Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Character:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Collections:
Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
Stats:
Published:
2020-11-05
Words:
3,147
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
1
Kudos:
9
Hits:
791

The Gift of Flight

Summary:

A boy has a remarkable experience.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

The Gift of Flight
by Pirate Turner

 

        Green eyes gazed longingly up at the blue sky that stretched as far as he could see. Gentle Spring breezes tousled his short hair, and birds sang merrily as he walked along, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his blue jeans. The day's beauty was breath-taking, and he longed to be able to ride the winds and soar through the sky but knew he would have to return home all too soon. Still, though, he was determined to enjoy the time he did have to himself before he would have to return to the chores he never seemed to run out of. Dirt crunched underneath his boots as he made his way down the forest path.

        Suddenly, a humongous roar filled with pain blasted through the forest, and everything living froze instantly upon hearing the sound that even shook the tallest of the stately trees that lined the path. The birds silenced, and even the breezes seemed to vanish immediately. The boy's head turned slowly, his green eyes searching for some sign of where the roar had come from. A second roar bellowed forth from somewhere within the forest, but this roar was filled with pain that wrenched the boy's heart.

        He turned slowly to face the part of the forest where the roars seemed to be coming from just as a third roar blasted forth. The air seemed to almost vibrate with dread urgency. The boy's shoulders squared. He didn't know what was making such an awful racket, but whatever it was was clearly huge. It could undoubtedly swallow him whole while he still lived. However, it was just as clear that whatever was roaring in pain was in intense misery and in great need of help.

        A fourth roar, filled with pain and misery, helped the boy to make his decision. Taking a deep breath, he raced into the forest and began to follow the roars to where they seemed to be coming from. Rabbits and squirrels scurried pass him as if their very lives depended solely on their fleeing, and he caught a brief glimpse of something brown bounding away in another direction. The roars continued until they seemed to make the entire forest tremble, but still the brave boy continued forward.

        The ground began to tremble underneath his booted feet, and he was reminded of the big earthquakes he had heard visiting city folk speak of in the past. Another roar, however, quickly made him forget his memories as he hurried toward whatever wounded beast he might be about to come across. The land came to an abrupt drop-off, but it appeared so suddenly that the boy had no time to stop. His feet had been on solid, albeit quivering, ground only a second before, but then they were suddenly on air and he found himself falling!

        He landed hard and rolled to the end of the short hill until he bumped straight into something that stopped his fall. He froze as he felt the thing move, and when a new roar came, it came from directly behind him. The boy's heart hammered fiercely in his chest as, eyes wide, he slowly forced himself to turn around only to come face to face with the most amazing creature he had ever seen.

        Scaly wings beat frantically, and dark eyes examined him fearfully. The boy gulped as his green eyes slowly traveled the beast, both his amazement and fear growing with each new second. The creature's light green wings and scales were legendary, but his teeth and talons were not as long nor as scary as they had originally seemed to the boy. "F-F-Funny," the boy slowly managed to voice his surprise.

        The creature had been roaring again when the boy spoke, but at the sound of the human's voice, it suddenly froze, its roaring instantly ceasing. Its wide eyes peered fearfully at the boy even as the human spoke again, "I always thought dragons would be bigger."

        As the dragon tried desperately to back away from the human boy, it stumbled on its short, chubby legs, and the boy made a new realization. "You're a baby, aren't you?" he breathed softly, his fear vanishing to be replaced only by more amazement. He pushed himself to his feet and began to approach the dragon, but the baby backed even further away from him until the pain shooting through it again caused it to cry out.

        "It's okay," the human spoke gently to it as he held his hand out towards it. "I won't hurt you. I promise." The wary look that the baby dragon gave him did nothing to help the boy determine rather or not the creature could actually understand a single word he spoke, so instead he hushed as he examined the dragon, his eyes carefully examining the baby in search of some sign of where he was hurt.

        It did not take the boy long to spot the metal trap clamped to the baby's right hind leg, and his heart ached in compassion at the blood he witnessed pouring out from the wound. "Easy, little fella," he said, speaking gently to the baby as he slowly approached it, one hand outstretched in a welcoming gesture of peace. As he came closer, the young dragon again tried to back up, but even more pain shot through its leg, causing it to whimper in agony as it was forced to be still.

        As the boy came even closer to the baby dragon, he continued to speak to it in a gentle, reassuring tone. "I swear I won't hurt you. I just want to help you. Please, let me," he pleaded as he reached the dragon's head.

        He tried but failed to keep his hand from trembling as he reached closer to the baby. The little dragon stared at his hand in fear-filled shock, but the human's closeness had now made it so afraid that it dared not move even an inch. The boy touched the dragon's forehead gently and let his hand linger there for a moment, giving the baby a chance to get used to the touch of human flesh, before he began to carefully stroke the baby dragon's head.

