While the Dragon Slumbers

Pihlaja unfurled her scaly pink tail and inadvertently dashed it against the cave wall, making pieces of silvery rubble tumble down. She must’ve grown, again, during these last three months of rest. It was a sign of good health and spiritual development.

She yawned, and her snout scraped the ceiling. This cave in the mountainside had served her well for the past three centuries, but finding a more spacious place to slumber would have to be a priority for this waking cycle.

The dragon crept out onto the ledge, careful not to touch the sides too much and cause a cave-in. The sky was blindingly blue, and the crisp air told Pihlaja it was mid-September. Below, the evergreen trees shielded whatever was in the forest from her view. This would not do.

The forest was her realm, and as its queen, she let only magical creatures, such as centaurs and nymphs, pass through. Humans had been banned by mutual agreement for more than four hundred years. But since human memory was much shorter than a brief human life, Pihlaja must guarantee that none had encroached.

She spread her pointed wings and felt the breeze against every strong, leathery surface. She rolled her head to be rid of a kink in her neck and snapped her jaws in a joyful dragon greeting of a beautiful day. Alone for centuries, she still observed the customs she could remember.

She stepped off the ledge and glided over the forest briefly before rising toward the sun. Gaining speed, she did flips in the air before it occurred to her that someone might see her and think she wasn’t a very serious dragon.

Not that they had any other dragon to compare her to.

Pihlaja flew lower and scanned the bits of forest floor she could see between the lush crowns. Her ears, small and flat as they were, picked up an unusual sound. Was a sheep bleating among her trees? Or a cat yowling to its kin? She craned her long neck as she circled back over and made out a strange, small, two-legged creature wandering, shaking its fists, and crying out.

It could be a young faun. Pihlaja’s entrails grumbled. She didn’t need to eat just then. The silver and gold ores in her mountain had made her strong in her sleep. But with a breath, she could roast that faun before she landed, leaving the trees around it intact. It would a be a delicious start for this waking cycle, she thought as she doubled back to fly over the spot once more.

As she inhaled to aerate her fire gland, the creature below lifted the hem of its tunic and tore at it in frustration. A tunic? This was no faun. Humans had encroached, after all!

Indignant, Pihlaja slipped between the trees and landed silently among the ferns and pine needles. She whipped her head around, expecting to find a camp with males and females and other small beings like the one she’d seen from above.

But the only sign that humans had been there was a lingering scent. No trees had been felled, no fire built, and no tents stabbed the ground. Pihlaja couldn’t even see their tracks.

A shriek grabbed her attention. The small human stood next to a tree trunk and stared at Pihlaja, flapping its flimsy hands.

Her wings reflexively mirrored the movement, gently unfurling and giving a little shake. The human shrieked again.

Pihlaja winced and brought her main finger to the tip of her snout in an attempt to shush it. “What are you doing?” she asked it. “You’ll never fly like that.”

What was she saying? She must still be half-asleep. She knew humans couldn’t fly, poor things.

The small human never removed its gaze from the scales on her hand, which shimmered iridescent in the spots of sunlight filtering through the branches. The little creature shifted its weight from one foot to the other as it continued to flap, and Pihlaja noticed it was barefoot. The wrinkled linen tunic was probably only an undershirt. She knew humans tended to wear layer upon layer of artificial coverings. This one was probably cold—that’s why it was shaking.

She used her claws to sweep up a pile from the forest floor. The small human ran on stubby legs into the center of the circle she was trying to build. It flopped down and rolled, grabbing the sides of the circle as it went.

“What are you, a hog? Get out of there. I’m trying to help you.”

The dragon didn’t want to pick up the delicate-looking thing with her claws, which were half as long as its entire body. Annoyingly, the creature grabbed at the sharp points and held on, and the only thing she could do to avoid stabbing it was to keep her claw perfectly still.

“Mighty Pihlaja! What are you doing?”

