The Dragon

Mossbark was hungry, as he always was. He walked through the forest, treading through pools of sunlight falling through the soaring pines and fir trees. Mossbark knew each one, had seen them rise from tiny green infanthood to the towering kings that they were now. They had risen as the years passed and many had fallen, yet Mossbark was there and did not grow with them. His feet traveled on their own accord, each stone and stem familiar after the long years. His mind was on food, on the hollow emptiness at his core and on the silver fish that swam in the pool in the meadow. Mossbark padded through the trees on cat-quiet feet and swam through the dense sea of green ferns, his scaly hide a mere whisper in the forest stillness. Though he was bigger than a full-grown male wolf, his passage disturbed none of the inhabitants of the forest. He was Mossbark, the guardian of the Wood and the Pool and the Meadow and all the creatures who made their homes there knew him and despite his claws and mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, they did not fear him. He was Mossbark and he had always been there, as much a part of the forest as rocks in the earth or the cones on the trees.

Mossbark started every day the same way—he roused himself from his den after the sun was high in the sky and foraged for food. The fish in the pool were less numerous than they had been in days past and he forced himself to a small trout every third day and no more. There had once been twelve hives of bees but most of them had moved on to look for countries where flowers bloomed still, and now there was only the Hive in the Fallen Tree and the Hive in the Meadow. The ancient queens of these hives had stubbornly refused the call to immigrate and what had once been colonies of thousands were now ruins haunted by dying and decrepit drones. Berries came and went, but they were shared crops for the dwindling citizens of the forest. Each season brought less abundance and more creatures stealing softly away in search of a better home. Mossbark remained through rain and snow, fire and famine and the hunger inside gnawed at him and the emptiness inside grew as the season slipped away.

His day had started off poorly—before the breaking of day and without any breakfast. The night had been ripped asunder by a screaming red light, startling badgers from their sets and the dragon from his den. Mossbark had watched as a ball of red fire had fallen from the sky and with a crash of thunder blasted down into the heart of his Wood. He was so astonished that before he knew it, his feet were moving as if of their own accord, and he was several miles from his den before he realized that he had made up his mind to investigate.

In times past, Mossbark had wandered the Wood eagerly, learning the location of every squirrel’s nest and hidey hole. He had named the trees and counted the flowers in bloom in the Meadow. He had slept little and spent the nights watching the stars or laying quietly under the undergrowth, small streams of smoke slipping gently up out of his nostrils and into the silent air, watching the fox prowl or the owl glide noiselessly through the moonlit shadows. He had loved the Wood and the Pond and the Meadow. At the change of the seasons, he had walked the small patch of the world that was his and he had been glad of it. Mossbark had swam in the pool and dove into its depths, had whispered the ancient Words of Power there, and among the trees, and above the earth and climbed the small hill to the west and called the words into the air, that they might scatter across his Wood, blessings carried like leaves in the wind. He had toiled and his efforts had been good and everywhere he looked, the fruit of his labor was evident.

Now, the pool had only a few fish and the bees were mostly gone and silence lay heavy on the Wood.

Mossbark brooded as he walked, dreaming darkly as he slipped in and out of pools of deep shadows below the pillars of the trees. He wondered why he had left the comfort of his den before the break of dawn, what the streak of fire across the sky would mean, and felt a tingle of fear that crept down to the tip of his tail. A thousand seasons had passed in his Wood and while trees had risen and fallen, while things had changed in the great dance of time, the order of things had not.

Mossbark’s empty stomach growled, and he huffed a stream of smoke out in disgust. He could not breath fire, not like the great fire drakes and wyrms which wrought the destruction of the ages, but like all dragons, inside him burned a bright fire that could not be quenched. It had driven him through rain and snow, warmed him in the dark watches of the night and it pushed him onward now, driving him to the edge of his domain.

