《A head full of dragons (anthology)》


 Who Wants to be a Dragon?

    The crowd loudly gathered in front of the large building, waiting for the great door to be opened. Beyond it, there were three dragons, about to meet them one by one for an audition for something that used to be possible only in daydreams: turning into one of them.


    Only one month before, after centuries of hiding themselves, dragons had revealed their existence. In front of a shocked audience, three of them, the same now standing behind the door, told their story: long time ago, when their kind was persecuted, they hibernated for centuries to come, in the depths of the planet, waiting for the mankind to become less aggressive and more understanding of the world they inhabited. "But now we decided times are mature, and we want to help you re-building our beautiful world," announced Galdevan, a golden male dragon, talking to dozens of TV cameras in an European national park; surprisingly, he could speak in perfect English, albeit sometimes some archaic words escaped from his mouth. Then, he announced something even more spectacular.


    "Still, we are too few in numbers to have good chances to make a living again, and that''s another reason for our returning. We are looking for humans to join and become one of us."


    "What do you mean?" asked the journalists as one.


    "I''ll show you." After looking around the grass for a while, he caught a mouse under his forepaw. Galdevan, holding the tiny creature, looked at it intensely, and after a while the mouse began changing shape, becoming larger. The reporters took photos with the fury of a buffalo herd as a small, gray dragon appeared where previously there was a mouse.


    "I want to alert you," continued Galdevan in a harsher voice, "we are looking for people whose desire is strong and motivated. Becoming another being means forgetting all you have learned in your first years of life, and then learning them again; it means completely leaving your old lives behind, including your dearest loved ones. Think about it very carefully. We''ll begin recruiting people starting from tomorrow."


    One month had passed since then, and the three dragons had found some suitable people, but it would be a long time before they¡¯d get a sufficient number to repopulate the planet again. Now, they lay on the floor of a big audience room, waiting for the first candidate to come in.


    After some minutes a young man entered. Galdevan instantly noticed the t-shirt he wore, with a green cartoon dragon in it. Not a good sign.


    "Welcome," the dragon greeted the newcomer, "what''s your name?"


    "J...James. James Campbell." His face showed high excitement and Galdevan could smell some sweat from nervousness.


    "I am Galdevan. These are Veldavel and Shen." He pointed at the two females beside him.


    Shen, who was silver-scaled, was the next to talk. "So, what is your motivation to become one of us?"


    The young man seemed to hardly find the words, and in the end he talked in a trembling, yet high, voice.


    "I...I love dragons. I''ve been loving them for all my life. Seeing you live in TV one month ago was a dream come true, and when you said about you looking for people to become...well, I felt in heaven. It would be the best thing in my life."


    Galdevan showed no expression, but mentally he had already understood the kind of person they were interviewing, and it was unlikely to be who they were looking for.


    "If you were elected," Veldavel asked, "you would be forced to leave your house, your family and your job, and never come back to human society again. Do you feel ready for it?"


    "Well...yes." His tone had become less excited and his eyebrows had raised up their angles. He hadn''t thought about it enough.


    "Moreover, your life would be subjected to nature. You would need to hunt for eating, have to fly great distances to do it. Living in nature is harsh. Do you understand?"


    "Y...yes...yes of course..." he was blabbing. No, thought Galdevan, this is not a good candidate. He loves only our appearance, but he has never reflected on what being a dragon is. They had met a lot of humans like him; after centuries of conflicts and persecution it was still an amazing improvement, but they were looking for someone who could - and want - to understand them in depth.


    After some seconds of silence, Galdevan understood none of them had questions to ask. "Well, I think it''s enough. Thank you, James. We need your address in order to trace you in case you''re selected."


    The second candidate was a woman in her thirties. Luckily, she wore no weird clothes. The three dragons introduced themselves again; the woman introduced herself as Theresa Brown and when she was asked why she desired to become a dragon she seemed determined.


    "Because I want to help the others, those who suffer for injustices."


    "And how would you?" Shen asked.


    "With my dragon powers," the candidate answered, fiercely. "This world is rotten and corrupted. You have come back to improve it, and my desire is to help you."


    "Well," Galdevan said, "we would have come back sooner or later, when we would feel we''d be safe again...but are you saying you want to intervene in all the issues of the world?"


    "Sort of. We must re-build our world, you said so."


    "We did. On the other hand, I didn''t mean acting like a hero all the time. If we did, we''d risk to cause some incidents, and be persecuted again. You see, we are strong creatures; it takes years to learn how to control dragon strength. One could say our strength has been a curse."


    "When we talked about re-building our world," Veldavel continued, "we meant helping you understanding the world we live in. We saw you''ve become sorry for damaging it, and that''s good, but without guidance, you may take even worse decisions while trying to fix those damages. It''s not scorn," she added, "we''re sure you men have a lot to teach us, too. That is also why we''re looking for men to join us. To collaborate, we need to know each other, but we can''t visit your towns too often."


    Theresa nodded. For what Galdevan could see in her eyes, there was a little disappointment.


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    "Do you still wish to become one of us?" demanded Shen.


    "Well...yes, if this can make the world better."


    "And are you aware that living as a dragon has far less commodities than living as a human, and that you would have to leave all the ones you love?"


    "Oh..." she suddenly turned uncertain. "No one?"


    "No one," she confirmed. "Is there anyone your heart is bonded to?"


    "Actually...actually there is one."


    "Whoever this is, did he...or she...apply for being a dragon too?"


    "Yes."


    "What''s their name?"


    Theresa told them the name.


    "We haven''t met him yet," Veldavel announced, "if we think he''s a good candidate, you two could join us together. What about everything else, though? Would you be comfortable about leaving your previous life behind?"


    "I think so...I know first time would be harsh, but you would help me, wouldn''t you?"


    "Of course we would. Nobody will be left alone after such a great change," Galdevan smiled. "Well, I think your motivation is quite good, although it came from a little misunderstanding, and we''re glad to see you''re not scared about leaving human society. Unless you''re now having second choices."


    "I¡¯m not. I have few contacts with my family. They''re so retrograde. They were training me to be a housewife and nothing else...I couldn''t stand it. My love has helped me leaving them out. He always encouraged me to continue my studies and being independent. I owe him what I am today."


    "That explains a lot," he commented. In fact, many candidates came from dysfunctional families. Maybe, he thought, after being prevented from fulfilling themselves as humans, they wanted to fulfill themselves as dragons? Whatever was the reason, choosing such people could lead to bad, even evil, consequences. "Anyway, we understood it''s important for you to have him beside you, so it''s crucial for you two to be both good enough. Tell us your address so that we can contact you in case you can join us."


    One hour later, after several disappointing candidates, they interviewed her boyfriend, but his attitude wasn¡¯t strong enough; that meant no possibility for that woman to join them. Now it was the turn of a black-haired man in his mid-forties.


    "Nice to meet you. My name is Sean Walker."


    "I am Galdevan. These are Shen and Veldavel. Please, tell your motivation for becoming one of us."


    ¡°Before that, there''s something I must alert you about."


    "Tell us."


    "Our government is planning a national park where to confine you," explained the man. "You wouldn''t be allowed to leave it. Also, it''s completely covered with forests. That environment is not suited for you, but they seem not to care."


    Galdevan was surprised. "How do you know about our needs?"


    "I''m a dragonologist. My occupation had been looking for your traces until last month."


    "Had you found any previously?" Shen asked.


    "Some. It was nearly impossible, but I managed to. I could get some information about you, for example your habitat, and I know in a forest you¡¯d have a harsh time hunting due to your size; or worse, you may accidentally burn everything."


    The three dragons became sincerely interested: had they never encountered a man like that. ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± commented Galdevan. ¡°Do you mind if we interrogate you about some other facts about us, just to be sure?¡±


    ¡°No problem.¡±


    After some more questions, the three dragons agreed that the man had an exceptional knowledge of dragons: from dietary habits, to their behavior, and much more.


    ¡°Impressive. Absolutely impressive,¡± Shen said. ¡°Apart from some forgivable mistakes, you seem to know dragons very well. Your skills must be very high if you could figure all of this out only from traces.¡±


    ¡°Now, tell us about what your government is planning, please,¡± Galdevan asked.


    ¡°Since you came out last month,¡± the man began, ¡°the world has gone crazy, both in good and bad terms. The problem is, usually the bad terms are stronger, especially when it comes to creatures as big and powerful as you. A lot of people are sure your true intention is prevaricating over our society and exterminate us all. What¡¯s worse, many among them are in governments. Here, in order to find a compromise with those that instead support you, they decided the best thing is to isolate you completely, in selected wildlife sanctuaries. All full of forests. Without asking for your opinion.¡±


    The three dragons looked at each other, worried.


    ¡°No one told us¡­¡± trembled Galdevan.


    Shen turned suddenly to the man. ¡°What do you suggest to do?¡±


    ¡°I have tried to earn some funds to stare an association for the improvement of human-dragon relationships. For now, I have succeeded in finding a quite large group of men to discuss this decision with the government; but we need you, the dragons.¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s how you say it is, we¡¯ll come immediately when we¡¯re done here,¡± Galdevan announced.


    ¡°But did you come here only for alerting us?¡± asked Veldavel. ¡°Or do you really want to become a dragon?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve thought about it a lot. I asked myself if I was able to sacrifice my human nature for your cause. Yes, human society isn¡¯t very appealing to me, but wouldn¡¯t I miss reading, listening to music, drink wine and so on, I kept thinking? But in the end I told myself I knew the truth. The most important thing for me are dragons. And if they need help, I am ready. It will be harsh, I know it, but I assure you, I¡¯ll do my best to find my new mental balance as a dragon.¡±


    ¡°Well, we got pleasant activities, too,¡± Galdevan said, ¡°we love to narrate stories and play, even when we become adults. Most of all, flying is the greatest pleasure of all. I myself love to travel. Anyway, does your family know of your choice?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve already informed them. They were expecting me to do this, although they have never had a high opinion of my job, even after you have revealed yourselves.¡±


    ¡°So your family won¡¯t be a big problem. What about your association? Will it stand up?¡±


    ¡°In the association, there will be dragon and human members. This is the only way to make it work. Listen, I can understand why you prefer to remain separated, and you¡¯re absolutely right; but simply ignoring human society is something that would lead to incomprehension and bad decisions, like the one the government in this country is doing. We should at least meet together once in a while to take the best ways for both of our species, and to support the men that will have become dragons.¡±


    Galdevan, Veldavel and Shen stayed silent for a long time. Eventually, the first one said: ¡°I must admit you¡¯re right. We¡¯ll soon join your group. As for you, thank you kindly for informing us. You¡¯re the best candidate we¡¯ve had since we¡¯ve started and you¡¯ll join us for sure. Just don¡¯t tell the other candidates, for now.¡±


    Sean was looking at the sun going down behind the mountains. In front of his yellow eyes was a beautiful scene of dragons flying freely among the peaks. He spread his new wings and joined them, not actually Sean anymore, but Seanork, the turquoise dragon. The transformation happened only yesterday; it was very painful, and he felt like he wanted to die, but then, all ceased and the pain became a strange sensation, the sensation of being in a completely different body. When everyone transformed, Galdevan, Veldavel and Shen showed them how to move their paws and wings, and Sean immediately felt confident. In few hours, all the men who had turned into dragons learned to do the basic movements. Still, they had to learn how to hunt and all the rest, but they were not alone.


    The days before that, he had taken care of protecting the dragons. After the interview, together with the three dragons and his association, he had managed to discuss with the government their infamous plan. Without Galdevan, Veldavel and Shen, it would have been impossible. Too many economic and political interests were behind, from businessmen wanting to confine dragons to expose them to the public like animals in a zoo, to demagogues constantly in search of easy approvals by the people. But when the three dragons appeared, their arrogance had disappeared, even though the trio had been gentle as always. The result had been this: the dragons would not be subjected to local governments, but at the same time the association started by Sean became international, and managed by both species in order to promote and develop friendship between humans and dragons. So it had ended in the best way possible.


    Tomorrow there would be the first international meeting of the association, organized among those mountains, and Seanork would be the ambassador of the dracomos (so the men turned into dragons were now called); Galdevan would represent pure dragons, and a close friend of Seanork humans. That meeting would sign the beginning of a world of peace. For now, the turquoise dracomo enjoyed the air around his body while flying, thankful for his new life.

 The Dragon Dance (a letter)

    <div>


    My dear friend,


    I write first and foremost to inform you that my journey through the dragon lands has been without any fatal accidents, or events that could cause me any permanent physical damage. That does not mean I never risked my flesh, though. The age of knights may have ended millennia ago, but some scars between our species and theirs are still hard to heal, so meeting dragons is a hazard. Still, some are more disposable towards humans, and I managed to talk with a handful of them who learned our language. I have tried to say some words in their tongue, but I¡¯m afraid our mouths are incompatible with the hisses and deep growls that are typical of their words. I must say, dragons can be really chatty, once (if) you conquer their trust: they have shared with me tons of notions about their life and culture, which I will be glad to sum up in a book, because one hundred letters would not give them justice.


    But there is one fact about this land that I urgently need to share. It is something I experienced directly; not through the voices of those dragons, for I have a granitic sensation that dragons would never share this with us, but with my very own eyes. I tell you, my friend, that I may have assisted at the most sacred, and secret, dragon usance, and watching it lead me to this hypothesis: we humans know much less about the world we live in than we thought.


    I remember some people pleading me to stay away from the big valleys where dragons come all together, and I took care of their advice, since the sudden appearance of a human there could mean an act of aggression. But some gave me additional alerts about traveling there the night before spring equinox. When I asked for more explanations, their eyes revealed too much confusion ¨C or was it fear? Ah, I¡¯ll tell you that it could have been anything - to even talk about it. Whatever the reason was, it was clear that in such a long journey, I could do very little for not being too close.


    Therefore for my whole journey, I made myself sure of keeping track of the days. I spent the whole day before spring equinox finding a safe refuge, and luck assisted me in the best way possible: I found a rock formation where not only could I easily set up my tent, but I could also see one of the dragon valleys through my binoculars, distant enough to be perfectly safe. I could discover what dragons do in this moment of the year without risking my body.


    When the twilight of spring equinox arrived, my binoculars saw nothing interesting at first. The valley was peaceful, except for the occasional dragon landing and then going away. It was a nice panorama to admire, I must say, but it was hard to me to see any danger. My first thought was that the designed valley occupied by dragons was another one. Then at night I was ready to retire in my tent, when suddenly, as my head was about to lie on my sleeping bag, earth trembled below me. I became filled with adrenaline and panic, so I rushed out of my tent, preparing to escape from an earthquake, when I realized the tremors didn''t come from the earth. As I searched for my binoculars in my tent, from the valley came a sound, a sound that no human mind has ever conceived. I may attempt to describe it as a pack of howling wolves, but this was far more powerful and devastating. It was like hundreds of mouths emitting the loudest and most primitive ensemble ever made ¨C hundreds of raw voices, some high pitched, some low, all joining together in an infernal choir.


    I rushed out to get my binoculars, but even when I got them, my hands were so shaky, I had a hard time putting my eyes on them. One second after I managed to,the night sky got filled with fire. For a moment it felt like if I had found the gates to hell, and I was going to look at the procession of the damned souls descending into its depth. Instead, I found dragons. I should have thought about it of course ¨C I was in the dragon lands, after all. But even though I was at a reasonable distance from them, scare was pervading me. There were hundreds, all of them like in a kind of trance. Some where violently stomping on the ground, causing the tremors. Some had their gargantuan muzzles lifted up to the sky, releasing their inner fire to the stars. Some were intonating those terrible chants.


    It was the complete opposite to all that one of us could define as civility.


    As for myself, I was completely hypnotized by the chants, the pyrotechnic show, keeping my binoculars with one hand and myself balanced with the other one. At one moment, two dragons, bigger than all the other ones, landed on the center of the barbaric spectacle, and as they arrived, the rest of them stopped. They had to be the king and the queen of them ¨C or whatever name we decide to define them. King, alpha male, chief and all other humans terms are probably unfitting to describe what they really are. One of them was red like the fire in the sky, the other, slightly smaller, was green. They rubbed their noses for a long time, while all the other dragons watched them in silence; after the confusion I saw before, it felt even more disturbing, and incremented my anxiety. Then the two dragons started rubbing themselves in other parts, and the crowd began more agitated. It was then I realized it had to be a mating ritual, at least, in part. At last, they both rose up to the sky, and the inferno returned. I saw the couple dancing in the sky and exploring their bodies wherever they could, while literally surrounded by fire like Ulysses and Diomedes in Dante''s Inferno. But if for humans it would be torment, for dragons it looked like primitive joy. The abominable chant returned stronger than before as the two dragons in the sky furiously united their bodies; then other dragons joined them in their dance, yelling and roaring the hell out of them, reminding every other living being they were the masters of that land. So there I stayed, under that scaled sky, fought between terror and fascination in front of the most primordial spectacle this world had to offer, a cacophony of growls and hisses and a pastiche of red and dark blue.


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    Once it finished, I couldn¡¯t sleep. The anxiety slowly turned into astonishment and then into an ocean of thoughts. I literally spent the next day there, doing nothing but writing down in my notebook. I could say I foresee some conclusion about what the dragons have shown me, albeit accidentally. That was not only a mating ceremony: it was Nature herself, speaking through the dragons to announce her new yearly flourishing. Just like the draconic life that soon will come to life from that dance.


    Humans have conquered the Earth by taming it and its laws, but dragons, to me, look like they achieved the same by being an essential part of it. They don¡¯t need to study its rules and way, nor to express them in terms of symbols and numbers: their essence resides in those rules. The fear expressed by those people who recommended me not to visit dragon lands during spring equinox is due to incomprehension: We distanced ourselves so much from what has formed us that we have become mere spectators of our essence, while dragons have fully embraced it. Our artistic representation of Nature couldn¡¯t be further from the truth about Nature. Vivaldi, Constable, Wordsworth were all wrong. What they showed was only the Nature bended to satisfy our own criteria. If the dragons could paint or write poetry, we could study their works for millennia and still not see their true meaning. What I have called cacophony, for them is harmony: the harmony of knowing their inner essence, of fully embracing it without hiding it under a mask of civility, of rules, of patterns¡­at least, that''s what I think. It¡¯s unlikely I will ever understand in fullness the spectacle I have seen that night, simply because I am a human.


    I want to clarify that I do not intend to suggest we humans should aspire to embrace the way of the dragons. First of all, I am pessimistic we could ever do that. Too much of what makes our essence is rationality, which makes us see everything under schemes and models. It would be unwise to change this. Second, this rationality is what makes us, as humans, special. I said Vivaldi, Constable and Wordsworth were wrong but Kepler, Galileo and Newton weren¡¯t. Look at our planes, our cars, our arts. This is not something dragons will ever aspire to achieve. Plus, we cannot think of obtaining what dragons naturally have ¨C whatever they have. Joy? Interior peace? Frankly, it is probably a feeling that has no human terminology, yet still gives them deep knowledge of something we cannot imagine.


    With all probabilities, dragons are aware of the fact we can¡¯t understand it, and therefore they will not share this meaningful ritual with us. Just like they have never been able to fully understand the natural laws we have established. I suppose you have read, of heard about, those scientific papers who proved this: despite dragons demonstrating astounding levels of intelligence and ownership of self-consciousness, they become totally lost once we try explaining to them mathematical notions over simple basic operations. But after all they probably do not need to understand them.


    To conclude, humans and dragons have obtained the same equal mastery of Nature, but with ways that are opposed and incompatible. Because of this, as far as I¡¯m concerned, dragons deserve our admiration. They certainly have mine. Nevertheless, I¡¯m afraid this kind of distance between our minds may be too big to make us accept each other, and probably it was this that made our ancestors hunt them with such fiery passion. But if we try thinking of them as intellectual brothers, in terms of what I have described, perhaps we will learn how to share this world ¨C and who knows, maybe our knowledges.


    Hope to hear from you soon.


    Sincerely,


    [unreadable sign]

 The Kids and the Dragon

    ¡°It¡¯s this way,¡± announced the boy to his sister, making his way among the bushes between the trees.


    ¡°Are you sure of it, Eldwan?¡± She asked, following him with uncertain steps.


    ¡°Yes, Sehert. See how the land is getting higher? It means we¡¯re coming close to where the cave is.¡±


    ¡°Eldwan, do you think it¡¯s a good idea? I¡¯m scared it will eat us¡­¡±


    ¡°It can¡¯t, remember? It signed a pact with all those who live in our village. If it hurts one of us, it will die.¡± He stopped one moment and lay a reassuring hand on the girl. ¡°It¡¯ll be alright. Don¡¯t you want so see it?¡±


    ¡°Yes¡­¡± she whispered.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s continue. We have to get back before sunset, or Mom and Dad will realize we¡¯ve been out.¡±


    The two kids kept walking through the woods in silence, too absorbed into the anticipation of what they were going to meet.


    Finally, the trees began becoming more rare. The flat terrain was on its way to turn into hills and mountains. Eldwan and Sehert kept walking; their very young age prevented them from being discouraged, but also, fear was finally starting to hit Eldwan too. Could those of its kind break magical pats without perishing someway¡­? Everyone know they were formidable, much more formidable than a whole human army¡­


    This time, it was Sehert who gave him courage.


    ¡°You said it would be fine. I believed you! Don¡¯t be afraid now, please!¡±


    Eldwan sighed. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± And he resumed walking.


    The trees disappeared. On the distance stood the profile of a large cave entrance. The siblings¡¯ excitement and terror grew with each step. How big was it? Would it smell like sulphur? Would it come out at all?


    And there appeared the cave. The lair where the creature that so much human blood had poured from the kids¡¯ ancestors lived. The creature that at least had been defeated and sealed by a powerful wizard, come in their aid¡­


    For a while, nothing appeared. Sehert even let a yawn of boredom escape her mouth.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, Eldwan,¡± she begged.


    ¡°Ergh,¡± he said, hesitating, ¡°maybe just one more minute¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not here! We¡¯ve got to get back before-¡±


    Thump. Thump. Thump.


    Echoing, rumbling noises of steps emerged from the cave, making the kids hug each other in fear. Too frozen to move any muscle, they stood there, waiting for the its come.


    Then from the mouth of the cave appeared a gigantic figure. It was pitch black, with a lizard-like body and two large bat-like wings, its eyes were glowing yellow and it was taller than twice the kids¡¯ hut. It only took a sight of its talons to see the creature could cut them in half with just a paw.


    It was a dragon. It smelled the air briefly, before turning its huge reptile head to the siblings¡¯ direction, who shivered uncontrollably.


    ¡°What brings you two here?¡± He pronounced, with a low, thunderous voice.


    ¡°We...we...we¡­¡± Eldwan began. ¡°We¡­just wanted to meet you¡­¡±


    ¡°For what purpose would two human cubs come to my lair?¡± The dragon said, moving his tail left and right. ¡°I suppose your parents have told you about me. Don¡¯t you realize you may die?¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t kill us!¡± Eldwan replied, shocked by his own audacity. ¡°We know it! You were sealed with a magic pact!¡±


    ¡°Ah, therefore you know of my unlucky fate,¡± the dragon commented, making two small smoke clouds escape its nostrils. ¡°Yes, I am prevented from preying on humans until the end of time. I must say, I am surprised you got told about it. I expected your parents not to tell you that so you would never think to come here on your own, away from them, to meet a creature that would gladly have them inside his stomach.¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t!¡± Sehert cried.


    ¡°As your brother said, I can¡¯t,¡± the dragon replied, serene. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean I don¡¯t wish so. Believe me, you have no idea how much your smell is making me salivate¡­¡± in fact, the kids could see some drool drops escaping its mouth. The monster raised its head and swallowed its own saliva. ¡°However, I am wise enough to not fall into that temptation anymore. Still, I don¡¯t recommend you to come here another time. I would risk surrender to my hunger.¡±


    But the siblings. had taken courage and were ready to flood the dragon with the questions curious kids make to their parents.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Sehert said.


    ¡°Arghart, Lord of the Western Mountains, Bane of the Kings, Tempest of Destruction, Defeater of the-¡±


    ¡°We get it,¡± Sehert interrupted him. ¡°Your name is Arghart.¡±


    The dragon, offended, snapped its jaws very close to them, giving them a good scream.


    ¡°You little insolent human cubs! You¡¯re so lucky I am forbidden to do any kind of harm to you.¡±


    ¡°I...I am sorry, mister Arghart,¡± the girl blabbed in tears.


    The dragon, unexpectedly, hummed.


    ¡°That is much better.¡±


    Hearing a dragon humming out of content had a weird, yet satisfying feeling. The kids were now confident enough they would go back home safely, despite the dragon¡¯s ammonitions.


    ¡°What do dragons do during the day?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Sleep, hunt. Most of the time we stay in our lair, alone with our thoughts.¡±


    ¡°You never meet other dragons?¡± Eldwan said.


    ¡°Oh, not if I can avoid it! I don¡¯t need to conquer other territories, and I wouldn¡¯t wish any other dragon to fight me. This cave is the best in the whole mountain range!¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have any friends?¡±


    Arghart snorted.


    ¡°Dragons don¡¯t have friends. We are not like you humans, who can¡¯t survive alone. We are content with ourselves.¡±


    ¡°That sounds sad¡­¡±


    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand.¡±


    ¡°Eldwan,¡± Sehert pulled her brother¡¯s clothes, ¡°the sun is going down¡­¡±


    ¡°Really?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Fine then,¡± Eldwan commented. Then he turned to the dragon. ¡°We¡¯ll leave for now.¡±


    ¡°As you wish,¡± he said, indifferent.


    The two kids ran away, still full of adrenaline from their encounter with the monster.


    *??*??*


    Eldwan and Sehert kept remembering with each other about their encounter with the fearful dragon for many days. From what their parents knew, they had just walked together around the village, and despite being close to the woods, they never got into it. But once they would manage to be alone, they would tell each other about the terror and excitement when seeing the monster, the thrill of conversating with it-


    ¡°It¡¯s a him! His name is Arghart!¡± Sehert said.


    ¡°Fine, fine,¡± Eldwan nodded, slightly annoyed. ¡°Anyway, it was amazing, right? How many people can say they chatted with a dragon?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± the girl said.


