The summer of a young untainted boy, that is me, though early one might argue, marked an adulthood long needed. As I recollect thoughtfully while sitting now on my old-fashioned, pine-wooden rocky chair, I embraced my very first sword on a rainy fall day. I had already stepped on twelve complete summers. Honestly, it did not cost as much as you may or may not think. The sword master, a dwarf named Brown Black if it makes any difference to any of us, bargained hard with my father before failing and falling to our desired price.
Leaving the dwarf's smelter, I grasped the sword’s shaft for the very first time. It wrinkled and scarred my palm all the same. I was a boy no more, as both my chest and facial hair testified. But still I had a long way ahead of me to prove it.
My father grimed and frowned on our way back to his grocery. Supposedly, under all those layers of merchandising miserly above his sternum, awaited silently a brave and noble warrior to unleash fiery fists and glorifying battle settlements. No, I did not believe that back then, and surely do not hold on to it now.
“I hope a hare does not match your swiftness, boy” I recall him thrashing against a younger than me boy, gluing some sort of something on the grocery’s front door. So, choice denied, he ran. What a not surprise!
The younger boy ran too quickly for a hare to match. Or even my father, struggling to start what he thought to be an easy chase of a rebel. How mistaken he had been!
That was the last time I saw my father breathing. For he fell flat right after, facing the dusty, stone-covered street, outside his grocery shop. As a hoof made a horrible sound crushing his arm—the right one I think—I let a terrible cry escape me. The next morning we laid him respectfully in a swallow grave, as my brother, aged twenty one and a half, could dig that deep for some unexplained reason. My mother’s tears watered the soil above him and we left. I had not cried at all.
Days passed and nights flew away. Months looped, but years prevailed. I was sixteen, a full grown man, when my brother left us to join the hordes of men battling in outer lands for the sake of a king. My mother though, still petrified from pain and suffering of the soul, went on and wed one the lords of our lands. I am not sure if he loved him in anyway. We called him “Muddyface” prior to this. Afterwards, I just called him Mr. Blue. Whenever my brother was at home—and that was not often, I assure you—ascended him to Giarim.
Giarim was a harsh bald man, shorter than me. His mischief way of dealing with honest people was soon out in the open. He and my mother, unfortunately, had no other choice. On a wintery Sunday night, close to midnight, an enormous wooden door sheltering a stable, opened wide enough. Two horses were saddled silently and unwillingly, I reckon; for it is brutal even to horses dragging them into the cold darkness, still if that means your own survival. And that is the last time I ever heard or seen of my mother. I was already sixteen, a full grown man. I did not cry at all.
Years furthered on and I assure you that Time, the master of all, was not easy on me. Between passions and lust, survivor and hardships, agony and despair, I made my decision. The sword my departed father granted me felt like a legacy in my hands. I had only to bow and accept the path Fate carved for me.
Dexterity in my hands was described as vast, as I remember, from an elder viewing me as I joined swordplay contests all across the land. A different cold windy day found me at the crack that of another enormous wooden door, like six complete years ago. Only this time the way led into an army of men fighting for the sake of a king.
My brother kept his silent face as he stared at me pacing through the tense layers of fellow warriors. I had not seen him much over the past ten years or so. He merely saluted me one or two days later, I cannot remember exactly how long it took him; we haven’t spoken till this day. He was shipped the following of our meeting to an elfish land called Magic Land, if it makes any interest at all. By the way, his name was Pereus.
My beard matured white and some of my teeth had to abandon me. The post I was sent was buried deep into snow. Warmth was like it never existed and I grew fond of lonely duty-watch up in a colder than tall tower. From up there, my eyes never fooled me, not even once, and all trespassers rumbled from my arrows and my spears. And I was happy, or so I thought.
Until one day a smile changed everything. She lingered her way into the grocery downtown as I looked around for some fresh radishes. Her scent smelled familiar, her voice was heard as a friend’s one. The forty something years that Time, the master of all, forced onto my back revealed I was ready.
As countless flattering men before and, I can only hope just as much after, I too had began to siege my later to be fiancée. She fell in love not with my wits and brains, my later wife, but found fleshy needs I fulfilled most enjoyable. No problem. So there she is, the mother of my children, reclining besides me as I write and sophisticate all that had happened and cannot be undone.
A weekday some time after, started not special in any way. That afternoon the royal canvassers mingled their voices all over the land. A dragon spotted in the realm, west of town. Rather exposed, for no one witnessed the creature. Merely traces of burned crops and scarred sheep made the difference. Any brave enough to chop down his head, would have gained enormous wealth and gold beyond any imagination. Or so the king’s men hallowed and cried out nearly for two weeks.
Good in my fifties back then, I could be called a liar to say I did not think of it. A spine ruined from quests and torments of the warrior’s way separated me from the pack. My long sword, loyal enough to accompany me at every step I ever made, had been shining beneath piles of rags lately, even though it was ready for new adventures. How could I deny? I could not.
The first four weeks were tough, but not for me. Mostly was my envy of family-men that broke my morale. The spring scenery helped the dragon to pass unnoticed. Green images on leafy trees crossed my sight as they objected into the pale—or bright sometimes—brown of their logs.
