What We Find in The Woods

I am awaken by a tapping on my snout. An insentient peaking of some inferior creature who either has not a clue whom they are dealing with or is so simple they could not careless that I could roast them alive with only my breath.

Very slowly my eyes roll open, blinded by the beams of golden light piercing through the leaves. When I selected this spot in the dark of night, there had seemed like ample coverage to avoid this, but it seemed I was desperately mistaken. If only my left wing had not been damaged in the fight I would have been able to fly home and be sleeping in the dens completely undisturbed.

I should have been able to fly home. The small farming village should have been abandoned or populated by a few lowly elderly farmers who’d never even seen a sword. Instead, I was greeted by a handful of trained soldiers who were determined to protect one of the last food sources they had.

Yes, we knew it would be a possibility that there might be a couple soldiers there seeing as it was one of the last, but this was the smallest and least influential of the outcroppings that we had left to burn. We assumed they would send their resources to the other locations, leaving this one unprotected, hence why I went on my own. Of course, being a seasoned veteran myself, I easily dispatched them and the farmlands, but not before one human with a lucky arm threw a heavy-weighted spear that caught the outer lining of my wing, ripping a tear long enough to effect flight. It would heal, but it needed time to do so. Hence my long walk home and being unceremoniously woken in the middle of the woods.

My eyes finally blink away their sleepy haze only to find a tiny mortal standing in front of me. It isn't even full grown, nothing more than a child and by the looks of it is barely old enough to be supporting itself upright. It taps my snout again and I snort softly in hopes to frighten it away but only squeals with excitement and joy that I have finally responded to it's touch and taps again. When I refuse to react, the child's face falls with it's bottom lip sticking out before she does it again.

I wearily eye the woods around us. There must be more humans. Something this small and fragile would not be left alone, especially not after we destroyed the last farms and food sources they had just the night before. They would be desperate. And desperate humans do very foolish things. If several humans were to spring on me in such close quarters, the odds would not be in my favor, even more so with a damaged wing.

But the woods sat quiet around us other than a few morning birds and squirrels chasing one another. How had this child ended up in the woods, deeply so, by itself? How had it not been devoured by some less forgiving animal?

To regain my attention, the child has taken to pounding with it's tiny fist which feels like nothing more than the tapping it had been doing before. But there is an urgency in it's motion, so I reluctantly bring my eyes back to it. It smiles and proceeds with the gentler tapping.

It has long hair that is matted with leaves and twigs. It's clothing might have once been clean, but now carries a thick layer of muck; it is a combination of mud and it's own waste. This child did not just simply wander off from it's parents. It had been abandoned or lost for so long that no one was coming for it because no one would still believe that it was alive.

I stretch out my limbs, scales clicking against one another and along trees. If it's own parents did not care to keep it, neither do it.

I'm half way to standing when I realize the child is watching me. Waiting for me.

I bare my teeth and let out a low growl, nothing too menacing or deep but loud enough to send a flock of birds to flight from the nearest tree.

The child squeals with laughter before showing her own teeth and reciprocating the growl. Though it's is hardly enough to scare a mouse. It even says the word "roar" as it does it. If it wasn't so sad, it might be adorable.

I am not one to eat humans, the blood has a bitter taste, but I am also not about to bring this thing home as a pet.

I take a deep breath, the fire spark igniting in my belly. Spreading my wings as far as I dare, I stand to almost full height as smoke rolls from my nostrils.

But the child does not cower.

Instead it matches me. It straightens itself, barely coming above my ankles. It tips it's head back to look up at me with now glowing red eyes and a thin trail of smoke begins to trail from her gapped mouth and nose.

This is why the child was left in the woods.

Some foolish human dappled in dark magic in hopes to probably create a weapon. What they did not know, was that they had most certainly succeeded. If they weren't terrified of the power that this child possessed, if they took the time to train it and raise it to maturity, it could have been the turning point in the war.

Instead, they turned it away most likely after one or too many fires.

I stood down first, lowering myself back to her level and temping the fire brewing in my belly. It's eyes dimmed first before it coughed, a tiny fire ball escaping it's lips before the smoke finally dissipated.

I slowly moved my front right foot forward, talons dragging through the dirt and pine needles and stopped just before it's feet. I nodded toward my foot.

It kept it's eyes on my own for what felt like an eternity before it's eyes slide down to the talons and back up to my gaze.

I nodded again, letting it know it was ok.

The child burst into a huge smile, it's face completely transformed before it climbed up on me and sat down, legs straddling a toe.

Carefully, I raised my foot until it was parallel with the base of my head and slid the child onto my neck. It weighed nothing and I wasn't entirely sure if the child was still there until I felt the tiniest of tapping and a small "yah!"

The others would not be pleased, at first, that I brought a human to the den let alone a child. But once they knew what it could do, they would know we have finally, officially won the war.