The Earthbound Stone

The sky will no longer have me. I stare at my shadow on the white snow capped forest. Speckled holes pierce the membrane of my wings, creating voids of glittery moonlight in my silhouette. My knotted muscles yank my wings downward, snapping a few of the copious arrows piercing my hide, but my descent is inevitable. I sink like a stone in a flowing river… The frost embrittled treetops slap against my scales. From this direction I am mostly safe from puncture. If only humans were as imprecise as evergreens… I close my eyes as trees splinter against my underbelly, the dirt finally halts my momentum. I have often hit the ground, but on this day the ground has struck me back.

A fall of this kind is the second greatest humiliation a dragon can face, and as my exhausted form refuses my orders for movement. It is only the long jet of frustrated flame that emerges from my nostrils which reminds me. I am still in fact a dragon. But the flame, in it’s infinite, entropic wisdom reveals something else to me. A human child, quivering in the darkness, illuminated by the faint embers of glowing bark. A truly pathetic specimen, no higher than a doe at its shoulder. Its rounded visage reminds me of a pebble. Hardly worth a meal, even in this state I won’t reduce myself to eating a pebble. It stares at me perplexed, approaching on inelegant steps with gentle squeals and coos. It sounds like a boar attempting to impersonate a songbird. Surprisingly bold for a pebble, or perhaps too ignorant to recognize the face of a dragon. Admittedly I have never much considered the face of a human.

Its trembling hands reach outward as it approaches the smoldering surface of the tree with a duckish waddle. The warm glow seems to shrink from its grub-like fingertips as the cold night air steals the heat away. Its smooth face contorts and wrinkles at the cruelty of the cold.

“w-wa-WaaaaaAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”

A reddened face spreads across its head and a blood curdling roar erupts from the pebble. Moisture condenses around it’s eyes and steam spews from its spittle filled mouth. What an amusing little human, attempting to breathe fire to warm its delicate hands. But the ancestors granted the dragons command of fire, little Pebble. Humans got their precious implements of precision instead. What good are they to you now eh? They may craft alluring forms of gold and silver, they may apply paint with perplexing mimicry, they may even draw food from the ground itself. But you will never hold fire as I can. The pebble continued to roar as I mocked it, shooting jets of mighty flame high into the air. What good are your wondrous treasures now human?

A loose branch, set ablaze by my display, tumbles to the ground at the pebble's feet. Its eyes widen as the moisture dries from its cheeks and the roaring ceases. It feels strangely rewarding to see the creature so beguiled by my flame. Its hands reach for the fire but instinctively stop before touching the orange wisps of light. My fire warms your spirit, but burns your flesh little one. You are transfixed by the power of something that I taste every day. The pebble reaches for some nearby sticks and delicately places them atop the flaming branch. The sticks create the shape of a mountain inside the blaze. My eyes are drawn to it. It is my first time seeing an entire mountain on fire. What a wonderful sight it is, something no other dragon has likely seen. Ah, you are a wise one little Pebble. This too is the curse of the dragon. We hoard your treasures, your creations such as this. They nourish our very souls, but ignite our envy. My claws are merely instruments of chaos, too clumsy to achieve order, too destructive to be creative.

The pebble lifts its hand and absent mindedly places a finger into its mouth, a truly humbling display. I let out a slow grumble of delight. Indeed, I am transfixed by the power of something you taste every day… We are not so different little Pebble.