The Hollow Dragon

"Nature has a way of turning herself inside out whenever she needs a refresher." Tess stood in the rain on a simple, observation deck built into the side of the hill, barely minding the water drenching her seagreen robes and puddling at her feet. “You noticed this?” she asked, brushing a hand through her short-cropped hair and spraying the dragon next to her.

Kyo, the dragon, couldn't fit on the deck, so he'd coiled himself to the side of it instead, using a gnarled claw to prop himself up until his narrow head was almost level with hers.

"A thousand times," he agreed softly. They were watching a rainstorm rinse the burnt out vale below. The blackened remains of Tess’s old hometown were already nearly gone after years of overgrowth.

"Left alone long enough, the earth absorbs all of the damaged and dead things, and then grows something completely new out of it.” Tess continued thoughtfully. “In goes the bones–and out comes a set of trees and flowers. It’s fascinating really."

Kyo had seen this thousands of times. He'd lived a very long time, and Tess had been a child during the human war that had wiped out her old home. They were as different as a human girl and a dragon could be, but the feeling of loss they’d shared in common bridged that gap between them.

She’d already found a new home within a community that lived on the side of a rocky hill; in fact, that is exactly where she and the dragon met. The hamlet was a beautiful creation, designed to blend with the natural shape of the land. The community dwelling there lived simply, and their only desire was to study the world peacefully and preserve whatever knowledge they gained.

It was for the sake of that knowledge that Kyo sought out this community; however, while welcoming and happy to offer whatever intellectual value they had, they didn’t have an answer for his predicament. Even Tess, the particularly curious, young girl determined to have many intellectual conversations with him, made this clear to Kyo. She’d expected him, as a dragon, to hold all of the secrets of life… but Kyo was no fountain of wisdom. He was a lost, sad creature at the end of his rope.

Once upon a time, Kyo had lived with a thunder of dragons just like him, earthbound and eager for the day they’d become sky dragons! The age and timing varied for each, but there was always a point in a dragon’s life where they’d shed their earth form and transform into their lovely, new sky form.

This form was also different for each dragon: some grew wings, horns, manes, or any combination of the above in multiple colors. Once transformed, every sky dragon flew immediately into the clouds, eager and joyful to dance with the wind as if they could not be contained for even a moment!

Young Kyo had trembled with excitement as he'd watched friends and elders vanish into the clouds with glittering swirls. He dreamed of what color his own scales might become, and whether he’d grow feathery wings or a wide rack of antlers. His claws would flex and tap the ground in anticipation of joining the dragons he saw leap into the sky, and how he just longed to skim the wind with them!

But one by one, the other dragons flitted away, and over time Kyo’s hope turned into panic as his fellow nestlings took their turns to leap into the clouds and disappeared as well. Why wasn’t he changing too?!

When Kyo’s last remaining sister transformed into a gorgeous, golden serpent that danced up towards the sun, Kyo climbed up the side of a cliff after her, pleading all the while for the dragoness to not leave him behind. She was already as small as a ribbon in the sky though, so Kyo leapt from the edge of a cliff out of pure desperation after her, willing his body to change!

His sister disappeared, reflecting the daylight like the last tiny ember of Kyo’s hope, his own sinewy body flailing helplessly down through the cold, and unforgiving air just before he hit the dark sea below.

Kyo’s bruised heart tried to crush itself, surrounded only by fading claw marks and loneliness. At first he’d waited there quietly, for days that turned into weeks. If he was just patient enough… he might still change into a sky dragon and join his family soon.

He didn’t change though. Kyo eventually left the empty caves to travel in search of other dragons. If he'd never become a sky dragon, then surely he may at least find another earthbound one like himself?