I passed through plains of greenish grass and early-mature barley. Fruits were colored as many shades as you can possibly imagine; those grew not only for the peasants out in the fields. And the windy valleys were good friends to my loneliness, although there was still no sign of the dragon.
My horse started to neigh hard by that time. But it was not until the next two weeks that the road, accidentally or not, led me upwards. The misty mountains of the kingdom hindered many dangers, but a dragon was not one of them. Cold and whitish snow fell from above for days and days nonstop. Most of the way downwards I paved myself. My horse left me before its time. I was in a tough spot. Then I cried.
Summer was bursting into the realm, yet no dragon. Weeds grew older and yellower as grains overwhelmed themselves into a shade of white flour, with the help of men and women naturally. In a small inn near a dwarf land used to be called Lefkoish, I made my first mischief. It had been three months now and I could not bear another day without. Since then, four more times I got to relieve myself.
I must be careful not to let my wife find out!
The paths I followed later on drove me patiently all over the land. My new-bought horse was happy enough with our settlement; it would carry me and I would provide the food.
I witnessed field workers, tired from years in labor, travelling day and night in the woods, timbering and lodging themselves. Many had less than half my age, though they seemed older than me. Just as farmers and wine-makers. Miners and coalminers were the next, with their black-coaled faces staring, as if I was a strange creature. Blacksmiths or carpenters, ordinary men or dwarves you thought to be by the first glance. But deep inside their souls a burning ambition fused tales and spirits as soon as chilled wine or rum touched their lips. Whores and inn-keepers, magicians of every kind, even practitioners I met while I was away. I travelled through the months of summer, but still no dragon.
I kept on and persisted when fall came. All others bound to hunt the dragon had ceased their try and returned back to their homes. But not me, stubborn me.
The proofs and signs were out there and now testimonies fell as much as snowflakes on any given snowy-day—or night. Apples, red or green or yellowish or something in between, matured and fell, as prunes and cherries followed—cherries were always bloody red in our realm. Green or yellow melons were long gone by then and if it was not for the hunt, my horse and me would surely starve until meeting with Death.
Winter was coming—I am sure I have heard that one before. Rains and floods shattered any dreams I had for passing by bridges and bridgeless waters. Nature was beginning to avenge me. After all, nine months had passed from the day I set out to find the dragon.
I missed my family, and that made me even more furious against the dragon. If I had him in my hands right then, I would have chopped his ugly dragonish head off. Needless to say food was scarce at that time; fruits and nuts cycled their way out. And the animals diminished in numbers; many were hibernating anyway.
A year had passed since I first set out. Half eaten sheep and burned barns kept on violating my privacy, as I was the only in the whole kingdom to carry on. My cheeks flopped in, but fortunately or not, my thick whitish beard hid them well. My long hair strapped in pairs of white, grey and black, interfering with my forehead and thus my eyesight. Just as when I was about to quit on this wild chase, his figure penetrated my glance.
He was not as they had described him to me. The long—and hard sometimes—to draw sketches saved in a folder at my saddled horse, showed him otherwise; stronger, bigger, tougher, darker. For if I had to choose, I would have passed the opportunity to name him the root of all evil, as I described him to be numerous times before at villagers or royalties full of questions. Was I that mistaken?
A tall pine tree sheltered him. His brownish scales reminded me a fish of the toughest and deadliest kind; stonefish. But he seemed no longer than several feet, not like tens of them as I was narrated to be. His wings looked a lot smaller than a span of three or four houses; more like one or two grown men. Nevertheless, the tail was exactly as it was described to be; short and thick, all brownish, envied with a bit of black to overthrow its brightness. Scale-covered, like all over his body, actually. His two legs ended in curved claws, though they did not outmatch even my sword. His jaws I could not see. And no acute hearing or super senses or supernatural instincts. The dragon was sleeping.
My right palm touched the shaft of my long sword, the one my father bought me long and long and yet longer ago. The shield on my left arm was no protection at all, it occurred to me just then. I dropped the shield instantly and held the sword both handed above his dragonish throat.
As he was to witness his last dream or whatever, he opened his eyes. Fear filled me and my blood froze. And since my blood could not fly in my blood vessels or lungs or heart anymore, I could neither move, nor speak, nor even breathe. His eyes fell heavily on me as the red in between their core surrounded my soul. I was ready to die. Or so I thought.
When I opened my eyes, he had his own eyes unlocked and wide open. The sword was still in my hands but neither of us moved, not me and thankfully not the dragon. His mesmerizing eyes still annoy me after all these years. A glance I thought to be full of hatred and wrath and need for revenge against the now writer. But then a strange thing happened.
The dragon chose silence over roaring or anything else and he closed his eyes again. My heart was pumping hard and fast. He was ill, I reckoned at that time. Still my hand did not obey me, thankfully. For then on, an even strangest thing happened.
“What delays your harsh soul may I trouble you to ask?”
Now, if you were in my place, you would have been certainly betrayed by affairs of the heart. I myself started shaking and had not any strength whatsoever to make any movement, small or big or bigger.
“Finish my lord what your mind set to do and spare me”
There it was again; the voice from inside the dragon. Sweat of the cold kind wrapped around my forehead and not only. The dragon spoke. The dragon was speaking. A talking dragon. I repeated myself this statement, yet no sound came out of me. I was that much petrified. I remained motionless and speechless for many a moment, deep into my thoughts, my sword still hanging above the dragon’s throat.