        Slowly, the baby dragon relaxed until an odd but pleased sound began to rumble from its throat. When it tried to move closer to the boy, however, pain again shot through the little dragon, and it cried out once more. "Easy there, little fella," the human spoke softly to it. "Let me help you there." As he worked his way down to the baby dragon's leg, he was careful to move slowly and not to startle the baby again.

        Reaching the little dragon's leg, the boy reached out to carefully place one hand on either side of the trap's jaw. Taking another deep breath, he gathered all the strength he had, which was not much should the truth be known, and pulled both sides of the trap away from the leg. It took him several minutes, but finally the baby dragon's leg was free. The boy's stomach churned as he looked at the bloody cuts in the baby's leg. The gashes ran deep, and the boy realized that there was still far too high a chance that the baby might yet lose its leg.

        The boy took his canteen from around his neck. As he unscrewed the top, he looked back toward the baby dragon's head only to find that it was still watching him. "This is going to hurt," he tried to explain though he knew it could not possibly do any good, "but it should help against infection." He then poured some of the water over the baby's cuts.

        The baby cried out in pain as the liquid touched its cuts, and the boy was quick to apologize. "I'm sorry! I know it hurts, but it'll help!" Boy and dragon looked at each other again, and the boy began to wonder if perhaps the baby dragon did understand him better than he had at first thought as it did not appear to blame him for causing it more pain.

        Looking back to the wounds, the boy pulled off his shirt and then used it to create a make-shift bandage that he wrapped around the baby's injured leg. Once the bandage was secure, he turned back to face the baby. Worrisome thoughts swirled around the young mind. He could not leave the baby here, unprotected, but he also could not risk him becoming exposed to other humans. An icy shiver ran through him at just the mere thought of what most humans would do if they witnessed a living, breathing dragon. They would want to experiment on him, if not even worse. He could not let that happen.

        As he stared into the baby dragon's eyes, the boy slowly reached out to touch his cheek. His hand pressed gently against the baby's smooth scales, and he continued to stare into his eyes as he considered what he should do. Surely, the baby must have parents, but if he did, where were they and how had he gotten separated from them? Had something happened to them, or had the baby simply somehow gotten lost? They could be searching for him even now . . .

        As fate would have it, the boy had no sooner thought that thought than enormous roars suddenly shattered the still air. The baby's had seemed to shake the entire forest, but the angry roars of the two new voices seemed to shake even the very fabric of existence to the small, human boy. His wide eyes, filled with terror at what might be about to happen to him, slowly lifted up as huge wings blotted out the sun. Gusts of winds exhaled from the flapping wings as the mighty dragon lowered itself down to the ground, its deadly talons crushing trees underneath it.

        When it had landed, its yellow eyes turned to focus on the human. It began to approach the human that knelt by its baby, and the boy began to tremble despite himself. "P-P-Please," he stuttered out as he hurriedly slid away from the baby and began to scramble backwards and away from the furious dragon, "I-I didn't mean any harm! He was hurt! I helped him! That's all! He was bleeding!"

        The dragon only continued to plod steadily forward, and the boy continued to back until he felt his back collide with something hard. His heart lunged even tighter and higher into his throat as he looked slowly up, hoping and praying that it was only a tree yet fearing and knowing that it must be the other parent dragon. He stared up past what seemed like endless miles of a long, light green neck until, finally, he found a face. The dragon peered down at him, its eyes narrowed into lethal slits.

        "P-Pl-Please!" the boy nearly whimpered. "Don't hurt me! I was only helping him!" He pointed a trembling finger to the baby's injured leg. "Look there! See? He was bleeding! I did what I could to stop the blood, and I bandaged the wound! I didn't hurt him! I swear! He was . . ."

        "SILENCE!" the first adult dragon suddenly bellowed, and instantly the boy hushed, his wide eyes swiftly returning back to the speaker as he continued to tremble. "YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS WITH OUR SON!"

        "I helped him!" the boy protested. "What would you have had me done -- leave him there to bleed to death when I didn't know what had happened to his parents or maybe to be found by another human who'd -- ?!"

        "I SAID SILENCE!" the dragon again bellowed, drowning out the boy's protests and silencing him once more as his mighty tail thrashed around, its huge spikes taking out another row of trees. He turned from the human to face his son again and gently rubbed his child's face with his own while his eyes examined the man-made bandage on his baby's leg. The boy remained silent as father and son stared into each other's eyes, seeming to communicate yet never making a single audible sound while doing so. Finally, the father dragon turned back to the boy. "You know of us," he said. "That must not be allowed."

        "Wh-What a-are you going to do to me?" the boy whispered, his words not even able to be heard by his own ears.

        "Perhaps we'll do what your kind might with ours. Eat you? Torment you?" The adult dragon turned from his son and began to approach the human boy once more, earthquakes shooting through the trembling ground from his massive paws as his towering form loomed ever closer to the trembling child.

