Kayda Saves the Day

CHAPTER 1

         Kayda wakes up, stretches, yawns, and finally gets up and crawls out of her cave. Once outside, she stretches again, then she walks across the gleaming white sand and slides into the warm, crystal clear, aquamarine water. She swims out quite far, dives down to the bottom, and retrieves a large, shiny pearl then she glides through the seaweed, coral, and the rainbow of fish before returning to the surface. She comes out of the water, shakes off, and lies down on the warm beach to admire her prize, sunlight glinting off her scales.
         Meanwhile, the people in the nearby village of La Mer Wald are also waking up and getting ready for the day. The baker is firing up his ovens, the fishermen are loading their nets into boats, the merchants are straightening the shelves, the farmers are hitching plows to oxen, and the mothers are trying to wake their children for school.
         La Mer Wald is a quaint little village surrounded on the northeast, north, and west by a lush green forest and on the southeast and south by the sea. It is connected to the other villages in the kingdom of Bright Haven by roads through the forest and trading routes on the sea. La Mer Wald is the southernmost and easternmost village in the kingdom as well as the most remote and this suits the residents just fine.
         Kayda goes back into her cave and stows her pearl in a corner with all her other prizes, including her favorite; a purple, gold, and black dagger with a curved blade that she took from a traveler who tried to stab her with it. She makes sure the pearl is securely atop the pile next to the dagger and then she goes back out to find breakfast.
         Kayda spends her day flying over the forest watching the deer and the rabbits and squirrels prancing and frolicking amongst the trees, gliding over the sea watching the dolphins leap and the whales blow water out of their blowholes, and sitting on the peak of the distant mountain just watching the clouds float by, discerning shapes in them, and listening to the birds sing. Eventually, it is time to go back home to her cave where she watches the sunset over the sea, enjoying the show of purples, pinks, and oranges transforming the sea into a work of art.
         The villagers of La Mer Wald are also ending their day. Ovens are turned off, fish are unloaded out of boats, shops are tidied up, plows are removed from oxen, and children are called inside for supper by their mothers.
         The night slowly closes over the village and the stars sparkle like diamonds on the water.

CHAPTER 2

         The next day Kayda gets up and goes for her daily morning swim. She dives to the bottom and runs her talons through the soft sand, making the crabs scatter, then she glides along next to a huge whale shark until the whale shark swims out too far for Kayda to follow. Then she turns around and returns to her beach.
         Over in the village, Aiken loads his cart with all the pots, vases, and bowls he made on his pottery wheel and covers it with a tarp. Then he hitches it to his horse and sets out through the forest to Nightshire, the next village over, to sell his wares. Even though he sets out early it is mid-morning when he reaches the village marketplace and close to noon by the time he sets up his table. He stays there until all of his wares are sold.
         By the time he sets off for home, it is just before dusk. As he enters the forest dusk turns into gloom and then into dark. As he ventures deeper into the forest it gets darker and darker so he lights a lantern and hangs it from a pole on his wagon. But the lantern's light shows only a little way ahead and as it gets later and he goes deeper into the forest the light becomes practically useless, only casting shadows on the trees. Every twig breaking startles Aiken and the howls of the wolves make him jump.
         As Aiken is coming upon the halfway point he sees lights ahead of him. At first, he is glad, thinking it is other peddlers heading home. But as he gets closer, he sees that the light is from lanterns hanging from the saddles of three bandits.
         "Halt" one of the bandits yells.
         Aiken brings his horse and wagon to a stop. "I don't want any trouble," he says.
         "Give us your money and there won't be any," the lead bandit says as he dismounts and walks toward Aiken.
         "No, I can't, I need this money to feed my family," Aiken pleads.
         "I don't care," the lead bandit replies coldly as the other two bandits close in.
         "I..I..I'm not giving you my money," Aiken stammers as he tries to back his horse up. But before he can get very far, the bandits are upon him and they pull him off the wagon and start to beat him up. They scare off his horse and start to try to pry the money pouch out of Aiken's hands.
         Kayda is flying home over the forest when she hears a commotion below her. She looks down through the trees and sees the bandits attacking Aiken. She dives down fast, branches slapping against her body causing leaves to cascade to the forest floor as she does. She swoops down towards the bandits just as they are about to grab the money pouch out of Aiken's hand. She hisses at the bandits and looking up they scream and run, mounting their horses hastily and riding off in a panic.
         Kayda circles above until Aiken regains consciousness twenty minutes later and sets off unsteadily to find his horse. Fortunately, the horse isn't far and the wagon isn't damaged. He gingerly gets back on the wagon and carefully makes his way back home with Kayda flying along above him.
          Once Aiken gets to the village, he goes to the sheriff's home to report what happened.
         "There were three of them, Sheriff Ivan, and they blocked my way, and beat me up, and tried to steal my money."
         "But you have your money, though, right, Aiken?"
         "Yes, but only because the dragon scared them away."
         "Dragon?"
         "Yes, Sheriff Ivan, a dragon. It was black with purple wings, it's arms and legs were green and purple, and it had short purple horns; and it hissed at them and they screamed and ran away."
         "Sure, sure," Sheriff Ivan says skeptically.
         "I'm telling the truth," Aiken insists.
         "Of course you are. Only, you clearly hit your head. It was probably a bear or something."
         "It wasn't a bear!"
         "Go home, Aiken, get some rest, take something for that headache," Sheriff Ivan says as he escorts Aiken out of his house.
         When Kayda is sure Aiken is safe, she flies off home.

