chapter five : forest meeting
"We can't sleep yet, Cirrus, we've got ages to go before morning!" Arianna hissed, patting the drowsy horse firmly on the rump. He let out a sleepy whinny and walked slightly faster, which, Arianna realized, was all she was going to get out of him.
"I would sleep if I trusted you to stay awake without me," the woman grumbled, absent-mindedly checking the pack that held the egg for the hundredth time. If she lost it now, her journey would be in vain, and she had come so far already....
Suddenly, she heard something that woke her up right away. It was a piercing scream, shattering the silence of the night. And it was coming from somewhere up the trail.
"Go, Cirrus, go!" Arianna cried, urging Cirrus to a gallop. The wind on his face woke Cirrus up right away, and he tossed his head, letting his forelock fly out of his face.
In the distance, two figures became clear to Arianna. One was obviously a woman, cowering from a much larger form -- what was unmistakeably a dragon. The dragon didn't appear to be attacking; in fact, it was staring in a completely different direction than Arianna or the woman.
"Stand still," Arianna whispered as she got within hearing range of the woman. She whirled around, her eyes wide with fright, and ran to where Cirrus was standing, partially concealed in the fringe of the woods beside the path.
"I-I was just gathering roots, for dyes," the woman stammered, "and out of nowhere comes that -- that thing!"
"It's all right, I'll take care of it," Arianna replied, drawing her sword in a wide arc and watching as the woman ran without question back into the forest.
"I wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life," Arianna muttered to Cirrus, turning to face the dragon, who was still gazing in the opposite direction. In closer range, Arianna almost laughed; the dragon was so old it looked ready to crumble into pieces on the spot. She would be surprised if the creature had teeth left at all, and its scales were mismatched and slowly falling out.
Suddenly, the dragon turned, perhaps having heard the soft tread of Cirrus's hooves approaching it. Arianna got a bit of a jolt -- though the massive creature's eyes were milky white, they were bright and alive.
"What brings you here, noble dragonslayer?" the dragon questioned in a harsh, female voice.
Arianna stopped, and frowned. She had never heard a dragon speak before! This one was obviously very old, and very intelligent, to have learned so much about the ways of humans.
"You know," the dragon continued, "I ought to burn you on the spot, for what you have done to my people."
Cirrus whinnied nervously, and stamped his feet, but Arianna whispered that he should hold his ground. After all, what could such an old, wrinkly thing do to them?
"Yes," the old female purred. "I smell the blood of so many generations all over you and your armor. You reek of murder, woman, you should know that. And you wonder why dragons attack you!" She scoffed, and shook her ancient head. "Foolish humans."
Arianna stared blankly. "What gives you the right to speak to me like that?" she snapped angrily. "You are senile. I ought to kill you right now, for frightening that poor woman!"
The dragon gave a rasping laugh. "Again, you show your idiotic noble spirit," she sighed. "I would not have hurt the woman. I rather like her, actually. She and her friends take good care of their little children. Her girls come out and see me, sometimes," the female added, smiling and showing that she did, indeed, still have some teeth.
"I suppose you're waiting for the children to gain your trust?" Arianna cried. "So you can go make a meal of them?"
The dragon looked sincerely offended. "I cannot pretend," she hissed, "that there are not those in our species who hate the humans so much that they try to seek revenge in the most violent ways possible. But I would not dream of hurting the little ones that come to see me!"
But Arianna was stuck on one word. "Revenge? Revenge for what?" she protested. "What have humans ever done to them?"
"Have you seen what your people do to our forests?" the dragon bellowed in an astonishingly powerful voice for one so frail. "They take the mighty trees down to the ground as though they were no more than twigs! Then they build their castles and their cities where our fathers and grandfathers once hunted and raised families. First they kill our sacred lands, and then they start on us!"
"We didn't kill you until you hunted our people," Arianna snarled.
"Oh, someone hasn't been studying their history," the dragon sneered. "Your ancient dragonslayers, they were noble and mighty people, were they? Seeing us, flying above them, and thinking 'Oh, there is something mightier than us, we must destroy it!'"
"The dragonslayers were born when that dragon attacked Silene, and Saint George --"
"Saint George killed that dragon for the most foolish of reasons!" the female snapped. "It had hunted his people! Does the rabbit kill the dog that raids its burrow?"
"That's different!" Arianna cried. "The rabbit is the natural prey of the dog --"
"Are you not our natural prey?" the dragon purred. "Just because some of us choose not to make you our supper, does not mean it is unnatural to act otherwise. After all, without your weapons and your armor, you are undoubtably the weaker species."
"But we have crafted armor and weaponry to make us the strongest!" Arianna replied without hesitation.
The dragon nodded. "Then it is simply man versus nature, as it was always meant to be," she smiled. "And can man and nature not live in harmony?"
Arianna opened her mouth, then shut it, and blinked. "If your people would stop raiding our villages and killing us, perhaps we could," she snapped.
"Ah, we are simply revenging ancient wounds," the dragon smiled. "Perhaps, if you showed us that you humans were ready to make peace, we would leave your towns alone. I'm sure that both our races could benefit from one another. We have much to teach you, we dragons...."
"But none of the other dragons talk," Arianna said flatly. "You're the only one I've ever heard."
"Do you make a habit of conversing with your victims before you kill them?" the female asked in amusement.
"I --" Arianna began, before realizing that she had nothing to say for herself there.
"Perhaps the youth of our breed cannot speak your tongue," the dragon continued, "but can any of your people boast of speaking ours?"
Arianna frowned. She wasn't sure she liked the way this was going.
"I cannot say that I like your beloved humans, dragonslayer," the female said, "for they have killed my kin for thousands of years. But when I see those little children dancing about in the meadow, I cannot help but think of my own little ones, when they were but hatchlings. And I realize that, perhaps, our peoples are not so different after all."
As tired as Arianna was, she did not sleep that night.
