Draka

For the first time since I woke up in that cave I wasn’t just reacting to my circumstances. I had a long-term goal, and while it felt petty to my human mind, the dragon in me saw it as natural and noble. What else was there to life but to grow one’s hoard? But, first things first. I needed to survive, and for that I needed food, water and shelter. I had the cave, so shelter was taken care of for now. Water was easy, and if I didn’t have anything to eat I could at least fill my stomach – a little trick from my younger, less confident days. What I drank from the lake hadn’t made me sick overnight, so it was probably safe, but I’d rather drink something clean. If I could find a spring or a stream nearby in the mountains that would be ideal, but I didn’t want to spend time searching right at that moment. I could find the lake, and where there’s a lake there are streams feeding into it, so that was where I headed.

I stayed low and quiet over the treetops, wary of people. For all I knew the forest was crawling with archers hoping to kill me, and I would rather they didn’t see me coming.

When I reached the lake I quickly located the clearing where the camp had been. I made two quick fly-bys, but there was no sign of people. I took my time with the landing, making many attempts before setting down, on the grass this time but much harder than I would have liked. My hips and knees ached, having taken the brunt of the force, but it was still better than almost drowning myself again.

The croc-like thing I’d killed the day before was gone. I felt slightly miffed by that. I didn’t want it, but it still felt like someone had stolen it from me, and I assumed that those were reptile brain predator instincts making themselves known. I cautiously made my way to what had been the camp. The tents were gone, as were the bodies, and the fire had been covered with dirt though the large stones marking it remained. The whole place still reeked of blood, but I caught a smell, rank and bitter, that I could only think of as death, and followed it. It… didn’t make me sick, to my surprise. Once I got used to it, it was a smell like any other. Not pleasant, but neutral. It simply was.

The blood, though… That was almost a little pleasant.

I found the source of the death-smell about a hundred metres away from the camp, among the trees. There was a grave there, long and wide enough for three people lying head to foot. Assuming that whoever dug it had buried the bodies decently deep it didn’t look big enough for all the corpses I’d seen, but that made sense. They probably would have taken their companions with them for proper burial, whichever side they were.

In any case there was nothing for me there. I went back to the lake, made sure that I had some trees between me and the water, and then sneaked along the shore until I found a quick stream. I followed that upstream for a good while until I found an opening in the trees. There I drank my fill, and the water tasted much better than what I’d had at the lake. Then I practised taking off and landing with limited room. Flying was pretty easy. Taking off and landing vertically without hurting myself was very, very hard. When I tried to take off I kept going too much forward, then I over-compensated and went backwards into a tree. I’d drift to the sides and hit the tips of my wings, which hurt like hell. After many attempts, separated by resting when it hurt too much or my flight muscles got too tired, I finally got to the point where I could consistently take off without hitting anything, as long as I started at one edge of the clearing. On the upside I got good enough at landing in all my attempts that I didn’t hurt myself anymore. I accomplished this through small, frantic flaps as I got close to the ground rather than the graceful glide-and-brake that birds usually used. I was sure that it looked ridiculous, but it worked.

My next concern was food. I’d worked up an appetite with all my practice, and I had nothing left from the day before. I could probably forage something, but my last meal had told me that what I really needed was meat. I had no idea how to get that, unless I wanted to try to catch another one of the crocs using myself as bait. Even then I didn’t look forward to eating anything raw.

In books and movies dragons would usually hunt by incinerating their prey with their fiery breath. I was, as far as I could tell, severely lacking in that department. Feeling around my mouth with my tongue I found two large glands running along my jaw, then made an absolute fool of myself trying to blow flame or express some kind of chemicals that would ignite when mixed. All I managed was a pitiful spray of bitter spittle. My pride was sorely tested, and I had no way to cook anything. I had a vague idea of how to make fire with dry wood or flint and steel, but wasn’t sure if my new hands were up to the task. I could maybe see myself eating raw fish, but didn’t they freeze the fish for sashimi first, or something? That was just asking to get sick.

