A thin line of light cut through the impenetrable darkness, stirring him from his deep, primordial slumber. The light was just a blur to the eyes of the young dragon, slowly coming into focus.

With each passing moment, parts of his body began to awaken. First, a pulse of life shot through his arms, left then right. Next, he felt his legs, his feet, his clawed toes. His chest, his head, his belly, his shimmering scales.

And his pair of stubby, too-small wings.

When his entire body surged with life, and the sliver of light focused into a sharp line, he felt one last thing—one final, primordial instinct.

Push.

He shoved his arms and legs out in every direction. Behind him, he pushed his wings back. Every part of his body felt weak and limp, almost numb, but the instinct to push overcame his drowsiness.

And, slowly, the egg began to crack. The line of light grew and grew, and new shimmering cracks spawned around him, twinkling like stars in the darkness of the inside of the egg. With a great heave, the cracks grew—and the egg split, with a sharp snap.

He poked his head out at the world, greeting it with wide open eyes and eager curiosity.

The world, however, did not greet him in kind.

Four strange creatures—pale and tall and smelly—stood around him, each of them holding strange silvery lengths in their hands and waving them in the same direction.

At him.

He glanced around, scanning the rest of his surroundings. He found himself in a large cavern, its stark, masterfully carved features illuminated by the dancing light of two fiery torches. Behind him, rubble was spilled, forming a makeshift nest around his egg.

Slowly, he brought his gaze back around, returning to settle onto the four creatures who stood before him, their eyes wide and wary. He blinked at them lazily, shifting himself awkwardly in the half-cracked egg. With each twitch he made, the four creatures startled, edging back.

And when he shoved his arms out, splitting the egg in two with a sharp crack, they practically leapt back. One of them fumbled the silvery length in its hand, and another almost dropped the flaming stick it was holding.

For the life of him, however, he couldn’t see why. What were they so afraid of? This place was just stones and rubble and cold, dark silence. There wasn’t anything else here, and certainly nothing that would provoke this much fear…

Unless…

Were they afraid of… him?

One of the four creatures muttered something, the line on its face opening and closing in a series of rapid gestures. A flurry of sounds—guttural and ugly—emanated, echoing through the stony cavern. He wasn’t sure what the sounds meant, exactly, but the three other creatures certainly were; they reacted, with a nod or a shake of the head or a string of ugly babble of their own.

The dragon couldn’t make sense of their guttural chatter—at least, not at first. But, slowly, as they argued, he felt the sounds fall into place in his mind—a word here, a phrase there, settling on his mind like dust.

But, suddenly, a gush of energy washed over his scaled face, like a cool blast of wind. As he breathed it in, his entire body hummed with power, and a shimmering light began to shine before his eyes. It wasn’t like the light of the torches they held. This light was steady and piercing, yet painless; he didn’t feel the need to squint in the slightest.

But it wasn’t just a light. It was more than light. As its magic warmed his mind, he suddenly understood what it was.

Words.

A string of words hung before his eyes, hovering in the air, invisible to the four creatures in front of him. Only he could see it, and only he could make sense of it. They were words, yes, and slowly their meaning began to etch themselves into his mind as his eyes darted across them, shining with their light:

Basic Skill acquired: Dragon Tongue (Lv. 1)

As a dragon, you understand all languages, spoken and written.

Basic… Skill? The thought came strangely to the young dragon’s mind. He had never had a thought before; he didn’t even really know what a ‘thought’ even was. But he knew that his head was filled with noises—words—coming from within himself, spilling forth uncontrollably.

Basic impulses graduated to his first thoughts: food, water, shelter, warm, cold…

Companions.

Friends.

Dragons.

His attention was quickly drawn away from the flurry of words bombarding his mind, though. Now, the creatures’ sounds were no longer ugly gibberish; they, too, were words.

Words he could understand.

“…ain’t sign up for a mission with a living dragon,” the tallest, thinnest of them declared, stabbing his finger in the dragon’s direction. This one had deep brown stuff on his head, draped untidily over his face.

“What, you scared o’ that?” a portly one grunted. This one had beige stuff on his head, and, unlike the tall one, it was neatly fixed in place. “It’s freshly hatched! I doubt it can even walk. Let’s just grab it, get it back to High Wizard Alzareth, and be done with all this business.”

“Back to Alzareth?!” another exclaimed. This one was… different. Softer voice, landing gently on the dragon’s ear. Blonde strands dangled down, longer than the others. Her body was shaped differently, too, and she was shorter. “We can’t take it back to Alzareth. The mission—”

“Yeah, the mission,” the tall one spat sharply. “We took a job—and we get our jobs done. That’s what people come to us for. That’s why people know our names all over the capital.” He glanced around, looking for support.

And the portly one gave it, nodding silently with a clenched jaw.

“Wait,” another said. This one was the second tallest of them, and the stuff on his head was a silvery gray, slicked back and shiny. He had kind eyes. “Holly’s right.”

The tall one and the portly one stared at the man in shock, their eyes even wider than before. They were even more shocked at the gray man’s words than they had been at the sight of the dragon.

