Some Great Treasure

A human has little chance of defeating a dragon at the best of times, and this was certainly not the best of times. Debris fell callously from the sky, diminished tides wreaked havoc on aquatic life everywhere, and humans threw everything they had into increasingly destructive and futile efforts to return to the delusions of control they’d clung to in the times before the moon had died.

For centuries the dragons had remained underground, waiting for the day the humans would earn their presence. But when the moon died, they knew they could wait no longer. They knew humanity would not last long without something bigger than themselves to look to. Had humanity been a little more adept at believing, the sun might have been enough for the world to maintain their feeble grip on unity... but you can’t look at the sun. And humans had an astonishing propensity to stand drowning in something as irrefutable as sunlight and still deny the existence of any force outside of themselves.

Of course, humans being what they are, when the dragons emerged to take over from the moon, the magnificent creatures weren’t viewed as guardians. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary - and indeed despite logic itself - humanity blamed the dragons for the loss of their guiding light. In hindsight, the dragon council agreed that such an outcome had been inevitable. With such a devastating loss, it’s only natural to look for someone to blame… natural for humans, that is. Dragons are usually better at seeing the bigger picture, for obvious reasons.

At first the dragons had tried to move amongst the humans, tried to act as a reassuring presence, tried to represent hope and inspire a return to imperfect peace. But a dragon amongst humans who seek vengeance is about as peaceful as a human standing on an ant hill in the height of summer. The dragons soon relinquished the day, and humans resentfully surrendered the night… as though they hadn’t lost all love for it anyway.

On rare occasion, however, a lone dragon could be seen circling over one of the few remaining forests during daylight; an act proclaiming loud and clear “This earth is not yours alone, and the cost of its’ desecration is born by all.” At least, that’s the message the dragons intended to send. The humans mostly chose to interpret these peaceful excursions into daylight as a far more antagonistic act. Whatever meaning you yourself might ascribe to the occurrence, if you’d been in the forest that day, the dragon you would have seen was one of exceptionally tired spirit.

***

Duridan flew slowly and steadily over the trees. When his kind had first emerged out of the earth, he’d derived great joy from the way the sunlight glinted off his scales as he dipped and swirled and soared. But that was years ago now. And years of being resented by an entire species tended to sap the joy out of even the most euphoric of dragons. The heaviness in his heart had grown stronger with each mile, and he soon surrendered to it, sinking beneath the treetops, legs bending on impact with the soft, leaf-covered ground. Walking was a sorry affair for a dragon, but that felt fitting with the mood Duridan was in, so walk he did. Slowly. So slow in fact that he wasn’t even moving when the first fist hit him. Or the second for that matter. He glanced down as the shriek reached his ears. “AAYEEEEIIIII.” The sound hurt more than the tiny fists did, which wasn’t difficult seeing as he had barely felt the fists at all. Duridan stared in sad silence as a child - no taller than a goose - continued to hit, kick, scratch, bite… So much anger already for one so young.

Duridan carefully stepped backwards first with his left foot, then with the one under attack. The child dropped down on hands and knees, examining the depressions where his claws had just been. The eyes that had held immeasurable rage only moments earlier suddenly lit up with something new. Something Duridan had not previously seen on any human face he had encountered. The child sat back on her heels, turning her hand over one way then the other in front of her face as though seeing it for the first time.

Not accustomed to being tolerated, much less ignored, Duridan stood waiting for the child to remember his presence. She didn’t. She cupped her hands together, giggling in delight as though holding some great treasure. Curiosity soon caused Durian to quite forget the hazards that came with traversing a forest alone, and he lay his head down beside the child, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever enchanted her so. Without hesitation, the child moved her clasped hands in front of his nearest eye, then slowly opened them. A small red and black beetle ran to the tip of her thumb, pausing momentarily before taking flight. Conversely, the child did not pause before taking off in the direction it flew, narrowly avoiding an exposed root and several other trip hazards that she seemed completely unaware of. Not your problem, Duridan, the dragon told himself as he stood back up. Nonetheless, he followed. Maybe I’ll just make sure her adults find her… he reasoned, weaving slowly between the trees. Unless… he dared not acknowledge - even to himself - the path he was already considering taking, should no other humans appear. Despite the trepidation tugging at the edge of Duridan’s consciousness, the child was not the only being in the forest who’d fallen under the spell of a tiny, fragile thing.