Henry's Name Day

Niamh licked the blood dripping down her forearm before it could reach the forest floor. The mist was thick this time of night, distorting the sounds of screams in the humans’ camp. It had only been a small goat, nothing to cry over. Humans were always so overdramatic.

Looking down at the bones piled up neatly at her feet, she sighed.

If anything it had been too small. She’d need more if she wanted to finally sleep through the night.

Rolling her neck, she let herself find the dragon again, find the flame.

Transforming wasn’t necessarily painful physically, but looking within too sharply sometimes left a nick. She winced as she looked too far.

Not that, never that.

With a shiver, she was herself again, filling the space of valley, trying not to crunch the bones under her feet.

Niamh hated eating as a dragon, it made everything so messy. It was all so much easier to move into a more human form for the sake of thumbs. She loved thumbs.

In her true shape she always felt so clumsy, awkward. Although she could never admit that to her friends.

Better to eat alone, in peace.

The old woman in the hut at the top of the hill would appreciate the gift of the bones, hopefully make a broth and whatever else with her crafts. Perhaps she’d have something to offer in exchange.

Niamh sniffed the air to see if she was home.

Pine, birch, and mold of the undergrowth.

Crouching closer to the hill she inhaled deeper.

Stone, fear, and death.

***

Sir Gregory the third of his name, lord of the South Falls and the Outer Reaches smelled like grease Henry decided. That was the smell. It had been bothering him all day bound behind him on the horse, his arms laced up with rope at the man’s midsection so he couldn’t fall off or jump.

Not that he would. He had taken enough riding lessons even this young to know that if you fell off a horse at this speed you’d die. And Sir Gregory never let up. He was awful to his horse.

Henry decided he liked the horse even though it squealed at the sudden flight of birds out of the bushes as they crossed into the forest. Even though it took him the farthest he’d ever been from home, away from his family.

Not that he minded being away from his family. He didn’t care much for his father or mother. He cared a bit because they were his and because his nurse told him to care. But who he really loved was his older brother. Arthur was everything. Arthur might be dead.

Soon the smell of grease layered into the smell of urine as Henry wet himself. He never did that much anymore, his nurse was very strict about that. But Sir Gregory never asked him if he had to relieve himself, and Henry found it hard to ask him when he still couldn’t stop crying. His cheeks felt raw from the wind hitting his tears.

No, it wasn’t that he minded being torn from his family, it was that it had been his name day, and nurse had promised him a pie made with apples and sugar. Now he’d never get a slice. And Arthur might be dead.

“You sniveling little dimwit! Have you just pissed yourself?” Sir Gregory lept off the horse, nearly forgetting Henry was still tied to his back.

“You did! My leg!” Hands feeling over himself as if checking for broken bones, he gasped. “My back!”

Recoiling in disgust, he jumped about as if that would fling the small boy from him like a horse bucking off a rider or a girl told there was a bee in her hair.

Once he remembered the ropes he had tied himself hurriedly that morning, he pulled the knife concealed in his boot, still slightly crusted with blood from the other boy.

Quickly, hands shaking, he sawed at the rope at his front, uncaring for the child’s delicate wrists.

He did not acknowledge the small shout from the ground as the boy landed in the needles of the forest floor below them.

“I paid a fortune for these boy! Something a spoiled princeling would know nothing about!” He mumbled angrily to himself a long list of other things the boy didn’t know anything about he stomped away from the child and the horse toward a small hut that sat on the slope before them.

Henry looked down at the trickle of blood on his wrist. He’d had worse from his teachers when his palms were rapped, but it still stung. Knees shaking from disuse, he wobbled up to stand, one hand leaning the stirrup for support.

The horse turned its head and sniffed the boy’s head as in apology. He pet the horse’s foreleg. It was slick with sweat.

“Looks like we’re both soaked.” He giggled before it turned back into sobs again. He hated crying. It made his head hurt.

The horse and the boy watched the man stomping his way up to the hut as the fog settled in heavily around their shoes. By the time Sir Gregory had reached the top of the hill, he was completely shrouded.

The horse swayed for a moment before keeling over to the side, doing his best to not fall onto the boy. Henry stumbled back in alarm before crawling back to the horse, putting his hand to the horse’s throat. It trembled beneath his hand.

Alone in the mist, the horse and the boy sat together, too tired to move. Silence was thick around them. Until it was broken by the screams.

***

The small hut looked peaceful from the outside, the wood nearly black with age, the roof sagging. It wasn’t until she was over the witch’s unruly garden when she realized the smell of death coming from inside was human.

