The Mother

The mother dragged her weary tail through the forest floor, her golden scales tinkled over the dry autumn leaves and scraped the sides of the pine trees. The scent of the cindering dwellings and charred bodies of their kind billowed in the smoky air. Brittle bones dried from dragon’s fire cracked and splintered under her talons. Her wolf-like head hung low as her black winged arms followed the footstep of grief and delirious exhaustion. Her sides heaved as she panted while the thought of her nest pulled her home. The familiarity to return still lingered in her spine as reality cruelly reminded her of the unbelievable truth.

Her eggs were gone.

She had found the smashed bodies of her murdered offspring lain in a bloody pile of shell and scales in the dwellings of humans. She felt rage tingle in her throat again as she cried out for her loss. Her rage carried in the heart of her flame incinerated the feeble, tinder dwellings of man. By her birthright, the dragon’s promise of inextinguishable flame held true. She left their homes and bodies cindered in a flickering green glow. Now all that was left was the mother, and her grief.

A noise from her side rose the black feathers on her hackles and green flames gurgled in the back of her throat.

One of their kind sucked in its breath and cried out.

The mother spread her black leathery wings and threatened fire, her tail lashed the forest floor. She paused for only a moment to sniff the air. The small creature crouched and wailed over two charred and blistered bodies, pulling at the fibrous limbs of the corpses, its own limbs covered in charcoal, blood and sticky flesh.

It was their offspring. The familial scent of the dead bodies must have masked the one who evaded her fire. It cried and wailed louder, pulling on the flesh until the gristly limb snapped. The child fell back on its rear with an arm in its hands which sent it into a fit of screams and wails.

Rage tingled in the mother’s spine that one of them lived and stood before her while her own were killed by their hands. The mother reared up and beat her massive wings wafting smoke into the child's air. She raised her head toward the sky and screamed her anguish to the heavens that this child lives and not her own. The ground shook as she landed. The child froze.

The mother stalked slowly towards the fair and fragile child who dared not move. Her hot breath singed its hair with every exhale. Her jaw clenched and her teeth begged to be sunk into the tender flesh of the petrified thing. Her lips raised as she grazed her sharp canine tooth over its head and cheek. Her teeth chattered as she imagined what crushing its bones in her mouth would feel like and how its blood would quench her thirst. How small and new it must be, how delicate and helpless.

Her nest and eggs flashed into her mind again. Instincts willed the mother to turn and fly home until reality once again reminded her that her home was gone.

Crushed eggs and baby dragon bones.

She shook her head to reset her rage. Her scales rattled and tinkled as the shake began with her head and moved down her body until the last of her rage left with a flick of her tail and she was only left with grief.

The child clapped its tiny hands as sounds of amusement left its mouth. It stuck a bloody finger in its mouth and chewed. In no time another creature would find it and make a meal of it.

She turned away from the child and began to walk south toward the same path her ancestors traveled to journey to the fire mountains. Instincts would lead her to the birthplace of dragons, a place where dragons mourned the loss of their loved ones and bathed in the fire lake of the motherland to heal their external and internal wounds. A journey meant to be traveled alone with grief as the only comfort.

The child cried out to the mother as if pleading with her to stay. The south called to the mothers heart to heal and the cry fell on ears muffled by sadness, but she was aware of the scurry of tiny feet and limbs scrambling over fallen trees and ashen floors to be at her side. The mother walked on and stopped only when she no longer heard the company of the child beside her. She stopped briefly to search for the child when its footsteps became faint, not sure if she hoped to see it following behind or traveling in the opposite direction. It was always there though, falling behind but trying its hardest on two tiny legs to keep up. The mother felt a strange sense of relief and resentment when she looked into the child’s eyes.

The scent of musk and earth reminded the mother of her tired bones and called on her to rest. She followed the scent to a warm dark cave where she traveled deep inside until the light from the entrance was no longer visible. She sniffed the ground and turned her body around three times before laying her head down and curling her tail closely around her. The child screeched and cried out to the mother, the sounds echoed in the cavern walls. The mother curled tighter, wanting both for the child to find its way to her and to be lost in the cave forever, taken by the black. She closed her eyes and drifted swiftly into sleep to the sound of the child’s voice reverberating in the distance.

The dragon dreamed of walking a worn path to the south. Dragons from the past followed behind her walking and crawling on their bellies and soaring high above, circling and silent. Tiny hatchlings flashed from the cover of one bush to the other within her peripheral. In the distance humans watched behind the trees, their faces covered in mud and ash and blood. The mother stopped in her tracks as the scent of humans approaching made her spine tingle and her throat burn.

