Chapter Text
Fuel-Of-Fire rushed between the human dens, trying to keep quiet, while also rushing to the safety of the forest. Her tiny dark blue body is easily able to hide in the shadows of the wooden dens. And as she carefully moves her starving body through the wooden structures, she ponders on why this is so natural to her.
Suddenly, the wind brings the stench of humans to her attention, and so she rushes to a nearby den, one that seems to stand proud and imposing in the midst of the rest, and climbs the side of it, hiding in its shadows.
She slowly watches as two big humans walk beneath her, one of whom had wood and metal instead of a paw while the other reeked of power and importance. An Alpha human. The dragon thought to herself.
Both of them were walking very oddly, even for typical humans. And they were laughing and knocking into each other, during a period in which humans often slept. But the smell of these two humans was not jolly, not totally, for the prominent smell, besides the horrid one they both breathed, was of sadness and of loss.
Fuel-Of-Fire considered these two for a moment, a pang of sympathy rang from her, before she shook her head. I must continue. My captors could have noticed my escape by now.
As she crouched, her wings spread as far as they could go in her state of weakness, she heard a cry.
Her head snapped towards the noise. Her instincts screamed at her to find the source and help it, and when the cry began again louder and longer she realized that it was a hatchling’s cry, and very human.
She was torn between gliding away and helping the hatchling, recognizing the fact that human hatchlings were almost always by grown humans.
But when there was a third cry she made up her mind, if a human has not heard this little one cry yet, none will.
She crawls towards the noise, through a blasted open wall and towards a wooden structure that sat towards the back of the den. She was too tiny to see the hatchling, but she knew that they were being supported by the wood somehow. Fuel-Of-Fire moves through piles of ash towards the crying creature, carefully climbing the structure as it swayed under the weight of her body.
Now able to fully see the hatchling, the small-flame-bringer could finally see the small auburn furred boy. He was surrounded by furs, not of his body the dragon noted, and was crying loudly, face scrunched up from how big his mouth is.
Slowly Fuel-Of-Fire moves to the hatchling, cooing softly “I am here small-one.”
Suddenly the human stops crying and stares at the creature in front of him, stopping the dragon in her tracks. There is a moment where both of them stare at each other before the human is back to crying.
Fuel-Of-Fire’s inner-flame sputters at the sight, and so she quickly moves to the hatchling, rubbing the back of her talons along his face, caressing him in hopes to quiet his suffering, and in attempts to remove the odd water coming from his eyes. “It’s alright my little-flame. I am here. What is wrong?”
As she continued to caress and coo at the small hatchling, Fuel-Of-Fire assessed the state of the human. She noted the fact that the youngling was not injured, from what she could currently see, but she did find that the human was colder than she expected.
Deciding that this might be the cause of the humans suffering, Fuel-Of-Fire carefully moved around the hatchling’s flailing paws, encasing him with her wings so that they could share inner-flame. And as she did this, she found it odd that she was having difficulties fully covering the hatchling with her wings.
Not important, focus on Hatchling.
As she focused back on the hatchling she noted that the human was still wailing, but a little less.
“What is wrong, small-one?” and as Fuel-Of-Fire softly growls this, the human body growls without thought or intention as a response. “Ah so you are hungry little-one.” She nuzzles the human in understanding. “That is something I can fix.”
But as she moved to go and hunt, she remembered how cold the hatchling was before she shared inner-flame with him. His inner-flame must not be strong yet…
As she thought about this, she remembered how the grown humans often wore the fur and skin of other creatures, and then she remembered the furs around the hatchling. Humans must need these stolen skins to stay warm. Slowly, the dragon used her claws to position the furs over the mostly bare hatchling, besides a fur cloth wrapped between his legs.
With the cold hatchling problem mostly fixed, Fuel-Of-Fire quickly lept from the tiny human nest to the wooden ground, sniffing the air to hopefully find anything to hunt close by.
She smelled the air, picking up many smells, most prevalent being the hatchling’s discomfort and sadness. Eventually she was able to discern fish, and followed it downwards. The area she entered was larger, but way darker.
Luckily, she was able to see that the den she entered was full of wooden carvings, ranging in size and shape. This was because her eyes had adjusted to darker environments, due to her entrapment in the human-death-grove.
She continues to follow the smell of fish, weaving between small pillars of misshapen wood. The smell led her to a big woven container. The fishy smell was wafting from it, both old and new scents combining. Carefully she tried to climb it, finding that her claws could easily tear it, up to the top. When she got to the top of it, she found that she was easily able to remove a covering, finding many fish piled into it. Carefully and quickly, she ate a couple of fish and then grabbed one of the bigger ones for the hatchling. She then crawled down the object and back up to the little one.