Alarmed, Niamh spread her wings to halt her speed, sending her in an awkward hop over the roof to the other side, letting her legs take the brunt of the fall while her wings flapped embarrassingly as if she were a peacock. She hoped for a moment no enemies had seen her undignified landing. Every dragon knows that half of their power lies in the glamor of intimidation. The other half in breathing fire, obviously, but that comes with its own list of complaints.

Luckily, there was no one to greet her but a sweaty looking horse breathing heavily on its side. Niamh’s stomach smiled satisfyingly. Dinner. Usually horses were slightly irritating to eat, their hearts over sweet with nobility and sickening honor. But with one so close to death, its meat would hopefully be a little more humbled. A good char would burn the sweat off and give a good crisp to the ragged hide.

The horse shrieked, eyes going white as it reared its head, legs flailing, trying to heave itself up with its strength spent. Niamh settled on her haunches and breathed deep, heating up the fire within.

Just as she was ready to breath out, a small, curly haired blonde child spread its arms in front of the horse, shouting in defiance. A hearty roar from so tiny a body. Niamh’s fire caught in her throat at the surprise, making her cough into spurts of wet, squelching balls of flame.

The boy yelled again, tears streaming down his face. The witch came out of her hut to watch the commotion, smiling in her infuriating way.

The wrinkled woman’s skin sagged in fleshy puddles around her face, and she always smelled delicious. Like yew smoke and rosemary. Niamh knew better than to try a taste though. Humans were disgusting. Full of poison in the blood. Eat a human, and a dragon could have nightmares for months.

The boy smelled less appetizing. Like urine and rotten fish. Despair always smelled like rotten fish.

“I will not let you have him.” The boy’s little red face was nearly a perfect circle, his chin set with determination, his entire form quivering.

Niamh looked over to the witch who just raised an eyebrow.

Directing her attention back at the boy again, Niamh looked closer at his clothing. Fine silver thread and burgundy wool. Thick leather shoes. Had a silly son of a lord gone wandering off too far from his father’s keep?

Niamh sniffed, remembering again the lingering smell of death. Fine, she was curious. Rolling her eyes, she shed her dragon skin as if casting off a heavy coat on a surprisingly hot day.

“Witch, you have my interest.”

***

Henry fell back onto his bottom watching the dragon fold into itself until it unfurled the shape of a woman with fiery locks hanging down to her waist. He had never seen a woman without her clothes before. It reminded him of the shaved bear he’d seen performing at the faire. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected a bear to look like, but not like that.

Henry curled into the horse, throwing his arms around him.

How could one day hold so much violence, so much sadness. He was sick of it. Not when he’d only just been freed from the greasy clutches of Sir Gregory. Not when Arthur might be dead.

The image of Sir Gregory lying in the pool of his own blood kept replaying in his mind. He had heard the man shouting turn to screaming before cutting off abruptly into a choked gurgling noise. He was dead by the time he reached the cottage, poking his head through the small window notch. The witch’s eye had immediately found him, sending him running back to the exhausted horse.

“I have nothing of interest to say.” The witch spoke in a sly, dry voice. Like a broom brushing over stones. Henry’s neck tingled at the sound.

“Who is the boy? Why is death here?” The dragon demanded, impatiently tossing her hair over her shoulder. She made Henry think of the sky before a storm, when his skin would prickle and his steps would quicken on his way home.

“A man with an ugly heart arrived on my doorstep, demanding clothing, food, and a horse if I had one. I told him I had nothing to offer him. He pushed open my door, saw my herbs hanging by the window, called me a witch, drew his sword. The rest happened as it usually does.”

The dragon nodded her head knowingly.

Henry wanted to ask what that meant, what usually happens? But the women had moved on to discussing himself.

“Look at his hair. He must be one of those Cameden princes.”

“The younger one. The elder is a man now.”

“He stabbed him!” Henry cried out unable to lift his head, his bravery all spent.

“Who stabbed who, dear?” The witch leaned forward, her stooped back keeping her ear to the ground.

Henry blubbered incoherently, trying his best. “Sir Gregory of the South Falls and Outer Reaches! He stabbed him! Arthur! My brother. He was to be king.”

An arm circled his shoulder, strong as iron. “What should we do with him?”

“Someone will come looking for him, you can leave him with me.”

“If someone finds you with him, they’ll kill you thinking you’re an accomplice!”

“Well, they’ll try.”

“You’re not strong enough to stand against an entire army.”

“So you want to take him?”

The arm recoiled from Henry in disgust. “No! What would I do with a child?”

“You could take him back to his family.”

“And be shot with a kingdom’s worth of arrows?”

“As a beautiful woman.”

A snort of derision.

“Almost more dangerous.”

