Tag: Musings on a Rock

One autumn evening Oswin and Elowen climbed to the hill above the forest. Below them the trees had turned the colour of fire, and beyond them the human village glowed with little yellow windows. They had met there many times before, but that evening Elowen was unusually quiet.

“What troubles you?” Oswin asked.

The wind stopped.

Elowen pulled her hand from his.

“Oswin.”

The Fairy Queen appeared from between two trees.

She was tall, dressed in moth wings and moonlight. Her crown was made from the antlers of a white deer.

“You have made a forbidden promise to my daughter,” she said.

Elowen whispered, “Please.”

But her mother only raised one finger and touched it to Oswin’s forehead.

Oswin fell.

When he woke, he remembered his home.

He remembered the village, the mill, the church, the lamb he had once lost in the forest.

He remembered everything.

Except Elowen.

She found him the following morning beside the millpond.

Oswin was mending a broken fence.

“Oswin,” she said softly.

He looked up.

There was no recognition in his face.

She had imagined anger. Fear. Disgust.

She had not imagined politeness.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Do you know me?”

He studied her.

“I am sorry.”

“You once knew me.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

He frowned.

“You loved me.”

Elowen wiped her eyes quickly.

Oswin lowered his hammer.

But then he said gently, “I’m sorry, but I think I would remember that.”

Later, when the sun had set, Elowen went to the Fairy Queen.

She did not kneel.

“Give him back to me.”

“No.”

“You stole me from his memory.”

The Queen opened her hand.

Upon her palm lay three grains of golden dust.

“What is this?”

The Queen blew softly across her palm. The grains trembled slightly.

“Each grain will restore one memory.”

Elowen stared at them.

“One memory?”

“One moment. No more.”

“I have hundreds.”

“Then choose three.”

“That is impossible.”

The Queen said nothing.

Elowen took the grains.

For three nights she wandered through the forest.

Which memories could make a man remember love?

Their first meeting?

Their first kiss?

The evening he made his promise?

She feared choosing wrongly.

Perhaps she should give him the happiest moments.

Perhaps the most beautiful.

Perhaps the most painful.

On the fourth night she went to Oswin.

He was sitting outside his cottage, peeling an apple.

“You again,” he said.

“Yes.”

He did not sound displeased.

Elowen sat beside him.

“I have something to show you.”

She placed the first grain of fairy dust upon her fingertip.

“What is that?”

“A memory.”

Before he could answer, she touched it to his brow.

The world flashed gold.

Oswin remembered a hawthorn tree.

He saw himself younger, muddy from the forest path.

He saw Elowen sitting among the roots, healing a wounded sparrow.

The bird opened its wings and flew from her hands.

Then she felt his gaze upon her.

She looked up.

Their eyes met.

And in the next instant there was nothing beneath the hawthorn but fallen blossom.

The vision vanished.

Oswin gasped.

He looked at Elowen.

“That was you.”

“Yes.”

He touched his forehead.

“I remember.”

Hope leapt inside her.

“Do you remember loving me?”

His face changed.

“No.”

The hope died.

Elowen kept the second grain for seven days.

She considered their first kiss.

It had happened during a storm.

They had hidden beneath an oak while rain crashed through the branches.

Then lightning struck the hilltop.

Oswin kissed her.

For the rest of her life she would remember the taste of rain.

Surely that memory would restore him.

But on the seventh evening, as she approached his cottage, she saw Oswin standing beneath an apple tree with his little sister.

The girl was crying.

Oswin knelt and tied the ribbon on her shoe.

“You will fall if you run with it loose,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

“You will when you scrape your knees.”

The girl sniffed, but let him tie it.

Elowen stopped.

And suddenly she knew what the second memory must be.

Not the kiss.

Not the storm.

Something smaller.

She waited until Oswin was alone.

Then she used the second grain.

He remembered winter.

A brutal winter.

Snow had buried the roads. The river had frozen. Food was scarce.

Elowen had brought him a silver apple from the orchards.

“Eat,” she had said to him. “You have had nothing.”

Oswin broke the apple in half.

One half for her.

One half for him.

It was not enough for either.

They ate it anyway.

The memory faded.

Oswin stared at the ground.

“I remember being hungry.”

“Yes.”

“And you gave me what you had.”

“We gave it to each other.”

Oswin reached towards her hand.

Then stopped.

“I still do not remember loving you.”

“I know.”

“I am sorry.”

One grain remained.

Elowen carried it for a month.

Then two.

Winter came.

Oswin began to seek her out.

Not because he remembered.

Because he liked her.

They walked together.

He asked her questions he had asked years before.

Why do fairy rings grow?

Where do swallows go in winter?

Can stars hear us?

She gave him different answers this time.

Sometimes he made her laugh in exactly the way he once had.

Sometimes he said something entirely new.

And Elowen began to understand that remembering a person was not the same as knowing them.

One evening he said, “Perhaps you should use the last memory.”

“I am afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That it will not be enough.”

She had always thought the answer would be their first night together.

Or the first time he said her name as though it were something precious.

But suddenly she remembered another day.

A quiet day.

A day on which nothing had happened at all.

She brought Oswin to the hill where he had once promised to love her until the end of time.

“This place feels familiar,” he said.

She held the last grain of fairy dust.

He watched it glitter upon her finger.

“Is this the moment when I told you I loved you?”

“No.”

“Our first kiss?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“The moment I knew.”

Elowen touched the dust to his forehead.

It was summer.

Oswin was asleep beneath the hawthorn.

Nothing extraordinary was happening.

There were no kisses.

No promises.

No moonlight.

Elowen sat beside him.

A beetle crawled across his sleeve.

She moved it carefully onto a leaf.

Oswin slept.

She looked at his face.

And suddenly, without reason, without magic, without anyone speaking, she understood that the world contained one particular soul whose existence had become the centre of her own happiness.

She had not wanted anything from him.

She had not asked him to stay.

She had simply looked at him sleeping beneath a tree and thought:

There you are.

The memory ended.

Elowen waited.

But he shook his head.

“I am sorry.”

Her last hope broke.

“You still do not remember.”

“No.”

She turned away.

“Elowen.”

She stopped.

He took her hand.

“I do not remember loving you.”

She looked back at him.

“But I remember being loved.”

The forest became very quiet.

Elowen stared at him.