And as she reached the wobbling nest the hatchling was laying in, she realized that she had no idea how humans ate, especially little hatchlings.
-------------
After a while of careful poking and prodding at the mouth of the human, and a lot of disgruntled wails from said human, the dragon was finally able to get the hatchling to eat. So she slowly, and almost habitually, crawled around the youngling and carefully covered him with her wings. She then started to softly croon. Her crooning wasn’t anything special, just sounds to hopefully make the hatchling sleep.
And like she hoped, and slightly expected, the hatchling’s breath slowed and he peacefully slept in her embrace. Fuel-Of-Fire felt her inner-flame sputter, a sputter that mourned the loss of something she could not remember.
And this frustrated her. Because what she did in the past, was obviously helping her and incentivizing her actions in the now. She found this hatchling because she felt this urgent need to, one she was certain that was stronger than any other dragon. Her knowledge of hatchlings, mostly of dragon ones, was helping her care for this obviously neglected one, because a hatchling is a hatchling no matter what and they needed help in almost the same ways it seems. But she did not understand why she knew these things.
Her inner-flame started to grow as she thought of why her memories were gone, of the mad monster who ruled her mind for many winters. The anger grew as she remembered waking up from the blinding hunger of Red-Queen-Alpha, only to be bound by darkness and her own hunger.
Slowly smoke began to fall from her nostrils. This smoke caused the hatchling in her wings to start coughing in his sleep, a whine starting to form in his throat, and instantly Fuel-of-Flame doused the growth of her Inner-Flame. She slowly cooed apologies to hatchling, hoping to calm the distraught feeling of the human. Eventually he did fall back to sleep, much to the delight of the dragon.
But as she thought of the hatchling under her care, she finally allowed herself to think of the abnormalities of the human’s situation. She thought of the fact that he was alone in a den, something that very much angered her.
She analyzed the scent of the human, picking it apart to hopefully learn more of him. And yet she found things that saddened her. The hatchling’s dam and sire’s scent were practically gone, though the sire’s was definitely stronger, and was oddly familiar. The hatchling’s smelled reeked of sadness and misery, even though he wasn't feeling it now, it clung to him.
She knew deep in her inner-flame that this hatchling would not have survived long if she hadn’t intervened. And as she pondered that fact she came to the realization that when she left, this hatchling could very well die.
But before she could process those thoughts, she heard human laughter and yells coming towards the den. She carefully and quickly removed herself from the hatchling. But before she could leave the nest the human whacked her wing. The dragon turned her head to the human, finding him still asleep.
Fuel-Of-Fire stared at the human, she thought of the fact he would be dead without her, and then she carefully licked his forehead, scenting him.
SLAM
Wood collided with wood down below, and stomping followed. The dragon leapt away from the hatchling and towards the hole. But before she leapt, Fuel-Of-Fire quietly growled at the human.
“I will return, my hatchling.”
And with that she sprang open her tiny wings, and flew high in the air, memorizing her path to the woods.
---------------
Fuel-Of-Fire returns the next night to the hatchling, checking him over and protecting him while he slept. She had even brought her own kill for the hatchling, in case he was hungry, but luckily it seemed that he was fed. She had also found the smell of his sire was stronger, but it was still very weak.
Time passed, and the hatchling steadily grew, he began to seek out the comfort of Fuel-Of-Fire. He would reach for her snout everytime she came in, he would even gurgle happily, and he complained less when she tried to feed him. His scent reflected this, the miserable smell had begun to fade and the sadness was nearly gone.
That wasn’t the only thing about his smell that had changed, there was a whole new component to the hatchling’s smell. Fuel-Of-Fire came to realize that the smell was her, it was her own smell. It seemed that the Hatchling was starting to trust the dragon, enough for his scent to fully incorporate and accept Fuel-Of-Fire into itself.
Fuel-Of-Fire was overjoyed by this, but that also meant that the hatchling was going to need to go through a naming ceremony.
This naming ceremony is a tradition among all dragonkind, there is not a dragon who typically opts out of the event. It occurs at monumental moments in a dragon’s life, from their birth, to them leaving the nest, or them finding their Flame-Mate. When a dragon reaches one of these critical moments in their life, they will be given a new name. Typically they choose it themselves, unless they are too young, then their dam will choose it for them. And the ceremony is usually held with their flock in attendance, to show support for the next part of their life.