She looked to see a unicorn emerge from between the trees. His mane shone silver, his diamond hooves sparkled, and his horn glowed purple.

“Hey, Reg,” she greeted. “Can you get this thing off me? I’m trying to build a fire pit for it. It looks cold.”

“But that’s a human child! It doesn’t belong here.”

Nevertheless, the unicorn lowered his horn to where the child couldn’t miss it. The curious creature latched on, and Reg lifted it and set it down outside the messy pile.

It picked up a stone and began to examine it in detail. The unicorn used his snout to roll other stones toward the child, who began arranging them in neat rows and loudly humming.

Sometimes it sounded like a goat, sometimes like a bee. A changeable creature, the dragon thought.

Reg couldn’t hide a smile. “It’s in my nature to help, but really, I thought humans were banned from your forest, mighty Pihlaja.”

“I just woke up. I was doing my rounds and found this human. There’s no sign of any others nearby, so I don’t know how it got here or how I’m going to find out. I spoke to it, and it didn’t respond. Maybe it can’t talk.”

“He’s likely too young,” said Reg. “I’d say this little guy is only about three years old.”

“How do you know so much?” asked Pihlaja.

“You can’t have an unhealthy obsession with human maidens and not pick up a lot of information about the rest of them,” the unicorn replied. “The real question is, where are his parents? He’s too young to be left alone anywhere, much less a forbidden forest.”

Pihlaja considered the child. He was busy with his stones and seemed content now, but he’d been crying when she’d flown over. “Do you think he’s lost?”

“Probably.” Reg nodded slowly. “The nearest human settlement is a two-hour hike from here. His family must’ve been too close to the perimeter, and he wandered off.”

“If you think he’s from nearby, that’s the best solution,” said Pihlaja. “Take him to that village, and even if it’s not his, you can turn him over to his kind.”

“Oh, no, Your Greatness. I want to help you, believe me, I do. But that village has far too many beautiful maidens. I’ll be ensnared before I can say anything about the child, and best-case scenario, I’ll have to live with them for the rest of my life—which will be cut short in captivity. You know me. I’m too wild for that.”

“I believe you.”

Pihlaja knew she couldn’t trust a centaur not to trample the child. Even a hundred sprites—there were only fifty or so in the forest—wouldn’t be enough to carry the child that distance. The dragon couldn’t think of any nymphs who would do anything but play with the child and dress him up in swamp weeds. The fauns probably wouldn’t stand still and talk with her long enough to accept the task because of the unfortunate frequency with which she failed to resist the urge to roast and eat them.

She heaved a sigh that rustled the branches around them and offered her hand flat on the forest floor. “Set him in my palm. I don’t want to stick him with my claws,” she said.

“Will you take the child yourself, mighty Pihlaja?” asked the unicorn.

“Unless you can think of someone else who can do it as quickly and as well as I,” she replied, saving face.

There was something about this small human that softened her hard dragon heart. She didn’t want to leave him alone in the forest to starve to death or be eaten by the ravenous creatures of the undergrowth.

Reg dutifully placed the child in her powerful palm. She looked into the creature’s eyes, and he glanced away quickly, as if he were well-educated in human-dragon protocol. She chuckled, and covered it up by saying, “Wish me luck!”

She closed her claws, making a secure cage for the little one, flapped her wings as well as she could between the trees, and shot up into the sky. If the human settlement was a two-hour hike from that spot, it should be…that one there, with its little wooden houses and chimneys that gave out wisps of foul-smelling smoke.

This wouldn’t take long at all. Soon enough, she’d be flying free, having started this waking cycle with an unusual good deed of diplomacy.

She dipped lower and circled the settlement overhead. Already, many of the humans were responding to her presence, mostly with screams and fleeing under their thatched roofs.

“Attention, humans! It is I, your liege dragon.” Pihlaja’s voice reverberated throughout the buildings, shaking their walls. “I’ve come to return a child who wandered into my realm!”