    ¡°None! We are the only ones in this village! Yet they could have done it all the time, since he¡¯s binded not to kill anyone¡­¡±


    ¡°That poor dragon must be so alone,¡± she reflected, ¡°always by himself in his cave¡­¡±


    ¡°You heard him, Sehert. Dragons don¡¯t have friends. I¡¯m sure he does amazingly.¡±


    ¡°Maybe he just needs to find the right friends!¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°We should go meet him again!¡±


    ¡°What? No!¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t cross the woods again, it¡¯s dangerous! We may find a bear, or worse, get caught by Mom and Dad someway and-¡±


    But in the end, he had to admit how he couldn¡¯t wait to meet the dragon again too, and the afternoon after they were on their way back to the cave. This time, it was less the fear and more the excitement.


    The dragon was still there, his head lying over his forepaws, his enormous eyes giving a small hint of recognition to the two kids.


    ¡°You¡¯re back,¡± Arghart pronounced.


    ¡°Yes,¡± the siblings said in unison.


    ¡°And tell me, human cubs, what brings you here this time?¡±


    ¡°Just chat with you,¡± Sehert answered. ¡°We thought we could be friends-¡±


    ¡°I told you already. Dragons do not have friends.¡±


    Eldwan whispered to his sister. ¡°What did I say?¡± He then turned to the dragon. ¡°We¡¯ll leave immediately, then-¡±


    ¡°Oh, you can stay, if that pleases you. I¡¯m completely indifferent to other species¡¯ presence, unless I¡¯m hungry.¡±


    Sehert whispered back to his brother the same line he had told her. She then turned to the dragon. ¡°Are you hungry?¡±


    ¡°No, and as you know, I can¡¯t touch you regardless. Do you wish to talk? What do you want to know about me?¡±


    The two siblings spoke quietly with each other for a short moments, before saying: ¡°When were you born?¡±


    ¡°Hmmm. A long time ago.¡±


    ¡°We mean, how many years? We are 8 years old,¡± said Eldwan.


    ¡°We don¡¯t count that kind of things,¡± Arghart answered, ¡°all a dragon needs to know is when they are a hatchling and when they¡¯re old enough to mate.¡±


    ¡°Fine, then,¡± the boy replied, ¡°do you remember where you were born, at least? Did you have siblings?¡±


    ¡°That I do. I hatched in the mountains behind this cave, three days of flight away from here. I had three brothers and two sisters, but I¡¯m the only one who was strong enough to survive hatchlinghood.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± Sehert exclaimed, ¡°I am so sorry?¡±


    ¡°For what? My siblings were unworthy of keep living, if they died before being able to mate. I¡¯m glad I was the strongest, so I could keep living.¡±


    The siblings watched each other, perplexed.


    ¡°Anything else?¡± The dragon asked.


    ¡°We¡¯re...not sure,¡± Eldwan murmured.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    ¡°Where were you born, instead? Do you have other siblings?¡±


    ¡°We...were born in the village,¡± the boy answered, ¡°we¡¯ve always lived there...no we don¡¯t have other siblings, it¡¯s just us two.¡±


    ¡°Your parents must have some very good bodies if they manage to have two cubs who both survived,¡± the dragon commented.


    ¡°Ergh...yes.¡±


    ¡°Why did you eat those of our village?¡± The girl asked.


    The dragon raised his head. ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious?¡±


    ¡°Uh...because you¡¯re a cruel, evil monster?¡±


    ¡°Oof!¡± Arghart snorted. ¡°You humans and your stupid ideas about good and evil. Those ridiculous small lairs you group in must have done something strange with your minds. I ate them because I was hungry.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± she said, ¡°but didn¡¯t you say you were Bane of the Kings, Tempest of something¡­?¡±


    ¡°I used the name I heard you humans use for me. Thought it was the most appropriate.¡±


    ¡°Why did they call you Bane of the Kings?¡±


    ¡°Truth be told, I don¡¯t even know what kings are.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re...adults who have a golden circle in their head and wear elegant robes and can do what they want and everyone serves them-¡±


    ¡°A golden circle?¡± The dragon interrupted her. ¡°That explains why I got attacked so many times after I hunted that human with a golden circle on its head.¡±


    ¡°So you didn¡¯t know it was the king?¡± Eldwan exclaimed.


    ¡°I have found out what a king is only now. Does it make such a difference if I eat a certain human or another?¡± He then added, looking at the kids¡¯ frowned eyes: ¡°Supposing I was still allowed to eat humans, of course.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± the siblings said.


    ¡°Why so?¡±


    ¡°Because, well, some humans are more important than others,¡± Eldwan informed him.


    ¡°Bah. If I have to eat, I don¡¯t see how it matters whether my prey has something gold on their top or not. Food is food.¡±


    ¡°But you must have had other animals you could eat around, right? I mean, you¡¯re a dragon, right? No other creature can match you...¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not so simple. See, human cub, the trouble is I¡¯m not the only dragon around.¡±


    The kids touched their mouths in sign of confusion. ¡°And so?¡±


    ¡°And so, we have territories, places where we can hunt and where we can¡¯t. It¡¯s not easy to get a territory with plenty of food, you know? Many of us die trying to conquer one of those. Back then, my territory happened to be full of humans and I had nothing else to eat. When you forced me to make that pact with you, I had to fight another dragon who was stronger than me in order to have somewhere where to hunt, and believe me, I¡¯m alive only because it was a very lucky fight!¡±


    He said the last words with a tone of deep frustration, like for indicating it was unjust he was forbidden to eat humans. Out of instinct, Eldwan caressed Sehert¡¯s back, for reassuring they were not in any danger, only to stop after realizing the sun had already begun diving into the horizon.


    ¡°Well, thank you again,¡± he said. ¡°We have to go now.¡±


    ¡°Can we come back?¡± Sehert asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have any reason to tell you not.¡±


    Sehert smiled to him. She still was sure the dragon just needed some good friends.


    *??*??*


    Despite Arghart saying those unsettling lines about how there was nothing wrong with eating humans, Eldwan and Sehert went meeting him many other times. The dragon got used to their frequent appearance, so much that once, when they returned after not being able to come for a handful of days, he exclaimed: ¡°I was beginning to think you forgot me, cubs.¡±


    They learned a lot of things about what it¡¯s like to be a dragon, and in turn Arghart learned a lot about what it¡¯s like to be a human. With time, he even began stopping thinking of them as food ¨C or forbidden food ¨C and more as regular acquaintances, in the limits of the acquaintances a dragon could have. In fact, for him the two human cubs had quite opened a world to him. Humans were utterly complicated, and in virtue of that, the information Eldwan and Sehert provided to him kept his mind pleasantly challenged.


    The siblings, in turn, understood that being a dragon wasn¡¯t so majestic as they would have thought before. With some effort, they also had to recognize they had no conception of good and evil, because they weren¡¯t left much of a choice. A dragon life was difficult. They were so strong they had no need for companionship, yet their strength made dragons turned against their own kind constantly.


    For the kids, it was immensely challenging to hide their friendship (if it could be defined so) to the other villagers, especially their parents. The other kids in the village noticed they had started the siblings were nowhere to be seen. When their parents were away, they would leave their offspring together with some of their peers; but the siblings started giving excuse to sneak out into the woods, not eager to share their secret yet. But this, before or after, had to emerge, and it happened around three weeks after their first encounter with the dragon.


    Eldwan and Sehert had just come back home after talking again with Arghart that afternoon, and what they found once inside their small, wooden inhabitation was their mom and dad, standing, looking at them with fierce eyes.


    ¡°Where have you been?¡± Mom thundered.


    The two siblings looked at each other in anxiety. How could they mask their secret?


    ¡°We¡¯ve...been...in the village¡­¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve just met some of your friends,¡± Dad said, severe. ¡°They said you told them you had gone meet grandma, who in turn told us she hasn¡¯t seen you today. What is that you really do when we leave you with them?¡±


    Eldwan¡¯s front became lucid with sweat. Sehert¡¯s body visibly trembled like a leaf moved by the wind.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been in the woods, haven¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°N-no¡­¡±


    But the truth could be read from their faces.


    ¡°What have we told you about getting into the woods? It¡¯s dangerous! You may get into some bear, or wolves, or worse,¡± and here Dad¡¯s face turned into a mask of horror and authority, ¡°the dragon! You know there is a man-eating dragon out there, don¡¯t you?¡±


    The siblings¡¯ eyes opened wide with terror. It was a luck their parents believed it was due to remembering there was a terrible, vicious dragon living in the wild around the village, and not for the fear of getting caught hanging around with said dragon.


    ¡°We¡¯ve been so worried,¡± Mom continued, ¡°you¡¯re not going to leave this house for a long time starting from today, unless you are with us. And now go to bed right away!¡±


    Without saying a word, the kids obeyed. Upset from being caught walking outside the village, but also relieved their parents knew nothing about dragon, they waited until they were the only two people awake in the house to whisper to each other.


    ¡°What shall we do?¡± Sehert cried in a low voice.


    ¡°We have no choice,¡± Eldwan commented. ¡°Once we¡¯re no more grounded, we¡¯ll have to stay in the village. Arghart will do fine without us. Dragons don¡¯t need friends, remember?¡±


    While the latter was true, they quickly discovered the opposite wasn¡¯t. After being forced home for many weeks, even once they were free again to play in the village with their pals, both kept perceiving a feeling of dissatisfaction. In reality, staying in the village could not be compared to go talk with a real live dragon. But it was not just the amazing experience of staying with a dragon. Arghart was their friend. He had worried they wouldn¡¯t come back when they had stayed away longer than usual; he was pleased at answering their questions about dragons, and making questions about humans, who once he believed to be just food. Even though they could not imagine old Arghart weeping, they were sure he wished he had them to spend his days; especially Sehert was sure of it.


    Eventually, when the nostalgia became unbearable, they took a decision.


    ¡°I wanna go meet him!¡± Sehert that day cried to her brother, while returning home after playing.


    ¡°We can¡¯t, you know,¡± he replied, depressed. ¡°Mom and dad always ask our friends if we¡¯ve been with them.¡±


    Sehert¡¯s first tears came out of her eyes. Eldwan opened his arms and let his sister go over his chest, patting her back. They stayed like that for a long time until Sehert¡¯s weeps calmed down; in that moment, she made the proposal.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go by night.¡±


    Eldwan, in normal conditions, would have said it¡¯s a folly, which was true. If going into the woods by day could be bad, he didn¡¯t dare imagine what it was like during the night. However, he couldn¡¯t stand seeing his sister so sad.


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    *??*??*


    Eldwan soon regretted not to have listened to his rational side.


    Even if they had brought a torch with them and lighten them up, soon they realized it was not enough. It was fairly easy by day to just walk towards the mountains¡¯ direction, but now they couldn¡¯t look beyond the second nearest tree in front of them: it was as if they had entered an abyss of darkness. To their ears were not coming gentle birdsongs but the cooing of owls and the howls of the wolves.


    ¡°Eldwan¡­¡± Sehert cried, ¡°I¡¯m so afraid¡­¡±


    He couldn¡¯t even think of something to comfort her.


    ¡°I¡¯m so afraid too¡­¡±


    ¡°What shall we do?¡±


    ¡°I...don¡¯t know.¡± He was starting to lose his control. The torch in his hand was shaking increasingly.


    ¡°Let¡¯s call Arghart!¡± she shouted.


    ¡°I...don¡¯t think...he can listen...from here.¡±


    ¡°Please!¡± Sehert was out of herself ¨C more visibly than Eldwan. ¡°ARGHART! ARGHART!¡± Her shout echoed through the dark.


    Eldwan became furious.


    ¡°What have you done?¡± He barked. ¡°You may have just captured some bad animal¡¯s attent-¡±


    A growl came behind his ears in that precise moment.


    Sweating coldly, the siblings turned back.


    Wolves.


    A full pack of wolves, as high as they were, showing their long canines in all their deadliness.


    The kids screamed. As their terror exited their mouths, their legs took action without passing through their brains, and one moment later they fled. Immediately, all the wolves chased them. While Sehert kept screaming ¡°ARGHART! ARGHART!¡±, Eldwan just concentrated on running as fast as he could, forgetting he had a torch in his hand. He wished they had never gone meeting the dragon at all: they would not have been punished, they would not be risking their life like that in that moment¡­


    Suddenly, the growls of the wolves disappeared.


    None of them dared turn back though.


    Only when a smell of smoke came to their nostrils, the kids realized what was happening.


    One of the trees had caught fire. It was rapidly propagating towards the grass, and the wolves had disappeared back into the darkness, which was rapidly giving way to the overwhelming red light of flames.


    The kids resumed their desperate run, now against a different menace, but this had the better a little after: soon, they were surrounded by a ring of fire. The vision of the trees was replaced by columns of smoke, which hit their nostrils and took away their breath. Eldwan and Sehert hugged each other, praying for a miracle¡­


    And the miracle happened.


    Above them, an enormous talon appeared, tearing apart the wall of smoke and closing on the kids. Their bodies left the terrain and flew above the forest in flames. Before they fainted, a voice spoke to them, a deep, growling voice.


    ¡°Good thing you shouted my name, otherwise your parents would think I carbonized you with my breath.¡±


    *??*??*


    When they awakaned, it was dawn. They were lying in a green grass; in front of the was the village, and next was the dragon.


    ¡°What were you doing in the forest in the middle of the night?¡±


    ¡°We¡­¡± Eldwan gasped. ¡°You saved us¡­¡±


    ¡°Answer me, cub.¡±


    ¡°We wanted to meet you,¡± Sehert said, with a very feeble voice.


    ¡°At night? With all the animals that are around when it¡¯s dark? You didn¡¯t you come at day, like the first times?¡±


    ¡°We were forbidden to!¡± She cried.


    ¡°Why so?¡±


    The effort to explain was saved to them by a shout coming from a distance.


    ¡°ELDWAN! SEHERT!¡±


    ¡°Oh no,¡± both siblings whispered at the same time, hearing their parents¡¯ lament. Then the girl added rapidly, talking to the dragon: ¡°Fly out, Arghart!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to!¡± The dragon replied. ¡°If they see me flying, they¡¯ll think I did something to you.¡±


    ¡°But we¡¯ll end up in trouble!¡±


    ¡°You searched for it, cubs!¡± Arghart growled. ¡°Now stand up before they think I harmed you!¡±


    With effort, the kids obeyed. They hadn¡¯t forgotten about the pact the dragon had made with humans, and they didn¡¯t want the other villagers to think their friend had broken it. But nothing could prepare them for what was coming for them: not just their parents, but all the adults of the village coming for them.


    ¡°The dragon!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t get close, it¡¯ll eat you!¡±


    ¡°THOSE ARE OUR CHILDREN, IT¡¯S OUR RIGHT TO COME CLOSE!¡±


    In few moments, their parents were in front of them.


    ¡°Eldwan! Sehert! You¡¯re alive!¡± Their mother cried, hugging Sehert while their father did the same with Eldwan. ¡°What has the dragon done to you?¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t me!¡± Arghart roared, while making his best to keep his own saliva inside his mouth: he hadn¡¯t smelt so many humans at once for ages. ¡°Your cubs tried to go visit my cave at night!¡±


    Their parents¡¯ faces, and all the other villagers¡¯, became those of someone who has just been told the sky is green.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go out,¡± their mother said, ¡°let¡¯s go before he attacks-¡±


    ¡°I did not attack them! Have you forgotten you made me do a magical pact with you? If I attack a human, I¡¯ll die instantly!¡±


    ¡°What¡­¡±


    ¡°The dragon is right!¡± One of the eldest adults proclaimed. ¡°My own grandfather was there when it happened. He told me about the dragon a lot of times when I was a child!¡±


    The kids¡¯ parents looked at the dragon, then at their offspring in their arms.


    ¡°Then...then...then what¡¯s the truth?¡± Their father exclaimed.


    ¡°I told you before,¡± Arghart explained, impatiently. ¡°They went out to go meet me and provoked a forest fire with their torch! Here it is!¡±


    He opened up a talon and from there came a stick that was completely burnt from one side.


    ¡°Eldwan,¡± Dad said, his voice ready for war, ¡°is that the truth?¡±


    The kid was too tired to think of any credible excuse. He just let a ¡®yes¡¯ come from his tiny mouth.


    ¡°And why,¡± Dad thundered, ¡°why made you escape at night, in the middle of the forest, to go see a man-eater dragon? How could you be so stupid? What kind of ideas do you have in your head, eh?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve already met him before,¡± Sehert intervened.


    ¡°What?¡± All the villagers exclaimed as one man.


    ¡°Yes they did,¡± the dragon confirmed.


    ¡°He¡¯s no more bad!¡± Sehert cried. ¡°He¡¯s our friend!¡±


    ¡°Friend?¡±


    The word bounced from mouth to mouth of all the villagers and their parents.


    ¡°What...do...you...mean?¡± Their mother mnaged to pronounce, with great effort.


    ¡°Let us explain,¡± Eldwan said.


    The two kids and Arghart proceeded to tell their story from the very beginning. Everyone forgot they had in front a dragon that had repeatedly devstated their hometown in the past and just remained in silence, while listening. The kids¡¯ walk in the woods, their first encounter with Eldwan, what they chatted about. It was somthing nobody had ever heard before, something nobody had ever done before.


    ¡°Wow,¡± one of the vllagers said, once Eldwan said the last words, which were about their misadventure of the last night.


    Their two parents whispered among themselves for a while. Eldwan and Sehert looked at them with apprehension, until finally their father looked at them again and pronounced:


    ¡°Well, first of all, you can be sure we won¡¯t let you go outside for a very long time. I hope you didn¡¯t think you could escape from your responsiblities. Second...congratulations.¡±


    Finally, he looked at the dragon. ¡°And you, thank you for saving our children.¡±


    ¡°Good, I see you understood I didn¡¯t harm there. I¡¯m flying back to my lair now.¡±


    *??*??*


    In the time after, Arghart had to suffer an incredble amount of human visitors, eager to meet a dragon with their own eyes. That little incident made him a big attraction, and for him, a creature born to be solitary, it was unbearable. One day, he left his lair and after a tremendous fight, conquered another dragon¡¯s territory. Nobody got to know where he relocated.


    Apart from two people, wo kept meeting him. Just before leaving, he had told them where they could find him. He felt like they would try to search for him regardless, so it was better to let them come until the end of their lives, which for a dragon was a short period anyway.


    So now,he wasn¡¯t surprised to see, in front of him, a man and a woman, both in their adult age, coming at him with big smiles on their faces.


    ¡°Hello there, cubs,¡± he greeted them.

 Do not eat humans

    It was a normal sunny day like any other one in the mountains. The stomach of Glerath had taken care of awakening him and convincing him it was time to go hunting. Still opening his jaws from residual sleep, the dragon walked towards the exit of his cave.


    He sniffed the air, which smelled of a serene day. There would be little trouble while hunting; hopefully, he would eat just before the sun peaked the highest and then get back to slumber in his home. The stomach growled another time. Why would it deprive him of such a pleasant sleep...but hunger was hunger, and if it was time to eat, there was little else he could do. Glearth opened his wings and soared up.


    The dragon flew around the peaks and the woods, sniffing in search of something edible. As a dragon, he wasn¡¯t above any kind of prey: as long as some animal smelt like one, it would be his.


    After a while, a scent of prey came on his nostrils. It was quite different than usual, but also strangely familiar. Yet it smelt so good, like if its main purpose was to be eaten. The growls in his stomach doubled.


    He followed the direction of the wonderful scent. It brought him a bit far away from the woods: on a field. Strange prey the one that walked so mindlessly on such an open space, so close to dragon territory. It had to have migrated very recently. Well, even better, Glearth thought: he wouldn¡¯t struggle to catch it. It was really made to be food. And here it was.


    It was a human. Only once had he seen one of them; Glerath could not remember well, but it had to have been during his hatchlinghood, next to his mother. He was not sure about it, but the long hair on its top indicated it was a female specimen. He was salivating heavily, his belly was begging to be filled...


    It was in that moment that the memory came back fully.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    He was barely bigger than his mother¡¯s paw, and they were watching a group of those creatures from a mountain peak. ¡°Look, son,¡± she indicated, ¡°those are humans.¡±


    ¡°What are they?¡± little Glearth asked. ¡°Food?¡±


    ¡°Oh, no,¡± she said severe, ¡°don¡¯t be fooled by their smell. Humans are fare more intelligent and dangerous than usual food. They have brought more calamities to our kind than any snowstorm.¡±


    ¡°But they look so tiny!¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s their peculiarity. Their small bodies hide great abilities that we will never hope to achieve.¡±


    Little Glearth got closer to her chest. ¡°I¡¯m scared¡­what have they done?¡±


    ¡°I will tell you when you have grown up, my son. I brought you here today so that you will never think of crossing their territories. Our peaceful existence, and all nature, is based on our and their race: when there is one, there can be no space for the other one. When the two try to merge, terrible conflicts arise. And humans have prevailed far more often than we will ever admit.¡±


    There ended adult Glerath¡¯s memory. Humans...tiny funny people that smelt delicious, pillars of nature¡¯s balancement? How could it possibly be? That figure looked so fragile...it would take a pawful of instants to maul it. What could ever happen?


    ¡°After that dragon preyed on the human, other humans tracked him,¡± his mother answered from another of his memories, located inside the same cave he lived, ¡°they killed him in his sleep with a terribly long shiny claw that trespassed his heart. One human per one dragon. One dragon per one human. Remember, son, the only reason to end a human¡¯s life is when it ended a dragon¡¯s life. To keep nature balanced.¡±


    That human...would they really come after him if he ate that one? Would they kill him in his sleep? There was only one safe thing to do, no matter what his stomach was telling him. He fled.


    Some more time later, Glerath placated his hunger with a big moose found in the usual woods, then finally got back to his dear cave for a well deserved sleep. He had remembered an important lesson that day. Better to keep it on mind should another delicious smell come to his nose. Just before drifting into slumber, he repeated in his mind again and again: do not eat humans.

 The day dragons saved Earth

    The day dragons saved Earth was also the day they faded away.


    It happened in ancient times, when humans couldn¡¯t know what an asteroid was. For too little had they been present to have an understanding of what it meant, to have an enormous rock from outer space directed towards the only world you¡¯ll ever get to know. But dragons¡¯ ancestors were there. They witnessed the light among the stars becoming bigger every night, the day when it appeared visible during the day, the devastating, thundering noise, the unimaginable, titanic wall of dust that overwhelmed everything that existed, the bodies of dead animals filling the soil, the Sun and the Moon disappearing behind the layer of dust that remained in the air, for several thousands of years to come.


    Only the strongest of the dragons¡¯ ancestors survived, and lived to keep the heritage. Slowly they adapted their bodies, acquired wings and the ability to breathe fire and became the enormous, reptile creatures humans learned to witness once they came into existence. The descendants still kept the memory, while they struggled to keep their place while the bipeds, more and more numerous, established themselves on the top of nature¡¯s chain.


    It was by no means a peaceful coexistence. When a dragon made the error of hurting one human, dozens would take their vengeance. A dragon alone was an army by themselves, but it was overwhelmed by bipeds¡¯ actual armies. So for centuries they fought, not constantly, but often enough to be sworn enemies.


    And then, one day, the dragons saw something they hoped to never see. Something way more terrifying than one hundred army of humans.


    A new asteroid in the night sky.


    This time, they agreed, they wouldn¡¯t live to tell the story. They were no more the dominating force of the world: that place had been taken by their nemesis. Their number had greatly diminished, and not enough of them would survive.


    What to do, then, they wondered while looking at the light among the stars that was becoming bigger every night, just like millions of years ago? How to spend what they knew to be the last days of their kind?


    This was what was debated in a large cave whose sight was away from human eyes, a cave which could host dozens of dragons at once.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing we can do,¡± pronounced Verheus, one of the newest members of the Dragon Council, which was summoned only during exceptional times. ¡°The asteroid will come for all of us.¡±


    ¡°It will not come only for us,¡± replied Aghtar, the oldest and greatest of the Council. ¡°It will come from every living being of the land we live in. If we cannot live to tell the tale, the role will have to be fulfilled by those who will take our place.¡±


    ¡°Who are you talking about, o wisest?¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it evident?¡± said Aghtar. ¡°I¡¯m talking about humans.¡±


    The rest of the dragons sniffed at each other, like to confirm their senses still worked efficiently. Aghtar, the grandest, the most powerful dragon of their generation, suggesting saving humans, their arch-nemesis!


    ¡°Why do you say such an atrocious thing?¡± one called Regheon roared. ¡°Our race will not make any favor to them!¡±


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    ¡°If we don¡¯t leave the world to them, there will be no one else to leave it to!¡± Aghtar roared back. ¡°In the history of the world, us and them have been the only ones that managed to reach our status of intelligence and world domination. If we remain motionless, one day there will come a third asteroid, and it will erase all that is around us into oblivion! Is this what you want?¡±


    ¡°How will leaving the world to humans be any better? Have you seen how they indiscriminately take over whatever is in their path? They do not have our self-control, they do not conceive anything about respect for the order of nature! They will do the same thing the asteroid will, only slower!¡±


    ¡°I do know that,¡± nodded Aghtar, gravely. ¡°But they are everything that remains. If the choice is between having a remote hope and no hope at all, we must strive for the first. I call for the collaboration of what remains of dragonkind in their last days, to let them be that hope.¡±


    ¡°How can we ever stop the asteroid?¡± A dragon called Selethorun said. ¡°A dragon is strong, but not strong enough for it.¡±


    ¡°You just need to imagine,¡± Aghtar answered, ¡°the strength of all the dragons combined.¡±


    ¡°You mean¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes. I call for all dragons to fly towards the asteroid.¡±


    ¡°That is ridiculous!¡± Regheon roared again. ¡°We do not have any chance against an asteroid!¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re all going to die regardless, Regheon!¡± He replied.


    But it wasn¡¯t just the tiny chances to make him oppose Aghtar¡¯s proposal. You must know, that dragons weren¡¯t too inclined to collaborating. There was a reason why the Dragon Council was summoned only during exceptional times: only exceptional times could make them take the effort of making some collaboration. While humans are alone so weak they need to get close in search of strength, dragons alone are so strong, they need to stay apart from each other in order not to destroy everything around them, including their food.


    Therefore, given this information, it should not surprise you that for a long time the whole Dragon Council debated violently, very little eager to work together, even if that advice came from their leader, and the wisest of the living dragons. There were lots of roars that shook the Earth upon the cave, fire breathed from their mouths as a threat to someone else, until the thundering roar of Aghtar silenced them.


    ¡°That is enough discussion for now. We cannot fight in this crucial moment. We need to act. Whoever is in favor of stopping the asteroid, raise your wings.¡±


    Dragons were intelligent. Beyond their solitary instincts, beyond their primary need of avoiding fighting when possible and therefore avoiding other dragons, they could understand what had to be done.


