The Greenwood Saga

She couldn't remember the first time she woke, in the Greenwood. The years had robbed her of those memories long ago, when her kind were young and naive. She was neither of those things anymore. The sun was warm and invigorating as it streamed through the canopy of leaves overhead. She could feel it warm her body in intermittent clusters of life across her serpentine form. She loved to bask in its warm rays in the clearing nearby on hot summer days like this one, but not today.

She could feel every leaf, in the forest roof above, rustle in the gentle breeze. She kept that breeze in her nose, and in front of her at all times. Her sickle-like talons dug deep into the hard packed earth, beneath her massive form. She pulled the scent from the air with her lithe forked tongue. The scent of smoke and blood, the scent of death.

Cautiously, she ventured forward from the solace of the glade which, within, her cave was gently nestled. The leaves and branches overhead hid her form in an almost perfect blend of emerald green. Few men lived near her forest, for fear of the dreadful beasts which dwelt within. She had, albeit seldomly, ventured to the edge of her forest, dangerously close to the prying eyes of man, to sit and watch the farmer and his wife.

They had settled nearby, close to where the babbling brook wound its way out and into the open world, a few short seasons ago. She was well content to share the brook with the happy couple, so long as they didn’t venture too deep into the Greenwood, close to her glade. She had learned many years ago that the small folk were usually harmless, but regardless she was not eager to welcome them into her home.

The smoke became cloying and nearly suffocating the closer she came to the edge of the wood. She feared the worst. Had the farmer set her forest ablaze? He would pay dearly if he had, with his life and his mates as well. She closed her nostrils to the acrid gasses permeating her domain. Dragons could do that you see, and still sniff out a woodrat in a tree at 300 paces. Then again woodrats stank almost as badly as this smoke. Rage built within her chest as she neared the edge of the forest where she prepared a great bellow. She would chase away whomever had set flame to her home and swoop upon them once the flames were smothered out by her scaly hide.

Suddenly the trees came to an abrupt end. There were no flames, no smoldering ash. She withdrew her long slender neck from the open which she had so suddenly thrust herself into. The smoke was not coming from the Greenwood. The smoke came from the little hovel in which the farmer and his wife sheltered themselves in, or rather what was left of it. The golden thatched roof was engulfed in flames and ominous clouds billowed up all around. Black smoke poured from the small doorway, as figures danced all around the burning structure. The farmer and his wife laid in the trampled earth. They did not move.

Suddenly, and without warning the rage which had welled up inside her erupted from her toothy maw. She spread her great wings and took to the air. Something within her called for vengeance. She knew not why, but that didn’t matter. The dancing figures stopped and turned. Ten sets of beady black eyes stared up agape in horror at the oncoming tumult of flames which added their small crooked forms to the great bonfire before them. She crowed! The rage within her was tempered and slowly diminished as if the flames themselves had burned their way free of her throat, and left her sated.

What had possessed her to do such a thing? She knew not. She owed the farmer and his wife no loyalty, but all the same she felt connected to these two frail creatures whose life blood ebbed away into the earth. She lowered an enormous green eye to the ground upon which they lay. The woman’s eyes stirred. Her face was a twisted visage of fear and pain, but her deep brown eyes stared into Elushyn’s and pleaded with her. Slowly she reached her trembling arms out and with a quivering finger pointed at a pile of sheets heaped within a woven basket. Elushyn craned her neck out over the pile of disheveled rags.

Suddenly the bundle moved and began to shift. A tiny hand emerged and worked its way free of the shroud of ragtag cloth, followed by a tiny nose. Then a small eye peeked out through a tear in one of the soiled clothes. It was green, as green as the dragon staring back into it. The eye blinked and the small creature froze in place. It waited with bated breath as tiny tears began to well up inside the small eye and stream down the tiny face.

Elushyn turned to look at the woman. The look of pain and anguish on her face was gone. All that remained was a pleading stare, and then nothing. Her outstretched hand collapsed to the earth.

Elushyn held her gaze for a few moments longer. It was clear to her all at once what had happened. The woman had known she was dying. She was pleading with this immortal being to take her hatchling and care for it. Tears began to fall from the great serpent's eyes. They rolled down her scaled cheek and fell sizzling to the earth.

The hatchling began to whimper, and Elushyn returned her gaze to the basket. A tiny head with curly wisps of fur was emerging from its chrysalis in the safety of the basket. Elushyn released a low sorrowful hum from deep in her chest. This hatchling could not have been more than a few seasons old, perhaps two or three? She had no way to comfort the hatchling; she did not speak its tongue.

She thought back to her younger days when she would hunt in the Greenwood. Back to when she was small enough to be injured by her prey. Then, she would have used the power of her dominating mind to force her prey into submission. In doing so she would reach out with her thoughts and lull the creature into a false sense of security. She would convince her prey that she was not a predator but a friend. Perhaps this was her answer.

She had never connected her mind with the consciousness of a being with a higher sense of understanding before, and was hesitant to reach out her mind to the tiny mewling creature. At first she needled out with her mind. Slowly inching forward searching for the hatchling as if she were walking out on an icy lake. Shortly her mind found the thread of thought which led back to the frightened hatchling. She retraced the stream of awareness back to its source, and was abruptly halted by a wall of fear and sorrow. She began to croon in sweet dulcet tones, a song of her people, tracing back to the foundations of existence. The song was soothing and warm, and hesitantly the hatchling began to calm. The tears streaming down the hatchling’s face began to subside.

Elushyn craned her neck closer to the formerly distraught tiny figure and her eyelid clicked shut in front of the child's face. Slowly a grin began to spread across the tiny visage, followed by a hiccup and a burbling giggle. Using her long scaly tail Elushyn caressed the tiny creature’s face, and wiped away the lines of dust, left by the streams of tears which were now trickling away into the blankets surrounding the babe.

Her mind prodded further into the creature’s consciousness and was met with a deluge of emotions and images. Scenes of the woman, scenes of his mother. HIS mother; the hatchling was a male, a boy. Elushyn’s heart fluttered in her chest and burned with a ferocity she had never known. She knew, in this moment, she would never leave his side. She would never allow him to come to harm. She was his Mother now. She would be his mother, his father; anything the boy wanted, she would be. His mind reached out in return to the great dragon and clutched tightly to her. She picked up the boy and cradled him against her side. They were bonded together. A bond which no force on earth could rend asunder. She was his dragon and he was her rider.