CHAPTER 3

         The next day Kayda sleeps in a bit. When she finally gets up, she stays close to home, hoping the mention of a dragon doesn't spread through the village and cause the villagers to panic and attack. She extends her morning swim, swimming slowly and admiring the starfish, sand dollars, and seahorses. Later, she plays in the sand, rolling in it and covering herself with it, and digging holes and watching them fill with water before filling them back in. She watches the seabirds circle overhead and then dive down to catch fish. Then she goes for a walk along the beach away from La Mer Wald and towards one of her favorite spots in the entire kingdom of Bright Haven, an inlet where there are large rocks in the sea and tide pools on the beach. She lies down among the tide pools and with amazement she watches their little ecosystems in action. She stays there until the sun sets and then she walks back home under the light of the stars and the full moon.
         In the village, Aiken wakes up with a splitting headache. He takes something for the pain and tries to make sense of what happened the night before. He goes through it step by step over and over and over again. Everything is clear up to the point where the bandits beat him up but after that, things up until the time he finally passes out get a little blurry. He also thinks he remembers seeing the shadow of something large fly over the village as he entered it but he can't be sure. He doesn't tell his wife and children about the dragon for fear they would think he was crazy or hallucinating like Sheriff Ivan obviously did. Still, he is convinced there was a dragon and that it definitely was not a bear, for one, bears don't hiss and they certainly don't fly.
         Before he starts working at his pottery wheel, he heads off to the metalsmith's to buy a weapon. He tries out several, turning them over in his hands and testing their weight, before deciding on a short sword. He is determined that he will not be robbed by bandits again, if they stop him again he tells himself he will fight. Then he heads to his shop to start work. He molds vase after vase after vase and puts them in his kiln to be fired. When they are done, he decorates them with a black dragon with purple wings, green and purple arms and legs, and short purple horns.
         In the days to come, Aiken becomes obsessed with painting Kayda's likeness on his wares. These vases become very popular everywhere he sells them and he almost can't keep up with the demand. People ask where he got the inspiration for the design but he can't tell them the truth because they'll think he's crazy and who wants to buy from a crazy man? So, he tells them it was a dream.