He didn’t. There was nothing but bones left for Kyo to find. If he found friendship at all, it was occasionally with humans like Tess, but it was difficult watching the short lives of friends flit out of existence before him. He was also weary of the constant wars and strife that seemed to accompany humankind. Tess’s community in the hill had been his last hope at finding other dragons or a way to fly, but the humans didn’t know and Kyo was so tired of roaming…

So he left and pressed his tired body down into the lush, forest undergrowth, and tucked his face against the mossy side of a boulder. How had Tess put it? “Left alone long enough, the earth absorbs all of the damaged and dead things.” He would offer the earth his bones then, and perhaps one day it would make blossoms out of them.

A high, keening wail slipped into Kyo's ear canal, pestering his plodding, muted consciousness. It sounded a lot like a cat, the small kind, with high, mewling cries... His inner eyelids slid across the grating eyeballs underneath as if to try to block out the sound for his ears, but to no avail. If anything, the wails seemed louder.

A grouchy old growl shook deep within his chest like a couple boulders tumbling about the base of his throat. It made him cough a soft ragged hack! that shook clods of earth and rocks from off of his face. Kyo cracked open his thick, scaly outer lids and the faint light of the moon pierced his eyes. Wincing, he waited before allowing his second eyelids and the membrane lids to open as well, feeling the cool air hit the bare surface of his golden eyes.

He stared in dumb confusion at the trees and boulders straight ahead of himself, trying to remember where he was, why he was there, and why he was awake at all. Blinking slowly again, he allowed his eyes to open wider as he listened to the wails of the cat crack, turn into coughs, and then resume into slightly feebler cries.

This wasn't a cat… That was obvious now that he was really paying attention. He could hear the raw fear and sadness in the cries, which he determined to belong to a human child. Adults cried too, but they didn’t sound like that. His eyelids lowered heavily again. He should just close his eyes and ears again without interfering or participating in whatever was troubling the human. He should… but he couldn't.

The child’s forlorn wails echoed the grief still residing in his heart. The sound had probably been what caused him to dream of painful memories. Each cry in his ear now felt like a lash against Kyo’s heart and a scream to get up!

Kyo's groans sounded like falling timber as he heaved himself upwards. Layers of forest detritus had covered large parts of him. He didn’t know how long it’d been, but it’d obviously been long enough that it was a wonder any part of him had remained above ground. He wriggled his claws and legs, loosening the dirt and webs of roots surrounding him and gently rocked his body from side to side. A couple of dry shrubs swayed on his skull as he carefully reared back his head, and he could hear some of their roots and soft foliage nearby tear. Kyo saw stars with every thunderous crack of his neck joints and a slew of stone, moss, lichen, and mushrooms tumbled from his dulled scaly hide in large plops as he propped himself up. Finally, Kyo dragged his hindquarters free from the encasing earth with a gritted snarl. He spared only a glance for the gaping hole he’d left in the ground behind and lightly shook himself. Feathery ropes of green swung about his face, and the reflection from a shallow pool showed Kyo that patches of weeping moss were growing off of his face like a trailing beard and moustache. He noticed other similar patches of the vine-like moss draped all over his body like long fur and mane. Skeletal shrubs' clinging, stringy roots spilled down his face and along the bottom of his jaw like a fine, masklike net that secured the shrub's rigid, woody structures onto the crown of his long head leaving an ironic imitation to the rack of antlers used to think that he'd grow. Clumps of rock and different species of flora and fungi also remained caked all over his hide, down to the flat end of his tail as if the land had been in the process of trying to replace as many of his dragon scales as possible.

Kyo swung away from the reflection and started in the direction of the soft snuffles he could still make out with slow, unwieldy footsteps. The human might have been frightened by the racket he was sure to have made, but it was also possible that the child had just tired itself out. Despair was terribly exhausting after all. Fortunately, he didn't have far to go.

Kyo tilted his narrow head, taking in the scene. The moon's silvery hues made way for the rosy glow of dawn. It lit up a small clearing and he could not miss the child huddled in the center of a white mushroom ring.