“I cannot give you your old love,” she whispered.

Oswin lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.

“Then perhaps,” he said, “we should not try to find it.”

“What should we do instead?”

“We begin again.”

Oswin did not remember the moments with the girl beneath the hawthorn, or the rain upon their first kiss, or the promise that had once cost him everything.

But the hawthorn remembered.

The stream remembered.

The birds remembered.

And somewhere in the deep earth, three tiny grains of golden dust remembered.

Once there was a king who possessed nearly everything a man could reasonably want and several things no reasonable man would have known what to do with.

He had seven palaces, thirty-nine horses, three summer crowns, a winter crown lined with ermine, a mechanical nightingale, a bath carved from a single piece of blue marble, and a cook who could make a pie so light that, if the windows were left open, it had to be tied to the table.

But what the king loved most was gold.

He liked the weight of it in his hand.

He liked the quiet authority of it.

He liked the way it did not wilt, argue, wrinkle, become bored, fall ill, contradict him, or leave home to marry somebody unsuitable.

Above all, he liked the fact that gold seemed permanent.

“Everything else may be taken from a man,” the king once told his Chancellor. “But gold is gold.”

The Chancellor, who had been Chancellor long enough to know when silence was a form of wisdom, said nothing.

So the king began to collect it.

At first he collected sensibly.

A chest became two chests.

Two chests became a cupboard.

The cupboard became a room.

The room became a treasury beneath the palace, with three iron doors and twelve guards who were forbidden to sneeze while on duty.

Every evening, just before sunset, the king went down to count his gold.

He counted every coin himself.

“One thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight,” he would murmur.

“One thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine.”

“Two thousand.”

Then he would smile.

Outside, the sun would sink.

At first no one thought anything of it.

There was always another sunset.

One evening, while the king was counting, the western sky turned the colour of ripe peaches.

A flock of silver swans flew across it.

Nobody had ever seen silver swans before.

Their wings caught the last light and scattered it over the rooftops like handfuls of stars.

The palace servants ran into the courtyard.

The cooks came out with flour on their faces.

The guards left their posts.

Even the Chancellor stood beneath the palace gates with his mouth open.

“Fetch the king!” cried the Chancellor.

A page ran down to the treasury.

“Your Majesty! Swans made of silver!”

The king did not look up.

“Seven thousand four hundred and eleven,” he said.

“Seven thousand four hundred and twelve.”

“But, Sire, they are flying across the sunset!”

“Will they be there tomorrow?”

“No one knows.”

The king frowned.

“Then I cannot rely upon them.”

And he continued counting.

By the time he reached seven thousand five hundred, the swans were gone.

The following year, a green comet appeared in the evening sky.

It burned above the kingdom like an emerald being drawn across black velvet.

The astronomers dropped their telescopes.

The priests rang bells.

People climbed onto roofs.

Children who had already been put to bed climbed out again.

The Chancellor hurried to the treasury.

“My king,” he said, “there is a green star in the sky.”

“Comet,” said the king.

“Whatever it is, come and see it.”

“I am busy.”

“You have counted those coins before.”

“Precisely. I must make sure none have disappeared.”

The Chancellor went upstairs alone.

The comet passed.

The gold remained.

This pleased the king enormously.

“You see?” he said the next morning. “The comet is gone. The gold is still here.”

Years passed.

The king’s treasury grew.

A second chamber had to be dug beneath the first.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

The miners went so deep that eventually they came upon an underground river and had to divert it around the royal fortune.

The king had each new piece of gold weighed, polished, recorded and placed in its proper position.

And every evening, just before the sky began to change, he went below.

“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and four.”

Outside, clouds shaped like enormous castles drifted over the mountains.

“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and five.”

A rainbow appeared at sunset and remained until the stars came out.

“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and six.”

A summer storm turned every raindrop red in the evening light, and for ten minutes it seemed as though rubies were falling from heaven.

“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and seven.”

A flock of white birds formed the shape of a crown.

“One hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and eight.”

The king saw none of it.

Sometimes people tried to persuade him.

His daughter had come when she was six.

“Papa,” she said, “the clouds are pink.”

“Clouds are often pink.”

“These are especially pink.”

“How pink?”

“Like raspberry pudding.”

The king hesitated.

He liked raspberry pudding.

Then somewhere in the treasury a stack of coins shifted.

He turned immediately.

“Not tonight.”

When his daughter was sixteen, she came again.

“There is a sunset over the lake,” she said. “It has turned the whole water gold.”

“Gold?”

“Yes.”

“Actual gold?”

“No.”

“Then why did you disturb me?”

When she was twenty-six, she stopped asking.

The king became richer.

He also became older.

He ordered brighter lamps for the treasury.

Eventually he needed spectacles to read the numbers stamped upon the coins.

He disliked the spectacles.

“They make me look old,” he said.

The Chancellor, who was now extremely old himself, inspected him carefully.

“They are not entirely responsible, your majesty.”

The king dismissed him.

Now it happened that the king had one particular gold coin he loved more than all the others.

It was not especially valuable.

Indeed, it was quite ordinary.

But it was the first coin he had ever saved.

He kept it beneath a glass dome.

Whenever he felt uncertain, he looked at it.

“Still there,” he would say.

For the king had become afraid.

This surprised everyone, because he owned more gold than any man alive.

But the more he possessed, the more things there were to lose.

He worried about thieves.

He worried about fire.

He worried about dishonest accountants.

He worried that gold might somehow cease to be gold while he slept.

So he spent longer in the treasury.

At last he had a bed brought in.

“Only for emergencies,” he explained.

Soon nearly everything seemed to qualify as an emergency.

Meanwhile, outside, life went on committing its terrible habit of not waiting.

The king’s daughter married.

A grandson was born.

Then a granddaughter.

The mechanical nightingale broke and was replaced by a real bird that nested in the palace ivy.

The old Chancellor died.

The silver swans returned once, after forty-three years.

No one knew why.

The king was counting.

There were eclipses.

Harvest moons.

A winter when the sunset turned every icicle on the palace roof into a tiny flame.

There was an evening when three rainbows stood one behind another above the northern hills.

There was another when the clouds opened into great golden staircases, and half the kingdom became convinced that heaven itself had left a door ajar.

At last, one morning, the king woke and discovered that he was very old indeed.

So old that his hands trembled when he lifted a coin.

