You Are No Dragon

"What is your name, child?" asked the dragon, smoke swirling within her nostrils and fire burning in her belly.

"Iduna," said the small child, round and supple from a diet of milk and honey. She smiled as she bit into an apple with her fresh, white teeth, leaving tiny bites in the golden skin of her favorite fruit.

"Where is your mother, Iduna?" the dragon's iridescent scales glistened in the moonlight as she slowly shifted her long tail to encircle the small child.

Sweet, sticky, apple juice, trickling from the sides of her mouth, Iduna answered by laughing. Her curls the color of her golden apple peels bouncing, she swallowed her bite, and looked up at the dragon with clear, bright eyes reflecting the night's light and said through giggles, "I don't have a mother."

The leaves of the aspen groves shivered in a soft harmony with the dragon scales as the cool, summer night breeze blew gently between the child and the beast. Her tail failed to finish the circle around the child and, with wonder, the dragon shifted her position to look more closely at the child, tail whipping long behind her and posed like a cat considering its prey.

The child, Iduna, sat calmly, taking small bites of her apple, humming joyfully and playing peek-a-boo with a firefly, seemingly unfazed by the presence of such a powerful foe.

As the dragon watched, the young child got up, brushed off the leaves from her long, green dress and began chasing the firefly into the nearby apple grove.

"Stop!" bellowed the dragon and the ground shook with her roar. The nightingales flew from the trees and the breeze stood still. Iduna stopped, in mid-skip, and turned around to face the dragon.

"Why do you not fear me?" the dragon's question came out menacingly, yet fell flat in the presence of the child. The child's golden hair, filled with small bits of tree bark and leaves, fell in long messy braids down her small back. The apple trees behind her, stood still as soldiers with their fruit shining in the reflection of the moon. Her cheeks flushed from running, she tilted her head, and answered, "Because you are no dragon."

The dragon's chest filled with fire and her scales rippled with fury. Sparks flew from her mouth as she screeched, each repetition louder than the last, her fiery breath shaking the trees, "I am no dragon!? I am no dragon!? I AM NO DRAGON!?" Her wings unfurled to their greatest span, each wider than a Viking long ship. The wind from their movement blew the leaves off the aspen trees into piles that swirled upwards into spirals of fire, lit from the heat of the smoke seething from her nostrils. Her powerful thigh muscles contracted and she hurled herself into the air.

The dragon's flight was magnificent as she soared past the moon and over the cliffs, diving into the sea and shooting back up, nearly touching the stars. With each turn she spewed fire from her mouth that lit up as green, and blue and white and orange and red as she weaved between the trails of smoke and ash she left behind.

Iduna watched with wonder, clapping her chubby hands and jumping up and down in exhilaration. She ran to the edge of the cliff, took a big breath, closed her eyes and as the dragon flew below she jumped, arms wide, and landed on the dragon's hot, scaly back.

The dragon's wide, purple eyes stretched back to see what was adding to her weight and tickling the outside of her scales. With horror, she saw the young child laughing with her hair flowing back in the wind and little hands clasping tightly to the smaller scales between her shoulder blades. The dragon dove straight down towards the sea to shake the child off of her, but the child held on and laughed harder. She flew into the sea and back out to drown the child off of her, but the child held on and emerged, as from a warm bath, clean and bright and pink-cheeked.

She yelled back behind her, "Do you not feel my scales!? Do you not feel my heat!? Do you not feel my power!? Am I not a dragon!?"

The child laughed and yelled back over the roar of the wind, "Yes! I feel your scales. Yes, I feel your heat! Yes, I feel your power! But you are no dragon!"

With that, the dragon flew back to the apple grove and landed with a shock that shook some of the golden apples off of the trees. As the child alighted from her midnight ride, she happily ran to the rogue apples and collected them into her dress, one by one, ignoring the fury of the dragon behind her.

The dragon fumed in her spot, furious that her power was so disregarded by this child and rose to her fullest height. Iduna, holding her apples carefully in her skirt, turned to face the enormous tower of fire before her. The dragon breathed in and blew out her largest fire ball directly at the child, covering her small body in fire, hot as the sun.

When the flames subsided, there was silence in between the crackles of ember. The dragon fell, exhausted, to the ground having expelled all of her deep fury towards this girl. Hot tears steamed from her eyes as she cried, "Am I a dragon now, child?"

A small voice answered from the smoke, "You are no dragon."

Iduna, covered in soot, but unscathed by the fire, held out a golden apple, from her orchard to the dragon. The dragon refused and turned her head, but Iduna placed the apple into the dragon's mouth. The dragon ate it and swallowed and the steam from her eyes turned to salty tears. She ate another apple that Iduna placed in her mouth, and her scales loosened and fell with the power of a thousand armored shields from her body. She ate another and her wings turned to hair that wrapped her naked body.

"What is my name?" asked the woman, of the child.

"You are Freya, and you are no dragon." said Iduna

"What am I?" asked Freya.

"You are a goddess, like me."

Iduna held Freya's hand, and led her to the apple grove.