The end?

The teacher sat on a branch in the great fey-tree’s uppermost canopy and stared out towards the horizon. Runt sat nearby with his legs wrapped around the limb. He would never truly get used to being this high up. Even years later, when the next generation of young harpy joeys began climbing and leaping over him, and following him across the wild lands, and begging him every night to sit up in the tree with them and tell his story of the times of trouble between harpies and gorgons, even then Runt would wrap his legs around the limb and try not to look down.

He did look down now, though, and smiled. Stripes was stalking again. Runt’s dog crept along with ears pricked and tail erect before pouncing on the wolf. Runt laughed at the two of them play fighting and then sighed.

“I thought he was gone, teacher.” Runt said, glancing up for a second. The teacher continued to stare out at the horizon, looking content.

“When he didn’t show up after the first day or two, I thought he was gone. Dead, I guessed. Or just gone. Gone and found a new home. And he has, in a way.”

Stripes splashed out into the lake and the wolf followed. Runt smiled and sighed again. They were off hunting and wouldn’t be back for hours. It was like this every night, on dusk.

“The wolf-dog is happy. He found where he belongs.” The teacher replied, looking to Runt for the briefest moment before turning back to the horizon.

“Teacher? I need to ask you something.” Runt said, gently. The teacher sighed, guessing the question, and fearing to answer.

“I need to know what I am. Why I can turn invisible. Why the gorgons and even some harpies assumed I was a gorgon. And why I grew large when I ate that yellowcake. I need to know what’s inside of me that makes those things happen.”

Runt looked down at his hands. They were a normal size again. The process of returning to normal, though, still haunted him. It had not been pleasant.

The teacher turned to Runt and stared at him before speaking.

“You don’t need me to tell you what you are. Just like you don’t need me to tell you who you are. Those are things you find out for yourself. So tell me, who are you? Are you Runt? Are you Wolf-ghost? A demon? A gorgon? A weird born? Or are you someone else?”

It was Runt’s turn to stare out to the horizon. The sun was beginning to set.

“That’s my boy.” Runt thought to himself. “Maybe Tyron did mean it, after all. He called me his boy. Me. For the second time in my whole life. His boy. It was my secret name. I’ve always just wanted to know where I belong. But what if I really do belong to him? Would I be better off not knowing?”

The teacher watched Runt stare at the horizon for some time before speaking.

“It is not an easy question. Some of us never truly reach the answer. But that’s alright. We walk this earth, each day learning something new about ourselves. We are who we are.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Runt nodded and pulled the long sliver of rock out of his pouch. He never did find his spear again, or the drop-bear claw, or his cloak. None of that mattered, though. He would make a new spear. He would find another claw. And there were more skins to be reclaimed. There was much more work to be done.

Using the sliver of rock, Runt began cutting away the rest of the singed hair from the side of his head. He was lucky. If not for his tremendous mop of hair the lava may have burnt his face to the bone. Instead, his hair took most of the damage. Runt cropped it short on one side until all the damaged hair was gone and then, to even things up, he used the stone knife to cut away the hair on the other side.

He left the hair long on top but brushed it back. “No more hiding my face,” Runt thought to himself, “but I’m leaving the top long. The demons will hate this hair cut when they see me next. And that’s kind of the point. I hope they hate it a lot when they first see it. But they’ll get used to it. They’ll have to. To them, I’ll be the Wolf-ghost, the Wild Boy. The thing they cannot tame.”

Patch appeared, yawning and stretching. Dusk accelerated towards night now.

“Cool haircut, Runt,” the little harpy said, “it really makes your ears stand out.”

The three of them sat in the uppermost branches watching the sunset flood across the forest. Fey-trees lit up within the red glow and, soon enough, the spirit of the dragon began erupting across the Wilds. Runt reached up and felt his ears. They didn’t feel any different, which is to say, they felt like they always had. Still, looking at the three of them from behind, as their bodies became dark silhouettes against the blazing red skies of sunset, there was no difference between the three pairs of ears. Runt’s ears pointed sharply, like each of the harpies next to him. He didn’t think they were ugly anymore. Just different.

“We are who we are.” Runt whispered, looking out towards the horizon.

The dragon’s head was no more. The calamity in the heart of that mountain led to its collapse. Humans bolted out of bed at the terrible sound but, in the dead of night, they simply locked their doors tighter, crept back to bed, and hoped to live until dawn. The next morning, the riders who made it there first wheeled their horses around and raced back to the city to report what they saw.

Where once a giant, twisted mountain stood in the shape of a dragon’s head, now only a pile of rubble remained. The quarry was destroyed, the lake of tears and the dragon’s crystal eye, vanished. No longer did sailors need to navigate beneath the Drake’s maw. No more stories were told of the dragon swallowing its tail. The dragon was beheaded.

Most importantly, the war-hungry gorgons, and their vast caverns, and their violent magic, were buried and gone. No sign of them could be found in the days and weeks that followed.

Now, on dusk, with the head destroyed, the light of sunset flooded across a much larger area than before. The fey-trees soaked it up, stored its energy, and released their pollen high into the air. Harpies flew the loop, collected the pollen, and the bellies of the old ones grew fat with the eggs of the next generation. Meanwhile, the grating rumble of gorgon joeys chewing wood contentedly beneath the bark of the fey-tree continued throughout each and every day and the glowing harpy grubs shone brightly each and every night. Runt would stay until every last one of them was born. And after that, who knew?

The three of them sat there and watched. The teacher, and two young teachers in training. They watched harpies flying the loop and were pleased. There was a chance. There was hope. A fragile balance had been restored. It was up to them, now, to ensure that balance remained.

The three of them sat, and watched, and mourned for friends lost along the way. Now was a time for birth, and growth, and the finding of new friends. Now was a time for making things right. There was work to be done.

Runt looked away from the fey-trees and up towards the glowing lights of the city. Yes, the Wild Boy thought grimly. There was work to be done.

The old ways were lost. The old stories, forgotten. That is why no one even raised an eyebrow when, months later, orange smoke once again started wafting out of the rubble and ruins of the dragon’s head. Humans, with their short and fickle memories, assumed it had always been that way.

THE END?