So old that his legs shook when he tried to stand.

The king sat very still.

That evening, he did not want to remain in the treasury.

Instead, he ordered a chair to be carried to the highest balcony of the palace.

The servants gathered excitedly.

The bells rang.

The cooks opened bottles of wine.

The king’s great-grandchildren were brought from the nursery and told that something historic was about to happen.

The old king was carried up the tower very slowly.

At last he reached the balcony.

He sat.

The western sky was pale blue.

He waited.

“Does it begin soon?” he asked.

“Very soon, your majesty,” said a servant.

The king smiled.

“I have heard they can be beautiful.”

The king settled into his chair.

He felt almost young.

Then somebody sat down beside him.

The king looked around.

The stranger wore a long black coat, much patched at the elbows, and carried no crown, sword or badge of office.

The stranger removed his hat.

“I am Death.”

The king stared.

“But I am here to watch the sunset.”

Death looked towards the horizon.

“Yes.”

The king gripped the arms of his chair.

“You will have to come back later.”

“I cannot.”

“I command you.”

The king’s voice became small. “But I have only just finished counting.”

Death nodded.

“And now I should like my sunset.”

There was a silence.

“You have already spent them.”

“Spent what?”

“Your sunsets.”

The king looked towards the horizon.

The sky had begun to change.

A thin line of amber had appeared beneath the clouds.

“Just this one,” he whispered.

Death shook his head.

“But I am the king.”

“Not for much longer.”

“I am the richest man who has ever lived. I can pay you.”

Death almost smiled.

The king opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Below, deep underground, lay rooms upon rooms of gold.

The first coin was still beneath its glass dome.

The chests were still locked.

The guards were still guarding.

Every piece remained exactly where he had left it.

For the first time, this gave him no comfort at all.

The sky brightened.

Orange became crimson.

Crimson became violet.

Far over the lake, a flock of birds turned suddenly in the light and became silver.

The king leaned forward.

“Oh,” he said.

Death placed a hand gently upon his shoulder.

For one tiny moment the old king saw the edge of the sunset.

Only the edge.

It was enough for him to understand what he had missed.

And not nearly enough to make up for it.

Above them, the clouds became islands.

The islands became ships.

The ships became dragons.

Then the whole sky turned gold.

Everyone in the village of Little Tallow knew three things about the dragon on Bramble Crag.

First, he was enormous.

Second, he was merciless.

And third, under no circumstances whatsoever should anyone climb the path to his cave.

This last fact was written on a board at the foot of the mountain in letters so black and crooked that even the goats avoided looking at it.

BEWARE.

DRAGON.

CERTAIN DEATH.

NO VISITORS.

Whenever anyone suggested that perhaps the dragon was not quite as terrible as people said, somebody would point towards the mountain.

“Did you not hear him last Thursday?”

Everyone had.

At precisely seven o’clock, a dreadful roar had rolled through the valley.

RRRRAAAAAAAGH!

Windows rattled.

Chickens fled beneath carts.

Mrs Pindle dropped a tray of buns into a horse trough.

Then smoke rose from the dragon’s cave in great black clouds.

“There,” the villagers said. “You see?”

And if anyone remained unconvinced, there were the claw marks: great trenches gouged into the earth around the cave mouth.

There were bones, too.

The dragon arranged them every Wednesday night.

His name was Mortimer.

He was not merciless.

He was not particularly enormous for a dragon.

And the bones came from Mr Crimp’s butcher shop.

Mortimer paid sixpence a sack for them.

“You’re keeping up the terrifying business, then?” Mr Crimp asked each Wednesday, sliding a parcel of ox bones across the cave entrance.

“One must,” said Mortimer.

“Anybody actually seen you eat one?”

“Good heavens, no. Do you know what marrow does to my digestion?”

Mr Crimp did not, and Mortimer did not explain.

The truth was that Mortimer had spent considerable time and effort becoming the Dread Dragon of Bramble Crag.

Every Thursday evening he practised roaring into an old copper trumpet.

Every Friday he dragged a garden rake around the cave mouth to make claw marks.

The smoke came from his bread oven.

If the wind was blowing towards the village, Mortimer added a handful of damp leaves to the fire for effect.

Then, once he had terrified everyone sufficiently, he returned to what he actually liked doing.

Mortimer embroidered.

He grew roses.

He painted birds in watercolour.

He bound little books in blue leather and stamped gold stars on their covers.

He made quince jelly every autumn.

He possessed thirty-seven porcelain teacups, each with its own saucer, and became deeply irritated at the thought of anyone putting the wrong cup on the wrong saucer.

He also knitted.

This was difficult for a dragon.

His claws were excellent for frightening shepherds but quite useless for turning heels on socks.

Still, he persevered.

Mortimer had not always pretended to be fierce.

Many years earlier, when he had first arrived at Bramble Crag, he had tried being friendly.

This had been a terrible mistake.

At first one shepherd came to visit.

Then the shepherd brought his wife.

The wife brought her sister.

The sister brought eleven children.

The children wanted rides.

The baker asked Mortimer to light his oven.

The mayor asked him to open the summer fête.

Three knights came to have their portraits painted standing heroically beside him.

A minstrel arrived with a forty-two-verse song about a goose.

Princesses began appearing.

One wanted rescuing.

One wanted kidnapping.

One wanted Mortimer to pretend to kidnap her so that somebody else could rescue her.

“I’m sorry,” Mortimer told them, “but I’m very busy.”

Doing what? they asked.

Mortimer had looked down at the tiny painted goldfinch drying on his desk.

“Dragon things,” he said.

Nobody believed him.

So Mortimer became terrifying.

Within a fortnight, he had his evenings back.

It was, he thought, the best decision he had ever made.

Then Sir Percival the Bold rode into Little Tallow.

He arrived on a white horse with a silver shield, a golden helmet and a feather so enormous that it repeatedly struck low branches.

The villagers gathered around him.

“I have heard,” announced Sir Percival, “that a monstrous beast terrorises these lands.”

The villagers cheered.

“No need to thank me,” Sir Percival continued. “By sunset tomorrow, the Dragon of Bramble Crag shall be slain.”

The villagers cheered again.

Mortimer heard about this from Mr Crimp.

“A knight?” he said.

“Very knightly-looking one.”

“What sort of helmet?”

