Speculative Stories for Your Consternation and Delight
Welcome to the inaugural short story of
Dragon Crumbs*
~*~
No space for tears in her bounded sea. Yet the softscale quivered within her golden shell. Cold. So Cold! Blood thickened close to a fatal chill point.
I—
“I,” she thought again with uttermost clarity. I am alone? Panic shot through frail-forged claw and limb for the first time.
THRASH, and crack! Reach for sun on scale, before—
A band of warmth encircled this mythic microcosm, quelling the unhatched creature’s coil. Shadow ends splayed ten slants of comforting darkness across the egg’s surface.
Hands?
HIS. A familiar voice hummed through the thin, hard layer of domed sky between them.
“Hush now, Auriette! Be still. It ain’t time to trash your cradle just yet. Let’s go home . . . .”
*
Did he miss something?
Nay, not a whit! The antique map Bildergast had nicked from a drunk wizard clearly marked all the buried warding stones. No curse left to chance.
He didn't bother with the winking rubies, nor the strands of snow-white pearls. Not even the blaze of coins scattered across the cave. He’d only taken one small thing—
And unleashed a ghastly shade!
His breath escaped in ragged barks as Bildergast fled the glittering wraith across the foothills. Flashes of lightning lit up flakes of gold streaking the child’s skin, and an unflinching blue glint in his eyes that never wavered from its target.
“Begone, ghost!” the man cried over the snarl of thunder. He drew a dagger from his belt as he shouldered the heavy knapsack on his shoulder. “I’ve no quarrel with you this night.”
But this strange apparition darted forward as nimbly as a mountain goat, wily and sure with each step that narrowed the gap between them.
“Give back what you stole.”
The rain fell heavier with each word, and Bildergast shivered as an unnatural calmness stabbed his bones, marrow-deep . . . .
“Else the wrath of dragons shall scorch you to cinders,” the small fiend warned. “Robber’s dust!”
“Liar—” Greed steeled Bildergast’s resolve as he brandished his weapon more tightly in his fist, unwilling to surrender a prize worth a full kingdom at royal market. “All the old monsters have gone away from these parts. It’s just you and me now. BOO!” He lunged at the boy, reaping a thin red slash across his arm before he could dodge the reach of his blade.
Bildergast guffawed as bright blood dripped freely in the night. “You’re no specter, just a wee slip of a thing!”
“I’m Sidekittle,” the boy said curtly.
“Hogwash! That’s not a proper name,” the man jeered, letting the dagger dance between his hands in a frenzy of sharpness.
“For a human, perhaps,” the boy replied. “But a dragon gave it to me, so it’s far better than whatever thing your mother called you—”
Bildergast blinked one second too late as Sidekittle dove at his ankles. A streak of lightning illuminated the downward slash of a gauntlet rimmed in razor dragon scales.
*
“I won’t be gone long,” Sidekittle promised the golden egg gleaming in the cave’s hot spring. “But the creekberries are ripe, and I—”
So hungry. The boy licked his lips. The larder cavern was almost bare now. Never meant to last this long. How many summers had flown by since Auriette’s parents had promised to return? Six, seven . . . sure seemed a century. No matter.
He’d sworn to stay with their unhatched daughter until the shadow of their wings fell over the mountain again! NOT starving to death was an important side quest. But the egg’s shimmer dimmed to a cloudy orange as the boy dared to reach for his foraging basket.
“Ah, don’t be all broody, Miss Auriette, or you’ll hatch a hen instead of a regal dragon!” Sidekittle teased.
He slipped on a gauntlet he’d woven from reeds and shed teal and scarlet scales gleaned from the matted floor treasure. Tapping his makeshift dragon paw against the egg’s surface, he was rewarded by a soothing storm of embers that tempered her mood to a fierce glow.
“When I come back, I’ll tell you all about blue sky again,” he whispered, “and how it’s SO big, your wings won’t ever reach the end even if you stretch them to the widest corners.”
The egg chimed like a silk-smothered bell as Auriette flipped inside her ovaline confines, dreaming. Her tender chime followed him outside to the creek, always curling in the back of Sidekittle’s mind like a wordless song—
Until a louder, base roar drowned out her gilded melody.