The dragon sighed with almost a human voice, again, and I lowered my sword. He opened his eyes once more and turned his head to face me. His brown-colored nostrils heated my face in the cold winter day that my eyes met a talking dragon.
“Long have you been hunting me, lord of my destiny. Beg you to finish what you started. I beg you”
The dragon’s voice slipped in my ears and echoed all through my head. Somehow I found the strength and the mind to flash myself back to reality and answer, or ask might be more appropriate, something back.
“Forgive me, lord of the dragons. For I have never met one such as you. Do my ears finally deceive me after all this time away from home? Or does Fate share a common laugh with Death on my behalf as I am dreaming”.
The dragon stood upright, two legs on the ground. Indeed, he was not that tall and not that fat, not to mention, again, his wing span. Just as not as the way they had described him to me. His head leaned over me, which made his neck curve, revealing his backbone.
“You are neither dreaming, nor Fate or Death whom I laugh at have anything to do with this. But be of haste and go collect your coins. Swiftly chop my head off, as you had planned so carefully and so long ago”
I did not know which one prevailed. Was it my curiosity or my surprise? I turned my head sideways and tilted it to get a glimpse of my sword lying on the cold ground beneath a pine, all huge and proud. I squatted carefully and picked it up. I wished to slay the dragon indeed and collect my pay, now so much more than ever before from what I had been through. But I had to find out. What was the meaning of this? A talking dragon? What kind of magic I was posed to? I had to know.
“For the last time, be a man. Finish what you started. NOW”
The voice of the dragon went on from calm to angry. He rasped those words, intentionally or not I did not know—I still don’t. I leaned, heads down, over my overcrowded hands. I must admit I was tempted to end it all there and go back home rich and satisfied, not to mention a hero and the bravest amongst brave. But my mind told me to stop and throw yet for another time my sword on the dusty, pine-needle filled ground.
“No” I said in determination and some ignorance I must admit now. “You own a name dragon heart?” I asked him as politely as a penitent executioner does. “Mine is Fereus” I merely added.
I could understand well enough that the last sigh he gave me was filled with despair. He flapped his wings two or three times and I mingled my forehead skin unintentionally, for the noise was great. He sighed again as he stared in my eyes.
“You were my last hope” the dragon commented. He sighed once again. “Vragfel” he snarled as he gazed at the open cloudy sky.
“You were my last hope” he repeated himself in a lower than before voice.
I saw him freeing his wings as birds do when they intend to fly. It must have been Fate that led me in that sort of thing, but I snatched one of the trembling wings and cried out.
“Please Vragfel, master dragon. Please explain me to understand”
I do not think a dragon, no matter how goodhearted he is, would tolerate a human grabbing his flickering wings. For a moment, fear struck in my heart, as he swiftly shook his body and let his wings escape my grip. He turned to face me and I stepped two steps back, out of fear, if you guessed correctly.
Vragfel met my glance midway and I saw fires leaping from his eyes. I stood motionless and waited. I will become lunch soon enough or he will spare me for some reason; I thought to myself and only to myself and not out loud.
Now, if you ever confronted a dragon you would have known their ways; unpredicted and short-tempered creatures. But most of all, they are impatient and with no sense of courtesy in their minds. He granted me with a magnificent roar, and some spit as well as I can remember, his wings unbundled yet again, ready and willing to fly. Only this time I could not stop him. As I watched him spraying fires through his curved long jaws, I got a glimpse of his pointy teeth. Two fangs extinguished the thirst for life of every creature underneath them. He only had to close his jaws.
Many winters passed from that day. The road became my home as I endlessly and desperately roamed in every town and every village, no matter how small or tense populated was. Vragfel, the talking dragon, became a legend amongst mortal men and not only to those.
My bones hurt me wrathfully and I forgot the taste of my wife. The children I had joyfully sewed wandered the streets of my homeland proud and tall at the hearing of my name; the dragon charmer. So I was the dragon charmer, or the one that tamed the wild. I enjoyed those epithets to the full, though I never admitted my reluctance to slay him.
An ordinary weekday during an ordinary spring of an ordinary year, started all but ordinary. My horse left me the night before, only to meet with Death by the claws of a Griator, one of the giant bears of old times. If that was not bad enough, signs of the dragon neared me dangerously. His footsteps smelled of nothing but fresh-stepped soil and some olive trees near were covered by a familiar disgusting liquid; dragon spit.
He was near. I drew my sword and fixed my bow behind my back.
As before, the dragon was found flat on the ground, facing up and keeping his mind all but troubled, while his nostrils flamed not fire, but a snoring worthy of a dragon. Under a pine tree, bigger than the one last time.
I stood at a distance and thought of my next move. The dragon had to die. Long had been our fields devastated and our cattle and sheep decapitated and eaten raw or burned by the beastly creature. Even if he had the privilege of talk, I could—and should—spare him not. Vragfel had to die. After all, that is what he seeks in anyway, I convinced myself.
As if in a loop of time, the dragon opened his eyes the last moment. Past tense had taught me nothing. I froze. Again.
