Dragon and Child

Caladriss was a dragon. The smoke shouldn’t burn her eyes, but tears fled the corners, brushed away by the cold wind that raced past her.

Trees came and went by in a blur of green and orange, but the smoke haunted her as she sought to escape—escape the voices yelling for her to burn it all down.

She was a dragon. The pain wasn’t supposed to pierce her scaly heart.

But as heartless and vile a creature she was, as strong as she was perceived to be by foe and those that used her, breath left her burning lungs and she careened down into the trees.

Hope slipped past her wings but she glimpsed a clearing and made an effort, tilting her wings and angling her body. She roared a scream as trees scratched at her belly and feet, scraping her wings as branches snapped. Then they disappeared and she crashed on solid ground, breathing heaps of air and dust.

She curled her feet to herself, feeling scared. Lost and sad. In the quiet all she heard were those screams of terror—cut short and turned to silence as her fire engulfed everyone. All she could see when she shut her eyes were those pretty buildings that served as houses for the smaller beings, erupted in that hot mess of red that she despised so much.

Stop crying, you dumb beast. You were the one that inflicted this upon them! You are the terror of Vitern, the flames of cleansing! You are not water, you are fire!

But even as she quieted her own hysterical breathing, the sniffling continued.

Her eyes popped open and she was shocked by what she saw

Caladriss had seen the world—her wings had taken her over the cities and castles of Vitern and beyond, her fiery breath had served in wars and ended the same screams she’d caused. She’d flown over unnamed waters filled with pirates and sailors. All was the same with every location—her reptilian eyes were met with fear or the desire to cause it.

She’d seen all the things a dragon’s life was supposed to behold, but she still was surprised to see a lone little human in this dark forest. He had no torch for light or even a stick for protection.

“Child, what are you doing? It’s getting late, and a small thing as you could get eaten by wolves.”

“I—I ran,” stuttered the little being.

“From where?” Then her voice was scorched, as she realized the soot covered face and burned hands meant that this little thing must have run from the village she’d just burned.

“Mama, Papa,” cried the tiny voice.

Caladriss remembered the cause of their mission, why she’d been told to burn them all down—but the details, the reasons were all hazy now. “They said your town was already lost,” she whispered. “That the shadow had taken you, and turned your hearts vile…”

But she couldn’t bring herself to continue reasoning. This little soul wasn’t evil, and didn’t deserve to be burnt or driven from home. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, and let her head fall to the ground again. “I don’t deserve this fire.”

Caladriss closed her eyes. She didn’t mean to stay here and frighten this child, but she just didn’t have the energy to continue flying. And by all means, if vengeance would be wrought upon her, she wouldn’t blame anyone. Not at all. Perhaps her weary heart could rest. She could never ask to be forgiven.

She opened her eyes to a small nudge to her wing. The little creature hung his head beneath the mop of brown hair. Caladriss held her breath. He was so close. So close to her eye, to her heart. Anywhere he should want to drive a blade into. Surely he had one with him somewhere…

“Please, I’m cold,” he said.

At first, Caladriss didn’t understand what he could want. Then, as he continued to grip her wing with his tiny fingers, as if trying to lift it, she wondered if perhaps he wanted to use her for warmth and shelter. There was no way. She was such a foul being… but she lifted her wing a little.

The little being disappeared underneath, crawling against her body.

“Little child,” she whispered, staring at a berry bush just as boring as any other. But as she distracted herself with its leaves, she wondered if she should confess. “You know it is I that burned those houses. You can—you can end it. Just please…make it fast.”

She lifted her eyes up, where the stars were barely visible through the veil of smoke.

“Is it alright if I sleep?” came the muffled voice.

Caladriss gulped, lowering her wing gently. “Of course, little one.” She brought her head back down. “I will keep you safe.”

Weariness fell on her like a heavy blanket, and she drifted off into a restless sleep filled with the disturbing imagery that had been her life. Voices soaked into her dreams and Caladriss opened her eyes. She snapped her head high from the ground. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins—the same kind she felt whenever she was about to burn something.

He was near. Master Bivlok.

“Little one, we need to move,” she whispered. She moved her wing up, letting the cold air fill the growing warmth that had gathered in the pocket she’d formed. She felt the tiny spot of heat stir.

A coarse voice yelled in the distance—a voice that lashed like a whip across Caladriss’s back. She’d lost countless scales to that whip, and countless houses had burned after. “She can’t have gotten far! Caladriss!”

She suppressed a shudder, the urge to curl up in fear and await her master almost crippling every muscle. “Get on my back, little one.”