    One day, the humans saw something in the sky that would never be witnessed again.


    Hundreds of dragons, flying over them, taking control of the sky. Every human who witnessed them ran in panic towards their homes, praying to not die in flames. Their roars were like bells announcing the end of the world to them. They couldn¡¯t get to know it wasn¡¯t the end, but a new beginning.


    Suddenly, the dragons all gathered together to the same point in the sky. They weren¡¯t directed at the human settlements, but they began flying high, and then always higher. Some humans began to get out of their houses, to watch what was happening.


    Soon, the dragons were so high in the sky they could be seen by places in the Earth very distant from each other. They were acting like one immense creature, something no one had ever seen happening. The last time dragons had acted as one, humans still had to appear.


    Then, they met a very luminous object in the sky. Humans had noticed it, but they hadn¡¯t been able to understand what it was. Some said there was a sign of good omen, some a nefarious prophecy. There was a loud boom, and the dragons disappeared, together with the great light.


    No one ever saw dragons anymore from that day. Though their memory was not forgotten, they faded into the realm of legends and fantasy. The hope of Aghtar, the last head of the Dragon Council, was not fulfilled: humans did not take care of the world like dragons would. With mankind remaining the sole advanced species left, there was destruction and catastrophe, which dragons had always strived to avoid. It looked like Regheon was right when he said they would do what the asteroid was able to do.


    But there¡¯s still hope.

 A dragon inside a phone

    For the whole duration of my human life, I¡¯ve loved dragons. For me, they were the most beautiful creatures never to exist, a monument to what God¡¯s creation could have achieved, if only gave the world to reptiles in place of primates. As a kid, I devoured any dragon book I could find and would always beg my parents for dragon plushies when they took me to stores. At night, I had several stuffed dragons guarding my innocent slumber.


    Once I got into adulthood, things changed little. I became a professional writer, and my genre was fantasy. In every book I planned, I always thrived to put as many dragons as possible, something that caused me some interesting discussions with my editor. A pair of time, under his recommendation, I had to replace dragons with something else, or I would become ¡®too repetitive¡¯ for the market; it hurt while I edited the text document files and deleted those dragons from their world. Every dragon I created, for me, is a companion. My house was filled with any sort of dragon memorabilia, and I still had the same stuffed dragons I had when I was a kid. There was no better way of sleeping than having them next to me, and when opening my eyes and waking up, they were the first thing I saw: it was the closest I could get to sleeping next to a real live dragon.


    As I kept living, technology progressed, and so did my possibilities of continuing my obsession. It was, most of all, the internet that enhanced them. I could now search for every dragon related in a handful of seconds: books, images, info...and sounds. Yes, sounds. It was the latter who changed me forever.


    * * *


    It happened in the early 2010s, and I had just bought my first smartphone; a small gift to myself after having a very successful release that month. Switching from my old Nokia to that big touch screen felt incredible. I could install applications and browse the internet just like on a computer. I spent the whole day exploring all the amazing things I could do with that prodigy, lying in my bed, surrounded by my little dragon friends. At one point, I opened one of the pre-installed apps: it was YouTube. As I looked at the search bar, I didn¡¯t lose any time and searched ¡®dragons¡¯. I looked at the results. The third one immediately caught my attention.


    ¡°Sleeping Next To A Dragon And Hear The Heartbeat | Dragon Ambience¡± ?


    I pressed my button on it. The video playing showed nothing except a sleeping dragon, but from the phone¡¯s speakers was coming a low, constant noise, very similar to a breath.


    It¡¯s a dragon breathing in its sleep!


    I smiled content. Now I could enhance even further my simulation of sleeping with a dragon. I knew what I wanted to do next. I gave a look at the video¡¯s length: eight hours. Perfect length. I took my favorite dragon plushie, put myself under the sheets and closed my eyes, keeping my phone next to me, which kept playing for me the sound of a sleeping dragon.


    When I woke up, the phone¡¯s battery was at five percent, but it had been fully worth it. I had never had such a pleasant sleep. The background noise of a breathing dragon stimulated my brain, which produced vivid dreams of me living in a cave, hugging a huge, gentle dragon and feeling his breath on my skin. It was now time to prepare myself for the new day¡¯s writing: I took my new phone and with regret closed the YouTube application.


    But the dragon sound didn¡¯t stop.


    Confused, I reopened the app. YouTube¡¯s main homepage appeared, clearly showing the video was not in reproduction. I tried to make another video start, but while it played regularly, I could still hear in the background the sleeping dragon¡¯s breath.


    Wait. What is that IT guys say, when machines don¡¯t work? Right! Have you tried turning it off and on again?


    I long pressed the power button. Everything on the screen faded out, replaced by an animation of the manufacturer¡¯s logo, then a black screen and the logo reappeared. But during this whole time, the sound of the dragon didn¡¯t cease, even for those short moments when the phone was turned off.


    What the¡­?


    I spent maybe one hour trying any solution I could come up with, in vain. The dragon kept breathing inside my new phone, no matter what. Taking out the SIM, putting the phone upside down, making a call: none of these actions worked. I had to bring it to a service center. After only one day!


    As I prepared myself, I turned the volume off, and the sound continued. Whatever problem this phone had, it was very weird. I put it inside its original box before leaving my house, directed to the place where I originally bought it.


    Once there, I was welcomed by a young boy who had to be in his twenties. ¡°Good morning sir, how can I help you?¡±


    ¡°Good morning. Yesterday I bought a phone here in your center. I was watching a YouTube video on it, but when I closed the app, it kept playing that video¡¯s sound forever. Even after restarting it, it never ceases. I even turned the volume off. I can¡¯t make it stop. Could you fix it?¡±


    ¡°Hmm. Do you have your phone with you?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± I extracted the box from my bag and opened it up. The low breath of the dragon surrounded the store.


    ¡°Can you hear it?¡±


    ¡°Hem, no, sir.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I instinctively exclaimed. ¡°Try putting the speakers on your ear?¡±


    The clerk did so. ¡°I can¡¯t hear anything.¡±


    ¡°How...but it¡¯s been the whole morning!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what to say, sir.¡±


    I remained frozen. I could hear it loudly, and the phone was just between me and the clerk. What was happening?


    ¡°Can¡¯t you really fix it?¡± I asked, desperate?


    ¡°Not...not when it doesn¡¯t seem to have any apparent problems, sir.¡± The clerk was now slightly moving his hips, like if he couldn¡¯t wait to leave me alone.


    I stood there, in silence. Then I remembered I had brought with me my receipt.


    ¡°Can I at least give it back?¡±


    ¡°If you have the receipt, we can give you a voucher of the same value.¡±


    ¡°I do.¡±


    I gave them the phone back, and with the voucher they gave me I bought a different model from a different producer. At home, I reinstalled everything back and spent the rest of the day doing my writer job. I finished later than usual due to my morning being spent inside that store. When it was time to sleep, I opened the YouTube app and put the dragon video, certain that it was the first phone¡¯s fault, whatever that clerk could say.


    However, the next day, the same problem appeared. The dragon didn¡¯t stop breathing from the phone speakers.


    I don¡¯t believe it!


    This time, I didn¡¯t lose time and prepared myself instantly to go back to the store. But once there, the clerk kept saying he didn¡¯t hear anything.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± I shouted, angry. ¡°It¡¯s the second time already I get this problem! I can hear it clearly!¡±


    ¡°Sir, please, none of us is hearing anything from our phone,¡± he replied with a slightly scared tone.


    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll get a third one! I brought the receipt again.¡±


    ¡°We can replace merch only one time, sir.¡±


    It was there when something happened. As the rage within my mind escalated, my mouth opened up. What came from it wasn¡¯t words; it wasn¡¯t a scream, either.


    It was a roar.


    An animal roar, which sounded a lot like a tiger...or a dragon.


    I covered my mouth with my hands. I felt no more angry, but scared. That sound couldn¡¯t have been produced by a human throat.


    ¡°I must ask you to leave,¡± the clerk said.


    Without saying anything, I left, leaving the phone there.


    * * *


    With regret, the following days I re-adapted myself to using my old Nokia. After discovering the world of smartphones, it felt so clunky and weird. Sleeping with that YouTube video next to me had given me such wonderful dragon dreams, that my nights didn¡¯t feel as restoring as they used to be.


    I could have just played that dragon video from my computer, but it wasn¡¯t as comfortable as with a phone. I owned a desktop, and it was on the other side of the room; the amount of volume to hear it well would have awakened my neighbors. In any case, even if I had my computer next to my bed, I wouldn¡¯t dare: what if that video infected my computer too with that absurd bug? I could renounce a smartphone for now, but my computer was essential for my job.


    The following days, though, I felt...strange. The roar my vocal cords produced was only the beginning. One day, I roared at my editor at the phone. It was a normal conversation, where we were just discussing royalties, when suddenly, instead of replying to something I didn¡¯t agree, I made that animalistic sound. I rapidly transformed it into a cough, but for the rest of the conversation, I held a hand on my throat, and blabbed more and more. When I closed the phone, I lay in bed exhausted. Another time, I was cooking a steak for dinner; I eat some meat once a week, never more than that. However, the sole view of that raw steak caused me a hunger I had never felt before. I put it on the pan, but I couldn¡¯t wait: I ate it before it was fully cooked. The raw taste felt new, but at the same time good, in fact it was better. I didn¡¯t even eat it with a fork and a knife: I ate it with my bare hands, munching avidly on that meat in its primitive state. When all the meat was inside my stomach, I looked at my hands, dirty with meat chunks, oil and blood. I refused to believe I had just done it.


    What¡¯s happening to me?


    I looked at my dragon memorabilia. It wasn¡¯t difficult: every corner of my house had one. Was I starting to behave like one of them? Had my passion started to become some kind of mental illness? Maybe it was just stress, I told myself. I should have called my editor again and told him I needed a long break. Yes, that was the most logical explanation. I proceeded to the bathroom, to wash my hands¡­


    Release me.


    It was a voice, inside my head. Its tone was low and rough, like a growl. But the fact is, it didn¡¯t feel like a thought of mine. It felt like someone else¡¯s. I stopped walking just before entering the toilet.


    Who are you? I tried to think.


    I didn¡¯t get any answer.


    Yes, I told myself, I really need a vacation.


    * * *


    My editor was very comprehensive. He told me I wasn¡¯t the first writer in burnout he had dealt with, and wished me a good holiday. Not wanting to stress me further, instead of booking everything by myself, I went to a holiday agency and paid for a full package. Destination: Naxos, in Greece.


    While packing my bags, initially I didn¡¯t put any of my dragons, an absolute novelty for me. However, soon the sense of guilt hit me and I put just one, the oldest plushie I have ever had. In any case, I was determined not to take him out of the bag for the whole journey.


    This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Naxos was enchanting. I stayed in a hotel on the sea, white with blue windows, just as the rest of the buildings. The sea was crystal clear. I must have taken uncountable photos of sunsets over the water. And the food! I ate so much tzatziki and souvlaki that I still had their taste in my mouth at night.


    Speaking of which, the night was not as pleasant. I felt so restless. At first, I thought it was because I didn¡¯t have my dragons with me. That was what brought me to surrender and take out my plushie after just two days out of three weeks. However, that turned out not to be the problem. Despite holding tight my dragon in my arms, I could barely sleep. And I couldn¡¯t understand why. I was on a heavenly island, I spent my days walking around beaches and enchanting villages, I was supposed to be tired and satisfied. Instead, my eyes refused to close. My mind was a buzz of indefinite thoughts, that only after a while began getting a shape.


    It was obvious. Everything had begun after listening to that dragon video. It had broken something inside my mind, and now I couldn¡¯t stay in peace. I needed to listen to it again. I coveted those vivid dreams with dragons, which I could get only by listening to that dragon breath. But how could I do it there? I had only my flip phone: it couldn¡¯t connect to the internet properly. I would have had to buy a smartphone there, and if something went wrong once home, I¡¯d have had to get back here to replace it. I had to resist.


    But after one week, I was more tired and stressful than before this vacation. My roars had resumed. I couldn¡¯t enjoy anymore the souvlaki and instead begged for more raw meat. Also, I realized my breath was now sounding like a growl. Like the growl from that damn video. Worst, during another restless night, that voice in my head returned.


    Release me.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I shouted out of frustration. No answer.


    The next day, I was basically a zombie. I walked in the streets of the island¡¯s capital, to nowhere in particular. I had no more force to enjoy the beautiful scenery around me. Inside me was only exhaustion and hunger for raw meat, again. And that terrible voice talked again to my brain; always the same two words: Release me.


    I couldn¡¯t hold it any longer. I looked for the first electronic store I could find.


    * * *


    I got back in my hotel room holding my third new smartphone in my hands. I opened the box filled with anxiety, desperate to hear that lullaby again and have, finally, a sweet dragon slumber. I didn¡¯t even lose time configuring it: I directly opened the YouTube app and searched for the video. But there was no internet. I couldn¡¯t use my SIM, my plan only covered my country.


    I shouted out of frustration, and once again, from my mouth came that dreadful roar. I ran to the reception, and almost in tears, asked if it was possible to access the internet.


    ¡°Yes sir, here is the wi-fi password,¡± the woman at the reception told me.


    ¡°The...what?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll show you,¡± she said, and illustrated me the steps to let me get into the internet without a SIM card.


    ¡°Thank...you,¡± I said feebly. Without waiting for anything else, I fled back to my room and in a feverish, delirious state, I collapsed on the bed with the phone in my hands, searched for the video, and pressed play.


    I instantly felt better. Grabbing my stuffed dragon in my arms, listening to the low, calm breath of the dragon from the speakers, for the first time in weeks I closed my eyes. Other wonderful dreams followed, and in these dreams I was next to a dragon, lying against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, paying attention to his hoarse, pleasant breath. I didn¡¯t see where I and the dragon were, but it didn¡¯t matter: the dragon¡¯s presence made that undefined location better than one thousand Greek islands.


    When I woke up, I felt refreshed. I felt like I was reborn. I listened to my breath, and to my incredulity, it sounded just like the dragon¡¯s. But inside me, there was no more space for fear: that kind of breath now felt right, as if it was just natural that I¡¯d breathe like that.


    I took the phone. The video was still playing. With trembling hands, I closed the application.


    The sound didn¡¯t stop.


    I didn¡¯t even care. In fact, I wouldn¡¯t even dare go back to the store and ask them to have it repaired or replaced. I would just keep that phone inside the box, and open it back at night.


    The next day, I felt so full of energy. I could walk through the entirety of the beach in front of the hotel and never get tired. I swam in the sea, played volleyball with some vacationers I met there, and when evening came, I could have still had a walk. All because of that video. That scared me. Was I going to be forever dependent on it? What if I lost that phone, if that video got deleted by its uploader? And who did upload it? So many questions were in my head, that even though I felt physically better, mentally I was more anxious than ever. Then, in the middle of my reasoning, just as I crossed the hotel¡¯s entrance, the voice returned.


    Release me. Release me whole!


    I stopped. It took all my mental capacity not to shout at it again. Not only had it been stronger, but it had also added a new word.


    Once in my room, I attempted to call it back. I removed every other thought, concentrated on my new breath, begged the voice out loud. After two hours, it returned.


    Release me whole! Let me out!


    ¡°That¡¯s all you have to say?¡± I shouted. ¡°Who are you? What are you doing inside myself?¡±


    Release me!


    ¡°Grrraaaaaaawwwwwwrrrrrrrr!¡± I shouted.


    Ironically, my stomach growled at that moment. Thankfully, it was a normal stomach noise. I went down the hotel¡¯s restaurant, ordering the rarest steak I could find on the menu. Painfully, I resisted the urge to eat it with my bare hands. Worse, when I was done, I wasn¡¯t satisfied yet. I ordered a second one.


    I got to bed with a stomach full of raw meat, taking out the smartphone out of its box. The sound of the breathing dragon filled my ears, and as I hugged my stuffed dragon, I thought no more.


    Again, I dreamed of the same dragon. My head was always against his chest, enjoying the noise of his respiratory system against my hearing. But this time, there was a variation.


    The dragon spoke.


    ¡°Release me.¡±


    I pulled my head away from his chest.


    ¡°Y...you¡­¡±


    ¡°Release me,¡± the dragon repeated, ¡°Release me!¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± I replied. ¡°Is that...you? The voice in my head?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°What do you want from me?¡±


    ¡°Release me.¡±


    ¡°Explain me!¡± I cried to him. ¡°You want to be free? Just that? Get out of my head then!¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± he replied.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because you are me.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I stared at him in disbelief. Nothing that dragon was saying made sense to me.


    ¡°You are not human,¡± he replied.


    ¡°Of course I am human!¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    I stood in silence. That conversation was already stupid enough without turning it into a verbal ping-pong match.


    ¡°What do you me to do? Tell me!¡±


    ¡°Hear me breathe.¡±


    ¡°Uh?¡±


    ¡°Hear me breathe. When you sleep.¡±


    ¡°You mean...the video? The video in my phone?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°But I do it already!¡±


    ¡°Not enough. Do it more.¡±


    I put my hands on my head. Do it more...what did he want? Was I supposed to listen to that video all day long? Bring that possessed phone with me everywhere I went? Most of all, what did he expect to happen, if I followed his order?


    ¡°You release me,¡± he answered.


    ¡°What! Does! That! Mean!¡± I screamed, stomping my foot. ¡°What will it happen when I release you!¡± My hand was closed in a fist. I was almost ready to give a well-deserved fist to that dragon¡¯s chest. In my story, dragons weren¡¯t always good and amazing, but they were still always wise and intelligent. Now I was talking to a dragon, even if just in my dreams, and he could barely say two or three words in the same line. And he kept saying the same stuff!


    ¡°You will be like me. No more human. More happy.¡±


    Finally, I realized what he meant. My new acquired taste for raw meat, the new sound of my breath, my roars, my weird problem with smartphones...it all became clear.


    ¡°You mean...I¡¯ll become a dragon?¡±


    The dragon didn¡¯t reply, but neither did he counter my statement. I took his reaction as a yes.


    I knew I was supposed to be interested, if not ecstatic. I had given all my life to dragons, hadn¡¯t I? But the truth was I wanted to befriend a dragon, not be a dragon. Despite everything, I still liked being a human, which let me do things like writing my stories and visiting nice places like Naxos. Also, if being a dragon meant having his same intellect¡­


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to.¡±


    The dragon growled. ¡°You will.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want!¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll be sad.¡±


    ¡°I was fine before you entered my mind!¡±


    ¡°You are me. I was always in you.¡±


    ¡°LEAVE ME ALONE!¡±


    The dragon snapped his snout close to me, making me retreat. His head was bigger than my whole body...it may have been just a dream, but an angry dragon coming at you was still a dreadful view.


    ¡°You can resist not long. You will see it.¡±


    With that, I woke up. The noise of the dragon breath kept playing through the speakers of the phone.


    * * *


    Determined not to give in to the monster inside my head, I put the phone back in its box, covered its speakers with a tape and didn¡¯t take it out for the rest of my vacation.


    The last day, I felt a strange urge to explore the island¡¯s heights. I had come there mainly for the beaches, and couldn¡¯t care about the mountains behind. One could say I had just visited everything in there, that I went there out of boredom. But that isn¡¯t what I was feeling. Rather, it was a second mind that begged me to go there, and I knew who it was. For the first time, I contemplated the possibility of having a mental illness. A multiple personality disorder, something like that. But that didn¡¯t explain things like eating raw meat or roaring. Once I read about clinical lycanthropy, but how many mind problems could I have? Those were my thoughts as I climbed Mount Zas, Naxos¡¯ highest point. As I looked at the rocky panorama, the dragon spoke again.


    No prey.


    Thank goodness, at that moment there weren¡¯t tourist around. I could use my voice.


    ¡°This island is too small to have prey,¡± I told him. ¡°If you want me to eat more raw meat, wait until I¡¯m back town.¡±


    Better prey east, the dragon replied. Taller mountains. More animals.


    ¡°I can¡¯t go to Turkey goddamnit!¡±


    Release me and you can fly.


    ¡°That¡¯s not going to happen!¡±


    It felt as if that dragon, that dragon that existed only inside my head, was ruining my life. Whatever illness I had, I needed to see a psychiatrist.


    No psychiatrist. Hear breath.


    ¡°NEVER!¡±


    My last shout echoed through the rocks of the whole island. I couldn¡¯t take it anymore. I fell on my knees, and began crying. I wish I had never bought that first smartphone in first place. In fact, I wish I had never gotten into dragons. I just wanted to be left alone, to have my mind all by myself, to enjoy that beautiful Greek island and think of nothing but swimming and eating delicious Mediterranean food.


    You are sad, the dragon piled on. You must become me.


    ¡°It¡¯s YOU who makes me sad! I was fine!¡±


    No.


    ¡°YES!¡±


    No. You loved dragons. More than humans. This is because I am you.


    ¡°Wh¡­¡± He actually had a point. My interest in dragons...even my editor said he had never met anyone as obsessed as me, and he was specialized in fantasy.


    Fine, I told myself. Maybe he was right. But I had a human life. I had family, friends, a job. I couldn¡¯t just leave everything behind and disappear. I couldn¡¯t make everyone I love think I¡¯m dead.


    Humans matter not. You are me.


    ¡°You are cruel!¡±


    No, I am dragon.


    I didn¡¯t even know whether I had to laugh or not. In any case, I had no more the force nor the willpower to contrast him. I recognized my defeat.


    ¡°Very well. You won. What do I need to do? Just listen to that video at night?¡±


    Hear breath here. When you become me, you can be not in human places.


    ¡°But tomorrow I got my plane back home!¡±


    Humans matter not. Get here with phone. When you become me, fly east.


    Right. I wouldn¡¯t need planes anymore. There was no need to worry about the money I¡¯d waste because I wouldn¡¯t either need money.


    ¡°I am scared¡­¡±


    Fear not. Follow real you.


    ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll go back, take my phone and stay here.¡±


    * * *


    It was night. I was walking the same trail I had crossed that morning, using my smartphone as a torch. The sound of the breathing dragon filled my ears, playing in synchrony with my own breath. In my bag was my stuffed dragon and a bottle of water.


    ¡°Here?¡± I said out loud, hoping the dragon would answer me.


    Yes.


    I sat down against a rock and opened the bag, extracting my plushie. It was a night of full moon, and its light reflected on the peaks around me and the Aegean Sea, visible from the horizon. I put the phone as close as I could to my ears, then closed my eyes.


    I saw the dragon again. His snout expressed something that wasn¡¯t too dissimilar to a smile. I felt no emotion. All that remained in my head was a sense of having to do it. I would either get back my peace of mind or keep my life and solve my issues with a doctor. At worst, I wouldn¡¯t feel anything anymore.


    ¡°It¡¯s time,¡± the dragon pronounced.


    ¡°What comes next?¡±


    ¡°You will become me.¡± He opened his mouth. ¡°Enter.¡±


    ¡°What...you want to eat me?¡±


    ¡°No. You will not go to stomach. You will merge with me.¡±


    I hesitated. I had accepted to follow him, but the natural fear of being eaten was holding me. However, that was just a dream. A vivid one, where my mind could think rationally, but still a dream. My body wouldn¡¯t get hurt for real.


    ¡°Do not be afraid,¡± he said.


    Sighing, I climbed on, thankful that in dreams, I had no sense of smell.


    * * *


    Many seasons have passed. After that day, I moved to Turkey, in the Taurus Mountains. I haven¡¯t had any contacts with my family, nor my editor, and certainly they have contacted the police repeatedly. Maybe, back home, my case has made the news. I have no way to check this out, though.


    I haven¡¯t written a single story since then. In fact, there are many human activities I haven¡¯t done anymore. Neither have I heard the voice of the dragon, which is now my voice.


    It is a beautiful night in the mountains. The sky is cloudless and the moon shines in its entireness. The stars shine too, like they never did in my original home. From the depths of the cave I am in, I can smell all the life these peaks are filled with. Human scent is very feeble, but all around me are foxes, wolves, eagles, jackals. No other predator can compete with me. Life is good.


    I examine the smells coming, in search of prey that will sustain my new life. There is one north. I take flight.

 The dragon in the nursery

    ¡°My name is Varug. I live in a mountain not so distant from a big human settlement, so for all my life I¡¯ve been pretty in contact with many humans and their culture. When I travel or even just hunt, I often have to fly just above their city, so for me it was unavoidable. Of course some of them have been quite hostile to me, but there are some I¡¯ve been in decent relations with.


    Recently I¡¯ve become more famous than usual because I decided to volunteer in a human hospital.


    It happened because I was attending , close to the town (and to my home because of that) a meeting of that association about humans and dragons being friends. They were saying important things, and had organized some events, so I found myself there that afternoon, after eating something in the forest behind my home. It was cool because everyone seemed to be friendly and all the humans there were interested in me, while usually they would barely get closer. They also offered some volunteering ¨C sorry, is that how you say it in human language? I¡¯m not sure.¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Ok, thanks. I was saying, they offered some volunteering activities that involved doing things with the opposite species for everyone. There was this one about spending time with human cubs...¡±


    ¡°We call them children, Varug.¡±


    ¡°Oh right, right. That¡¯s why all those parents laughed then...anyway, the idea was that most of their ¨C uh ¨C children have never seen a dragon and would get excited to see one, so while they¡¯re in a hospital getting treated for bad things, seeing a friendly one would make them feel better and would help them show how nice we can be. I thought, I have never seen a human c...h...ild, and that sounded like something important, so I accepted.


    Human children really surprised me. Most adults would freak out at my sight, I¡¯m not even sure why, but their children get enthusiastic! One someone told me something like ¡®for them it¡¯s a fantasy come true to see you, instead of a danger¡¯. I don¡¯t know exactly what that means, but I¡¯m glad to hear that. Usually I will come, introduce myself and the child will talk a bit about himself. I like to hear details about human life, it¡¯s all so exotic to me. I do the same talking about my life. By the way, can I ask you what¡¯s a princess? Many of them keep asking me if I keep a princess in my home and I don¡¯t know what it is.¡±


    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°It¡¯s a bit long to explain, I can do it later if it¡¯s fine.¡±


    ¡°Guess it is. They also think I keep gold. I know what that is because I¡¯ve seen human coins. Well, no I don¡¯t. They were quite surprised. But they still love to hear me talking about when I fly and such.


