Wild Things

Vyriss soared. A steady updraft coming from the forested hillside below filled her tawny leather wings, allowing her to stay aloft with only minimal shifts of her muscles. She scanned the landscape, her sharp eyes following the movements of hundreds of animals from the bear and the stag to rabbits, snakes, and even mice. These lands were thriving. She would take pride in reporting their abundance at the next convocation. She was especially pleased that her territories remained unpolluted by the invasive species man with which many other caretakers were forced to contend. The warm air tendrils under her, and the soaking rays of the sun above made Vyriss grudgingly admit that it had been too long since she had just enjoyed flying. Between flying the dragonets to their elder lessons and getting the juveniles enough supervised flight time, she rarely flew alone these days. When she did, she was too often nose to the wind, wings in rhythmic beat, scales slicked back as she tried to push time the way she worked air. This was nice. This was exactly what she had needed. She would have to thank Kyrgyz, her mate, when she and Ygrinn returned home. He was right. She would have regretted not being here. A strange motion caught her eye near the tree line. She turned her sleek body in a ribbon toward the sight, and hovered for a moment, focusing. An eagle was flying low over the tree tops. Vyriss wondered why it was struggling, and readied herself to step into the situation, until she realized the eagle was carrying something in her talons. She chuckled low in her throat, maternal appreciation rising in her at the effort of this raptor to feed her young. The fish, or sea animal she carried was causing a significant strain, but still she labored toward her nest and her young. This Vyriss understood. The eagle landed heavily among the branches of a large tree, and the burden slipped from Vyriss’ sight. The forest was very dense here, she noted. She and Kyrgyz would have to talk about that. But not today. Not right now. She turned her long neck, scaled nostrils flaring slightly as she intentionally relaxed the muscles she had tensed when she thought the eagle was in distress. Below she could see her Ygrinn, last little wyrmm of her clutch, walking on his newly sprouted legs. It was a little early to know, but his clear natal scales seemed to be deepening into a blue. She hoped he would have his father’s cobalt coloring. Ygrinn tumbled about happily, periodically scratching a tree trunk, and spearing a grub with his tiny claws. Vyriss thought he may have been frightened, doing his First Walk alone; but he seemed to be having the time of his life. He knew that The Walk would end when he had killed, flamed, and consumed one of the warm blooded milk-sucking creatures of the forest. Ygrinn seemed to be in no hurry to catch his snack and end his Walk. Most wyrmms with their new legs, new claws, and new flame pouches, found a mouse to be enough of a challenge. Although, one of Vyriss’ first hatch had managed a squirrel on her First Walk. Vyriss smiled at the memory. Ygrinn was a unique one. It would be fun to see what he chose for this Walk. Vyriss twitched her wings and amber tail, gave a lazy flap, and shifted the trajectory of her sky spiral. She barrel rolled a few times to catch the sun on her soft, beige under belly, then opened her nostrils, and let out a satisfied stream of smoke. Tomorrow she would have to count the spring young, and tally how many could be harvested to keep the herds in balance. Tomorrow Somnaelna and Dekr would be taking their first solo flights, and the dragonets had an examination in the oral tradition. Tomorrow she would be nose to the wind again, but today. . . There was a strange shriek from the forest below, very near where the eagle had landed, and Vyriss’ spine, tail, and wings snapped taut. She swiveled her head as she realized Ygrinn was not where she expected him to be. Her jade eyes dilated as she focused through the trees. Where was he? Had she actually lost her youngest? . . . No, there he was. She folded her wings and legs flat against her amber body and lay her scales down tight, streaking down toward the tree line and that strange sound. Her sleek form cut through a gap in the tree canopy. The second she cleared the top branches, she threw open her scales, wings, and limbs to deaden her landing. Still, the entire hillside shook, and birds scattered as she made contact with the ground. She extended her head and neck into a space her body could not go, following the horrible noise. At the sight of