Dragons Don't Breathe Fire

The child would die of course. That much was obvious. Baanm the dragon knew this, as dragons do. "I breathe fire, and I know things." He'd often said to whoever would listen. Though, he didn't actually breathe fire.

The little thing sat, bathed in leaf-filtered light, looking up at Baanm with great dark eyes. It spoke. With elegance and command, it spoke. With a voice sharp, demanding, it spoke. "I would ride you, large one; I would ride to the sun." Baanm knew things; that's what he did. And he knew that no human child of such small age should speak with this, this, this air of reverence—this mastery of tongue.

The child would die, what mattered how it spoke? The child would die like all the ones before it.

"Follow me," said Baanm. With a spring, the child was on its feet, relaxed, confident, and poised. Baanm turned and led the way through the trees to a nearby clearing. Running to keep pace, leaping overgrown roots and stray rocks, the child followed. Baanm turned his head and rolled a large orange eye back to watch. At times its grey loin cloth was the only bit he could follow. Long dark hair trailing, brown skin mixing with the trunks of trees. What a forest, such a shame that a human should step even one foot inside it.

"Saddle me."

In the meadow, grass nearly as high as the child, it crouched low. Springing higher than absolutely necessary, It settled onto Baanm's back.

West towards the setting sun, they flew. Gradually Baanm was veering south, the child must be put before the elders for judgment. Geasw must be obeyed.

"What year are you from?" Asked Baanm conversationally.

"Twenty-one fifty-two."

"The last was from twenty-ninety-five."

"I know."

They came from the past later and later each time. Humanities' vain attempts to avoid extinction. As if you could avoid what has already happened.

"Which generation are you?" The child asked.

"I am Baanm of the forty-first generation.

"Hmmm, I knew your ancestor. Baanm. Several of them in fact." It added sharply, "And I said, fly to the sun Baanm."

Baanm turned more westward.

The child's chin was lowering, its eyes drooping. It was nearly asleep. If it slipped and fell. Well, that would save some trouble. Baanm could not kill the thing without a fair trial, of course. Dragons are fair and just, but accidents happen. The child's attention wavered just long enough.

It did not fall but was awoken from its half-sleep by Baanm suddenly swooping low and landing among five dragons.

The child was instantly alert. On the ground in a flash, eyeing Baanm reproachfully. "I said to the sun, Baanm." Baanm felt guilty, he should have obeyed. No that was wrong. Baanm obeys Geasw.

“Well done, Baanm." said Geasw. The oldest and the wisest. "They have sent another. Seeing that dragons will wipe them out, they send little children into the future to preserve their race. What arrogance! Do they think we will no longer be here?"

"We know you live, Geasw." said the child. "I have come to destroy you."

The dragon did not laugh. It did not smile; it looked down at the small soft thing before it and said, "You are no wiser than the man who made us."

"Yes, that was a mistake rather, mucking about with DNA like that. Thinking he could create fantasy. Bring forth white-haired girls, and ravens that act like pigeons, and dragons."

"Yes, and dragons."

"The problem is the solution, as they say." The child smiled. And for the first time, Baanm and Geasw and the rest saw its teeth. Sharp and long, familiar in shape, smaller in size than their own. As the settling sun glinted in the child's eyes, they shone with a hint of orange. "I am the oldest dragon here, you will obey me." Said the child calmly, then it said something that sounded a lot like, "Dracarys."

Dragons don't really breathe fire. Genetic modification can only go so far. So now that the child commanded it they were ill-prepared.

They obeyed. The throats of six dragons melted like wax. Stumbling and tripping over each other they screamed obscenities. Tried to fly for water. It was too late. Baanm was the last, ragged breath, barely conscious he said, "I should have flown to the sun."

"Yes." replied the child-dragon. "You should have. We might have had some fun."

"The forest," muttered the dragon, "don't let them cut down the forest."

"I won't," said the savior of humanity.

Baanm breathed his last.

The child took a small red round sphere from its loincloth and crushed it under their foot. In the year Twenty-one fifty-two, an identical sphere spontaneously crumbled. There would be more children here soon. They still had plenty of dragons to kill.