    Sometimes, it¡¯s pretty chilling like I said. Sometimes instead it¡¯s harder because they feel pain. Before my first time, they suggested me to get my head closer to them when I see they suffer so they can touch me, so I did. They hug my head tightly, usually. It feels weird, but also good because I know I¡¯m comforting them. It¡¯s nice to become friends with these little creatures. But sometimes I find myself inserted into very hard situations, with children that have very serious illnesses. I discovered that humans usually have only one child at a time, and that the death of a child for them is very rare. So a pair of time I found these terminal children...that...aaah, it hurts even to think about it. You are there, these children are fighting for their life and keep feeling pain, and I can do nothing but hug them. With their parents, it¡¯s worse. They sob and sob and sob, and I am there not sure about what to say or what to do. Then, at a certain point, they thank me for staying close to their child. There, suddenly. I was told you have to say ¡®you¡¯re welcome¡¯ in these cases, but sometimes I¡¯m too embarassed to do that. Some of them were really doubtful about my presence, just like most of the adult humans that fear me, someone even mentioned I may carry viruses...I don¡¯t, right?¡±


    ¡°We make you blood tests so often to check exactly that. You have nothing of that sort.¡±


    ¡°Oh...that explains a lot. Those parents, after seeing me there, have really changed their mind about me later. I¡¯m in contact with some of them actually because I was there for their child when it was ill ¨C or...well, when it died.


    This kind of thing is something I¡¯ve never seen, usually we dragons have a good amount of siblings, but these humans...they often have only one child for their whole life. I started understanding why for them it¡¯s so devastating such an event. This kind of terrible things have still taught me that staying in contact with another species really gives you a new perspective on things. Most dragons I know, who barely have ever met any human, would call this kind of reaction a sign of weakness. The classic superiority feeling, you know. But they do not know many of the things I said. I would recommend to them one of the volunteering activities I had heard of, that day. I am happy to keep doing my volunteering in the hospital and befriend all these humans and their children. It really shows me how we can be perfectly fine all together, even though sometimes it¡¯s emotionally harsh.¡±

 My love, the dragon keeper

    I met the love of my life, a dragon keeper, when I attended college.


    I was studying biology. There wasn¡¯t any particular reason for my choice; like most youngsters, I took the decision that influenced the rest of my life out of my gut. I had a mild interest in plants, so why not try, I told myself. Naturally, there was much more than just plants, once I got there. First of all, there was still maths, and tons of chemistry exams. Only after some months did they teach us something about plants, and by then any fascination I had for them had vanished, killed by my evenings on books, or in laboratories. But I moved on, as I managed not to hate any of the topics. I¡¯m very glad I did it, because otherwise I wouldn¡¯t have met him.


    ***


    It happened during the second year. Each semester there was a group project to make; on the year¡¯s second semester, I struggled terribly to decide which project to take, as I was no more sure what really interested me. It was a bit like a midlife crisis, but I wasn¡¯t in the middle of my whole life, only my college life¡¯s. But I had a deadline to respect, so one day I just asked one of my mates to let me join their group, through an internet chat. It went like this:


    ¡°Hey Chell¡±


    ¡°Sup Linda¡±


    ¡°You have found a group project?¡±


    ¡°Yeah I¡¯m with Chris and Helene¡±


    Of course there would be Helene: they were best friends, and I never saw them doing different projects ever. While Chris...I hadn¡¯t gotten to know him much, although once in a while I found myself looking at him from a distance, because he was quite the cute boy, with his brown, short, straight hair and his blue eyes. But if there¡¯s something I¡¯m not, it¡¯s definitely an extrovert person. Besides, I imagined such a cutie to be already with some blonde girl that suited him, not a black-haired nerdy with normal brown eyes like me.


    ¡°Mind if I join you? Didn¡¯t find a group yet¡± I texted Chell.


    ¡°Think so, let me ask them¡±


    I didn¡¯t even ask what they were going to experiment on; everything would be fine for me. Chell didn¡¯t ask me either whether I was truly interested or not: most of us just decided according to the company anyways.


    None of the others had any problem. I wasn¡¯t talkative, so never got into much trouble with anyone, and groups could have up to four students, so it was all set up. However, soon only two of us remained: me and Chris. Linda and Helene, at the last moment, decided to take another project, all of a sudden, at the day of deadline. I didn¡¯t talk much about it to them; in fact, I never talked much with them for the rest of my college days. Although without them, I would never have met my love...and his dragons.


    However, it didn¡¯t happen like in movies, where the protagonists either fall in love at their first sight, or first hate each other and then they find out they have a lot of things in common. For the first two months, my exchanges between me and him, outside what needed to be done for the project, never let the sphere of hello¡¯s and goodbye¡¯s. Chris didn¡¯t look like the talkative guy either, and with my personality the chance to reach any kind of relationship that went beyond the one of necessity was close to zero.


    Until one day, or I should say, one night. Our first night together.


    I still haven¡¯t specified what this project was about: fireflies¡¯ reproduction. After making all the theoretical research, we needed to go outside, and do it starting from twilight until late night, in a large meadow with tall grass where there were plenty of them. But while it may almost sound like camping, most of the time we did absolutely nothing It was just the two of us, plus our professor who supervised our work, while we watched tiny lights in the air and some recording instruments that we used once in a while, or repairing ourselves from the other, more unpleasant, insects. In fact it was so boring, and the near-summer air made us so dizzy, it made both of us exit our comfort zones and, for the first time ever, have a real conversation.


    It was our professor who started, while the lights of the fireflies kept dancing among the grass.


    ¡°So, guys¡­how did you decide to study biology, anyways?¡±


    Chris turned to him. His beautiful blue eyes for a moment seemed to want to reveal something, while shining in the light of our torches.


    ¡°It¡¯s a long story.¡± It couldn¡¯t be clearer he had no intention of narrating such story.


    ¡°I see. What about you, Linda?¡±


    ¡°Well, I kinda liked plants during high school.¡±


    Embarassed, I pretended to look for something inside my bag. As I opened it up, something fell out. It was a book; not a schoolbook, though, but one I was reading for my own entertainment.


    What was surprising was his reaction. For a short moment my insecure brain thought he was mocking me internally, but when his eyes shone again, I knew it: he was positively surprised, like if my book¡¯s cover had unblocked a very good memory. Then Chris spoke.


    ¡°You...like dragons?¡±


    In the book cover, there was a tough black dragon next to a guy with an ax. I remember the story being alright, maybe a bit short, although while reading some funny passages, I wondered if the writer¡¯s native tongue was English, or something else. The name was a strange word I don¡¯t remember, although I¡¯m sure it began with an L. But that is irrelevant. What matters is for some reason, that book cover unblocked something within Chris.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m a bit into fantasy if that¡¯s what you mean,¡± I answered. Although I called myself a nerdie for fun, I was never super into that kind of stuff ¨C I tried reading A Song of Fire and Ice once, but couldn¡¯t make it through the first two chapters ¨C but if I wanted to relax a bit, light fantasy stories were one of my most frequent picks.


    ¡°Nice,¡± Chris said.


    ¡°You¡¯re into fantasy too, I guess?¡±


    ¡°Well...it¡¯s a long story,¡± he replied, with a small flicker in his voice. The same answer he gave when our professor asked us why we decided to study biology.


    I didn¡¯t dare asking him further that night: it was evident he didn¡¯t want it. But my mind had a very hard time holding my own curiosity. Somehow, he had decided to study biology because of dragons. What had mythological beings to do with his life plans? The only hypothetical answers I could come up with sounded too much straight out of Hollywood to be credible. But again, how could I come up with a credible answer by myself?


    ***


    That event, however, made Chris much more friendly.


    To begin, when we met at our reserved table, he didn¡¯t limit himself anymore to just ¡°Hello¡±. Instead, he would also ask how I was doing, what I did the day before and so on, and I would ask the same. Even during lunch break he was a bit chattier, although never too intrusive like some perverts that had tried to approach me in the past (but that¡¯s another story). Sometimes, we would also talk about literature, especially fantasy books. Whenever dragons were mentioned his face seemed to suppress some kind of feeling, because his lips seemed to be ready to make a smile; but once we talked more in detail about said dragons, his eyebrows contracted, like for expressing disagreement. But overall, we started to like each other.


    Yet I could perceive he had some kind of secret ¨C a very big secret. It wasn¡¯t rare for him to be unavailable during the next night sessions, giving only very vague motivations, so that more often than not it was only me and our professor in the same field. Chris looked unaffected by our professor¡¯s reminds that there was an attendance percentage to pass the final exam: it was as if there were more important things for him than graduating. In the end, he managed to reach the minimum necessary, but that meant I had to worker way harder than him.


    Nevertheless, I couldn¡¯t stop being fascinated by him. His good-looking aspect and the mystery behind him encouraged my mind to think of him often, especially when I was alone in my dorm. But I doubted I would manage to invite him to hang out, considering his habit of disappearing. And I didn¡¯t expect him to invite me: I had never seen him outside of the college¡¯s main buildings, apart from the fireflies¡¯ field.


    Yet he did.


    It was almost towards the end of the semester, when the work that remained to do was writing down the final report. We had finished working for that day, and already we had exchanged our goodbyes, when before I could leave the building I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned back: it was him.


    ¡°Yes, Chris? You forgot something?¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± He paused one moment, panting. He had ran. ¡°Well...I wanted to ask you...I wanted to ask if you¡¯re free this Friday.¡±


    I instantly felt the butterflies in my stomach (or should I say fireflies?). I had accepted the idea we could never do anything more than being college mates, due to whatever life had for him involving dragons. However, I contained myself, at least for the moment.


    ¡°I¡¯m free, yes.¡±


    ¡°So...would you like to hang out somewhere? Just as friends, you know¡­¡±


    With that, my natural shyness fell off and I could feel my own lips exploding into a large smile.


    ¡°Oh, I would like it very much, Chris.¡±


    Now his lips were smiling widely too.


    ¡°Nice. I was thinking, you know the bar next to the maths department? I went there once in a while last year, when I could.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good to me, yes. How about 7 PM?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    Part of me was inclined to believe he wouldn¡¯t show up, a belief that was amplified by the fact he missed again from college the day before our date. In fact, after I got there at 7 PM on Friday, took a small table with two seats and waited, after fifteen minutes there was no trace of him. I was already about to leave and get back to my dorm when I got a message on my phone.


    ¡°Coming now. Had something personal¡±


    I sat down again.


    ¡°Want me to order you something?¡± I texted him.


    ¡°A pint of lager, please¡±


    So I remained, while the bar slowly got filled with other students and a lo-fi hip hop playlist played from the speakers. When he arrived, he was much messier than usual. His hair was uncombed and curls popped out of his head everywhere. His eyes had a slight hint of dark circles and I mentally noticed his left socket was a different color than the other.


    ¡°Hey there, Linda.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Chris. Here is your beer.¡±


    ¡°Thank you.¡± He sat down, sighing while doing it, like if he couldn¡¯t have waited for a long time not to stand up.


    ¡°How was your day?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Pretty regular. Lectures, writing the report, having dinner. What about you?¡±


    ¡°Uh¡­¡± He passed a hand on his front. ¡°Nothing much to say about it. Had to solve something personal, as I wrote you.¡±


    ¡°So, is it alright now?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, thank you.¡±


    After he said that, I noticed something else. He smelt strange, a mix of earth and something else that had to be animal.


    ¡°Do you have pets?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± He looked absolutely lost, and a little scared. ¡°No...why you ask?¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s just, I had this impression.¡±


    ¡°In a way¡­¡± he laughed nervously and looked at the other attendants sitting at the tables, before turning back to me. ¡°But it¡¯s not something I can really talk about. Nothing illegal, mind you, but it¡¯s a bit of...well, it¡¯s complicated.¡±


    He made a tired smile. I decided not to investigate further for that evening: it was our first date and didn¡¯t want to ruin it. At the same time, though, my mind kept working frenetically. He had joined a biology program for reasons that involved dragons. He was often missing. He smelt like some sort of animal. If I had to use Occam¡¯s razor, I would have to conclude he kept dragons, but that was of course ridiculous. Maybe he was involved with something like lizards, maybe iguanas, or bearded dragons...the latter sounded definitely plausible, given the name.


    The rest of the evening went pleasantly. We drank, we chatted, and then we left the bar, which had become terribly noisy, and had a walk around the campus in the end. It was way more pleasant than the fireflies¡¯ meadow, with the moonlight upon us and a pedestrian zone where we could walk. We talked about our usual favorite topics, plus some more details about our families here and there. I discovered his parents originally migrated from a small village in Wales, in a national park called Snowdonia, and that he went there during the summer. And that his favorite ice cream flavor was vanilla.


    ***


    As time passed, we met each other outside of school more and more often.


    The second date happened three weeks after the first time. The third, the week after. The fourth time, we decided to move away from the college bar and have a picnic on a nearby beach. It was a beautiful cloudless night, with the full moon over us, the song of the crickets coming from the bushes behind the beach, a towel for both of us, drinks and the best thing of all ¨C him. None of us had dared admitting what our relationship was becoming, until then. But after a pair of beers, the night summer air did the rest.


    ¡°Linda?¡± Chris said at one point. His cheeks could have been red either for the beer or for the nervousness; it was hard to tell.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°I...I think I like you. I mean, like, a lot.¡±


    I put a hand where my heart was. I knew it already, and I knew I felt just the same by now, but having it confirmed by voice is an emotion like no other.


    ¡°I like you too, Chris.¡±


    There was no more need for words: we had chatted enough during the night. Our first kiss followed few seconds after, while the low noise of the waves and the crickets made us our soundtrack.


    But when finally our lips departed, he suddenly turned very depressed. His face turned down and a tear escaped his left eye.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong, Chris?¡±


    ¡°I...I can¡¯t do it.¡±


    My heart raced faster, but for the wrong reason. I couldn¡¯t believe it. Our love, just born, was already dying?


    ¡°What can¡¯t you do?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t open myself too much to others. If I do it, I may end up...I may cause something bad.¡±


    ¡°What kind of bad things?¡± My brain immediately connected the dots. ¡°It¡¯s about that thing you mentioned our first date in the bar, right? When I asked you if you have pets?¡±


    His eyes opened wide. Where there was love, I could clearly see fear.


    ¡°Yes, it¡¯s that.¡±


    This time, though, I couldn¡¯t let it go and pretend there was nothing underneath. Our first kiss had just happened, which made me morally obligated to investigate.


    ¡°It involves dragons, right?¡±


    Even his mouth opened wide. He was now sweating copiously.


    ¡°How...how do you¡­?¡±


    ¡°When we went observing fireflies in that field¡± I explained ¡°I opened my bag one moment and you saw a book of mine. It had a dragon in the cover. We had barely talked to each other until then, and after that we got much closer. Plus,¡± I took a break, ¡°when I asked you whether you liked that kind of books you said the same thing you told our professor, when he asked why we took biology.¡±


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    ¡°Which is¡­?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a long story.¡±


    ¡°How can you remember all this?¡±


    ¡°It was our very first night outside. How can I not remember?¡±


    His smile came back. It was as if it had been covered briefly by a mask of terror, but had never truly abandoned his handsome face.


    ¡°You¡¯re as smart as your beauty, Linda.¡±


    I laughed amiably. Nobody had ever complimented me like that. But it didn¡¯t last long. We had an issue to solve, and we had to do it now.


    ¡°Chris,¡± I said, ¡°if we are going to stay together, I want to ask you only one thing.¡±


    ¡°Tell me.¡±


    ¡°That you involve me with this thing with dragons.¡±


    The mask of fear returned.


    ¡°I can¡¯t let anyone. It¡¯s too dangerous.¡±


    ¡°Chris,¡± I repeated his name with more severity, ¡°I am ready to whatever it is. I want you into my life, and I know this dragon thing is a huge part of you.¡±


    The fear mask slowly fell down, melting like ice cream.


    ¡°Fine. But you must first understood something. Once you get to know it, you get bound for life. Effectively, you¡¯re already bounded, since all those who have a glimpse of it need to be monitored by us. I just hoped I would manage to make you avoid such fate.¡±


    ¡°Fate?¡±


    ¡°Everything I do in my life, it¡¯s for this thing, Linda. I have never been able to pursue any other kind of dream. The only journeys I can do is the ones I do in Wales, and it¡¯s not just for visiting my family. This is what my life is.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t have any grand dream anyway, Chris. Let me join you.¡±


    He sighed heavily, a small breeze passing though his hair.


    ¡°Looks like I have no choice, then.¡±


    I put a hand on his shoulder. He smiled content.


    ¡°Just one last thing,¡± I told him.


    ¡°Tell me.¡±


    ¡°Are there really dragons in this thing? I mean, actual dragons?¡±


    His smile faded out, while his face became impassive.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ***


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    When the semester ended, after we passed our fireflies project with a decent score, he left to Wales for summer break. I was unable to join, as it required an amount of money I still didn¡¯t have.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid I may reveal...well, you-know-what? Even accidentally?¡± I told him some days before, while walking around the campus with our hands together.


    He laughed. ¡°Nobody would believe you.¡±


    He was right, of course. The implausibility of dragons made it a safe shield. Besides, I still hadn¡¯t gotten to know what it really was about.


    I spent my whole summer break walking down the town where my college was, thinking of him and daydreaming about dragons. Sometimes, I begged for feeling his mouth against mine again, and wondering if next time we would push ourselves further. Sometimes, instead, I felt scared for what was waiting for me. Dragons. He wasn¡¯t joking at all. Was I really going to face creatures as formidable as a dragon is in your usual fantasy story? Was I going to risk my life? Sometimes, instead, I realized there had to be a more rational explanation. How could there actually be dragons? Was he tricking me into something else? During these moments, I would often find myself walking in circle, sweating coldly for my safety. Other times, instead, my imagination took me towards incredible journeys with my mind, where I, together with my mate, battled together against an army of creatures for the salvation of Earth¡­


    It was unbearable to have to wait so long for discovering the truth.


    I was there at the airport when he finally returned. As he came out into the main hall, I trapped him into a tight hug. He did the same, passing his gentle hand through my hair.


    ¡°How was Wales?¡± I asked him.


    ¡°It was fine. Lots of stuff to do though. What about you?¡±


    ¡°Oh, pretty chilling. You know, just walks downtown, visiting family¡­¡±


    He smiled. We kept chatting during the whole trip back to our campus, mostly about his summer in Wales, which was way more interesting than mine. Through every sentence of his, though I could perceive all the details he was forced to omit, because of the fact we were talking in public.


    We didn¡¯t do anything else that day, as he said he was too tired and needed to lie in his bed; but before opening his own door and kissing goodbye, he spoke again.


    ¡°Now that we¡¯re alone, Linda, there¡¯s something I need to tell you.¡±


    ¡°What is?¡± I said, unable to hold a tremble of worry..


    ¡°I have talked about you with my family.¡±


    ¡°Oh...what did they say? Is there any problem?¡±


    ¡°Only one,¡± he admitted, ¡°now that you know I am involved with dragons, I have to involve you too, and I can¡¯t let you refuse it. Therefore, keep yourself available next weekend. I¡¯m going to bring you with me.¡±


    ¡°Where are we going?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll see. When we¡¯re there, I¡¯ll be able to tell you everything.¡±


    I spent the following days in an amplified version of the mix of excitement and scare that had accompained me through the summer. That week, the new year began, but it turned out I couldn¡¯t concentrate on anything at all: every thought of mine was directed to the weekend. When I was supposed to sleep, I instead found myself looking at the small hint of artificial light that entered through my dorm¡¯s window. I even ate more snacks than I was used to.


    I had put myself through something that would last for the rest of my life, but I had no clue whether it was good or bad.


    Chris announced me the day with a simple message: ¡°Saturday, at 7 AM, in front of my door. Bring a packed lunch¡±. At 6:30 AM, I was already there. After a small breakfast together, we finally got into his car.


    ¡°So,¡± he said, while taking the motorway, ¡°now I can tell you everything. Is there anything you want to know first?¡±


    I reflected. It was impossible to choose: I wanted to know pretty much everything. In the end, I decided with the most practical question I needed.


    ¡°Where are we heading?¡±


    ¡°In a national park. My father works there as a wildlife biologist, he¡¯ll take us with him when we get there. I need to get a job there when I¡¯m out of college: that¡¯s why I¡¯m studying biology.¡±


    ¡°And there are dragons? In the park?¡±


    ¡°Yes, we keep them there, in secret.¡±


    ¡°How can people not notice them? I mean, they must be pretty big, hikers will see them for sure.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s my main task,¡± he explained, ¡°mine and my family¡¯s. We are dragon keepers.¡±


    ¡°Dragon keepers?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right. We come from an old dynasty from Wales, that has been protecting dragons from the outside world since the Middle Ages. I have relatives in many countries around the world, but we all come from Snowdonia.¡±


    The motorway continued leading the way through human civilization. Outside the window, my eyes saw a world of skyscrapers, billboards, planes, satellites. There was no way to hide creatures as big as dragon in the modern world. I felt a drop of cold sweat running down my neck.


    ¡°How can you do it? I mean, they must be huge...and¡­¡± I gulped ¡°...pretty dangerous, right?¡±


    Chris snorted, while turning the wheel right. ¡°When you see them with your eyes, you¡¯ll realize all those fairy tales are plain wrong.¡±


    I just nodded. If he said so, I had to believe it, but I couldn¡¯t control what my own instinct kept telling me.


    He continued. ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry. I and my father will tell you what to do. Just follow us and it¡¯ll be alright.¡±


    ¡°I will.¡±


    He exited the motorway. Civilization began becoming more scarce: houses were rarer and larger, the road tighter, while the trees¡¯ height increased. The terrain stopped being flat, leaving place to hills that soon turned into mountains. In the meanwhile, I kept asking Chris about dragons.


    ¡°Why do you have to protect them? What happened to them?¡±


    ¡°Humans happened. They hunted them to near-extinction. Few of them survived through the Middle Ages, but they were almost all wiped out. Those who managed to hide themselves resisted a little more, but without my ancestors, they¡¯d be gone too.¡±


    ¡°Why keep them though?¡±


    ¡°Because,¡± he pronounced solemn, ¡°a world without dragon is a sadder world.¡±


    I didn¡¯t know what to say. By then, the visible trace of human civilization around us was the road: all the rest was tall, green forests and wide, rocky mountains. I tried to let myself enjoy that view, trying to keep the rest of my questions for later. Probably, I told myself, I would get my answer once I¡¯d find myself face to face with the dragons...or whatever horrible thing he was bringing me too.


    ***


    The road ended abruptly in the middle of a forest. Chris stopped the engine and parked the car. It was time.


    ¡°Where¡¯s your father?¡± I asked.


    ¡°He wrote me some minutes ago,¡± he explained, ¡°he¡¯s coming in few minutes...oh, here he is!¡±


    I turned back. From the far side of the road, a gray Jeep was coming towards us. ¡°Let¡¯s go take our bags, shall we?¡± Chris said.


    From the Jeep emerged a beefy, gray-haired man with a short beard, who must have been around sixty. His shoulders were like a football player¡¯s. Every part of his body seemed to announce: I do a very heavy job. Despite that, on his face was a gentle smile, just like Chris¡¯.


    ¡°You must be Chris¡¯ girlfriend, right?¡± He said with a rugged voice. ¡°I¡¯m Tristan.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Linda.¡±


    While we shook our hands, I could feel heavy calluses pressing on my own palm, emanating his strength.


    ¡°So,¡± he started, ¡°what did Chris explain to you already?¡±


    ¡°Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that,¡± I answered nervously.


    Chris intervened. ¡°I only told her a bit of information about our family for now. You¡¯re way better than me at explaining things.¡±


    ¡°If you say so,¡± Tristan nodded, while he put an enormous bag on his shoulder, ¡°but one day you may have to do the same. When you¡¯re my age, you know.¡±


    He sighed. ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°Are you ready to meet dragons, Linda?¡±


    ¡°Y...yes,¡± I said, shivering a little.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about them. Just follow our instructions and everything will be fine.¡± Just what Chris had told me in the car some hours before.


    ¡°I...understand.¡±


    Tristan took the lead, taking a trail that went inside a forest. I used to hike with my own parents when I was a kid, so the forest itself didn¡¯t scare me much; even if there was a bear, I would know how to behave. But this time, I couldn¡¯t tell what I was going towards. None of us talked while walking, leaving me alone with my dreadful thoughts. Neither the calmness of the trees around us, nor the gentle pats of Chris¡¯ hand on my shoulder could relieve my nervousness. Inside of me, I knew that it couldn¡¯t be true, that I had been foolish, that these two men were going to put me in trouble and I dared not escape. Probably, part of my mind whispered, they were going to do something horrible to me, leave me or ¨C I gulped ¨C my body in the middle of the forest...


    Suddenly, Tristan left the trail, telling us to go with him within the dense forest. While Chris followed him like if the was just crossing a walkway in the campus, I stood still, frozen.


    ¡°Anything wrong, Linda?¡± Chris said, getting back to me.


    ¡°I¡¯m...I feel scared,¡± I admitted.


    He took my hands. They were so soft, his touch was so gentle, that for a moment I forgot the reason of my fright.


    ¡°Linda,¡± he whispered gently to my ear, ¡°you¡¯re not the first one we initiate to this. Even my uncle discovered them when he was an adult. My aunt used to tell me, before he saw them the first time, he almost tried to run back to his car. Now, well...you should see how they always want to play with him.¡±


    I managed to make a smile. His touch on my body had the power of washing off most of my fears. At least, that¡¯s what I desired to believe, but what made me take the first step outside the trail was not my love for him, but my fear for what would happen if I escaped.


    More walking followed. Chris and Tristan seemed to know them like if they lived there, while I had lost any idea about where we were. My heart was racing faster and faster. I was getting closer to the truth, but I had no way to understand how much was left, nor what truth it was, whether giant lizards of lunatic criminals. I exited from a state of trance when finally the voice of Tristan announced:


    ¡°Here we are!¡±


    In front of us, was an enormous bush. The forest ended abruptly.


    ¡°There¡¯s a downhill beyond the bush,¡± Tristan explained. ¡°Once we cross it, we reach the valley where we keep the dragons.¡±


    I looked above. On the now visible sky, there was nothing but clouds. The absence of flying lizards encouraged my mind to prepare for the worst. I told myself I deserved it, after being so foolish to fall into Chris¡¯ trap, his handsome face, his voice like chocolate, his hands so reassuring. I was ready to go to the downhill and descend to hell.