her son, Vyriss bumped the back of her head, and stubbed a rear claw recoiling in surprise. Ygrinn was consistently and evenly flaming a large rat. Its warm blood was running from the tidy neck wound, and the hair was neatly melting under the steady stream of fire. There was a distant idea of pride at her youngest son’s impressive first walk, but it was drowned out by the revulsion she felt at what was clinging to Ygrinn. It was completely exposed. Its spongy flesh had neither hair nor scales nor shell for protection. All four segmented appendages were stubby things extending from an amorphous center mass and two of them were affixed to Ygrinn’s tail. It was small, fragile, disgusting, and emitting the terrible shriek that had first drawn Vyriss’ attention. As Vyriss watched, Ygrinn stopped flaming, with some sputters and a blast of hot smoke. After an uncomfortable hiccup, he drew a talon along the now crispy hide, and opened his snack. Vyriss expected her son to scoop the flesh and rich innards with his developing tongue. Instead, he speared a strip of flesh from each side of the spine, coiled himself back toward his tail, and offered the steaming meat to the creature. One appendage uncoiled from the tail, and Vyriss’ stomach lurched as she realized it terminated in some sort of tentacles which closed around the meat, pulling it from Ygrinn’s talon and placing it in what must have been its mouth. The sound stopped. Ygrinn swung his body back to his snack, extended his tongue, and consumed his ceremonial First Walk kill. Vyriss’ inner eyelids flicked as she considered. In a moment, muffled sounds came from Ygrinn. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Ygrinn. I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” Vyriss answered. It was a ridiculous thing to say to one’s offspring when a parasite is attached to his tail; yet it came from her mouth faster than her brain could catch it. Ygrinn swallowed, coughed a tiny flame, burped a black cloud, and spoke again. “It’s all alone. The rat was biting it, so I killed the rat. Can we keep it?” “You want the keep the rat?” Vyriss asked, stupidly. “Not the rat,” answered Ygrinn, with more patience than he normally exhibited. “Can we keep the man wyrmm?” She had known immediately what she was looking at, but she was surprised that Ygrinn knew what he had rescued. “No Ygrinn. We cannot keep the man offspring. And remember the milk-sucking animals do not have wyrmm” Ygrinn nodded, then coiled back around to examine the tiny being holding him. “It is all alone, with no one to care for it. It cannot hunt, or flame. If we leave it here, it will die.” “That is the way with the milk-sucking animals, Ygrinn. They are completely dependent on their mothers. If this one has been abandoned, there is a reason. We cannot keep it.” “But mother!” Ygrinn pleaded with voice and eyes, “How could it have been abandoned here on purpose? Where would it have come from?” Vyriss closed her eyes and nostrils. It was the exact question she had been trying very hard not to answer. There were no men in her territory. There were no men for almost a days flight, and the packs of men moved far slower than she could fly. Yet here was a man spawn with no men nearby. And no sign of men nearby. Where had it come from was indeed the question. Vyriss gently lifted her head to look through the branches of the trees above them. Sure enough, there was a large eagle nest, with a dead eagle in it. Vyriss’ eyes covered every inch of the bird’s carcass, until she noticed the tip of a small shaft extending beyond the exposed wing. She had only heard of these, never seen one, but she was confident this was the weapon the man tribes had begun shooting from leather strung between bent wood frames. None of this made any sense. Vyriss did the only thing she knew to do when faced with a question she could not answer. She was silent. More words would not bring answers. She needed more information and she needed to get home for supper. Ignoring Ygrinn’s protests, Vyriss leaned forward, and used her front teeth to gently grasp her wyrmm by the ridge that ran along his spine. He grudgingly swiped up the rat’s head, as proof of his success, before settling into his mother’s transportation. As she lifted him up, and began to maneuver through the tight trees to deposit her son on her back, she did not notice the tiny, naked man child was clinging tenaciously to Ygrinn’s tail. All four spongy limbs were quivering with effort, and its flat face was deformed as it pressed against the scaled muscle. Ygrinn curled his tail gently to