The Name of the Dragon

The sun was beginning to set. She knew she had to hurry if she was going to make it back to her hut before nightfall. But her dinner was putting up a fight. She had to use all her strength to wrestle its horns to the ground. She pressed her knee against its side to keep its body from writhing. Finally, it stopped moving. Its big eyes just looked at her. She knew that look. She could tell it knew its fight was over. It knew it was going to die even before she slid the blade across its throat.

The woman didn’t have a name. After she was recruited to the Dragons, she had no use for a name. She was simply a Dragon. Names were for people with families. Dragons didn’t have families; families would’ve made them weak, and Dragons weren’t weak. Dragons made up the Crown’s strongest, most formidable, army.

Numbers were sufficient to keep them organized. Her number, 01604-947, sat proudly on the patch affixed to the flight jacket she still wore. Even though she had made herself new clothes in the years since she was stranded, she still liked wearing the jacket. It reminded her of who she was. Who she was loyal to. What she was waiting for.

She still saw herself as a Dragon, even though she couldn’t remember ever having seen a Dragon who was as old as she had now grown. Her age had tripled in the years she had been on V0N1G0-2. When she first arrived on the planet, her hair had been short and black. Now it was silver and long enough to wear in a thick braid that reached past her waist.

She still saw herself as a Dragon, even though it had been years since she had last flown. Her Wings hadn’t moved from the place where she had crashed. Over the years, it had rusted. Knotted vines had punched through its hull and pulled it apart. The wreck had become one with the forest floor. She supposed she could’ve salvaged its parts for the building of her hut, but the sight of the wreck had always angered her. It served as a bitter reminder of her failure. Dragons weren’t made to fail. That wasn’t what she had been trained for.

She knew that the next time she flew, she’d succeed. Next time, she would bring victory to the Crown. She waited patiently for that day to come. They’d send more Dragons, more Wings, when the time was right. She had no doubt about that. This was their land, and they always claimed their land. But what were they waiting for? The question had often flickered through her mind, before she pushed it away. It wasn’t honourable to question the Crown, even in her thoughts.

The Dragon reached her hut just as the last light of day was dimming. She knew she was cutting it close. Too close. As she hauled the game through the door, she thought she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. Were those the tendrils of a Shadow feeling out the night from behind that tree? She hadn’t expected her hunt to last as long as it had, so she hadn’t brought a torch. She chided herself for being so reckless. The Shadows usually emerged as soon as the night fell. To be caught at night without a torch could mean death.

The Dragon always kept a fire burning in her hut. Fire, she had learned, was the only thing the Shadows were afraid of. She pulled the door closed tightly behind her and threw more logs onto the fire.

That’s when she heard it: a sharp high pitched noise echoing from the woods outside.

A scream.

The sound was so unexpected, the Dragon almost thought she had imagined it. Nothing made a noise like that in the woods at night. Nothing wanted to attract the Shadows. But there it was again: another scream. This time the scream was followed by a panicked call in a tiny voice:

“Mama!”

It sounded like a child.

What was a child doing in her woods?

Had the villagers finally found her? She had taken many precautions to make sure she stayed hidden from them. She had built her hut a far distance from their settlement, on the other side of the Night Rose glade, which she was sure would keep them away.

Maybe they had seen her? She had known the harvest was coming, so had taken the opportunity over the last several nights to sneak into their fields and stealthily fill her bags with as much as she could carry. For years she’d taken what she needed from their fields, and had never left a trace. Maybe overconfidence had led to carelessness this time. Maybe they had tracked her here.

If they knew there was a Dragon hiding in the woods, they would hunt her down and kill her.

Is that why there were no grown Dragons? Perhaps they all became overconfident with age. She knew all too well that overconfidence in Dragons could lead to fatal mistakes. Overconfidence was why she was stuck on this planet. Her entire squadron had assumed it would be an easy mission. They had underestimated the dissidents.

“Papa!!” The child’s voice was louder this time. “PAPA!”

The darkness of night was settling in now. The Shadows would be filling the forest.

The Dragon called the creatures Shadows as she had no other name for them. Her field guide hadn’t warned her of them, and she had never encountered anything like them on any other planet. They came in darkness; they were darkness. They were almost impossible to see because they hid in shadows and looked like shadows. They were completely silent. Only their movement would give them away.

The Dragon assumed they came from the black lake, as that’s where she saw them bring their prey. Their dark tendrils dragged whatever, whoever, they had caught to the shore and pulled them beneath the murky water. Only five Dragons had survived the battle. They had hidden in the woods, where their Wings had crashed, after it was clear they had been defeated. In less than a month, three Dragons had been taken by the Shadows. Her co-pilot had lasted almost a year. But then he too had been taken.

