The Girl who Lived with Dragons

The Girl who Lives with Dragons

Part One:

Crystal hated her name. It felt forced and stereotypical, and she felt anything but. Which is why she’d made her way out of the Second Kingdom into the forest to find a way to the Vault of Dreams. She’d wanted to prove she was more than a dragon. But dragons didn’t often end up in the forest. Except green ones of course, those who had become almost part of the landscape. And there was the library dragon who lived with the fairy godmother in the S.H.O.E. but he hadn’t been out in years.

Crystal’s white scales contrasted sharply with the brown and green of the leaves. She had heard of the elfkin who lived in the forest, stories meant to scare young dragonkind from a small age. Branches cracked around her, and she cringed at the meaning behind them. Centaurs, dwarves, but worst of all, the elfkin could all be surrounding her now. Shivers rippled like earthquakes along her rough opal-like skin.

Not many dragons had her coloring. Not many survived below the tundra. The king protected them and held treaties with the neighboring kingdoms of One and Three, but there were still head-hunters, those who assumed dragonkind were no more than animals. Crystal had spent much of her young life learning defensive maneuvers, and delving into the mountains to create safety, both from other peoples and even other dragons. Shadows from the trees melted on to her back as she pondered through those forest places.

A sound came beside her. A small sound, like a youngling or a cat. Crystal smarted and nearly ran away. But then, she saw the child, chubby, with wide blue eyes and hair like wheat. She climbed tenuously onto her feet and toddled over. She wore nothing but a diaper.

“Puppy,” burbled the child, reaching out her hand to pat Crystal’s nose. Crystal snorted, and dry ice puffs came out of her nose.

“No!” Crystal whispered, ducking her head and waving the air. But the girl-child just laughed, and climbed onto her wide flat nose.

Both pairs of blue eyes stared at each other. Crystal waited for the child to start crying or for a hunter to show up, or the babe’s mother. Mothers don’t leave children out.

Or did they?

This was the Forest with a capital F, and that’s what people did. They left their children to seek their fortune, to save a world, to whatever needed to happen. What if this child was left for her to find? The child began climbing up the rest of her head, between her rough eyes and up her back. She was not a large dragon, at only one-hundred-and-fifty years old, she was no bigger than a large horse, though her tail was twice as long as the rest of her.

The child settled up just behind her ears and grabbed them both in her grubby paws.

“Horsey!” The child said and began pulling at the ears, one at a time.

The dragon felt herself lift up off the ground. Her wings, furred along the edges and translucent in the middle pulled against the updrift and she edged around, flying above the trees. Rapidly, she scanned the trees for any signs of parents or heroes. But there was none. Not an arrow, not anything. All across the wide, big, Forest, there was nothing. She spent an hour or two swooping across, looking for someone, anyone who would be there for the baby. The child sang as it rode on her head. She played in the little bit of fur on top of her head. She climbed all down her back and back, without fear, without falling.

When the sun began to lower over the horizon, Crystal went down to the place where she had found the child to check one last time.

No one was there. Crystal burned a note with her dry ice into the grass and flew back to the second kingdom.

Part Two: 15 years later

“Alright, Princess, let’s see if you can fly faster than I can,” Perk cried while diving off of a ledge.

Aiel laughed, flyer on her back, diving to catch the wind. She loved flying, the second kingdom, all the mountains. In the years following her getting picked up by Crystal, she had learned to fly on her own, been educated in the libraries of the sixth kingdom, and explored everywhere she could.

Crystal had spent months searching for her parents, had put out advertisements in the newspapers, and more. But nothing had ever worked. So she had grown up in Draconia. She kept a small shop with Crystal, and went everywhere. Crystal was afraid of many things, but Aiel wasn’t and never wanted to be. She didn’t even really care that she didn’t know who her parents were as she was happy here. Learning to fly on her own, as the dragons didn’t really have riders. They were intelligent beings, philosophers, painters, and many of them lived for many many years. The libraries in the heart of the dragon kingdom rivaled even those of Six, and Aiel spent many hours in there, arguing with old dragons.

Not many humans lived in Draconia. A few princesses, and in a neighboring state, there was an older, single princess who had decided to become a writer instead of ever go home and get married. Most humans didn’t understand dragon culture, and vice-versa. But Aiel did. She had visited humans several times throughout her life, but didn’t understand them, and was ok without understanding them.

As she dove on her flyer, whipping through the peaks and following after Perk as fast as she could, she grinned.

When they reached their goal, a lovely cafe carved into the lower part mountain, they skidded to a stop on a ledge, and laughed.

“Hoy, Mariann!” Aiel called as she stashed her flyer against the wall. It was like a kite, that flew her instead. She’d gotten it in a clockwork town made by a boy who told her he was born a prince.

“Hoy, Aiel, you’re late,” The blue dragon sat up behind the counter, wiping a dish. “There’s tables need seeing to-” she said, with her fin-like tail floating idly in a water bowl.

Mariann was a water dragon, but had adapted to life in the mountains after one too many fights with the lost boys and Pan. So, now, she ran the cafe with lava drinks for the stone dragons and a host of others.

“I don’t believe in the concept of time-” Aiel said, walking to the back and washing her hands. “It’s a concept invented to institute capitalism.”

“And who have you been talking to now?”

“Gallagyr.”

“Of course, he does love that philosophy stuff. Now, table 3 ordered spiderweb crepts, and over on the balcony they have some iron biscuits.”

“Right-o,” whistled Aiel, having strapped on an apron while Mariann was talking.

As she ran around, she eyed a man in the corner. A human man. They didn’t get those very often, mostly princes with a kill complex. And mostly at the border. Young dragons or those who didn’t really want to settle down usually stayed at the borders. That was where most of the myths came from. Truthfully dragons were usually more scared of humans than humans were of them.

“You a princess?” the man asked abruptly, as she passed, carrying two tankards of mountain water.

She scoffed, “Not that I know of. Royalty don’t usually leave princesses in a forest when they are two-years-old.”

“You don’t know who you are?”

“Yeah, I do. I’m Aiel, the girl who lives with dragons.”

“That’s a fun title.”

“It’s a fun life.”

“You ever want anything more?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“Because life is actually quite beautiful right here. I’ve seen a lot of the world, and experienced more stories than you’d think, and I happen to enjoy this one.”

That seems rather boring.”

“Perhaps, but to me, it is lovely.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am actually.”

“Alright then.” And the stranger left, and Aiel, she lived many stories, but none of the life-threatening or world changing kind we demand so often. Instead, she rescued books from basements, and figured out how to help birds out of ballrooms. She decided very early on to be happy and that’s what she chose.