Eggs, maybe? It seemed like the right season for it, and as far as I knew salmonella and other food-borne illnesses were mostly a problem with factory farmed eggs, due to overcrowding and overuse of antibiotics. I could handle raw eggs, and if there was one thing I was good at it was climbing. I’d been bloody brilliant as a human, and if anything this body was even better. I felt vaguely bad about the idea, but I resolved to raid some birds’ nests in the hope of finding eggs rather than chicks.

It took a while, but I finally located a nest near the top of a tall tree. Some kind of crow, perhaps, judging by how it was built. I looked around a little anxious, reminded of psychotically swooping magpies, but I didn’t see anything.

There were no branches in reach and I considered using my wings to get up, but then I remembered my claws. Like a big cat I dug my claws into the bark and heaved myself up, and it worked! I barely needed branches at all, quickly getting to the top. Unfortunately, when I got the nest there were no eggs, only a bunch of screaming chicks, and no matter how hungry I was I didn’t have the heart to eat those. Seeing them made me aware of a problem with my plan, though. If I did find any eggs they were almost certain to be fertilised, meaning that there may be half-formed chicks in them.

That thought made me sick enough to put me off eggs for a while, and I slunk back down to the ground. I was still hungry, though, and sooner or later I might have to put my feelings aside and eat some bird babies. I prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

As I lay by the stream, trying to think of a plan to catch a fish or two, I became aware of a thin, high-pitched noise. I looked up and snorted with irritation, and it came again. It came from upstream, and with nothing better to do I gave in to my curiosity and followed it. The sound got louder the farther I went until it became recognisable as a girl screaming her head off. I did what I had always imagined that I’d do in a situation like that. I ran towards it.

When I got close I slowed down and crept forward. In the distance I saw a giant pig, a large wild boar of some kind, circling and butting its head against a young tree. In the tree, screaming in terror and holding on for her life, was a girl in a faded green dress. She had the same light brown skin and black hair as most of the people I'd seen, with features that tended more towards south east asia, like the woman who’d hugged Guy. Guy had looked noticeably different from this girl and from the other people, living and dead, at the camp. I wondered if he was a transplant from some other region, then scolded myself. Not the time. The boar looked determined, and the tree looked like it couldn’t take much more. I could guess what would happen if the tree went down – pigs eat anything.

I roared, rushed forward, and realised my mistake in the span of a few heartbeats. The girl saw me and started screaming even louder, which I hadn’t thought possible. The boar saw me and didn’t get scared. It got pissed off. I saw the boar up close and nearly pissed myself. The thing was more than twice as tall as me, and it must have been at least ten times my weight, a small hill of angry muscle and bristles sporting four wicked tusks. The dragon wanted to fight, of course, but when the thing let out a thundering squeal and charged at me I didn’t think. I used my wings and leapt into the nearest tree, hanging on by my claws.

The boar raged, its tusks stripping bark, but my tree was sturdier than the girl’s and didn’t seem likely to fall. I might have been able to get out, but I didn’t want to leave the girl to her fate. Again, instinct and reflexes came to the rescue. As the boar savaged my tree I turned my head towards it. What I wanted to do was to scream at it, something useless like “Piss off!” What came out instead was a hiss, accompanied by a narrow spray from those big glands in my mouth.

The spray hit the pig full in the face, and it immediately began to squeal in pain, throwing its head around and dragging it through the leaves and needles of the forest floor. I hissed and sprayed again, catching it on the side of the head, and this time the beast turned and ran, plunging through the stream and disappearing into the distance.

“Yeah!” I called after it, bodysurfing a wave of adrenaline. “Ya better run, ya wanker!”

The girl was still screaming.

I dropped out of my tree and sat down a few metres away from hers. I wanted to tell her to come down, but she was terrified and unlikely to listen. Besides, even though I should be able to understand and speak any language, I had no idea what language she might speak. Screaming is not a language, and my new ability didn’t work retroactively. I had no idea what Guy and his people had been saying the day before.