“But so are you, Flakken,” the gray man continued, his velvety voice landing pleasantly on the dragon’s ears. “We were hired to do a job—retrieve an egg from a ruined Lair. Simple enough.” He turned his head and nodded toward the dragon. “But that… that is not an egg, is it?” His mouth curled upward.

The tall one and the portly one had blank looks on their faces, while the blonde one let out a tittering chuckle.

“Well, y-yes, technically…” the tall one said, pursing his lips.

“Right,” the gray man said, nodding. “So the way I see it, people could say that we went back on our word, that we—the Mouse Street Marauders, who’ve never broken a deal before—suddenly decided to betray a client.” He raised a hand and extended a digit. “Or… they could say a client lied to us, sending us on a far, far more dangerous mission than he led us to believe.” He paused, then raised another digit. “Or… they could say nothing. No one needs to know about this.” He pursed his lips. “It’d be safer that way.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Safer?” the tall one guffawed. “There’s nothing ‘safe’ about lying to High Wizard Alzareth. We should just take it back to the capital, hand it over, and move on.”

“You think Alzareth will let four Marauders just… move on?” the blonde girl said, her voice shrill as she exclaimed. “Retrieving an egg is one thing. Retrieving a living dragon… There’s no way Alzareth will risk letting that news get out. He’ll do whatever he must to keep that hidden, unless he can channel the dragon’s power and use it for himself.”

The portly one frowned. “Alzareth knows we Marauders are sworn to silence on any of our jobs—”

“Pfft.” The girl waved a hand dismissively. “As if he’d just trust us to keep our mouths shut. Maybe he’d trust us when we were just retrieving a petrified egg—but he wouldn’t trust us not to let news of a living dragon slip somehow, intentionally or not. Would you trust someone’s discretion if you’d just discovered a fountain of endless power?”

After a moment of silence, the gray man spoke up.

“Holly has a point,” he said, meeting the eyes of the others. “When dragons started disappearing from the realm three years ago, everything changed… for everyone.” He glanced over to the dragon. “So a dragon, alive and in the realm, means everything.” He pursed his lips. “For everyone—or for those ruthless enough to exploit the beast for their own selfish ends.” He turned back to his comrades. “What kind of man do you think High Wizard Alzareth is?”

The tall one and the portly one grumbled and looked down at their feet, seeming to tacitly agree with the gray man’s point. The girl nodded enthusiastically, with a solemn look on her face.

“We aren’t choosing just our fates here, friends,” the gray man continued. “We aren’t choosing if the Marauder name will still be respected.” He clenched his teeth, a serious look etching itself onto his face. “We’re deciding the fate of the realm itself.”

A heavy silence settled in, the weight of their decision pressing their souls down. To everyone’s surprise, it was the tall one who spoke his choice first.

“I say we keep the dragon out of Alzareth’s hands,” the tall one said, earning a surprised look from everyone else. Seeing their looks, he kept speaking. “We’ve all heard the stories about him. They say he turned Robin’s sister into a mouse for missing a spot when she was cleaning his tower.”

The portly one looked down. “And that he turned someone’s eyes to mush right in their head just for staring at him too long.” He shuddered.

“Right, that’s settled, then,” the gray man said. “We aren’t taking the dragon to Alzareth.” He paused. “The real question, then, is: what are we going to do with it?”

“Do with it?” The tall one furrowed his brow. “Way I see it, it’s already in a Lair. I figured we’d just leave it here and tell Alzareth we never found anything…”

“Leave… it here?” The girl looked at the tall one with a strange look on her face—as though his words were so foolish that she couldn’t comprehend the thought. “That’s even worse than taking it to Alzareth, you fool. Gods only know who will happen upon this place?”

The gray man nodded. “There’s worse than Alzareth out there, believe it or not, Flakken.”

The tall one threw his hands up in an exaggerated shrug. “Well, then, I, uh… I don’t know. What do you propose we do, All-Knowing Holly Halzfire?”

“Simple,” the girl answered, folding her arms. “We take it with us.”

The tall one opened his mouth to speak, but the gray man interjected with exactly the same thought he was about to voice.

“And go where?” the gray man said.

The girl opened her mouth, then closed it quickly. “I… haven’t figured that bit out yet.”

“That’s an important bit…” the portly man grumbled.

“Yeah, well, then get to thinking,” the girl snapped.

While the four creatures were chattering in the cavern, the young dragon’s attention had been drawn to the movements of their mouths—how elegantly they formed the clunky words, how each series of movements formed with such precision. He stared at all of their mouths, trying to puzzle out how to make the sounds himself.

He awkwardly opened and closed his mouth, like they did—but no words left his little maw. All he could manage was a clumsy gargle of vowels. He tried and tried and tried—but the noises coming from his draconic mouth didn’t even begin to represent the words he’d heard the four creatures spout so easily.

It seemed his Dragon Tongue Skill wasn’t going to help him form the words. Evidently, understanding all languages didn’t mean he could speak them.

But the clumsy noises he was making did draw the four creatures’ attention regardless. All four of them eddied over to the dragon, their silvery sticks still waving about. They stared at the dragon with more fear than confusion this time.