A boy stared back at the earth laden dragon with enormous, dark eyes. The waif was so skinny, he likely would've slipped right between Kyo's claws like the twig he resembled. His small body was swathed in a rag-like material that was hardly suitable for what humans called "clothes." Strips of rags were also wrapped tightly around his wrists and ankles. The dragon wasn't sure why anyone would bother tying up someone so weak and sickly. Judging by the pallor of the child's skin and the dark shadows ringing his too large eyes, Kyo doubted that boy could've even harmed a mouse; in fact, the thing himself was hardly more than a babe.

Kyo ponderously tilted his head the other way and saw the tiny human mimic him his own little, round head. Amused, Kyo allowed himself a long methodic step closer, lowering his head until his large gold eyes were nearly level to the child's large, shadow-marked ones. The child gaped back at him without as much as a flinch. The boy seemed more transfixed by the dragon than afraid of him. Why was an infant tied up alone in the middle of the forest?

The larynx in Kyo's throat scraped uncomfortably as if it had sealed itself to the wall of the dragon's throat over the years. With great discomfort, Kyo forced his dry throat to clear. The knot in his throat bobbed as an arid breath burst through the dragon's nostrils, blowing back the tufts of hair on top of the boy's head.

The boy startled at the sudden sound and gust of air, shaking the ruffled bangs from his face but otherwise just continued to gawk at the dragon as Kyo painstakingly summoned his muscle memory and drew in a deep breath. .

"He...lllo...huuu...man..." His voice was a deep, garbly rumble that sounded too loud, and the words were barely discernible sounds that disgruntled the dragon a bit. At one time, Kyo had prided himself on his language skills.

The child in turn remained frozen for so long after Kyo's greeting faded into the stifling silence that Kyo feared his speaking skills had degraded even worse than he’d thought. Or was the human just so young that he didn’t actually know how to speak?

The dragon's head began to droop, sunken by the weight of the enormous pause, when a tiny squeak of voice abruptly piped up in answer.

"Hello!" The child’s voice was scratchy but clear.

Kyo’s earth laden tail swung a fraction. "Good!" he growled as if he'd personally taught the babe how to speak. Then Kyo stilled himself to concentrate on his next words. Talking felt just as arduous and grating as before, but he liked to believe that his enunciation was clearer this time.

"I... Am. Kyo..."

"I'm! Ced!" the child called back confidently.

Kyo huffed at the way the child seemed to be imitating his slow speech, but was amused rather than offended. With a very careful, thick claw, he prodded Ced's strange binds by poking the knot between Ced's bony ankles. "Why...are. You. Here?" he asked. His unused voice box felt raw and abused. "Like... this?"

The cheer in Ced's small, worn face fell as quickly as it had appeared, emphasizing the dark shadows around his eyes even more intensely. His mouth pinched and the boy started out by choking out a single word. "Mom." Tears pooled up into already sore, red eyes and his voice pitched even higher as he haltingly pressed on. "S-she said I'm not hers." Ced coughed wetly a moment, then spilled out the rest of his explanation in a stuttery rush. "S-said faeries took her real son! S-said I'm a monster! But I’m-but I'm-I'm-!"

"Not," Kyo supplied for the child. The word was small but his deep voice fell like a boulder between them.

Ced's face corkscrewed in a futile attempt to damn up the emotions visibly filling his little body. The boy was too small to hold in such a large amount of pain though, and Kyo slowly lowered his haunches to the ground as the boy's soggy howls rang out through the trees. Although it pierced his head, Kyo allowed the horrible sounds of Ced’s cries to run their course without interruption. Who was he to reign in another’s grief?

Kyo imagined the scene that must have played out between Ced and his mother up to this point. Based on Ced's words, and what Kyo remembered from the past, it wasn't difficult to put the pieces together. He'd heard human tales about the mischievous creatures often referred to as 'the Fay.' These Fay liked to steal healthy babes and substitute them with so-called monsters, also known as 'changelings.' These changelings would bother the victimized families by causing trouble or draining their resources to nothing.

