This is the story of my dragon.
I found her in the woods near my home.
Where I like to explore.
She was in an egg.
This egg was big . . . really big. Ostrich egg-sized big.
But I took the egg home anyways.
I put the egg under my bed.
I waited.
When I was drawing, I heard a crack.
I pulled the box with the egg from under my bed.
It was still cracking.
I was excited. I didn’t know it was a dragon.
She pushed out of the egg and there she was.
I picked her up. She was a bit slippery.
She made a screetchy noise. Daddy said I should give her food, so I did. Some cheese.
Everyone likes cheese.
My dragon liked cheese.
She grew.
And grew.
And stayed in my bedroom until Daddy said I should take her back to the woods before she caused trouble.
I did.
My dragon was as big as a labrador retriever.
I didn’t know if she was a she. I don’t know if dragons are she’s and he’s. But to me she was a girl dragon because her neck was scaley pink and purple stripes and she had pretty eyes.
I found a comfortable place in the woods and put her there and took her food.
Mummy made chicken and pork and cheese dishes for her and she got bigger.
My dragon showed me her wings flapping.
And she showed me her fire.
Flames coming right out of her mouth.
I got scared.
I told my dragon, I’m afraid of you.
She stood up and unfolded her wings and flapped them again and I could feel the big wind gusts they made in the air.
And she took off! Right there, she went to the sky through the trees. I thought she would crash but she didn’t. She made her screetchy noise and I walked backwards, watching her go up between the trees.
She opened her mouth and made flames come out in a long line of flame and the trees caught fire and I ran away.
I ran away back to my house and I smelled the smoke as I ran back to my house.
In the morning my wood was gone and my dragon was gone and I cried and cried.
Daddy said, ‘Dragons are dragons, son. Dangerous.’ I couldn’t deny that. My dragon had made my wood a black and stumpy place.
. . .
Naween’s dragon spread her wings wide and pulled back her neck. It is true that when he brought her back to the wood she was the size of a labrador retriever, which, credit to the child, is not an easy lift. Even as a youngster she had a flame torch of blue heat that instantly sets foliage around her to fire. She pushed her head forward when she made a flame rush. That was when Naween said I love you and fled. It was too much for the little boy.
The dragon beat her wings and rose up and up and then over the trees. Smoke followed her, whipped into spirals this way and that. The wind under her wings fanned the flames to grow faster. She flew east towards lumpy hills spread behind a silver haze.
In the woods, animals started running. Mice and voles and hedgehogs ran and adders slithered and bats woke and flew from the fire and heat. Squirrels scurried down tree trunks and followed the other creatures out of the woods. Ants felt heat on their carapaces and knew their queens needed moving. The fire tongues whipped at more trees. Smoke rose above the canopy first in little wisps then in nimbus-shaped billows. By the time the firefighters arrived, all the trees were gone. Nothing but blackened stumps on a black carpet silent as velvet.
Naween walked up in the morning and looked at the remains of his wood with smoke wisps rising through the heat. His daddy said, ‘Baby, it will grow back.’ But Naween cried, looking at the remains of his wood.
The dragon had landed in a field a mile away after all the incineration. Her head had drooped to the ground and her legs and claws were tucked under her. The firing was done and she was hungry. In the field, sheep looked at her; pulled on grass and chewed. The dragon lifted her head and looked at the sheep and then twisted, listening. She looked back the way she had come. Then she stood and beat her wings and the sheep moved off, probably suspicious of her intent, in as much as sheep can contain suspicion. The dragon rose off the ground with the wind from her wings flattening the grass. She rose vertically and flew to the cries of Naween.
When Naween saw the shape of his dragon coming out of the sky he was overjoyed. When she landed among the smoky ground and smoky stumps he clapped his hands and ran up to her as she parked and settled.
He laid himself along her body and said, ‘You came back.’
Naween’s dragon sniffed the air and looked around and closed her eyes. She placed her muzzle on the soot bed of the remains of the spinney (it wasn’t really a wood, much smaller). Naween watched water flood from her eyes and cascade onto the ground. He thought, dragon tears are like a waterfall. And everywhere the dragon tears went greenery grew.
Naween let his dragon go and she shook her head and the tears from her eyes dropped around her onto the ground. In every impact of that fluid, new shoots sprang. Naween saw. He thought, dragon tears are special.
He said: ‘My dragon, rise and fly and cry your tears everywhere here.’ She looked at him and shook her head making more tears and more green shoots grow.
She’s not done, Naween thought, but her neck slouched to the ground. He approached her head again and cupped her scaly jaw in his hands and looked at her and said, ‘You are not done, my dragon, look.’
Her eyes were closed. Naween thought she was sleeping but the lids went up and he looked into her golden eyes and said again, ‘Look.’
Everywhere the dragon’s tears had fallen was crowded with growth. Dogrose and cherry and blackthorn returning. She watched the greenery growing. She opened her mouth, but she made no screetching sound and shot no flames. Naween let go of her again and stood up. His dragon wept still and everywhere the tears of her fell, plants returned from the soil. Then she stood herself up and beat her wings, still pouring tears into the land. The land grew. She rose and flew, trailing tears behind her. All the trees grew back from the dragon’s tears, but Naween never saw his dragon again.
. . .
And I did run to her and hold her.
She twitched a bit but let me hold her.
My dragon is boss.
She made my wood come back.
Even if she burned it first.
I ever want trees to grow, because of her.
I ever want to see baby dragons, because of her.
But I don’t expect another egg.
I don’t even know if she is a girl.