“Gold.”

Mortimer swallowed.

“Shield?”

“Silver.”

“Feather?”

Mr Crimp stretched his arms as wide as he could.

Mortimer went pale.

Dragons knew about feathers.

The larger the feather, the more determined the knight.

The following morning Mortimer prepared carefully.

He scattered three sacks of bones outside the cave.

He made several enormous claw marks.

He put damp leaves in the bread oven.

Then he stood before a mirror.

“RAAAAGH!”

He frowned.

“Too nasal.”

He tried again.

“RRRRAAAAAAAGH!”

Better.

Then he noticed something dreadful.

His embroidery basket was still beside the fire.

He hurriedly shoved it behind a rock.

The watercolours went behind a curtain.

The knitting went into a flour barrel.

He was attempting to hide a vase containing twelve particularly fine roses when a voice boomed from outside.

“DRAGON!”

Mortimer froze.

Sir Percival stood at the cave mouth.

Sword raised.

Shield gleaming.

Feather waving magnificently in the breeze.

“Prepare yourself, vile serpent!”

Mortimer knocked over the vase.

“TREMBLE, MORTAL!”

Sir Percival stepped forward.

Mortimer spread his wings.

“YOU HAVE ENTERED THE LAIR OF—”

He stepped backwards onto several large balls of wool.

His feet shot from beneath him.

He fell over with an undignified crash.

There was a long silence.

Sir Percival lowered his sword.

“Are you all right?”

“Perfectly.”

Mortimer stood up.

A half-knitted sock was hanging from one horn.

Sir Percival stared at it.

“It belongs to a victim,” said the dragon.

“A victim knitted you a sock?”

“No.”

“You knitted the sock.”

“I did not.”

The embroidery basket chose that moment to tip over.

Needles, ribbons and coloured threads rolled across the floor.

Sir Percival looked around properly.

He saw the shelves of teacups.

The jars of marmalade.

The blue leather books.

The little paintings of wrens, robins and finches.

On the wall hung an embroidery sampler.

It read:

HOME SWEET HOME

Around the words Mortimer had sewn a border of daisies.

Sir Percival slowly sheathed his sword.

“You embroider.”

“No.”

Sir Percival pointed at the wall.

“That appears to be embroidery.”

Sir Percival sat down on a rock.

“You’re the most feared creature in three counties.”

“I know.”

“There are songs about you.”

“Yes.”

“One of them says you swallowed forty knights in a single afternoon.”

“Ridiculous. I have a very small appetite.”

Sir Percival laughed.

“Would you like tea?”

Sir Percival looked up.

“What?”

“I have the kettle on.”

So five minutes later, the knight who had come to slay the Dread Dragon of Bramble Crag was sitting in the dragon’s cave drinking Darjeeling from a cup painted with violets.

Sir Percival sipped his tea.

“This is very good.”

“Thank you.”

“So you aren’t terrifying at all.”

Mortimer bristled.

“I am exceptionally terrifying.”

“You knit socks.”

“One can do both.”

“Then why the bones?”

“To discourage visitors.”

“The roaring?”

“Visitors.”

“The claw marks?”

“Visitors.”

“The smoke?”

“Bread.”

Sir Percival glanced towards the oven.

“You bake?”

“Sourdough.”

“This is a disaster,” said the knight.

“For you?”

“The entire village is waiting for me to come down the mountain as a dragon slayer.”

Mortimer clutched his neck.

“You certainly shall not.”

“I don’t want to.”

Mortimer looked suspicious.

“You don’t?”

Sir Percival sighed.

“I hate killing things.”

“But you’re a knight.”

“I know.”

“You arrived shouting.”

“I’m expected to shout.”

“You have an enormous feather.”

“My mother bought it.”

Sir Percival removed his helmet.

Without it, he looked considerably less heroic.

His hair was flattened on one side.

“My father was a knight,” he said. “My grandfather was a knight. My great-grandfather was eaten by a dragon, which everyone says was tremendously glorious.”

“And you?”

Sir Percival looked embarrassed.

“I prefer flowers.”

“Flowers?”

“I arrange them.”

“What sort?”

“Delphiniums, mostly.”

Mortimer’s eyes widened.

“I grow delphiniums.”

Sir Percival sat forward.

“Do you stake them?”

“Of course I stake them.”

“With hazel?”

“Bamboo.”

“Bamboo?”

“Come outside.”

Behind the cave, hidden from the village, was the finest garden Sir Percival had ever seen.

Roses climbed ruined walls.

Foxgloves rose in purple spires.

Lupins crowded around the stones.

And beside the path stood a magnificent row of blue delphiniums.

Sir Percival removed one gauntlet and gently touched a flower.

“Remarkable.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you feed them?”

Mortimer told him.

By lunchtime, the sword had been forgotten entirely.

By two o’clock they had moved on to roses.

By three they were discussing compost.

At four, church bells rang in the valley.

Sir Percival stopped.

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“The battle.”

Mortimer looked towards the village.

Tiny figures were gathering in the fields below.

“The whole village has come to watch.”

The two of them stood silently for a moment.

Then Sir Percival said, “You could tell them the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That you’re harmless.”

Mortimer recoiled.

“And have them all come up here?”

“Well—”

“They’ll want me at the summer fête.”

“Probably.”

“They’ll ask me to light bonfires.”

“Possibly.”

“Children will climb on me.”

“Almost certainly.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then I suppose you could remain terrifying.”

Sir Percival thought.

Below them, the villagers began chanting.

“PER-CI-VAL! PER-CI-VAL!”

Mortimer groaned.

Sir Percival looked down at the village.

Then at the dragon.

Then at the large pile of theatrical bones.

And slowly, he smiled.

“I have an idea.”

At five o’clock, the Battle of Bramble Crag began.

It was the greatest battle Little Tallow had ever seen.

Smoke exploded from the mountain.

Mortimer roared so loudly that three cows ran into a pond.

Sir Percival struck his sword against his shield.

CLANG!

“VILE BEAST!”

“INSOLENT KNIGHT!”

CLASH!

“PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM!”

“YOU FIRST!”

Mortimer breathed a tremendous stream of fire into the air.

Sir Percival threw an old iron saucepan down the mountainside.

BOOM!

The villagers gasped.

Another cloud of smoke billowed from the cave.

“TAKE THAT!” cried Sir Percival.