support and protect the delicate thing, hiding it from her view as she lowered her son, and his new pet, onto the triangle between her wings. Ygrinn wrapped himself into a protective cocoon around the cub, which puddled into the space made for it, and closed its eyes. Completely unaware, Vyriss snaked her way out of the tight trees. From a low flight, she grabbed a bear, a stag, and two sheep for supper, then launched into the deep blue sky. It was an interesting family gathering to celebrate Ygrinn’s First Walk. The older siblings were tremendously impressed with the charred rat skull and spine. Vyriss had wondered if Somnaelna would be upset at her squirrel being displaced in bragging rights, but she was the proudest. Vyriss was delighted to see Somnaelna and Ygrinn talking together, excitedly, snout to snout as the family worked together to ready the traditional feast. It was the final First Walk feast their family would ever prepare, and Vyriss wondered why she hadn’t thought the others so small and vulnerable at their feasts. Kyrgyz entered their spacious lair, with the now dead animals in his grasp. Vyriss joined him and they fell in to the well practiced rhythm of working together. “So, he bagged a rat, did he?” asked Kyrgyz, not making any effort to hide the pride in his voice. “Always surprising us, that one.” Vyriss smiled, and nodded, before saying “Things are getting overgrown in spots. We’ll need to get in and burn out parts of that hillside. I couldn’t get my girth into the space Ygrinn ended up.” Kyrgyz thought for a moment, then responded with “What do you think about having Dekr do that one?” “If you think he’s ready, I think it’s the perfect first project for him.” “It’s just like his flying. He’s been ready to go solo for moons, he just doesn’t believe he’s ready.” Vyriss chuckled, “If only Somnaelna could pass on a portion of her confidence.” “In exchange for some of his skill,” responded Kyrgyz and the couple laughed together, their wing edges lightly resting together. Vyriss turned serious. “There was a man spawn in the forest today.” Kyrgyz turned to look at her in concern. “How many?” “Just one, and it was tiny. I have no idea where it came from.” They shared in puzzlement, and Kyrgyz asked “Could another animal have carried it in?” Vyriss told him about the eagle, and concluded with, “It must have been injured already, but what would make it carry a man child that far, while injured? I did a full circle of the territory on the way home, and there isn’t any sign of man for more than a summer’s sunset flight in any direction. I don’t think we’re looking at an infestation, but I am puzzled.” Kyrgyz agreed that they would need to be watching the perimeter more closely. When the carcasses were laid, and the drink basins filled, every member of the family acknowledged Ygrinn’s First Walk in the traditional way. Ygrinn gave his acknowledgments that now he was a walking wyrmm, eager for his wings to bud so he could be a dragonet and learn the breath of the elders. The dragonets then gave the ceremonial reply. Somnaelna and Dekr smiled fondly as they remembered giving the same reply to the now dragonets. Finally, Vyriss and Kyrgyz delivered their blessing, and breathed their smoke over their growing son. The second the smoke cleared, Ygrinn’s snout clamped down around one of the biggest, juiciest pieces of the animal carcasses laid out in the center of the trough. He had killed, flamed and consumed. He could now eat at the family dinner, instead of sitting between his mother’s wings, eating what scraps and small pieces were passed up to him by the family. He had earned his first bite, and everyone roared their approval as he took it. The ceremony was now complete, and the family settled into regular supper conversations and behavior. Ygrinn was delighted, grinning up at the family from his new position. His siblings fell to their meal in the true dragon way, making room for the newest, smallest member of the family when they remembered him. The collection of animal carcasses had been split and laid out in the center of the family meal trough. Each dragon snapped up a portion of the carcass of their choice, snapping bone, and flesh with their powerful teeth and jaws, then dragging their portion into the personal indentations before them. Here, they would flame and season their own food to their own taste, then devour it. Vyriss and Kyrgyz selected several portions from the carcasses available, which left the dragonets and Ygrinn smaller selections more suited to their size and strength. Somnaelna and Dekr could