The sensation of something grabbing her face awoke the mother from her sleep. She shook her head and growled as she flung off whatever held onto her. A soft thud and huff of breath hit the floor in front of her. Her back arched and her throat glowed green illuminated the child laying on the floor at her feet.

Rage filled the mother’s head as she reared up on her back legs and flapped her wings. She released a roar from the agony in her gut which shook the walls and rattled the bones of the child.

The child sprang to its tiny feet screaming as it ran away from the mother. Instincts told the mother to chase and catch the prey. The child scrambled hopelessly through the moist cavern, slipping and scraping its body until its limbs were covered in abrasions. The mother hovered closely behind, nipping at the thing's hair and swatting its feet in jest. The child ran blind with arms outstretched in the blackness. A blunt thud came from the cavern wall and the child wheeled and landed on its back coming face to face with the mother, blood dripping from the gash in its forehead.

The child’s mouth opened without a sound, its face scrunched and skin turned red. It sucked in a breath of air before releasing a cry of pain.

The instinctual force of nature in the mother switched and she found herself pacing, unsure what to do with the wailing creature. The child cried out, tears running out of its eyes and nose and into its mouth. It reached up for something invisible in the darkness. The child continued to wail and plead for something to rescue it. It screeched and raised its arms, exposing its most vulnerable belly as if surrendering all hope of survival. It begged for comfort in the cool damp cave but the blackness refused.

The mother paced and panted anxiously as she tried to make sense of the emotions that rattled in her heart. She thought of her dead babies that she would never know and wondered what kind of dragons they would have been? It had nearly been time for them to hatch, perhaps by only a few days'. She remembered the sensation of their bodies turning in the eggs under her own body and wondered what they would smell like, what it would feel like to be flying together and she wondered what they would sound like. Would they sound like this child if they called to her? Did they cry out to her as they were crushed? She could not escape the image of their soft bones and scales plastered in a pool of blood and mud on the ground with their wings stretched out as a dragon would stretch its wings in flight.

Could she hear them? Was this only the cry of a human child or perhaps instead the cry of the children she had lost? The sound echoed and reverberated in the cave and in the mother’s heart. The cries and shrieks of all the baby dragons that were slew by the hands of man lived in this moment inside this cave of trauma and grief.

Her wing touched something soft and damp and the child’s voice responded. The mother turned in her pace feeling with her other wing the same soft body and hearing the child’s voice. Her wings had become outstretched in her restlessness and touched the child as she moved. With intention she slowed her pace to allow her wings to offer comfort to the child. The child responded and the shrieks that had haunted the mother lulled to a quiet sob. The mother shook her golden body and the child clapped and laughed at the great rattle and tinkling sounds of the dragon's scales. The mother laid down with an outstretched wing where the child had found a place to rest on. The mother dreamed lightly of two baby dragons lost and crying out in the cave. She awoke in the dark to stillness and silence except for the human child breathing deeply on her wing.

At the mouth of the cave a bear smelled the story of a mother dragon and a wounded human child. Tempting as it was for him to retrieve the child for an easy hunt he kept his distance as the dragon meant certain death. He walked away, frustrated and hungry.

The light of morning illuminated the cavern opening and the beckon of the south called to the belly of the mother. With the child following behind, the mother resumed her pilgrimage to the fire mountains. She held her head low as the sadness she carried weighed it too heavy to hold up. Every step carried her further away from the bloodshed but her memory would not let her leave that place of murder and cinder. She traveled in a fog of disbelief and bargaining. Baby dragons hid playfully behind the trees in the forest just outside of her peripheral, and as she searched for their faces, they dissipated as figments in her eyes.

The child rubbed the dried blood from its eyelids that had crept in from the oozing wound on its head from its crash in the cave. Its hands and hair crimson soaked as it struggled to keep up pace with the mother as the pair ascended the southern mountain. Its skin was pale from the loss of blood from the head wound and fresh droplets of blood splashed scarlet on the gray stones of the path. It crawled and cried out to the mother who paid no heed to the child as she was seemling lost in her own forest beyond the present time and space. The child shivered as the blood stained rag it was dressed in was as thin and delicate as a flower petal on the frigid mountain side. The mother continued her slow and steady march as the two legged being who only just learned how to walk not long ago struggled to keep up. Exhausted and hungry the child laid down on the dragon path atop a gray stone as an icy wind began to blow. Low clouds rolled in with the wind and soon the image of the golden dragon disappeared into the fog.

