A Dragon’s Gentle Awakening

A Most Inconsiderate First Morning

Beyond the sheltered hollow, the meadow had seen better days. Between the relentless winter and whatever those drunken wizards did last spring, broad patches of scorched earth still dotted the field. The land appeared to have announced, “Screw it, we’re done.” Down in the hollow, however, fuzzy pink blossoms had quietly declined to participate. They nodded in the warm light around a dragon’s egg, being extravagantly alive.

And that was when Ziggy decided to make his entrance.

It took three determined shoves, a pause to reconsider the manufacturer’s intentions, and one furious kick. A piece of shell popped off his nose. Ziggy emerged pink, rumpled and profoundly unimpressed by the amount of effort existence already required.

He possessed iridescent scales, a swept pink crest and a soft pale chest that made him look far more agreeable than he intended to be. His orange-pink wings glowed in the sunlight. He spread them experimentally, achieved absolutely no altitude, and sat down hard among the flowers.

“Excellent,” he said. “Decorative.”

The hollow smelled of warm grass and damp earth. Fuzzy blossoms brushed his cheek. For a moment, the world seemed gentle enough that he might forgive it the egg.

Then he looked beyond the hollow.

“Well, this sucks.”

He trotted up the slope, his feet crunching through dried leaves. He had known the world for approximately three minutes and had already formed expectations. The sunny hollow had suggested a lush paradise, presumably with catering. The blackened ground above it suggested a serious disagreement between the brochure and management.

Ziggy kicked a charred stalk. It disintegrated over his foot.

“First day out of the shell,” he muttered, “and I get cleanup duty.”

His stomach made a noise. He looked down at it.

“Yes, I heard you. I’m conducting an assessment.”

Food, naps and an investigation into the itch under his wing occupied the first three places on his list. Destiny had not made the shortlist. Neither had heroism. Both sounded like activities that would delay breakfast.

A voice drifted over the next rise.

“Of course we get attacked by ogres. Why wouldn’t we? Lovely day for it.”

“Stop talking and pass the bandage.”

Ziggy crept to the crest and peered down. Two travelers sat beside a dying campfire. One was a broad warrior with a battered shield and a trouser leg stained dark below the knee. The other, leaner and dressed in a coat with far too many pockets, was trying to pull a strip of cloth free from a thorn bush.

The strip tore.

They considered the remaining piece with the mutual silence of people watching their last useful idea become a ribbon.

“We’ll manage,” the warrior said.

“Brilliant. Put that on my gravestone.”

But the rogue untangled the cloth. He folded it carefully and handed it over. The warrior pressed it to his leg and reached for the water flask. They were frightened, exhausted and thoroughly unpleasant about it, yet still performing the next small thing that might keep them alive.

Ziggy watched the rogue steady his companion’s shaking hand.

These idiots were not giving up.

That was inconvenient. It made walking away feel like a decision.

“Dumbasses,” Ziggy whispered, and started down the hill.

He intended a commanding descent. A tuft caught his foot halfway down. He arrived at the camp in a brief pink tumble, stood immediately, and pretended that had been part of it.

“Hey, jackasses,” he announced. “Need a hand?”

The Smallest Member of a Terrible Expedition

The rogue dropped the empty cooking pot.

The warrior blinked. “Is that a dragon?”

“Congratulations, you’ve got eyes.” Ziggy shook a leaf out of his crest. “What happened? Ogres? Goblins? Did you trip over your own egos?”

“Ogres,” said the rogue. “Three.”

“Then I withdraw the third suggestion. Provisionally.”

The warrior’s mouth twitched. It was not quite a smile, but apparently his face still remembered the general route.

Ziggy glanced at the cold pot. “What’s the plan?”

“Get to the village,” the warrior said. “There’s a road beyond that ridge. The bridge was washed out, so we tried the lower track.”

“Which had the ogres,” the rogue supplied.

“Yes. I gathered they weren’t here for a picnic.”

The rogue gave a sudden bark of laughter, then winced and held his ribs.

Ziggy examined them both. “Right. I’m coming. Consider me your bodyguard.”

“You’re two feet tall.”

“An efficient use of dragon.”

To demonstrate, he opened his mouth and produced a little flame. It lasted scarcely longer than a hiccup. Ziggy shut his jaws, surprised by the hot tickle in his throat, and tried to look as though he had deliberately selected that exact duration.

The rogue raised his eyebrows.

“A warning,” Ziggy explained.

“For whom?”

“Anybody inclined to be difficult about the breakfast situation.”

They had half a heel of bread and a little hard cheese. The rogue divided both three ways without making a speech about it. Ziggy accepted his share and discovered that chewing was a much better use of his mouth than declaring military intentions.

While he ate, the travelers made a less magnificent plan. The rogue knew where the upper road ran. The warrior could walk with a staff, provided they rested often. Ziggy could keep an eye on the open ground while they packed. Nobody was going to challenge three ogres, no matter how attractively pink their bodyguard happened to be.