CHAPTER 4

         One day after a night of fierce thunderstorms, Kayda comes out of her cave to hear a disturbance coming from the direction of the village and the forest. She decides to go check it out so she creeps silently and carefully towards the village, keeping to the cover of a row of overgrown berry hedges.
         "Rosalynn!"
         "Posie!"
         "Rosalynn, Posie, where are you?"
         Kayda watches and listens for a while and is able to determine that the village is looking for a pair of young girls. Kayda knows of a place that only the village children seem to know about. Many times, on her flights over the forest she has seen children in a small clearing well off of any path that is surrounded by trees growing so close together that their branches intertwine and the leaves form a sort of dome over the clearing. While she has seen the children there many times, she has never seen an adult.
         Kayda decides to go search there since none of the adults seem to know to look there. But she remembers that she needs to be careful and discreet so she creeps carefully back to her cave. Kayda knows that this clearing is on the other side of the village but she can't fly directly to it or else the majority of the village will see her. She knows humans are taught to fear dragons, that dragons are dangerous, man-eaters, and will roast them alive with their fire so she is sure they would come for her if they saw her. So, she walks past the inlet with the tide pools to a place where the cliff is easier to climb.
         Kayda starts to climb carefully, but the rock face is still wet from last night's rain. A third of the way up a rock she is holding on to gives way and she starts to fall. She spreads her wings and glides to the ground and once again starts the climb to the top of the cliff. Once at the top, she starts walking north until she is about a mile from the village then she takes flight and heads across the forest to the other side of the village. Once far enough to the west she turns back south and starts looking for the clearing. She has a lot of trouble finding it, she actually flies past it twice, so she slows down. Eventually, she finds it. The trees have all been uprooted by the storm and have fallen into the clearing. Through the tangle of downed trees, she can just make out the legs of one of the children. Kayda can't see her moving or the other girl at all. It looks bad to her and she knows the villagers won't find the girls or be able to help so she has to figure out a plan herself.
         After many circles of the former clearing and much thought, she decides she's going to have to lift the trees off the girls herself. So, she flies down and grabs the top tree, after a lot of tugging to free the tree's branches from the others she has it free but then she realizes there is nowhere to put the tree. She flies up above the tree line and looks around. Then she sees it, a small valley in the mountain range northwest of the former clearing. So she flies there and drops the tree and then turns around and heads back to where the clearing used to be. She grabs the next tree and repeats the process. Eventually, she realizes that it's going to take a long time to clear the trees so that she can get to the children. On a flight back she starts to think about other possible ways to get the trees off of them. She knows she can't use her fire; it could set the rest of the trees on fire or burn the girls. She decides to try to break the trees apart but when she tries to break a tree the pieces fly everywhere and they are very sharp, she sees one land very close to the girl so she decides against continuing to do that. So, she decides to stick with her original plan.
                   After several hours the trees are cleared enough that she can get to the girls so she gently picks them up and flies them toward one of the paths she saw the villagers searching on. She lays them gently on the grass and flies off home, reversing the way she got there.
         When the villagers find the girls, Rosalynn is mumbling about a dragon.