“Mammaaaa!” The tiny voice was sobbing now.

Why was no one coming for it? The Dragon knew the child was in serious danger now.

Why would they bring a child with them into the woods? The child was loud. The Shadows would’ve heard it.

Maybe the villagers were playing some sort of trick on her. Trying to use the child as bait to lure her into a trap. The Dragon knew the villagers were vile, selfish, people. They were dissidents. Those who defied the Crown had no honour. She grabbed her knife from its hilt at her side.

She wouldn’t let them take her. Not that easily. Not after surviving this long. If they had come for her, she vowed to herself that she would sink her knife into as many of them as she could. If she was going to die in these woods, at least her last moments would be spent in loyal service to the Crown. If she was going to die, she’d make sure she’d take as many dissidents with her as she could.

The child called out again. “Mamma!” Its tiny sobs echoed through the trees.

The Dragon grabbed a torch and swung open her door to the darkness.

With the torch casting a pool of light around her, the Dragon slowly descended into the woods. She followed the sound of the sobbing child, scanning the darkness with her sharp eyes for lurking villagers. But the only movements she saw were the wisps of Shadows retreating from her light.

The child screamed again. This time it was different. This time the scream was blood curdling. The Dragon ran. She was running before she even realized she was running.

Then there he was, in front of her. A tiny boy. He looked about three years old. The dark tendrils of a Shadow were wrapped tightly around his legs, keeping him from moving. Like long demonic fingers, more tendrils were encircling his torso and wrists. The boy was screaming in pure helplessness and terror.

The Dragon held her torch out to the Shadow. As soon as the firelight hit it, the dark tendrils smoked as if the fire itself had burned it. The Shadow quickly released the boy and snaked away into the darkness, leaving the boy free to stumble forward. He ran towards the Dragon and wrapped his tiny arms around her legs. She used the torchlight to scan the woods around her. A few Shadows slunk into the darkness, but she could see no villagers.

“Are you alone?” She asked the sniffling boy.

He looked up at her, eyes streaming with tears, and nodded. The Dragon prised his arms off of her legs and held him at a distance. “No one is with you?” She asked him, firmly.

He shook his head. “I got lost,” he told her. There was a note of shame in his young voice. The pity the Dragon felt when she heard it surprised her.

The little boy looked to his feet with downcast eyes. “Mama’s going to be mad. She told me never ever ever to go into the forest alone. But I wasn’t alone. I was playing with kin. But they left. Then I was alone,” he told her.

“You can’t trust kin. They do what they like, when they like,” the Dragon told him.

She had lived alongside the kin for many years now, but still couldn’t understand their ways. The tiny creatures were no bigger than the top of the Dragon’s finger. They glowed with amber light, which sometimes turned blue or purple for no apparent reason. They flew around in large groups or just solo. Mischievous sorts, they liked to pull the Dragon’s hair while she worked, or carry her laundry off the line while it was drying in the sun. They were playful beings, for the most part. The Dragon could understand why the child would’ve been enamoured with them. But they were also fierce. They were the only creatures the Dragon ever saw who could defeat a Shadow. Once, she saw the kin notice one slinking around their nests. A swarm of them dove at the Shadow and tore it into a hundred pieces. Then they gobbled it up.

“You followed the kin into the forest?” The Dragon asked the child.

He nodded. “And then they picked me up. And we flew! It was so much fun!” His face lit up with the memory.

That would explain how he got so far from the settlement, she thought. How he remained unscathed. They must’ve dropped him nearby when they got bored.

“But then I didn’t know which way was home,” he told her, shame creeping back into his voice.

The Dragon observed the little boy closely. She had never seen a dissident up close before. From her Wings, they all looked like little bugs. She had felt nothing but the pride of duty when she released the fire on them. This boy shouldn’t’ve even been born. If their mission hadn’t failed, there would be no dissidents here. Loyal Crown subjects would inhabit this land instead. The boy’s very existence was a reminder of her failure. She should leave him in the woods, just like she left her Wings, she thought.

The little boy was watching the Dragon closely too. “What’s your name?” He asked.

She said nothing. He obviously didn’t realize she was a Dragon. Was it because her jacket had become so worn that he didn’t recognize the uniform? She remembered when children even younger than him would bow their heads in reverence at the sight of any Dragon.

“My name’s Noe,” the boy offered up enthusiastically.

He was so unabashedly trusting of her. It unsettled her.

“My mama and papa will be worried. Can you take me home?” He asked.