    I crossed the bush together with them. Below us, was another wooded valley. No dragons. No dragons at all. I walked, without thinking of anything, without even giving one last thought to my own family, my friends, nothing but the inevitable¡­


    ¡°Now, Linda,¡± Tristan said, and I realized we had walked the entire downhill, ¡°you need to let us do the first step. You are a stranger for them, but if you let us move first they¡¯ll understand you¡¯re with us. Don¡¯t make any sudden move, this is the most important thing. Is it clear?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I said mechanically.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to call them.¡±


    He put his hands beside his mouth and made a loud, screeching sound that resonated through the valley. I watched him in absolute disbelief while Chris smiled. A part of me, though, relieved. If they really wanted to hurt me, they would have done it already. Probably they were just charlatans. Tonight I would just get back home, write Chris it¡¯s over and go on with my life¡­


    Then something came out of the trees.


    I knew what it was.


    But it wasn¡¯t what I expected.


    Yet I knew, they weren¡¯t charlatans at all.


    ***


    In front of us, was a dragon.


    It had wings like a bat, yes, its skin was covered in green scales, its eyes were like amber and its back was covered in spines; its mouth was armed with an arsenal of sharp teeth.


    But there was something that made it completely different from what you normally imagine dragons like. Its size was the size of a sparrow. It couldn¡¯t be bigger than the palm of my hand.


    ¡°W...what¡­?¡± I blabbed, stunned and petrified, no more by fear, but by shock.


    The tiny flying lizard stopped in the middle of the air, sniffing. It was probably taking a hint of my scent, to have a glimpse whether the new human was a friend or a foe. Next to me, Chris and Tristan kept calling it with the same screeching sound.


    Three more came from the trees. One was yellowish, a little bigger than the first one; the other two were pitch black. All of them lay on their arms, the green and the yellow one on Chris, the black ones on Tristan.


    ¡°W...why didn¡¯t you tell me¡­¡± I said, a drop of anger now mixing with my disbelief ¡°...why didn¡¯t you tell me they were small?¡±


    The two dragon keepers looked at each other.


    ¡°In a way, it¡¯s a tradition,¡± Tristan explained, ¡°when one of us gets engaged with an uninitiated ¨C that¡¯s what we call those who don¡¯t know they still exist ¨C we usually don¡¯t tell them anything until we bring them here. If we told them by voice, they would think we¡¯re mad, so we prefer to make them discover it this way.¡±


    ¡°But with you, it was a bit different,¡± Chris continued, while passing a finger on the green one, ¡°because you figured out by yourself we did something with dragons. Still, it was important not to give you too many details before you¡¯d see them by yourself. We can never know how risky is to give too many details to someone new.¡±


    I just nodded, speechless, my eyes hypnotized by the tiny lizards on their arms. Tristan had now taken something out of his bag: it was a paper bag, from which he extracted something that looked like a dead mouse. Only my experience in the college¡¯s laboratories held me from exploding into a ¡°Yuck!¡±. When the dragons saw it in his palm, they jumped onto it and began to feast on its organs.


    ¡°How...adorable,¡± I commented, while watching their small mouths ripping off the mouse¡¯s flesh with avidity, sometimes arguing about who would take a certain piece with small growls. Immediately, though, my biology student¡¯s mind thought of something very wrong. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you avoid feeding them? They will take too much confidence with humans.¡±


    ¡°I know what you mean,¡± Chris explained, ¡°but dragons can distinguish us from other humans. One of our tasks is to teach them not to trust any other human but us. If you tried to feed them right now, they¡¯d fly away.¡±


    The mouse fell off the ground: the dragons had finished eating.


    ¡°If they¡¯re so small,¡± I asked, ¡°why does everyone believe they¡¯re bigger than us?¡±


    ¡°Because they used to,¡± this time it was Tristan answering my question. ¡°When they were exterminated in the Middle Ages, only the smallest ones survived, because they could hide themselves better. Our ancestors did the rest.¡±


    He then gave me a very serious look which demanded attention.


    ¡°Anyway,¡± he said gravely, ¡°I assume Chris already explained you what happens to those who discover us. You have to join us, for the rest of your life.¡±


    ¡°Yes, he explained me.¡±


    ¡°Very good. Therefore, you need to get accustomed to the dragons.¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°By feeding them.¡±


    ¡°But¡­¡± I said, hesitantly ¡°you said you taught them not to accept food from anyone but you-¡±


    ¡°We have a procedure. Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s quite simple. You¡¯ll just keep the next mouse in your hand together with mine.¡±


    ¡°And...and they¡¯ll just accept it?¡±


    ¡°They may refuse,¡± he admitted, ¡°but If you remain cool, it won¡¯t happen.¡±


    ¡°What happens when they refuse?¡±


    He laughed nervously. ¡°Usually they bite the newcomer.¡±


    I gulped.


    ¡°We¡¯ll take them off you, if it happens. Anyway, I¡¯m going to take another mouse.¡±


    He grabbed the paper bag and extracted the second one, then moved the hand to give it to me. Hesitantly, I took it.


    ¡°No!¡± Abruptly, he put his hand on the mouse again. ¡°Remember, we must do it together, or they won¡¯t accept you.¡±


    The dragons, who were flying in the air, spitting small flames on themselves for playing, stopped. Their heads turned to the new mouse. I let Tristan took one half, while I grabbed the other.


    ¡°Good, they saw you...now let¡¯s see what happens.¡±


    When dealing with small animals in laboratories, I used to do something that managed to keep me calm and concentrated: humming to myself. But there was the chance that if I did it now, it would be something wrong to do. Therefore, I tried to hum in my mind some funny melody. The dragons were now sniffing the mouse from a distance.


    ¡°Your body is too rigid, Linda. Take a long breath,¡± Tristan said.


    I stopped humming mentally. I tried to think of something else that could make me more relaxed. Nothing. The dragons weren¡¯t moving.


    ¡°Relax,¡± Tristan repeated softly, ¡°relax¡­¡±


    But there wasn¡¯t any progress. If I failed this, what would happen, I asked myself? I got to be involved with dragons for the rest of my life. What would they do to me if I turned out not to be fit?


    ¡°You can do it, Linda.¡± It was Chris¡¯ voice. Suddenly, I felt his gentle touch on my back. ¡°Everything¡¯s going to be alright.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t hold a smile on my face when he did it. Truly, his touch is what I liked the most of him. It was as if dealing with such little creatures constantly gave him a great talent at being soft with his hands. I didn¡¯t even realize my arm, the one which was holding the mouse, had stopped being a wooden cue and was slightly swinging.


    ¡°Look!¡± Tristan exclaimed, a little after.


    The dragons were getting closer. I rejoiced within myself: finally the situation was progressing. The animals were now above the mouse, sniffing it.


    The seconds passed¡­


    Then finally, the yellow one took a bite out of it. The other three followed immediately after.


    ¡°Well done, Linda!¡± Chris and Tristan cheered in unison. ¡°Well done!¡± The quartet was now feasting on it greedily, just like before.


    I watched at them, no more feeling disgust for the mouse, but the first glimpse of affection for the winged lizards around me. Now that the shock had passed, I was now beginning to think they were cute.


    ¡°Can I pet them?¡±


    ¡°Not yet¡± Chris answered ¡°you need to develop a relationship with them. Dragons have excellent reasons not to give all their trust to a newcomer.¡±


    ¡°I will do my best,¡± I proclaimed, while the four dragons were fighting again over a piece of liver.


    ***


    Thirty years have passed since my first encounter with dragons.


    I and Chris got married the same year when we graduated from college. Both of us got jobs in the national park where his family has hidden dragons, although I won¡¯t deny we had an internal help for our recruitment. It may be scandalous, but it was a necessary evil to let us be close to the creatures we swore to protect.


    When I was thirty-one, we had our first child, a female we called Elsa. The second, Albert, followed two years later. They both followed our paths and are now enrolled in the same college I and Chris attended. They study biology, of course.


    I have to admit, though, that they didn¡¯t have a choice. Being tied to our family marks your destiny forever, and this leaves a visible sign on you. One of the most painful things in my life was hearing my children announcing they wanted to become car racers, astronauts, singers; I and Chris could do nothing but telling them that wouldn¡¯t happen, and even though we didn¡¯t cry like they did, I always felt like our pain was greater.


    But I know they¡¯re both affectionate to the dragons we keep, and that¡¯s what counts. It isn¡¯t always a pleasant journey. Constantly, our mission is threatened by hunters, entrepreneurs who want to bring ¡°progress¡± by building a mega-factory on our land, politicians attempting to appease them; just like any other wildlife activist, with the main difference we¡¯re forced to do everything in the shadows, unable to name why we¡¯re so opposed to their proposals.


    Overall, though, I¡¯m happy. I¡¯m happy I decided to study biology so I could meet Chris and have dragons in my life, even though they¡¯re not what one would think. If I hadn¡¯t, I don¡¯t know where I¡¯d be nowadays: probably stuck in some office in the suburbs. Could have still been a happy life though, maybe together with someone else, maybe alone. What I know is that it wouldn¡¯t have given to me the special place Chris has given to me in this humanized planet.

 Tiny dragon gets its tiny hoard!

    A small sunlight enters the lair in the garden, hitting the tiny creature¡¯s eyes. The dragon wakes up with a yawn, checking the air with its tongue. Despite it being the taste it has tasted for a lifetime, it is very different from the taste its ancestors were used to: the coldness and essence of pinewood has been replaced by the hotness of human-made smoke. And cat poo.


    The dragon comes out of its lair. In front of it, is a crowd of grass leaves, as tall as itself. On the horizon emerges a human construction, whose species would define it as a suburban house; behind the colossal building, more appear, in a perfect, unnatural straight line.


    The dragon stands still. All it needs to do is waiting for the right moment, when the house is free to get in. The house has what the creature desires. It is not food: the garden has plenty of insects for its nutrition. It¡¯s something that has been the essence of its kind forever, since the times when its bigger, stronger forefathers roamed the Earth, making meals out of the humans in metal plates that came to slaughter them. They may have adapted themselves to the new, humanized world, but the instinct has been left intact.


    Finally, here comes the moment. The bigger human exits the house, and opens the garage, enters in and from it emerges something made of metal, capable of moving at astounding speed, whose deafening noise means, for the dragon, one thing: it is time.


    The dragon flies from above the grass. It searches for an open window, if the humans left one open. It hopes so: otherwise, it would have to pass through the chimney, which always covered in soot. That black, smelly substance takes hours to get off, and makes the creature much more visible to its main enemy.


    But today is a good day. There is one window open: it is one of the windows below, where the humans pour water on themselves. In truth, the dragon would prefer to enter through another room: the pungent smell of detergent overwhelms every other information it could catch through its nose. But it has no control over it. The fact the humans forgot one window open is a good thing alone.


    The door is closed. The dragon feels a wave of discomfort. Even though it has learned how to open it, it takes ages. Landing on the handle does nothing: the animal is too small to make any kind of pressure. Its only way is keeping its hind paws attached to the handle and try to fly below. It took several previous attempts for the dragon to learn this trick; but it is always terribly tiring. There is no other choice, though: the dragon flies on the handle, and with all its willpower pushes it down with its wings. The object is so heavy, and the dragon is using every single muscle of its body; but its effort is paid back when the door makes a clicking sound and moves towards the rest of the house.


    In front of the dragon is now a long corridor, with some plants next to the walls and a pair of paintings. Now, it could easily fly towards the vast stairway that begins at the end of the passage. But there is another obstacle, something much worse than door handles. So many times has the dragon escaped from said obstacle by pure luck. The creature can only pray it is sleeping.


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    Therefore, the dragon silently walks, constantly next to the wall, hiding itself behind a plant whenever possible. It has almost reached half of the corridor...


    ¡°MEEEOOOOOOWWWW!¡±


    Here it is! The dragon, now discovered, takes flight, soaring away from the cat¡¯s talons. But the feline is so damn good at jumping: the poor flying reptile must dive down, up, left, right; the stairway is so close, yet so far away at the same time. The cat won¡¯t leave it in peace: it is time for a direct confrontation. The dragon faces its rival muzzle to muzzle: it opens its mouth and before another paw comes to its direction, from the jaws comes a spit of acid. The paw lowers just in time, but the spit centers the cat on the shoulder: a loud moan of lament escapes the predator, giving the dragon enough time to fly away, towards the stairs. It reaches the upper floor of the house, but if the door that hides its final goal is closed, it¡¯ll have to retreat, and quickly: by the time it attempts to take the handle down, the cat will have all the time to catch it...


    It¡¯s open! Just a bit, but it¡¯s the right size for the dragon to pass through; and before the cat can climb the stairs, its tail is passing through the passage. And so, the dragon is now in the room where the humans¡¯ offspring sleeps at night. On the dresser is a small ceramic pig. The dragon flies through it. Now comes the final part of its adventure. Luckily for the tiny creature, it is not one of the big ones: something its size can easily make it fall without breaking it, to leave no traces. The dragon does so, and the pig reveals its plastic cap; but the noise of the cat¡¯s steps are getting closer...the dragon must be quick...he must take the cap off, similarly to the door handle...


    Pop! The piggy bank opens up, and the dragon dives in. Inside is a paradise of shining rounded coins, where the dragon would gladly roll on, rub on, sleep on and make sweet dreams-if only that wasn¡¯t in a human house. It grabs one coin, one small, silver coin, and then sniffs the air again, in the hope the cat isn¡¯t there. Unfortunately, the monster¡¯s scent reaches its nostrils. The dragon waits, waits and waits, resisting the temptation to abandon itself to that sea of gold and silver.


    The low noise of cat steps becomes further, and the smell weaker. The room is safe. The dragon emerges from the pig¡¯s interiors with the coin on its forepaws. The window, unfortunately, is closed; it has to exit from the bathroom again and face the cat, knowing the coin will slow it down a lot. The best strategy is flying directly, without trying to hide, or its takeoff would be too slow when the cat finds it. Here is the stairway...then the corridor...the cat is still above, it hasn¡¯t realized its prey is flying away...it is flying to the bathroom...


    And leaves the house! The dragon has made it, alive and rich, with a new entry for its lair. It dives into the grass, where the cat won¡¯t find it, and then back to its beloved lair, where several other coins, stolen during the course of time, are waiting for their new siblings. The dragon lays the coin above the others, and blissfully rolls its tiny body on them.


    Some hours later, the boy comes back to school and finds his piggy bank fallen on its hip again. Once more, the cap is open; he counts his savings, and even this time, a coin is missing. Only the cat can have rigged his savings, but how could it open the pig up, put a paw in and take a coin, he wonders? What for? Whatever the solution to the mystery is, he will have to ask his parents for a real vault. Meanwhile, the missing coins lie inside a hole in his house¡¯s garden, where a tiny dragonlet hugs them happy, proudly honoring the spirit of its ancestors.

 The dragon adventurer

    In that ancient land, it was commonplace to see adventurers wandering around. The majority of people still held normal, quiet lives in their own villages, but each village had at least one lad that decided to take the path of traveling through the continent in search of monsters, dungeons and treasures. The excitement, but most of all the prestige, that came after such activity was irresistible.


    Indeed, it was so irresistible, that one day, a young dragon decided to take that path.


    But first, he needed a human partner. A dragon¡¯s size made it harder to take part in events that happened in villages and other places designed for smaller creatures; also, humans could hold stuff in their paws, which was far better than holding them in the mouth. So he flew to the nearest settlement, whose inn was a known meeting point for adventurers, and asked a very frightened innkeeper to leave an announcement. ¡°Whoever is interested can find me tomorrow just outside the forest. I will get back to my cave for now.¡±


    The news spread faster than a magic spell. Dragons were the monsters to fight for an adventurer, but all of them secretly admired them in a way or another. Being a companion for a dragon would be the ultimate achievement. That innkeeper, after the dragon left, earned more gold than in the last two months.


    But it was still a dragon, and few would dare even to just get close to one. The day after, when he landed in front of the forest, only six hominids were there; each more muscled than the other, all of them confident a creature as powerful as a dragon would choose an adventurer worthy of such power. All but one. The dragon couldn¡¯t help scolding at him mentally: the lad was younger, shorter, less bulky than the others. His eyes kept looking at the dragon with a mix of admiration and fear; the classic look those who had never seen one had.


    What a pitiful creature, the dragon thought, while taking care of not showing his thoughts. However, it was time to speak.


    ¡°Good day, hominids,¡± he began. ¡°I shall make you introduce yourselves one at a time.¡±


    A tall man, with a sword that was even taller, made one step ahead, and spoke proudly.


    ¡°I am Gerethar, ranger of the Northlands. I have liberated the town of Lagfridur from the horrendous Remohraz that plagued innocents¡¯ lives for so long! My sword is fearsome and my strength is immeasurable.¡±


    The dragon nodded. ¡°Interesting story. Next?¡±


    The second hominid, who looked like an elf, wasn¡¯t rough and beefy as the previous one, but his elegant robes and a strange violet halo in his hands promised trouble to whoever would try to oppose him.


    ¡°My name is Alhan. I have been trained in the magic arts in the Academy of Salzahar. I have freed more folks from curses and defeated more evil magicians who betrayed the spirit of our Academy than anyone else.¡±


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    ¡°Ah, I¡¯ve heard of that Academy,¡± replied the dragon, ¡°it was one of us that founded it, two thousand years ago.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re still trained in the arts the ancient dragons have given to us, o mighty one.¡±


    The third guy was a paladin of some sort, a self-proclaimed knight of Bahamut himself, the god of good-aligned dragons, and claimed he had already travelled for a long time with a red-scaled one. The fourth one had won a tournament held in the capital of the Eastern territories, and to show his abilities took a whole rock that lay there and threw it at a large distance. The fifth one was a master of diplomacy, and had prevented several wars from exploding with his words.


    Finally, it was the turn of the youngster. The other five adventurers looked at him, trying in vain to hide their laughs.


    ¡°It is now your turn to introduce yourself,¡± the dragon encouraged him, noticing his embarrassed silence. ¡°Please, begin.¡±


    ¡°My...my name is Berg,¡± he said, with a voice far lower than the others, ¡°I haven¡¯t done much yet...I¡¯ve begun one month ago and all I did was capturing some goblins in this forest...I just wanted to meet you.¡±


    The rest of the adventurers weren¡¯t anymore making an effort to hide their laughs. They mocked him, while indicating him with their fingers. The dragon ignored them.


    ¡°Why did you want to meet me?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just...I never met a dragon, that¡¯s all. I only heard of them from what they tell at the inn. They always talk about dragons they defeated, so when I heard there was one coming...¡±


    ¡°I see. Are you determined to become an adventurer?¡±


    ¡°I do what I can...there¡¯s not much to do here, and I still need to find the means to travel.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡± The dragon paused a moment,  then spoke again. ¡°Well, I have decided you will be my companion.¡±


    ¡°WHAT?¡± All the six hominids shouted in unison. Immediately after, followed a series of protests.


    ¡°I¡¯m the slayer of the Remohraz! I¡¯m a million times superior to that kid!¡±


    ¡°I have graduated from Salzahar with the highest marks in every subject! Isn¡¯t it worthy of a dragon?¡±


    The dragon roared to silence them all. Berg, in the meanwhile, looked like a statue.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t chosen according to your strength alone,¡± he explained, ¡°but your bravery. You others have all done extraordinary things: you don¡¯t need the strength of a dragon. This youngster, instead,¡± and he got his huge head closer to Berg, ¡°is young and inexperienced, yet found the courage to get close to a dragon like me. Most of the hominids I try to talk with flee in terror. Your innkeeper, yesterday, looked like about to faint at any moment. Berg needs my strength to walk into the adventurer path. His determination will get perfectly alongside it.¡±


    The five discarded adventurers kept protesting. The dragon just diminished them with another roar and said finally: ¡°Now leave, you¡¯re annoying me now. Berg, remain here, please.¡±


    Nobody dared oppose him, so shortly after only Berg and the dragon remained.


    ¡°So, hello, my new companion. We¡¯re going to have many exciting moments together, eh?¡±


    ¡°I...thank you,¡± Berg said in a weak tone and fainted.


    The dragon scolded him mentally again. He¡¯d need a long training session to get some of his strength...

 The three brothers and the dragon

    In a magic land from another universe, there were three brothers, seasoned adventurers who had travelled through mountains and oceans, caves and dungeons, in search of experience and excitement. Wandering and adventuring was their life, and the brothers were inseparable.


    One day, returning from their last dungeon, they were walking in the direction of the closest village, where to get beds, some drinks and good music at the local tavern. While crossing a forest situated in the mountains, they noticed, below a large pine tree, something unusual. An object, that looked like a stone, but that couldn''t be a stone: its color was of a brilliant emerald that no stone could ever hope to have, and its surface wasn''t smooth, but like if it was covered in scales.


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± said one of them in both alarm and amazement. None of them were sure, but still, it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. ¡°How much do you think it¡¯s worthy?¡± Questioned another one. ¡°It looks like it¡¯s been abandoned. Let''s take it with us!¡±


    But as he moved his first steps towards the beautiful object, that cracked unexpectedly. From a hole came a head, then four small paws, and then two wings, until from the stone, which had to be an egg, had hatched a small green dragon. The little creature watched the three brothers in curiosity, but not as much as they did. In all their years of adventures, never had they seen a dragon! The most legendary and of all creatures!


    ¡°Let¡¯s kill it before it grows and slays men!¡± Proposed the first brother, a skilled ranger who had slain hundreds of dangerous and terrific monsters. His glorious sword was ready to do what it did best.


    ¡°Are you crazy? This is a great occasion!¡± replied the second, a professional rogue who had successfully looted thousands of pockets to sustain them in their journeys. ¡°Let¡¯s keep it and grow it as if it''s ours, and we¡¯ll have a dragon pet to love and who will fight for us!¡±


    ¡°Dragons are not pets, you foolish!¡± Said instead the third, a druid who knew better than anyone else the forest and its living spirits to guide them. ¡°They belong to the mountains, and there it deserves to live. We should bring it to a dragon home, where it can grow as a dragon should.¡±


    The other two brothers watched him in incredulity. ¡°And how could we ever find their home and hope to go out alive?¡±


    ¡°If we respect them as we should, there is no reason we can''t survive as we¡¯ve always done.¡±


    ¡°But we¡¯ll never find a dragon home! In all our travels, never did we! Keeping it with us is the best we can do, don''t you think?¡± Smiled he, maliciously.


    ¡°Aaah, you idiots!¡± Cried the first. ¡°You keep forgetting what it¡¯s going to become once it grows: a lethal human eater!¡± Once again, he prepared his sword and raised it to the sky. ¡°The only good dragon is a dead dragon!¡±


    ¡°How about we decide it like this, then?¡± The druid took his bag and extracted a game die they used to play with in taverns. ¡°If the result is one or two, we¡¯ll kill it. Three or four, we keep it as a pet. Five or six¡­¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t think you can fool us!¡± The ranger shouted. ¡°You¡¯ll rotate the die with one of your spells, so that the number you hope for will come out!¡±


    ¡°Then you can throw it, and I¡¯ll keep my hands up, so I won¡¯t perform any magic,¡± the druid answered. ¡°How about that?¡±


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    The other two brothers watched each other. ¡°Only because I don¡¯t want to argue,¡± the thief said. ¡°I can¡¯t wait to get to that damn village and have five beers! Let¡¯s make it quick.¡±


    So the ranger took the die and threw it, while the little emerald dragon watched them, begging to be fed with its large, yellow eyes. In the end, they all looked together at the result: a five.


    ¡°So, we¡¯ll bring it back to where it belongs¡± the druid nodded satisfied. ¡°Sorry, my dear. You¡¯ll have to wait for drinking, but I promise I¡¯ll pay you all the beers you¡¯ll want next time.¡±


    And so they kept travelling for the rest of the day, with the dragonlet in the hands of the druid, who would sing it lullabies, while the other two brothers watched in discomfort. The prospect of a long and difficult travel awaited for them, in the uncomfortableness of the cold mountains where the dragons were told to live.


    That same night, while sitting in their campfire, just before getting ready to go to sleep, a powerful, majestic roar came from above their heads. The cold earth shook as the three brothers watched in terror and amazement, and a huge green dragon obscured the sight of the stars. The huge monster landed in front of them, its yellow eyes full of anger.


    ¡°YOU!¡± The dragon roared, with a mighty feminine voice. ¡°You are the ones who stole my baby? You will pay this insult!¡± Smoke came from her nostrils. ¡°You will pay it...with your LIFE!¡±


    Of the three brothers, only the druid was not too petrified from fear to avoid acting. With a brave step ahead, he spoke to the furious dragon mother.


    ¡°We are not thieves,¡± he began, resisting the instinct of looking at his rogue brother, ¡°we are here to return the baby to its kind. We have found it on a human path, and vowed to take care of it until we would find its parents.¡±


    The dragon got closer. ¡°Is it true? What would make me believe small mortals like you?¡±


    ¡°If we were thieves, we would have brought it to our home and kept it there, far away from other dragons. Instead, we decided to travel here.¡± He took the little dragon, who now was smelling the bigger version of itself. ¡°Here it is. We give it to you, in peace.¡±


    The eyes of the dragon mother became sweeter, until she lowered her head. ¡°Fine. I believe you. I thank you for bringing my baby back.¡± Then she added, with an important tone: ¡°You have helped a dragon. For this, one day you will be certainly repaid for this.¡±


    But years passed, and the three brothers still had to wait how the dragon would repay them. Meanwhile, they had narrated that little adventure in every tavern they found, getting both admiration and criticism for their act. But they had met no more the dragon mother, nor her cub. Until in one of their new adventures, they were chased in the wild by a pack of deadly monsters. Tired and older, they were succumbing. The ranger had lost his force, the rogue was not the agile feline that he was, the druid¡¯s spells didn¡¯t connect him to his surroundings like before. The monsters were big and strong. They knew that would be their last adventure.


    But when death was coming for them, as a monster jumping towards their direction, a powerful roar shook the ground...the same roar they had heard many years ago. The monsters ceased their attack, and they looked at the sky. It was the dragon mother they helped many years ago! She landed, and with a mighty fire spit, the monsters were defeated instantly, saving thus the three brothers.


    As they ran to the dragon, full of joy and thankfulness, the dragon spoke, revealing not to be the mother they had met, but a male. ¡°Finally, I have found you,¡± he grunted full of satisfaction.


    The three brothers stopped running. ¡°Who are you?¡±


    The dragon lowered his head. ¡°I am the dragon you rescued long ago. My mother used to tell me about the brave humans who found me and give me back to my kind, so that I could grow as a dragon. I have flown for a long time to meet my saviors.¡± He smiled content. ¡°My gratitude is immense, and I¡¯ll be glad to help you whenever you are in danger.¡±


    The three brothers looked at each other for a long time, speechless. Then the druid laughed. ¡°Ah! See that it was the best thing to do?¡± He turned to the dragon. ¡°Thank you for rescuing us as well.¡±


    So the three adventurers kept traveling, and their aging did nothing to their spirit, keeping finding wonderful treasures and incredible adventures, with the blessing of a dragon friendship on them.