“What’s it doing?” the portly one asked nervously.

“Is it trying to breathe fire?!” The tall one darted away from the young dragon’s open maw, ducking behind the blonde girl.

Breathe… fire? the young dragon wondered.

“If that’s what it was trying to do…” the girl said, with a flat look on her face, “then hiding behind me wouldn’t do much.”

The tall one edged out from behind her, grumbling something under his breath. The four creatures stared down at the young dragon, as he continued to try speaking.

The audience, however, didn’t help the young dragon form the words. In fact, he felt, for the first time in his young life, a flutter of nervousness in his chest, as four pairs of eyes stared down at him expectantly.

He almost wished he could ‘breathe fire’, whatever that meant, like the tall one had thought—just so he could break the tension.

Having failed to speak, the young dragon simply clamped his maw shut and stared back up at the four creatures, returning their gaze.

The gray man shook his head, breaking the tense silence that’d bloomed between them. “Regardless of where we’re going, we should get out of here soon.” He glanced around. “I don’t have a good feeling about this place.”

For once, the four creatures seemed to agree, bobbing their heads together. Slowly, though, their gaze drifted over to the young dragon.

The portly fellow handed his torch to the tall one and sheathed his blade. Then he slipped his bulky rucksack from his shoulder, slowly clipping it open with his wide eyes focused on the young dragon like a starving wolf on its dinner.

“Alright, buddy…” the portly man said, edging closer. “Shhh. It’s alright. Shhh.”

What… is he doing? the young dragon thought, staring at the strange performance.

“See, I’m a friend,” the portly man said, inching closer. “I’m just going to…” He pounced forward, the movement slow and cumbersome, lunging at the young dragon.

The young dragon, however, was far more nimble. He pulled back, shoving aside the husks of the egg, and scrambled up the rubble. His legs moved instinctively, clawing him up the rubble.

The portly man was slumped over where the young dragon had been, his face planted in the rubble and his rucksack flattened beneath him. The false friendliness that he’d put on when trying to catch the dragon hatchling had now evaporated, like snow before hellfire, and a nasty glare grew on his face.

The portly man clenched his teeth and rocked onto his feet clumsily. He glared at the young dragon, his knuckles white around his rucksack as he clutched it. “Why you little…”

The hatchling prepared himself to scramble away again—but, thankfully, he didn’t have to. The blonde girl, with the soft voice and kind face, stepped forward, putting a hand on the portly man’s shoulder.

“Let me do it,” she said, in a firm voice, “before you mess it up.”

The portly man grumbled something under his breath and shuffled back, throwing his rucksack back onto his shoulder.

The girl edged forward, and, understandably, the young dragon instinctively edged away, his big wide eyes darting across her form.

But unlike her comrade, she didn’t lunge forward and try to capture him. Instead, she reached into her rucksack and pulled something out—something that smelled strange. Something that smelled of fire and blood, of sinew and bone.

Of meat.

The young dragon didn’t know what it was, exactly, nor where it came from—but he knew that it smelled good. Really good. So good, in fact, that the young dragon found himself—entirely against his will—edging toward the girl’s hand, stirred by each twitch of the wrapped parcel in her grip. As he inched closer, a deep emptiness panged from his belly, yearning to be filled.

When he got closer, the girl unwrapped the crinkling paper, revealing the treasure that lay within—a brown chunk of dried meat, sprinkled with bits of salt and aromatic spices. She gently ripped off a chunk of it, then tossed it into the air.

As though compelled by a primordial force, the young dragon found himself snapping his maw at the air, snatching the chunk of meat. His teeth sank into it, and the tender meat melted in his mouth, juices spilling over his tongue like lush velvet. Within a few bites, the dragon swallowed it and stared at the girl, hoping for more.

But the girl wasn’t giving it up so easily this time.

Now, she gestured at her rucksack, open like a beast’s maw on the rubble before him. Instinctively, he edged away, his eyes darting from the rucksack, to the girl, to the piece of meat in her hand.

“It’s okay,” she said, in a gentle voice. “You can trust me.”

And, somehow, he believed her.

The hatchling stepped forward—just a fraction of an inch, at first, but as soon as he caught a whiff of the meat in the girl’s hand, he took a larger step.

Then another.

And another.

And before he realized it, he was standing next to the rucksack, his attention entirely eclipsed by the chunk of meat at his nose. The meat’s velvety smell wormed its way down his snout, basting his tongue with its alluring favor. He opened his mouth, trying to snap at the meat—but the girl pulled it back before he could get his teeth onto it.

With a smile, she gestured to her rucksack—then tossed the meat into it.

The young dragon leapt for it, burying his head in the rucksack, snapping his maw at the meat. He clawed himself deeper and deeper into the rucksack—and when he finally got his teeth around it, he felt the entire thing shift.

Next thing he knew, the world fell end over end, and he tumbled with it. When it settled, he poked his head out, and she stared down at him with kind, wide eyes. A smile teased the edge of her lips, fully blooming on her face.

“I’m Holly,” she said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

And the young dragon believed her.