“NOT THE DELPHINIUMS!” roared Mortimer.

There was a pause.

“Sorry!”

Then came another explosion.

For nearly an hour they shouted, roared, banged pots, threw stones and set fire to several carefully positioned bundles of damp straw.

It was exhausting.

At last Sir Percival appeared upon the ridge.

His armour was blackened.

His feather was singed.

He raised his sword.

“THE BEAST IS DEFEATED!”

The villagers erupted in cheers.

Behind a rock, Mortimer quietly drank a barrel of water.

Sir Percival raised his hand.

“I HAVE SPARED THE DRAGON’S LIFE!”

The cheering stopped.

A few villagers looked disappointed.

“WHY?” shouted the mayor.

Sir Percival drew himself up magnificently.

“BECAUSE HE HAS SWORN A DRAGON OATH!”

Mortimer peered round the rock.

This was new.

“HE SHALL NEVER AGAIN DESCEND UPON LITTLE TALLOW!”

The villagers murmured approvingly.

“HE SHALL NEVER TROUBLE YOUR FLOCKS!”

More approval.

“HE SHALL NEVER DARKEN YOUR DOORS!”

A cheer.

“BUT IN RETURN—”

Sir Percival paused dramatically.

“NO MAN, WOMAN, CHILD, KNIGHT, MINSTREL, PRINCESS, MAYOR, BAKER OR MEMBER OF A SUMMER FÊTE COMMITTEE SHALL EVER DISTURB HIM!”

The mayor frowned.

“Never?”

“Never!”

“Not even for the summer fête?”

“Especially not for the summer fête.”

The mayor considered this.

“A harsh bargain.”

“But a fair one.”

The villagers agreed.

Sir Percival rode down the mountain as a hero.

Mortimer stayed where he was.

The following Tuesday afternoon, Mortimer was sitting outside his cave painting a robin when he heard hoofbeats on the path.

Sir Percival appeared carrying a parcel beneath one arm.

Inside were twelve delphinium cuttings.

Mortimer looked at them.

Then at Sir Percival.

“What variety?”

“King Arthur.”

Mortimer hesitated.

“You may stay for tea.”

That became something of a habit.

Sir Percival eventually opened a flower shop in Little Tallow.

It became extremely successful.

Mortimer remained feared throughout the valley.

Every Thursday he roared.

Every Friday smoke rose from the mountain.

Occasionally he scattered a few bones about, purely for appearances.

Nobody bothered him.

Almost nobody.

Years later, travellers passing Little Tallow sometimes noticed that somebody had added another line beneath the old warning sign.

The sign still read:

BEWARE.

DRAGON.

CERTAIN DEATH.

NO VISITORS.

But underneath, in much smaller letters, someone had written:

Except on Tuesdays.

Once, at the edge of a dark wood, there stood a henhouse famous throughout the valley for its fat hens, its warm straw and its excellent brown eggs.

The hens who lived there were comfortable. Each had a perch, each had a nesting box, and every morning enough grain was scattered for all.

There was only one trouble.

Foxes.

Now and then, in the deepest part of the night, a fox would come scratching at the walls. He was usually chased away.

But occasionally he was not. When a hen was taken, the others would gather beneath the old pear tree and cry:

“Something must be done!”

For many years, the henhouse had been guarded by a large, sleepy dog called Bramble. Bramble was not perfect. He snored. He occasionally misplaced the key. Once, during a thunderstorm, he hid under the grain cart.

But he disliked foxes and, on the whole, foxes were afraid of him.

Then one autumn evening, there appeared at the gate a fox unlike any fox the hens had ever seen.

He wore a blue coat with brass buttons.

He carried a silver-topped cane.

And around his neck was a ribbon upon which, in very impressive lettering, were written the words:

FRIEND OF HENS.

“Good evening,” said the fox.

The hens screamed.

“Now, now,” he said. “That is exactly the sort of nonsense I have come to end.”

Bramble rose from behind the gate and growled.

The fox smiled.

“You see?” he said to the hens. “Aggression. Hostility. Division. Is this really how you want your henhouse governed?”

The hens looked at one another.

They had never thought of Bramble as governing the henhouse.

But the word had a grand sound to it.

“I have spent my entire life studying foxes,” continued the fox. “I know their habits, their tricks, their secret paths through the forest. Who, I ask you, could possibly be better qualified to protect you from foxes than I?”

There was a murmur among the hens.

This was difficult to argue with.

Bramble barked.

The fox sighed.

“There he goes again.”

A young hen called Pippa raised one wing.

“Are you saying you’ve never eaten a hen?”

The fox placed a paw upon his heart.

“I find that question deeply hurtful.”

“But have you?”

“What matters,” said the fox, “is the future.”

A few hens nodded.

The fox began visiting every evening.

He gave speeches beneath the pear tree.

He told the hens that they had been frightened for too long.

He told them that Bramble had deliberately exaggerated the danger from foxes in order to keep his comfortable position inside the gate.

“Have you noticed,” said the fox, “that every time there is talk of foxes, Bramble receives another bowl of meat?”

The hens had noticed no such thing.

But now that it was mentioned, Bramble did indeed have a bowl.

The fox also promised improvements.

More grain.

Larger nesting boxes.

Shorter working days.

A second dust bath.

Free worms for elderly hens.

“And most importantly,” he declared, raising his cane, “not one more hen shall be lost to a fox!”

The hens cheered.

Bramble barked.

“Is that really all you have?” asked the fox.

How old-fashioned Bramble sounded.

How negative.

How terribly obsessed with the past.

And so, when the time came to choose a new Protector of the Henhouse, the hens voted.

The fox won by a feather.

His first act was to dismiss Bramble.

“This is not punishment,” the fox explained. “It is modernisation.”

Bramble was put to sleep behind the barn.

His second act was to remove the lock from the henhouse door.

“Locks,” said the fox, “create a culture of fear.”

His third act was to appoint a Deputy Protector.

The Deputy Protector was also a fox.

Some hens objected.

The Protector looked astonished.

“You wanted protection from foxes,” he said. “Naturally, we require fox experts.”

Soon there was a Minister for Nesting Boxes.

A fox.

A Secretary for Grain.

A fox.

A Commissioner for Night-Time Security.

A particularly large fox with one eye.

Each wore a ribbon.