Ced's mother was probably a poor woman, and may or may not have had children besides Ced. For some reason male children were considered to have more value than females to humans, but Ced was extra tiny and sickly. She may have been struggling to feed herself let alone others… and so she lessened her burden by removing the weakest link first. She must have tied up Ced's hands and feet after taking him into the woods to prevent him from following her back. She’d left him in a mushroom ring because humans said they were portals to faerie and perhaps Ced's mother actually believed in the Fay and that Ced really was an imposter. This would be motive enough to try sending the boy directly back to the Fay. In reality though, many humans just need to tell stories in order to disguise uncomfortable truths and absolve themselves of guilt. Ced's mother was just another example of what a desperate beast was capable of for the sake of survival.

Kyo glanced down, seeing Ced had quieted and was resting with his face against his dirty knees with glazed eyes aimed at nothing in particular. Kyo clearly saw Ced bore the deep scars of one that had been betrayed by the very person he should've been able to trust with his whole heart. It was an awful experience that could break the strongest souls.

Kyo used his fossilized talon to tug at the knot binding the child's ankles with extremely careful precision. Ced sat up a little as the binds quickly fell from his raw ankles, and then lifted his bound wrists up for Kyo. His trusting, dark eyes watching the dragon work.

"I'll show. You... a new. Home," Kyo rumbled resolutely once he'd finished freeing the child. Kyo was deteriorating, but the child still had a chance to live.

Ced had been checking his tender wrists with his tiny fingers, but looked up at Kyo, furrowing his brow. "New home?"

"You want... old home?" Kyo managed to pair a dry tone with the question.

Ced's small face scrunched. "No!" he screeched vehemently. "I don't want it!"

Kyo nodded his large head slowly, his shadow dancing with the leaves’ canopy. "So we. Leave."

"Where?" Ced’s voice shrunk.

"To other... humans," Kyo replied thinking of Tess and the hamlet in the hill. He really wanted to help the child. If Kyo could reduce the darkness in this world and leave it feeling a little better for the boy, then perhaps the dragon could rest without as many regrets.

"There are some..." Kyo explained, "Who are kind."

Ced had been so excited to climb up the dragon, that Kyo could almost believe that he was some type of fay after all. The child passed out into a deep sleep almost as soon as Ced settled in the deep bowl between Kyo's shoulder blades though, leaving the dragon alone with his thoughts.

Kyo knew how to get to the hamlet he’d last visited, if he could get to the road first. The dragon still didn’t have an exact sense of how much the world had changed since he'd been checked out. For all he knew, every village he'd ever known was long gone or replaced by now. While Kyo wasn’t so naive to expect any stranger to be better than Ced’s own mother, the dragon remembered the way Tess’s community had welcomed him and treated him with respect. Tess’s community had taken in refugees and orphans like her, and only the ones who wanted to stayed. It'd be nice if Kyo could take Ced to them.

He felt the boy squirm, making whimpering sounds, so Kyo slowed his sluggish pace to a full stop. The child was murmuring something over and over, but it took Kyo a moment to understand the words.

"My tummy..." Ced mumbled piteously.

Kyo curled his long neck around until he was almost face to face with the tiny human on his back. "What... about it?"

"I'm hungry," the boy groaned. He was curled up into a ball, weeping tiny little tears down his tired face. Although the child was complaining, he didn't actually seem to expect something from it. It reminded the dragon that humans had basic functions like most animals though, and this child wasn't the healthiest to begin with. Glancing around, Kyo spotted a thorny batch of wild blackberries that would have to do for now.

Kyo took a mouthful of the blackberry bush and pulled it up from the ground like a gardener yanking weeds. Small critters scattered at his disturbance, but they'd get over their distress soon. Kyo deposited the bush onto his own back just behind the surprised child. The uprooted plant looked at home amongst the other foliage and fans of lichen still patching the dragon's hide.

"Mind. The thorns," Kyo directed sternly. Then he resumed his walk while Ced helped himself to the berries.

