Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind

By Beka Gremikova

Basket snug under her arm, Elmira scanned the forest floor. A long, paper-thin material poked out among the nettles—a discarded dragon skin. It was yellow and curled, probably a few days old. Still, she had to be on the right track.

Where are you? She swiped a hand across her brow. She hadn’t huddled in a tent alone for weeks—surrounded by the threat of bears and jackals—to go home empty-handed.

Her toe bumped something sharp and ridged. Squatting, she ran her fingers across two large, glinting scales.

Not as many as she’d hoped, but they were better than nothing. And they hadn’t started to crumble yet, so they would fetch a better price on the market. Still, she had to act quickly to preserve them. She dipped her fingers into the pouch at her waist and rubbed tamir paste across the scales before dropping them into her basket.

Such fresh scales, she thought. There must be a dragon nearby somewhere.  And while dragons tolerated scale gatherers in their forests, it was an unspoken rule that if a gatherer angered one, the dragon had complete rights to attack. No one would save her if she got into trouble.

Senses alert, she continued to forage through the mountain forest with its towering trees. The vibrantly green, wide-brimmed leaves of fuska plants brushed her bare upper arms as she passed by them, and tingles of warmth swept through her skin. Elmira crept along overgrown paths and through unexpected clearings, her gaze darting to every fallen log or—

On the far side of a field of golden flowers sat a clump of rocks.

Except they weren’t rocks.

She let out a breath and crouched.

She’d heard foreigners brag about their winged dragons swooping down from the sky, but among Sobrek’s forested mountains, there were places to hide from these beasts. She feared far more the dragon without wings—the dragon that could dash over land in a blink and rip its teeth into her before she knew what happened.

The dragon watched her with small, glittering eyes. Its tongue flicked in and out, tasting her scent on the air. Its hide rippled with scales and muscle as it glided toward her.

But it stopped suddenly in the middle of the field.

Are those dragon scales you carry? The dragon’s question slid into Elmira’s head like a snake’s soft hiss.

She gripped the basket in both her hands. The dragon’s beady eyes stole any lie she might have told right from her mouth.

“Y-yes.” She wrapped her arm around the basket, her heart thundering. Hungry mouths waited for her at home. She couldn’t return empty-handed. She raised her head and met the dragon’s gaze. “Why do you ask?”

Why does a scale-less need scales? The dragon did not sound angry, merely curious. Confused, even.

She relaxed her tense shoulders and kept her voice even. “We make medicine and jewelry from them.”

I don’t understand.

“We—when we are wounded, we use them to get better. And…” She flushed. “We use jewelry for… displays.” She peeked over her shoulder to the trees at her back. If she ran in a zigzag pattern, perhaps…

Ah. The dragon nodded. Courtship displays. You are preparing for courtship?

“Uhh… no,” Elmira said. “Well, I mean, I’m already courted.”

You have dragonlings, then? The dragon’s voice rose slightly, and its talons scratched at the dirt.

Elmira’s throat closed at the thought of her babies. “Yes, three of them. They are back… back in my nest, far away.”

You will return to them soon?

“I hope to.” She held up the basket. “Your scales—selling them helps me feed my dragonlings.” She bit her lip. “I need them.”

How long until they breathe fire?

Until they were grown up? She prayed that’s what the dragon meant. “In my town, we care for our babies until they are sixteen summers old.”

The dragon’s jaw opened and shut, clicking noises echoing through the clearing. So long you care for your little ones. How very hard for you, vynema. The Sobrekian word for hero sounded odd coming from a dragon.

Elmira had never been called vynema. She was just an average woman, not a soldier or a princess.

Then again, she’d spent many months foraging alone in the woods throughout the years to provide for those she loved best. Perhaps that was a kind of heroism.

The dragon’s tongue flicked over her forehead. How did the creature get to her so fast? She tensed but remained still and quiet as the dragon nosed her hair. Her eyes dropped to the long, sharp talons that ripped up the earth in front of her bare feet.

Scales dripped like tears from the dragon’s body, scattering across the ground. They glittered in abundant heaps of purple, red, orange, and blue—the colours of dragon flames. Elmira licked her dry lips and clutched her basket to her chest. Selling all these scales directly to a factory would see her family through until next summer. She could return home earlier than expected and see her husband and children. Perhaps even pretend she would never have to leave them again.

“I—” she whispered. “May I take them? Please?”

Every day, the sun scorches them from my back. It would be a waste for another not to use them. Take them for your dragonlings. The dragon moved backward, bowing its head, still shedding scales. Elmira’s fear fell away much like the dragon’s scales. She sprang on them and smothered them with tamir paste before they could shrink. With trembling fingers, she placed them in her basket.

After a few minutes, she looked up just in time to see the dragon slink back into the forest with five smaller versions of itself sliding along behind.

Elmira smiled. “Farewell, vynema,” she murmured after the dragon and pressed a scale to her heart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beka Gremikova lives, writes, and dreams from the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada. When she’s not globe-trotting, searching for Narnia, or exploring new cultures, she’s gushing over anime and manga, BBC classical adaptations, and video game characters. She has been published in the A Kind of Death anthology from Uncommon Universes Press, and is currently working on a short story and poetry collection of fairy tale retellings.

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