Then it struck her: he’d probably never even seen a Dragon before. He’d probably never seen anything beyond this planet. Beyond the settlement. What did the dissidents teach their young? Did this boy even know who wore the Crown, she wondered.

“Come.” She started to walk. “Keep close to me. Close to the light.”

The little boy reached out and grasped the Dragon’s hand. He clutched it tightly as he walked beside her. His little hand was cold, but she felt it warm in her hand as they moved through the trees.

The Dragon led the boy back to her hut. She could raise him to honour the Crown. Not as a son, of course. Dragons don’t have children. But she could be his teacher. Train him in the way of the Dragons. What an honour it would be to be able to present a new Dragon to the Crown.

She found she liked entertaining the idea as they walked together, hand in hand. But she knew she couldn’t keep him.

The boy had a family. He said they would be worried. They should assume he was dead by now. How could a toddler survive in the woods alone at night? The rational thing would be to accept his death and move on. But the Dragon knew how people with families thought: hope often won out above reason. It was part of what made people with families weak and vulnerable.

She knew they would search the woods for him.

The Dragon couldn’t risk their search leading the villagers to her hut. She knew what she had to do: she had to bring the child back to the settlement. If they knew he was safe, they’d have no reason to search the woods. She could remain here, hidden, until she could rejoin the Dragons.

But she needed to get extra torches if she was going to make the journey safely. She opened the door to her hut and ushered the boy inside.

“Is this your home?” The boy asked. “Why do you live in the woods? Why don’t you live in the village?”

“You ask too many questions,” the Dragon told him.

“Questions are good.” The boy replied confidently. “Papa says they help you learn.”

The Dragon stuffed some extra torches into a pack. The boy was quite articulate for a toddler, she thought. Maybe he was older than three. She realized he would talk about her when he returned home. She’d have to create a story about herself so as not to raise suspicion among the dissidents.

“Does anyone else live with you?” The boy asked.

“No,” the Dragon answered. “I am only here for a short while longer. I’m a scientist. I study different planets. My transport will be picking me up soon.”

The boy’s attention was caught by the game the Dragon had hauled in earlier. He crouched down to gently stroke the animal’s head. “Poor thing. Was he sick?” He asked.

“No, I was hungry.” the Dragon replied. She added a water gourd to her pack along with a set of thick leather gaiters. “Let’s go,” she said. “We don’t want your parents wandering the woods at night looking for you. They may come across something dangerous.”

The boy followed her to the door. The Dragon watched as his nervous eyes scanned the woods.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe from the Shadows while we have firelight,” she assured him.

“What about the bellowbeasts?” He asked her.

“They are seldom awake during the night,” the Dragon replied. But she grabbed an extra knife and handed it to the little boy. “If one does come, aim for its eye. Then run,” she instructed. “It’s nearly impossible to defeat a bellowbeast. Not with the weapons we have. But it won’t follow you if it’s blinded. If you try to fight it, you’ll die trying. Better to save yourself for a fight you can win, right?”

The boy looked at the knife with wide eyes, but he clutched it bravely. It was so long it looked like a sword in his little hand. The Dragon knew they would likely be killed if a bellowbeast found them in the dark, but she wasn’t about to tell the boy that. She needed him calm if they were going to make the journey safely.

“Let’s go,” she said, reaching out her hand to the child. He grasped it gratefully.

“Not a word, now. We must be quiet,” she whispered as she closed the door of her hut. She held the torch high, illuminating their way through the forest.

They walked for almost an hour in silence. The woods were quiet, save for the rustling of leaves as the wind breathed its way through the tall trees. Occasionally they’d hear the soft tinkling sound of kin chattering in the brush and see their soft glow dart by.

The boy did his best to keep up to the steady pace the Dragon kept. But it wasn’t long before she noticed him become slower. His eyes were drooping and his feet began to drag as he tried to stay awake. When the knife fell from his hand, the Dragon stopped.

She picked up the knife and sheathed it in her pack. Then she lifted the tired boy and balanced him on her hip, holding him in one arm while she kept the torch held high in her other. She knew she’d have to carry him the rest of the way. He was too small, too exhausted, to make the journey on foot.

She didn’t mind. He weighed almost nothing in the Dragon’s strong arm. The boy fell into a deep sleep as she walked. His tiny hand kept clutched onto her jacket as his little head nestled into her shoulder.

