DRAGON MAMA: FIRE-SPITTING BEAST OF RAGING FURY

She was a dragon of seventeen years and some weeks.

This meant that, for her species, she was an adult yet paradoxically still a child, for she was still too young to awaken true intelligence.

The capacity for thought beyond the basic urges, for speech, for self-awareness and empathy, all of these still eluded her, including the desire for an identity, hence, currently, she was nameless.

Another thing the nameless dragon was, was a mother, and unfortunately for her she was coming to truly lament this fact, for her child, you see, was quite odd.

The first odd thing about her child was his size; he was small. Very, very small. About half the size that her instincts told her he should be.

Even his egg had been small, and when she’d had her first look at it, she’d assumed that the child wouldn’t survive, or would be deformed even if it did.

She had almost given up on it then, left it to the cold to die, considering that a greater mercy than whatever half-life it could have lived as a deformed dragon.

But something had made her hesitate. A thought: ‘What if...?’

‘What if the child lives? What if it’s healthy?’

If she had been a smarter dragon, she would have realized those thoughts for what they were; early signs of her awakening true intelligence.

Alas she was not a smarter dragon, so while she acted on the thoughts, she thought no more on them.

The nameless dragon stayed with her egg, breathing heat from her chest upon it like she was supposed to, and twenty weeks later, her effort was rewarded when a beautiful male with gold and lime green scales poked out his little head in utter confusion.

That was when the oddities had begun.

Naturally, the first item on the new mother’s agenda was to toughen up her son; he was small, uncoordinated, weak, he would not survive long.

So she breathed fire at him to strengthen and clean his scales, and he panicked and jumped into water; she threw him from high places so he could properly train his wings, and he panicked and clung to the nearest surface and refused to let go; she pit him against some small, pathetic creature so he could learn to hunt, and he panicked and ran from an animal he could kill with a breath.

All of the things her instincts told her a mother should do for her young, all of the things her own mother had done for her, all of it got nothing but panic and strange mind sounds from him.

She didn’t understand it, she didn’t understand him, and that, she had come to find, was quite aggravating.

—❈—

OUR ‘ADORABLE’, FOUL-MOUTHED BABY DRAGON

I don’t know how long I’m underwater for, but I’ve begun to dose off when mother dearest returns.

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I know she’s returned because the crazy bint sticks her huge fucking head into the water and gives me a long look before withdrawing.

She hadn’t spoken, she can’t, but in that look had been the words; ‘come outside, or else,’ and, as much as it pains me, I decide not to push her. For now.

Swimming languidly, I take my time reaching the surface, and when my head pokes out, I stare at her where she sits on the riverbank and ask: ‘The fuck do you want?’

The sound comes out something like yaanweggrr.

I almost sigh. Right, dragon throat, can’t talk.

Fuck me.

Being the lower lifeform that she is, Dragon mama doesn’t respond to my articulate query, instead, she simply turns her serpentine head to her left and blows a gout of blue fire at the bloody carcass of some animal I don’t recognize before it’s wreathed in flames.

‘Ah, lunch. Shoulda said so,’ I think, as I quickly swim to the bank and hurry over.

The one positive about dealing with this crazy reptile I call mom, is the food.

I don’t know if it’s my new dragon taste buds, or if dragon mama just has a meat roasting superpower or some shit, but whatever it is, it makes roast meat taste fucking amazing!

It’s like I can taste every part of the meat; it’s flesh, it’s fat, it’s blood, even it’s fucking diet, all of it comes together to create this ridiculously rich flavour that knocked me on my ass the first time I tried her food.

Even just the aroma is enough to almost make me drool.

Reaching the steaming meat that’s several times my size, I dig in and barely come up for air until I’m full to near bursting, then I collapse to the ground on my back with my wings spread out.

‘Good job, mama. You’ve outdone yourself,’ I say, and give her my best approximation of a thumbs up. Which, I only now realize looks exactly the same as my attempts at flipping her off.

‘Meh, fuck it.’

With me finally done, dragon mama leans down, stretches her jaws wide enough to give me a clear view of her huge—and surprisingly clean—teeth, and proceeds to chow down the rest of the animal—bones and all—in two and a half bites.

I see it every day, but the sight of her pulverizing bones with her teeth still gives me fucking shivers.

Dragon mama’s long tongue flicks out to clean her snout and teeth after her final swallow, then she yawns widely and settles down, her eyes drifting shut, and, before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve rushed over to her and settled down with my tiny body pressed to the side of her huge head.

One of her eyes pop open and stares down at me. I stare back.

‘Don’t make this any weirder than it already is,’ I say, and close my eyes.

‘Fucking dragon instincts,’ I mutter. Somehow though, I can’t really bring myself to move.

Then again, Dragon mama doesn’t move either, nor does she chase me away, so I try not think too much about it.

I’m just beginning to sink into sleep, when the sound of an object travelling at high speed jars me up.

I hear it connect with something, and then I hear my mother roar. Not in anger, not as a threat, but for the first time since I’ve known her, in pain.

And then the world goes mad.

Mom rises up and spews fire at something in the trees.

I’d thought her fire was hot before, I really had. But what comes out of her mouth now is like a bonfire compared to the candle flames of her previous attempts.

Through the deafening rush of Mom’s flames, I hear a voice; a female, human voice.

“Sage!” it screams.

These are people! Mom’s attacking people.

Then a crescent-shaped bolt of crimson energy flashes out from the forest and takes off mom’s tail.

No, I realise. People are attacking us.

Mom’s roars again in pain, as the stump where her tail and much of her backside used to be gushes golden blood, and a spear-wielding chick leaps out of the now burning forest, covering way more distance than any human being should be able to with a single jump.

The chick comes down on mom from above like the wrath of God, and mom snatches her from the air and bites her in three.

“Myrrh!” another human voice, male this time, shouts, and I see a guy standing just outside the blazing forest, looking like he’s starting to regret his recent choices.

Mom spits more fire at him so fast that the guy doesn’t even have time to react, and just like that, it’s over.

My heart is pounding in my chest, my whole body’s shaking, the forest is burning.

‘What the flying fuck just happened?’

Mom collapses.

‘Mom!’

I rush to her.

Golden blood is spreading on the ground. Where the fuck is it coming from!?

There. In mom’s left side. A spear has gone in so deep that only the very bottom of it is still visible.

Mom groans.

‘No. No.’

Her eyes flutter close.

‘No. Please no.’

I can tell when she dies.