The Wyrmling

"Saphira!" Farrian scream whispered. "Saphira, wake up!"

Saphira stirred, disorientated for a moment. She'd been sleeping for 160-odd years so it took her a couple of beats before her dry, tired eyes settled on Farrian hovering over her looking terrified. She stretched from the scaley crane of her neck all the way down to the whip of her tail and gave a rapid shake of her head.

"What is it?" She sighed, curling her head back around her body and closing her eyes again.

"It's a human!"

"You say that every decade, Farrian, and there's never a human" she said, beginning to drift off again.

"No! Right there, on your belly!"

Saphira opened one eye and raised an eyebrow at him. How ridiculous, she thought. What will he come up with next? It was only 200 years ago he woke up the whole mountain because he thought he heard humans digging their way in. It turned out to be no more than a woodpecker nesting on the side of the mountain. Farrian was terrified of humans since a shiny silver one cut his tail short several hundred years ago.

Still, she craned her neck back to humor him only to see that he was right this time. To her surprise, there was a tiny delicate creature, just as he said, asleep on the bulge of her stomach, rising and falling with each of her breaths.

"See, I told you!" Farrian allowed his voice to carry a little louder than a whisper as if it didn't matter if the thing woke up now.

"How in St. George's banner did it get in here?" Saphira gasped. She'd almost forgotten Farrian was there.

It certainly was smaller than any human she'd seen before. She couldn't see a cutter in its paws and as far as she could tell, it hadn't stolen any of her treasure. She studied every inch of the little wyrmling. It was pale pink with chubby flesh void of scales, just soft-looking skin, and a generous mop of hair on top of its head, the same dark colour as her own mane. Its body was covered in material other than the back paws, which were filthy and scuffed.

"Is it alive?" Farrian asked, taking a cautious step closer for a better look.

She brought her snout within feet of its head to sample its scent. The hair violently pulled to her nostrils and then flopped back down in place. "I think so." It smelt very much alive and Saphira noticed it seemed to be making nearly silent snores; there was a gentle movement of its own belly with each inhale and exhale.

"What about a cutter? Do you see a sharp silver cutter? What about gold, do you have it all?" Farrian frantically probed, no longer caring about waking it, or anything else in the mountain.

Saphira watched the tiny thing as it twitched slightly on her belly. She could barely feel the weight of it. It was so small, it must be a human wyrmling she decided. There was something quite sweet about it. Fast asleep on her without her even noticing. Like she'd been chosen amongst all the dragons in the mountain. It chose not to steal her gold or cut through her heart as she slept. Instead, it trusted her so much so, that it fell asleep right with her. She felt a sudden, but sincere wave of affection for it, and the fire in her belly warmed her already scalding heart. She gently lifted her tail so as not to wake it, and ran the tip down the wyrmling's back like you would stroke a pet.

"What are you doing?! Don't wake it!" Farrian hid the remainder of his tail between his legs and hunched back into a stance ready to attack should it suddenly wake and brandish a hidden cutter.

She ignored him and continued to stroke it, feeling exhilarated each time. "Oh don't worry, they're harmless this young. If it meant to slay us it would have tried by now."

"Flick it off and I'll flame it for you." He said, readying the fire in his belly.

"No, hold on! What's the rush?" She said quickly shielding it from him.

Farrian choked on his flame and swallowed it "It could wake up at any minute!" he coughed, and a puff of smoke escaped his jaw "It could run off with all our treasure. We'd never find it again and we'll wake the whole mountain trying."

"Don't be silly" She giggled, still watching the human. "Your treasure is safe, Farrian, you don't have much to take anyway. I'm more worried about you stealing my treasure than this wyrmling taking any."

Farrian shot a look at the scarcity of his bed of gold and scowled. "You try raiding kingdoms with hundreds of silver humans after what I've been through." He waved the remainder of his tail at her but she didn't look up from the human. "You look like you want to keep it!"