crack a deer spine on their own, and each managed to so. Tails swung as jaws clamped down. Soft under scales whispered as bodies slid too and from the trough. Flames of various color and consistency shot out. And everyone still managed to talk. It was everything Vyriss loved about family meal time. The moon outside their lair slowly waxed away as they ate, and Vyriss was absolutely content with the moment. Until the screaming began. There, in all the motion of the meal, the small fragile man spawn had appeared, near Somnaelna. Vyriss realized it was walking in the man way, on only half its limbs. It held a piece of the pig flesh in its upper tentacled limb, and had been sucking the juices from it. No, was it chewing? Where those stubby little pearl things teeth? Regardless, it was now bleeding from a gash in its arm. Someone’s tail had caught its unprotected flesh and ripped it open. Somnaelna scooped the little thing up in her tail, as Ygrinn went for the medicinal plants they would use on an infected claw. Until this moment, Vyriss had considered her final hatchling small and vulnerable; but this fragile creature, all exposed flesh and dependence, made her Ygrinn look the apex predator he would eventually become. Kyrgyz watched this in concern, then cleared his throat, and intentionally softened his facial expression before he began to speak. Still, the words reverberated through the cave walls in the same way his lullaby had when they were all hatchlings. All the jeweled immature dragon eyes were on their father. The flat nut colored face of the man cub looked his way as well. “Ygrinn, until today, you were not permitted to join the family at the meal trough. Why was that?” Ygrinn swallowed, and looked at the floor as he answered. “I had not shown I was capable.” “And what would have happened to you, if we had let you come, limbless, and flameless?” “I could have been injured.” Kyrgyz now turned his topaz gaze on his oldest, and asked, “Why would you place a creature smaller, and less protected than even a hatchling in a position we would not have placed Ygrinn a week ago?” Somnaelna had no answer, but Ygrinn pushed his small, unwinged body close to hers, and faced his father. “It was me, Father. I brought the man cub.” “You? But how. . .” Kyrgyz turned to his mate, and asked, “This is the man cub from your territory?” Vyriss nodded, in shock. A series of complicated emotions swept across Kyrgyz’s face, which Vyriss felt echoed in her own mind. “Always surprising us, indeed,” she thought, as she looked at her earnest little wyrmm, bravely standing beside, and defending, his oldest sibling, and his smuggled pet. Kyrgyz swept his gaze around his gathered children, and sighed a blast of grey smoke from his nostrils. He backed away from the meal, and sat back on his haunches. His cobalt scales shimmered. His claws retracted into his forepaws, and his tone shifted once more. “Children, what is our role in this world?” Everyone in the cavern responded to the familiar question instantly, and in rote. “Dragons are the keepers and the guardians of all we see.” “But why?” Kyrgyz asked. Again, the answer came in unison. “We are the oldest, the strongest, and the wisest of the egg laying creatures.” Kyrgyz nodded, then looked at the poor blob snuffling in Somnaelna’s tail. “The milk sucking creatures are not like us. You know this. They are parasites. They grow within their mother, feeding on her until they get so large she must force them out. Even then, they continue to feed on her until she has another feeding within. These are not honorable creatures like we are. But we are still called to care for them. We protect them, and manage their populations. We cultivate the plants some of them eat, even though the plants serve no purpose for us. We help them find shelter in bad weather, and stop the wild fires after lightning and burn things properly when needed, and so many other things they need for their health and safety. It’s one of the ways we show we are the wisest of the creatures.” Ever so slowly, Kyrgyz reached out a deep blue forepaw, claws safely retracted, and plucked the tiny man child from Somnaelna’s tail nest. It sat in the center of the enormous pad, and trembled. “Is it caring to bring this milk sucking, parasitic offspring with no scales, no fur, no shell, no claws, into our home? Is this a dragonish choice?” Large blue tears dropped out of Ygrinn’s eyes, as he faced his father. “No father. It was not the honorable or wise choice. I just thought it would be nice to have a pet. And it looked so lonely, there in the forest, being