A Tale of Dragons

Chapter 2

"Why not?" the dragon asked. "Wood elves are a tasty treat and I haven't ventured out of this cave for meat in... Oh, almost twenty years."

The dragon took a step toward the woman. Ethan, though he was still unsteady on his feet, bounded over to her so he was between them. He wasn't sure what he could do because the dragon's feet were larger than his torso. However, he couldn't just sit back and watch a woman be eaten alive.

"You can't do that."

The dragon stopped and flopped down in front of Ethan. Behind the dragon was an immense pile of gold dotted with silver and precious stones. The sight took Ethan's breath away. Something in him felt pulled towards the gold. Itcalled to him. Ethan could almost feel the gold and it was brimming with... something. Something powerful, something that Ethan really wanted.

"Eyes up boy." The dragon said in a bored tone. "I'll forgive the l**t in your eyes because of your youth. But if you touch a single piece of that gold I'll tear you limb from limb."

The dragon didn't seem mad or angry, just bored and letting Ethan know the natural consequences of messing with his gold.

"Why do you care about the elf?" The dragon asked.

"Because murder is wrong."

"Right, wrong. It's all the same thing." The dragon said with a sigh. "I've lived a lot longer than you whelp. When you get to my age you learn that there are no absolutes."

Ethan smiled -- to his surprise he still could -- as a plan formed in his mind. "Would you care to bet on that?"

"Oh?" For the first time, the dragon didn't seem completely bored.

"Here are the terms." Ethan said. "If I can prove beyond a doubt that absolutes exist, then you release the woman and swear to never hurt her again."

"And when you fail?"

"Um, what do you want?"

The dragon tapped its immense talons on the floor of the cave. It suddenly occurred to Ethan that this dragon was many times his size and could do whatever he wanted.

The dragon spoke after a moment of deliberation. "If you fail to prove there are absolutes by sunset, then you must surrender all of the gold in your crop and watch me eat the elf."

"What's a crop?" Ethan asked.

The dragon shook its massive head and looked disgusted, "You would challenge me to a battle of wits when you are unarmed? Foolish whelp."

The dragon shook its head again. "Your crop is a small pouch in your gullet. Dragons typically swallow some gold and store it there so they always have some nearby."

Ethan barely remembered a biology lesson about chickens that described something similar. It was a sort of pouch in their throat or stomach that held food before it was digested. Ethan touched his stomach and could feel something beneath his skin and scales. He hadn't noticed it before, but it called to him like the pile of gold, though there couldn't be more than a few coins in his crop.

"Do we have a deal?"

"Deal." Ethan replied.

"Then prove it." The dragon commanded.

"You said that there are no absolutes, correct?" Ethan asked. The dragon nodded, so Ethan continued, "Then I have just one question: are youabsolutely sure there are no absolutes?"

The dragon blinked several times, opened its mouth to respond then closed it again. The dragon then c****d its head to one side for a few moments, opened its mouth to answer, and then closed it again.

"Here's the problem." Ethan said. "Saying there are no absolutes is an absolute statement. Even if you were right, you would be wrong because you are contradicting yourself."

The dragon rested its head on it forelegs for several minutes before responding. "Well done boy, though perhaps I should not call you boy anymore. Very well, take the wood elf and go. I should like you to come back though. I might enjoy conversing on this topic further."

Ethan nodded.

Only then did it occur to him that he'd spent the entire conversation standing on all four of his legs. It felt remarkably comfortable and natural considering he hadn't had four legs for a whole hour yet. He stood up on his hind legs like he was used to doing, and that felt perfectly natural too.

The dragon waved his hand in the direction of the woman. Ethan felt...something pass through the air. He wasn't sure what it was, but it made his scales stand up on end. Moments later he heard the sound of a lock clinking and the woman immediately stood up.

Apparently she wasn't unconscious.

"Blasted paralysis cuffs!" the woman said as she shook the leather restraints off, kicked them for good measure, and then whirled to face the dragon. "By Ithlan, how could you, Drousin?"

The dragon shrugged. "I was hungry."

"Two years!" She shouted. "We've been talking for two years! And all of a sudden I'm on the dinner menu! You don't even need to eat with all that gold! You said so yourself!"

