Nogard The Dragon

The rush of wind swept the cold air through the tree tops as Nogard eased his wings and settled into his forest. It was early, the sun just beginning to peek above the distant hillsides that edged the wonderful and ancient woodlands that the great dragon called home. Nogard, who knew most trees in this forest by name, moved his moss-colored body with exact precision. Each step was delicately placed with forethought and each talon sunk into the dirt knowing which roots lay beneath the old forest and how to avoid harming them.

There was a glade that he called his own in the center of the forest, but old-rooted magic made it impossible to enter it by flight. The water stream that ran through the glade always reflected a night sky even in the light of day and the earth was clover laden and soft to rest on. Nogard moved carefully into it, he had only just been through an awakening within the glade the previous day after a long slumber before taking to the sky. He had been off, busy handling various responsibilities, and only just now returned as the night was fading.

Nogard shifted the bones in his face and wings drawing in the spiked points and reverting to his normal, gentler form. He went from a sharp-toothed winged beast with bony green-scaled dark-edged protrusions and defined lines to a more rotund creature with soft features and a gentle mouth. In his glade, Nogard liked the soft earth and the welcoming cool night waters before a slumber, but more than that, Nogard liked the gifts that were left for him within it.

There had been many gifts, the first of which was given to Nogard by the dragon mother, the gift of life. Nogard had never met the dragon mother, but, as was known to him from birth, he understood that he came from her in some way. Another gift was the bed of clovers, the seeds being dropped by skittering rodents who once visited the night waters. There was also the gift of rest from the gentle glade, a most wonderful gift that Nogard took in droves when he could, many times slumbering for hundreds of years. Both within and beyond the glade, the forest offered the gift of protection when Nogard was otherwise exposed, growing around and over the dragon as he slumbered. But the most honored gift that Nogard enjoyed did not come to him in the glade. In fact, this gift had not been allowed within the forest at all as long as the great dragon could recall. It was a gift given to him by the mortal humans, the gift of their fear.

The edge of Rockland Village still smoldered from where the great dragon had marked the boundary of its forest. The people of the village only hours before had relegated Nogard and his kind to mere fairytales passed down through generations. But today, after the awakening, they saw the truth of him and his destructive power. It had been over three hundred years since the great dragon had risen from its last slumber and driven the humans back. In that time, the humans of the village had come a long way, tearing down trees and building barbarically from the wooden corpses of the forest as they expanded their presence.

Nogard had been furious, he always was when it came time to survey the damage to the forest. He had known some of the trees that the humans killed while he was in slumber. Many of those trees Nogard had regarded as stalwart guards of the forest’s edge. But, even though he was angry to lose them, he kept to his duty, no more and no less. The humans must not take to the forest and discover its true magic, while the forest must not wield that magic against the mortals at its boundaries. It was Nogard's mandate provided at his conception to uphold this balance, to protect both worlds side by side, the truth of his existence. Though he spent many younger days enjoying the forest and stretching his wings for pleasant flights, now he mostly slumbered and spent a handful of days projecting his true power and collecting the gift of fear from among the humans.

Where his firey breath tore apart their homes and fields, new thicker stronger trees would grow. Nogard knew this would not stop them, but he knew it would delay them for a time. He knew that a sighting of the great dragon would send most locals scattering for safety a fair distance from the forest edge. It always had. Then, generations after the fear had died down into myth and the ashes bore new tall trees, the humans would creep back slowly. They always did.

When they returned, Nogard knew they would continue to do as they had always done. Humans would set about shifting the forest line and harvesting the resources it offered. In a way, Nogard believed that in exchange for fear, and a few collateral deaths, he was doing the humans a favor. He allowed them to suckle from the edge of the forest, taking as they wished before driving them off every few generations and restoring what had been taken. It was, to Nogard, a fair deal for the humans. It was also a fair deal for most of the forest that was left mostly untouched. The only ones who truly suffered were the border trees and some humans, each of which was felled or burned, but to the Dragon that seemed like an equivalent exchange considering the current arrangement.

Had Nogard’s mandate been to wipe out humans, he might have. Had he been told to seek out those that reeked of darkness and other unseen worlds, he surely would have found them by now. Nogard was not tasked with searching, change, or annihilation, Nogard was tasked with balance, and so balance is what he measured all of his dutiful actions against.

There were decisions to be made now, of whether it was safe to slumber or if he needed to remain active for a while longer. Nogard looked longingly at the night waters still reflecting a night sky as the sun rose. Then, he set about sniffing the winds because, within the ancient forest, all winds passed through the glade. He searched for signs as the roots of the forest carried other information to him. The humans appeared to be fully routed for now and their village was nearly abandoned at the forest’s edge.

Seeming to be satisfied, Nogard let out a huff of smoke from his nostrils clearing it of the various scents he had searched for. He laid his rounded head down gently beneath a large tree branch at the edge of the glade and began to settle his long body into the clover-laden ground. The moss color on his back seemed to connect to the forest and before long Nogard was nearly invisible to the unknowing eye.