Keep it? She thought. Maybe that's not such a crazy idea. It chose her after all. Through whatever perils it had to endure getting inside their fortress, it did so without any of them seeing. Humans were scared of dragons, this was known. But not this one. It was a strong pup she imagined: brave and adventurous. She'd lost her own wyrmlings time after time as many dragon mothers do, and after hundreds of years, it never gets any easier and time doesn't take away the sting. The raw, gaping emptiness that's left when each one slips away is enough to slay any dragon's heart thousands of times over. She often wondered if a cutter would even find a heart if one were to penetrate her chest. Maybe the human wyrmling had lost its mother, and they were just two half-a-souls in need of a pair. Her in need of a pup, it in need of a mother.

"Well." She tried to hide her smile. "Maybe I will keep it. It is quite cute after all."

"HAVE YOU GONE MAD?!" Farrian cried, loud enough to wake the entire mountain.

Saphira looked up from the wyrmling for the first time since she saw it. Farrian had flames in his teeth and his eyes wild. "You want to keep a human as a pet?!"

"I don't see why not? I could stay awake for 50 years or so" she pondered, thinking practically now "humans don't live long you know. It would be long dead by the time everyone wakes up." The more she thought about it, the more she thought it could work. What's the harm?

"I'd know! I'm not sleeping whilst that thing is running around in here!" he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "It's not going to replace your own wyrmling, Saphira."

An ember ignited in Saphira's chest at that. "Careful, Farrian. You don't know what you're talking about" she warned him.

It's rare that a dragon hatchling survives. If they can't produce the inner flame then a dragon is no dragon. Their bodies turn from the liquid ink black to an anemic pale blue and they die within a matter of years. All a dragon mother can do is watch as their young slowly suffocate, and when they do, she holds their cold body in her tail until each scale has decayed.

The mountain is filled with grieving mothers whose offspring fell victim to the cruel fate of a merciless coin flip. Their bones are still littered amongst the treasures of their mothers, just as precious as any gold coin or shiny gemstone. The males don't know this pain. Farrian couldn't possibly understand.

Before he could respond, the sound of a thousand cascading coins came from above them, and a tremendous explosion of fire lit up the entire cave. From the top of the largest mountain of treasures, another dragon had awoken and begun his descent. Powerfully leaping, his body rippled like fabric falling down toward them. Each deliberate tread of his talons on the golden hill rained coins in all directions as he came crashing down.

Balthazar was the eldest of the dragons in the mountain. No one quite knew how old, but his age didn't deny his youth whatsoever. He was still the strongest, the fastest, and breathed the most scorching inferno. Waking him up was embarrassing for sure, and it was written on Farrian's cowardly face as he nervously watched Balthazar approach.

He strode toward them, impossible yellow eyes fixed on the two, undulating his razor tail purposefully behind him. Each seductive step boasted the enormity of his physique beneath the shimmering scales in the firelight.

"Speak". He spoke in his rumbling voice, directed at no one in particular.

"A human has infiltrated" Farrian reported as if addressing a general. "It appears to be sleeping."

"Does it have a sword? Are your treasures accounted for?" Balthazar asked Saphira this time.

"No cutter, treasure all here. It appears to be a wyrmling, Balthazar." She found herself too, to be addressing a superior in the manner Farrian had.

He directed his attention to the human pup on her belly and affixed his gaze as he came close to investigate. He sniffed the thing's head as Saphira had done, once, twice, and then a long inhale. He proceeded to give it a nudge with his snout, just enough to make it twitch and for Farrian to let out an almost inaudible whimper.

"What's to be done, Saphira?" Balthazar questioned, sitting back on his hind legs.

"She wants to keep it!" Farrian answered instead, certain that Balthazar would match his outrage. "I said we should give it to the flame! Nothing good can come from letting it live."

Saphira instinctively wrapped her tail around the wyrmling in protection which did not go unnoticed by the other two dragons.

"Is that so, Saphira?" Balthazar calmly inquired as his eyes watched her tail loosely coil the human like a snake.

"I don't think we need to kill it." She desperately searched for words. "It hasn't taken a single coin or has a cutter to try and slay us in our sleep. Perhaps it could have! Instead, it stole its way in to rest and it clearly means no harm. I see no crime. Only a lost wyrmling sleeping in the wrong place."