Vragfel stretched his wings and I knew what he was about to do. I had no intention to grab his wings, again, whatever the case was. So I shouted with all my lung power
“Wait.” The tone in my voice was serious.
The dragon heard me the first time I screamed. He only stopped flapping his winds at the third calling, when my vocal cords were to tear themselves.
“Why to?” the dragon, or Vragfel if you prefer, answered back.
“Is there some good for me?” he went on. “Finish it Fereus. Finish it now”
The commanding voice he threw made me stare in his eyes. Still those mesmerizing eyes were plugged deep in my soul. I held my sword up, always both handed, and targeted his throat. Déjà vu. Images of the old-present came rushing in my head. Déjà vu. I held it high enough to pierce his hard scales to death. I was strong enough for that.
I was spared for some reason. In my case, it just so happens, Vragfel was the loneliest dragon in the World. And he liked to chat a lot more. For after I threw my sword on the restless dirt he gave me the most terrifying stare he possessed. And he hollered in the most frightful way as he settled his skull right opposite of mine. Our breaths mingled and I tried not to faint. For I believed that would be the end of me, for sure. Wrong again.
“My storyline is simple and short. I was born a human long ago, maybe longer than you. But I was cursed to drain life in the body of a horrific dragon. And here I am. Now you know”
Surprise would be a lesser word to describe my feelings back then. That shocking truthful phrases echoed in my ears.
“A man? You are a man?”
Vragfel sighed, maybe for the tenth time since I encountered him for the second time. His jaws were now loose and open to my view. “Was” he merely added, as he rested on an easily-chosen-for-its-shade spot under the pine tree.
I acted irrationally, as to always, I presume, and accepted a seat next to him. He did not offer it; rather I took it on my own, forcing myself and him to start a conversation. The quick change of hearts got me all but well, as I felt dizzy and disoriented all of a sudden. It was then that I learned of the story about a young boy cursed by an elder warlock to convey his good looks into something dreadful. He had a noble soul and no matter how hard he tried to tame it, his wild dragonish nature always triumphed over his human. The ruins he left all around the realm were, of course, burdened on his beastly side.
I befriended with the talking dragon, or Vragfel, as I prefer to name him. Our talks kept me a long time near him. I taught him how to deceive his dragonish side and feast upon prey of the woods. He gifted me with knowledge and rumors of all the kingdoms, as far as the Northern Mountains.
I learned a few things myself as I travelled through the years. Thus, the new knowledge of a dragon-hearted boy was at heat for my mind. Was it old, my mind, but it lusted for every drop of knowledge and learning all the while.
My backbone was about to betray me as I returned happily to my family and introduced a new self of Vragfel, the talking dragon, to the people in the realm. At first they were skeptical of him. A talking dragon? A noble and gentle heart?
Some wanted his head on the ground, while others gave him the benefit of a doubt. After all, he was wild and untamed for many years, drifting about their crops and livestock, killing animals and burning barns as his dragonish nature commanded. But even then, he never hurt a human or an elf. Dwarves he killed, a few, if my mind does not play tricks altogether. Why I do not know. That is another matter not easily stated.
Years spanned enormously big, but eventually passed like they were minutes. Men came and gone in my homeland as many as countless. At last Vragfel was accepted by all. Peace ruled over, as the menace ceased above the heads of farmers, villagers, even royalties.
The king granted the dragon his life and spared mine, for not killing him instantly when I had the chance. He never knew I had not one, but two of those opportunities in my lifetime. And he, the king I mean, kept his promise.
Coins of gold and land beyond any human or elfish eye could see were presented before me. My children grew up to be lords and ladies, and no longer was prosperity and wealth a worry upon my head. And so Vragfel lived in harmony with us until the end of his days, which by the way, were smaller in number than us, since dragons die at early age.
But Fate had not ended her paved road for me, or that of my winged friend. I still had one more torture to pass through. One more test. On his last breath, Vragfel confessed his terrible secret. The boy he would grow up to be was no other than my father’s prosecutor before Death. He was to blame for a father I was denied. He was the one seventy years ago to guide him at a wild chase, sentencing him where to I believe you already know. He killed him. He did it.
I wished those words never reached my ears. But they did. Along with some others, they garnished his last talk. He pleaded for my forgiveness. He asked me to forgive and forget his actions as a silly young boy does. I felt fires in my heart. All my life had been dictated by the vengeance I would someday be able to take against a young boy, who, willingly or not it did not matter to me, deprived me of my father’s love early on.
I looked in his mesmerizing eyes and tried to find the strength in me to forgive him. I strived hard, really hard, to endure the pain and salute him as a forgiven friend of mine. He said his soul would only rest that way. And so I tried harder. I closed my eyes and touched my chest, right above my heart, on the left side. And I found the courage and the strength to do it.
I am reaching my hundred and fifth birthdays in a few days. My wife, her hundred and one. Not to mention our children, all twelve of them, prospering in life and in health all the same. And my grandchildren, all happy and in excellent health, may I add. I do not know whether I have Vragfel to thank for that, or Fate. But I reckon the rumors might be true. Any sincere friend of a dragon is granted great powers; long life filled with health and happiness and above all, a friendship that outlasts even Time, the master of all.
