For Once a Dragon Loved a Prince

The forest was vibrant with color. It would be cold soon, and the golden haze would be replaced by frost and starlight but for now, as she ambled through the trees in search of food, it was like walking through a roaring hearth. Her young hatchling waited patiently in her nest for dinner; her mate was far off to the South convening with the dragons of the southern seas and the western plains and all was right. Settled. A deep contentment hummed beneath her scales like a song.

She was startled from her thoughts by the sound of thundering hooves crashing through the dead leaves from beyond the forest’s edge. A human hunting party, perhaps, or maybe one of their foolish quarrels had spilled out of a bloody battlefield and into her nesting grounds. In any case, it was an invasion, and she snorted mightily before stomping off to meet them.

Instead, she met their quarry. A human hatchling bolted into a clearing in front of her, a badly wounded woman stumbling behind him. She was dressed finely, the dragon supposed, for a human, and had a jeweled circlet sat upon her head. The hatchling, a small boy with golden hair and even finer clothes, stopped short of one of her large, clawed feet and gazed up in awe and terror. The woman fell to the ground, exhausted or expired she couldn’t tell. For a few moments they were trapped together in a spell of unspoken communication. She, a mother, conveying peace and comfort. The child, fear, uncertainty, abandonment. She tried to pass to him her name—Windsong of the Eastern Realm—and hoped he understood.

And then all at once the clearing was alive with sound. The hunting party poured in and the boy let out a fierce cry like a wounded animal.

“Prince Aeromir! Yield!” A man in black armor urged his huge steed forward and pointed a deadly looking blade at them both. “Step away from the forest beast and surrender, Your Highness. Your parents are dead. The kingdom belongs to Lord Aefilthis now.”

The Prince shared a look with her, and his huge blue eyes were filled with tears. He looked down at the woman at his feet, crumpled and unmoving.

“Sir knight you may tell your lord I will return when I am grown to take my kingdom and his head!”

Several things seemed to happen all at once. The boy turned and scrambled up her leg while arrows whizzed past them. More than one bounced off her scales like musical notes and in a panic she roared, pushing off from the ground with a great buffeting gale that flattened several horses and small trees. The boy yelped in surprise and tumbled away, barely catching a neck spike and clinging to it desperately. The chaos of the clearing fell away quickly but her heart remained pounding for several miles in the air.

Windsong landed in a bluster not far from her nest on a sheltered cliff side deep in the forested mountains. The young boy slid to the ground, boneless and weeping. Distantly, she could hear the excited chirping call of her baby, who must have heard her return. But in this moment, mostly what she could hear was sobbing and the thundering of blood. Hers, or Aeromir’s, she did not know.

They stayed like that for a long time, caught between the future and the past, and then suddenly the boy rose to his knees and wiped his face on his sleeve.

“Thank you. I know you not and you have saved me. Thank you, dragon.” His blue, blue eyes were wide and sad and too old now, too weary for one so little.

In that instant she fell in love. He was so small, and so needy, and her nest was quite roomy with only one hatchling…he did not understand what had happened to him. She did not understand it.

Humming, she moved toward him and scooped him up, bringing him close to her face. She pressed her snout to his forehead and willed him to hear her inner thoughts.

I think I shall keep you little one. And when you are ready, you shall take on the world.

He reared back in apparent shock. His gaze shifted to something more considering, more intelligent, more grateful in the span of a few seconds.

“I was not lying when I told the knight. That I would come back.” The prince looked down. “But I’m not ready.” Blue eyes, strong jaw. Aeromir let his chin do most of the talking.

Yes. You are not. But I will help you.

There was a second of indecision before he threw himself around her neck in the strongest embrace he could manage. She carried him that way, nestled to her chest, into the sheltered nest.

The baby dragon inside chirped in question. Mama I’m not eating that. It smells funny.

Windsong rumbled with laughter.

He isn’t for dinner, dear one. He is your clutch mate.

The hatchling regarded her dubiously. The prince eyed them both cautiously.

See, we’re already surviving family dinner.

The twin looks of wry regret she received filled her heart with a joy that overshadowed the terror and sadness of the day.

She was under no illusions. The time would come when the world around her would be bloody again, and her children would suffer. But tonight, in her nest, with her wings to the wind and two small beings sniffing each other in deepening respect, she was content.