The sun was bright and high in the sky by the time that he reached the northern edge of the Wood. Now he smelled the scent of burnt pine and ash, and where the trees faded away and the plains of tall swaying grass stretched off to the horizon, Mossbark saw the blackened ring where the ball of fire had blasted into the earth. The fire had spread to the fringes of the Wood and scorched the sides of the mighty pines. Mossbark sniffed the air and watched from underneath the trees. His eyes, sharp as an eagle’s, caught no movement across the empty expanse. The wind sighed, lonely and the silence of the Wood hung heavy behind him.

Mossbark ventured out of the trees, slinking low to the ground, pausing now and again to measure the air, sending up tiny puffs of smoke with each great, slow exhalation that followed each careful sifting of the sooty breeze. Not a single living creature stirred, nor did a single bird call out—and even the gentle padding of his careful feet sounded loud in his ears.

At the center of the ring, the ground was broken and furrowed into a second smaller ring. Mossbark began to climb to see what lay over the lip of the crater and paused, somehow feeling in that moment inexplicably small for the first time in many seasons, indeed, perhaps since he had come to the Wood. He took in a great breath and blew out a smoky blast and threw himself over the edge.

Nothing in his long years had prepared him for what he saw. There, at the very center of wrath and ruin, amid ash and smoke, lay as white and clean as a spring lamb, a child.

A child asleep in the midday sun, swaddled in pearlescent shimmering silk.

Mossbark stood unmoving, watching the child in wonder. In all his long years, nothing had prepared him for this sight, and he stood for a long time watching, flickers of doubt and fear, excitement, and longing dancing through his mind. There was something about the sight of the child, laying there as clean and bright as new fallen snow, that brought to mind the long-forgotten Words—those utterances of Power that he had once used in the service of his domain. And as they rose once more to his thought, a kindling of desire rose like a single flame from some deep place in his heart.

For there had come a time, when the long watches of the night became cold and desolate. He felt no longer the joy from the wheeling stars overhead or the wonder of the night owl’s voice. The purpose and calling of his climbs up to the hill, overlooking the wood, became no more than drudgery, a task without end and without thanks. Never did the bees offer any tribute in his honor or the fish celebrate the renewal brought about by his efforts. Ever and ever, the Wood began to feel smaller and smaller, the trees no longer kings but guards of a never-ending green prison.

Slowly, one by one, Mossbark had begun to neglect the saying of the Words. Each circuit of the Wood became a little shorter than the last and more and more days passed between trips up the hill. Where once the cycle of days with their constant churn of inspection, review, and renewal had given him a solidity and a security, the work of his domain became so much drudgery. When he had said the Words and witnessed the multiplying of the fish in the pond or the steady drone of the bees going to and from over the bright banks of wildflowers in the Meadow, a fierce and bright joy had burned brightly inside of him. His pride and delight in discovering new rocks or birds or a clutch of mushrooms under a fallen log had made the Wood seem deep, worthy, and boundless. Yet, slowly, like water dripping in a dark cave, eroding stone slowly over the passing of many years, the Wood became a small, banal trap of thankless tasks and burdensome monotony. Finally, the Words had faded from him and gone cold and hard within him. A silence had fallen over his domain and an emptiness had settled into his soul.

Yet, as he stood in the bright sunlight and watched the sleeping child, something began to awake inside him, the dormant coals of the old joy catching a whisper of hope and glowing back to life. As he pondered these things in his heart, the child opened its eyes and stared right at Mossbark. He expected to see fear in the child’s face, that it would begin to wail and scream. Instead, it regarded him with eyes the color of a summer sky and a gaze deeper than the Pool in the Meadow. Where had this child come from and how had it survived a fall from the heavens? Surely, this was no mere mortal child, but Mossbark had known no children or even any stories of babes dropping from the sky. The feeling of excitement kindling inside of him continued to grow, the longer he thought. Here, a voice long quiet whispered in his mind, here was the adventure that had been denied him for so long, something bigger than the narrow bounds of his Wood. A child could not survive alone in the wilderness and this one was much too small to go any great distance at all. No, if left here, it would succumb to the elements or be set upon by wolves. Of course, Mossbark knew that he could not take care of the child—he was a dragon after all and knew nothing of the care and raising of infants. Far to the west, past the furthest marches of his Wood and over the Mountains, there had been in distant times, a settlement of Men. Mossbark thought they had been farmers or perhaps shepherds, thought any rumor he had heard of them had been many seasons ago, when there had remained ten of the great hives in the Wood. No mortal had passed over the Mountains in his memory, but if there were any who remained there, the child could be placed in their care.