Fuel-Of-Fire has a vague memory of her last naming ceremony. She cannot remember any of the scales of her flock, not even one from her Flame-Mate’s body. But she can remember that it was close to when she was stolen from them. She also remembers how bright her inner-flame was. The joy she and her flock shared.
She wanted to give this to her hatchling, she wanted to give all the joy she felt to this little one. She knew he was not of her own physical brood. But she also knew that she was probably one of the few creatures to care about him. There was no other creature's smell on him, besides her and his flame-givers, his dam’s scent was almost gone. So, she felt it was her duty to take care of this hatchling, raise him, even if he didn’t have the body of a dragon, she would make certain his inner-flame was strong as one.
And that began with a naming ceremony, though. They had to celebrate him accepting Fuel-Of-Fire as one with his scent, even though he did not know the importance of such an act. He also could not be called a hatchling forever.
And that was the problem Fuel-Of-Fire was currently having. They were both on the ground of the bottom part of the den, the hatchling crawling around and exploring the den while Fuel-Of-Fire watched and thought. She had brought both of them down here, carrying the hatchling on her back, so that the boy could work on his strength of movement. This was an important step in a dragon’s development, since they must be able to move to hunt and survive.
The boy was a natural at it in Fuel-Of-Fire’s opinion. He was able to move great distances without tiring, and he was already climbing small ledges in the short span of moons he had been alive.
But even though he was able to move so far, and was very agile already for his moon-count, Fuel-Of-Fire didn’t feel that that was an important aspect to name him for. It didn’t encompass his current strength of inner-flame or his future potential.
“What to name such an active and curious hatchling as you…” Fuel-of-Fire growled to no one, as she was laying on the ground.
She watched as the hatchling moved towards a piece of wood at the side of the den, one that she knew to be broken because she used to get into the den. She had found it after the original hole she had entered through was fixed. The hatchling seemed to be fascinated by it though, slowly touching it and pulling at it until it came loose. He cooed happily as he played with the piece.
After some time of waving the wood around and staring at it the hatchling slowly tried to put the wood back in place, using his soft small weak claws to maneuver the wood into the shape it needed to go in. And eventually he succeeded, the wood looked like it had before the hatchling came along, besides maybe a few chips missing from the edges.
As Fuel-Of-Fire watched the hatchling do all this, she remembered many other instances where the hatchling would use his paws in different ways. How he would use this to express his feelings, waving them in excitement or agitation. How he had used them to climb onto Fuel-Of-Fire’s back with little prompting. And she remembers just how different they were to other dragons, how no other dragons used their own paws to this extent.
Her thoughts were interrupted though when she felt little paws poke her nose. When she focused on the hatchling in front of her, he giggled a little, slapping his paws together. Fuel-Of-Fire rumbled happily before curling around her hatchling.
She paused for a moment, deciding how she was going to handle this very important moment. Remembering that it was only them in the den (Fuel-Of-Fire always checks if the sire of the hatchling was gone before she entered the den.) and that she would be the only one to remember this event, Fuel-of-Fire began to growl.
“I, Fuel-Of-Fire, the new caretaker of this hatchling, give the name Clever-Paws to this hatchling, so that he may one day use these paws to cleverly make himself a new den and life.” She then carefully licked Clever-Paws’ face, at which he giggled and shook his paws at.
----------------
It’s a little after two winters had passed again when Fuel-Of-Fire fully realized that her and her Clever-Paws’ nightly meetings would have to end.
The both of them were sitting on Clever-Paws’ stationary nest (his Rocking-Nest removed many moons ago.) Clever-Paws was trying to learn how to growl better, a skill he had trouble with especially since he was learning human communication also. And even though he was frustrated, he put his best effort into the task constantly, telling Fuel-Of-Fire that he wanted to better understand her and the rest of his kind.
As he was repeating a series of growls to himself, spinning and twisting a set of broken nets in his hands, a sudden slam and stomping of paws interrupted their time. Both of the dragons jumped in surprise before Fuel-Of-Fire rushed to a fish-container and hid inside. And as soon as Clever-Paws had covered the container did the stomping reach the part of the den they were in.
The smell of anger and fear filled Fuel-Of-Fire’s nostrils. The anger was tinged with the stench of Alpha-Sire, named after the fact he was Clever-paws’s sire and he was the alpha of the humans, a fact Fuel-Of-Fire learned during a lesson with Clever-Paws about dragon culture. She could not understand a growl they were saying to each other, only understanding the sound “Hiccup,” which was what humans called her hatchling. The growls and screeches from Alpha-Sire continued for a while, the smell of sadness growing along with it before he finally left.