Sidekittle flinched as the mountain exploded into wild rumbles! Falling boulders clattered into the creek and shot geysers of water into the air. The hair on the nape of his neck sprang stiff as knives as the boy dropped his basket, sprinting for the cave.
Quarry dusters? Yes, fire sticks for mining! A very human sound.
*
The boy’s whimper echoed off the cave’s wall. “You gonna eat me?” he asked. “I ain’t had much but bugs and berries in days, so I probably taste like duck water—”
“Ew. No, nothing like that,” the teal-scaled dragon interrupted with a smoky shudder. “I never devour something I tell my name. Mine is ‘Korumber.’ There now, you’re perfectly safe!”
The human kit seemed reasonably comforted by this assurance, plopping cross-legged amid a tinkling pile of gold and gems. “Nice name,” he said with a sniffle, wiping his nose on a threadbare sleeve.
“Thank you, it’s suited me adequately these past thousand years—” Korumber paused. Time to get down to business! “Returning to the subjects of birds, have you ever seen an owl?” the dragon asked gently.
The human kit nodded mutely. Good.
“Well, sometimes owls like to drop a little garden snake into their nest to protect their young while the parents are gone away. My wife and I shall be off on a vital venture for two, maybe three summers. But we must leave our daughter in that hot spring to continue her maturation cycle.” Korumber jabbed a talon at the large egg gleaming in a bubbling pool of water in the cave’s heart—
Ah, most precious, golden sun!
“So . . . you askin’ me to be a guardian snake?” the child asked curiously.
“Not exactly,” Korumber replied, clacking his fangs with a chuckle. “The protective spells I’ve set around the mountain should keep my daughter amply safe from outside harm. But Auriette might get lonely all by herself. So be her ‘side kittle,’ if you will, aloof but present . . . a friend to keep her company!” he implored. “There’s plenty of food in the larder cavern, and plainly no lack of treasure. Of course, you’ll be copiously rewarded with a dozen coin chests upon our return—”
“Sidekittle,” the boy interrupted. “I like it! I’ll do it—stay here with her. But keep your coin, Sir Monster.”
The dragon froze as tiny pinpricks of twin sapphire met his own ancient gaze with equal fire.
“Just let me stay forever, please,” the urchin asked. “That’s enough.”
*
“I think this is a truly terrible idea, Korumber,” his wife warned, tapping a scarlet talon on a boulder until it cracked. “Your most blunt-claw yet!”
The pair of dragons watched from a high peak as a shivering human kit tried to light a fire with two sticks for hours. And failed miserably.
“But look at it, Seladora! Such a poor, flameless thing . . . can’t even burp a single spark to survive,” Korumber said, his tail lashing with consternation.
He’d spied the boy fleeing a caravan of his own kind seven days ago, dark bruises peeking through his ragged tunic. Korumber never understood why humans hurt the weakest among them with such a free hand. Normally, he’d just let nature take its course and ignore the common, pitiable end of a mortal. But when the boy stumbled across a hunter’s snare and freed a mewling rabbit rather than kill the trembling beastie to save his own life, the dragon sensed it—
Ah, a fatal, tender streak that must be guarded at all costs. Rarest of heart songs!
“Will you trust my instincts, dear?” Korumber pleaded. “I was right about that scurvy unicorn three centuries go, and the friendly bog troll—”
“Do as you will, darling,” Seladora said, relenting with the same bright amber eye roll he’d adored for a millennium.
“Thank you. I have a good feeling about this kit.” The dragon smiled with fangs as wide as a silver crescent before diving down and scooping up the squeaking critter in the firm embrace of talons.
 |
| *My messy sketch of Sidekittle and Auriette! |
*Note:
I’ve always struggled with the short story format. It’s my goal to make Dragon Crumbs* a monthly feature in the gazette to polish my ink gem-tactics! I wanted to play with a backwards story this time. I’ve also always been fascinated that sometimes owls drop snakes into their nests.
Bonus story lore: “Side Kittle” is the nickname for our cat Princess, who disdains cuddles, but hovers happily near her humans.
