Bill the Drake

This is the tale of Bill the Drake. Of course, his name isn’t actually Bill, it was Bildor-Nuwel, and in case you care he was a Fae Dragon, the most magically powerful of the Lesser Dragons, but all of the Lesser Dragons can be at least semi-accurately referred to as Drakes. He was known to help people who were lost in the woods on the mountain, and those people took to calling him as Bill the Drake, because part of his name was Bill, and he was a Drake.

This particular tale takes place on Christmas. Well, not Christmas, as this was a different world than our own, but it was a winter solstice holiday, so I’m referring to it as Christmas because I’m from this world and have my own biases. This holiday had some gift giving and decorating with greenery, as our traditional Christmas celebrations, but they also had another tradition. People would also leave a portion of their harvest or livestock or alcohol or something else outside their door to ensure that otherworldly creatures wouldn’t harm them in the coming year, and some would even be friendly. Of course there were some older traditions, banned in most civilized societies, where children were left outside of the city as a sacrifice to these otherworldly creatures. Because of this, and due to this tale being set near a small mountain village in the middle of the woods, on this particular day Bill the Drake stumbled upon five little children in the middle of the snowy woods; the oldest couldn’t have been any older than eight, while the youngest was two.

They were attempting to huddle together for warmth, however they weren’t having much luck as their clothing was soaked through and they were ankle deep in snow. Bill the Drake saw this and approached them, and as he approached, the snow relocated itself, no longer in contact with the children, and also creating a wind break for them. They looked at him and shrank away from this dragon that was roughly the size of a Clydesdale. Of course, he understood why they were afraid of him, so he didn’t take it personally, he merely conjured them some dry, warm clothes, and tossed those clothes over to the children, then turned and left for a moment. When he returned a couple of minutes later, the children had re-dressed, and he had returned with wood that he put in front of them, then he breathed fire on the wood, creating a nice, warm fire for the children.

At this point the children seemed to be more trusting of him, and were at least willing to approach him. It was around this time that the three youngest children, two of them two years old and one of them three years old, began fussing, because they were beginning to get hungry. Once he noticed this, Bill the Drake conjured a small toy for each of the children to keep them occupied as he went out to gather food and water for them. He returned after no more than fifteen minutes with a deer that he had gutted and cooked out of sight of the children so as not to trouble them. He also carried a container of water that he had gathered for them. Once they had all eaten and drunk their fill, they were surprisingly happy for a group of children that were left in the middle of the woods.

In short order, Bill the Drake had all the children gathered around him. They were all warm and happy and well fed. And, as twilight fell on the forest, Bill the Drake asked all the little children what they wanted for Christmas. And then he ate them.