Just one vital ingredient is needed for the recipe to succeed. Forgiveness; true, honest forgiveness, towards anyone questing it from you. Any who gifts that, shall always be happy and prosper in good health. For that, I am sure. Goodbye my good friend Vragfel. Goodbye. We shall meet again in due time, up there, in the sky. Goodbye.
Leaving the dwarf's smelter, I grasped the sword’s shaft for the very first time. It wrinkled and scarred my palm all the same. I was a boy no more, as both my chest and facial hair testified. But still I had a long way ahead of me to prove it.
My father grimed and frowned on our way back to his grocery. Supposedly, under all those layers of merchandising miserly above his sternum, awaited silently a brave and noble warrior to unleash fiery fists and glorifying battle settlements. No, I did not believe that back then, and surely do not hold on to it now.
“I hope a hare does not match your swiftness, boy” I recall him thrashing against a younger than me boy, gluing some sort of something on the grocery’s front door. So, choice denied, he ran. What a not surprise!
The younger boy ran too quickly for a hare to match. Or even my father, struggling to start what he thought to be an easy chase of a rebel. How mistaken he had been!
That was the last time I saw my father breathing. For he fell flat right after, facing the dusty, stone-covered street, outside his grocery shop. As a hoof made a horrible sound crushing his arm—the right one I think—I let a terrible cry escape me. The next morning we laid him respectfully in a swallow grave, as my brother, aged twenty one and a half, could dig that deep for some unexplained reason. My mother’s tears watered the soil above him and we left. I had not cried at all.
Days passed and nights flew away. Months looped, but years prevailed. I was sixteen, a full grown man, when my brother left us to join the hordes of men battling in outer lands for the sake of a king. My mother though, still petrified from pain and suffering of the soul, went on and wed one the lords of our lands. I am not sure if he loved him in anyway. We called him “Muddyface” prior to this. Afterwards, I just called him Mr. Blue. Whenever my brother was at home—and that was not often, I assure you—ascended him to Giarim.
Giarim was a harsh bald man, shorter than me. His mischief way of dealing with honest people was soon out in the open. He and my mother, unfortunately, had no other choice. On a wintery Sunday night, close to midnight, an enormous wooden door sheltering a stable, opened wide enough. Two horses were saddled silently and unwillingly, I reckon; for it is brutal even to horses dragging them into the cold darkness, still if that means your own survival. And that is the last time I ever heard or seen of my mother. I was already sixteen, a full grown man. I did not cry at all.
Years furthered on and I assure you that Time, the master of all, was not easy on me. Between passions and lust, survivor and hardships, agony and despair, I made my decision. The sword my departed father granted me felt like a legacy in my hands. I had only to bow and accept the path Fate carved for me.
Dexterity in my hands was described as vast, as I remember, from an elder viewing me as I joined swordplay contests all across the land. A different cold windy day found me at the crack that of another enormous wooden door, like six complete years ago. Only this time the way led into an army of men fighting for the sake of a king.
My brother kept his silent face as he stared at me pacing through the tense layers of fellow warriors. I had not seen him much over the past ten years or so. He merely saluted me one or two days later, I cannot remember exactly how long it took him; we haven’t spoken till this day. He was shipped the following of our meeting to an elfish land called Magic Land, if it makes any interest at all. By the way, his name was Pereus.
My beard matured white and some of my teeth had to abandon me. The post I was sent was buried deep into snow. Warmth was like it never existed and I grew fond of lonely duty-watch up in a colder than tall tower. From up there, my eyes never fooled me, not even once, and all trespassers rumbled from my arrows and my spears. And I was happy, or so I thought.
Until one day a smile changed everything. She lingered her way into the grocery downtown as I looked around for some fresh radishes. Her scent smelled familiar, her voice was heard as a friend’s one. The forty something years that Time, the master of all, forced onto my back revealed I was ready.
As countless flattering men before and, I can only hope just as much after, I too had began to siege my later to be fiancée. She fell in love not with my wits and brains, my later wife, but found fleshy needs I fulfilled most enjoyable. No problem. So there she is, the mother of my children, reclining besides me as I write and sophisticate all that had happened and cannot be undone.
A weekday some time after, started not special in any way. That afternoon the royal canvassers mingled their voices all over the land. A dragon spotted in the realm, west of town. Rather exposed, for no one witnessed the creature. Merely traces of burned crops and scarred sheep made the difference. Any brave enough to chop down his head, would have gained enormous wealth and gold beyond any imagination. Or so the king’s men hallowed and cried out nearly for two weeks.
Good in my fifties back then, I could be called a liar to say I did not think of it. A spine ruined from quests and torments of the warrior’s way separated me from the pack. My long sword, loyal enough to accompany me at every step I ever made, had been shining beneath piles of rags lately, even though it was ready for new adventures. How could I deny? I could not.
The first four weeks were tough, but not for me. Mostly was my envy of family-men that broke my morale. The spring scenery helped the dragon to pass unnoticed. Green images on leafy trees crossed my sight as they objected into the pale—or bright sometimes—brown of their logs.
I passed through plains of greenish grass and early-mature barley. Fruits were colored as many shades as you can possibly imagine; those grew not only for the peasants out in the fields. And the windy valleys were good friends to my loneliness, although there was still no sign of the dragon.