attacked by a rat. And I didn’t know where it had come from, so. . . So I wanted to keep it.” Kyrgyz’s face softened as he lowered his snout near his youngest son’s. “You got a better first walk than most wyrmms, my son. You proved yourself capable to share the table, and you are learning what it is to think like a caretaker. Where do wild things belong?” Ygrinn smiled at his father, then his face turned serious. As his eye ridges turned down, Vyriss realized how very much like his father he would one day look. The wyrmm answered, “Wild things belong in wild places, but where is this one’s place? There was no man herd near by.” Somnaelna jumped in at this point. “So we have been careless in how we cared for the creature, but caring for it is certainly our responsibility. And Ygrinn says it had no herd anywhere near by. If it has no herd, isn’t it our dragon responsibility to care for it? How shall we care for it responsibly?” Vyriss and Kyrgyz exchanged glances with one another. It was one thing to meet the hairless thing in a forest. It was another altogether to have it in their home. Kyrgyz sighed, and grey blue smoke filled the lair for a moment. The man cub coughed. “We cannot care for a man spawn!” Vyriss exclaimed, at the same time as Kyrgyz said “You may keep it until we have rested. We will discuss this further when we rise from our slumber.” Somnaelna and Ygrin cheered, one of the dragonets shuddered, and Vyriss clamped her jaw tight in frustration. Ygrinn and Somnaelna puzzled through the complications of caring for a creature so delicate their scales left angry red scratches on its exposed flesh. “But some of these were there even when I found him, uh, her, uh. . .” Ygrinn’s chatter with his big sister faltered and the two of them looked at each other. “I don’t know how to tell either,” Somnaelna said gently, and her brother relaxed a little. “How does it drink?” asked Somnaelna a few minutes later, as they looked for a drinking vessel small enough for it. “It doesn’t have a proper tongue, and it doesn’t have a snout. How does it drink without drowning?” “I told you this was a bad idea!” came Vyriss’ reply. “We are not equipped to care for a man spawn.” After that, Ygrin and Somnaelna kept their thoughts more to themselves. As the night wore on, Vyriss noted them giving a quiet talon bump of celebration as their pet lifted some sort of oyster shell they had found and poured liquid into its mouth that way. Vyriss shuttered. Everything it did was so unnatural. This could not be a long-term arrangement. “This cannot be a long-term arrangement,” Kyrgyz muttered to her at some point while they were supposed to be asleep, but were awakened yet again by the terrible cries of the small beast. Even her smug sense of justification didn’t improve the situation. It was a ragged brood of dragons that rose from their nests when the time came. Somnaelna and Ygrinn had been most active in feeding the small thing that seemed to need sustenance so often, and rescuing it from its wanderings around the lair as the family tried to rest. They certainly looked the worst, but the entire family, and indeed their new man shaped pet, were all looking dull and sluggish. “It seems to live on a solar cycle instead of a lunar one,” Somnaelna remarked, behind a yawn, “And it’s hungry so often.” “It doesn’t seem healthy,” Ygrinn said, watching the cub. “How would we get it some of the milk they drink from the females?” “They also need plants,” Vyriss added. Somnaelna rolled her jade eyes, and responded, “We knew that part, mother. We gave it piles of grass. It just made a nest out of it. It hasn’t eaten a bite.” Kyrgyz slipped through the lair entrance, scales shimmering from their sand scouring. His eyes were heavy from needed sleep, but his sleek movements were as sharp as always. “Somnaelna, Ygrinn, now what do you think is the honorable thing to do? Are you caring well, for the man cub? Is he suited to our dragon ways?” Krygyz sat on his haunches, waiting for his children to respond. “Well, we haven’t had time to learn enough, father,” Somnaelna began. Ygrinn cut her off. “It is suffering. Its skin is scratched and purple. It whimpers, even when we feed it, now. It needs something we can’t give it.” Somnaelna sighed a frustrated blue grey blast of smoke, then gently nuzzled her little brother’s head for a moment. “He’s right, of course. If we keep it, it will die.” Kyrgyz nodded his approval, and his eyes softened in pride. “We have a great deal to accomplish today, but I will speak to the others and learn of the closest man herd. When the