Milo

Tumbling, falling, rocks digging. Everything is a blur, I’m falling too fast. Just a mass of green speeding by me on my descent.

Then – oof! – I reach ground and the dirt assaults me. I stand up, call out for mom, but nothing hears me, no one hears me.

At least, that’s what I assume until the ground starts quaking in fear, and suddenly something inside me makes me instinctually terrified too.

Then an enormous thing bursts out of the trees in front of me, and I freeze in horror. It reaches one great paw down at me and grabs my shoulder roughly, picking me up. As I hang limply in its grasp, unable to protest, it turns around and smells, no, sniffs the air, then proceeds to carry me deeper into the forest.

That’s all I really remember. He brought me to this cave. He clearly doesn’t like me very much. It shows in how he wrinkles his nose at me and only grudgingly allows me access to his gains from hunting.

It’s usually pretty easy to find berries for myself anyway.

He growls whenever I try to give him a name. Demetri, growl, Stefan, growl, Rex, growl. If he doesn’t stop being such a grump about it I’m gonna call him Tristan Two and be done with it.

The human keeps trying to brand you. As if. It would be one thing if the human had any taste, but it keeps suggesting the most ludicrous things you’ve ever heard. Whatever happened to a simple name like FlameBreath or SharpClaw? Nowadays dragons are naming themselves “Buzz” and “Spike.” Please. They aren’t spikes, they’re teeth, and who ever heard of a dragon doing anything related to buzzing? You snort. The kids nowadays.

The dragon continues to hate me, exemplified by it kicking me awake whenever I roll near it in my sleep, or how it throws me in the lake whenever it feels like a laugh.

I can’t swim. Never bothered to learn back when I was a two-year old who never went in the water.

I never see any animals around here. Probably not because of the hulking lizard-beast living here, I sure doubt it’s that.

Doesn’t matter though, does it? I can live off of berries and leaves or whatever....I wish I were a dragon.

The human bothers you again, waving his arms around and yelling in tongues you don’t understand. Your nose wrinkles and you huff at the boy, but he just sighs in exasperation and yells louder.

You stand up, startling the child, trot out of the mouth of the rock hole, and kick off into the sky. Your scales rattle as you soar, and you hum quietly to yourself, enjoying the peace.

Until, that is, another dragon comes blasting into you like a boulder, shattering your moment. It tears at your scales with its vicious teeth and claws. Something cracks as it rams into you again and you cry out, falling a few feet before you regain your bearings again.

It attacks again, but you twist out of its grip and crane your neck to rip at its belly. It bites your leg and its venom stabs into you.

You again worm your way out from between its claws and sink your teeth into its neck. The young dragon roars in pain and throws a careless nip at your tail in an attempt at retaliation before it breaks off and flies away. You don’t open pursuit. You’re not so young anymore...

The dragon lands again, smattered with gore. This doesn’t unduly surprise me, since he often touches down suffering signs of a fight with whatever else is up there. What does surprise me is that his left wing has a tear and looks broken. Now, I’m no expert on dragons, but that can’t feel good for him. I run up to him, snatching some vines on the way, and try to patch it up with a makeshift brace. He grumbles appreciatively and nudges me with his nose. The highest praise I’ve gotten yet.

Afterwards I get back to work on my sword. Which is a stick. That I’m whittling. With a rock. But as of yet, it’s only sharp at the tip. So it’s a shank. Fun.

You watch as the human child sharpens his primitive weapon with a rock, gritting his pathetic human teeth. What are teeth for, if not for shredding off pieces of your helpless prey? A scoff escapes your lips. The boy looks over, yells at you again, this time with wet eyes, and attacks his stick with renewed vigor. You huff at him once more, then put your head down for some much needed rest.

Which is why it catches you completely off guard when the youngster from before smashes down to the ground in front of your mountain hole, flanked by the rest of his ward. The boy, having never seen a ward of dragons before, cries out and runs into your mountain hole.

Instead of attacking, you move sideways to stand between the ward and the child. A ferocious snarl sound from between your teeth, with the unmistakable meaning of Stay back, I protect with my life.

The ward advances regardless, and the young dragon launches into an attack. You sidestep his raking claws, then whip his face with your tail and crunched his side with your crush-teeth rather than your slice-teeth.

The dragon howls uncontrollably as another dragon pounces on you, savagely digging into your side. You hack once, then blast flames directly into its face. It falls back, leaving an opening that the remaining two instantly take advantage of. You let rage envelop you as you realize they think this is fun. One charges at you, bowling you over, but you use the advantage of being underneath it to kick it in the stomach with both hind legs then rend its wing apart. It cries in agony and rolls away as you bathe the final dragon in flames.

You back up to shield the human instead of pressing your advantage. You jerk your head upward and growl. The ward, recognizing the threat and dismissal, hobble away and stutter into flight.

The human runs out from behind you and throws his stick and his rock after them and yells. Adorable.

The dragon was clearly amused when I threw my shank at the terror of dragons. That's what I came up with. Pack didn’t work, and they were pretty terrifying, so I thought it suited them quite nicely.

But anyway, I had felt helpless, and I was helpless, so I needed to release some anger. And that worked quite well.

I half-turned around, panting, and looked into the dragon’s golden eyes. I burst into a sprint and crashed into him with a hug. He stiffened briefly, but instantly relaxed and put a paw on my back as his way of responding.

I felt something inside me explode, and I looked up to see my same expression mirrored on the dragon’s face. You could see our newfound connection, a glimmer in the air connecting us.

And suddenly I knew. And I could tell he knew too. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I could feel it, and I had to release it or it would blow me sky high. So I released it.

“Milo.” I whispered, star-struck.

The glimmer in the air grew brighter.

The dragon smiled and purred, and deep throbbing in his chest.

We turned around, and, together, the dragon and the boy went back into their cave.

THE END