dying wish
A story I wrote based on the idea of if dragons and humans went to war and the humans lost.
The old man laid still on his back. He had been feeling sickly for over a week. Each day was worse than the last. Each hour a worse cough. Each minute a worse pain. Each moment without regret. He knew his time has come. No more in this life he is able to do with the decrepit body he now had. He laid there and waited. Waiting for death. What he saw was a dragon.
The old man looked toward the dragon and spoke. “ It is that time.” The dragon moved slowly over to the man and sat letting her huge body shade the old man of the rising sun. “ Is there anything I can get you. You have more than earned a treat after all these years.” The old man turned to his back so to be able to see the eyes of the dragon over him. “ If you be so kind a sip of water.
The dragon carefully scooped up some water from a nearby spring and brought it to him. When he had his fill and laying on his back once more he smiled. “ How long has it been now?” The dragon did not even have to think as she responded. “ Fifty-two years tomorrow night. I made you something.” The dragon brought a large stone tablet and hovered it over the man to let him read what is on it without straining himself any. ' Here lies the bones of the last living human'
The man smiled and reached to rub the dragon and succeeded when she set down the stone and let him rub her arm. “ I fear we may not make that mark my dear. My a long time and you have gotten so big.” The dragon shed a tear and it fell on him as she licked his cheek carefully. “ Nonsense, you will be here for another fifty years and I'll care for you this time.” The man rubbed the already crystallized tear and held it close as he peered into it.
“ Fifty-two years. I remember the first time we met. You were so little. An infant. I was not much more than that myself. Raised as a farmer to be a farmer from the day I was born. Then suddenly thrown into a suit of mail and given a spear. Told to kill my enemies I have never met. I was just a boy. Of course I ran. That is when I found you.” The man stared into the tear a moment before continuing. “ So small and little I was quite surprised finding you trying to gnaw into an apple unsuccessfully that night.”
Thou the dragon could not smile she felt she was. “ And here you came. A giant to my aid. You were as scared as me that night. You were as hungry and tired as I was. You cut that apple for me and we shared it in the shelter of some bushes as those hunting either of us were around. When we were discovered you sacrificed your own freedom to keep me hidden.” She then turned sad. “ Then the lashes.”
They both shuddered to the memory. “ It was a foolish thing you following me you know.” The dragon decided to lay down around the man as if he was a nest egg. “ I would have remained lost longer and you would have been dead. The one that destroyed the camp that night only stalled till I was out of harm way.”
The old man reached over the side of his bed to rub a scar on her side. “ You would not have been hurt or punished either.” She did not respond immediately. It was hard and painful youths for the both of them back then. “ Yet you still lived and I learned from the pain.” The old man put the extended limb back on the crystal on his chest. “ Then the war.”
“ You kept me alive. Death and destruction over and over. Time and again. Years of seemingly endless conflict. We have a pact. I stay by your side and you mine. We belonged to neither side so neither side would trust us. We lived day to day. Searching for a place to call home. Gathering others doing the same.” The dragon was happy again for a moment. “ Freedom from everything. No loyalties or rules but that of the world. Those soon ended when noticed we started gathering more than needed survival supplies.”
The old man turned his head from the dragon. “ Take small want small. We take little so we were hunted little. Bandits but honest ones. Simple rules simple life. A good life. I miss it but I never wish to return.” The dragon moved the thin cloth over the mans legs. They have not moved once he collapsed over a week ago. Yet they keep getting removed some how. “ Betrayal, we never did figure out who did it but the why was obvious. Money.”
“ We scattered to the wind. The plan was to regroup but after such fiendish actions we did not go to the meet to take place. Instead we started looking for a place to call home.” The old man smiled again. This time looking to her other side where her head rested on her tail. “ Which is why we are here now. The first to settle in this valley.”
The dragon was once again happy. Remembering the latter days of war only being piece and tranquility for the two of them. “ Well you used your background of a farmer to start a nice farm here. I was happy to help to eat. Getting cooked foods was nice. Too bad I will not have another meal prepared by you.”
The old man sighed. “ When they came for me you once again protected me. When they saw this and figured out our home was big enough for more they moved in without asking. More work for me. A lot more.” The dragon nuzzled the humans cheek a moment as if an injured child. “ When I proved they could not boss me or you they started calling me a priestess. The priestess of the earth.”
“ They called you that because you were the only one willing to dirty their claws with dirt to grow food. To put in the effort for increased stores of food. That is different now but the name stays.” The dragon rubs the black jewel necklace around her neck. She then takes it off and puts it on the ground. “ Not to you. Not ever to you. We are equal. Equal friends. Not going to change now in the last hours.”
“ And how would you suggest we change it? How could I change when I was stolen by some of the last humans. Taken to their settlement. You looked for me. You came for me. Then they trapped you. That time I freed you before we came back home. Never looking back to find out the settlements fate after so many years. Almost twenty years now I think.” The dragon could have corrected him but did not. She did look back a few years after her escape. She went over the settlement and saw humans still alive there. The female that stole him and breed him still there with two children of the right age about her.
“ When we got back the whole place was in disarray. Not gone a week and every sensible dragon in fifty miles seemed to have lost their mind. Trying to take livestock we need for breeding for just a glutenous snack. The very seed planting torn up for sport. Stupid male tried to have his way with me! I made him not a male anymore. Took his own life I heard.”
The dragon stared down into the mans eyes. Remembering his full and wonderful life with her. After a moment she continued. “ Of course having my own nest kept me away from you. When I did find one suitable to mate with. When I heard about your hurt not even they could keep me away. It is time I let them have a little independence anyways. Good for them isn't it?” The dragon paused and waited for a response.
It took a moment for her to notice he had not blinked in some time. She was the last thing he saw and he was happy. Her tears became from one to many. So many they covered his body completely. So many she covered her own body. So together they remain with the tombstone reading. ' Here lies the last human and his only friend. May they have happiness and their friendship equal in the next life as in this one.'