I could have left her, but she was a kid and I didn’t want to leave her alone. She had nearly died once today, and I wanted to be sure that she’d get back home safe. After an eternity the girl was finally all screamed out and just cried instead. I took the relative silence as my cue to speak up.

“It’s okay,” I told her in my most soothing kids-and-animals voice. I spoke English, so she wouldn’t understand a word, but I hoped that the tone would get my message across. “You’re safe now. You can come down.”

The girl looked at me but kept crying. All I needed was a few words from her, so I kept trying, telling her that it was okay, that nothing would hurt her, and that I wasn’t going to eat her.

After a while she sniffled and looked at me accusingly. “You’re talking,” she stated, and I finally had something to latch on to.

“Thank you!” I exclaimed in the same language. I didn’t spend much time thinking about how weird yet completely natural it was to be able to speak a totally unknown language. My patience had worn thin enough to read through. “Two words, that’s all I needed. Oh. Oh no, don’t cry!”

The girl was crying again. It took another couple of minutes before she calmed down enough to talk.

“Are you going to eat me?” she asked between sobs.

“No,” I sighed with exasperation. “I’m not going to eat you. I just want you to come down so I can help you get home.”

“You look like a demon,” the girl said, her puffy eyes narrowing with suspicion. Ouch. “My uncle says that if I see a demon it will promise me things but it will all be lies.”

“I’m not a demon,” I said defensively. “Come down!”

“If I come down you’ll eat me,” she squeaked, close to tears again.

“Look,” I told her. “If I wanted to eat you I’d come up there. See?”

I leapt back into my tree and climbed even higher than she was, to drive the point home.

“I’m very good at climbing, and I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want anyone to hurt you. That’s why I don’t want you to be all alone out here.”

The girl considered this. “What’s your name?” she asked after thinking for a while. “My uncle says that a demon will never tell you its name.”

I was about to answer, but realised just in time that my real name sounded like some crude slang in this language. Unable to think of a good name on the spot I simply replied, “I’m… Dragon.” I said the last part in English. I was doing pretty well and didn’t want to scare her again.

“Dra-ka?” she tried, not quite managing the unfamiliar word.

“Sure, kid. Draka. I’m Draka. Pleased to meet you. What’s your name?”

“My uncle says…”

“Look, kid, I just told you my name, so I’m not a demon, yeah?”

She accepted my unassailable logic. “I’m Lahnie. If you're not a demon, why can you talk? You're a big lizard.”

"I'm a magic lizard," I told her. That was even almost true.

"Are you a boy lizard or a lady lizard?"

"What do you think?"

"You sound like a lady."

"Good guess. Got it in one. Hey, why 'boy or lady?' Why not 'boy or girl?' I don't sound that old, do I?”

"My sister says that all girls are ladies, but most boys are dogs or pigs, and only some are men." She stated this as though it was an objective and indisputable fact.

"Sure, she's not all wrong…" I muttered. "Hey, Lahnie?"

"Mmm-hm?"

“Can you come out of the tree, Lahnie?”

“I’m too high,” she said. “I’m scared to jump.”

“More scared than being stuck up there until it gets dark?”

“Yeah.”

I vacillated for a while, and then sighed. “Lahnie, I’m going to climb up the tree, okay?” I said to her, trying to sound reassuring.

“Okay,” she answered, sounding not the least bit reassured.

“I’m not going to try to eat you.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to climb up there, and I want you to get on my back.”

Lahnie paused. “Okay,” she finally answered.

“Okay. Here I come.”

I walked up to the tree, reached as high as I could, and sunk my claws into the wood. The tree shuddered and leaned a little as I put my weight on it, but it held. Lahnie went rigid, but there was no going back now. I climbed up, my eyes on the girl, until my long neck brought us face to face. Her eyes were huge. Then she wrinkled her nose.