They made multiple stops to allow the child to drink from a creek, defecate, and regrettably sick up on occasion as well. Ced needed better care and shelter in order for his body to have a chance to grow and recover, but Kyo was not the creature Ced needed. He would do his best to help the child along the way, but even Ced caught something strange about the dragon’s body as if to prove his limits.

“You have a hole!” The child yelled, at one stop, pointing up at Kyo’s belly.

Kyo sat upright and curled his neck like a swan until he could see himself, and indeed… there was a large, dark gap in his scales. The dragon poked a claw inside to be sure, but instead of any insides like mortal animals, he only felt hollow space.

“I’m… fine,” Kyo shrugged off the weirdness and Ced’s concern. He’d lost so much of himself up until now, in a way it made sense that he’d become a sort of shell. Thankfully, they were close to the road Kyo had been hoping for though, and Kyo just had to last as long as he needed.

The first human settlement they came across was a farm. A little house and barn squatted on the other side of a field, where Kyo could faintly hear bleating goats and clucking birds. In the field, a man walked behind a large cow dragging a wooden contraption through ridges of fresh dirt.

The human must have been so absorbed by his work that he hadn't noticed Kyo's approach until the dragon blotted out the sunlight, casting a long, stag like shadow over the man and the cow.

The man's eyes grew large and round as he looked over his shoulder at the dragon looming over him. The cow appeared less disturbed, moving on without the frozen farmer, chewing its cud all along.

"Food..." Kyo started.

"Not me!" the man shrieked in a voice almost as shrill as Ced's.

"... for child?" Kyo finished asking, twisting to reveal Ced between his shoulders.

The man stared dumbly at the small boy, and reached into the wide pouch at his waist, sweating profusely. After he blindly procured a lump of bread, he offered it up with a shaking hand towards Ced, who accepted it appreciatively.

"Thank you!" Ced placed a handful of blackberries in the man’s hand in return.

Kyo ducked his head politely as well before shifting back to the road. Ced started shaking so hard that Kyo thought the child was going to roll right off of his back.

"He thought you wanted to eat him!" Ced giggled.

Kyo looked back at the bemused man still staring after them with the gooey berries in his palm.

"Hmph," Kyo shrugged, nearly tilting Ced right off of him in the process. The child brayed even more loudly in laughter. Kyo hadn't been trying to amuse the child, but he liked the way the raucous noise filled his hollow bones with a gentle warmth. Kyo's footsteps felt lighter and the next couple of miles seemed a little less strenuous.

The sun painted the clouds with cardinal hues as it touched the horizon and the odd duo came upon the crest of a hill overlooking a village. Although the day was winding down, the inhabitants were still bustling around like busy little ants. Candle lights and lanterns speckled the ground like a set of golden stars preceding the silvery counterparts that would soon appear in the sky above. This little town was new to Kyo.

"Do you... know this place?" he asked Ced after a pause, wanting to be sure he wasn't taking the child right back to his original village.

"No," Ced replied.

Kyo nodded and went down. The people didn’t notice them at first, but it was very apparent once someone had. The first woman did a startled double take, and then threw herself into the nearest house, shrieking all the way. Like a chain reaction, others looked around to check what had scared her and then mayhem ensued. Objects were overturned, doors and windows slammed shut, shrieks of terror filled the air, and then the frenzy stopped just as abruptly as it had started.

An abandoned bucket was still spinning slightly where it’d been dropped in the now empty town square. Kyo never really knew what to expect from humans, but was just glad that in their panic, these people had chosen 'flight' over 'fight.'

After a while of waiting for someone sensible to venture out again, Kyo sat down and indicated a house with an official looking sign attached to the front, "Perhaps you... go knock."

Ced obediently slid off of Kyo's back and went to the front door. The scruffy child tapped his tiny fist against the heavy wood.

"Hello?" Ced was hardly intimidating, but Kyo could see the flashes of eyes peeking out from behind curtains. The fear emanating from every direction was almost palatable.

