The First Dragon

Part Two

Ena didn't speak to Anwar for the first two days.

Anwar considered trying to force her to speak, but if he didn't know what to say to her father, he certainly didn't know what to say to her. He was content at first to watch her, observing how different she was with regards to her situation. She had immediately settled down in her own corner, setting up camp with the equipment she had brought, working harder to make herself comfortable than her father ever had—as if she had already accepted that she would be there for some time.

Interesting.

The first thing he said to her was a harsh, loud snap of don't touch that when he spotted her leaning too close to some of his treasure. He wasn't even sure what she was looking at; he just knew he didn't want her anywhere near it.

Ena leaned away from the pile. "I'm not touching anything," she said. Anwar was shocked at the response; it wasn't too harsh or unkind, but it certainly wasn't an apology. "The swords are going dull. Have you been tending to them?" She glanced at his hands and added, "Can you tend to them?"

Again, Anwar was taken aback by her bluntness. Even before he became a dragon, no one spoke to him in that manner. He was, initially, offended, but the novelty of having someone treat him that way quickly tempered that anger. "I think you know the answer to that," he said dryly. "And I haven't had a blacksmith in my employment for some time. Not since..."

He trailed off, suddenly trapped in the memory of that night. He was jarred from the memory by Ena's voice. "You're a legend where I come from, you know that? My mother used to tell my sisters and I that if we weren't good, the beast from the mountains would come down and devour us." Ena tilted her head. "What? You don't believe me?"

"...I was the same age as you, last I was human," Anwar admitted. "I don't feel as though I have aged. It's strange to think that I'm older than you."

Ena huffed in laughter. That caught Anwar off-guard as well. Ena's father certainly hadn't laughed in his presence, and in fact, he couldn't remember the last time someone had. "So, how much of it is true?" she asked.

"I don't know. What have they been saying about me? Aside from the fact that I eat naughty children."

"Well." Ena settled down, sitting on a clear patch of floor near the swords. "They say you were cursed. No one can agree who did it. I've heard basically every god cited and for different reasons every time. You punish the greedy and the naughty and have been in the mountains for as long as our people have lived here." She leaned back, looking Anwar in the eye. "So, how much of it is true?"

"Hmm." Anwar settled down as well. "The curse part, I think, though I couldn't tell you who did it. There was a man, I thought he was a beggar...his eyes were very green..."

This time, when Ena laughed, it was not a subdued chuckle. It was a loud bark that echoed around the cavern. "What?!" snapped Anwar, alarmed and irritated.

"Oh. Oh, that's most likely Taran, then." Ena shook her head and wiped away tears of mirth. "I don't think anyone can help you now. You'd best figure out why he did this and fix it."

Anwar fell silent. He remembered the words that accompanied his curse, of course—he just hadn't dwelled on them very much. Even now, they seemed barely relevant to his situation. What was he supposed to do about learning to value others when Taran had turned him into a monstrous beast that many sought to kill?

He thought about asking ena what she thought, but ultimately decided against it. He didn't want to give her that kind of information about himself. He did, however, ask, "Do you really think there's some kind of lesson in all of this?"