“Your breath is stinky,” she declared.

“That’s not very nice,” I told her.

“We have a dog whose name is Soldier and your breath is worse than his.”

“Just get on my back,” I said, wilting under her scorn.

It was slow and took some careful manoeuvring, but the girl managed to get onto my back, knees locked around my hips and hands holding on to the base of my wings. Climbing down backwards was not much harder than climbing up, thanks to my claws, and in a moment we were on the ground. Lahnie clambered off me and stood up, then looked down on me.

“I thought you were bigger.” My shoulders were about chest high on her, so I sat back and raised my neck up to be able to look down on her. It was petty, but I did not feel right about being lower than a little kid.

“Yeah,” I told her. “So did I until yesterday. Where do you live?”

“Pine Hill.”

“Where is that?” I asked flatly.

“There’s a road and a bridge if you follow the river,” she explained. “Then if you go over the bridge you get to Pine Hill.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Let’s get you home.”

“Wait!” she exclaimed, and suddenly took off into the forest. Caught completely off guard I squatted there for a moment, then ran after her. I realised very quickly that I was not built for running any distances. Keeping up with Lahnie was hard, and talking while I ran was nearly impossible.

“Why…” I panted. “Where… are… you… going?”

“I need my basket!” she shouted as she ran. Sure enough, when she finally stopped and I could catch my breath, I saw that she had picked up a basket. She was gathering spilled mushrooms off the forest floor and putting them in the basket.

“Picking…” I panted. “Picking mushrooms, huh?”

“Yeah!” she exclaimed, beaming with pride as she held up the brimming basket.

“Alright.” I was tired. I was hungry too, but I didn’t want to steal a little girl’s mushrooms. Besides, they may be deadly poison to dragons for all I knew. “Now let’s get you home.”

“Okay!”

Her harrowing experience with the boar seemingly forgotten, Lahnie happily walked by my side as I led her back towards where the road should be. She chattered happily about things her mother cooked with mushrooms, and funny things her dog Soldier had done, and how dumb and unfair her older cousin was.

“I wish Lalia still lived with us,” she told me. “She was always nice to me.”

“Yeah?” I asked, only half listening. This road was far away. “Lalia, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” Lahnie said. “She’s my sister, but she’s all grown up and moved to the city and she met a boy and she has a horse and a sword.”

“A sword, huh?”

“Mmm-hm. She let me hold it once when mama and papa weren’t home, but it was too heavy. Her horse is named Windfall because he’s really fast, or something.”

“Imagine that.” I’d finally caught sight of the road, and we turned onto it, heading towards the stream and the bridge Lahnie had mentioned. The bridge was short, but made of stone and looked pretty nice as far as I could tell. Lahnie proudly told me that there was a family of stonemasons in her village, and their great-great-grandfather or something like that had built the bridge. We continued like that for another minute, her chattering, me walking, until I heard voices calling in the distance.

“Lahnie! Lahnie!” There were multiple voices, male and female of different ages. Lahnie seemed to hear them, too.

“Oh,” she said, stopping. “Mama and papa are going to be mad.”

“Why is that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Because I went in the forest alone.” She hung her head, looking ashamed.

“And you’re not supposed to.”

“No.”

“And what happened.”

“I found mushrooms and met you!” she said, brightening.

“And before you met me?”

She hung her head again, scuffing the dirt with her shoe, the picture of contrition. “I got chased by a big pig.”

“Yeah. Listen, Lahnie.”

“Yeah?”

“I think your mama and papa are going to be very happy that you’re safe. But be careful, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I think they’d be scared if they saw me, or if you told them about me. So don’t tell them, okay? You don’t have to lie, just… don’t say anything unless they ask.”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now go home.”

Lahnie looked down the road, towards the voices, and then back at me. Then without warning she threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck.

“Thanks, Draka,” she whispered into my scales as I choked. “You’re not a demon.”

Then she was gone, running down the road and calling for her parents.