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Unexpected raider

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I awoke to the smell of burning. The night had certainly been hot, but not so hot that smoke was now seeping into the castle. All the flames were blazing in the bedchamber, and extinguished there as well. The dryads weren’t burned, only the canopy was slightly burnt. It can’t smell like that.

“It’s fields, Monsignor,” a worried gnome came rushing into the bedroom. Obviously he’d been here since last night. I don’t usually keep dwarves in the castle. They were too much trouble. And now the visitor was stunned at what he saw in the bedroom, blushed with shame and quickly ducked behind the screen so that I wouldn’t crush him.

The news he brought, however, was timely. The fields behind the castle were indeed on fire. The smoke was billowing. What a thing! When had I ever been attacked in my own castle before? Usually I was the one to scorch other people’s fortresses, but I had never been besieged.

The dragon outside intends to make my life a living hell. That sounds like the act of a jealous woman! Only Rosa could do that. I was even beginning to suspect that she had sent the dragon. But where could she have gotten it? After being married to me for so long, she was hardly attracted to dragons. And this dragon was unusual. He could ignite not only the summer fields, but also the snowy valleys that were covered in eternal cold at the gates of my castle. You couldn’t even light a match there, and his fire ignited even the snow.

“It is the moon dragon!” Cypress wrapped herself in the covers, jumped out of bed, and sprinted to the window. “He really doesn’t look like you! He is glowing like the sickle of the month!”

The others were just waking up, but I didn’t care what they thought. I rushed to the fields. That dragon, whoever he is, doesn’t realize the trouble he’s gotten himself into. Attacking the lord of the magic empire himself! On the one hand, it’s brazen and reckless. But secretly, I admired his courage and assertiveness. If he’s not insane, he clearly wants to assert his right to something and he’s challenging me to a duel.

The fire was terrible. The wall of fire almost reached the castle towers. All I had to do was to step onto the field and my charms began to extinguish the fire by themselves. There was no need for buckets of water or poison tinctures, which the Leprechauns had already collected. The flames first dropped to the level of my boots, then disappeared altogether. The poisonous fumes dissolved into the air. Orange sparks danced in sheaves on the burnt grass, and the leprechauns caught them, turning them into coins. The raid had turned into a form of magic trick, but that didn’t mean I was going to let the raider go in peace. He’s the one who shouldn’t go unpunished. I followed his flight through the azure morning sky. How beautiful that dragon is! It is indeed as pale golden as the moon, and the spikes sprouting from the scales on its head are indeed like a royal crown. Each scale reflects the light of the sun like a mirror. Involuntarily, I stared. The unfamiliar dragon must have tried to bewitch me. I shook off the obsession with difficulty and remembered its audacity.

The grass turning to dry hay beneath my soles must have reminded me that he had burned my fields. His arrival here had been unauthorized. No one invited him. And he did not come as a petitioner to my court, but as an enemy setting fire to other people’s property. It’s time to teach him a lesson!

I prepared to turn into a dragon, soar into the air, and pounce on him in flight. My fangs would sink into his throat. My claws would scratch his scales bloody. He’ll fall to the ground, and then I’ll take him down. So, what’s stopping me? The sudden feeling that as soon as I knock the enemy out of the sky, I’ll have Rose’s bloody corpse on the ground at my feet instead of a dragon carcass? I can’t believe what’s going through my head. Rose could have sent that dragon to me. One of the spirits told her I was having fun with the dryads and she got jealous. She’s out for revenge. I don’t think she’ll be happy that I mutilated her servant.

But I can’t just let him go. They’ll think I’m cowardly or inferior in strength. I don’t think so. The dragon was indeed very graceful and flexible. With brute strength, it would be easy to overpower him. It was more beautiful than powerful.

He was no longer in a hurry to spew fire. Wasn’t his goal just to lure me out of the castle for a meeting? It was only for that purpose that he had begun to scorch the fields. He was now planning over the towers and had no thought of breathing out fire again. He seemed to like my castle. The dragon hovered above the tallest spire for a long moment. His claw touched the standard with my emblem on it. The claw glittered like a real moon. I even felt a sudden longing for the night and the glow of the moon.

“Go ahead, attack again, and that will be an invitation to a fight,” I whispered to myself, but the dragon suddenly looked at me. Our eyes met. For a moment, I felt as if I were immersed in an emerald swamp from which there was no escape. It enveloped me like green honey. It seemed to me that I was drowning in this swamp, and above it the moon was shining brightly until my eyes hurt, and I was repeating some woman’s name that I did not know at all. I think it was:

“Sephora!”

I repeated it aloud, and some leprechaun, on which I almost stepped with my foot, squeaked and bounced away.

What’s the matter with me? I used to control myself and never hurt anyone, even accidentally. Especially crumbs like the Leprechauns, who hoarded their gold in holes in the fields like mice or moles.

The moon dragon stared at me for another long minute. Like a fool, I stood there and did nothing, even as the raider turned and flew away. To the mountains! Well, now I knew where to look for him. The high mountains beyond the forests were very often a haven for all sorts of suspicious creatures who had slipped through the magical borders unbeknownst to them. No wonder the arsonist flew to hide there. That’s where I’ll find him, but not tonight.

My head was spinning after what I’d seen. It felt like I was surrounded not by a burned field, but by a molten liquid emerald marsh that stretched as far as the eye could see, with the moon, not the sun, hanging over it. The moon is bifurcated. Or is it suddenly the moon and the sun merging into one?

I was brought to my senses only by the concerned murmurings of the dryads. They were all awake, dressed and out in the courtyard. The traces of the recent fire frightened them and made them whisper excitedly.

“Remember, you promised to grow new houses for us,” Cypress, the most sensible of the dryads, returned to the problem at hand.

“Of course, if I promised, I’ll do it,” I began to think about where it would be better to grow new trees for them to live in: right here on the burned grass or further away from here and closer to the forests.

“Where’s Perla?” I’m missing an azure nymph.

“She’s taken up residence in the shell-shaped fountain in your greenhouse,” Palma explained. “I would have taken up residence there too, but there’s nowhere to put down roots. I don’t want to ruin the castle parquet.”

I nodded.

“There’s a peach grove nearby and a beautiful lake behind it, and I think there’s plenty of room for everyone to plant a new tree. And the climate there is wonderful, I mean magical, both palms and birches will take root.”

Bamboo, bored, made a fan of her leaves, waved it around and nodded enthusiastically.

“Well, take us there,” she suggested.

Take us there? Do they really want me to turn into a dragon right in front of them and put them on my scaly back? Did the sight of a moonlit arsonist turn them off dragons at all? Somehow I didn’t even want to think about turning right now, but my night mistresses were waiting, and I couldn’t say no to them. If they wanted to fly on a dragon’s back and prick themselves on its sharp scales once in a lifetime, then so be it.

Dame Dragon

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