Each carried papers.

Each spoke beautifully about hens.

And every morning, one hen was missing.

At first the hens were alarmed.

“Where is Mabel?” they cried.

The Protector called a meeting beneath the pear tree.

“My dear friends,” he said, “there is absolutely no evidence that Mabel has been eaten.”

“But there are feathers everywhere,” said Pippa.

“Feathers,” replied the fox, “are not hens.”

“There is blood on your sleeve.”

The fox glanced down.

“Beetroot.”

No one remembered planting beetroot.

Nevertheless, the official report was published that afternoon.

It was called:

A REVIEW OF RECENT HEN MOBILITY.

It concluded that Mabel had most likely left the henhouse voluntarily in search of new opportunities.

The next morning, Edith disappeared.

Then Gertrude.

Then Agnes.

Each disappearance produced another report.

Soon the reports became so numerous that the hens had to use a whole corner of the shed to store them.

The Minister for Nesting Boxes announced that the falling number of hens meant there were now more nesting boxes per hen than ever before.

The Secretary for Grain announced that there was more grain available per surviving hen.

The Commissioner for Night-Time Security announced that recorded complaints about foxes had fallen sharply.

“That is because the hens who complained have disappeared,” said Pippa.

The fox smiled kindly.

“There will always be people who refuse to celebrate progress.”

That winter was bitter.

More hens vanished.

And yet, every week, the Protector climbed upon an overturned bucket and declared that the henhouse was safer, richer and freer than it had ever been.

Some hens stopped believing him.

Others believed him more fiercely than before.

For it is a curious thing that when hens have been fooled once, they may admit it. When they have been fooled twice, they may grow embarrassed. But after the tenth time, admitting the truth can seem almost unbearable.

And so they began to defend the fox.

“At least he speaks well.”

“Bramble was no better.”

“All protectors eat occasionally.”

“You cannot expect perfection.”

“The forest is complicated.”

“Pippa is always complaining.”

When Pippa vanished, they found reasons.

Perhaps she had been careless.

Perhaps she had wandered.

Perhaps she had secretly been unhappy in the henhouse.

Perhaps she had never really existed.

One elderly hen even said:

“I don’t care if he eats hens. He annoys the geese.”

And this was considered a powerful argument.

Meanwhile, the foxes grew fat.

They lined their burrows with feathers.

They held banquets in honour of National Hen Safety Week.

At one such banquet, the Protector stood before a magnificent table covered in pies.

“My fellow guardians,” he said, “we have inherited a difficult situation.”

The foxes nodded gravely.

“There are only a few hens left.”

More solemn nodding.

“But we must ask ourselves: who is responsible?”

Every fox at the table knew the answer.

“Bramble,” they said.

And they helped themselves to another slice of pie.

Nessa had always been very good at hide-and-seek. This was not, she felt, a trivial talent.

Among selkies, hiding involved considerably more than crouching behind a rock and hoping no one noticed your feet. It involved kelp forests, submerged caves, tidal pools, reefs, currents, gullies and, on one memorable occasion, the underside of a fishing boat belonging to a man who had been extremely surprised to discover three seals clinging to his hull.

That afternoon, Nessa intended to win.

The others scattered at the cry of Go!, silver bodies flashing through the green water as they plunged between the rocks.

Nessa swam farther.

Past the familiar caves.

Past the long shelf where crabs lived beneath the stones.

Past the narrow cleft her cousin Mara always used because Mara lacked imagination.

Then Nessa saw an opening she had never noticed before.

It was scarcely wider than her shoulders, hidden behind a curtain of weed.

Perfect.

She slipped through.

The passage narrowed almost at once.

Nessa wriggled deeper, pleased with herself.

No one would find her here.

Then the current changed.

She felt it before it struck.

The sea tightened around her.

For the briefest moment Nessa went still.

As though waiting.

Then she smiled.

And let it take her.

Water seized her and dragged her down.

Stone rushed past. The tunnel bent sharply. Darkness swallowed everything.

Nessa tucked her flippers against herself and allowed the current to carry her.

It would have been difficult to fight.

Not impossible.

But difficult.

And Nessa was curious.

The passage opened beneath her and she tumbled into black water.

For several moments she remained beneath the surface.

Then she saw pale light above.

Nessa swam towards it.

She broke the surface with a gasp.

Silence.

Not the silence of the sea.

This was deeper.

Older.

She floated in perfectly still water.

Above her arched a cavern so enormous that its ceiling disappeared into darkness. Pale crystals glimmered among the stone like frozen stars.

She swam towards the shore and pulled herself onto the rock.

That was when she saw the gold.

It lay in drifts across the cavern.

Coins.

Goblets.

Jewelled boxes.

Ancient swords.

There was even a throne lying on its side beneath a heap of coins, as if someone had decided it was too inconvenient to sit on.

Nessa stared.

“Oh.”

A golden eye opened in the darkness.

She went very still.

A second eye opened beside it.

What Nessa had taken for a ridge of stone moved.

A long bronze head lifted from the treasure.

Two horns swept backwards from the creature’s skull. Scales caught the cold light. Smoke curled faintly from its nostrils.

A dragon.

Nessa had never seen one before.

The dragon stared at her.

Nessa stared back.

Neither moved.

Then the dragon spoke,

“You’re a selkie.”

“And you’re a dragon.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

He was magnificent.

That was her first thought.

Her second arrived rather conveniently.

“You’re not going to eat me?”

“Thanks for the offer, but no.”

“It wasn’t an offer.”

“Ah. Then I withdraw my thanks. I thought you were being very hospitable.”

“I’m terrified,” she said.

“And yet impeccably mannered.”

“Are you always like this?”

“Only when I’m hungry.”

Behind Nessa, unnoticed by the dragon, the surface of the underground lake rose half an inch.

The water waited.

The dragon’s eyes brightened with amusement.

“You said you weren’t going to eat me,” she said.

“I said I wasn’t going to eat you.” He lowered his head until one enormous eye was level with her. “Do you have any chocolate biscuits?”

Nessa looked at him.

The lake settled.

“No. But,” she said, “I do know where to get some.”

“What sort?”

“Chocolate digestives.”

The dragon considered this.

“I prefer the ones with dark chocolate.”

“You’re surprisingly particular.”

“I have standards.”

Nessa glanced at the mountains of treasure.