The woman marched up to the dragon -- Drousin -- and poked her finger at his paw. The paw was arguably larger than she was and she was only a few feet from his mouth. His jaws were so big he probably could have swallowed her whole.

"I demand an explanation." She said.

"I was hungry." The dragon shrugged again. "Now leave before I get hungry again. Right now, I feel like taking a nap."

And with that, Drousin turned, lumbered slowly back to his pile of gold, flopped down on it and closed his eyes. Moments later, the sound of snoring began echoing through the chamber.

The woman stood glaring at the sleeping dragon for almost a whole minute. If this had been a cartoon, Ethan was sure there would be steam rising from her head. Finally, she turned around to look at him.

She was tiny.

She about five feet tall and couldn't weigh an ounce over a hundred pounds. Her hair was a rich, chocolate-brown in color and fell to her mid-back. Her eyes were almond shaped and her ears were several inches long and ended in points. She was wearing a knee-length green dress made from cloth, although it looked like leaves.

There was something very wild about this girl, though woman might've been a better term. She was clearly young, or at least she looked young. He wasn't sure how that worked for wood elves. It was just starting to sink into Ethan's head that he'd just matched wits with a dragon for the life of a wood elf.

"Thank you. My name is Alana."

"Hi, I'm Ethan." He held out his hand -- his three fingered hand, covered in scales.

Alana gave him a quizzical look.

"Sorry, it's just how we say hello where I'm from." Ethan said and dropped his hand.

"I suggest we leave this fouls worm's lair before he wakes up and changes his mind about dinner." Alana said with a scowl and a dirty look in Drousin's direction.

Ethan nodded and they walked in silence to the mouth of the cave. On the way out, he noticed several charred human skeletons. One of them was still smoking slightly. He decided not to ask about them.

They reached the mouth of the cave and he looked around. They were about a hundred yards up the side of a large hill, and below them a forest stretched out for many miles. The sky was a cloudless blue and judging by the position of the sun it was midafternoon. The air was warm, the leaves were green, and the birds were singing, so Ethan guessed it must be spring.

"Thank you again." Alana said. "Few people would risk their lives for a total stranger, and until today I would never have thought a dragon would be one of them."

"You're welcome. But that dragon didn't really seem interested in killing me, so I'm not sure I risked my life."

Alana looked at him as if he had just told her that the sky was neon green. "I meant he would take the gold in your crop."

He could feel it. It wasn't much, but he could feel some kind of power emanating from it. It made his blood stir, and he realized he would have found it very hard to give the gold up if the dragon had won the bet and demanded it.

He turned to Alana. "Why would giving up the gold be risking my life?"

Alana gave him that same confused look again. "I don't mean to be rude, but don't you know anything about your own kind?"

"Not really." Ethan looked down at his clearly draconic form and couldn't help but smile at the irony.

"From what land do you hail?" she asked. "For dragons go wherever there is gold, and I can't imagine a world blessed enough to be without them."

"I'm from..." he thought back to his life on Earth. Strange, it probably wasn't an hour ago, but somehow it felt like such a long time. "I'm from a long way away I think. Maybe another solar system?"

"What's a solar system?" Alana asked, and then glanced back into the cave. "Perhaps we should find a safer place to have this chat. Perhaps my house? It's only a couple of miles away and dinner is the least I can offer for the dragon that saved my life."

"Sounds good, please lead on." Ethan said, noticing for the first time that he was actually quite hungry. Alana started walking and he dropped to all fours to walk beside her. His head was now about level with her hips.

"So where are you from?" she asked.

"I'm from Earth."

"You came from... the ground?" Alana gave him another confused look.

"No, I mean I'm from another planet. I think."

"What's a planet?"

"It's a..." he started, but trailed off. How did you explain that in a few words?

"Okay, let's try a different question." She offered. "How did you get here?"

Ethan told her what had happened, but left out exactly why he had been so angry. He also relayed his dream to her, though it didn't seem so much like a dream anymore. Alana was confused about why he had a pipe in his house filled with something that could kill him, but otherwise listened without comment.

"You saw the skeletons in the cave?" she asked when he had finished.

"Yup."

"Those were dragon hunters after Drousin's gold. They used magic to kill Drousin's son in the attack. It sounds like he called a death shaman to try a resurrection spell on his son. Instead of getting his son, he must've gotten you. It's strange, I've never heard of a human soul entering a dragon's body."