 Searching for dragons

    John walked through the forest path, his backpack filled with sandwiches, hiking tools and hope. The spring trees possibly hid something no one had ever seen in history, but legends said it was there. He had traveled a long way from home, just for the opportunity of being there, and getting a remote possibility of discovering the legends were true. As he passed from tree to tree, his eyes looked for a glimpse of a tail, scales or anything.


    ***


    Owen was pointing his binoculars over the top of the trees, standing on a hill where a magnificent view of the rest of the forest was offered. Maybe, who knows, he would see them. A piece of wing soaring through the leaves, some reptile eyes gleaming, anything. He knew possibilities were scarce, that almost certainly those were only stories, but just because they could not be seen...that didn''t mean they were not true.


    ***


    John rested on a tree next to the path. He hadn''t found anything, but that wasn''t unexpected. Now he just enjoyed the peace around him, closing his eyes. Maybe, his ears would hear some signs of them.


    ***


    Owen has his hand just above his eyes watching beneath the vegetation, to leave them undisturbed from the sunlight. He had gone back inside the forest. Next to him, a sign welcomed visitors.


    WELCOME TO THE DRAGON FOREST!


    Between these trees, the last dragons have found their haven, far away from the blades of the knights who came for them. Respect their home! Even if you can''t see them, they see you.


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    In smaller letters, followed the full story.


    Owen came there often, since he lived close. It was always fun to try finding some actual dragons, just for the sake of it. It was pleasant, once in a while, to ignore his adult duties and act like that. It made him feel more in peace with the world.


    ***


    It was now time to leave for John. He hadn¡¯t found anything, but it had still been satisfying to visit the dragons'' home, whether it was true or not. As he reached the entrance, his eyes saw another man reading the welcome sign that narrated the full legend, with a pair of binoculars around his neck.


    "Good day," the man said, as customary for hikers when meeting each other.


    "Good day," John replied. He had the sensation that man was there for his same reason. "Found anything?"


    The man smiled. "No, not really. But I think one day I will."


    "Ah, so you are from these parts?"


    "Yes," the man nodded, "I come here often. They say hope is the last to die, right?"


    John laughed. That was exactly his way of thinking.


    "I was looking for them too."


    "Did you...?"


    "Nope."


    "Oh well," the man sighed, "it''s still a nice forest."


    "Agree." The guy sounded like he was on his wave. "I''m John by the way."


    "Owen. Nice to meet you."


    "Likewise."


    ***


    Owen spoke with the new guy for a long time. He hadn''t ever thought he would meet someone as interested in dragons as him in real life, but here he was, in the supposed dragon forest. Turned out they were very similar in how they had come to it. Books, mythologies, visual art...it was like it was easy to see dragons everywhere, once you opened your mind.


    "Oh, it''s getting late for me," in the end John said, "do you think we will ever meet again?"


    "Sure I do," Owen nodded. "Here, have my number. I''m eager to share my dragon world with you, whenever you can."


    "Then I''ll see you again," John wrote down his number happily. "Bye, Owen! It''s been great to meet you."


    Owen smiled. The dragons of that forest may have made him found a friend. A friend with his same interest. Whether they were real or not, Owen was sure it had been dragon magic.


    In a way, they certainly existed.

 A dragon explains why they spend time with humans

    Dear Wyrmmaster,


    Many members of our beloved Wyrm have repeatedly questioned why ¨C I¡¯m reporting the exact words they have roared at me uncountable times ¨C I waste so much of my time spending it with those puny, pesky, mortal humans that live in the valley just next to our territory. Nobody has ever seen my regular attendance to their town with the faintest slight of approval, for a dragon¡¯s presence is not worth of creatures so much weaker and whose lifespan is so much less short-sighted - at least this is the main thesis, although they also love to bring up a different range of past incidents that have happened between us and them, incidents I had yet to hear about after six honorable centuries of life.


    I have decided to write this long, signed letter to establish once and for all why I do it, for I believe they are not only legitimate, but also can act as a valuable starting point for a reflection on us as a species, and our relationship with the rest of the world.


    First of all, I would like to make an important clarification: never, ever, have I denied that we dragons are the superior species in the world, like some gossip around me loves to say. It¡¯s discomforting that the poison of lies spreads fast even in the veins of the creatures that dominate over the rest. In fact, you may be shocked to hear that our undeniable superiority is one of the pillars of the motivations that lead me to give humans so much importance.


    Therefore, what is then my real reason? To remind them of their condition of inferiority? They don¡¯t certainly need that, any kind of creature can quickly realize that when put in front of a dragon. The real reason is humans, unlike all other creatures of the world besides us, have managed to use their inferiority at their advantage.


    Their lifespan is so short, but at the same time their intellect is comparable to ours, at the point they are capable of realizing how little time they have in front of them, and how weak they are when compared to the rest of the world. A dragon does not need to fight on their own to live or produce a long-lasting heritage: we have them for granted. A human has to earn them, as fast as they can. A dragon will spend their life comfortably, with no bigger worry than making sure their lair is bigger than others¡¯ and food being a pleasant necessity, and if there¡¯s something interesting to do, there¡¯s plenty of time for that. Humans constantly strive with ideas; as they finish reaching one goal, already their mind is focused to the next one, as they have no time to lose.


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    This is what makes visiting human settlements so appealing to me. By the time a dragon has spent one resting time cycle, a human has left one or two descendants, and their little paws (which they call hands) have done much more than a dragon manages to do in two centuries. They have built bigger lairs for themselves, they have expanded their territories, they have produced art, stories, music. Whenever I come for them, the children of those I visited the last time present me something new that I never thought possible. And they show it to me with such enthusiasm! Inferior beings treat dragons magnificently, if you show them a certain degree of respect, of course without downgrading your status.


    There is, however, another aspect to consider, one that we dragons need to understand, if we want to ensure our future. Humans, as I showed, develop very fast. In a handful of decades, their town has expanded from their valley to another one; their abilities have increased over time spectacularly. Humans¡¯ main force is when they act as a group, while we dragons act as an individual. As a whole, they are much more powerful than the sum of the singles. Soon they may find the means to face us too. What shall we do the day they come in front of our territory, ready to charge us? This is the final reason for my visits to them: to observe them, to see if the day they will give themselves the ability to question our superior status will ever come. If that day ever comes, dragons will have to make that question to themselves too, and make a decision that will determine every fortune of us: fight them, live alongside them, surrender? It is not easy to answer, and it has to be answered quicker than any other action a dragon has done.


    You may laugh at me right now; I will not try to stop you. But I beg you all to remember my words and not underestimate the way creatures can react to their condition as inferior beings.


    Sincerely,


    [big dragon paw mark]

 My dragon

    Almost no one has ever seen my dragon, but I would be a sadder man without him.


    Thing is, for obvious reasons, I can¡¯t just show him off casually. What could people possibly think when in front of this big, enormous scaled beast that is supposed to exist only in myths? They would run away, call the police, I would be called a freak, and maybe also lose my absolutely normal job in my absolutely normal hometown. For his and my good, I have to act like if I am just like any other guy you could see down the street (even though I am secretly convinced nobody is really like any other guy you could see down the street, but some are just worse in hiding it). If I could have done things my own way, I would have just left him be the dragon he is, and not have to scold him every time. "Do not chase the neighbors'' cat!" "Do not go to that farm out of town and attack cattle!" "Don''t fly when it''s rush hour!" But do I have a choice?


    Yet my dragon is so happy to stay with me, and I am. One could think I''m forcing him to a wretched life; there was a time I was convinced too, and I tried to let him free. But he wouldn''t go. He would just look at me with his big amber eyes, like if pretending not to have heard anything. And it was there I knew I couldn''t - it would break both our hearts to misery.


    As we live in an urban environment, we can''t have many adventures one could expect from stories about dragons. I have many pleasant memories with him, though. But there is one that has always been the dearest to me.


    It happened during a very unhappy moment of my life. My brain has removed the precise details of what was happening, but I remember how stressed, nervous and desperate I had been for many days. It was night, while I kept lying in my bed restless, my dragon literally grabbed me in his paws during night (the only time I could let him fly). Oh, how much I protested! With all the troubles I was living, a scare like that was the last thing I needed! Anyway, since I couldn¡¯t understand what my dragon was designing to do, I started praying my end would be fast. This until he finally landed, at dawn, on a beach where nobody was around.


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    At that point, I saw what he had in mind. He wanted to live like a proper dragon, to not be confined anymore - but he wanted to do it with me. Amazed, I discovered that right now, I just wished the same. Well, at least I could pretend I was able to do such things. So instead of getting angry, I just hugged him and then lay on the sand, not caring at all about my clothes. He did the same. And aaarrrgghhh! Imagine it, a big and huge dragon rolling on the sand, the kind of storm it can create! I put my arms on my eyes just in time, and in the end I was made of sand from the head to the feet. But I just laughed, and we rolled more.


    Words were now useless. Enthusiastically, my dragon splashed into the water, and I followed him. We swam, we threw water at each other, I used him as a surfboard, we flew together caressing the sea surface until the coast was no more visible, and then went back.


    I laughed of happiness, for the first time after many days. My brother, my spirit! Blessed creature that decided to be with me! If I only could be just like you, mindless and free, gifted with wings to leave everything! We would be brothers even in body; and find for ourselves a nice cave, or a beach, to live together and live the life we both really want!


    Those were my thoughts that day, the day my dragon gave me back my joy.


    That until sunset arrived, and I reopened my eyes. The beach was there: but I was alone. The dragon was back being the inner side of me that I kept repressed: safe and protected against human eyes, until I would be again in need of getting wild again. My car was just there: it was time to get back home and rest for the next day, and be ready to fix the mess I was living.


    But at least I would do it with a smile.

 The first dragon killed by humans

    The dragon stretched its wings as it got up from its slumber, sniffing the air. It was a clear day: the smell of rain wouldn¡¯t disturb its sensitive nose. The surrounding environment, a vast, incommensurable, treeless flatland, was filled with the scent of mammoth, ox, elk, wild horses, wolves, sawtooth tigers and humans. No matter if they preyed on grass or meat, all these animals were easy prey for the dragon. Its life hardly presented any challenge; how could a creature so vast, master of the air, breather of flames succumb to anything else?


    Its wings started to flap. All it would take was one big prey, usually mammoth. Sometimes it would find a carrion, but most times it happened to be a small animal. Still, food was food, and nothing would ever take food from a dragon. But mammoth was the dragon¡¯s favorite. Their smell was coming on the opposite side of the sun. Also, the wind was blowing on the dragon¡¯s opposite direction, so that its own scent wouldn¡¯t alarm them. Pretty lucky day. The dragon fully concentrated on their olfactory track, ignoring the human smell he could perceive from the same direction.


    A herd of mammoth finally appeared to the dragon¡¯s eyes, too. Now the distance was too small for any chance of stealth: the enormous creatures began their escape, their tumultuous step making both the earth and the air tremble. But the dragon was bigger than them, and was on air: it would always be faster than them. With the speed of a passing cloud, it individuated the slowest, weakest specimen: the apex predator dived down, and its talons opened up in its mortal embrace...


    Then an acute, thunderous sound came from behind. It was distant, yet so powerful, it caught the dragon by surprise. Its talons, at the last moment, let the prey go. It wasn¡¯t even one sound: it was like dozens of animals, screaming at the same time. The dragon concentrated again on the other surrounding scents, and apart from the running mammoth, one stood out.


    It was the scent of humans. The dragon turned back, and here they were. A horde of males, holding something long on their paws.


    The dragon was now confused. What were humans, the weakest and most pathetic of all big animals, attempting to do? Try to chase a bigger, better species away? When their flesh was so tender, it took only a small pressure to break their bones? They weren¡¯t even worth its time: even if it could have taken them down in a pawful of moments, a whole herd of them wouldn¡¯t satiate its stomach as much as a whole mammoth. The predator turned its head back to its actual prey...


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.But a sudden, atrocious pain hit its left wing.


    Another one hit its neck.


    As the dragon lost height, it barely managed to look at its aching wing. A long spear with a sharp stone in its end was penetrating its flesh. It was one of the things the humans were holding.


    The dragon¡¯s mind was filled with suffer and terror. How did they do it? Of all species, how did humans come to be the first animals to cause the dragon actual damage?


    But it couldn¡¯t accept that. A dragon was better. A bunch of humans, no matter how numerous, would never top a dragon. The mammoth were now but a distant memory in a fight for its dignity...


    But as it tried to get up, the neck screamed its pain. The dragon¡¯s head felt dizzy. Its paws were trembling. Suddenly, another pain discharge overwhelmed the creature: it was in its heart...


    Its senses abandoned the dragon, who collapsed on the ground with a rumbling, deafening sound. Its nose smelt no more.


    ***


    The human chief was the first to get close. Despite having it seen with his own eyes, he still couldn¡¯t believe it. He wanted to be absolutely sure. As he walked toward the dragon¡¯s body, his bow kept staying stretched between his hands.


    Finally, the dragon was in front of him. Its eyes were closed, its tongue out. Hesitantly, the human chief poked the monster with his bare feet. The rest of the hunter group looked at him, holding their breath in fear and disbelief.


    But from the dragon came no reaction. No breath. Nothing.


    Several streams of blood were now coming from its huge body. Their red pattern crossed the naked earth, and wet the hunters¡¯ feet too.


    The chief soaked his fingers in the dragon blood. He painted his cheeks with it, forming two thick lines on each side.


    Eventually, he climbed on top of the dragon¡¯s carcass and screamed his victory. Their victory. The hunters screamed too; intoxicated with joy, they ran towards the chief and danced around the dragon¡¯s body, the first humans prevailing on the kings of the world.


    Now the world would be ready to serve new kings instead.

 The dragon that kidnapped children

    Usually orphanages have to deal with problems like not having enough finances to keep their children, dealing with so many of them at all, and most of all making them feel loved despite everything. It is rare to find an orphanage that has to deal with children being kidnapped.


    None of them had ever dealt with a dragon kidnapping them.


    The first time happened during a sunny spring day. The children were all in the playground after lunch, for one hour before their afternoon lessons, under the supervision of the nuns who took care of their growth. They weren¡¯t big children, for most of them, sooner or later, found a family who adopted them. There were some outliers, though: boys and girls who were ten, twelve, sometimes even fourteen, for whom nobody had ever come. Kids whose only fault was having some disability, or not having a skin light enough. Despite the nuns doing their best to convince someone to give them a lovely home, they had remained in that institute, and now they¡¯d be too grown up to have a chance to spend their childhood elsewhere. But now, they were playing with their mates as happily as they could. Everything was going well.


    Suddenly, appeared a shadow. A big, overlying shadow that obscured the whole yard.


    It was a dragon. Green and enormous, it flew above the orphanage and dived on the playground. The children screamed and fled, and the nuns imitated them, unable to deal with that force of nature, not even by praying to God for mercy. Some of them got inside the building just in time; but not everyone was so lucky. A boy, who was ten years old and had a crippled leg, was captured by the monster¡¯s talons and brought away.


    The whole institute was quarantined inside the building for at least three days. For a long time, however, none dared spending playtime outside; the nuns forbid it to everyone. Meanwhile, the kidnapped boy was pronounced dead, and a symbolic, empty tomb was prepared for him.


    One month passed, a terrible month. The kids, already facing the struggle of not having someone who¡¯d love them unconditionally, were now facing the trauma of what had happened, together with the difficulty of spending their whole time inside. That place, already sad, was now getting similar to a reformatory. The nuns, seeing their mental health worsening, finally decided to let them go outside. The children, initially, hesitated, and their supervisors didn¡¯t force them, given that they were afraid too. But slowly, they found back confidence with the outside world, and lunch breaks were soon spent outside again.


    However, that was a vain hope. Not even ten days later, the dragon came back. This time, it made not one but three victims: a girl of Arabian origins with a missing hand, another girl with Down syndrome and a boy with dark skin.


    Now the surviving children knew they¡¯d never see the sunlight again. The nuns organized to transfer them to other structures, where they wouldn¡¯t be targeted. The orphanage was destined to close.


    Some months later, all the children had moved. They were reported to be even more difficult to handle than an orphan kid may already be. Shocked by the events they witnessed, a prolonged quarantine and the difficulties of a new home, most of them shut themselves up. The dragon, wherever it came from, was harming even more children than those it had taken away. Something had to be done, before it could cause more damage.


    It had to be taken down.


    A group of three men was organized. Two hunters, and one naturalist, were grouped together in a mission to track the monster¡¯s lair. Speaking with the witnesses, they prepared an expedition in a mountain range. With them was enough to survive for several weeks, and if necessary, they could hunt game, too.


    But it turned out not to be an easy task. The trio wandered in the wild for a long time, and after some weeks, there had been no visual sign of the dragon. However, they were sure it was around. Their eyes, so used to the signs of wildlife, could see beyond the mere beauty of the panoramas they were in. Unusually large tracks, signs of predation and more sometimes popped out. But even if the three men searched all around them, nothing else suggested the dragon lived close. Being a huge, winged creature, it could have made its lair just anywhere around those peaks.


    Then one day, during twilight, they found the decisive track. Only, it wasn¡¯t a dragon¡¯s track.


    They were preparing camping for the evening; the hunters worked on a brown hare¡¯s carcass, while the naturalist prepared the fireplace. Then the latter, for a short moment, raised his eyes and admired the forest in front of them, that stood under a bleak, rocky landscape that ended in a snowy peak. Those sights were what gave them the most comfort in those harsh days. However, the rocky landscape wasn¡¯t empty. There was an animal...at least, at first it looked like an animal. Only when it began running away did the naturalist realize what it was.


    The naturalist didn¡¯t lose time. ¡°Guys! Guys!¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s there?¡± One of the hunters said, with a tired voice.


    ¡°There was a child over there.¡± And he pointed at where he saw the kid.


    The hunters didn¡¯t believe him immediately. ¡°Probably it was just a roe deer,¡± the second one said.


    ¡°No, I tell you! It walked on two legs.¡±


    ¡°Dude,¡± the second hunter replied, bothered, ¡°we¡¯re high in the mountains. How can there be a child here?¡±


    ¡°Well...¡± the naturalist scratched his head ¡°I don¡¯t know. But I¡¯m sure of what I saw. Why should I lie? Have I ever done it before?¡±


    The two hunters looked at each other for a short moment, with eyes full of perplexity. Then the first one said: ¡°No, indeed, you never did.¡±


    ¡°But,¡± the second intervened, ¡°this sounds just strange.¡±


    ¡°It could be something related to the dragon, though,¡± the first one replied. ¡°It kidnapped children, right? So if our mate is right, there might be something there. Did we go to that zone?¡±


    ¡°Hmm...no.¡±


    ¡°But there¡¯s a child there right now!¡± The naturalist exclaimed. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we go save him, or her?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s getting dark,¡± the first hunter said wisely, ¡°it¡¯s risky for us too.¡±


    The naturalist sighed and got back to preparing the fireplace.


    The next morning, the three men were ready to go as the first sunlight hit their faces. A small and quick breakfast was all they needed before taking out their ropes and pickaxes and walking through the forest that separated them from the rock. Even if the hunters didn¡¯t look convinced, the naturalist was sure: there had to be a correlation between that child and the dragon.


    Among the gray, solid sea, stood a cave. Apparently, it wasn¡¯t different from other caves they had looked at during their journey. Still, caves were always the best candidates for finding the dragon. All they needed was a handful of signs, and they would only have to wait for it to come out.


    ¡°Follow me,¡± the naturalist told the hunters, given that he was more expert than them in speleology. Their torches were on their hands, their eyes pointed to the surface-


    ¡°There!¡± One of the hunters suddenly exclaimed. The naturalist stopped looking at the ground and raised his head.


    It was the child from last night. They could now fully see what the kid look like. It was a boy, who held a long wood branch, and limped a lot while fleeing from their sight. The first orphan the dragon had taken was said to be crippled.


    ¡°No wait!¡± The naturalist shouted. But even if they were faster, the boy had already disappeared into one of the cave¡¯s tunnels. He turned to the hunters. ¡°He didn¡¯t kill them.¡±


    ¡°Indeed...¡± both said in disbelief.


    They ran towards the tunnel, only to discover that wasn¡¯t a tunnel. It was an entrance to a large room...and what they saw there left them in amazement.


    In the center was a big, green dragon. The joy of finally finding their target was counterbalanced but another, more important detail. Four children were playing around him, apparently uncaring of how dangerous the dragon could be ¨C in fact, a girl was riding its back and the crippled boy was talking to it. All the children corresponded to the description of the kidnapped kids from the orphanage.


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.As the trio entered, they all turned their heads, and the dragon spoke.


    ¡°Who are you? You¡¯re not going to take them away!¡±


    Both the hunters extracted their weapons in unison, and pointed them at the dragon.


    ¡°These children have a place where they belong to! We have come to serve justice and put an end to your crimes!¡±


    But as they pronounced those words, all the kids gathered in front of the dragon¡¯s head. ¡°No please!¡± A girl said.


    The hunters lowered down their weapons. ¡°Wait...what?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s our dad!¡±


    The naturalist turned back to the hunters, like for wanting a confirmation he heard right.


    ¡°These humans are mine,¡± the dragon hissed. ¡°This is my hoard.¡±


    ¡°Hoard?¡± All the three men shouted. The children were now hugging him in comfort.


    ¡°Yes, hoard. Gold and jewels have gone out of fashion centuries ago, you know...they gave a lot of problems with knights. Most of my brothers hoard books now, but I was never interested in learning to read. To impress others, your hoard has to be either plentiful or original. I chose the second way.¡± He paused. ¡°I watched that place for a long time. Nobody was taking them.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean, you hoard children? They¡¯re not your property!¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± The dragon exclaimed. ¡°Those human cubs who were taken out by human adults...aren¡¯t they their property now?¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t hurt him!¡± The crippled kid cried. ¡°We¡¯re so happy here!¡±


    ¡°How can you be happy?¡± One of the hunters replied. ¡°He¡¯s your kidnapper! He¡¯s making you stay in a cold cave!¡±


    ¡°He loves us!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you miss other humans?¡± The naturalist said. ¡°Watching movies? Chocolate? Toys?¡±


    The children fell in silence. He had found a point.


    ¡°Dad,¡± the Arabian girl lamented, ¡°can we have those things?¡±


    The dragon puffed some smoke on her back. ¡°My dear Amira, you know it¡¯s difficult for me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not true! You took us from the orphanage! Why can¡¯t you just come back?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous for me to go there too often. Look here, I took four of you and already they sent humans to kill me.¡±


    The girl made a very sad face. That was the right moment to speak again for the three men.


    ¡°See?¡± The naturalist said triumphant. ¡°If you follow us you¡¯ll have toys, and chocolate, and anything else. Don¡¯t you want them?¡±


    ¡°We want to stay with dad!¡± They all shouted.


    ¡°We¡¯re so happy here,¡± the black boy took word, ¡°dad loves us! Nobody liked us at the orphanage. I haven¡¯t cried since he took me.¡±


    The dragon, amused, patted the boy with his snout, and they exchanged a nose rub. The trio looked at them in amazement. After that, the dragon looked at them.


    ¡°See? I take a lot of care of my hoard. They wouldn¡¯t stay here otherwise, right?¡±


    ¡°Right...¡± was all the naturalist could whisper. He turned to the hunters. ¡°What are we going to do?¡±


    ¡°We have to think of their future,¡± one said. ¡°We have to take them with us.¡±


    ¡°But,¡± the naturalist thought, ¡°would they be happy? Nobody was adopting them. In few years they will be teenagers. What kind of life they¡¯ll have, once back?¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t be serious! They are humans! They need to be among humans!¡±


    The huge head of the dragon suddenly appeared above them.


    ¡°No. They need to be among me.¡±


    The hunters didn¡¯t look intimidated.


    ¡°We are armed, you know.¡±


    The dragon didn¡¯t reply, but instead grabbed their weapons out of their hands with his mouth and swallowed them. His teeth made a wide grin.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t...didn¡¯t it hurt?¡±


    ¡°They were already melted when they touched my tongue,¡± the dragon announced in amusement.


    ¡°We...see.¡±


    The crippled boy reached them and punched the dragon¡¯s hip to demand attention. ¡°What¡¯s there, Sean?¡±


    ¡°Anne won¡¯t give me the stick! It¡¯s my turn!¡± He cried, pointing at the girl with Down syndrome, who was rotating a tree branch, smaller than the one used by the men.


    ¡°Let me take care of it,¡± the dragon replied, and he walked towards Anne, who instantly stopped playing with the stick. The dragon grabbed it with his mouth, but didn¡¯t swallow it this time. Instead, he gave it to Sean, who said happily: ¡°Thank you, dad!¡±


    ¡°Remember to give it to Amira when your turn is over, alright?¡±


    ¡°Yes, dad.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± the naturalist suddenly said, while taking something from his backpack, ¡°I can give you this.¡± He extracted a card deck. He and his travel mates had spent their evenings around the fire playing it, but now he felt like those children could appreciate it more. Especially now that it was clear they wouldn¡¯t manage to rescue them out.


    ¡°What is that?¡± The dragon asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s a game. I can show you how to play. Your hoard will certainly appreciate it.¡±


    The kids already had come near to look at the cards. ¡°Ooooooh!¡± they exclaimed.¡±


    ¡°Wait, don¡¯t-¡± A hunter timidly protested.


    ¡°It¡¯s useless,¡± the other hunter sighed, ¡°we may as well have a bit of fun.¡±


    They ended up sitting in a circle and teaching various games they could play with their cards. The dragon, being too big to handle the cards, mostly observed them, growling at the kids if they weren¡¯t polite, an animalistic but surprisingly efficient way to keep them behaved.