She hadn’t noticed the soft curl to his hair before, but now he was in her arms, she couldn’t help but notice a lot more about him. She saw he had a spattering of freckles on his tanned cheeks. His skin was smooth, not like hers, which was scarred by battle and years of surviving the woods. His sweater was hand woven. Unlike the basic clothes the Dragon had made for herself, his sweater had a design on it: beautiful embroidery detailed mountains, lakes and animals in a variety of colours. She’d never had a garment like that in her entire life. Whoever had made it for him had clearly spent a long time on it. His name, Noe, was stitched into the sleeve. “Noe,” she whispered into the darkness. A lovely name, she thought. It sounded gentle and strong all at once. It suited the little boy well, she thought.

The Dragon reached the edge of the Night Rose glade. Under the blanket of darkness, the flowers had emerged from the ground and were now in full bloom. Their thorns glistened under the Dragon’s torch light. The glade stretched as far as the Dragon could see from right to left, like a border. On the other side, the woods sloped down into a valley. There, she could make out the faint glow of light from the villagers’ settlement.

The Dragon’s torch was beginning to dim. She knew it was time to switch to another. She had to stop here anyway. She had to prepare to cross the glade. She kneeled gently, letting Noe’s feet touch the ground. He awoke, blinking sleep from his eyes.

“Are we home?” Noe asked, hopefully.

“Shhh, not yet,” she whispered. “Take this,” she said, handing him the torch. “Hold it for me.”

Noe did so obediently. He illuminated the Dragon’s pack as she brought out another torch and her leather gaiters. She bound the gaiters tightly to each of her legs. Then she lit the new torch against the one Noe held.

As the top of the torch burst into a healthy flame, Noe saw the glade illuminated. He saw the beautiful dark flowers that glimmered under the firelight.

The Dragon checked her gaiters closely to make sure that there were no gaps. She didn’t notice Noe walking towards the glade.

“Wow,” Noe exclaimed in awe. The Dragon looked to the boy to see him bending down, reaching out to touch a flower.

“No!” The Dragon leapt towards him, yanking his hand away from the Rose. He dropped his torch in shock. It sputtered to nothing on the damp ground.

“You didn’t touch it did you?!” The Dragon turned his hand over and over, holding her torch close, looking for any trace of a scratch on his skin. Her heart was beating faster than she’d ever felt it beat before.

“No. I didn’t touch it. What’s wrong?” Noe asked. The Dragon could see no mark on his skin.

“Has no one told you about Night Roses?” The Dragon asked.

“Those are Night Roses?” Noe, asked. His eyes widened in shock as he stepped back from the glade.

The Dragon had learned about Night Roses too late. They had been mentioned in her field guide, in a passing note about dangerous flora. But there had been no images, or even descriptions, of the flowers. And there was no warning of what they could do.

When the Dragon and her co-pilot had first come across the glade of flowers, something about it had unsettled them. They had decided to be extra cautious moving through. But even though they were careful, her fellow Dragon had been scratched by one of their thorns. At first, he seemed fine. It was such a tiny scratch. It had barely broken his skin. But as the days went by, he began to change. He started to refuse food and water. He started hiding from the light. It was like the Night Rose had made him fear anything that was good; it made him yearn for what would hurt him.

When the Dragon tried to help her fellow Dragon, he believed she was dangerous. He ran into the woods at night. She had followed him with a torch. She had wanted to help him. Wanted to stop him from being caught by the Shadows. But when she found her fellow Dragon, he fought her. His eyes had turned black. It was almost like a Shadow had taken him over from the inside. He didn’t even recognize her. He fought her, and then he ran. He ran to the Shadows and let them take him beneath the water of the black lake.

“Yes, those are Night Roses,” the Dragon told Noe. “Come, I will carry you through the glade. It is crucial you don’t touch their thorns.” She scooped Noe up in her arms.

Noe nodded. It was clear he knew about Night Roses, this was just the first time he had ever seen one.

Noe clutched The Dragon close, making sure to keep his legs wrapped around her waist, away from the thorny stems that reached to her knees. As the Dragon walked through the Night Roses, the thorns scraped across the leather of her gaiters. They scraped, but didn’t touch her skin.

A dart of light caught her eye. A kin, flittering through the darkness. Another joined. And another. Until a group of them flew above her and Noe. They were beautiful, like dancing stars in the dark sky. Noe waved to them as they flew close. The Dragon just focused on keeping her footing. The ground was uneven and she knew a stumble could send them both to the Shadows.

When they reached the other side, the Dragon breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She couldn’t help but hold her breath every time she made this crossing. She put Noe down. The kin swirled around them, and then dispersed amongst the flowers, sitting on their blossoms and balancing on their thorns, giving the glade a soft glow.

The Dragon pointed to the settlement that glowed in the distance. “There’s your home, Noe. I’ll take you to the edge of the fields, and then give you a torch.”

“You’re not coming with me?” He asked her.