She landed outside the door in the little fence that surrounded the settlement and opened her claw to find the child rolled up in a ball and shaking, but uninjured.

“Here he is!” she shouted. “See, I mean you no harm!”

A commotion among the buildings let her know someone would come out to meet her eventually. But who did they think they were to keep her waiting?

She was about to sigh with frustration, thereby probably setting the fence on fire, when an adult male and female creaked the gate open and stepped out. They were dressed in many more layers of tunics than the child, and their faces were pinched in an unpleasant manner. Their brows and noses, if she looked past the creases and tension, bore some resemblance to the child’s.

The child stood as if to get a better look at them, then grabbed a claw and clung to it. Pihlaja didn’t have time to wonder why he didn’t run to them, because the adult male began to speak.

“Dragon.” He nodded. “We’re John’s parents.”

“The correct form of address would be ‘hail, mighty Pihlaja,’ but since I’m here humbly doing you a favor, I won’t stand on ceremony.”

They seemed not to take in her polite correction of their manners. “That looks like our John, but it isn’t,” said the female.

The male nodded again. “He doesn’t come when we call him or look anyone in the eye or speak. He’s never played with any of the other children. No creature like that can inherit my business or continue my family line.”

“The fairies came and stole our John, leaving that hollow shell in his place. That’s a changeling you have there, dragon.” The female gestured dismissively at Pihlaja’s claw.

“I carried it into the forest so the fairies would take it back and return our John. It hasn’t worked so far,” the male explained.

Pihlaja rolled her eyes. No fairies who kidnapped humans existed. Where did they get such foolish notions? Maybe they were just too stupid to think of a better solution than abandoning their own flesh and blood, so they made up terrible stories to comfort themselves.

The female clasped her hands under her chin and stared at the changeling, as she called it, her face consumed by what even Pihlaja knew was profound grief.

The dragon racked her brain for something that might convince them to accept their own child back.

“So, he’s a little different. Do you really expect everyone in your settlement to be exactly alike?” Pihlaja dismissed the absurd idea as soon as she’d spoken it.

“We have no need for an unnatural changeling,” said the male.

“So, you left him half-dressed in my forest, where he’d be killed?”

Pihlaja hadn’t dealt with humans since signing the treaty four hundred years before. She hadn’t remembered them being so limited, and she couldn’t see what Reg would be so fascinated with.

“I tried, little one,” Pihlaja whispered into her hand. “But this is not the place for you.”

She had once had a mother and a father. Maybe one day, she would meet a male dragon, and they could have their own family. But she’d been single and alone for four hundred years, and this small creature needed her now.

Her heart fluttering with her rash decision, Pihlaja addressed the humans for what would be the last time.

“I shall take your child John and care for him until he is an adult. I’ll let him decide whether he wants to live among humans at that time. Whatever he decides, you shall see what a magnificent human he’ll become, and you shall know in your hearts that you abandoned your own child.”

She flapped her wings once and lifted into the air. Hovering over a building she scented as the barn, she inhaled long and hard. She pushed out her first flames of this waking cycle, and they quickly spread all over the barn roof.

She reached down with the hand that wasn’t holding John and pulled out a fat hog, lingering in the flames a little to roast it thoroughly. It would be John’s first meal as a dragon’s protégé.

Pihlaja carried the child and his meal over her realm as far from the settlement as she could. Landing in a clearing near the foothills, she set John down and began calling for the unicorn.

“Reg! Regensfeld! Come quickly to serve your queen!”

Pihlaja sliced up the hog with her claws and let the child dig into the flesh with his hands. He ate ravenously, sometimes choking in his hurry, and the dragon wondered how long he’d been left alone.

The unicorn arrived after little John had eaten his fill and fallen asleep on a grassy mound next to the fire in the pit Pihlaja built for him. The dragon queen was ready.