CHAPTER 5

         One day in October, Greta wakes up and gets dressed in a green sweater and grey pants. She eats a banana and a bowl of cereal for breakfast and then gets ready to walk to school. But when she steps outside and feels how unseasonably warm it is she runs back inside and up the stairs to her room. She rummages through her dresser until she finds a purple t-shirt. She quickly changes her shirt, runs downstairs, collects her backpack, and leaves for school.
         She meets up with her best friend Nixie and they kick their way through the leaves toward school. "It's too nice out to be cooped up in school all day," Nixie mopes.
         "So, let's not go, let's skip," Greta replies.
         "Well..."
         "You said it yourself, it's too nice to be inside."
         "But what if we get caught?"
         "What are they going to do, tell our parents?"
         "Yes, that's exactly what they'll do," Nixie states.
         "Oh, come on, Nixie, live a little."
         "Oh, fine, but if we get in trouble, I'm blaming you."
         So they set off at a run away from town and toward the beach. They take their shoes off, roll up their pants legs, and walk out into the waves. They start laughing and splashing each other. They stand at the edge of the water and then watch the waves wash their footprints away. Then they sit and draw in the sand and build little sand castles.
         "See, isn't this better than school?" Greta asks as she lounges on the beach with her toes buried in the warm sand.
         "Yeah, it is," Nixie agrees as she lies back on the sand with her hands behind her head.
         They lay there basking in the sun talking about school and their families and friends.
         After a while Nixie says, "Why don't we go exploring like we used to do when we were kids?"
         "Sure, let's go," Greta says as she stands back up and brushes off her pants.
         They pick up their shoes and backpacks and then walk through the water farther down the beach. Eventually, Greta exclaims, "Look, a cave. Let's go check it out."
         "I don't know, it looks like it'll be kinda dark in there and we don't have any torches," Nixie replies uncertainly.
         "Oh, come on, it was your idea to go exploring. It doesn't look that dark up front and our eyes will adjust as we go farther in."
         So, they put their shoes back on and make their way to the cave. As they approach the cave Nixie spots Kayda's pile of driftwood for her bonfires. "Hey, wait. There's some driftwood and I think I might still have some matches in my backpack from the last time we went camping with Pathfinder Girls." So, she puts her backpack down, opens it up, and rummages through all the books, papers, pencils, and her lunch until she finally finds the matches at the very bottom of her backpack. She pulls them out and they each grab a few branches of the driftwood and Nixie lights one each. Putting the matches in her pocket they head into the cave.
         As they venture farther into the cave they are mesmerized by the light of the flames sparkling off the veins of crystals running through the walls and ceiling of the cave. "Wooow," the girls chorus.
         They continue on around curves and past alcoves, stopping twice at forks in the cave to decide which one to follow, both times choosing not to veer off their path for fear of getting lost.
         Eventually, the driftwood branches burn down too far to hold and they have to put them out on the floor of the cave, kicking sand over them until they are extinguished. Nixie pulls out her matches and lights their other branches. As the driftwood branches start to light up they see a large shadow coming from behind them. They turn and see Kayda, who is returning from a flight along the coast so that she can add a copper necklace with a wolf on one side and dolphins on the other to her pile of treasures, standing before them. They scream, dropping their branches and the matches, and run away from Kayda. They fumble along with their hands running against the wall until the wall isn't there anymore. They stumble, fall down the side tunnel, and then get up and run down it. The tunnel loops back toward the front of the cave and they stumble along it until they eventually come out of one of the forks they decided not to take.
         They run out of the cave and back to town. They run to Greta's dad's grocer's shop. "Dad...Dragon...We saw a dragon," Greta says breathlessly.
         "Take a breath and slow down."
         The girls take a few minutes to catch their breath.
         "Now, repeat yourself, Greta."
         "We saw a dragon."
         "Where did you see a dragon? In a book, or painting, or something at school?" Her father asks skeptically.
         Greta replies emphatically, "No, in real life, in a cave along the beach."
         "Greta, there aren't any dragons in real life. They don't exist in anything but fairy tales. And when would you have been in any caves?"
         "Ah, well, we kinda sorta skipped school today 'cause it was so nice out," Greta said evasively, "but we can show you. We'll take you there."
         "I have a shop to run, Greta, and we'll talk about skipping school when we get home," he admonished. "And I'll be talking to your parents, too, Nixie."
         Nixie winces; she knows she is in big trouble now.
         "Come on," Greta says.
         "Where are we going, exactly?" Nixie asks.
          "We're going to go get supplies so we can bring my dad to the cave after he's done at work," Greta answers.
         "Oh, no, we're doing no such thing. You can go back to that cave if you want to, but I'm not going anywhere near that dragon," Nixie replies before turning and heading home.
         So, Greta heads home, collects a sweater, some torches, matches, and her dad's dagger, and heads back to her dad's shop. She waits outside for him for several hours before he comes out. She grabs his hand, shoves a torch in the other, and starts pulling him toward the cave.
         "Greta, stop this nonsense right now," he says as he pulls her to a halt.
         "It's not 'nonsense', it's the truth and I'll prove it," Greta insists forcefully.
         So, he sighs and follows her to the cave. Once they get there, Greta lights the torches and they head inside. Her dad is just as mesmerized by the crystals as the girls were. "I wonder if any of this is mineable," he muses.
         "I doubt it and even if it were the dragon would get you before you could," Greta answers.
         They retrace the girls' steps until they get to where the girls took the tunnel loop to get away from Kayda.
         "Which way, Greta?" her dad asks impatiently.
         "I don't know," she says looking straight ahead and to the right, "this is as far as we got forward. We took the tunnel on the left to get back, it's a loop, but we couldn't see anything. We had already dropped the driftwood branches we had lit."
         Her father ventures a little way up the right tunnel and then comes back. "That one looks like it might also be a loop so let's go forward."
         They continue farther on until they get to Kayda's sleeping area but all they see is a large pile of grass, straw, feathers, and sheep's wool in the corner and Kayda's pile of treasures. But there is no sign of Kayda herself who is out hunting for dinner.
         "I see no sign that this belongs to a dragon. No scales, no bones, no piles of dung, nothing."
         "What about that pile in the corner, it's soft, it's obviously a bed," Greta reasons.
         "Yes, it is. But that doesn't make it a dragon's den. This is probably just a pirate's hideout. See, pillaged treasure over here and a bed over there," her dad answers as he examines Kayda's treasures. He looks over at Greta before pocketing Kayda's pearl, her new necklace, a shiny emerald, and her purple, gold, and black dagger.

