It was a fine day to hunt. The air was crisp and deer had gorged themselves on fallen apples, making them an easy catch. Bermoth swung his massive tail from side to side as he eyed a tender young doe. Her flesh would fill his belly nicely.

Life had grown dangerous for dragons in recent years, but he had peace living within the southernmost reaches of Erithor where few humans dared go. A small settlement had formed a few leagues north, but he had not troubled himself with it. He did not care about their existence as long as they extended the same favor to him.

The other dragons he shared his existence with disagreed. They growled and snorted fire whenever the human’s smell was caught in the wind and swore they would end them.

Bermoth pounced on the doe in single swift motion. She squealed and went limp between his claws, and his mouth made quick work of the meal. He licked hot blood from his lips and stretched, satisfied with the results of his hunt. Now he was ready for a long slumber.

The smell of humans reached his nose, the fifth time in the last fortnight. They were getting bolder, coming closer. Sooner or later, something would break, but he hoped it would not be for some time. War was not something he was eager to relive.

Beating wings flew overhead followed by billowing smoke from the settlement. Bermoth climbed an old oak, gnarled and nearly as wide as himself, to get a better view. His last fight had injured his wings and the joy he found in flying was now agony.

There were screams. Footsteps. Metal rang out against scales, an unmistakable sound.

The smell grew closer and crawled farther into the foliage. It was autumn, but the trees had not yet lost their leaves, and he used that to his advantage to stay hidden. His dark gray scales blended well with the green and small amount of yellow.

A woman came into view some distance away. Her cloak billowed behind her as she ran, and she carried a small bundle of cloth in her arms. She stopped and looked around in a frantic haze, her eyes gliding over the tree without noticing Bermoth. She knelt beside an old log, rotten and full of mushrooms and insects, and placed the bundle within the hollow.

The woman hesitated a moment and then ran back in the direction she had come. A roar shook the forest and there was a distinct crunch as a dragon devoured her.

Bermoth watched and waited. He had no desire to involve himself in the battle, but dragons were curious creatures. The bundle of clothes, barely visible through the ferns, moved. He crept closer, cautiously sniffing—the scent was human. He gently pulled back the cloth with a massive claw.

A young girl child, perhaps not even two years old, stared up at him with frightened eyes. Her blonde hair was a mess and her face was red and puffed from crying with a large snot bubble hanging from her nose.

Her family was dead, that much was certain. It would be best to leave her there. Humans would blame him for stealing her and other dragons would accuse him of aiding their enemy.

She is so small.

Her chubby cheeks reminded him of the clutch he once had, dead before they could hatch. They were destroyed in the early days of the war along with many he loved.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Against his better judgment, he picked the child up and cradled her in his massive paw. She cried in earnest and whatever sounds he could think of did not sooth her.

Walking the winding trail to his den on three legs proved to be no easy task. At one point he stumbled on the large tree root that had overgrown the path, but he caught himself and did not disturb the child. She even managed a small giggle before her mood turned sour again.

Bermoth knew little of humans. He knew broad facts, such as what the cities they lived in looked like and what age they died, but nothing of real importance to caring for a child. They didn’t like raw meat, he knew, but what they did eat was still some mystery. And the smell from her underclothes… That was not normal.

He stared the child straight in the eye. I’m not going to keep you, he said. You will have to care for yourself once you’re big enough.

Humans couldn’t communicate the same as dragons. They used a mix of strange sounds in their own language, but it didn’t matter, he would talk to her anyway if only to save himself from boredom. Though he occasionally talked to other dragons, a dragon that could not fly had few friends.

“Mommy!” the girl cried.

Bermoth knew enough of their language to understand.

Your mommy is dead, he told her. There was no sense in lying.

The day passed with him gathering an assortment of foods—grass and meat and tree roots—but the girl would eat none of them. She chewed on some, but promptly spat them out. The smell from her underclothes grew worse, and it was leaking onto the floor of his den.

Taking a deep breath, he unraveled her cloth and nearly retched at the sight. He took her quickly to the stream and washed away the filth, then redid the cloth as best he could with clumsy paws. Humans were strange that way, never exposing more than a little of their skin. He assumed it was because they had no scales or fur.

The days passed and Bermoth slowly learned what the girl would eat. Deer meat after he breathed fire on it, gray mushrooms the grew outside his den, and blueberries. She loved blueberries the most and he always had to bath her after, because she got them on everything. Even him.

Yet she needed to be with her own kind, and he knew it. She did not grow nearly as fast as he expected—a baby dragon would have doubled in size in the same time.

Bermoth fashioned a crude basket from branches and placed the girl in it. He had taken to calling her Ella, one of the few human girl names he knew. She cried at first on his back, but her tears soon turned to laughter and she giggled as she walked over bumps in the trail.

The first few villages he passed we burned to the ground.

The war is growing worse.

Bermoth stayed to heavily wooded areas as much as possible. His plan was to leave Ella with the first humans he found, doing so at night in secrecy so they would not see him.

On the third day he saw the city of Garragath in the distance. It was a bustling hub, full of many humans, and would be a good home for the girl. He kept to the edge of a path, far enough it was easy to hide from any passing humans.

One in particular caught his attention. It was a young man traveling with a hood pulled tight to cover his face. A strange feeling came over Bermoth as the man passed, a tingling sensation that spread from his head to the tips of his limbs. As the man passed so did the feeling. Bermoth ignored it and pressed on with his journey.

He reached the city by nightfall and undid the basket. The girl played with the sticks from it and he fed her blueberries that grew along the edge of the forest.

You will be safe here, he told her.

“I like blueberries,” came her carefree reply and she shoveled more into her chubby cheeks.

I know you do. Bermoth sighed, knowing what he had to do. Goodbye, Ella.

Goodbye.

He paused, wondering if he had heard right. Had the girl spoken to him with her thoughts, like other dragons? It was impossible.

Ella, do you like blueberries?

She reached out a stained hand. More.

Humans and dragons could not communicate. It was a known fact, yet Ella had answered him as a dragon for the second time.

As Bermoth revaluated his plan, a streak of fire across the night sky caught his attention. A deep blast from a war horn followed. The city was under attack.

He grabbed Ella in his paw and hobbled away as fast as he could, cursing himself for undoing the basket. The war had truly spread everywhere.

Once far enough away from the fight, a weaved another basket and they were on their way once more.