        A fierce growl of warning suddenly sounded from directly behind the boy, causing him to jump at the remembrance of the other adult dragon. He had began to try to get to his feet, wondering desperately in which direction he should run, when the mother dragon's lowered over his own, shielding him from the father's mouth that had just began to snap down at him. The boy froze, instantly becoming as still as a statue, as mother stared down father.

        Unlike the other adult dragon's voice which was furious, rumbling, and almost deafening, her voice was smooth and gentle. "That is enough." He growled fiercely in protest, his eyes flashing and his tail slashing again. "He is not like the rest of his kind. Others would have ran, abused, or used our child. We might well had never seen him again had any one else found him, but this boy came to his rescue. He saved him. We owe him."

        "He is a human!" the father dragon raged, his eyes turning red with his fury. "We owe him nothing!" he added with a fierce growl as he spat foul, green liquid onto the ground.

        "He rescued our son. He may well have saved his very life," the mother dragon argued just as fiercely though her voice did not rise. "Does that mean so little to you?"

        That question stopped the father dragon short. The boy's eyes widened even more as he could have sworn that he saw the father's face wince before turning back to look at his son. The baby dragon met his father's gaze, and a few rumbling sounds passed between them. Finally, the father's head dropped rejectedly, and he turned away from the human boy to plod back over to his son where he then began to gently nuzzle him.

        "You are safe," the mother dragon told the human boy as her head raised once more.

        The boy gave the father dragon one last long look before slowly summoning his remaining courage and then pushing himself back up to a standing position. He turned to face the mother dragon and smiled at the majestic creature his wide eyes were met with. "Thank you," he breathed with a nod of gratitude and respect.

        "No," she told him gently. "Thank you. You truly are not like the rest of your kind. You saved our child, and we owe you. What would you like?" she offered.

        "I don't understand," the boy said, shaking his head under the watchful gaze of all three dragons. "I didn't do it for a reward."

        "But surely there must be something you want that we can grant you?" the mother dragon gently insisted.

        The boy paused, his forehead creasing slightly as he considered something for just one second before shaking his head firmly. "I didn't do it for a reward," he repeated. "I did it, because he was a living creature who needed help."

        The mother dragon's smile seemed to light up the forest, filling it with a golden light that appeared to cascade around all four of them. "Our law decrees that a dragon, when helped by a human without requesting or forcing that human's aid, must grant said human whatever he or she may ask for. There must be something you want?"

        The boy hesitated. He could feel the father's eyes upon him, but he did not dare to look back at him. He also sensed the baby's gentle gaze. Finally, he spoke, carefully choosing his words and hoping that he would say the right things. "I did not do it for a reward. I do not want a reward, but I understand that it is your law and that you can not go against it. There is . . . one thing that I've always wanted it."

        "Name it," the mother dragon gently informed the boy, "and it is yours."

        "I want to fly," he admitted, his eyes finally meeting hers. "Just once . . . to know what it's like . . . to feel the winds rushing against me . . . to feel that wonderful freedom that's got to be unlike any other . . ."

        It was the father's rumbling voice that shocked the boy and yet made the mother smile. "And so you shall," he spoke.

 

        "Hold on tight," the mother dragon called up to the grinning boy. "Here we go!" He clung to her back tightly yet while also trying not to hurt her as they lifted off of the ground and began to rise steadily upwards. Breezes blew past his face and through his hair as they rose steadily.

        Soon, they were above the trees. Looking over, he could see the father with the baby dragon. He had barely glimpsed them when the mother truly set off, flying higher still into the dimming sky. Winds blew past his face, whipping playfully around his skinny body as a rush of excitement filled his every core. They flew higher still, the dragon's wings peeling back as she shot straight toward a row of clouds.

        Clouds rushed past his cheeks with sweeping, feathery touches as they shot together through the clouds. He could not conceal the yell of joy that broke from his lips as they exploded through the clouds and continued to soar through the sky. He held tighter as the mother dragon began to turn and twist in the sky, winds whipping all around them. She turned upside down once, but he did not fall and instead drew even more excited joy from the feeling as, although hanging upside down so high above the ground, he realized he was safe as long as he was with her.

        She righted, and his arms shot upwards into the air as he let out a loud whooping sound. His brilliant smile lit up his face. He had never been so happy, felt so free, or grinned so hugely as he did as they continued their journey through the sky. The father rose to meet his mate, and they flew side by side through the heavens. The boy wished fervently that their flight would never end as they soared onward toward the setting sun.

The End

Notes:

This orphaned work was originally on Pejas WWOMB posted by author Pirate Turner.
If this work is yours and you would like to reclaim ownership, you can click on the Technical Support and Feedback link at the bottom fo the page.