A cold creeping feeling of doubt slithered up out of his belly, as he thought of the long journey. Mossbark had not left his Wood, ever since he had been given it as his domain and while he had wished and dwelled upon the possibility of fleeing his domain and finding someplace better, thought of it in the dark times of the night and the lean hungry times as he gnawed on the picked-clean fish bones of previous meager suppers, he had never dared to do it.

The child stood and tottered over to Mossbark and before the dragon could step backward in alarm, small fingers took hold of his face. He looked down into the little face, staring deep into those strange eyes, and his fate was sealed. He blew out a sooty breath from his nostrils, ruffling the child’s golden hair and causing him to giggle with delight. Mossbark bent his head and gently picked up the child by the strange shimmering cloth that swaddled him. With a great sigh, the dragon turned westward and began the long march toward the edges of the Wood.

Mossbark had not been traveling long when the child had begun to squirm, then fuss, which turned into loud tears. Perturbed, he set the child down on the ground, where it sat and continued to cry, its wailing echoing loudly in the silence of the trees. The dragon had expected that the journey beyond the Wood and over the Mountains to find a suitable home for the child would be arduous, but his calculations had considered the distance and the time it would take. He had not given thought to the child being anything but a willing burden. Now, he not only realized his error but also another—surely the child would need to eat, just as he would and how would he go about that? The piteous crying made Mossbark’s scale itch, but just as he felt a menacing growl building in his throat, the child looked up at him and the sight of his blotchy and wet face quelled it immediately. Mossbark remembered the child’s amusement before, when he had picked him up, and crouched down like a large dog eager to play. He drew a great breath of air into his nostrils and puffed it back just over the child’s head. The crying stopped and the little face regarded him with hesitant curiosity. Mossbark did not pause but drew in another breathe and huffed it at the child again, and this time, he was rewarded with a small giggle. Mossbark bounded in a circle round and round the child, pausing to blow small puffs of air which mussed the little thing’s hair and caused it to laugh as it tried to follow the dragon’s movements. Mossbark drew in his largest breath yet and while doing so, blew with such force that he knocked the child to the ground. He leapt forward, concerned that he had damaged the small thing, but the child began to laugh, a laugh that came from deep in its belly and shook its whole body. The laughter felt to Mossbark like spring rain on dry winter grass and a long absent warmth filled his body. For the first time that day, he forgot about his hunger. The dragon slid his long neck down next to the child and nudged him with his head. The child clasped his arms around the rough scales and the coarse fur of his patchy mane. Mossbark raised his head and the infant slid down his neck and rested against his neck and shoulders, more or less securely. With tentative steps, the dragon started off once more and with each step, he moved with more confidence until at last they were plunging at great speed through the undergrowth and toward the Mountains.

Day passed into night and Mossbark continued without stopping, his steps sure and steady, the child warmed by the heat emanating from withing the dragon’s scaly body. The moon rose high into the sky and the child gave a great yawn and fell into a deep sleep, lulled by the swaying steps of the dragon. On and on they went, the old dragon and the young child, as unlike as any pair imaginable, yet now tied together with the invisible and unbreakable bindings of fate.

The journey into the foothills of the mountains took them several days. They found a routine of sorts, Mossbark figuring out the needs of the child as they traveled, resting during the hottest part of the day, and traveling through the night. He found patches of berries for them to eat and whispered prayers of thanks that they were not making this journey in winter. While he often went hungry, he found it more bearable than he could ever remember, and the fire within him burned as bright and hot and kept him going across the long miles.