“Reg, those humans aren’t fit to take care of this youngling, so I have to do it, and you’re going to help me. I’ve outgrown my cave in the mountainside, and the heights are too dangerous for him, anyway, so I’ve decided to have a palace built here in this clearing. Please call together all the creatures of my realm to plan and build it.”

The creatures completed the palace in a month. It was big enough to accommodate Pihlaja if she continued to grow, and had many small compartments where the human child liked to hide away for hours at a time.

They let him choose his own name when he started to speak and seemed far too wise and special for a name like John. He chose Cuthbert, for the trolls had taught him to read, and the saint had impressed the child with his many followers and the poetic biographies written about him.

The nymphs taught Cuthbert the subtleties of music. Reg and the other unicorns focused on visual art, which the child took to readily. When he was old enough to avoid being trampled, the centaurs trained him in combat and strategy.

Most importantly, Pihlaja herself taught Cuthbert about the essentials of governance she knew his human community would’ve missed: ethics and empathy. She also explained where he’d come from, without going into too much detail, and asked him if he was interested in meeting his human community or even going to live with them.

“Maybe later,” Cuthbert said. He gave the same response whenever it occurred to Pihlaja to ask over the years.

She considered that the humans could never have offered the physical or emotional care that his magical family had provided so willingly, and the education—she doubted they even had one book. This surely had been the best of all possible outcomes.

She recited that sentence whenever she looked at groups of sprites working together as one and wondered where a community of dragons like her could be.

Early on, Cuthbert had lacked the coordination to hold onto one of the spikes on her back and fly with her. Later, she observed that whenever a unicorn he was riding decided to gallop, he squeezed his eyes shut and emitted a high-pitched wail. Flying, the best of all activities, was another one they couldn’t share.

When the child was no longer really a child, some twelve years after the palace was built, he seemed logical, level-headed, accepting, and kind. Whatever fears his parents had imagined had not come true. Cuthbert talked and played with unicorns, nymphs, and centaurs like he was an especially brainy one of them. He had learned everything they’d taught him rapidly, and always brought an original perspective to any problems that arose in the realm.

Pihlaja remembered a long-ago time when she wondered if she would ever meet another dragon and have a dragon family. The idea seemed absurdly unnecessary when she contemplated Cuthbert reading in the back garden or trying his best to spin in circles as fast as nymphs.

After due consideration, she declared him prince of the realm. He couldn’t become her proper heir, because it was unlikely he would outlive her, but he could help her with the complexities of governance. All the magical inhabitants rendered him homage, and in the rare event that Pihlaja was not present, they were prepared to accept the child’s wise decisions.

But taking care of Cuthbert obliged her to keep constant vigil, so she was always present.

One day, Pihlaja realized that her waking cycle had lasted far too long. When Cuthbert slept, or when he just wanted to be left alone, she returned to her mountain caves, scraped out silver, gold, iron, and lead ores with her claws, and smeared them on her arms, legs, and tail for absorption. In this way, she kept up her strength and was able to resist the urge to roast and eat her tender protégé.

But she’d never felt free to take her months-long dragon rest, because that would seem like abandoning her prince the way his humans had, so long ago.

Until that day, when Cuthbert was about nineteen years old, and she stretched her wings out under an infinite blue sky and couldn’t muster the urge to fly.

She took him aside after a general audience in the palace’s largest chamber. She’d long ago figured out how to touch him with her claws without stabbing him, but she had been left wishing she could embrace him without the risk of crushing his ribcage. The only creatures she could safely show affection to would be other dragons, if she was ever going to have an occasion to meet any.

She got right to the point—it was what he generally preferred. “Cuthbert, I don’t know if you realize, but I haven’t slept for fifteen years.”

He brought his hands to his heart with surprise. “I thought you slept when I did!”

“No. Dragons need lengthy rest cycles, and I’ve always been too curious to know what you would do next. But now that you’re capable of taking over for me, perhaps it would be all right if I slumbered for six months to a year.”