My horse started to neigh hard by that time. But it was not until the next two weeks that the road, accidentally or not, led me upwards. The misty mountains of the kingdom hindered many dangers, but a dragon was not one of them. Cold and whitish snow fell from above for days and days nonstop. Most of the way downwards I paved myself. My horse left me before its time. I was in a tough spot. Then I cried.
Summer was bursting into the realm, yet no dragon. Weeds grew older and yellower as grains overwhelmed themselves into a shade of white flour, with the help of men and women naturally. In a small inn near a dwarf land used to be called Lefkoish, I made my first mischief. It had been three months now and I could not bear another day without. Since then, four more times I got to relieve myself.
I must be careful not to let my wife find out!
The paths I followed later on drove me patiently all over the land. My new-bought horse was happy enough with our settlement; it would carry me and I would provide the food.
I witnessed field workers, tired from years in labor, travelling day and night in the woods, timbering and lodging themselves. Many had less than half my age, though they seemed older than me. Just as farmers and wine-makers. Miners and coalminers were the next, with their black-coaled faces staring, as if I was a strange creature. Blacksmiths or carpenters, ordinary men or dwarves you thought to be by the first glance. But deep inside their souls a burning ambition fused tales and spirits as soon as chilled wine or rum touched their lips. Whores and inn-keepers, magicians of every kind, even practitioners I met while I was away. I travelled through the months of summer, but still no dragon.
I kept on and persisted when fall came. All others bound to hunt the dragon had ceased their try and returned back to their homes. But not me, stubborn me.
The proofs and signs were out there and now testimonies fell as much as snowflakes on any given snowy-day—or night. Apples, red or green or yellowish or something in between, matured and fell, as prunes and cherries followed—cherries were always bloody red in our realm. Green or yellow melons were long gone by then and if it was not for the hunt, my horse and me would surely starve until meeting with Death.
Winter was coming—I am sure I have heard that one before. Rains and floods shattered any dreams I had for passing by bridges and bridgeless waters. Nature was beginning to avenge me. After all, nine months had passed from the day I set out to find the dragon.
I missed my family, and that made me even more furious against the dragon. If I had him in my hands right then, I would have chopped his ugly dragonish head off. Needless to say food was scarce at that time; fruits and nuts cycled their way out. And the animals diminished in numbers; many were hibernating anyway.
A year had passed since I first set out. Half eaten sheep and burned barns kept on violating my privacy, as I was the only in the whole kingdom to carry on. My cheeks flopped in, but fortunately or not, my thick whitish beard hid them well. My long hair strapped in pairs of white, grey and black, interfering with my forehead and thus my eyesight. Just as when I was about to quit on this wild chase, his figure penetrated my glance.
He was not as they had described him to me. The long—and hard sometimes—to draw sketches saved in a folder at my saddled horse, showed him otherwise; stronger, bigger, tougher, darker. For if I had to choose, I would have passed the opportunity to name him the root of all evil, as I described him to be numerous times before at villagers or royalties full of questions. Was I that mistaken?
A tall pine tree sheltered him. His brownish scales reminded me a fish of the toughest and deadliest kind; stonefish. But he seemed no longer than several feet, not like tens of them as I was narrated to be. His wings looked a lot smaller than a span of three or four houses; more like one or two grown men. Nevertheless, the tail was exactly as it was described to be; short and thick, all brownish, envied with a bit of black to overthrow its brightness. Scale-covered, like all over his body, actually. His two legs ended in curved claws, though they did not outmatch even my sword. His jaws I could not see. And no acute hearing or super senses or supernatural instincts. The dragon was sleeping.
My right palm touched the shaft of my long sword, the one my father bought me long and long and yet longer ago. The shield on my left arm was no protection at all, it occurred to me just then. I dropped the shield instantly and held the sword both handed above his dragonish throat.
As he was to witness his last dream or whatever, he opened his eyes. Fear filled me and my blood froze. And since my blood could not fly in my blood vessels or lungs or heart anymore, I could neither move, nor speak, nor even breathe. His eyes fell heavily on me as the red in between their core surrounded my soul. I was ready to die. Or so I thought.
When I opened my eyes, he had his own eyes unlocked and wide open. The sword was still in my hands but neither of us moved, not me and thankfully not the dragon. His mesmerizing eyes still annoy me after all these years. A glance I thought to be full of hatred and wrath and need for revenge against the now writer. But then a strange thing happened.
The dragon chose silence over roaring or anything else and he closed his eyes again. My heart was pumping hard and fast. He was ill, I reckoned at that time. Still my hand did not obey me, thankfully. For then on, an even strangest thing happened.
“What delays your harsh soul may I trouble you to ask?”
Now, if you were in my place, you would have been certainly betrayed by affairs of the heart. I myself started shaking and had not any strength whatsoever to make any movement, small or big or bigger.
“Finish my lord what your mind set to do and spare me”
There it was again; the voice from inside the dragon. Sweat of the cold kind wrapped around my forehead and not only. The dragon spoke. The dragon was speaking. A talking dragon. I repeated myself this statement, yet no sound came out of me. I was that much petrified. I remained motionless and speechless for many a moment, deep into my thoughts, my sword still hanging above the dragon’s throat.
