The dragons tale

Part two

About two hundred years ago, Rexorax had been an ambitious young dragon setting out from his mother's nest to do something great, and he had heard about Flax from travelers. A great Big Creature who was seemingly invincible.

But after much inquiring, he found out that a group of harpies had been made to clear out a certain plant from the place where Flax fed. Rexorax wondered if the plant might be harmful to Flax.

He had sneaked into Flax's territory to meet with the leader of the Harpies, and ended up making a deal with him.

Rexorax would bring him food periodically and protect the group from any extreme threats, and the harpy leader would hide some of the plant in the ones that Flax ate.

It was a risky thing. If Flax found out who had done it, he could kill them effortlessly. But if they succeeded, the harpy groups would thrive.

They hid the plant and waited. When they went to the field to see if he had eaten, it seemed like he had been there, but he was gone. The little creatures began to notice his absence, and Rexorax moved in and took over. It was assumed that the plants had made Flax dissolve. After all, he was a mysterious, powerful creature, and nobody knew what it would look like when he died.

It had taken all of Rexorax's wits and courage to pull it off, and he had always been proud of it.

He had kept his promise to the harpies too. After all, he couldn't have done it without them.

"What are you going to do, Flax?" asked Rexorax timidly.

"I'll go back to my territory." "You didn't wake up there?" "No. I think I remember seeing a harpy as I was falling unconscious. Maybe he carried me."

His courage exhausted, Rexorax fell silent.

Had one of the harpies disagreed with taking down Flax and tried to save him? They would have burned the body if there had been one. It was pointless speculating- Harpies had short lifespans... like birds. If Rexorax made one wrong move, his would be even shorter. What was I even doing with my time? I wasn't making any changes, I wasn't expanding my reputation. Even this flight was just to find out what was up, then things would have stayed the same. Oh, except Flax would have come and killed me. I'll... I'll never be great again, will I?

Flax turned into a dragon, and with Rexorax on his back he flew to the land that had been his. It didn't take long, but neither of them were expecting what they found. There were multiple big creatures living together in the territory. There didn't seem to be any boundaries either, and nobody objected when Flax flew overhead.

"What's going on here?" Rexorax wondered aloud. Is Flax going to fly down and ask someone? Flax kept flying. Where is he going?

Flax circled an area, then landed. This was where the humans that Flax had resembled lived.

There was a large bear nearby, just big enough to be a Big Creature. Flax walked over to it.

"What happened to the humans?" His voice was low. Rexorax felt a chill go down his spine.

"They scattered when we started eating them. They're hiding around." Rexorax felt Flax getting even bigger. "No... no, Flax..." His voice was tiny.

Flax stopped. "You will never harm another human, or I will kill you." The bear looked at him uneasily, clearly wondering if he had really seen him grow. "W-well, sure, I guess they're not that big anyway..." Flax continued to stare at him. "I won't eat any more humans, okay?"

The bear sidled away, then quickly got out of area.

Rexorax was perplexed. He had seen Flax show complete disregard for the lives of other creatures, why did he care about humans, Little Creatures with short lifespans?