Had anyone come upon the great dragon, instead of a vile beast that had burned half of a village just hours earlier, they would have seen a mound in the forest. Some may even have climbed up on it, and Nogard would have allowed it as long as they were not humans. The humans were not allowed in the glade. The only sign that gave Nogard’s position away now was his fluttering eyes, but soon they were still and Nogard prepared to drink from the night waters and slumber once more. He stretched his neck to the edge of the waters and lowered his lips.

“Oooo,” a small voice spoke in noise and the winds of the forest carried it through to the edge of the glade. Nogard did not pay much mind, he was already halfway to another centuries-long slumber. “Oooooooo,” the small voice made the sound more loudly and held it longer. “OOOOOOOOO.”

Nogard rustled and let out a huff sending a rush of air that cut across the night waters of the glade and lifted into a strong wind in the direction of the noise as a warning. It was just seconds before laughter was carried back on another wind when Nogard shot up, pulling his head back before drinking of the night waters and knocking his head against the large lumbering branch from the ancient tree above him. Nogard cringed with pain and then turned and bowed towards the tree speaking in huffed and creaking whispered grunts of forest speak. Nogard apologized formally by invoking the ancient tree’s name to mend the branch he had offended.

“Oh,” a small voice said nearby. “Oh, uh.”

Nogard darted his eyes around curiously, searching for the source of it. He was unsure of what creature had made the noise and for some reason, he felt frightened. He knew of every type of creature that inhabited the forest, he had both smelled them and been told of them by the trees, who knew much more about these things than the dragons. In turn, the trees insured that each creature knew of the glade and of the ancient full-grown dragon that made its home there. While it was not off limits, it was rare for any beast to make its way to the glade of the night waters.

“AAAHH!” a high pitch shriek cut through the forest and left slight ripples in the night waters.

Frustrated, Nogard broke his moss from the ground and lifted his body to move around. He had gone easily past fear, as most dragons do, and now felt bothered. “Grwww Chhtk?” Nogard spoke in forest speak, ‘who is there?’ he had asked. The senses of the dragon began to zero in on the direction of the offender and Nogard waited impatiently for them to emerge into the glade so that he could be done with the current business at hand.

Stumbling over Nogard’s tale, a small creature with a long head of hair and a dark tan hide tumbled from the forest. “Wooot!” it cried out, “up, up.”

“Whssh spsk?” Nogard asked in the forest speak, ‘what language is that?’ He was about to repel the intruder with a series of verbal admonishments when the creature rolled over and revealed its face. “HUMAN!” Nogard shouted as he recoiled and transformed into his more sharpened and defined form that he used to frighten mortals.

Teeth dripped with oil-like saliva as a small inferno rose at the back of Nogard’s open maw. The edges of the moss-green dragon turned dark and the smooth curves of his body became rigid and sharp at every angle. The human did not change, rather, the human only watched. When Nogard felt sufficiently intimidating in his completed transformation, he stepped forward with a massive taloned foot. To his surprise, however, the small human did not flee.

Instead, the human did not seem to regard Nogard with much attention at all. Rather, the small human only seemed to be occupied with standing up, a task that it struggled with for far longer than Nogard felt comfortable allowing. He retracted the spikes on his pointed tail and brought it up just behind the human's back offering a bit of a push to lift them from the ground.

Now, face to face with the human, Nogard realized he had never been so close to one before. The human glanced past the dragon and seemed to be more interested in the gentle running night waters. Wobbling over to the stream, cutting past the front of the great dragon with a level of difficulty that made Nogard pity the mortal, the human fell near the water’s edge.

“Are all humans like this?” Nogard wondered out loud. “How do they ever accomplish anything in the little time that they have to live?”

“Wawa,” the human said as they splashed their hands and feet into the shallow waters of the night sky. “Tursty,” they remarked before they fell face-first into the stream.

Nogard watched and wondered two things. First, he wondered what dialect this human was speaking as it did not seem to match what he knew of human languages. Secondly, he wondered if humans could breathe in water since most creatures in the forest could not. He watched as the small human began to thrash and struggle. It gave rise to a small fear in Nogard as he employed his tail again and flipped the human over.

The human sputtered and coughed, spouting out a bit of water before their face began to wrinkle and their eyes began to make more water. This is interesting, Nogard thought as he leaned in to observe the human.

“WAAAAAAAA!” the little human let out a great wail that sent Nogard leaping backward into the same tree he had injured earlier. “Huh, WAAAAAAAA!” the human took a breath only to release another wailing cry.

Nogard, unsure of what to do, made a quick less formal apology to the tree this time and then turned its attention back to the human. “What do I do with y-

“WAAAAAAAA!” the human continued. Nogard thought that this must be some kind of warning ability that humans have, some way to alert others in the area of danger, he was an adult dragon after all.