When another slam resounded throughout the den, only then did Fuel-Of-Fire finally leave the fish-container. On the ground, beside his nest, Clever-Paws silently wept into his knees, rubbing his front paws into his legs. Fuel-Of-Fire quickly crossed the room, cooing the whole time, and when she finally reached her hatchling, the boy quickly grabbed her, and began crying into her scales.
Fuel-Of-Fire tried not to think about how much bigger her hatchling was in comparison to her, as she slowly rubbed his face with her muzzle. It took a while for Clever-Paws to finally stop crying, but when he did Fuel-Of-Fire carefully asked what the two of them talked about.
It took a moment before Clever-Paws carefully growled out a timid response, “He… wanted to know… why I was awake…”
Fuel-Of-Fire hummed in affirmation, maneuvering herself to sit next to Clever-Paws head. Clever-Paws’s sleeping habits was a sore point for his sire, since he mostly slept in the day so he could spend time with Fuel-Of-Fire. It almost rivaled Alpha-Sire’s anger at how Clever-Paws was weak at moving with two paws, which confused Fuel-Of-Fire since she believed it didn’t matter how Clever-Paws moved, but she was confused often with Alpha-Sire’s anger.
Clever-Paws continued, pausing sometimes to remember what he was trying to say. “He also said that he wants me to… stop doing useless stuff… and be a true…” He then said a word from the human tongue with disgust, that Fuel-Of-Fire did not understand nor cared for.
Anything that displeases my hatchling and comes from the jaw of that awful human means nothing, and should not be given my attention.
Fuel-Of-Fire turns to the boy and nuzzles him. “Do not worry about what he said, my little one.” Clever-Paws groans at being called little, obviously wanting to point out the actual size difference between them, but he keeps his mouth closed.
They both sit in silence for a while, Clever-Paws taking his string and playing with it while the dragon thinks and worries.
This was the fifth time the Alpha-Sire had nearly caught her this month. She also knew that her hatchling couldn’t avoid the rest of the humans for much longer, she knew that they were gonna want to teach him how to be a human. And she also acknowledged her little Clever-Paws wasn’t gonna be able to learn what he wanted from under her tutelage, she didn’t have the ability to do what he could. The conclusion she came to saddened her, but she also knew that a change in situation would also allow for new, and better opportunities.
Slowly she nudged her head into Clever-Paws’s fur, grabbing his attention.
Softly she cooed, “I have come to the decision that we must change the time and place in which we meet.” She continued even as the boy started to squeak in protest. “I also do not like that this has to happen, but I must protect you. And I also can not provide you everything you need. We both know this.” She softly caressed his cheek, wiping away the salty water that spilled from his eyes. “You understand. Correct?”
“I do.” He nodded a little, before nuzzling his head into Fuel-Of-Fire’s scales. “Where will we meet now?”
She pondered this for a moment before deciding. “I will find a location tomorrow. Meet me at the forest edge the day after tomorrow. Sometime in the afternoon.”
Clever-Paws nodded a little, before they lapsed into silence.
Both of them took a moment to soak up the other’s presence in preparation for the change that they were about to undertake.
When Clever-Paws yawned, Fuel-Of-Fire motions for him to get into the nest. They slowly begin to do a routine for the last time. Clever-Paws got changed into furs he said were more comfortable for sleep, while Fuel-Of-Fire prepared the nest for him. And as Fuel-Of-Fire tucked Clever-Paws into his nest, cleaning his fur a little with a few licks, Clever-Paws asked something.
“Will you stay with me?”
And without a beat Fuel-Of-Fire responded “As long as I am able, my little flame.”
Clever-Paws smiled as he closed his eyes and Fuel-Of-Fire curled up on his little chest, beginning to croon a song for the boy.
As the little boy started to fall asleep listening to the song, Fuel-Of-Fire thought to herself. I can’t do this alone… He needs more kin. I need more of our kin. We need a flock…
Like humans, dragons can not live alone forever. They need a flock, especially dragons like Fuel-Of-Fire. So if Fuel-Of-Fire was to raise this boy like a dragon, they needed to find a flock. And that was another reason why she decided they had to start meeting outside, because they couldn’t find dragons in here, and she wasn’t gonna leave this boy alone for more than a day.
And as she thought of those things she fell into a light slumber, mentally and physically preparing herself to scour the forest for a safe space.
-------------