“So my first assignment is looking?” Ziggy asked.

“Looking carefully.”

“Finally. Recognition of my qualifications.”

They filled the flask from the little spring beside the camp, put out the last embers and set off. The rogue carried the packs. Ziggy took six very important strides in front, then discovered that important strides were tiring and settled into ordinary ones.

At the ridge, the warrior stopped so suddenly that the rogue bumped into him.

Below them, a great gray shape sat on the lower track. An ogre was taking something apart with both hands. Ziggy could not tell what it had been. He did not wish to become a useful comparison.

He crouched. His wings folded tight against his sides.

The rogue put a hand beside him on the ground, palm open. No grabbing. No hauling him forward like a tiny weapon.

“We go around,” he whispered.

Ziggy nodded. His mouth had become astonishingly unhelpful.

They backed into the grass and followed the ridge until the lower track disappeared. The warrior’s breathing grew rough. At a fallen branch he had to sit, his face drained of color.

“Leave a pack,” he said. “I’m slowing us down.”

The rogue knelt to adjust the bandage. “You’re injured. There’s a difference.”

Ziggy looked toward the road, still out of sight, and then at the warrior’s trembling hands. He had offered them a bodyguard. At present, what they needed seemed less impressive and much harder.

He sat down beside the boot.

“We’re having a rest,” he announced. “I’ve scheduled it. Try to keep up.”

Hope, With an Inappropriate Vocabulary

For several minutes, nobody made a joke.

The wind moved over the ridge. A little beetle climbed the warrior’s discarded glove, reconsidered the summit and went down the other side. Ziggy watched it with disproportionate interest. He knew how it felt.

“You don’t have to come with us,” the warrior said at last.

Ziggy looked up.

“You’ve only just got here. This wasn’t much of a welcome.”

“I had noticed.”

“If you want to go back—”

“To the flowers? They were pleasant. Terrible conversationalists.”

The warrior rubbed his face. The rogue stared toward the ridge, listening.

Ziggy’s grand offer had sounded wonderfully simple beside the campfire. Breathe fire. Be impressive. Fix everything. Yet he could not mend a leg, fly a person to safety or make the road come closer. His small throat still felt scratchy from the demonstration. The part of him that wanted another nap had become a committee.

He leaned against the warrior’s boot.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted.

“Neither do we,” the rogue said.

“Yes, that has been a recurring feature.”

This time the warrior laughed properly. It hurt, apparently, but he did it anyway.

They started again when he was ready. Up the gentler slope, around the thorn patch, then along a narrow strip where grass had survived between the burns. The rogue pointed out each place they would rest next. A stump. A pale stone. A clump of tall weeds. The journey became small enough to attempt.

Ziggy concentrated on the next clump. Then the next.

At the crest, he heard a sound that was neither a groan nor an insult.

Wheels.

A cart was moving along the upper road, its driver hunched under a broad hat. Ziggy waved both wings. The cart continued. From that distance, he was an agitated pink flower.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Actual emergency! We’ve tried the dramatic suffering and it’s getting us nowhere!”

The rogue lifted his coat on the end of the staff. The warrior struck his shield with a stone. Ziggy added a screech of such concentrated indignation that the driver finally turned.

The cart stopped.

By the time its driver reached them, Ziggy had prepared an explanation containing three excellent insults. None survived contact with relief.

“His leg,” he said, pointing. “He needs help.”

The driver took one look and brought the cart closer.

There was no triumphant battle. They climbed aboard between sacks of turnips, and the warrior lay down with his head on the rogue’s rolled coat. Ziggy sat beside him, keeping one small paw on his sleeve as though it were an official responsibility.

At the village, a healer took the warrior indoors. The rogue gave the driver their remaining coins; she returned half and told him to buy supper. Someone found a low bowl of water for Ziggy. Someone else asked whether he belonged to the travelers.

“I’m with them,” Ziggy corrected.

The rogue looked at him for a moment. Then he nodded.

“He is.”

They stayed while the warrior recovered. Ziggy learned that fresh bread existed, that clean blankets were a formidable argument against adventure, and that the healer could silence all three of them by lifting one eyebrow.

When the warrior could walk comfortably again, they spoke about the road ahead. This time there were supplies, a sensible route and room for somebody who might need carrying before he admitted it.

Ziggy demanded a say in the arrangements. He got one.

He also got a place beside the hearth that evening, curled between two boots while the rogue repaired a strap. Nobody asked him to produce a flame or prove his usefulness. They simply moved the blanket so it covered his tail.

“For the record,” he murmured, “the world’s still a mess.”

“Noted,” said the warrior.

Ziggy shut his eyes.

It was a mess. But there were flowers that refused to quit, people who shared the last cheese, and a cart that had stopped.

He supposed he could give it another day.