Bound

She could taste it on the wind, the salt iron sweetness of blood.

What was it? Sheep? No. Thankfully not. She was tired of mutton.

Bear perhaps? Her tongue flicked through the air. The aroma was teasing her. Just there on the edge of nothing. No, not bear. That scent would wrap itself around her taste buds like whale fat.

No not that.

Human.

Young human. The best kind. Soft and plump.

From her perch, a snow-capped eerie she looked down at the dawn over the thick pine forest. Winter had driven many of the songbirds to warmer climes and their usual frenetic dawn chorus had been replaced by the dull caws of the hunters and scavengers that could weather the coldest months. She engaged her nostrils now, and they contracted as she inhaled deeply.

There.

Her tail unfurled, a mass of scale covered muscle rope, and she stood on her haunches. Wings spread, the sound of immense leather sails being beaten by the wind. For a second she surveyed her territory.

And then she jumped.

The world fell past her and for the briefest of moments the only sound was the air as it rushed by. The trees rushed to meet her.

And then, with one beat of her wings she lurched upwards , arching her belly as her wake brushed the snow from the highest branches.

Stay low, then it won’t know you’re coming. They were crafty, this kind.

She glided forwards, the foliage beneath her rushing buy in a blurred sea of deep green. Her neck craned from side to side, sensing.

The scent was closer now, almost upon her. Yes. Yes, here. She reared and beat her wings twice. The turbulence bent several of the taller pines away, stripping them of their snowy jackets.

There, in a clearing, sat a small human. Possibly a child. Possibly just small. She was never too sure about these things. Very small, actually. She wasn’t sure if it even counted as a snack. Still, she was here now.

It had its back to her.

She landed, surprisingly lightly for her size, but still loud enough to make a noise.

Yet the child didn’t turn.

She stopped. If she was honest with herself, she found this little disconcerting. Usually, there was a scream or a bleat or a roar. Then there was a short, very short chase, then a stream of magma hot fire, then a tasty, if somewhat burned, meal. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, they would fight back. That was usually humans. Bigger ones. Often covered in metal. It took an age for that to pass through her system.

But ignoring her, that was new. She wasn’t entirely sure how to continue. She coughed.

The child turned, looked at her and then turned back.

The dragon blinked. It thought for a second. Then an idea came to it. In the common tongue, it said: “I’ll give you a five second head start.”

The human turned again. She thought it was female. Though she wasn’t sure. They all looked the same to her.

It looked at her, eyes, big, blue and questioning.

“Why?” The girl said.

“l like to give my prey a sporting chance.”

The girl thought for a second.

“What does ‘sporting’ mean?”

The dragon thought for a second. What did sporting mean?

“It means ‘fair’… I suppose”. The dragon wasn’t entirely happy with the explanation, but what kind of creature didn’t know the meaning of ‘sporting’?

“Oh. And what does ‘prey’ mean?”

Here the dragon was on safer territory. She smiled, big yellow teeth as big as a man’s forearm.

“It means the thing that I’m going to eat.”

The child looked at the dragon.

“No. You no eat me.”

The dragon stopped. She was sure that should have been a plea, but it sounded for all the world like a dismissal.

“And why not?” She said, trying to maintain a threatening smile.

“Not real.”

“What isn’t real?”

“Dragons. Dragons not real.”

The girl turned away again.

Well that was just rude.

“I am Selgar, third daughter of Mylar the terrible. Proud descendent of the house of Durrin. My family have laid waste to whole continents and feasted on enough flesh to ring the world in bones twice over and my name has been a byword for terror for half a century. How am I not real?”

The girl turned back and sat to face the dragon now.

“Daddy says.”

“Daddy says?”

“No such thing as dragons”

“But I am sitting here, talking to you right now.”

The girl shrugged.

“Daddy says I have an “ She paused as she tried to get her head around the words “an ‘overactive imagination’”.

“And where is your daddy now?” Smiled the dragon with crocodile sweetness.

The girl looked around.

“ Don’t know.”

“Not here.” The edges of the smile turned down and the dragon leant forward, front legs touching the ground. And then she saw it, the flicker of fear on the child’s face.

“Now child, I’ll give you five seconds. One” Her legs bent as she lowered herself to the ground.

“Two” Her talons began to unsheathe themselves. The occasional caws around her went silent.

“Three” The wings folded against her body. Some snowflakes drifted towards the ground, unsettled from the trees they were resting on by a light breeze.

“Four” She shifted her weight onto her hind legs, the muscles straining in readiness for a deadly pounce. The child gulped.

“Five” She leapt forward, mouth open, a flicker of a flame beginning to well within her maw.

And then she stopped. One of the snowflakes that had been drifting down stopped mid-air in front of her snout. She could even make out its crystalline structure. She began to panic. Her muscles tensed and writhed against whatever force was holding them in place. But her great feet didn’t even move enough to dislodge one of the many flecks of snow that now began to feel all too cold. What magic was this?

The girl closed her book.

“Have you been looking at the pictures in your big sister’s books again?”

She turned, startled. Her father’s shadow was I the doorway.

“No.”

“I told you. These are too scary for you.”

“Didn’t read it”

“Right. Bed. Now.”

She put the book back on its shelf.

“It’s the last thing you need, with your imagination”.

She followed him out of her sister’s room

“Daddy. Dragons not real, are they?”

“Only real if you imagine they are” He smiled.

Then he stopped.

Was that the beating of wings he heard?