Hugs

If it hadn’t been for the incessant crying, he may have let her be. What was one small, insignificant creature to the likes of him? She was barely a morsel herself, not even a snack, really. Hardly worth the effort.

And yet.

The crying.

He had to make it stop.

The sound had stirred him on the drowsy twilight edge of sleep, with a pointed quality that he'd first managed to smother under a layer of coin. He'd never heard its like, not from the mouths of dying foes, nor the screams of his prey, both equally delightful to his ears, truth be told.

This achingly evil noise, however? Like pinpricks of jabbing acid that ate at his patience with steady and unrelenting persistence.

Shifting position did nothing. Burrowing deeper under his favorite belongings accomplished the same. Surely, the long blast of irritated fire he sent toward the surface would silence his tormentor, the full thirty seconds of superheated flame and gas making the very stones glow when he was through.

He almost curled up again in satisfaction as silence greeted the end of the burn. Only to gnash his teeth when the strident shrieking started up all over again.

It drove him up and off his hoard, the clinking and rattling of his treasure doing nothing to smother the ungodly wail echoing down the tunnel of his lair. It bounced with aggressive force against the rough stone barrow he called home. Poked him intensely until he huffed, heat swirling from both nostrils, toward the light of day, blinking and rumbling his dismay at the veritable racket disturbing his nap.

He'd eaten only yesterday and his tummy, distended with six hefty steers from a nearby field, dragged on the ground in great discomfort. A poking hoof distorting his side, catching a protruding boulder and made him stumble.

He should be asleep. He should be digesting.

Instead? He found himself staring down with frustration and no small measure of resentment at the tiny, pink thing perched at the mouth of his cave under the now charred and smoking trees, screaming her sad little heart out. Untouched and unharmed by his fire.

How? It didn't matter to him, because the tears, you see. Her waterfall of glistening evidence that she was unhappy and until that changed?

He would be unhappy, too. Elements preserve him, so many tears.

“Hush.” If you’ve never been hushed by a dragon before, the experience hasn’t been known to reassure. To the contrary, in fact, and while he was well aware of his physical dominance and that speaking to her in his gravel voice like a roll of oncoming thunder wasn’t likely the best course of action, he had to try anyway. “Small human. Quiet.”

She did go still, if but for a moment, though he realized his mistake almost immediately. Horror gripped him like he’d never known as he watched her absorb his presence, eyes widening to bulge, cheeks flushed a deeper red while her mouth opened wide. There was no recourse, nothing he could do, when she inhaled a massive breath as though the world had slowed and time had no meaning—

When the crying started again, he considered retreat. He debated flight. But running from such a slight, if disproportionately loud, slip of a thing would not be borne. Taking wing? Impossible with all this fresh meat swelling his belly.

That left one last option and though he was very full, perhaps an aperitif? Surely, he could make way for her and perhaps all that screaming would have tenderized her into a perfect finale to his meal.

Two things happened as he bent his great head, snout coming to rest on the ground before her, tentative sniff of her person investigating her suitability (should he chew or just swallow?). First, his eyes met hers and, in doing so, she stopped.

She stopped crying. Not as a pause this time, nay. She actually let out a long breath and, with a giggling chortle, sealed his fate.

Because her second act? Was to smile at him with a cherubic innocence punctuated with an adorable hiccup just as she lifted her arms to him and wriggled.

“UP!”

He froze in place, rush of magic slamming into him, opening his heart so wide he thought it would burst...

She was soft and smelled of sweetness and life. As she fell asleep on his snout, he knew he was lost forever.

At least she'd stopped crying. From now on, he'd do everything in his power to make sure she never cried again.

Thus were the almighty laid low, one by one, their powers caught and tamed by the Great Sorceress Evannia. For, where the mighty and bold and powerful had fought with the sword, chosen fire and fury and all the weapons at their disposal, only she knew the truth.

Even the coldest dragon hearts could not resist a toddler’s request for a hug.