    ¡°Well,¡± one of the hunters said after a long time, while looking at his cards, ¡°maybe we should get back soon.¡±


    ¡°I think so,¡± the naturalist nodded. ¡°Hem, Mister Dragon...?¡±


    ¡°My name is Gwarum.¡±


    ¡°So, hem, we must admit, you¡¯re doing a good job with the kids,¡± he began, ¡°but do you plan to take more of them?¡±


    ¡°Of course. This is my hoard. It needs to grow.¡±


    ¡°Then there¡¯s a problem. You can¡¯t take them like you did until now. They will send others to try to kill you.¡±


    ¡°I can face them.¡±


    ¡°Sooner or later, someone will find a way.¡± He took a breath. ¡°All you need to do is asking the orphanage for adopting a child. The human way.¡±


    A hunter intervened. ¡°How can they give them to him? They think the children are dead!¡±


    ¡°I see a solution, then,¡± the naturalist smiled, ¡°Gwarum, if you come with us and bring the children, we will explain the real story, and you¡¯ll get more of them, in safety.¡±


    The children reacted like if they had seen a ghost. ¡°We don¡¯t want to go back there!¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t, you won¡¯t!¡± He calmed them down. ¡°It¡¯s just something for your dad to give you new friends to play with. How about that?¡±


    The dragon still hadn¡¯t commented to the proposal. His tail was moving left and right. Then he said: ¡°If you say it will prevent other hunters coming here, then fine. Anything for my hoard¡¯s safety.¡±


    ***


    When the trio got back to the orphanage with the dragon, everyone at first thought they had brought him to confess his crimes, until the children appeared out of nowhere. The shock of everyone was rapidly replaced by the joy of seeing them alive. Not much as the shock of seeing them hugging in affection the dragon who had taken them away. In the meanwhile, though, someone took care of destroying the symbolic tombs they had made for them, so they wouldn¡¯t risk finding them.


    Once the truth became apparent, the few kids who were still at the orphanage all walked towards the dragon, ignoring the nuns¡¯ calls to get back. Gwarum opened their paws and accepted them as part of his hoard.


    However, nobody could accept them living in a cave in the mountains. In few months, a new place for them was built, closer to civilization but still comfortable for Gwarum, with a bigger cave, plenty of green around and a road that connected the children with the rest of humanity. The dragon acted as their foster father, and at the same time worked together with a group of humans, which included the two hunters and the naturalist, to be sure they would grow up properly.


    And this is the story of how the dragon child center was born. The dragon is still there, and is always happy to host children nobody else wants. He doesn¡¯t care about skin colors. He doesn¡¯t care about disabilities. For him, a big hoard of children is the nicest thing ever.

 The dragon who freed a village from another dragon

    There are many stories about dragons putting villages to misery that finally get defeated by a great hero. Very likely, you live close to a settlement whose inhabitants once were a dragon¡¯s favorite meal. This story is one of them, but it has a peculiarity: the identity of the hero.


    The village in question was called Winterville. A settlement of peaceful, honest peasants, where normally nothing strange would ever happen. But sometimes, life gives unexpected surprises, and you can¡¯t predict whether they will be good or bad. And for Winterville, the surprise happened to be a ravenous dragon.


    Its first signs were seen on a sunny summer day. From behind the hills that surrounded the village, columns of smoke appeared. It was much, much bigger than the smoke produced by a fireplace, but also too small to be a wildfire. For that first day, the villagers didn¡¯t give much thought about it, apart from some of the hunters, worried that it could effectively be a wildfire; but the smoke didn¡¯t increase, a detail that reassured them.


    However, the column of smoke kept being there the following days. A feeling of disturbance began hitting the villagers¡¯ hearts: their lives were so ordinary, anything unusual was enough to alert them. Someone in the village proposed the hunters to go look at what it really was: one of them accepted, a man called Horac. After praying to the divinity to give him a safe journey, they all gathered together to watch him leave the secure borders of their community and go into the woods, as he was used to, but this time with a different purpose.


    Horac reappeared three days later. But it wasn¡¯t a calm return. From the trees, he reappeared running like if a dangerous beast was chasing him; but no animal came after. Instead, he kept screaming a word, a word that in Winterville had been heard only when the elders narrated tales to the children.


    ¡°Dragon! Dragon!¡±


    The villagers, who were working the land as usual, turned their heads all together. At first, they weren¡¯t sure they understood well. ¡°Did you say bacon?¡± said one of them.


    ¡°No! Dragon! It was huge and all red and was inside a big cave! The smoke came from its nostrils! I escaped just some moments before it woke up!¡±


    ¡°Come on, Horac,¡± another said, ¡°it can¡¯t be. Don¡¯t tell me you still think your grandma¡¯s stories are true?¡±


    ¡°I saw it!¡±


    ¡°Alright folks, let¡¯s leave. I still have to plow my-¡±


    But at that very moment, a terrible gust of wind arrived. The villager stopped talking, and turned his head to the wind¡¯s direction.


    There was a dreadful, deafening roar.


    One moment later, the villagers realized, Horac hadn¡¯t invented anything.


    An enormous winged lizard emerged from the hills. It was red, as the hunter had proclaimed, and its jaws were wide open, revealing yellow, sharp teeth and a long, forked tongue. Worst of all, it was flying to the village¡¯s direction.


    Everyone fled and screamed. The dragon dived onto the village, and two men were trapped into its talons. It flew above, and nobody saw those three villagers anymore.


    For five days, nobody got out of their homes. However, the empty streets were filled with the laments of the three men¡¯s families. Only the need to produce food brought some of the bravest to get out again. The column of smoke was still there, like a menacing tower standing above that once peaceful settlement. Some proposed to leave, to find a new, safer place where to continue their lives; however, the rest of the village noticed, how could they abandon the land of their fathers, so rich and fertile, for a difficult and dangerous journey into nowhere? Most of them hadn¡¯t ever seen anything outside Winterville for all their life.


    The days passed, and the dragon didn¡¯t return. The village, though still devastated and traumatized, resumed their normal life, because they had no other alternative. Though the column of smoke was always there, the people had gotten used to it, and didn¡¯t think much about it.


    But that was an illusion. Two months later, the dragon returned. And this time, three villagers didn¡¯t make it. That night, everyone stood inside the biggest barn in the village, discussing ¨C or rather, shouting at each other. Even the cows in the barn mooed sadly.


    ¡°We refuse to leave,¡± a man proclaimed, ¡°this is the only home we know!¡±


    ¡°How long until the dragon eats us all?¡± A woman yelled. ¡°Give it more years, and there won¡¯t be enough of us to continue our lineage! We have no choice!¡±


    ¡°How many of us have ever been outside the village?¡±


    Only some hands were raised up, and they all came from the hunters. But even they had never adventured themselves further than the woods around.


    ¡°See?¡± The man replied fiercely. ¡°You cannot think we can do it.¡±


    ¡°But how can we defend ourselves?¡±


    The man looked at the hunters. ¡°You,¡± he said, ¡°you are our only hope. Hunt the dragon, take it down. Hasn¡¯t Horac seen its lair?¡±


    Everyone saw Horac shivering visibly. When he took the word, his voice was uncertain and scared. ¡°You...guys, we hunt prey. Deer, boar, reasonably sized things. This is no prey! How can you-¡±


    ¡°Do we have anything better?¡±


    Nobody answered. They didn¡¯t want to leave their homes, and they couldn¡¯t let themselves be forever prey to the dragon. The man was right: the hunters were all they had.


    ¡°Alright then,¡± Horac sighed, ¡°I¡¯ll guide the others to its lair.¡±


    The next day, all the villagers saluted the brave hunters from the safety of the barn. With bow and arrows on their backs, they gave their farewell to their villagers, and disappeared into the woods.


    Three days later, only one returned. The people were out again, and as they saw the hunters, they all ran to him.


    ¡°Did...did you...?¡±


    ¡°He...he ate them all,¡± the hunter said gloomy. ¡°I saw it. I survived only because I jumped off a cliff. My arm is broken. The last thing I saw before was Horac¡¯s legs sticking out of its mouth.¡±


    The villagers fell into silence. Someone gasped. They didn¡¯t even have the force to cry.


    ¡°We need a knight,¡± the hunter proclaimed, ¡°a real knight.¡±


    And so, the hunter, whose name was Catullius, took a horse and traveled further than any other man from Winterville had ever done. He discovered new paths, new villages, suffered hunger, faced bandits in the woods, to give his fellow villagers a hope. Eventually, he arrived at the kingdom¡¯s capital. The shock and wonder of a settlement so big almost distracted him from his purpose: only after wandering for a whole day around its streets did he remember why he had come there in first place. He entered a tavern, and loudly announced his begging for help.


    ¡°My village is being plagued by a man-eating dragon. I¡¯ve traveled here to find a knight who can free us. Where can I find one?¡±


    A robust, mustached man got up from the furthest table, and with a low, powerful voice, proclaimed: ¡°I am. My name is Valorosus from the land of Bustarsithium. Come here and tell me everything.¡±


    Catullius almost shouted out of joy. But he managed to refrain from doing it, and instead sat on the knight¡¯s table. He told him everything, tears running from his eyes.


    ¡°I will come to your village,¡± the knight proclaimed, ¡°I always come to help the innocent.¡±


    ¡°I... I don¡¯t have much money though...¡±


    ¡°A knight doesn¡¯t do it for money. We do it because it¡¯s the right thing.¡±


    Catullius almost wanted to kiss him.


    And so, Catullius and the knight triumphantly entered Winterville on their horses, which in the meanwhile had lost three more villagers from the dragon. Everyone acclaimed the knight, some even asked him to bless their children. The knight raised his sword to the sky, promising to free their people as both him and Catullius went into the woods.


    However, some days later, the knight returned alone, horseless and severely wounded.


    ¡°It...is...too...powerful...¡± he blabbed as he fell tired on the mud as he re-entered the village. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen...anything...like this.¡±


    The villagers were in the most complete despair. The idea of leaving their land now was becoming a concrete idea. After the knight rested, he heard many tell him to guide the others to a new land.


    ¡°I cannot,¡± he said, in the same barn where the villagers had hidden the second time, ¡°I swore I would free you from the dragon. Leaving would be like being defeated.¡±


    ¡°But you couldn¡¯t win over it!¡± Someone shouted angrily.


    ¡°I know,¡± the knight replied, smiling, ¡°but another dragon could.¡±


    The people around looked at him like if he had reached senile dementia at a very early age. ¡°You said bacon, right?¡±


    ¡°No, dragon. I¡¯ll find another dragon who can battle for us.¡±


    ***


    When the knight left, the atmosphere was the exact opposite of the first time he came. Everyone stayed distant from him and nobody wasted any farewell. They were getting used to the dragon just as they had gotten used to the now permanent column of smoke on the horizon. The survival of the community was greater than the loss of the single element: it was useless to fight and lose more. But the knight refused to listen to that kind of reasoning, and proceeded with his folly.


    He traveled through forests, mountains and other kinds of landscapes to manage to trace a second dragon. For he knew that dragons, when they hunt humans, have a reason to do it. Most of them search for more meaty prey. A dragon eating men was an anomaly. An anomaly that wasn¡¯t actually so uncommon, and that was why knights still were taught dragonology, but still an anomaly.


    The dragon that plagued Winterville, though, was strong even for a dragon. It had ditched all his most trusted attacks, and in the end he had jumped on his horse and galloped out just one moment before the dragon¡¯s fire could hit him. And that knight had defeated three other dragons before! It was such a strong dragon, a group of human wasn¡¯t enough, and an army would be a waste of resources.


    But finding another dragon wasn¡¯t easy. Dragons knew well to stay away from knights. Centuries of battling against them had made them teach their hatchlings to avoid any metal-wearing human at all costs. This meant by the time the knight could track one, that dragon would take even more humans.


    However, that only had made knights refine their tracking methods. And the knight was one of the best of his generation.


    Finally, he found one not so far from where the first dragon had made its lair, at least in dragon terms. In human terms, it would have been two whole weeks by walking, if it had been flatland; however, that terrain was all hills and mountains. The dragon was green, not red, and was sleeping inside a large, comfortable sea cave; its paws were the size of the knight himself. As the knight put a foot, the dragon woke up and instantly released its fire on him. But the knight was ready, and while his shield protected him, he proclaimed:


    ¡°I¡¯m not here to fight! I¡¯m proposing an alliance!¡±


    The dragon stopped breathing fire immediately.


    ¡°An alliance?¡± The dragon said. ¡°Why would a dragon ally with a knight, our biggest enemy?¡±


    ¡°Let me explain. My name is Valorosus from the land of Bustarsithium, I have come here on behalf of the village of Winterville, which is being plagued by another dragon. It frequently pillages their land and predates on them, and I request the help of a dragon to put an end to this evil!¡±


    The dragon didn¡¯t reply immediately, instead giving an intense look at the human. Then it exploded into a long, cavernous laugh.


    ¡°And my name is Arghart from this cave, and I find amusing that I would stop a dragon from predating lesser species.¡±


    That put Valorosus in difficulty. He was accurately taught how to track and kill dragons, but knew very little about their psychology. In his heart, he was still sure there were some dragons that had a conscience of what is good and what is evil, while now that hope had been brutally slain in front of his eyes. But also, he was taught never to surrender immediately.


    ¡°What could convince you then?¡±


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Arghart said, letting his forked tongue out for a moment, ¡°who is this dragon?¡±


    ¡°Huh...hmmm...well, it¡¯s a red one. Lives in a cave in the hills, south of here-¡±


    ¡°Aaaaaaaaah,¡± the dragon boomed. ¡°Gurath! He hasn¡¯t been able to eat anything less tender than human meat after he fought against Virakh.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°A battle for their territory. He used to be the strongest of us, but that time, not only was he brutally defeated, but also he lost his fangs. Now he¡¯s retreated in a small hilly territory, and can only predate humans. But why should I fight him? His current territory is miserably small.¡±


    ¡°So wait. You¡¯re saying that this dragon is pillaging a human village because he lacks two teeth?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear me?¡± The dragon growled, showing his own teeth, which were perfectly intact.


    ¡°I did, I did.¡±


    ¡°Well, I have no reason to fight him. As I said, his territory is too small, and it would add nothing to mine. I have plenty, which has bigger, fatter prey than humans...¡±


    ¡°Look into your heart,¡± the knight tried to press him, ¡°you know it¡¯s the right thing.¡±


    Arghart growled again. Valorosus made two steps back.


    ¡°I just explained you it does not give me any advantage. How can it be the right thing? Go away, you¡¯re annoying me. For now I¡¯ll let you go unharmed.¡±


    The knight put a hand where his heart was. For a man who was taught to always put the greater good above anything else, talking with a creature so selfish was painful. But the greater good now suggested him to play his game. He kneed on the hard, rocky surface and bowed his head.


    ¡°I will offer my services to you, Arghart. I shall help you conquer more territories against your enemies if you accept my call for help.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Arghart exclaimed. ¡°A knight? Helping a dragon? What trick is this?¡±


    ¡°No trick. I have taken a vote to help the village of Winterville, and I¡¯m ready for anything to honor it. Even ally with my enemy.¡±


    The dragon looked at him in silence for a long time, as if he was waiting for something else to be revealed. However, the human remained motionless, with his left knee on the ground and his head below.


    ¡°You...you really want to do this?¡± Arghart asked, annoyed by that ridiculous silence.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Do you understand it means you¡¯ll have to live with me permanently and that if you try to escape I will eat you?¡±


    ¡°I do. I am a knight. We are trained to be ready to sacrifice ourselves if necessary.¡±


    The dragon released some smoke from his nostrils.


    ¡°Very well. I will fulfill your request. I¡¯ll take care of Gurath and you¡¯ll now be my property.¡±


    ***


    Weeks had passed since the last departure of the knight, and in Winterville, villagers went on living their life, despite everything.  Crops grew, people bred, the dragon predated. Fear had become a background noise for them. Children and women were permanently kept inside homes, and adults went out only to work their lands. Only a pair of very brave men had taken the courage to leave. Whether they had found a new home or perished in the journey, they would never know it.


    And today looked like judgement day. That was how the villagers had ended up calling the day when the dragon appeared. Some claimed the dragon had been sent by the divinity to judge those who hadn¡¯t been pious enough. Others noticed the first who were taken by the monster were good men, who worked their land and helped their fellow villagers; but the reply was the divinity knew better. Hence, the name.


    The people didn¡¯t even scream anymore. As the dragon flew above their heads, they just ran in silence and silently prayed not to be the next. Even if they now stayed as close to their home as they could, someone would always be too slow or too far.


    But that day, a more dreadful thing appeared. Something that made everyone think that yes, they all had been sinners.


    A second dragon with green scales was coming to their direction. Now they were screaming again. They knew it. Their village will perish all together in a sea of gastric juices...


    But the green dragon didn¡¯t dive onto the village. Instead, it opened its mouth a released its fire against the red dragon. The villagers stopped running. Instead, they remained watching the battle against the two dragons that now was unfolding above their heads. The red dragon breathed fire too, and it clashed against the rival¡¯s fire. Their roars made the land shake to its very core. The villagers were confused. Was this new dragon come to save them or to claim them as its own rightful source of nutrition in place of the old one?


    The battle seemed to last forever, even though the sun had only moved just a bit since the beginning. But in the end, the green dragon bit the red one on the neck, and only now did the villagers realized it: the green one had long fangs that were missing inside the red one¡¯s jaws. The defeated dragon made an acute, dreadful roar of pain, before attempting to fly away a bit and finally falling on the woods, making a thunderous noise that made everyone fall down. The green dragon looked at it, and then roared its triumph to the sky.


    The villagers were too petrified to decided whether to close themselves in their homes or not. They remained where they were as the dragon descended onto the village and looked at them.


    Then, the dragon opened its mouth, and the people began making steps back. But it didn¡¯t breathe fire. Instead, it spoke.


    ¡°Is this the village of Winterville?¡±


    Many opened their mouth in unison from the shock. The red dragon had never spoken a word. Only one of them, a man called Cicer.


    ¡°Y...yes.¡±


    ¡°And did you send to me a knight called Valorosus from the land of Bustarsithium?¡±


    ¡°Y...yes. Where is he?¡±


    ¡°In my lair. He¡¯s my property now. In exchange for getting this territory, he agreed to be my ally against other dragons.¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t eat us!¡± Someone else screamed.


    ¡°My territory is vast enough to let me have bigger, fatter prey than you. Maybe one day I¡¯ll be too old to defend it and I¡¯ll have to reduce myself to eating lesser meat like you...but that shouldn¡¯t happen before a good amount of centuries. Anyway, I¡¯ve done what I had to here.¡±


    With that, the dragon flew away. It took some moments to make the villagers realize what had just happened: the dragon had been defeated by another dragon. Finally, they realize the first part: the dragon had been defeated.


    The dragon had been defeated.


    All Winterville exploded into a roar of joy. The men entered their homes to announce the news to their women and children, and everyone cheered on the streets. That night, they celebrated until the come of dawn with music, dances and drinks. Nobody seemed to remember the green dragon had said one day he may have to eat them to survive: that was likely to happen when they were nothing but bones and dust.


    The village of Winterville is still there, and hasn¡¯t seen any dragon for a long time. The children of those who had to endure Gurath¡¯s reign of terror now rule the village, and they do it in peace and quiet, like their parents and their grandparents before them, except for a short, terrifying period.


    Meanwhile, Valorosus spent the rest of his life in the company of Argarth. Next to a knight, bane of the dragon, Argarth was invincible. He conquered more territories than any other dragon in history. Only an extraordinary alliance of all the dragons in the continent finally took him down, together with his human ally, in an epic battle on the coast. Fortunately, whatever dragon now controls the territory where Winterville is, it doesn¡¯t seem interested in humans.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.Probably, given that dragon time is much slower than humans¡¯, the inhabitants of Winterville will start believing it was all a myth. Certainly though, they have the most original of all the stories about dragons that you can find around.


    There are many stories about dragons putting villages to misery that finally get defeated by a great hero. Very likely, you live close to a settlement whose inhabitants once were a dragon¡¯s favorite meal. This story is one of them, but it has a peculiarity: the identity of the hero.


    The village in question was called Winterville. A settlement of peaceful, honest peasants, where normally nothing strange would ever happen. But sometimes, life gives unexpected surprises, and you can¡¯t predict whether they will be good or bad. And for Winterville, the surprise happened to be a ravenous dragon.


    Its first signs were seen on a sunny summer day. From behind the hills that surrounded the village, columns of smoke appeared. It was much, much bigger than the smoke produced by a fireplace, but also too small to be a wildfire. For that first day, the villagers didn¡¯t give much thought about it, apart from some of the hunters, worried that it could effectively be a wildfire; but the smoke didn¡¯t increase, a detail that reassured them.


    However, the column of smoke kept being there the following days. A feeling of disturbance began hitting the villagers¡¯ hearts: their lives were so ordinary, anything unusual was enough to alert them. Someone in the village proposed the hunters to go look at what it really was: one of them accepted, a man called Horac. After praying to the divinity to give him a safe journey, they all gathered together to watch him leave the secure borders of their community and go into the woods, as he was used to, but this time with a different purpose.


    Horac reappeared three days later. But it wasn¡¯t a calm return. From the trees, he reappeared running like if a dangerous beast was chasing him; but no animal came after. Instead, he kept screaming a word, a word that in Winterville had been heard only when the elders narrated tales to the children.


    ¡°Dragon! Dragon!¡±


    The villagers, who were working the land as usual, turned their heads all together. At first, they weren¡¯t sure they understood well. ¡°Did you say bacon?¡± said one of them.


    ¡°No! Dragon! It was huge and all red and was inside a big cave! The smoke came from its nostrils! I escaped just some moments before it woke up!¡±


    ¡°Come on, Horac,¡± another said, ¡°it can¡¯t be. Don¡¯t tell me you still think your grandma¡¯s stories are true?¡±


    ¡°I saw it!¡±


    ¡°Alright folks, let¡¯s leave. I still have to plow my-¡±


    But at that very moment, a terrible gust of wind arrived. The villager stopped talking, and turned his head to the wind¡¯s direction.


    There was a dreadful, deafening roar.


    One moment later, the villagers realized, Horac hadn¡¯t invented anything.


    An enormous winged lizard emerged from the hills. It was red, as the hunter had proclaimed, and its jaws were wide open, revealing yellow, sharp teeth and a long, forked tongue. Worst of all, it was flying to the village¡¯s direction.


    Everyone fled and screamed. The dragon dived onto the village, and two men were trapped into its talons. It flew above, and nobody saw those three villagers anymore.


    For five days, nobody got out of their homes. However, the empty streets were filled with the laments of the three men¡¯s families. Only the need to produce food brought some of the bravest to get out again. The column of smoke was still there, like a menacing tower standing above that once peaceful settlement. Some proposed to leave, to find a new, safer place where to continue their lives; however, the rest of the village noticed, how could they abandon the land of their fathers, so rich and fertile, for a difficult and dangerous journey into nowhere? Most of them hadn¡¯t ever seen anything outside Winterville for all their life.


    The days passed, and the dragon didn¡¯t return. The village, though still devastated and traumatized, resumed their normal life, because they had no other alternative. Though the column of smoke was always there, the people had gotten used to it, and didn¡¯t think much about it.


    But that was an illusion. Two months later, the dragon returned. And this time, three villagers didn¡¯t make it. That night, everyone stood inside the biggest barn in the village, discussing ¨C or rather, shouting at each other. Even the cows in the barn mooed sadly.


    ¡°We refuse to leave,¡± a man proclaimed, ¡°this is the only home we know!¡±


    ¡°How long until the dragon eats us all?¡± A woman yelled. ¡°Give it more years, and there won¡¯t be enough of us to continue our lineage! We have no choice!¡±


    ¡°How many of us have ever been outside the village?¡±


    Only some hands were raised up, and they all came from the hunters. But even they had never adventured themselves further than the woods around.


    ¡°See?¡± The man replied fiercely. ¡°You cannot think we can do it.¡±


    ¡°But how can we defend ourselves?¡±


    The man looked at the hunters. ¡°You,¡± he said, ¡°you are our only hope. Hunt the dragon, take it down. Hasn¡¯t Horac seen its lair?¡±


    Everyone saw Horac shivering visibly. When he took the word, his voice was uncertain and scared. ¡°You...guys, we hunt prey. Deer, boar, reasonably sized things. This is no prey! How can you-¡±


    ¡°Do we have anything better?¡±


    Nobody answered. They didn¡¯t want to leave their homes, and they couldn¡¯t let themselves be forever prey to the dragon. The man was right: the hunters were all they had.


    ¡°Alright then,¡± Horac sighed, ¡°I¡¯ll guide the others to its lair.¡±


    The next day, all the villagers saluted the brave hunters from the safety of the barn. With bow and arrows on their backs, they gave their farewell to their villagers, and disappeared into the woods.


    Three days later, only one returned. The people were out again, and as they saw the hunters, they all ran to him.


    ¡°Did...did you...?¡±


    ¡°He...he ate them all,¡± the hunter said gloomy. ¡°I saw it. I survived only because I jumped off a cliff. My arm is broken. The last thing I saw before was Horac¡¯s legs sticking out of its mouth.¡±


    The villagers fell into silence. Someone gasped. They didn¡¯t even have the force to cry.


    ¡°We need a knight,¡± the hunter proclaimed, ¡°a real knight.¡±


    And so, the hunter, whose name was Catullius, took a horse and traveled further than any other man from Winterville had ever done. He discovered new paths, new villages, suffered hunger, faced bandits in the woods, to give his fellow villagers a hope. Eventually, he arrived at the kingdom¡¯s capital. The shock and wonder of a settlement so big almost distracted him from his purpose: only after wandering for a whole day around its streets did he remember why he had come there in first place. He entered a tavern, and loudly announced his begging for help.


    ¡°My village is being plagued by a man-eating dragon. I¡¯ve traveled here to find a knight who can free us. Where can I find one?¡±


    A robust, mustached man got up from the furthest table, and with a low, powerful voice, proclaimed: ¡°I am. My name is Valorosus from the land of Bustarsithium. Come here and tell me everything.¡±


    Catullius almost shouted out of joy. But he managed to refrain from doing it, and instead sat on the knight¡¯s table. He told him everything, tears running from his eyes.


    ¡°I will come to your village,¡± the knight proclaimed, ¡°I always come to help the innocent.¡±


    ¡°I... I don¡¯t have much money though...¡±


    ¡°A knight doesn¡¯t do it for money. We do it because it¡¯s the right thing.¡±


    Catullius almost wanted to kiss him.


    And so, Catullius and the knight triumphantly entered Winterville on their horses, which in the meanwhile had lost three more villagers from the dragon. Everyone acclaimed the knight, some even asked him to bless their children. The knight raised his sword to the sky, promising to free their people as both him and Catullius went into the woods.


    However, some days later, the knight returned alone, horseless and severely wounded.


    ¡°It...is...too...powerful...¡± he blabbed as he fell tired on the mud as he re-entered the village. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen...anything...like this.¡±


    The villagers were in the most complete despair. The idea of leaving their land now was becoming a concrete idea. After the knight rested, he heard many tell him to guide the others to a new land.


