The Dragon's Assistance

Skelana looks up at me with pride, a twig of shrubbery clutched in her scaly white jaws. Poor silly dragon. She thinks she’s helping me, but the twigs she keeps bringing are from the wrong kind of shrub. Matron sent us into the forest for speargreen specifically and isn’t going to be pleased if I present her with an assortment of other things. Still, I’d rather face my superior’s annoyance than disappoint my dragon, so I smile in thanks, take the twig, and place in my basket with the speargreen I’ve collected. I make sure to keep Skelana’s offering confined to one side so they’ll be easier to remove when I make it back to the Sanctuary, which may help limit Matron’s displeasure.

“Come on, Ske-ske,” I tell my companion. “I think we have enough.”

Skelana thumps her tail on the snow, gives her head a shake, and bounds back to the bush she’s been harvesting. I narrow my eyes at it. Now that I’m paying attention, it’s odd that it’s there. Furhorn usually browns for the year before the first snow hits, so what is this bush doing being green at midwinter? I walk over, eyes alert for any clues.

Look as I might, I can’t find any sign that this plant isn’t a normal shrub. You know, other than the obvious fact that’s it’s awake when it shouldn’t be. Skelana breaks off three more twigs before she’s content that I have enough, and I’m starting to wonder if she knows something I don’t. That’s silly though, isn’t it? I mean dragons are smart, more so than dogs or cats, but they hardly have a human level of understanding.

Shaking off the feeling that something is off, I start back toward the shrine, finding the road quickly. It’s oddly quiet consider that it’s a market day, but it is nearly noon. Maybe there’s no traffic because everyone who is going to market is there already and no one is leaving yet. There are marks from traffic earlier in the day, so that must be it.

My route passes three houses, and normally there’s activity at them all. Not so much as a puppy barks at my passing, though, and my unease grows.

I turn at the path to the Sanctuary, Skelana close at my side. Usually she flies ahead when we reach this spot, but today she sticks to my side like a calf following its mother. I look down at the dragon, growing more certain that she has knowledge I lack. What is she sensing that I’m not?

An eerie silence covers the compound when we reach the Sanctuary. A dozen people live here and all of them should be active. But there are no sounds at all. I stop outside the workshop. It sounds as though no one is working, even though Latvi told me last night he expected to dedicate the day to finishing the table he’d been commissioned to make as a wedding gift for a merchant’s child in town. I go up the stairs, but hesitate on the landing. My breath pauses and my heart races as I place my hand on the door. Dare I go in? What am I scared of finding?

Pushing past my anxiety, I open the door and enter.

The room is cold from the fire on the hearth dying, but not so cold as it would be if a fire hadn’t burned earlier in the day. I take that in as I look around the room. Carving tools are out, laid on the work in progress in a way that tells me Latvi was working today, for he never leaves his tools out at night. But where is he now?”

“Latvi?” I call, even though if he were in the room I would sure see him. Unless, maybe, he were hiding under the table… Feeling silly, I kneel to check.

A sob escapes as I see my friend sprawled on the ground. “Latvi!” I rush to his, my fingers flying to his throat. A faint pulse answers and I let out a sigh of relief. “Latvi?” Putting a hand on his shoulder, I shake him gently. He lets out a small snore, but stirs not.

Skelana calls to me from the door, a sound that would be called a roar if she were one of the massive dragons of pre-history but is more of a mew in a creature her size. I look to her and she jerks her head as though saying there’s somewhere else I need to be.

“You’re right,” I tell her. “I need to get help.”

But when I make it to the main building, I start to think that I might be the help. In the front room, Shevus and Mily are passed out over a gaming table. In the library, Servus, Madsie, and Carene slumber around a reading table. By the time I get to Matron’s study, I feel numb, so numb that finding her passed out over a tome on her desk can’t upset me.

My dragon slides quickly into the room, jumps up onto Matron’s desk, and looks at me as though trying to show me something.

WIth a curious detachment, I round Matron’s desk and look over her shoulder at the book she has open. My eyes widen on the writing there. “A Blessing to Combat a Sleeping Curse,” I read out loud.

Gently, I move the book out from under Matron and read the ritual. It’s easily done with one priestess and most of the components are things we keep a solid store of. I run my finger down them, and I think that if my blood could get any colder it would freeze when I hit the last ingredient. “Furhorn,” I whisper, staring at my dragon.

With one of her would-be roars, Skelana tosses her head back the way she does when she’s waiting for a treat. When none is forthcoming, she butts her head against mine, turns, and exits. I follow her, disbelievingly, to the storeroom, where I gather the other ingredients. I turn to go, but then stop and check the drawer that should hold our furhorn. It’s empty.

I stare at my dragon. This is beyond a coincidence and well into the realm of uncanny.

Skelana meets my eyes and a thought appears in my mind. “Goddess works in mysterious ways,” a female voice says with a sense of humor coating the words.

And I don’t know… Was that the voice of Goddess Herself, or was it Skelana? Was I chosen to work a miracle or have dragonkind just been hiding their true intelligence from us? Laughter flows into my mind in response to the thoughts.

The dragon breaks eye contact and leaves me to catch up to her on the way to the Chapel.

Image is "Yule Dragon" by Anne Stokes.

It was provided as a prompt on my Wording Wednesday prompt-a-week MeWe Group.