CHAPTER 6

         Kayda's flying back home from her dinner when she sees two people walking toward the village from the direction of her cave. This makes her nervous because it's the second time today people have been near or in her cave so she sets down on the cliff and watches for a while. Suddenly the moon comes out from behind a cloud and shines on the pair and she recognizes the smaller one as one of the girls from this afternoon. She stays on the cliff and watches until they enter their house then she flies down to her cave and goes inside. Nervously she goes to her room and looks around. She can tell almost immediately that her treasures have been disturbed and she is filled with dread. She goes and straightens up the pile looking for what might be missing. First, she notices the new necklace she dug out of the sand this morning is missing. She had liked the dolphins on the one side since she loved to swim with them. Then she notices the emerald she had found outside of a mineshaft up north last year was gone and her heart drops. She had loved the color and how it sparkled. Next, she notices the pearl from a couple of months ago was missing and her heart drops more. She remembers how smooth it was and how it shined. Finally, she notices that her dagger is gone and her heart breaks. She flops down and weeps inconsolably.
         Kayda wakes up the next day next to her depleted treasure pile. Looking at it, she remembers what happened last night and she starts to cry again. She drags herself outside and goes for her morning swim but not even seeing a mother hammerhead shark and her pups can cheer her up. She swims out farther and sees a pod of dolphins. They remind her of her stolen necklace and she starts to sob, scaring the dolphins away and causing seven-foot waves to crash against the shore; lifting boats and flooding piers in the village. She rides the waves back to the beach and goes and mopes in her cave, skipping both breakfast and lunch. She lies there asking herself, "Why did they do this? I didn't do anything to those girls. They were the ones who came into my home uninvited, so it was their own fault they got scared. I wasn't even trying to scare them. In fact, I've never hurt anyone, I've only ever tried to help. How could humans be so mean?"
         Dinnertime comes and goes but she just lies miserably at the entrance of her cave and watches the lizards crawl past before deciding to make a bonfire to try and cheer herself up. She grabs driftwood from her pile and lays it in a neat pile in the middle of the beach, then she breathes fire on it. She watches the wood burn blue and orange and violet but as pretty as the fire is, it fails to cheer her up. She watches it morosely until it burns out and then goes back inside and curls up next to her treasure pile and cries herself to sleep again.
         That night Kayda tosses and turns and has nightmares about the theft, over and over she sees them taking her things, in the nightmares they are laughing as they put her treasures in their pockets.
         She wakes up in the middle of the night furious, she wants to make them pay for what they did, make them suffer; she wants to invade their home, take away their treasures. She drifts back off to sleep with thoughts of revenge running through her head.

CHAPTER 7

         The next day Kayda wakes up determined to find a way to get her treasures back. But she is six feet tall and sixteen feet long with a wingspan of twenty feet, she can't just walk into that house and take back her things. And while she can understand their language she can't speak, even if she could find one who wasn't scared of her. And smashing the house to bits is wrong, no matter how good it would feel. So, she waits and watches... and watches... and watches.
         Days, weeks, she waits doing nothing but eating and watching, observing the house and its occupants. She learns there are three of them; the adult man, the girl, and a younger boy. She watches as they go to work, school, and church. She observes them at rest, work, and play. She learns their routines. She sees the boy playing soccer three times a week. She hears the girl playing the flute every night. She watches the man go out drinking with his friends every Friday night.
         Then, after about a month she sees the man walking unsteadily back from the tavern with a friend, drunkenly telling him about the "pirates' den" he found. "Look, come home with me and I'll show you the stuff I found," he says, slurring his words.
         So he leads his friend home and has him wait outside on the back patio. He goes inside and up the stairs and grabs a box out from under his bed. Then he brings it back outside to show his friend its contents. They sit in two patio chairs and Greta's dad puts the box down on the table between them. "I'm gonna hold on to these for a rainy day," he says, pulling out the emerald and pearl.
         His friend whistles and says, "I bet they'll fetch a pretty penny," reaching for them. He turns them over in his hand jealously before returning them to his friend.
         "This, I figure I'll hold onto. It should make for good protection, don't you think?"
         "Most definitely."
         "But this," he says as he pulls out the necklace, "this I'm giving to Greta for her birthday."
         "I bet she'll love that."
         "Yeah, she loves wolves. They're her favorite animal."
         His friend muses, "I wonder what else might be in there."
         "Oh, a bunch of stuff. Heck, there might even be more now. Plus, the cave is lined with crystals, I bet it could be mined if you knew how." They talk about her cave and fantasize about getting rich before they fall asleep in the patio chairs, angering her.
         Kayda waits to make sure they are really asleep, when she is sure that they are, she swoops down and snatches the box up off the table, knocking it over, and then circles a few times thinking about the tales of man-eating dragons, how easily she could make them true. But no, she shakes her head, then flies back to her cave. She is both delighted to have her treasures back and worried about the men's talk about her cave. She realizes she needs to find a way to hide her cave or discourage visitors. When she gets back to her room, she puts her treasures back where they belong. She lies down in her bed and falls asleep looking at her treasures and smiling.
         The next morning she wakes up and goes for her usual morning swim, enjoying it immensely after not going for any for a month. Then she climbs the cliff over her cave and starts untangling the honeysuckle vines and dangling the longest ones over the cliff. When she is done she flies down and admires her work. The vines form a curtain that both decorates the side of the cliff and partially covers the mouth of her cave. While they don't completely fall to the sand in front of the opening yet she hopes that eventually they will and at the very least the area looks very different than it did this morning and should hopefully confuse the man who took her treasures, hopefully making it so he doesn't recognize the place.
         Then she climbs the cliff again and flies north a few miles to where she knows there is an abandoned rock quarry and grabs some of the cast-off boulders and takes them to the edge of the cliff. It takes several trips to get boulders to and over the cliff. When they are all on the sand she positions them on the beach between her cave and the village in a both random and decorative arrangement that she hopes looks natural. Then she turns around and admiring her work, she realizes that the area does indeed look completely different than it did. She herself would almost not recognize it if she didn't know about the changes.