With a sigh, she laid her head on the marble floor, and he caressed her scaly cheek under her eye, but twirled the feather pen in his other hand erratically.

“Of course, my queen. I’ll take care of the realm for you. That’s why you made me prince, I assume.”

She closed her eyes. She’d been ready for this moment for nearly a decade.

He tapped her eyelid gently. “Do you think you can last a few more days to give me time to prepare? I wasn’t expecting this.”

She fluttered her eyelids open with what she knew was an exhausted smile. “Of course, my dear. I’ve been awake for fifteen years. What’s twenty-four more hours?”

She watched him nod his head grimly but couldn’t stop her eyelids’ downward drag.

“I won’t sleep tonight. I’ll make lists and draw up plans, and after you’ve seen them in the morning, you can head to your bedroom…” she heard as if from far away.

She felt a soft kiss on her cheek and fell into sweet oblivion with a smile.

***

Clearing away a confused tumble of dragon dreams, Pihlaja picked up a tremendous scent of humans and wood smoke. She unfurled her tail and heard a great clattering of metal. Opening her eyes and lifting her head, she didn’t recognize her location. Behind her, candelabras and decorative shields continued to settle after she’d knocked them over.

“Mighty Pihlaja, you have at last awoken!” It was a human female dressed in soft-looking robes.

“Who are you? Where’s Cuthbert?” the dragon asked, then cleared her throat.

“He’s coming presently, Your Greatness,” replied the human.

Taking a closer look, Pihlaja realized she was still in the great hall where she’d fallen asleep. It was changed in appearance only. Aside from the roaring fire in the enormous hearth, the addition of other candelabras, swords, shields, and bookcases, and the proliferation of scenic floor-to-ceiling tapestries, it was the same hall she’d designed for herself and her protégé. It did seem smaller—she’d probably grown, yet again.

She stretched herself out as well as she could without hitting the walls or ceiling and felt refreshed, almost regenerated in comparison to the last time she’d had her eyes open.

She especially delighted in the great tapestry behind the dais where she’d held audiences, because it showed no one had forgotten whose realm this was, even with the changes. On a millefleur background, a pink dragon stood regally, wings outstretched, ready for flight. Her back muscles twitched in anticipation, and she hoped she hadn’t outgrown the size of the palace door.

Cuthbert approached her and threw his arms around one of hers. “Good morning,” he said, muffled in her scales. “I’m so glad to see you’re awake.” His shoulders had filled out, and he’d grown a beard that made him look years older.

“Why does it smell like humans in here? And why do I feel so good?”

He pulled back and looked up at her. “You look wonderful, even better than before. One of the first things I did was arrange for sprites to fly up to the mountain and retrieve gold and silver and massage it into your back while you slumbered. Practically all of them had to do it to get enough ore, because they’re so small. Eventually, Regensfeld detected a vein much lower down, and the trolls set to mining it. By the time that happened, humans were prepared to take over massage duties.”

He whispered the last part so low, she set her ear next to his mouth to hear.

She wouldn’t have wanted to know about being touched while she slept, but it couldn’t be avoided now. “I’m not sure I needed this much ore to survive. When I slumbered in the mountain caves, I only ever received the elements by osmosis from the walls.”

Cuthbert hung his head as if he’d failed her.

“And have I outgrown the palace doorway? I’d like to go flying as soon as possible.”

“Ah, no worries there!” he said, clapping his hands. Maybe he wasn’t so old and somber, after all. “I’ve had the door expanded every so often to keep up with your magnificent growth!”

Pihlaja chuckled. “Wonderful. I can already tell you’ve been a great prince during my slumber.”

He grinned and beckoned. “Let me show you the rest of the palace—and the door so you can fly.”

She followed him through a maze of chambers and halls that had been redecorated and repurposed, and sometimes, completely rebuilt. Everywhere they went, male and female humans bowed and curtsied and avoided looking her in the eye. She wanted to ask about them, but Cuthbert was so wrapped up in the explanations of his tour that she couldn’t bear to interrupt.