“For them or for you?”

The dragon woman laughed. “I suppose both.”

***

Niamh tried not to squirm as the boy crawled up her left wing onto her back. But when his small foot tickled the scales right below her shoulder she involuntarily jerked back, nearly sending the boy flying into the trees. Thankfully, she caught the boy in time with her right talon, tamping him back between her shoulder blades.

“Hold tightly to those spikes, boy.” The old woman spoke gently to the prince.

“Please don’t let the horse die!” His voice was raspy from crying, sending a crack through Niamh’s heart.

Not that, never that.

Niamh crouched to signal that she would be taking off.

“He’ll be strong as an ox in a few days time, don’t you worry.” The old woman chuckled and lifted her hand in farewell as Niamh took to the sky.

He probably would be an ox in a few days, Niamh thought as she saw the horse breathing weakly on the forest floor, shrinking below them. The old woman loved to changing creatures into whatever best suited her needs.

The child was screaming on her back, his hands twisting two spikes on her neck in a desperate grip. She sighed. Men were always losing important things and making it the problem of everyone else. It’s not as if she could have left the child in the forest. She and her sisters had worked so hard to make their forest the place of nightmares. They couldn’t have soldiers stomping through their woods, defecating, chopping, and shooting. A shiver rolled over her scales. Men were disgusting.

No one would believe the boy when he spouted his stories of a dragon carrying him across the Dark Forest and over the golden fields of Cameden to Crown Castle. Or perhaps they would, and thank her for rescuing him. She let herself smile at that.

Then she let herself imagine a life as a woman. No clumsy talons, or blood dripping from her jaw. Just sleek, deft hands and nimble limbs. Dancing. Those silk gowns that queens wore. The chance to be a queen. She growled. Like she deserved to be a queen. She. When little Maeve was -

NOT THAT, NEVER THAT

But the memories came.

Her smallest sister, still and grey as stone. Scales dull. An iron arrow punched through her chest. Niamh off dancing in the village, pretending not to be a dragon. Pretending men didn’t hate.

Then it was nothing but flames.

***

“Stop! Please! Dragon lady!!” Henry shouted into the wind. Only to have his spit slap him in the face, his words falling in the other direction.

The dragon had gone wild. Torching the earth below him. The air crackled with heat, his skin reddening.

He pounded the dragon’s back with all his strength.

“Please!”

She shouted until his voice gave out. And then the world went black.

***

Niamh saw something circling towards the ground, like a leaf. There were no trees this high up.

The boy.

Arms and legs limp, eyes closed. Like he were already dead.

Niamh’s heart seized inside her. Little Maeve spread on the ground.

She tucked her wings in and dove.

Talons outstretched, hoping she’d reach him before the flames, before the earth. That little boy who had stood up to a dragon for a dying horse. Who had braved teeth as big as he were tall. Surely, some men had goodness in their hearts.

She would make sure his kept beating.

***

Henry learned the dragon’s name was Niamh. He liked the shapes his mouth made to say it. He liked how it sounded how it felt. He liked her.

It turned out no one even knew he had been missing.

Henry walked through the castle hand in hand with Niamh, who looked elegant in her stolen gown. No one shrieked at his arrival. Not even his nurse.

At first he felt indignant. Of course, no one realized he was missing. He was the small one, the one who could never pay attention in his studies. But then he realized why.

Women cried in corners, servants whispering to each other anxiously.

“He was to be king! So young to be at death’s door. Just as he became a man!”

Pulling Niamh behind him, Henry stumbled toward’s Arthur’s rooms.

Please just let him be alive. Arthur, who might be dead. Oh how he’d give anything.

The attendant at the door pushed them away.

“No, no, the prince is not seeing anyone. Let the physicians do their work.”

Niamh laughed a sound that made everything around him feel small.

“Probably pushing him towards death’s halls. Let us through, bone man.”

“Bone man!” The man bristled. “And just who are -“

***

Niamh danced past the skinny rod of a man, dragging Henry through the door. She looked at the man lying still in the bed. Grey. But long blonde curls. A solid chin. Kindness lining the corners of his eyes. Grey. Grey as Maeve.

No, not again. She was sick of death.

With a gentle hand, uncaring of the men draped in their drab, ugly cloaks who were opening and closing their mouths like river trout caught on the line, she touched the man’s brow. A single tear, a tear for Maeve, for hate, for a small boy who was nearly lost. It fell to his lips.

He opened his eyes.

***

Henry’s brother opened his eyes. When Arthur saw Niamh, he smiled.

When he saw Henry, he opened his arms.

Henry wondered if now would be the time for a slice of pie.