CHAPTER 8

         Winter comes and with it comes the bitter cold, ice, and snow. It is an unusually cold winter, it's so cold that nobody, not even the oldest elders, can remember a winter that was as cold or as snowy as this one. It snows most days and it rarely ever even reaches fifty degrees. Tree branches are so laden with snow and ice that the trees bend over and branches break off. Icebergs can even be seen in the ocean. Kayda skips her daily swims and only ventures from her cave to eat. To keep warm she moves her bonfires inside her cave and curls up right next to them.
         In La Mer Wald, coats are worn inside and extra blankets are put on beds (beds are even shared by whole families). School keeps being canceled and the entire village keeps having to be completely shut down, sometimes for days at a time. Parents have to scramble to find activities to keep their kids occupied and farmers with livestock have a hard time tending to their animals, trudging through feet of snow to reach their barns.
         Snowmen can be seen in yards; some houses are clearly competing with their neighbors with ever larger snowmen or entire snow families. Snow forts and snow angels can also be seen in yards with kids. On milder days the kids are outside playing. Snowball fights keep breaking out and kids with sleds become very popular, sharing their sleds and taking turns riding them down the big hill in the park at the edge of the village (kids who don't have sleds improvise homemade alternatives).
         "I was just checking on Gertie, Margie, and Benny," Conrad tells his wife as he strips off his snow-caked coat and boots and drops down into a chair next to the roaring fireplace, "Gertie looks like she's going to have her calf any day now. I think I'm going to start to camp out there tonight."
         "I don't think that's such a good idea, Hun. They're saying there's going to be a bad blizzard. Unless you sleep in the barn this time."
         "You know I can't. You know she got nervous last time, that she wanted space. And that barn just isn't big enough for me to sleep in there and to give her space."
         "She was only nervous because it was her first time. It's natural, all first-time mothers are nervous. And Margie came out just fine. If you go out there, you're going to freeze to death and leave me alone to provide for our three kids."
         So after dinner, Conrad gets his tent, gathers his sleeping bag and several blankets, brews a large pot of coffee, picks up his lantern, puts on three sweaters, his coat, and boots, and trudges back out to the barn and sets up camp right in front of the barn door. He checks on Gertie at around ten o'clock p.m. and the flakes have already started falling. By eleven p.m., when he checks on her, the snow is falling hard. By midnight, the blizzard has started and he is unable to go check on her. He sits in his tent with his sleeping bag pulled up and wrapped in blankets, nursing a cup of coffee and listening to the wind howl and the snow hit the top of the tent. Conrad waits out the blizzard wrapped in his sleeping bag and blankets, shivering with his teeth chattering, drinking progressively less warm coffee, and increasingly more frequently having to push up the top of the tent to push the snow off. Eventually, the coffee is cold and the temperature drops below zero and Conrad thinks to himself "Maybe my wife was right. Maybe it'll be warmer if the tent just collapses and the snow buries me." He gets no sleep that night. By the time the blizzard is over his tent poles are splintering under the weight of all the snow and the tent is almost completely buried with just the tip of the tent sticking out of the snow.
         Kayda digs and melts her way out of her cave. She flies of to get breakfast and on her way back home she spots something odd sticking out of the snow. She flies down a little lower to get a better look and can finally make out that it's part of a tent. She knows someone must be in there and that there is no possible way they can get out. She hesitates for a minute but she knows she needs to do something to help, despite her last encounter with villagers. She circles lower and breathes fire but she's not low enough. So she circles lower and tries again. This time she is low enough to just melt the very top of the snow. She circles again a little lower and breathes fire again. She repeats the process a third time before having to take a breath. Then she continues circling and breathing fire and then resting. It takes another two times of repeating the process before the door of the tent is visible and another two to clear the snow enough that Conrad can get out. Confident that the occupant of the tent can get out and to the barn, Kayda flies off home. But not before Conrad opens the door to the tent and sees her flying away.
         Conrad gathers his sleeping bag, blankets, and lantern and goes into the barn. There he sees that Gertie has had her calf. He stays in the barn all day until his neighbors can dig their way from his house to the barn to rescue him. When he finally sits in the chair next to the fireplace with a hot coffee and bowl of soup, he tells his wife, "I could feel warmth and then I could see daylight through the tent. I opened the tent door to see who was melting the snow away and I saw a dragon flying away."
         "I think you must have been suffering from hypothermia. A dragon, really," his wife scoffs.
         "It wasn't hypothermia. I saw it, it was black with purple wings."
         "Sure, sure."
         But Conrad knows what he saw.