They arrived in the entry hall, and the door was just her size. She wouldn’t even have to crouch. Humans cranked at the door, and as it opened out onto the meadow, which was the only thing that hadn’t changed, another familiar face showed up.

“Hey, Reg,” said Pihlaja.

“Your Greatness! How wonderful you’re awake! You were an impressive enough sight to cow all our human visitors when we paraded them past your majestic sleeping form, but now…”

She seized the moment. “Tell me about these humans. Why are there so many of them here?”

Cuthbert shyly leaned against the open door and wrung his hands.

“The prince is too humble to explain his own accomplishments, I see,” said Reg. “It happened that I found another changeling, as they still call them in that settlement. This one was quite a bit older, though, and when I asked her where she’d come from, she led me to another human settlement on the other side of your realm. But it was different, you see, because it was populated entirely with humans who’d been abandoned as changelings.

“I told Prince Cuthbert about it, and he engaged in diplomatic relations. Since they’re still human, even though they’re different in their own unique ways, the prince drew up a new treaty with them, allowing them to do business in your realm. Many have come to help here in the palace once they saw that here, they can live just as well or better than in their settlement. Many magical creatures have been able to return to their own habitats within your realm because of them. It’s been a successful experiment.”

The unicorn nodded proudly at Cuthbert. “And we have this so-called changeling to thank.”

The prince blushed brightly.

“I’m sure it’s all wonderful, but it’s a lot to take in,” said Pihlaja. “How long did I slumber?”

“You fell asleep nearly three years ago,” Cuthbert mumbled, looking at the floor.

The dragon startled, unintentionally backing into a wall. “I guess I really needed the rest.”

She stared down at Cuthbert and felt what she could only assume was love. But even though he was different, and she had raised him well, he was still human. Bringing all these other humans with him seemed like something they would do, although it was the last thing she’d expected from her prince. He usually followed her laws to the letter.

She felt confined, even with the vision of the meadow laid out before her.

“Excuse me. I’ve got to go flying,” she said less regally than she intended.

She shot out the grand door, took a running leap over the grass and wildflowers, and lifted into the air.

Now it was the realm she recognized—far below, dozens of magical creatures hidden under treetops. It seemed much longer ago than eighteen years when her last waking cycle had started with these same views, the same blue sky, the same breeze tickling her wings.

But her realm was, in fact, profoundly changed. Where before humans dared never tread, now swarmed hundreds. The thought made her scales crawl, and she set a treetop on fire to see if she could excise her disgust and anger. She pumped her wings and headed for her old mountain home.

She didn’t think Cuthbert had done it maliciously. Her dragon empathy told her that if she’d found an entire settlement of dragons like herself who’d been unjustly isolated from their kind, she also would’ve done everything to make them feel safe in her realm.

She’d done exactly that with a being who couldn’t fly, wouldn’t live long in comparison to her, and whom she’d had to fight against roasting on a weekly basis.

Though she never told him so, his human limitations often made her dream of finding a place where she wasn’t the only dragon, maybe even an entire realm full of magical flying creatures like her.

From her mountain’s summit, she gazed along the range into the distance, the peaks lazily rising and falling like the back of a slumbering dragon.

Cuthbert had done what he thought best for the realm in her absence. Perhaps this was his realm now.

She had done a surpassing good deed by raising the prince, but it had left her so drained, she’d needed three years to recover.

Perhaps Pihlaja was now the changeling and no longer fulfilled a function in the realm she’d created. Perhaps a community existed where she would be welcomed into an integral role.

There was only one thing to be done. She knew Cuthbert would continue to make this realm prosper in her absence, and she would return to check on it, whether or not she completed her new, long overdue quest.

She pushed off the rocky peak and soared into foreign realms in search of other dragons like her.