The tiny child crept out of the hiding spot and looked into her eyes as Caladriss said, “We’re getting away. I promise. Climb now. Get on the saddle if you can reach it.”

The child’s eyes widened as Caladriss’s neck neared the ground, her wings raised to keep balance. “Grab on to my horn,” she huffed, dust and even tiny rocks flying away as she spoke.

The child shielded himself before reaching out, his little fingers wrapping around one of her outmost, slimmest horns that crowned her head. She smiled a little, tilting her head to the other side to lift the child, assisting him until he sat behind her head, hands wrapped tightly to her horns.

The subtle difference in weight surprised her, and she wondered if he’d fallen off. “Are you there, little one?” she asked, tilting her head, and then she felt the weight pulling on to her horn, hanging on for dear life. It was strange to have someone depending on her to survive, and she swore that she would fight to preserve this bizarre reality.

She crouched, and as she brought her wings down, she jumped, launching herself in the air. She’d never taken a second to think about the powerful force of her wings, until she felt the little shift on her neck. She’d always felt like she wasn’t strong enough for the master on her back. Now, she hoped she wasn’t going to throw the precious little weight from her neck. Once she gained enough distance from the ground and the trees below, she worked on smoothing the flight.

“There!” The shout pulled her attention to the ground below, but she had to bring her head back up before she might lose what she carried.

Caladriss remembered when her master would ride upon her back, that when she wasn’t breathing fire down, he would don his bow, and shoot dangerous arrows upon his targets. But she’d never had the weapon fly up, and this close to her eye. She swerved to the side and watched it flit past, rising high towards the midday sun before arcing back down.

“Hang tight, little one,” she said, and worked on flying higher. It was then that she realized her left wing ached. She must have hit or scratched it on a branch when crashing last night, and she grit her teeth.

Not higher. Faster. Glide. They’ll never catch you.

The thickening fog swirled past in painted hues of gold, as Caladriss set her course for the distant mountain range. Where no fire would burn past a sheltered cave, where no man could climb, where evil could not reach.

As she let her wings ease into the gliding speed, Caladriss gained momentum and energy. Soon, the arrows were far away, and the cold mountains drew closer.

By the time they made it to the first peak, Caladriss’s breath was little more than tiny puffs of icy air, and her wings felt near frozen. The unsettled climate in this corrupted world was evidence to the many dark deeds done, the consequence of too many people dabbling into magic and trying to change things they should not. While one village was burning, another was suffering endless winter and snowslides. The scales had been tipped a long time ago, balance cast into the wind, and the lands of Vitern torn asunder. Man scrambled to take control, with violence, power—whatever they possessed, resulting in more of this undesired chaos.

As Caladriss lay catching her icy breath, the little child stumbled from her shoulders. She raised her head in alarm as she saw how purple the boy’s nose and lips were. “Little one,” Caladriss panted. “You’re freezing.”

She stretched her wing out, but knew that her own warmth could never keep the child alive. The small overlay of rocks and boulders that served as a mild shelter against the wind couldn’t save a freezing body.

Panic overtook her, as she wondered what could be done. She couldn’t fly anymore, she was freezing herself, and not to mention worn beyond exhaustion.

“Fire,” the little being whispered, hugging his arms as he crouched.

Caladriss shook her head. “No,” she said. “No more fire. Never again.”

The child would get warm. But he would also see the truth in the flames. Perhaps shock had claimed his little mind and numbed it from what had happened. But Caladriss knew that if he would set his eyes to the flames, he would turn against her. And fire was death. She didn’t want to have to be the cause of it ever again.

“Please,” whispered the boy. “I don’t want to die.”

Never had fire been the source of survival before. But Caladriss knew the devastation her fire had caused and would continue to unless she stopped.

But when being faced with either her guilt or losing this child’s life, she decided that she had no option. And sweeping the cast away sticks under the cave’s protection with her tail, she took a deep breath.

“Step back, little one.” Her voice trembled, then gave way into breath. Bright orange filled the cave, and for a moment, she was worried that everything before her was burned and gone. Then she stopped breathing, and the glow dimmed, kept alive by a small and meek flame that burned on the pile of sticks.

The child eagerly drew closer. Caladriss stayed back, bitter tears waiting to fall as she watched the boy’s expression.

His hands curled away from the heat, eyes growing wide in wonder as the flames revealed all to him. Caladriss heard the screams, echoing. She saw the haunting images in the flames. She knew he was reliving the moments too.

The boy scooted away from the fire, sitting just close enough to keep warm. His eyes were hollow. Tears flowed down his dirty cheeks. He was such a young thing, but he looked as though he’d grown years just looking into the flames.

“I’m hungry,” he mumbled, lowering his eyes.

