It all started with a flower.

Bartu saw it as he pranced through the forest, one fine morning in the heart of spring. A bundle of blue, lying bright against the dark green of the forest floor, its petals pointing to a sun that was ever so high above.

Flower [https://images2.imgbox.com/c4/ab/YDctUStW_o.png]

The diminutive creature stopped for but a moment, flummoxed, then continued his approach. This time he was far slower, more cautious, his every step taken with care as he contemplated the flower before him.

He would never learn its name. The flower - itself as much a thing of fantasy as the small creature - was a thing all alone, so far as Bartu knew, by itself in those deep dark woods where few dared tread.

In this, as in its fantastical nature, it took after the little monster. There were none who knew from whence Bartu had come - not the goblins; not the Green-Spotted Snufflewump; not even Bartu himself. There were none who knew whence he was going - not the Murklug that lived in the big black mines; not the Zygothrup who haunted the alleys of men’s minds; and certainly not Bartu.

The small, pearly white monster - not even four inches tall, and completely hairless from his blobby lower torso to the tip of his blobby nose - had come through the woods with nary a whisper of his passing. Sack on his shoulder, sword by his side, he had wandered undisturbed through paths and over roots, only stopping to ford the occasional brook - until he saw the flower.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Bartu [https://images2.imgbox.com/35/d8/rhNtVhZm_o.png]

After admiring the flower for what felt like an age, Bartu noticed that the sun had reached the top of the sky, and decided it was time to break for lunch. Opening his wee little satchel he removed a teensy tiny sandwich, and settled in under the flower to enjoy it.

This deep in the wood the trees grew close together, and little light reached the forest floor; a fact which troubled the weeds not in the slightest, as they coated everything in a thick and sticky mass that had caused him no little bother on his journey to the flower.

He looked at them with some fondness, as he sat there beneath the flower. His sandwich - a single berry, squashed between two dandelion leaves - crunched slightly as he ate it, and he closed his eyes for a moment as he swirled the fruit juice about his mouth.

He had needed this rest. The winds had borne him far, and would bear him still farther; already he could hear their song, lilting as it came towards him through the branches of the deep dark wood. Where to, he didn’t know - the heart of the forest? Beyond it, unto fields beyond his little ken? The little creature cared not; he was simply carried forwards.

Bartu finished off the last of his sandwich, took a small drink from his flask, and got up to go. It was a beautiful flower, truly; but his journey was not yet over, if over it would ever be.

And then he saw it. Snaking over the roots, crawling slowly over the weeds, crushing everything in its path.

A dragon.