Kyo snorted. He supposed Ced looked a bit like a wraith with his rags and shadowy eyes. The humans held their breath as Ced called out a couple more times, afraid that breathing would catch his attention.

"Are they scared?" Ced asked the dragon, his voice thick and eyelashes dampening with hurt.

“Maybe.” Kyo shrugged and dropped his nose to Ced's level. "Maybe we're now... a folktale."

"Folktale?'" Ced repeated.

"About the ghost boy... who rides an earth dragon. They appear during gloaming. The ghost boy... knocks on the door." Kyo, satisfied by Ced's intrigued expression, added, "But no one answers. So they take water… from the well," Kyo turned to the said well and the lonely bucket. "Before they go on..."

The small story delighted Ced so much that the boy skipped to the well, happy to carry out this tale and jump on Kyo’s back with a sloshing bucket between his knobby knees.

***

Kyo continued to feel the type of exhaustion that continuously threatened to drag him back into the ground, but he didn't feel the need to sleep in the regular sense. He had Ced simply sleep on the space between his shoulders when he could no longer stay awake while the dragon continued walking on.

That night as Kyo walked though, more chunks of the earth and stone fell from his hide, leaving gaping spaces that allowed him to see right through to the other side of his own hollow body. At this rate, would he fall into so many pieces that he'd disappear entirely before he could reach the hamlet?

No, he couldn't let that happen. Kyo was determined to at least bring the child to the gateway of the hillside first. He would!

And he did.

Daylight broke through the morning fog above the hilltop before Kyo and his waking companion. The dragon sighed in relief to see that the hamlet had not only remained but had actually grown into something more large and complete. The blanket of mist covering the ground below the various pillars and structures reflected golden and pink in the dawn, and to Kyo, making it look as if the hamlet was a graceful castle built on clouds.

"Where are we?" Ced asked, his tiny voice filled with awe.

A slender, arched bridge led to a modest gateway with no walls as if it had been built there only to help guide visitors rather than deter them. A small, slightly bowed figure approached from the other side of the gate with hobbling footsteps. Pausing at the gate, the little figure raised her bowed head to reveal a face filled entirely with wrinkles and smile lines. Then she gestured the boy and the dragon forward with a friendly wave as if she'd somehow known that they'd be there all along.

If the dragon could've smiled, he would have. "Hello... Tess."

The old woman chuckled with soft, whispery sounds not unlike the falling of dry, autumn leaves. "Welcome back, old lizard. I see you brought a friend this time!"

Kyo nodded slowly. "You will... take care of him?"

Ced was standing between him and the old woman looking vulnerable, curious, and uncertain all at once. Tess nodded, her eyes disappearing under her smiling cheeks as she offered a small, papery hand to the child. "He is welcome here, of course. Perhaps, we will take help care of each other! Will you help this old lady back up to the house?" she asked Ced. "We have many friends for you to see after you've had some food and rest."

"What about Kyo?" Ced asked, sensing something off about the dragon, and reluctant to leave him behind, without knowing that the dragon would be cared for.

Tess simply turned to Kyo, allowing the dragon to answer for himself.

"I have... brought you to a new home." Kyo explained to the child. "Now, I can go... to mine." It was strange, and the realization did not come with the electric excitement and drama that he'd envisioned as a dragonling, but with a peaceful acceptance and relief of one that was free.

The rest of the forest debris slewed off of Kyo in a heap and his remaining scales fluttered off his body in feathery layers that seemed to dissolve as soon as they hit the wind. To Ced and Tess the dragon seemed to evaporate entirely, but it was only after Kyo was free of his outer layer that he could show that humans that he'd actually transformed into his sky form.

He did not grow wings or horns that could be seen, but had instead become something like wind and water. He leapt up from the ground, twirling and causing the golden mist to swirl up after him into a graceful trail as he finally flew up into the sky like one that couldn’t be contained. Kyo sensed his family in the clouds, and he knew then that they’d been close all along, as he would be to the ones he left behind.