“You’re hurting,” Caladriss whispered. “I’m sorry. They made me—they made me do it.”

Her heart began to pound. She dug her claws into the ground. “It’s all their fault. They made me this way. I became their weapon. They commanded me to obey.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “And I listened.”

Why had she ever listened? As she stared into the cold and hungry eyes of the innocent thing before her, something sparked within her—something one might say only an evil being like a dragon could possess. Only the heartless scaly beast that she was.

“Never again,” she said, her voice a guttural growl. She felt her throat constrict with heat as the rage boiling in her stomach rose to her racing heart and turned into bile. “I need them to pay. I—I need to burn something.”

She wanted the screams that haunted her dreams to be from Master Bivlok’s pain. She wanted to hear his regret. She wanted him to beg until his voice would smother from the smoke. She wanted to scorch his tears with immense heat, and finally, she wanted him to burn. If those corrupt hands that had inflicted so much harm would just wither away then perhaps one thing would be right in this world.

Her eyes were on fire and everything was orange through her distorted vision. A hazy reality, but it was all clear to her now. She’d been a coward all her life. It was time to be the one in control. She was a dragon. She could do all this and finally—finally—call it justice.

“Please,” came the voice of the child, so soft and harmless, but she stopped in her tracks. “I’m just hungry—”

“So am I,” she said, walking on her fours, circling the small cave, her swishing tail scraping against the rocky wall that suddenly seemed too small. “I know what you crave. What you need. What we both need.”

“I—I don’t—”

“I did this to you, child,” she said, her voice horrendous. Like the ugly creature she was. “I am fire. I burn. That is what I am, what they made me. And now I will use it to burn them. It’s terrifying, but this is justice. This world keeps asking for pain and wrath. Well… I will give it back.”

She turned away and screamed a roar, fire blazing from her heart and into the whirling snow. But the pain didn’t subside from her wail of agony, and she cried out again. She flapped her wings, up, down. She quickened her pace, digging her claws into the icy cold, ready to pounce.

“You can’t burn it away.”

Smoke hissed from her mouth as the fire ceased for a second. Caladriss stared into the dark sky, her anger like a storm inside her. A wind that tore flowers from their roots. An icy cold that took away breath. A fiery heat that turned all to ash. “I can burn them away. All that they’ve done. Child, I will cleanse this world of at least one blemish. The scales have been off balance for far too long. I will make it right.”

“But—Mama and Papa are still dead.”

Caladriss’s breath evaporated in mist. Snowflakes danced in a frenzy before her. She shook her head and continued towards the rocky ledge. She caught movement behind her and realized the child was following her.

“You can’t fly,” she said bitterly, seeing him reach out like he could hold on. “You can’t follow me. Don’t follow me.”

“Don’t go.”

“I have to!”

She continued. So did the wind. And so did the child.

If the little creature wanted to die, that wasn’t her fault. Caladriss flapped her wings, shaking away snow so she could take off. Behind her, the child began to cry. Caladriss made the mistake of turning her head and saw the little thing, looking to her like she was all he had left. “Child, what are you going to gain from this?”

He shrugged and sniffed. “I don’t know. What are you?”

“Justice. For you.”

“I don’t want it, please. Don’t kill anyone. Stay here. I need the fire.”

“How?” Caladriss whispered. “You saw the flames, you saw the truth. How can you let it go?”

But then—no one was forcing her anymore either. Perhaps she was bound to her own guilt, her own anger. Couldn’t she decide what she was? And if the one she’d hurt the most and taken everything from could forgive her and her masters, then shouldn’t she?

Caladriss walked away from the edge of the cliff, back towards the little mound of gathering snow that was the child. “You don’t want vengeance?”

Sobbing, he shook his head.

“You don’t want the scorching heat to punish them?” Caladriss looked to the fire that had gone out and the shivering child. “You just want—the warmth?”

She held up her wing as a gust of wind almost knocked the child to the snow. “Go back,” she said, and when he didn’t walk, she took a step, pushing him gently. He stumbled along, and she led him to the bit of shelter they’d found.

Caladriss breathed upon the fireplace, igniting the coals. And for the first time, she saw the truth in her flames. She felt the heat and realized she was cold too. And hungry. And so tired. “You’re right, little one. If I can’t listen to the voice of reason, of innocence—if I can’t resist this temptation and make my own decision, then what am I without a whip? I don’t need to be anyone’s weapon. I don’t need to be a weapon at all.” This truth was frightening, but more so was the realization of how close she’d gotten to burning away her given chance. A chance of a new life. “Get warm. When this storm subsides, we look for food. We look for a way to survive.”