As they began to climb up into the mountains, heading for the pass between two great peaks, Mossbark found that he was beginning to remember some of the Words. They felt strange to him, uncomfortable and with strange edges, but the longer he dwelled on them, the more they took shape in his mind and as they reached the top of a hill, where he knew his domain to be at an end, Mossbark turned back and looked over his Wood. He could not remember all the Words and though he desired to send blessings down into the wood, as he had used to, scattering them down like leaves on the wind, his mind could only conjure one or two of the Words, those of peace and rest. If he could not leave his domain with a full benediction, then at least he would leave it to wait without worry until his return. As Mossbark finished uttering the words, he realized that the child had slipped off of his back and was splashing and laughing as it played in the stream. A Word came to the dragon’s mind, as he watched the child play and he knew that it was a new one, not one that he had ever uttered before but one as fresh and young as the child itself. He traced the patterns of its sound and the power trapped within it and looking directly at the child, he uttered it.

Esmeno.

The child looked up and stared straight into Mossbark’s eyes and the dragon saw the recognition and the understanding. He saw too that the child, while not able to yet put it into Words knew his name, his true name, and that the child now knew him, completely and totally. They started at each other until the sun began to set in golden splendor behind them. Then Mossbark bent his head and the child grabbed hold of him, nameless no longer but now Esmeno and they set off again. No longer did they travel as strangers thrown together by the winds of the world, but they crossed the mountains as two souls bonded for life.

The trek over the mountains was long and arduous. Together, dragon and child braved the icy nights, Mossbark wrapped tightly around Esmeno, as the wind howled around them. They stumbled over barren wastes of rock and remaining spring snow. Food was scarce and the cold was constant. As the child slept on his back, Mossback would ponder the Words and with each day, more and more of them came back to him. He felt them blossoming in his mind, like flowers opening to the sun and as Mossback watched Esmeno eat or sleep or look in wonder at a patch of muddy snow, he felt the shapes of new Words forming in his mind. He grasped at them with his thought, but it was like trying to remember a dream from a long-ago night.

Weary but unbroken, dragon and child descended from the mountains into a country of rolling green hills and small hidden valleys. In one such place, they found a fall of clear water descending into a shallow pool and behind the fall, a narrow cave. They rested there and lulled to sleep by the sound of crashing water, they slept deeply and were refreshed.

When they woke, they wandered into the valley and found it full of wildflowers in the last of their summer glory. Esmeno tumbled through deep banks of yellow, white, blue, and pink petals, only to stop and watch with fascination at a large honeybee that stopped to explore a large purple blossom. Mossbark, to his delight, recognized the bee, as belonging to one of the lost hives and followed it back to its hive. Where the Words concerning bees had been faint and only a buzzing memory on the path through the mountains, now he found them returning to him as rapidly as the drones were going to and from the hive itself. He uttered the Words and placed blessings on the hive for the health of the queen and the flourishing of its workers. Mossbark and Esmeno ate honey and honeycomb until their stomachs were full almost to bursting and they returned to their cave and slept long into the next day.

There now passed a time of peaceful happiness for Mossbark, something that he had never known before. He was not driven by curiosity or by the excitement of managing his domain or seeing to its wellbeing, nor was he discouraged by the thanklessness of his work or overcome by the loneliness of the long day and nights of solitude. He and the child wandered through the countryside, resting when they were tired and spending their time looking for food to eat and moving at no great hurry. They had seen no signs of any people, but the land was full of birds and beasts of all kinds. Mossbark delighted in the games that he played with Esmeno, as they romped through fields of tall grass or climbed to the tops of round hills only to plunge down the other side with wild abandon, Esmeno holding onto the dragon’s back and laughing as he tried not to fall off. They slept under the stars or walked under them, if the night was warm and the air especially clean and fresh.

