A Dragon's Tale

It's been many years since I first settled here--I was just a hatchling, barely able to fly.

"Aileth, my little darling," Mother says to me as she leaves our home, which was hidden in the forest. "I have to leave. You and Mosi will stay here. Wait for me," my older brother watches as she fades into the distance--her shadow heading towards the shouting and screaming from the city.

"Mosi?" I ask, scared for the answer. "Is mom really coming back?" Mosi just looks at me, curling himself in the corner of the room.

Mother never did come back. Mosi was the oldest, and he took that to mean he was entitled to our home. He kicked me out shortly after he realized mother was gone. The rest of our brood left around the same time Mother did. I was young, and I was scared, and I was alone. But above all those things I had this burning feeling inside me. I didn’t know it then, but the feeling was vengeance.

I’ve searched for shelter for hours now; I’ve flown until my wings couldn’t move, and walked until my feet burned. I want to cry. I want to destroy. Mother shouldn’t have left. If I was stronger I would’ve gone with her. If I was bigger I would’ve fought Mosi for my home. Damn! I’m just a hatchling. I can’t do much. The rain is pouring down, my scales becoming wet and cold. I’m too tired to move. I feel like all I can do now is sleep.

I wake up with a warmth on my face. And a small creature stroking my head. I feel panic rise within me, and the urge to rip this thing to shreds is hard to ignore. I lunge at it, but it runs away and holds up its hands.

“Shh…It’s okay, I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to help.” I keep my wings up but I don’t attack, because it hurts my leg too much. I didn’t even notice I had injured myself before I went to sleep–yet my back right leg is bandaged and painful to use. This thing I think is a woman, like the villagers Mother told us stories about. Mother said the men are the ones that hurt us, and she doesn’t seem to want to hurt me.

The woman’s hands slowly lower as she continues to try and lower my guard. 

“I helped with your leg. I’ve tended to dragons before. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.” I lay down, careful not to take my eyes off this woman. “My name is Elaine. I want to bring you to my home, and keep you there until you’ve healed.”

In no time was I running and flying, yet I didn’t leave. Many nights passed and it became clear to everyone that I was here to stay. Elaine was fluent in dragon tongue, but her kids were not. As I grew up and began to understand the children, Elaine stopped being Elaine and started being Mom. She was queen of the realm, and I lived beneath the castle. I had slept in her room as a hatchling, but even then I was bigger than her and her husband. For lack of room and decency, I had to be relocated. But day after day she visited me. I learned how to speak in her language–it took longer than I’d like to admit but Elaine was patient. As life went on I forgot about my broodmother, and my eldest hatchmate Mosi.

I lay in the courtyard, taking up too much space according to the nobles. Mom doesn’t usually let me leave for long. Dragons are the enemy of the people, but the royals who live in the castle have agreed that I’m an exception. Mom calls for me to come inside with her, and I squeeze under the gates to my room. It’s so dreary and boring here, but it’s home.

“Aileth, I have a favour to ask of you,” not once has she asked me for anything. “I know you’re not full grown yet. I mean dragons don’t reach full maturity until their 300th birthday. But there’s been talk of a dragon terrorizing the countryside. And the people are terrified.”

I look at her, and I pray she’s going to ask me on some quest to prove my worth–maybe if I do good I’ll be allowed to see the people! “Mom, what are you asking?”

“I want you to take over his territory, make it clear he needs to leave and not return. Can you do that?”

We spend the day talking everything over. Even King Basilio thinks it’s a good idea, and he always says I'm useless. Mom says I can keep whatever treasure he has, and I can eat any creature that works for him. Basilio says if I can home both alive and victorious, he’ll show me off to the people–a proud hero instead of a stupid beast. 

Even after everything that happened on that journey, I’m not sure I’d do it any differently. Although I wish I had known that Elaine's eldest grandson had snuck into the pack she made for me.

No one is here. Nothing is here. I triple check the map Mom gave me, but this is where it says I should be. I look around the empty cave, a boulder in the corner catching my eyes. I swipe it over and a message is scrawled into the stone floor. It’s in dragon tongue, so this must’ve been the right place. I'm a little rusty at reading in this language, but I manage to understand the written words,

‘Sister, meet me at home,”

And after I know who the dragon is. Mosi.

At that point in time I had been so humanized that this job shouldn’t of been given to me. I barely understood my own language, and I was used to being pampered. There was nothing that could’ve prepared me to be a dragon, as embarrassing as that is. I wasn’t even a strong flier, and the journey to my childhood nesting area required a lot of flying. Many times I wanted to give up. It had been a month since I had left the castle when I was hit by the snowstorm. But something from before I met Mom, something I had felt sixty-five years ago coursed through my veins. Vengeance. It’s all I wanted. The first time I felt the need to get revenge was when Mosi kicked me out of the nest. I would let this need take over my mind time and time again before I realize being vengeful costs you everything.

“Mosi!” I roar out, the name feeling strange coming off my tongue. “Mosi, you halfwit brother of mine!” Silence fills the air but I can feel his presence. “You abandoned me.” With those words, every memory of my first 50 years of life comes flooding back. My younger siblings hatching, the first time Mother took me flying. When I caught my first sheep, going out on a hunt just me and Mosi–my entire childhood is flashing through my mind. And then I remember Mother leaving. There had been fighting for three days, and another dragon was attacking just outside our forest. I remember waiting for almost 6 months afterwards; during that time Mosi ate the last unhatched egg, destroyed our home, and finally threw me out. I hate him. 