“I noticed.”

The dragon followed her gaze.

“This is not as excessive as it looks.”

“There’s a crown under your tail.”

He glanced behind himself.

“So there is.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I lose things.”

Nessa smiled.

“What’s your name?”

“Orin.”

She had expected something with claws in it. Something ancient and terrible.

“Orin?”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“You don’t like it?”

“I do. It’s just…”

“Yes?”

“I expected more syllables.”

“Such as?”

“Vaerathrax.”

Orin stared at her.

“Vaerathrax?”

“Something like that.”

“My grandfather was called Vaerathrax.”

“There.”

“He was unbearable.”

Nessa laughed again.

Orin looked at her for a moment.

“What’s yours?”

“Nessa.”

“Nessa.”

He said it slowly.

As though testing the sound of it.

She rather liked the way he said it.

“How did you get in here?” he asked.

“I was hiding.”

“From whom?”

“My cousins.”

He waited.

“We were playing hide-and-seek.”

Another pause.

“You fell into a dragon’s lair during hide-and-seek?”

“I was winning.”

Orin made a sound that might have been a laugh.

It was deep and warm and rolled through the cavern like distant thunder.

Nessa felt it beneath her feet.

She liked the sound.

That was unexpected.

Orin turned towards the lake.

“Which passage?”

“The one coming from the sea.”

Orin looked at her.

This time there was no amusement in his expression.

“None of them comes from the sea.”

“I assure you one does.”

Nessa smiled innocently.

He looked at the lake again.

“Nobody has ever entered this cave that way.”

“Well.”

Orin looked at her rather more carefully than before.

She liked that too.

“You’re wet,” he said eventually.

Nessa stared at him.

“I’m a selkie.”

“Yes.”

“We tend to be.”

“I meant you must be cold.”

She realised she was shivering.

Orin shifted one wing.

A rush of warm air moved through the cavern.

Then he breathed gently onto the stone beside her.

Flame bloomed.

Nessa jumped.

Orin immediately stopped.

“Sorry.”

“No. I’ve simply never had anyone light a fire by breathing before.”

A small fire now crackled among the stones.

Nessa sat beside it.

Orin settled opposite her.

The cavern suddenly felt less enormous.

For a while neither spoke.

Nessa watched the flame glow against his scales.

Bronze became gold.

Gold became copper.

His eyes remained on her.

“Is it true,” Orin asked eventually, “that selkies can become human?”

“Yes.”

“Could you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?”

Nessa smiled.

“Curious?”

“Very.”

She considered him.

Selkies were careful about such things.

A skin was not simply clothing.

It was home.

Freedom.

Sea.

Never something to be handled carelessly in front of strangers.

And yet Orin did not feel entirely like a stranger.

Nessa slipped from the skin.

A moment later a young woman sat beside the fire, dark hair spilling damply over her shoulders.

Orin stared.

Simply with wonder.

Nessa knew that look.

“Well?” she asked.

“You changed.”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know.”

His head lowered slightly.

“Something less like magic.”

She held her hands towards the fire.

The flames bent subtly towards her.

Orin noticed.

Nessa noticed him noticing.

Neither said anything.

“Can dragons become anything else?” she asked.

“No.”

“Never?”

“Why would we?”

“To see what it’s like.”

“To be smaller?”

“To fit through doors.”

“I have never encountered a door that presented a lasting difficulty.”

Nessa laughed.

“I suppose not.”

Orin looked at her seal skin lying beside her.

“That is how you return to the sea?”

“Yes.”

“Without it?”

“I could never return properly.”

Something changed in his face.

“You should keep it close, then.”

Nessa looked at him.

Orin could have hidden her skin beneath a single claw.

Instead he moved slightly farther from it.

Nessa drew the skin towards herself.

They talked.

At first about small things.

The sea.

The mountain.

How dragons slept.

How selkies slept.

Whether fish became bored.

Why humans insisted on putting flags on things they had only just discovered.

Then the questions grew stranger.

Orin wanted to know what storms looked like from beneath the water.

Nessa wanted to know what clouds looked like from above.

He described flying through moonlight.

She described swimming beneath ice.

He had never touched snow except on mountaintops.

She had never seen a desert.

He had watched kingdoms vanish.

She had followed whales hundreds of miles simply because she could.

Eventually Nessa realised she had forgotten entirely about the game.

Then, faintly, from somewhere deep beneath the cavern came a sound.

“Nessa!”

She sat up.

Again, far away:

“Nessa!”

Her cousins.

Orin lifted his head.

“They’re looking for you.”

Nessa listened.

A distant voice called again.

She should have been relieved.

Instead something sank gently inside her.

“Yes.”

Orin looked towards the underground lake.

“We should find the tunnel.”

“We probably should.”

The fire cracked.

Nessa looked at him.

“Do you really like chocolate biscuits?”

“Very much.”

“Why?”

“I had one once.”

“Once?”

“Forty-three years ago.”

“You’ve been thinking about a biscuit for forty-three years?”

“It was excellent.”

Nessa laughed.

“You dragons really do hold on to things.”

Orin looked around at his hoard.

“Yes.”

Then he looked at her.

“I’ll show you the way.”

The tunnels beneath the mountain were labyrinthine.

Orin led her along a passage where quartz glittered in the walls.

At several points he had to fold his wings tightly against his body.

Nessa followed, sometimes walking, sometimes slipping into pools that joined one cavern to the next.

Eventually they reached a tunnel entirely filled with rushing water.

Orin stopped.

“No.”

Nessa peered around him.

“What?”

“That current.”

“What about it?”

“You can’t go through there.”

She looked at him.

“I’m a selkie.”

“It would crush you against the rock.”

Orin blocked the passage with one foreleg.

She looked up at him.

He genuinely believed he was protecting her.

There was something unexpectedly lovely about that.

She could have told him.

Nessa stepped neatly beneath his foreleg and walked into the torrent.

“Nessa!”

The current divided.

There was no explosion.

No flash of magic.

The torrent simply curved around her body.

Nessa looked back.

“Yes?”

Nessa glanced around. “Oh.”

Orin stepped closer.

The torrent hammered against his claws.

Around Nessa it flowed as gently as silk.

Nessa turned.

The torrent opened before her.

She walked through.

Behind her, Orin followed.

At the next cavern they found a chasm.