"It can only attract more humans." Argued, Farrian "We should kill it quickly. Let that be a lesson to any human that tries to come into the mountain."

Balthazar looked from Farrian to Saphira, waiting for her argument. Now acting as a mediator for the two.

"Killing it won't stop the humans from looking. At least if they do, they'll find it alive." Saphira stated.

"We can't risk humans finding a way inside," said Balthazar. "One of their young may be harmless, but I've seen fully grown humans bring a dragon down. How did it get inside?"

They looked at each other to answer, but neither of them knew. "Maybe he's one of those magic humans that turn our flames to dust" Farrian breathed. Saphira could hear the sudden fear in his voice, despite his efforts to hide it from Balthazar. "We should burn the wyrmling and its magic before it wakes up."

"Maybe we let him go." She said looking down at it. The idea of keeping the wyrmling was starting to slip between her talons the more reasonable Farrian started to sound. Farrian sounding reasonable? Maybe I am losing my mind. Its eyelids fluttered, unbeknownst to the small human of the three dragons deciding its fate as it slept. Saving it seemed all she could hope for at this point. "If we let him go, he could tell the humans we mean them no harm and they'll leave us alone."

Farrian laughed so loud that another sleeping dragon nearby woke and turned to face the wall. "If we let it go, then when it's fully grown it will tell the silver humans about all the gold he saw as a wyrmling, and how dozens of dragons just let him leave. They'll think we're weak, and the next time we wake up, it will be to the sound of thousands of silver humans invading our mountain." Farrian once again brought their attention to his disfigured tail. "If anyone in this mountain knows humans, it's me! Who's to say they didn't send this little assassin in the night to kill us all?"

To Saphira's surprise, Balthazar didn't appear to share her amusement at Farrian's suggestion and said nothing but continued to observe the two. She worried that he may be siding with Farrian. The more he was silent, the more they felt the need to argue. All three dragons knew that whatever Balthazar decided would be the end of the discussion and the fate of the small human. The wyrmling was on trial and she was his only defender.

"You sound foolish, Farrian." She began. "You think this tiny unarmed wyrmling could vanquish a mountain full of dragons in its sleep? Is that how an assassin kills dragons?"

Farrian was so taken aback by her refusal to see reason, he began to fumble his words "It-... we-... I told you he could be a magic one! We don't know how magic humans fight! He could be speaking a spell right now! Look, he's muttering!" The tiny human's lips sputtered as he slept and some drool dropped onto Saphira's scales.

"Does he look like a wizard to you?" She guffawed. "Have you ever seen a wyrmling wizard? Where is his magic stick, Farrian? Where?"

"Humans are tricksters, Saphira! I thought the silver human was a piece of treasure. It disguised itself, and now look at me!" Again, they all took a look at his shortened tail.

"Even a thousand silver humans couldn't match this many of us. We're not all as feeble as you." She wasn't going to let him win. "You're the only one that cries: 'human!' every time a rock falls from the walls!"

This only served to infuriate him and flames encircled his fangs "Let's not pretend we don't know the real reason you're defending it... mother dragon."

"Careful with your next words or you'll have no tail left at all!" Saphira hissed letting them see the magnitude of flames igniting through the scales in her chest. Both dragons were steaming from their nostrils at this point, their talons fully flexed.

"That's enough." Balthazar finally interjected, like settling two children fighting. "In ten thousand years I've flown this earth one hundred times over. I've seen humanity survive and evolve greater than you can imagine. I've seen them send krakens and creatures one hundred times their size and strength to extinction. No matter how many villages or cities I've burned to the ground, another one emerges stronger than the last with weapons more deadly. And whilst we hibernate in our mountains for centuries, they're out there every day, growing in numbers. I have no doubt that man will live long after dragons become nothing more than a fairytale they tell their infants."

Balthazar turned to address Farrian, his cold stare indecipherable. "The infant is harmless." Farrian lowered his head embarrassed but failed to hide his frustration. He shot the wyrmling a murderous glance.