The dragon sighed with almost a human voice, again, and I lowered my sword. He opened his eyes once more and turned his head to face me. His brown-colored nostrils heated my face in the cold winter day that my eyes met a talking dragon.
“Long have you been hunting me, lord of my destiny. Beg you to finish what you started. I beg you”
The dragon’s voice slipped in my ears and echoed all through my head. Somehow I found the strength and the mind to flash myself back to reality and answer, or ask might be more appropriate, something back.
“Forgive me, lord of the dragons. For I have never met one such as you. Do my ears finally deceive me after all this time away from home? Or does Fate share a common laugh with Death on my behalf as I am dreaming”.
The dragon stood upright, two legs on the ground. Indeed, he was not that tall and not that fat, not to mention, again, his wing span. Just as not as the way they had described him to me. His head leaned over me, which made his neck curve, revealing his backbone.
“You are neither dreaming, nor Fate or Death whom I laugh at have anything to do with this. But be of haste and go collect your coins. Swiftly chop my head off, as you had planned so carefully and so long ago”
I did not know which one prevailed. Was it my curiosity or my surprise? I turned my head sideways and tilted it to get a glimpse of my sword lying on the cold ground beneath a pine, all huge and proud. I squatted carefully and picked it up. I wished to slay the dragon indeed and collect my pay, now so much more than ever before from what I had been through. But I had to find out. What was the meaning of this? A talking dragon? What kind of magic I was posed to? I had to know.
“For the last time, be a man. Finish what you started. NOW”
The voice of the dragon went on from calm to angry. He rasped those words, intentionally or not I did not know—I still don’t. I leaned, heads down, over my overcrowded hands. I must admit I was tempted to end it all there and go back home rich and satisfied, not to mention a hero and the bravest amongst brave. But my mind told me to stop and throw yet for another time my sword on the dusty, pine-needle filled ground.
“No” I said in determination and some ignorance I must admit now. “You own a name dragon heart?” I asked him as politely as a penitent executioner does. “Mine is Fereus” I merely added.
I could understand well enough that the last sigh he gave me was filled with despair. He flapped his wings two or three times and I mingled my forehead skin unintentionally, for the noise was great. He sighed again as he stared in my eyes.
“You were my last hope” the dragon commented. He sighed once again. “Vragfel” he snarled as he gazed at the open cloudy sky.
“You were my last hope” he repeated himself in a lower than before voice.
I saw him freeing his wings as birds do when they intend to fly. It must have been Fate that led me in that sort of thing, but I snatched one of the trembling wings and cried out.
“Please Vragfel, master dragon. Please explain me to understand”
I do not think a dragon, no matter how goodhearted he is, would tolerate a human grabbing his flickering wings. For a moment, fear struck in my heart, as he swiftly shook his body and let his wings escape my grip. He turned to face me and I stepped two steps back, out of fear, if you guessed correctly.
Vragfel met my glance midway and I saw fires leaping from his eyes. I stood motionless and waited. I will become lunch soon enough or he will spare me for some reason; I thought to myself and only to myself and not out loud.
Now, if you ever confronted a dragon you would have known their ways; unpredicted and short-tempered creatures. But most of all, they are impatient and with no sense of courtesy in their minds. He granted me with a magnificent roar, and some spit as well as I can remember, his wings unbundled yet again, ready and willing to fly. Only this time I could not stop him. As I watched him spraying fires through his curved long jaws, I got a glimpse of his pointy teeth. Two fangs extinguished the thirst for life of every creature underneath them. He only had to close his jaws.
Many winters passed from that day. The road became my home as I endlessly and desperately roamed in every town and every village, no matter how small or tense populated was. Vragfel, the talking dragon, became a legend amongst mortal men and not only to those.
My bones hurt me wrathfully and I forgot the taste of my wife. The children I had joyfully sewed wandered the streets of my homeland proud and tall at the hearing of my name; the dragon charmer. So I was the dragon charmer, or the one that tamed the wild. I enjoyed those epithets to the full, though I never admitted my reluctance to slay him.
An ordinary weekday during an ordinary spring of an ordinary year, started all but ordinary. My horse left me the night before, only to meet with Death by the claws of a Griator, one of the giant bears of old times. If that was not bad enough, signs of the dragon neared me dangerously. His footsteps smelled of nothing but fresh-stepped soil and some olive trees near were covered by a familiar disgusting liquid; dragon spit.
He was near. I drew my sword and fixed my bow behind my back.
As before, the dragon was found flat on the ground, facing up and keeping his mind all but troubled, while his nostrils flamed not fire, but a snoring worthy of a dragon. Under a pine tree, bigger than the one last time.
I stood at a distance and thought of my next move. The dragon had to die. Long had been our fields devastated and our cattle and sheep decapitated and eaten raw or burned by the beastly creature. Even if he had the privilege of talk, I could—and should—spare him not. Vragfel had to die. After all, that is what he seeks in anyway, I convinced myself.
As if in a loop of time, the dragon opened his eyes the last moment. Past tense had taught me nothing. I froze. Again.
Vragfel stretched his wings and I knew what he was about to do. I had no intention to grab his wings, again, whatever the case was. So I shouted with all my lung power
“Wait.” The tone in my voice was serious.
The dragon heard me the first time I screamed. He only stopped flapping his winds at the third calling, when my vocal cords were to tear themselves.