“You don’t need me. It will be safe to go from there.”

Before they could take a step further, the sound of a low bellow echoed from the thicket in front of them. Noe clutched onto the Dragon. They both knew what that sound was.

The Dragon froze. The bellows grew louder. Noe screamed. He couldn’t help it. The Dragon covered his mouth, but it was too late. She heard paws pounding the ground in front of them, getting louder. It was coming straight towards them.

The Dragon lifted Noe and retreated quickly back into the glade. There was nowhere else they could go. The bellowbeast emerged from the thicket in front of them.

The creature was thrice the height of the Dragon with thick shiny scales across its heart and neck. Its one piercing green eye honed in on the two. It paced up and down the glade, not wanting to touch the flowers. It gnashed its sharp teeth at them and shook its dark mane. The Dragon reached for the knife in her hilt, but with Noe in one hand and the torch in the other, she wasn’t able to grasp it properly. It slipped, and fell beneath the Roses.

The beast’s long neck lurched out. It moved so fast and got so long, the Dragon hardly had time to react; its gnashing teeth came right at them. The Dragon twisted her body to cover Noe. Her torch fell to the ground as she reached her arms around him. The torchlight sputtered and died as the beast sunk its teeth into the Dragon’s pack.

“Get back! Get back!” Calls came from the thicket. The bellowbeast released the pack to turn its eye towards the sound. Through the darkness, the Dragon could make out torches, dozens of them, coming at the beast.

Villagers. They threw smoke grenades at the bellowbeast. It swished its long neck to escape the plumes that erupted in its face, but the more it swished, the more the smoke clouded its eye. Stumbling in blindness, it gave one last bellow, then ran away.

The Dragon sensed the Shadow before she saw it. She could feel it coming in the darkness. By the time she looked down, dark tendrils were already snaked around her feet. She remembered the look in the eyes of those she had hunted, when they knew it was over. She could feel that look in her eyes now; she knew there was nothing she could do.

But she remembered she was a Dragon. Dragons were never taken without a fight. She pulled at her feet with as much force as she could. They wouldn’t budge. She writhed and squirmed to try and shake the Shadow off. But the darkness just climbed higher. She swung Noe up onto her shoulders. But the Shadow wrapped around her waist and reached out to Noe’s legs.

Noe screamed for his parents. The lights of the torches were racing towards them, but they were still too far away. The Shadow was enveloping Noe. The Dragon shouted. She shouted louder than she had in her entire life: “LEAVE HIM!”

The Shadow didn’t listen. It wound its tendrils around Noe’s legs. But then, all at once, the kin in the glade flew up from the Roses. They gathered together in a huge dancing ball of light above the Dragon and Noe, and then dove down. They whisked their way around them, darting at the Shadow, until the Shadow released its hold and escaped into the darkness.

The Dragon had barely enough time to understand what had happened before the villagers had surrounded them. Noe reached out for his parents, who scooped him up with sobs of relief.

All eyes took in the Dragon’s jacket.

The Dragon instinctually reached for her hilt, before remembering her knife was gone.

“Why did you take our son?” Noe’s mother asked her.

“She didn’t take me, mama, I got lost.” Noe told her. “She was bringing me home.”

‘Is that true?” Noe’s father asked.

The Dragon nodded.

She was calculating how to escape the dissidents. She saw they all wore protection against the Night Roses. All held torches, machetes and sickles. Some wore satchels. The grenades must’ve come from there. What other weapons were they carrying? The Dragon was empty handed and outnumbered. She would try and fight. She had no choice. But even if she did escape, they knew she was here now. She could no longer hide in the woods. She would be hunted.

“Thank you,” Noe’s mother said. She reached out and grasped the Dragon’s hand. “Thank you,” she said again. The gesture surprised the Dragon. She wasn’t prepared for kindness from a dissident.

“What’s your name?” Noe’s father asked the Dragon. “I’d like to know who I am thanking.”

The Dragon remained silent.

“She doesn’t have a name. Isn’t that right?” A grey haired villager asked the Dragon pointedly.

“You don’t have a name?!” Noe exclaimed.

“No. Not one I can remember,” the Dragon told him.

“I can give you a name, if you’d like,” Noe offered.

The Dragon could feel the villagers watching closely as she considered. “Yes, I would like that,” the Dragon told Noe. She supposed if the villagers accepted her, she could hide amongst them until the Dragons returned.

And so she became Cathleen that night.

The Dragon she once was hid inside her as the villagers welcomed Cathleen to their settlement. The Dragon waited for its time to emerge again.

But after a while, it fell asleep.

And when the Dragons finally did return, Cathleen didn’t think to wake it.