It plunged so deeply that neither could see the bottom.

Nessa peered over the edge. “How do we cross?”

Orin crouched.

She looked at him.

Then at his back.

“How do I stay on?”

“Hold on.”

Orin extended one wing.

“There’s a ridge between my shoulders.”

Nessa climbed carefully onto his back.

His scales were unexpectedly smooth.

Warm too.

She settled between two raised ridges.

“You’re holding on?”

She wrapped both arms around the base of his neck.

Orin went very still.

His voice sounded different.

“Good.”

He leapt.

Orin’s wings opened.

Air thundered around them.

For one stomach-lurching instant they fell.

Then they rose.

The shaft opened above them into a vast chamber.

Orin climbed through it, wings beating rhythmically.

Below them, darkness fell away forever.

Above them, crystal shone in the rock.

Nessa clung tighter.

“Still terrified?” he called.

“Completely!”

Nessa buried her face against his neck.

She rested her cheek against his warm scales.

Neither spoke for a while.

He landed gently on the far side.

Nessa climbed down.

For a few moments they stood very close.

“Flying,” she said, “is almost as good as swimming.”

“Selkies don’t know what they are missing.”

“Dragons sleep on money.”

“It’s comfortable.”

“It cannot possibly be comfortable.”

“You should try it.”

Nessa smiled.

“Perhaps I will.”

Then somewhere ahead came another faint call.

“Nessa!”

She sighed.

“This way?” she asked.

“Yes.”

They eventually heard the sea.

It began as a distant pulse.

Then a roar.

Nessa knew immediately.

Her whole body knew.

Home.

The final tunnel descended towards blue light.

Sea water surged rhythmically through the opening.

Beyond it lay the open coast.

Her coast.

Through the gap she could hear voices.

“Nessa!”

“Nessa!”

“She’s here!”

One of her cousins had seen her.

Nessa stepped towards the water.

Then turned back.

Orin stood in the shadows.

He looked far too large for the tunnel.

“You found the way,” he said.

“You found it.”

“I’m no longer certain you needed me.”

Nessa smiled.

“I didn’t know the tunnels.”

Her cousins called again.

“Nessa!”

Orin lowered his head until they were almost eye to eye.

“You know,” she said, “you never did get your biscuits.”

“No.”

“That seems tragic. I could bring some.”

Orin said nothing.

Nessa felt, unexpectedly, a little shy.

“Dark chocolate,” she added.

His eyes brightened.

“You remembered.”

“Forty-three years is too long to wait for a second biscuit.”

“How long would be appropriate?”

Nessa pretended to think.

“Three days.”

“Three?”

“Perhaps two.”

“One seems better.”

“You’re greedy.”

“I’m a dragon.”

“Of course.”

“Nessa!”

She stepped backwards into the water.

Orin watched her.

“Tomorrow?” he asked.

She laughed.

“Tomorrow.”

“Early?”

“Orin.”

“Yes?”

“Try not to sound desperate.”

“I have waited forty-three years for a biscuit.”

“Ah. So it’s the biscuit.”

“Entirely.”

“Good.”

Nessa slipped deeper.

The water curled around her waist.

The sea behind her rose.

Not as a wave.

As a wall.

For one extraordinary moment the entire mouth of the tunnel became a vertical sheet of water twenty feet high, perfectly motionless.

Through it, Orin could see fish suspended in the blue.

Nessa stood at its centre.

Her dark hair floated around her shoulders although she was still above the surface.

Nessa raised one eyebrow.

Then the sea crashed down.

When the spray cleared she was gone.

Orin stood dripping in the tunnel.

For several seconds he did not move.

The other selkies surrounded Nessa almost at once.

“Where were you?”

“We thought you were trapped!”

“Mara said you’d been eaten!”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I’m fine.”

“Where did you go?”

She looked back towards the rocks.

The opening was almost invisible from the sea.

Deep inside the mountain, something golden moved once in the darkness.

Nessa smiled.

“I found a very good hiding place.”

Her cousin Elia looked at her with a wary gaze.

“You were gone for hours.”

“I know.”

“You lost.”

Nessa considered this.

“No,” she said softly.

“I don’t think I did.”

The next morning Orin woke before dawn.

This had not happened in ninety-seven years.

He arranged a small pile of gold.

Then rearranged it.

Then decided the whole thing looked ridiculous and pushed it aside.

He polished one goblet.

He had no idea why.

He moved a sword.

Put it back.

Moved it again.

Finally he sat beside the underground lake and stared at the black water.

Nothing happened.

Orin told himself this was unsurprising.

Selkies belonged to the sea.

They wandered.

They changed direction.

They disappeared.

He waited.

Still nothing.

Orin looked away.

The surface of the lake rippled.

He turned.

A dark head appeared.

Then two bright eyes.

Nessa hauled herself onto the rock.

She was carrying a waterproof bundle.

Orin tried very hard not to look delighted.

He failed.

“You came back.”

Nessa stood.

“You sound surprised.”

She threw something.

Orin caught it between two claws.

A packet of chocolate digestives.

Dark chocolate.

He stared at it.

Then at her.

Nessa held up another packet.

“I brought two.”

Orin looked at the biscuits.

Then at Nessa.

Dragons, everyone knew, were creatures who hoarded precious things.

Gold.

Jewels.

Anything rare.

Anything beautiful.

Anything they could not bear to lose.

But he did not close the passage behind her.

He simply moved aside and made room beside the fire.

Nessa noticed.

Of course she did.

Selkies noticed paths left open.

She sat beside him.

Orin opened the biscuits.

Carefully.

He offered her the first biscuit.

Nessa took it.

Her fingers touched his claw.

Neither pulled away.

Outside, far beyond the mountain, the tide was turning.

Nessa could feel it.

She always could.

For the first time in her life, she did not immediately feel the need to follow it.

She looked at Orin.

He looked at her.

“Well,” she said.

“Well.”

“I should probably tell you now.”

“What?”

“I’m very good at hide-and-seek.”

“So I gathered.”

“No. I mean very good.”

Orin’s eyes narrowed with interest.

Nessa smiled.

“If you want another biscuit, you’ll have to find me.”

She ran and darted behind the treasures.

Nessa tried not to laugh too loud.

Orin pretended not to hear her.

Not yet.

The dragon appeared to smile.

Then he began his search.