and opened her eyes as it's large, clawed foot crashed down beside her. She watched as the giant leapt across the wide space and ate the first man - the same that had grabbed her hair and forced her to the ground before her father had jumped on him. She then watched as the dragon had moved quickly again to the opposite side of the clearing and, with an ear-splitting roar, had sent what looked like a wall of fire into the forest after the second man - the one that had hurt and then, together with the other, killed her father.

Now the dragon stood before her. But somehow, the girl felt that she did not have to be afraid. She sensed a deep love within the dragon and a deeper hurt. She thought of her father and began to cry. Dropping to her knees, she put her tiny head into her hands and sobbed.

The dragon looked down at the child. He saw that she was crying the tears of man. But these were not the tears of fear, nor of vengeful malice. These were tears of sorrow, love, and loss. The dragon moved forward slowly, the dried ground crunching beneath his feet, and then let his body kneel forward on his front bent legs. His head, enormous in size compared to the young girl, dropped lower and lower, until his chin nearly touched the forest floor. His mouth and great, green eyes were now but a man's arm length from the child. The dragon let out a soft breath of warm air through his nostrils that ruffled the girl's golden blonde hair. With tears still in her eyes she looked up from her hands and into the face of the dragon. He slowly turned his head so that she could see one great emerald eye that moved and blinked at her. The dragon had her father's eyes, green and full of warmth and caring. She began to cry again but this time she had stood up and, with outstretched arms, she took a few steps forward and hugged the dragon's scaled snout, wrapping her arms across its great nose and pressing her tiny body against him.

For a moment the dragon had almost pulled away when the child had advanced toward him but he had felt something new to him, a sensation he had not felt since his kin had been taken by the fury of man. He felt compelled to protect and care for the suffering child. As the child pressed her body against his face and wrapped her small arms as wide as she could around his nose, the dragon could feel the beating of her heart as it slowed to a whisper-like thump. The dragon closed his eyes and allowed the soft touch of the girl to be his only comfort in the ages since he had been left alone in the world. The flames of the burned forest path behind him had slowed as the saturated and damp woods began to penetrate and smother what was left of the dragon’s fire as a soft breeze moved like silk through the wooden glen and across the hide of the dragon.

The girl stepped back from the dragon and looked carefully into his eye. The dragon drew his face back and lifted his head from the ground while watching the child with awe. She made a movement with her hand, pointing to herself, and speaking aloud the language of man. It was a single sound - soft and subtle. And it reminded the dragon of a sound his kin would make many ages prior...a sound of family? The child then pointed at the dragon. She uttered something different while keeping her tiny hand and finger pointing at the dragon. The dragon turned his head slightly as if to better hear or understand the child as he had never grown to learn the language of mankind. The girl then placed her hand across her chest and said the word again. Her name, the dragon suddenly realized. The girl then pointed at the dragon and said the new word again. She repeated the process as the dragon slowly began to understand and felt another feeling flowing through him.

The young girl, moved forward again, this time wrapping her arms around one of the dragon's forelegs. Looking down at her, the dragon could see that she again had tears in her eyes, but she was smiling. She felt comfort. Safety. And love. She squeezed the leg of the Dragon and said the word again and again.

The dragon leaned his head down and nuzzled her back gently as a tear broke from his eye and rolled down a long-dried cheek. The child had given him something he had lost long ago...a purpose and a life.

And she had given him...a name.