dragonets have been taken to their elder lesson, Somnaelna and Dekr will be doing their first solo flight. I think it fitting that Somnaelna carry her brother and his First Walk experiment for that flight.” Ygrinn’s eyes lit up, Somnaelna folded and unfolded her wings in pride, before stretching one of them over her youngest brother and his pet. The day was busy, but Vyriss returned to lair in time to watch the setting off. Ygrinn had settled himself on the ground, and wrapped first his tail, then his body, around the weak and whimpering man cub. Somnaelna gently nuzzled her brother’s back ridge, until she had a firm grasp, and lifted them easily. Tears sprang to Vyriss’ eyes as she watched her oldest child settle an almost dragonet wyrmm into that maternal triangle between her wings. Ygrinn settled comfortably just as he was so used to doing with his mother. After Dekr launched uncertainly from their lair ledge, and Kyrgyz followed at the ceremonial distance, Somnaelna turned, and caught her mother’s eye. Vyriss nodded her permission, and the young dragoness pushed her silvery green legs against the stiff ledge. Despite the extra weight, her wings flapped confidently, and soon she was far enough in the distance for Vyriss to follow. Vyriss glided through air, eyes on her hatchlings, careful not to gain on them. Somnaelna faltered slightly as she banked east, and Vyriss’ heart jumped to her throat, but the bundle between Somnaelna’s wings didn’t even shift, and soon they were soaring along the sea coast. The cool, salty breezes dusted Vyriss’ chest, and gave a pleasant tang in her nostrils, but her sharp eyes never left the trio of adventurers. As the coast curled out and rose up to meet them, Vyriss began to smell man. Burning wood, tanned leather, and crudely heated metals combined in a smell unique to all the species in dragon care. Her eyes watered, and she released a cleansing burst of steam through her nostrils. She could see Somnaelna doing the same while circling the human herd. The humans below had just realized what was circling above them. Vyriss had not had the opportunity to observe a man pack before. She pushed past her revulsion at their bi-pedal stance, and the dishonorable way they wore the skins of other milk-sucking creatures. She focused instead on how they moved together for protection, like prey. Most of the herd was rushing to perceived shelter of the tree line, but a handful were lined up pointing their shaft weapons toward the circling Somnaelna. The young dragon had trimmed her wings, and was aiming for as gentle a landing as she could master in new territory, surrounded by anxious wildlife. The man pack watched cautiously. Somnaelna lowered incrementally. Vyriss held her breath. Eventually the sleek silver green dragon managed to alight upon a smooth outcropping of stone between the pack of defensive men, and the ocean. Somnaelna curled herself into a defensive coil, and folded her wings. Ygrinn was now visible, and the man pack reacted visibly. Half of them stepped back in surprise, while the other half stepped forward either to defend, or discover — Vyriss could not tell which. True chaos ensued when Ygrinn uncoiled himself, and used his slender wyrmm tail to gently lower the whimpering, struggling, man spawn onto the sand as close to the feet of the closest man buck as he could reach. The entire pack responded in panic, unleashing their wooden quills against Ygrinn and Somnaelna’s scales, yelling unintelligibly, and rushing forward. The little bundle was almost trampled, before they realized what had been laid at their feet. As Ygrinn recoiled into his sister, and Somnaelna unfurled her wings in preparation for launch, one of the men reached forward, and lifted the tiny thing from the beach. Somnaelna stepped off the outcropping, and reached out for the ocean breeze. Her belly skimmed the waves for a moment before she shot into the air. The man pack watched them fly away, then turned back to the small creature they had left behind. Somnaelna and Vyriss flew together in companionable silence on the return trip. Ygrinn slept between his sister’s wings. Vyriss watched his side rise and fall, and realized that she could see the line where his wings would eventually bud. Her baby was growing up. Her oldest were flying solo. She turned back to see the narrow smudge of man-fire smoke rising from the coast point. She couldn’t escape the feeling that everything would soon be different. Somnaelna’s silver green scales caught the sun, and Vyriss turned to her daughter. Today she had this. Today this was enough.