One day, Mossbark smelled something new in the air—woodsmoke and a something else, something familiar but unknown. He left Esmeno napping safely in the tangled roots of a great oak tree and made his way to the origins of the scents. He came upon a clearing of the wood and a plot of neat and well-tended farmland. A small but sturdy house stood at the back of the clearing, smoke puffing out of its roof. The house was surrounded by several wooden pens, which were filled with chickens and goats and one fat pig. The dragon slipped underneath a fallen tree and settled in to watch. He felt a heaviness come into his heart and a weight in his mind but did not yet know why.

As he watched, a man came out of the house and tended to the animals. Mossbark noted the kindness of his voice, although he could not understand his speech and he recognized the goodness of the man’s character in how the animals reacted to him with joy and without fear. His hair was graying but otherwise he seemed hale and hearty, and he laughed and sang as he went about his work. Soon, he was joined by a woman, who joined in his song as she brought out a large wooden basin and began to scrub and hang the washing outside of the house. Again, some sense told Mossbark that she too was of good character, her actions full of humble grace and her attentions to the animals and the man gentle and sweet.

Mossbark knew then why his heart weighed heavily. He had come to the end of his quest and here in front of him was a place where Esmeno would be safe and cared for by good, kind people. The loneliness and gnawing emptiness began to fill his heart again as he slowly made his way back to the child.

When he returned to the oak tree, he found the child already awake but not having moved, simply sitting, and watching the wind play through the leaves of the trees. Mossbark snorted a puff of air at him which produced a laugh and before the child could grab ahold of him to climb onto his back, the dragon nuzzled him with his scaly head and wrapped around him, holding him gently with his long neck. Esmeno laid a smooth cheek against him, and they sat that way for a long time. When they broke apart, the child looked deeply into the dragon’s eyes and Mossbark knew, although he could not say how, that Esmeno also understood that the hour of their parting was near. A mighty rush of love and joy, despair and grief flooded through Mossbark’s heart, and he drew in a mighty breath of air and blew the child to the ground, then raced off into the trees. Esmeno laughed from his belly and stumbled after, going as fast as his pudgy legs could carry him. Mossbark bounded through the trees, darting in and out, over and under fallen logs, seizing this one last moment of freedom and bliss. He danced through the trees, teasing and chasing the child, finally allowing himself to be caught and they lay together, child and dragon, watching clouds of pure white drift through an endless sea of bright blue sky.

That night, when the moon had risen high in the sky, the hour of their parting came. Mossbark carried the sleeping child on his back, just as he had done for so many miles through hardship and toil, to the edge of the little farmstead. Gently, he shrugged Esmeno from his back to the ground where he picked him up by the now tattered rag of what had been shimmering cloth. Like a great cat, he padded to the door of the cottage, where he laid his precious bundle. The wind shifted and blew the clouds from the moon and Mossbark took one last look at the child, and he loved him. Then, the animals catching a strange scent with the changing of the wind’s direction began to stir and shift uneasily in their pens. A goat bleated and kicked out against his pen, and Mossbark heard the man stir inside the cottage. He turned then and ran into the night and disappeared into shadow.

The return journey was long and hard and not much need be said of it. Each day brought the remembrance of some memory, some joy or hardship that he had encountered with Esmeno and brought both sorrow and delight to him. He walked without thought of rest, but was full of both love and sorrow, full almost to the bursting.

At last, he stood looking down on his Wood and knew that he was home again. All the familiar sights and smells greeted him, yet everything seemed different to him. Things seemed to be both the same but also changed. The Pool, the Meadow, the silence were all the same as when he had left, but he was not the same. The Words had come back and were at the front of all his thoughts and each day brought another Word or a remembrance of a forgotten duty. He had come back to his domain, not as the lonely and empty creature that had left it, but as one full of love and loss and grief and hope. It seemed to him that his Woods had never been so full and yet so empty, and he knew that this was his place, his domain, his calling. The Words satisfied the emptiness within, and he let them out, blessings like leaves in the wind.