The daughter of the North Dragon.

I looked out over the burned shell of a town that the North Dragon had destroyed. I hoped most of the people had evacuated but the reports had told me otherwise. I heard stories of bodies lining the streets, children, women, livestock all murdered by the unrelenting claw of the North Dragon. The trek up the mountain had been long and hard, much more than I had ever trained for. I had been told the dragon resided in a cave at the summit of the mountain; why a town would be made under the shadow of a dragon's mountain I did not know. 

I swung my heavy blade, carving out a path through the foliage. I had to be there soon, I could smell smoke and something else, something acrid and metallic. The sound of my leather boots on the leaves beneath my feet blocked out the screams until I was all too close. I picked my feet up faster and sprinted in my heavy armor. I burst onto a scene I had not been prepared for: the dragon, the North Dragon, larger than the tallest tree in the forest, blew smoke and fire onto the screaming forms of knights. There had to be almost seven bodies that I could see, already burned and melted into the ground. But the last few were still fighting. I saw spears thrown and arrows shot, defected easily off the thick hide of the dragon. No one could get close enough to stab it through the heart as we had been trained. To my ever-growing shame and fear I found myself cowering behind a rock, waiting for the slaughter to end. 

And it did end, eventually, the scream stopped, and the heat shut off. The smell never left, it burned my throat and my nose as I sucked in shallow breaths. I peered out from behind the stone, my fellow knights dead around me. I had been sent on a solo mission, why were they here too? I was meant to ambush the dragon and slay it on my own while it slept. My legs shook as I approached the bodies. Their insignias did not match my own, I understood now. These were not my fellow knights but they were knights nonetheless. Young knights and this dragon had brutally murdered them. My rage boiled hotter than the fire the dragon spewed; I would avenge these knights. 

But not now, I would wait, wait for night to fall on the mountain, for darkness to cover my vengeance. 

The waiting was possibly the worst part of the night, knights don’t wait, princesses in towers wait. I sat against the rock I had hidden behind, staring at the bodies as I waited for the light reflecting off their blood to dim. The smell of their death still lingered after the sun and dipped beneath the horizon. I wondered if the smell of the dead was blocking out my smell, I prayed the dragon did not know I was there. I stepped slowly around the bodies, keeping my eyes on the cave entrance, not wishing to see the worst of the carnage. The cave entrance was haloed in burnt greens and shattered stone, arrows and spears littered the ground around it. I stepped inside and a cool, damp wind washed over me, calming the dry heat that lingered on my skin. The cave was long and winding, sharp stones lined the walls but the ones where the dragon had walked had been smoothed down. A faint dripping sound filled my ears as I advanced. There were many small tunnels and ravines that the dragon couldn’t possibly fit through, it must reside deep in the cave, perhaps there was a large cavern with smooth walls and floors where I could store its riches and sleep. Clink, my hand flew to the hilt of my sword at the noise but it had only been a coin I had kicked across the cave. In fact, there were many coins strewn across the cave floor, glittering in the low light. I stopped to pocket a few, they were all gold and many of them were from very long ago, they would go for quite a lot in this time. I paused however when I heard breathing, heavy slow breathing, coming from in front of me. The cave was dark and the light had lessened the more I had ventured in; it was so much so that I hadn’t even seen the dragon until I found myself standing right before it. My eyes were fixed on the ground but the dragon's heavy breathing betrayed it. I put the coin I had been holding back on the ground and looked up. A small crack in the ceiling allowed a small amount of light to illuminate the form in front of me. The North Dragon looked even larger up close, I had thought the ceiling was only a few feet above my head but now I saw just how large of a space I was in. I felt like a dwarf next to the dragon, among the piles of gold I had mistook for sparkling boulders. I wondered as I stood, how would such a large dragon collect such small coins and gems. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and stepped closer to the dragon. I could see the long form of its neck and chest, where its heart would be. Then the head must be… I whipped my head to the left and stared at the closed eyelids of the beast; its head was only a few yards from me. I bent down to remove my leather boots, not wanting to wake the dragon with my heavy footsteps. Stepping closer I could now make out the soft small scales of its chest, the weak spot that I would pierce my blade through. I looked back at the head to make sure it still slept. With my reassurance, I raised my heavy sword above my head and was knocked to the floor by a small beast. When I got my bearings I realized that the tinny fists that pummelled into my armor were not beast at all; it was human. A little girl no bigger than my younger sister threw her hands at my helmet in a weak attempt at a punch. I sat up and picked her off me. She weighed no less than a sack of flour although her squirming body was hard to hold. She growled and yelled no words or thoughts but I somehow understood what she was saying. This girl was protecting her mother, her mother the North Dragon. I couldn’t fight this little girl much less the dragon now that - with the little girls screaming - it had surely awoken. I set the girl on the ground and ran, leaving my sword behind in my hurry. I dove behind a pile of gold and listened. The dragon was up, it was awake. its nose sniffed the air trying to locate me. The little girl growled, the sound bouncing off the cave walls. I couldn’t leave her here, right? She would never truly be safe with such an awful beast. I had to slay this dragon and take her with me. I drew my bow, perhaps if I managed to shoot the sleepy dragon in its eye I could get an advantage. I stepped out from the pile and aimed, the eye was as big as the targets we had practiced shooting men with. I let my arrow fly and it hit. The dragon roared in pain and anger, thumping its giant tail on the ground and snapping its jaws. While it was distracted I dove for the girl, wrapping her up in my arms. I ran with her to hide behind another mound of gold. She kicked and screamed but I held her close; she must know I was helping her right? The dragon's claw swiped through the pile I was using for cover, scattering coins about. It stood before me, poised for a fight, teeth exposed, but it did nothing. It didn’t pounce or try to burn me, it just stood its ground. Its eyes weren't on me, they were on the girl. The two cried out for each other, the beast’s cries vaguely human, the girl's cries vaguely beast. 

I watched the two howl and a memory struck me.

My mother's cries rang through my head as I crammed my lanky fifteen-year-old body under the table as my mother had told me. What I now know as pillagers had broken the door down and were fighting with my mother. They had apprehended my baby sister and were holding my mother back from her. The fury in my mother's eyes was something I had never seen and never did see again; it was only for that brief moment before I had fled from my hiding place and freed her. At the time I was so occupied with keeping the one I had tackled from getting up that I didn’t see what my mother did to the other one. Later in the line of bodies, I saw a man with his eyes clawed out and a throat as purple as the king's robe. I tried to believe that wasn’t my mother's doing but by the way she stared at his body I knew better. I remember how carefully she had held my sister after that day. The panic that swam in her eyes when she didn’t know where she was at any given moment. How she would sweep her up into her arms when she found her, kiss her tiny forehead, and whisper loving words into the wispy hair that crowned her head. 

My mother and sister's cries still ring through my nightmares to this day but hearing them in my waking hours sent the feelings of that day flooding back through my mind. I stared into the eye I hadn’t shot and saw the fury and pain I had seen in my mother's eyes that day. I let the little girl go; when I placed her feet back on the rough cave ground she did not wait a moment before running over to her mother. The dragon swept the girl up in her tail, nuzzling her hair with her muzzle. The North Dragon had forgotten about me for a moment, long enough to curl around her daughter, long enough for me to back slowly out of the cave and down the winding halls I had so confidently walked through before. I wasn’t sure what I would tell my king; I had failed my duties to the thrown. But as I looked up into the night sky I knew my mother was looking back at me and that was honor enough for me.