“Why to?” the dragon, or Vragfel if you prefer, answered back.
“Is there some good for me?” he went on. “Finish it Fereus. Finish it now”
The commanding voice he threw made me stare in his eyes. Still those mesmerizing eyes were plugged deep in my soul. I held my sword up, always both handed, and targeted his throat. Déjà vu. Images of the old-present came rushing in my head. Déjà vu. I held it high enough to pierce his hard scales to death. I was strong enough for that.
I was spared for some reason. In my case, it just so happens, Vragfel was the loneliest dragon in the World. And he liked to chat a lot more. For after I threw my sword on the restless dirt he gave me the most terrifying stare he possessed. And he hollered in the most frightful way as he settled his skull right opposite of mine. Our breaths mingled and I tried not to faint. For I believed that would be the end of me, for sure. Wrong again.
“My storyline is simple and short. I was born a human long ago, maybe longer than you. But I was cursed to drain life in the body of a horrific dragon. And here I am. Now you know”
Surprise would be a lesser word to describe my feelings back then. That shocking truthful phrases echoed in my ears.
“A man? You are a man?”
Vragfel sighed, maybe for the tenth time since I encountered him for the second time. His jaws were now loose and open to my view. “Was” he merely added, as he rested on an easily-chosen-for-its-shade spot under the pine tree.
I acted irrationally, as to always, I presume, and accepted a seat next to him. He did not offer it; rather I took it on my own, forcing myself and him to start a conversation. The quick change of hearts got me all but well, as I felt dizzy and disoriented all of a sudden. It was then that I learned of the story about a young boy cursed by an elder warlock to convey his good looks into something dreadful. He had a noble soul and no matter how hard he tried to tame it, his wild dragonish nature always triumphed over his human. The ruins he left all around the realm were, of course, burdened on his beastly side.
I befriended with the talking dragon, or Vragfel, as I prefer to name him. Our talks kept me a long time near him. I taught him how to deceive his dragonish side and feast upon prey of the woods. He gifted me with knowledge and rumors of all the kingdoms, as far as the Northern Mountains.
I learned a few things myself as I travelled through the years. Thus, the new knowledge of a dragon-hearted boy was at heat for my mind. Was it old, my mind, but it lusted for every drop of knowledge and learning all the while.
My backbone was about to betray me as I returned happily to my family and introduced a new self of Vragfel, the talking dragon, to the people in the realm. At first they were skeptical of him. A talking dragon? A noble and gentle heart?
Some wanted his head on the ground, while others gave him the benefit of a doubt. After all, he was wild and untamed for many years, drifting about their crops and livestock, killing animals and burning barns as his dragonish nature commanded. But even then, he never hurt a human or an elf. Dwarves he killed, a few, if my mind does not play tricks altogether. Why I do not know. That is another matter not easily stated.
Years spanned enormously big, but eventually passed like they were minutes. Men came and gone in my homeland as many as countless. At last Vragfel was accepted by all. Peace ruled over, as the menace ceased above the heads of farmers, villagers, even royalties.
The king granted the dragon his life and spared mine, for not killing him instantly when I had the chance. He never knew I had not one, but two of those opportunities in my lifetime. And he, the king I mean, kept his promise.
Coins of gold and land beyond any human or elfish eye could see were presented before me. My children grew up to be lords and ladies, and no longer was prosperity and wealth a worry upon my head. And so Vragfel lived in harmony with us until the end of his days, which by the way, were smaller in number than us, since dragons die at early age.
But Fate had not ended her paved road for me, or that of my winged friend. I still had one more torture to pass through. One more test. On his last breath, Vragfel confessed his terrible secret. The boy he would grow up to be was no other than my father’s prosecutor before Death. He was to blame for a father I was denied. He was the one seventy years ago to guide him at a wild chase, sentencing him where to I believe you already know. He killed him. He did it.
I wished those words never reached my ears. But they did. Along with some others, they garnished his last talk. He pleaded for my forgiveness. He asked me to forgive and forget his actions as a silly young boy does. I felt fires in my heart. All my life had been dictated by the vengeance I would someday be able to take against a young boy, who, willingly or not it did not matter to me, deprived me of my father’s love early on.
I looked in his mesmerizing eyes and tried to find the strength in me to forgive him. I strived hard, really hard, to endure the pain and salute him as a forgiven friend of mine. He said his soul would only rest that way. And so I tried harder. I closed my eyes and touched my chest, right above my heart, on the left side. And I found the courage and the strength to do it.
I am reaching my hundred and fifth birthdays in a few days. My wife, her hundred and one. Not to mention our children, all twelve of them, prospering in life and in health all the same. And my grandchildren, all happy and in excellent health, may I add. I do not know whether I have Vragfel to thank for that, or Fate. But I reckon the rumors might be true. Any sincere friend of a dragon is granted great powers; long life filled with health and happiness and above all, a friendship that outlasts even Time, the master of all.
Just one vital ingredient is needed for the recipe to succeed. Forgiveness; true, honest forgiveness, towards anyone questing it from you. Any who gifts that, shall always be happy and prosper in good health. For that, I am sure. Goodbye my good friend Vragfel. Goodbye. We shall meet again in due time, up there, in the sky. Goodbye.