Concerned that there might be more, Nogard asked the forest to guard the human and began the trek out of the glade to a place where he could easily take flight. Utilizing every one of his senses to search he feared that the humans might have taken his earlier actions as a challenge and come after him. Surely that would break the balance he had worked eons to maintain. However, he knew that they stood no chance against him, though the thought brought him no joy. Their advanced scout was little more than a loud nuisance and had likely given away their plans, Nogard thought.

He hurriedly flapped his wings lifting his great body into the air more roughly than he would have normally liked. Skimming a few tree tops, Nogard made a point to remember which ones they were so that he could offer his apology and thanks once he returned. Once in the air, he circled the glade, unable to fly directly over it due to the old-rooted magic that protected it. But as his circle expanded, there were no signs of any other humans nearby.

Settling back down into the forest, Nogard visited the offended trees from his departure before making his way carefully back to the glade. The wailing had stopped by now and the small human was cradled within a low-hanging bough. Made by the trees, the bough was woven with branches and clover. Opening its mouth wide, the human let out a strange sound, almost like a sigh, and rolled over to its side. Nogard let go of his sharpened form and became the softer-edged more gentle version of himself again, the version that often slumbered in the glade.

“What should I do with you?” Nogard asked the human. There was no reply and Nogard realized that the human was asleep. “I need to find the balance in this.”

With its mouth agape and its chest heaving softly, the human seemed to be at complete ease. Nogard tried to navigate his thoughts on this, one of the most stressful events in the thousands of years he had been alive, but he too wished to slumber. It was unfair, Nogard thought, that the human would look so peaceful, and yet he a dragon was stuck with figuring out what to do with it. The sun was now creeping up higher into the sky, but the treetops kept most of its light from hitting the forest floor in the glade.

Death was one option that Nogard considered, he had killed thousands of humans over the years and this one should not be any different. But there was something personal about singling out one human that he did not like. When he had killed before, he did so indiscriminately for a purpose. He did so for the balance of the forest and the mortal humans, so that both may co-exist. He never singled out or targeted one mortal, he never allowed his anger to gain control no matter how much of his forest had been scarred by the humans as he slumbered. He knew it was partly their nature to destroy, just as it was his nature to create from the ashes his flame made.

Returning him to the other humans might work, Nogard thought. However, for the current balance to be upheld he needed the humans to fear him. He had tried, long ago, to approach some, but they only grew bold and attacked with pointed flying sticks before he could get near them. Fear was a healthy part of the balance and returning such a small and incapable human might chip away at that fear, Nogard decided. He could not return the human, not for the sake of his mandate to uphold the balance. It was a burden to look after such lesser creatures, but it was his responsibility to keep them just as it was his responsibility to keep the forest.

As Nogard gazed at the sleeping human, small and delicate, he wondered why such a creature would cause him so much trouble now. He could not bring himself to kill it and he had decided that he could not bring it back to its people, but he saw no other paths forward. Perhaps the human had the answer, Nogard thought. It had already drunk from the night waters that reflected the night sky even now near midday. It was hastening into a slumber, into the dream, one similar to the slumber Nogard yearned for now after having fulfilled his waking duties. Nogard believed that he always had his best ideas in dreams, and a few hundred years of dreaming might provide a solution as to what to do with the small human.

However, the mandate of balance still hung heavily on Nogard’s wings and he needed to be sure that his efforts bore the proper fruits considering this most strange of intrusions into his glade. He had been careful to cut a perfect line through the village and to burn only one side to re-establish the border and uphold the ongoing balance between the humans and the forest. Now, after his glade had been invaded, he would have liked to visit the border of the forest once more to double-check his work for himself. But, he knew the small human needed guidance in the dream after drinking from the night waters, or it might die before they woke. Besides, the forest itself could move faster than he ever could in any direction with the truth of things.

Nogard relayed a message to the trees, but some of them were a bit reluctant to do the dragon’s bidding after all of the morning commotions. Despite this, and after a few more apologies, they agreed and Nogard waited as they carried his questions through their roots across the ancient forest floor and into the border woods. When word returned moments later, the message was the same as before and Nogard was assured that his work was done for now. The mortal lands had pulled back from the forest and only a few remained, but they did not dare to enter into the scorched earth. Nogard concluded that this small human must have come to him on its own for reasons unknown to even an old wise dragon.

Using his tail, Nogard curled the bough-made crib into a space between his large front paws. With the human secured, he lifted his head and brought his lips towards the night water's edge. Taking a large deep swig, he thought of the next few hundred years and wondered what he would awaken to see. Then Nogard drew his head back and rested it on the forest floor curving it to ensure he could open his eyes to see the human should it awake.

The small human, under the magic influence of the night waters, nestled warmly against the dragon's chest and smiled. The forest then lifted its cover to take both of them forward in time to the next awakening. Maybe then, Nogard thought, he would be able to decide what to do with the human. For now, he knew that he would be able to meet the human in the dream once he slumbered. His final waking thought made him wonder, Was this a regular human? Or, a human pup?