CHAPTER 9

         The winter lingers lazily well into the spring. It is the end of April by the time the snow and freezing temperatures finally peter out. On the first day with temperatures above sixty degrees, Gilbert the Fool gets up early, opens the window, feels the change in the weather, and decides to take a swim just after the sun has started to rise. So he gets ready, leaves his house, and walks through town to the beach. It is still very early so the town is deserted and very few homes even have lights in the windows yet.
         Gilbert wades into the water slowly but as soon as he is almost completely submersed he feels the shock of the cold water and involuntarily gasps, accidentally inhaling water in the process. He treads water as he coughs and sputters. After he recovers a bit, he starts to swim out farther into the ocean. The farther out he swims the colder the water gets and he starts to shiver but he keeps going farther and farther until he turns around and he can't see the beach any longer.
         Suddenly, he feels a tug as he is caught in a rip current. He starts to panic and tries to fight his way back to shore, but it doesn't work. It just tires him out and he can still feel himself being pulled away from land, which makes him panic even more.


         Kayda rises early, she had been having trouble sleeping, tossing and turning, and having nightmares. So she decides "the heck with it" and just gets up. She goes outside and feeling the change in the weather, decides she's going to go for a morning swim again to clear away the memory of the nightmares. Ever since revealing herself to more villagers she has started to worry about being attacked.
         She slips into the cold water and heads for her favorite dive spots, she swims out farther, eventually surfacing and floating on her back to watch the sunrise. Once the sun is fully risen, she dives back down. She is swimming parallel to the shore when she sees a person go under and fight their way back up several times before she sees them go under and not resurface. She is still scared of the villagers attacking her. "Oh no," she thinks, "not another villager who needs help. I can't do it again, I just can't. They'll be another one who can rouse the village to attack and there are too many of them who can already. I need to keep swimming and forget about this person. Think about myself this time." But another voice in her head reminds her that it is the right thing to do to help this person. The two voices wrestle with each other for a minute before the second one wins and she hurries toward them. She can feel the rip current as soon as she enters it and she knows that this is what happened to the person. She dives down and catches the person's arm in her hand and pulls them to her. Then she surfaces and keeps swimming parallel to the shore until she can't feel the rip current anymore. Once she is free of the rip current, she heads for shore.
         When she reaches the beach, she lays Gilbert on the sand. She can tell by his blue skin and lips that he is cold, so she breathes fire over him to warm the air until the blue fades and he starts to stir. Then she slips back into the water and swims back to her cave.