After a few moments, Balthazar turned to Saphira. She lowered her head too in preparation for the wyrmlings verdict. "But he does not belong here, Saphira. You know this." And she did, he was right. She dared to look into his eyes. She was sure she saw some sympathy.

"Find out how he got inside and make sure no human can get in again. Then, decide before the decision is no longer yours to make." He said impatiently before turning, and with one strong whumph of his wings, soared out of sight to his den leaving the two remaining dragons to decide.

Saphira and Farrian looked at each other dumbfounded by the abrupt dismissal of their elder dragon. Both of them felt some shame for the childish display in front of Balthazar but were equally confused that he left the decision to them. Over the years to come, Saphira watched Balthazar from afar and repeated his words in her head. She could only guess that he'd given up in the battle against humans and accepted a doomed fate for their kind. Who knows how she too would feel about her own mortality, should she live as long as him.

Saphira and Farrian sat in their own silence, unsure of what to say to each other. Saphira thought to apologise. Farrian was often the fool amongst the dragons in the mountain but she didn't need to rial him up so much. Before she could open her jaw, however, the tiny human began to stir. The two dragons snapped their attention to it and awaited its waking movements. It scrunched up its face and rolled onto its back before lifting itself to its feet. The two dragons watched. One in fear, the other in amazement.

The little thing rubbed its eyes as it took the dragons in, blinked a few times but feigned no surprise or any real reaction to them whatsoever.

The two dragons taller than the highest redwood, and fiercer than any monster to roam the earth, peered back down at the harmless hatchling in complete paralysis. A moment passed.

And then another.

Giants, awestruck by an ant. Ant, unperturbed by giants.

The tiny human opened its mouth, let out an emberless yawn, and stretched its minuscule arms out by its sides. Farrian braced for the worst as Saphira watched hypnotised by its every movement.

And then, as if it had completely forgotten their existence, the tiny human began to climb down the belly of the beast as if it had done so a thousand times before. It confidently grappled down the tail one tiny foot at a time on each of its jagged edges and playfully hopped down to the sea of gold and slid down to the rocky cave floor. Without so much as a glance back at them, they watched him skip across to a small opening in the cave wall and disappear.

Farrian watched for some time, making sure it didn't return, and when he was sure it wasn't going to come running back through the gap with a cutter, he picked the largest rock he could fit in his jaw and placed it where the wyrmling had vanished. He confidently nodded at his work and made his way back. As he passed Saphira, he paused as if to speak, but did not find the words, so continued on to his small pile of treasures. He closed his eyes to return to hibernation with the rest of the cave but after several moments, he lifted one eyelid and stared at the rock, checking discreetly that it was still where he placed it and tucked his remaining tail under his body should some human return.

Saphira however hadn't moved since the wyrmling woke up. She was still watching the opening where her new adopted hatchling had gone, and even when Farrian blocked her view with the rock, she still looked on as if it were no feat should the little human decide to come back. Why did it leave like that? Since she saw the thing on her belly, she fought for it as if she were its mother, and yet it got up and exited as soon as it woke up. The minuscule amount of time she felt her heart uplifted by it was just as quickly washed away with the pain of losing yet another wyrmling she could love. She pleaded with the wall to reproduce the tiny little human but it never did.

For the next decade and a half, Saphira tossed and turned in her sleep. Countless times she woke, being sure she felt the tiny patters of feet on her belly, or the faint snores of a human. Every couple of years she would wake and look straight at the wall where the little human disappeared to see if the rock had moved or if there were a human on her belly. Farrian would usually be fast asleep on his back, leg twitching every now and again like a dog. He too would wake and glance at the rock, but not nearly as frequently as Saphira. Often she dreamt of leaving hibernation early to find it, but she thought better of it every time. Instead, she hoped that the little human found its mother waiting on the other side of the mountain tunnel from whence he left and lived a long and peaceful life. As brief and as little interaction she had with the little human, Saphira mourned nonetheless. At least for one night, the little human had chosen her.

And then one night, 17 years after Farrian had first woken her to the human on her belly, the dragons in the mountain one by one roused from their sleep. There was thundering in the tunnels that lead to their cave in the mountain. Pounding drums and the cries of men sang louder and louder.