“Mosi!” I shout again “You can’t come attack me after all these years. After I traveled so far to be rid of you and the past. I have a life! I have a mom! And her kids were my siblings and their kids as well! I have a family, Mosi. A real family. Not one where you have to fight to be alive because you’re a beast! I will not let you take that away from me.”

“My sweet, sweet sister,” his voice calls out, echoing through the empty ruins of our home. “I didn’t abandon you, I saved you. Or so I thought. You’re soft for a dragon, Aileth.”

I feel a twinge at the word soft. Dragons hate being called soft. “You’re only saying that because you’re a coward. All the elder hatchlings in our brood went with Mother. But not you. No, Mosi never liked risking anything. Rarely went on hunts, never flew out on his own. Mosi isn’t young anymore though, is he? He’s all grown up, ready to be beaten by his little sister.”

I’m still ashamed of my actions that day. As soon as the fight broke out, young Basilio the Second wormed his way in. I didn’t notice his half-charred body until after we were done. I barely noticed anything after the first one fell. All I could think was, ‘I killed my brother. I killed  my brother.’ In his dying words, Mosi whispered in my ear, “I always knew you would do it. I’m proud, little sister.” He wasn’t a good older brother, but he didn’t have to die. Elaine never said I had to murder the dragon. I did though, I killed him. My own flesh and blood. And poor Basi. The young heir’s corpse sat in my pack for two weeks straight before we made it to the castle. My journey home was shorter because I was aching to see Mom, to be comforted by who I considered family.

I fly over the castle walls, and I see Mom smiling–running to tell everyone I’ve returned. 

“So?” she says to me, pride in her eyes.

“The other dragon will not be a problem again. I’ve slain him.” Mom wraps her arms around my leg in a hug, but her daughter Tabitha comes running with tears in her eyes.

Tabitha just looks at me, and I realize what she wants to know. “I’m sorry.” I don’t need to say anything else, she just crumples into the ground and sobs. “I didn’t know,” I say, “I would’ve taken him home, I promise you.”

“I know.” She sniffles out after a long pause. “Can I see him?” As we pull the body out of my pack the smell is so awful even I gag. Not Tabitha though. She runs and scoops the mangled remains of her son into her arms. Does this mean that after all I did, I won’t be a hero?

They buried Basilio the Second three days later. Three days is such a short time in a life, especially a dragon’s. But those three days felt like a thousand years. The first day we mourned. There was no celebration for the one who saved our people. No reward for killing my own brother to protect a race that had no care for me. But I grew up with Tabitha, and then I watched her kids grow up. So I mourned with them. King Basilio wouldn’t speak to me, not that he didn’t much before. Only Elaine would even look at me. Tabitha wasn’t mad, but she held resentment towards me for the rest of her life. I was allowed even less time outside until I stopped being allowed out at all. Staying in the dungeons, my room began to feel like a prison cell. Dragons shouldn’t be cramped up like. A dragon needs to run, to fly, to have freedom. As much as I had taken to human life, I would never be human. I was bigger than their houses, stronger than all their warriors combined–a hated beast that was pictured as a killer. Young, naive, and powerful, I eventually took that out on Elaine and the royal family.

“Aileth, we can talk about this,” Mom shouts at me as I smash everything within the castle grounds.

“NO!” I’m roaring out at her, terrified screams echoing all around. But I don’t care. Why should I? They do not care about me, so I will show them the same. “You need an heir anyways, Elaine,” And with that one word I realize she will never be Mom again–because I realize she’s never been Mom. Not mine at least. 

I watch her eyes as I say her name, and the hurt behind them fuels me on. Yes, I want you to hurt. Hurt the very same way you’ve hurt me.

When all is said and done, not a single royal was left alive. The castle halls were charred, the grounds destroyed, the people gone. The only one to make it out would be Elaine. Her small frame snuck out while I ripped her home to shreds, but I let her go. She was the closest thing I had to a mother, and my empathy got the best of me. I should’ve questioned why she was still young after so many years had passed, or how she learned the dragon’s language. But I wasn’t thinking of that at the time.

I spent the next fifty years endearing the people to me. I spent five of them trying to scare them into loving me, which worked but as I got older I realized that I didn’t want them to fear me. Eventually, we took over everything. Leading the troops to victory time after time, our land grew and grew until I took the position “Queen of the Realm”. The people began to call me “Mahika”, meaning mother of the world. I’m not the last dragon, but the rest stay in hiding. Whether they’re scared of me or somehow still scared of the people, I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t need anything else. What purpose could I have anymore? I’ve peacefully reigned over the people for ten thousand years now. I built A castle big enough for me and my own hatchlings to live in–created from the exact same area the first one sat. Through the years I’ve had twenty-six little ones. None of them stayed at home for very long–eager to live in the real world. Eventually I lost the desire to find a temporary mate just to spend a hundred years raising a brood that I’ll never see again. I have infinite wealth, infinite power, my name is feared and praised by anyone who speaks it. There is nothing left to do with this hoard of things. I wish that I had collected people and memories instead of objects. Maybe that’s why I’ve written you this letter Elaine. Maybe when you finally come back to take your throne you’ll miss me as you read these words.

Before I end this writing there’s just one thing Elaine–I know. When you make it back here after hearing of my departure I want you to remember that I know. You can always feel when your own flesh and blood is near, Mother. What I’ll never understand is why you would trade your majestic body for a human form, or how. But if you ever reach out to make amends, I’ll be waiting. For answers, for your story. This is mine, and I’m tired of having everything and nothing all at once. Now I will return to our home for a fresh start on life, and to leave the next move up to you.

Your daughter and former queen,

Aileth