The redolence of a young injured human and dragon mingled curiously in the air, inviting the hungry beasts of the forest of an easy kill while simultaneously warning them away for certain death was assured when a dragon was present. Yet the blood that oozed and splattered on the ancient path from the child's wound called to the bear's hollow belly. The bear treaded softly behind lapping the blood from the stones. He licked his lips, and raised his nose to the air; the child was close. He followed the intoxicating trail of blood on the path where his eyes came upon a small bundle. Remembering the dragon he staggered a few steps towards the child sniffing the air for any trace of the mother. Her scent was gone, disappeared as she had, into the mists. His longing for human flesh unbarred as he rushed towards the defenseless child. He roared in excitement and his teeth ached to chomp into its bones.

The child screamed for the mother as it clambered the rocky path. In no time the bear was on top of the squirming, screeching morsel. The child covered its tear stained face as the bear advanced with jaws open, welcoming the child’s jugular.

Heat singed the child’s skin as the bear roared in anguish. Green flames engulfed his body and he spun madly in circles. The mother swooped down on silent wings from the foggy curtain and grabbed the bear with her sharp talons. The bear cried out one last time as she sunk her jaws into his throat. His body lay fallen on the path, the green flames boiling and popping his flesh.

The mother ravaged the burning carcass, ripping flesh from bone with her sharp teeth and drank in his fluids with mighty gulps. The satisfaction of the kill culled the grief in her heart, momentarily reminding her that she was a powerful beast. Rage filled her eyes and she devoured the eyes of the bear.

Blisters from the dragon's fire raised in welts on the child’s skin as it crouched and cried on the path. It held its blistered arm close to its body while salt tears dripped into the fresh wound.

Her ears perked and the mother turned to face the screeching child. A human child. The child that lived while her own died at the hands of its kind. This was not the sound of baby dragons, not this time. Her eyes focused on the wounded creature, its finger in its mouth just like the first time she had seen it. Its face contorted while a siren of wails called out for rescue.

Sensing danger the child moved sharply, practically inviting the mother to engage in a deadly chase. A growl lifted her blood soaked lips and her hackles raised.

She snapped aggressively in the child's face anticipating the sensation of bones in her mouth. She reached for the child with open jaws and bit softly on the child's stomach without piercing its skin. The child screamed and the mother released it. Reaching again with her open mouth she grabbed the child’s arm, then leg. She spread her beating wings and lifted herself and the screaming child into the air. With a soft thud the child fell to the ground. Its mouth opened wide, gasping for air and returning to wailing and screaming when it was found. Still hovering she picked up the child with her talon in a tight grip. Fresh blood oozed where her claws pierced the skin.

The mother beat her wings and drove her pain upwards into the lofty clouds. Her heart hammered in her chest as she climbed higher into the sky, the icy wind rushing through her ears drowning the screams of the prize in her claws. She felt nothing and she felt everything all at once. Her breath in time with the beat of her wings, every inhale was the cold agony of grief, every exhale the cindering flames of rage. Called by the image of her crushed babies, called by the visions of baby dragons in the forest, called by her hatred for the kind that killed her own, and called by the flame in her chest by the right of every dragon. The fire mountain called to the mother to come home and release her grief. She broke through the clouds and hovered over the black and red homeland of dragons. Heat rose in the icy sky from the glowing red lakes below her. The child lay limp in her talons as blood continued to trickle from its new wounds. It gasped in the thin air.

The mother circled over the great fire lake in silence all but for the sound of tiny gasp's. Overwhelmed, she shook her head releasing the rage in one final exhale, her scales breaking the stillness with rattles and tinkling. A small sound of delight came from the child’s weak body still clutched in her talons. The mother released her grip and watched as the child silently fell into the lake.

The mother called out into the sky for the offspring she would never know. She screeched and soared higher and higher into the clouds above.

She crawled from the red boiling waters of the fire lake atop the burning mountain. A trail of black tar and molten hot lava trickled off her shiny black scales. She opened her mouth to gasp for air as if it was her first breath in a brand new body. She flapped her black bat-like wings as if she had never felt the air beneath them. She called out to her mother with a cracked voice as if she had never before made a sound. From deep within the clouds, a mother called back.