Fight or Flight

Chapter 16

Enola

Today, I have become even more of a failure as a dragon than I already was.

I looked around the cramped cavern, then reached out to half-heartedly flip over the small bedroll that was stretched out on the floor. Some of the fabric clumped together near the end, but other than that it looked disappointingly like it had before I had flipped it over. There wasn't any amusement in it – and the rest of the room was no better. I had already knocked over the handful of crates Simon had left behind, and dumped out the sacks of strange ground-up plants he had collected. The beans for his disgusting soup were scattered all over the floor, with several of them having been crushed to powder from my attempts to move around and find more things to disrupt.

Everything was a complete and total mess. There was nothing else I could do to add to it.

If my mother could see me now, she would fly to a healer to try and learn what illness had befallen her years ago, to cause her to produce an offspring such as myself. My father would say he had failed in his duties to raise me, and fly off to the desert to meditate on his failure in life. My siblings would disown me, and look for other dragons to adopt them, out of shame of being associated with me.

I stared at the bedroll... then flipped it over yet again. Some of the beans scattered further across the floor with the motion, but it was no use. I sighed in boredom and flopped down on the floor, then reached out to half-heartedly poke at a half-empty jar of some crushed red plant. The jar rolled, spilling more of the spice out on the floor... but it was no use.

Curse you, Simon. I hope that rash on your chest itches with the burning irritation of a thousand scorching deserts.

And that you have a safe trip, and get back soon.

Because I miss you. You jerk.

~

Simon

Six days later...

I breathed a sigh of relief as the road cleared the sparse forest, and the distant hill of Enola's lair came into view. It was still quite a ways off, but it was a good feeling to have the end of my journey in sight. No, it was more than that – I had spent my life traveling, and had seen the end of lots of destinations. Towns I had been headed towards for various reasons, farms, safe houses for Wellsprings... none of them had felt like this.

None of them had been places I had stayed at for more than a week or two. They were just temporary spots to stop at before moving on again. But I had already spent over a month here. Longer than any place I had spent in my life, at least not since I was old enough for the Wellspring magic to manifest.

Is this what it's like to have a home?

There had been a certain satisfaction in delivering the crystals to Yellowseed. Even if I hadn't made it the whole way without the cart breaking, I had gotten the monthly quota of crystals into Captain Mason's custody. That was a tangible thing I had done. There were thirty sparkling crystals out there now because of me. Granted, most of those would probably go to power-hungry court mages who would do who-knew-what with them... but some of those would go to the more common mages that earned their livings by helping their community.

One of my crystals might help a healer mend a broken leg. Another might power a cooking spell, and provide a decent meal for people who would otherwise have to make do with cold grain mashes. Yet another might repair the house of a widow and keep her dry during the rains, or enchant blankets to keep newborns safe from the cold, or allow a home-sick soldier the chance to have a conversation with his family back home.