The Good Dragon

The ruins of the burning village below glowed brilliant orange, lighting up the night sky. The blinding flames and acrid smoke had no effect on me. Like all dragons, I had been around fire since I could remember, and dragon or not, fire was nothing new in these parts. As long as the Dragon Wars waged, something was always burning, though no one knew if the fire was caused by humans or dragons. Neither side even knew what they were fighting for anymore; all they knew was that humans and dragons were mortal enemies.

Humans and animals alike scattered and ran at the sight of me, a fully grown dragon, soaring overhead. Men shouted, brandishing swords and crossbows, and a hail of arrows soon littered the sky. I swerved, dodging and weaving between the human projectiles aimed at me, but felt a slight pinch as one caught me in the side.

Of course, one measly arrow is nothing to a dragon. I pulled it out and let it drop to the ground along with all the others that missed their target. That one tiny arrow stirred memories of a life long forgotten… an angry mob, a house engulfed in flames, a searing pain as an arrow pierced me. I hate those things!

Doubling back in the direction the arrow came from, I swooped down, landing in front of a man with a crossbow. Before he had time to reload, I snatched it out of his hands with my teeth and chomped down, smashing it into bits. I took off again without a second thought for him or the other survivors. I wasn’t interested in them; they could help themselves. Nor was I interested in the dead bodies. While they might make a tasty treat for some other dragon who happened along, I never ate humans. I tried to help them, whether they knew it yet or not. But the dead were beyond anything I could do. I was looking for those injured and incapacitated, those on the bridge between life and death, those I could give The Gift that was once given to me.

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Seeing no such people anywhere in the village, I circled back to the forest I called home. As I flew over the trees along the border, I heard a faint cry below. It wasn’t the cry of a dragon hatchling or that of the many beasts that lived in the forest. It was the cry of a human!

I landed softly, hiding as well as I could under the cover of night and trees. As I peered through the trees, I saw a tiny human with hair as white as moonlight slumped over a man’s burned corpse. The poor girl couldn’t have been more than two years old! There was no mother to be found, and it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened to the father. He had survived just long enough to get his daughter away from the inferno that was once their home before succumbing to his injuries. I might’ve thought the girl was dead too, were it not for her quiet sobs and subtly trembling body.

There was no way she would survive out here on her own. Either she’d become a snack for the creatures of the forest, or she’d wander back into the village to her fiery death. No doubt those pathetic humans would be too busy saving their own lives to notice her! I couldn’t just leave her, so I made my presence known. One look at me, and the girl’s sobs turned to frightened screams. “Bad dragon!”

Poor misguided child… barely able to talk, yet she already knew to put the words “bad” and “dragon” together!

“No, I'm a good dragon,” I assured her, but the words had absolutely no effect. As she tried to crawl away from me, I saw an angry-looking burn running down the chubby little leg that peeked out from beneath her tattered dress. That changed things. Realizing there was no time to coax her with words, I took more drastic measures to gain her trust… like transforming into something more amenable to human children.

The girl’s leaking eyes widened as the dragon before her eyes turned into a human man. “See? Good dragon.” She didn’t try to crawl away again but wouldn’t come closer either. She sat still, staring into my eyes - the only part of me that stayed the same in dragon and human forms.

“Good dragon?” she said.

I nodded, kneeling beside her. Even at this height in this form, I still towered over her. “I’m Adhemar.”

The name was too big for such a small human to say! After butchering my name a few times, she gave up trying and decided to call me “Good Dragon” instead. “Close enough,” I replied with a laugh. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t yet know her name! “Do you have a name?”

Between the babyish babble and mangled pronunciations, I gathered that her name was Lucianna. “You’re safe with me, little Lucianna.”

She seemed to understand, as she made no effort to resist as I picked her up. As I gazed at the tiny human in my arms, memories of another little girl flooded me… an older, bigger girl with hair and eyes as dark as Lucianna’s were light, a girl lost to me long ago. Unlike Lucianna, her father had failed to save her life. In that moment, I vowed that the same mistake would not happen twice!

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As I turned away, Lucianna began to cry again. “No!” she wailed, her little arms frantically reaching for her fallen father. “Help Papa!”

“I can’t…” If only I’d found them sooner, I could’ve given him The Gift and made him one of the Dragonée, or dragon-born, like myself… a dying human reborn as a dragon. But one must still be clinging to life to receive The Gift. “I’m so sorry, Lucianna. He’s gone…”

Poor child… she shouldn’t have to know such loss at such a young age! I understood her pain better than she knew, enough to know that there was nothing I could say to make her feel better, I held her tighter, suddenly wishing I could change back into my dragon form to escape the onslaught of human emotions… grief for her loss and my own and rage at the toll the Dragon Wars had taken on us both. Unfortunately, transformation wasn’t an option; my dragon form would only frighten her. All I could do was hug her until her tears and my own stopped.

“We’re going home…”

The question that remained was, where was home? Dragonacra, the land of dragons and my home, lie just beyond the forest, but it would be dangerous for Lucianna there. True dragons, the ones born as such, would want to make her into a meal. The Dragonée, humans resurrected as dragons, would want to make her into a dragon like us. I couldn’t allow either one to happen to her. The former for obvious reasons, and the latter because The Gift would freeze her human form in time, making her an eternal toddler.

The question that remained was, where was home? Dragonacra, the land of dragons and my home, lie just beyond the forest, but it would be dangerous for Lucianna there. True dragons, the ones born as such, would want to make her into a meal. The Dragonée, humans resurrected as dragons, would want to make her into a dragon like us. I couldn’t allow either one to happen to her. The former for obvious reasons, and the latter because The Gift would freeze her human form in time, making her an eternal toddler.

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There was only one other home I’d ever known, the place where I lost everything. I hadn’t set foot in that house since the day my wife and daughter died, the day my human life ended 150 years ago. The charred remains of the cabin had been mostly reclaimed by nature, but I could still make out a fireplace, walls, and a mostly intact bed. It wasn’t much, but it would protect Lucianna from both humans and dragons until I could find somewhere more suitable.

I gently sat her on the bed, and she watched as I cleared the leaves, vines, and remnants of a long ago caved-in thatched roof. I started a fire in the fireplace - a task made much harder without the use of my dragon breath, bandaged Lucianna’s burns as well as I could, fed her, and put her to bed. Only when I was certain she was asleep did I turn back into my dragon form, draping a wing over her to shield her from cold and light. Her tiny fingers curled around my wing, pulling it tighter around her body like a blanket.

As I watched the sleeping Lucianna, a revelation dawned on me. In my 189 years on this earth, my only goal, both as a human and a dragon, has been to unite the two worlds and end The Dragon Wars once and for all. I once thought I was the key, but what if it was Lucianna all along? What if we were meant to cross paths? What if all the years of suffering were leading me to her? Long ago, I was given a second chance at life. Now I’ve been given a second chance to make things right, and this time, I will not fail!