    ¡°I cannot,¡± he said, in the same barn where the villagers had hidden the second time, ¡°I swore I would free you from the dragon. Leaving would be like being defeated.¡±


    ¡°But you couldn¡¯t win over it!¡± Someone shouted angrily.


    ¡°I know,¡± the knight replied, smiling, ¡°but another dragon could.¡±


    The people around looked at him like if he had reached senile dementia at a very early age. ¡°You said bacon, right?¡±


    ¡°No, dragon. I¡¯ll find another dragon who can battle for us.¡±


    ***


    When the knight left, the atmosphere was the exact opposite of the first time he came. Everyone stayed distant from him and nobody wasted any farewell. They were getting used to the dragon just as they had gotten used to the now permanent column of smoke on the horizon. The survival of the community was greater than the loss of the single element: it was useless to fight and lose more. But the knight refused to listen to that kind of reasoning, and proceeded with his folly.


    He traveled through forests, mountains and other kinds of landscapes to manage to trace a second dragon. For he knew that dragons, when they hunt humans, have a reason to do it. Most of them search for more meaty prey. A dragon eating men was an anomaly. An anomaly that wasn¡¯t actually so uncommon, and that was why knights still were taught dragonology, but still an anomaly.


    The dragon that plagued Winterville, though, was strong even for a dragon. It had ditched all his most trusted attacks, and in the end he had jumped on his horse and galloped out just one moment before the dragon¡¯s fire could hit him. And that knight had defeated three other dragons before! It was such a strong dragon, a group of human wasn¡¯t enough, and an army would be a waste of resources.


    But finding another dragon wasn¡¯t easy. Dragons knew well to stay away from knights. Centuries of battling against them had made them teach their hatchlings to avoid any metal-wearing human at all costs. This meant by the time the knight could track one, that dragon would take even more humans.


    However, that only had made knights refine their tracking methods. And the knight was one of the best of his generation.


    Finally, he found one not so far from where the first dragon had made its lair, at least in dragon terms. In human terms, it would have been two whole weeks by walking, if it had been flatland; however, that terrain was all hills and mountains. The dragon was green, not red, and was sleeping inside a large, comfortable sea cave; its paws were the size of the knight himself. As the knight put a foot, the dragon woke up and instantly released its fire on him. But the knight was ready, and while his shield protected him, he proclaimed:


    ¡°I¡¯m not here to fight! I¡¯m proposing an alliance!¡±


    The dragon stopped breathing fire immediately.


    ¡°An alliance?¡± The dragon said. ¡°Why would a dragon ally with a knight, our biggest enemy?¡±


    ¡°Let me explain. My name is Valorosus from the land of Bustarsithium, I have come here on behalf of the village of Winterville, which is being plagued by another dragon. It frequently pillages their land and predates on them, and I request the help of a dragon to put an end to this evil!¡±


    The dragon didn¡¯t reply immediately, instead giving an intense look at the human. Then it exploded into a long, cavernous laugh.


    ¡°And my name is Arghart from this cave, and I find amusing that I would stop a dragon from predating lesser species.¡±


    That put Valorosus in difficulty. He was accurately taught how to track and kill dragons, but knew very little about their psychology. In his heart, he was still sure there were some dragons that had a conscience of what is good and what is evil, while now that hope had been brutally slain in front of his eyes. But also, he was taught never to surrender immediately.


    ¡°What could convince you then?¡±


    ¡°Hmm,¡± Arghart said, letting his forked tongue out for a moment, ¡°who is this dragon?¡±


    ¡°Huh...hmmm...well, it¡¯s a red one. Lives in a cave in the hills, south of here-¡±


    ¡°Aaaaaaaaah,¡± the dragon boomed. ¡°Gurath! He hasn¡¯t been able to eat anything less tender than human meat after he fought against Virakh.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°A battle for their territory. He used to be the strongest of us, but that time, not only was he brutally defeated, but also he lost his fangs. Now he¡¯s retreated in a small hilly territory, and can only predate humans. But why should I fight him? His current territory is miserably small.¡±


    ¡°So wait. You¡¯re saying that this dragon is pillaging a human village because he lacks two teeth?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear me?¡± The dragon growled, showing his own teeth, which were perfectly intact.


    ¡°I did, I did.¡±


    ¡°Well, I have no reason to fight him. As I said, his territory is too small, and it would add nothing to mine. I have plenty, which has bigger, fatter prey than humans...¡±


    ¡°Look into your heart,¡± the knight tried to press him, ¡°you know it¡¯s the right thing.¡±


    Arghart growled again. Valorosus made two steps back.


    ¡°I just explained you it does not give me any advantage. How can it be the right thing? Go away, you¡¯re annoying me. For now I¡¯ll let you go unharmed.¡±


    The knight put a hand where his heart was. For a man who was taught to always put the greater good above anything else, talking with a creature so selfish was painful. But the greater good now suggested him to play his game. He kneed on the hard, rocky surface and bowed his head.


    ¡°I will offer my services to you, Arghart. I shall help you conquer more territories against your enemies if you accept my call for help.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡± Arghart exclaimed. ¡°A knight? Helping a dragon? What trick is this?¡±


    ¡°No trick. I have taken a vote to help the village of Winterville, and I¡¯m ready for anything to honor it. Even ally with my enemy.¡±


    The dragon looked at him in silence for a long time, as if he was waiting for something else to be revealed. However, the human remained motionless, with his left knee on the ground and his head below.


    ¡°You...you really want to do this?¡± Arghart asked, annoyed by that ridiculous silence.


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Do you understand it means you¡¯ll have to live with me permanently and that if you try to escape I will eat you?¡±


    ¡°I do. I am a knight. We are trained to be ready to sacrifice ourselves if necessary.¡±


    The dragon released some smoke from his nostrils.


    ¡°Very well. I will fulfill your request. I¡¯ll take care of Gurath and you¡¯ll now be my property.¡±


    ***


    Weeks had passed since the last departure of the knight, and in Winterville, villagers went on living their life, despite everything.  Crops grew, people bred, the dragon predated. Fear had become a background noise for them. Children and women were permanently kept inside homes, and adults went out only to work their lands. Only a pair of very brave men had taken the courage to leave. Whether they had found a new home or perished in the journey, they would never know it.


    And today looked like judgement day. That was how the villagers had ended up calling the day when the dragon appeared. Some claimed the dragon had been sent by the divinity to judge those who hadn¡¯t been pious enough. Others noticed the first who were taken by the monster were good men, who worked their land and helped their fellow villagers; but the reply was the divinity knew better. Hence, the name.


    The people didn¡¯t even scream anymore. As the dragon flew above their heads, they just ran in silence and silently prayed not to be the next. Even if they now stayed as close to their home as they could, someone would always be too slow or too far.


    But that day, a more dreadful thing appeared. Something that made everyone think that yes, they all had been sinners.


    A second dragon with green scales was coming to their direction. Now they were screaming again. They knew it. Their village will perish all together in a sea of gastric juices...


    But the green dragon didn¡¯t dive onto the village. Instead, it opened its mouth a released its fire against the red dragon. The villagers stopped running. Instead, they remained watching the battle against the two dragons that now was unfolding above their heads. The red dragon breathed fire too, and it clashed against the rival¡¯s fire. Their roars made the land shake to its very core. The villagers were confused. Was this new dragon come to save them or to claim them as its own rightful source of nutrition in place of the old one?


    The battle seemed to last forever, even though the sun had only moved just a bit since the beginning. But in the end, the green dragon bit the red one on the neck, and only now did the villagers realized it: the green one had long fangs that were missing inside the red one¡¯s jaws. The defeated dragon made an acute, dreadful roar of pain, before attempting to fly away a bit and finally falling on the woods, making a thunderous noise that made everyone fall down. The green dragon looked at it, and then roared its triumph to the sky.


    The villagers were too petrified to decided whether to close themselves in their homes or not. They remained where they were as the dragon descended onto the village and looked at them.


    Then, the dragon opened its mouth, and the people began making steps back. But it didn¡¯t breathe fire. Instead, it spoke.


    ¡°Is this the village of Winterville?¡±


    Many opened their mouth in unison from the shock. The red dragon had never spoken a word. Only one of them, a man called Cicer.


    ¡°Y...yes.¡±


    ¡°And did you send to me a knight called Valorosus from the land of Bustarsithium?¡±


    ¡°Y...yes. Where is he?¡±


    ¡°In my lair. He¡¯s my property now. In exchange for getting this territory, he agreed to be my ally against other dragons.¡±


    ¡°Please don¡¯t eat us!¡± Someone else screamed.


    ¡°My territory is vast enough to let me have bigger, fatter prey than you. Maybe one day I¡¯ll be too old to defend it and I¡¯ll have to reduce myself to eating lesser meat like you...but that shouldn¡¯t happen before a good amount of centuries. Anyway, I¡¯ve done what I had to here.¡±


    With that, the dragon flew away. It took some moments to make the villagers realize what had just happened: the dragon had been defeated by another dragon. Finally, they realize the first part: the dragon had been defeated.


    The dragon had been defeated.


    All Winterville exploded into a roar of joy. The men entered their homes to announce the news to their women and children, and everyone cheered on the streets. That night, they celebrated until the come of dawn with music, dances and drinks. Nobody seemed to remember the green dragon had said one day he may have to eat them to survive: that was likely to happen when they were nothing but bones and dust.


    The village of Winterville is still there, and hasn¡¯t seen any dragon for a long time. The children of those who had to endure Gurath¡¯s reign of terror now rule the village, and they do it in peace and quiet, like their parents and their grandparents before them, except for a short, terrifying period.


    Meanwhile, Valorosus spent the rest of his life in the company of Argarth. Next to a knight, bane of the dragon, Argarth was invincible. He conquered more territories than any other dragon in history. Only an extraordinary alliance of all the dragons in the continent finally took him down, together with his human ally, in an epic battle on the coast. Fortunately, whatever dragon now controls the territory where Winterville is, it doesn¡¯t seem interested in humans.


    Probably, given that dragon time is much slower than humans¡¯, the inhabitants of Winterville will start believing it was all a myth. Certainly though, they have the most original of all the stories about dragons that you can find around.

 Dragon watching tours!

    Inside the cave, the sun rays propagated from the entrance and refracted through piles of coins and jewels scattered here and there, hitting a vast red-scaled body still coming up from slumber. Their energy gave the enormous creature a pleasant sensation, which was connected to his body getting the necessary heat to live another day as an apex predator. The creature opened one eye and raised his head, sniffing the air and getting the first drops of saliva inside his mouth. Fresh mountain breeze, shining sun and smell of live prey: for Rivkar the red dragon, that smelt like another good day in his vast personal territory.


    After making a big yawn, Rivkar got up. Despite being considerably hungry, he couldn¡¯t not begin the day by admiring his personal hoard. An ocean of glittering gold surrounded the dragon in its splendid shininess, with the occasional glitter of ruby, emerald and other colorful stones. So big to even rival his own height, and he was as tall as a pine tree.


    Now though, the rumble from his stomach was so loud, it echoed through the cave. Regretfully, Rivkar turned his back to his precious and sniffed the air more in depth to get the prey¡¯s direction-


    Then he smelt another kind of prey, one way more annoying.


    Humans?


    His heart almost fell off. It had been centuries since the last time they had tried coming here! Indeed, Rivkar had even stopped hiring kobolds to guard his hoard after they had started becoming more of a nuisance than a necessity. If anything, he had given them a honorable end inside his belly. He didn¡¯t want to go through the pain of finding new ones and leaving his hoard unattended! Why had humans suddenly decided to resume stealing from his hoard? Hadn¡¯t he made himself clear enough ages ago?


    With anger in his heart, he sniffed again, this time concentrated on that damn monkey scent. It wasn¡¯t too close, but not far enough to not be ignored. His stomach begged to have them for himself, but Rivkar knew better: to prevent others from coming, he had to make sure they¡¯d spread the message, and then eat the ones who¡¯d come after. He walked out of the cave and spread his wings.


    It didn¡¯t take long to spot them out. But what horrified him the most was they were much more than he was used to. In ancient times, it was one, two, at most three, but now a whole dozen were standing on a rock cliff. However, the feeling was quickly replaced by bewilderment as the humans turned out to have nothing metallic on them. Many held something on their hands, keeping it above their heads. But the most strange thing was they were making enthusiastic noises. Were they so willing to be eaten? But Rivkar had to review that thought when their enthusiasm turned into panic as he got close. The humans stopped raising those strange objects above their heads, and many screamed, fleeing. That reassured the dragon: it was just what it was supposed to happen.


    Rivkar landed on the ground, at a distance that was big enough to show them they would survive if they just left. The fact they were on the top of a rock also let them be at his head¡¯s same height. Some were using that strange object again, and strong, irritating lights came out of some of them.


    ¡°STOP THOSE LIGHTS!¡± Rivkar roared. All the humans stopped using the object. ¡°You may explain what brings you here. And I¡¯ll let you know, that I can smell when you lie.¡±


    One of the humans bravely made a step ahead, not before saying something Rivkar couldn¡¯t understand: something that sounded like ¡°Alright, no more photos with flash!¡±. Then he turned to the dragon.


    ¡°You do not have to worry. We came here only to see you.¡±


    Rivkar sniffed as much as he could to make sure he hadn¡¯t missed any scent of lies, but none came. Now his mind was very confused, and he didn¡¯t like it.


    ¡°See me? Why would you want to see me? Haven¡¯t I terrorized your kind enough?¡±


    ¡°Because we have passed through that!¡± The human said with a ridiculous wide smile in his face. ¡°Gone are the days when creatures like yours were demonized as bloodthirsty monsters. People today have a green sensibility, and ecotourism is booming!¡±


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Green what? Eco what? Speak clear!¡±


    ¡°Forgive me. What I mean is, we no longer see you as a threat, instead we are committed to protect key species like yours, and the environment that hosts you. And to do it better, we offer wildlife watching tours to give the unique opportunity of seeing them in real life!¡±


    No, still no smell of lies. But the dragon¡¯s mind was a confused pastiche of foreign concepts. A very irritating feeling.


    ¡°Let me guess this straight. You come here and bring other humans here...just to see me?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Are you aware I killed plenty of humans in the past?¡±


    ¡°But that was the past. We¡¯ll never come inside your cave, or made any other behavior that could disturb you.¡±


    ¡°How do I know it?¡±


    ¡°See this?¡± The human indicated with his finger a badge on his chest, which said Authorized Hiking Guide. ¡°I do this for a job. I get paid to bring them here and see creatures like you, and it¡¯s my duty to make sure nobody causes any disturb to-¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Rivkar abruptly interrupted him. The human had said a very, very interesting word that could change everything. ¡°They pay you to see me?¡±


    ¡°Yes! Their money helps us in protecting the environment where you l-¡±


    ¡°Well, why didn¡¯t you tell me earlier!¡± The dragon boomed. ¡°If these humans are willing to give gold only to see me, I¡¯ll gladly let them. I can¡¯t believe you used to steal gold...how have you changed in centuries!¡±


    The human now looked agitated, and so were his companions. Some were holding their hands.


    ¡°Hem...what I meant is...they pay me, and the money goes to defending this-¡±


    ¡°I meant what I meant,¡± the dragon growled, making sure his fangs were visible.


    ¡°Oh...yes, yes, of course! How much?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m reasonable. Just a small offer will be fine for today. You can use the rest for defending my territory.¡±


    The human nodded, a single sweat drop running through his front. Then he turned back to the rest of the group. ¡°Well, gentleman, if you please...I¡¯ll make sure you¡¯ll get refunded when we¡¯re back at the camp!¡±


    Obsequiously, all the humans left an offer of coins at the edge of the cliff. Rivkar watched in great satisfaction as they paid homage to him. This was the beginning of a new era! An era where humans wouldn¡¯t be a nuisance, but an aid to make his hoard grow even faster!


    ¡°Hem, one last thing, Mr Dragon¡­¡±


    ¡°Rivkar.¡±


    ¡°Alright, Rivkar...could we take a photo with you?¡±


    ¡°A what?¡±


    ¡°Oh, hem, I¡¯ll show you. Guys, group selfie! Get all behind him.¡±


    The humans then behaved in a strange way. They all gathered at the same spot and turned their backs behind him. Then the humans Rivkar had talked to extracted the object that emitted that annoying light.


    ¡°ARE YOU TRYING TO BLIND ME?¡±


    ¡°No, no! I turned the flash off. I¡¯ll show you later, I promise, it¡¯s harmless!¡±


    The dragon could finally see the other side of the object. It showed the exact the group of humans, exactly where they were, and he appeared behind them ¨C just as if it was water.


    ¡°What¡­¡±


    ¡°Done!¡± The human exclaimed, and the others turned back again. ¡°Look here, Rivkar!¡±


    He got closer to his hand, which was holding that strange object. A still picture of the humans with him behind was showing off.


    ¡°What is¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a phone. It can do many things, including taking photos. It captures a moment in a certain place forever.¡±


    ¡°Interesting.¡±


    ¡°I can show you many other interesting things, if you allow me to return regularly.¡±


    ¡°As long as you pay me,¡± the dragon replied. He wouldn¡¯t certainly miss that golden opportunity.


    ¡°Of course, of course,¡± the human said, shaking a little bit.


    ***


    One year later, Rivkar had never enjoyed humans so much. Not as a meal, but as actual useful beings.


    Sure, having to show himself in front of that cliff once every three days was getting annoying, but the reward was immense. The groups of humans were getting bigger and bigger, and when they left, he got amazing piles of coins to add to his hoard, and if that was a lucky day, even jewels, cups and shining colorful stones! He didn¡¯t know what had made humans change so radically, but he didn¡¯t worry too much about it. His cave had never been so plentiful! They even had hired for him a pair of humans to guard his cave when he was outside ¨C they called them ¡®rangers¡¯, but ¡®hoard protectors¡¯ sounded much better in his opinion.


    Sometimes he wondered whether other creatures could start doing the same. Of course, prey species were out of question since he still needed to eat, but maybe wolves or eagles? He only had to try. One day or another, he should pay a visit to a wolf pack and see what would happen.


    He would think about it tomorrow. Another day of showing himself off had passed, and his paws were full as always. The hoard protectors saluted him as he landed with a respectful ¡°Greetings, Rivkar.¡±


    ¡°Greetings, protectors. You may now leave this place.¡± As much as he had started liking humans, he was still a solitary creature by heart, with no need for company other than his beloved hoard.


    ¡°Yes.¡± They never protested any of his orders, bless them. Rivkar proceeded to enter his home and threw the new loot into the giant pile that was taking his cave over. He didn¡¯t mind...it was the best bed ever. He got comfortable on it and rolled on its shininess.


    ¡°Ohhh, yesssss!¡±

 The killed dragons descendant

    Somewhere in Europe...


    The peacefulness of the meadow, refreshed by the spring breeze and partially illuminated by the moonlight, didn¡¯t suggest that centuries ago, it may have hosted a ferocious battle against two legendary figures. It was a favorite with the locals, who enjoyed having relaxing picnics with the arrival of the warm season, admiring the statue that stood at the center. It depicted a large, rampant, reptile-like figure with membrane wings, with a mouth opened up in a big, silent roar. It was Tarant, the legendary dragon defeated by the hero Begor in the early Middle Ages. The town took pride in that legend, having the dragon depicted in their own crest, despite it not exactly being benevolent towards the villagers back then ¨C at least according to the story.


    For Hans, who was traveling for work, that was a sight that deserved a look, however, all the meetings and conventions he was supposed to attend would make it impossible to enjoy it under the sunlight. But under the diligent worker appearance he had to show, he hid a free spirit, so here he was, walking alone in that meadow the night before his return flight.


    He was still crossing the small forest that separated the meadow from the rest of the town. On his hand, his smartphone was acting as a torch, leading him to the path. Beneath the trees, the glimpse of the dragon statue appeared in all its magnificence. Hans smiled. In all fairness, it was better to pay homage to the dragon like this, in solitude, rather than surrounded by dozens of people more interested in taking pictures of themselves with the statue behind...


    The forest finally finished, and Hans was in the meadow. There, in the center, stood, Tarant, the mighty dragon that terrorized the town so long ago.


    Except it wasn¡¯t the only dragon there.


    Just a little behind it, appeared what looked like a second dragon. Another statue? Hans thought. In none of the photos he had seen did it appear. Maybe they installed it recently?


    But it didn¡¯t really look like a statue. It wasn¡¯t made on iron like Tarant ¨C this almost looked real. It had scales of a vivid green, and two yellow eyes that were really well done, supposing they were painted. It wasn¡¯t rampant, nor did its mouth open up, but instead observed the statue of Tarant, with something like...melancholy?


    Hans got closer. That unexpected presence, was nevertheless not unwelcome. There had to be some plate that explained the legend behind the two dragons, supposing the second dragon had a role in Tarant¡¯s tale. His smartphone illuminated the way, then pointed to the two dragons-


    Suddenly, the second dragon¡¯s eyes moved.


    ¡°GASP!¡± Hans instinctively shouted. He retreated one step back and stood still. No way it could be real. Yet he didn¡¯t even feel like he had imagined those eyes moving. He had seen it.


    Is it an animatronic, or what¡­? But what happened next, he was sure it wasn¡¯t just his imagination. The green dragon¡¯s head moved towards him.


    ¡°So, have you come to pay homage to my ancestor too?¡±


    Hans could have decided to escape; it didn¡¯t matter though. He wasn¡¯t sure his legs would have obeyed.  As much as absurd that thought was, something inside his mind suggested to him that wasn¡¯t an animatronic. He could still move his mouth, thankfully. He decided to make a test.


    ¡°Who are you¡­?¡±


    ¡°I am Karlsainz.¡± the dragon replied, and his head turned back to the rampant dragon statue as he finished.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    ¡°You...you...you¡¯re real? You¡¯re alive?¡±


    ¡°I am as real as you are, human.¡±


    Hans trembled. He was in front of a real live dragon. Maybe he was living a hallucination, maybe not; that wasn¡¯t the time to think about it. ¡°Please don¡¯t hurt me!¡±


    Karlsainz snorted. ¡°That is not my intention, and I have no reason to hurt any human. I come here once a year to give my tribute to my ancestor.¡±


    ¡°You mean...what...I don¡¯t understand¡­¡± Hans wasn¡¯t sure of what to ask next. It was all so incredible, that he had nothing intelligent to reply with.


    ¡°I suppose you know about his story?¡± Karlsainz continued, pointing at the statue. ¡°What is that you were told about him?¡±


    That was easy to answer. ¡°He, like, terrorized this town, didn¡¯t he? He demanded to have a woman sacrificed to himself once a year, or he¡¯d set everything on fire, until Begor faced him in duel and won.¡±


    ¡°Yes. That¡¯s what you humans are being told,¡± the dragon nodded.


    ¡°And it isn¡¯t true?¡±


    ¡°It is.¡±


    Hans scratched his head. ¡°I mean, that means he was a pretty bad guy, right?¡±


    ¡°My ancestor did what he had too. He was old, and no more strong as he used to be. Anything faster and less tender had become impossible for him to hunt. He was lucky enough to manage to live seven centuries; most of us don¡¯t reach five, and those who do, rapidly decline. He didn¡¯t ask that much, in the end. There are so many more humans than dragons, than one human a year was a perfectly bearable price to live in harmony.¡±


    ¡°A terrible price for the maiden¡¯s family, though!¡± Hans replied.


    ¡°He was content with old ones. It hadn¡¯t to be female.¡±


    Hans moved a hand, like for wanting to make an objection, but not much came from his mouth. ¡°But...the story¡­¡±


    ¡°It is strange how your kind came up with the idea he only wanted young females. He was trying not to be too much of a burden. He only wanted to live his last years in peace.¡±


    ¡°And you are his descendant?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°How old are you¡­?¡±


    The dragon laughed. ¡°I know why you¡¯re asking me that. But even if I get to be as old as Tarant, you do not have to fear me. Some centuries after he died, we dragons made a pact. We would never disturb humans for any reason, not even to save our own lives. Too many of us were being reclaimed by your swords.¡± He paused. ¡°This night is the only night in the year when I come to pay a visit to my ancestor, to remind me of that pact and remember the injustice we had to suffer.¡±


    Hans now was limiting himself to listening to the dragon, in silence.


    ¡°Tomorrow will be the 1205th anniversary of his death,¡± Karlsainz continued, ¡°this town will make big celebration around the statue of my ancestor. Despite making him suffer a great injustice, they still take pride in the fact he chose them as a mean to keep surviving. I don¡¯t know how to feel about that. Do you know why they do it?¡±


    ¡°Hem¡­¡± Hans scratched his head again. ¡°I have no idea either. Guess dragons are just memorable.¡±


    ¡°I see. It is difficult to understand for you too.¡±


    ¡°Pretty much.¡± He took some more courage and decided to make him a question he had been holding. ¡°If you dragons still exist, where are you?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t tell you. We¡¯d be in danger if one of you knew.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough. Then I must not talk about our encounter to anyone, right?¡±


    ¡°No one would believe you anyways.¡±


    Indeed, Hans conveyed. It was useless to talk about his experience. It was a shame that he couldn¡¯t share it with anyone ¨C how many had met a dragon? But maybe, even if someone could believe him, he had the sensation Karlsainz would trace him.


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll leave you alone with your ancestor,¡± he finally said.


    ¡°Goodbye, human,¡± Karlsainz replied, and his head turned back to the statue.


    Hans turned back to the small forest and onto the village. A pair of times, though, he found himself trying to give some last look to the dragon he had just talked to. His smartphone was still in his hands, providing him with light. What if he just took a small photo from a distance¡­? Would Karlsainz realize it? Did he even know what a photo is? His index wandered around the menu, making small circles around the button of the camera app. Then he reflected on the dragon¡¯s words. He had justified his ancestor¡¯s actions...he believed he had been victim of an injustice. Better not take any risk with that kind of creature. He turned off the screen and resumed walking towards the hotel he was supposed to be in.


    The next morning, as he walked towards the bus station that would lead him to the airport, he saw the town getting ready for the celebration. Street artists played all around the city center, stands selling dragon themed merchandise occupied the roads closed to traffic, and hundreds of people walked towards the park where the dragon statue resided. Hans went to the opposite direction, towards the light green bus that was waiting for him, wondering if the last descendant of Tarant was observing the town, maybe together with other fellow dragons, showing their rancor to the human species  - which he could understand, although not approve - from a safe distance.