         Eventually, Gilbert is found by some fishermen who immediately take him to the town healer where he is examined, given some warm tea, and wrapped in warm blankets. As soon as he is able to speak without his teeth chattering, he tells them about the dragon who pulled him out of the water and warmed the air with her fire.
         The healer dismisses him, "It was the near drowning, it made you hallucinate."
         "No, it wasn't, I saw a dragon," Gilbert insists.
         "It was the hypothermia, it made you not think straight," the healer answers.
         "I know what I saw," Gilbert asserts.
         When he leaves the healer's office, Gilbert goes to the baker's, buys a donut, and tells him about the dragon that saved him.
         "Get out, you fool," the baker says.
         So he does and then he comes across his neighbor and tells him too. But his neighbor scoffs, "Oh please, a dragon" and he walks away.
         He goes into the grocer's. "There was a dragon and it pulled me out of the water and warmed the air," he exclaims loudly.
         Some people laugh, others ask, "What's going on," and others answer "It's just Gilbert the Fool ranting some nonsense about a dragon."
         He leaves the grocer's and walks into the village square where there is a group gathered to hear the mayor speak. Gilbert runs up to the mayor, grabs the front of his shirt, and yells out about the dragon. The crowd bursts into laughter. The mayor says, "Go home Gilbert. We don't want to hear your nonsense."
         However, Aiken is in the crowd and he doesn't laugh, he just looks at Gilbert. Ever since his encounter with Kayda, Aiken has been keeping an ear out for any mention of a dragon. So that night Aiken slips a note under Gilbert's door.


         When Gilbert wakes up the next morning and goes to go outside, he sees Aiken's note. He picks it up, opens it, and reads it, "Meet us at the library at five pm."
         Gilbert picks up the note, reads it, contemplates the note's meaning for a minute, and puts it back down several times that day. At four-thirty, torn between skepticism and curiosity, Gilbert makes his way cautiously to the library hoping this isn't a trap to ridicule him some more. When he gets there Aiken meets him just inside the door, "so, you saw the dragon," he says.
         Gilbert is confused, "you mean I'm not the only one?"
         "Oh no, not at all. I saw it some months ago but no one believed me either. Come meet the others." And he leads Gilbert to a table in the far back corner. "This is Rosalynn and Posie. The dragon rescued them after they were trapped by fallen trees, everyone dismissed them as just children making up stories. Next to them are Nixie and Greta. They actually entered the dragon's cave..."
         "Twice actually," Greta interrupted.
         "I heard about it from my nephew, who told me about Nixie being teased at school for telling people about the dragon. And finally, that's Conrad, the dragon saved him from being buried alive in the big blizzard. Everyone just thought it was hypothermia," Aiken finishes.
         "Yeah, the healer said the same thing to me," Gilbert mutters.
         "So this is the 'Dragons are Real Society', want to join us?"
         "What do you do exactly?" Gilbert asks.
         "Well, we tell our stories and we do some research and we theorize."
         "About what?"
         "If there are more," Posie says.
         "And if there are more, are they all like this one? Are the stories we're told about them being man-eaters all a lie?" Greta elaborates.
         "Also, why it helps us," says Nixie.
         "And how long it's been here and why it showed up now," finishes Conrad.
         Gilbert sits down at the table next to Aiken and joins in the conversation, happy to be among people who believe him.

CHAPTER 10

         This spring's Angelid meteor shower coincides with a supermoon, the appearance of two planets, and a cloudless night. Kayda goes to the edge of the sea and watches as hundreds of meteors streak across the clear night sky, mirrored in the glass-like water below. She watches for an hour before deciding to go for a swim. She swims out to where the meteors are mirrored in the water and floats on her back amongst the reflected meteors marveling at the majesty of the universe.
         She lets the current take her where it will and eventually she hears, "This is just great! Why did you bring us out here in the first place?"
         "I thought it would be romantic to watch the meteor shower out here, away from all the lights of the village."
         "Oh sure, Fionn, this is really romantic, stuck in the middle of the ocean."
         "I'm sorry Melody. How was I supposed to know my dad didn't gas up the motor when he was done fishing today?".
         "You could have checked before we left," Melody retorts.
         "I forgot. I'm sorry, okay? I was too preoccupied with making this night perfect. Making sure I didn't forget this," Fionn answers as he pulls out a ring box.
         "Wait, what? Are you...are you proposing?" Melody stumbles out.
         "That was the plan," Fionn answers meekly.
         "Yes! The answer is yes!" Melody exclaims.
         "Really, you'll marry me? Even though the night didn't go anywhere near to plan? Even though I botched everything?"
         "Yes, even though everything is a mess. But it's our mess! And it'll make a great story to tell our kids one day. I love you Fionn."
         "I love you too, Melody," Fionn says as he slips the ring onto her finger.
         They sit in the boat holding onto each other and watch the rest of the meteor shower.
         Kayda also floats nearby watching the meteor shower peter out.
         "Now the only problem is how to get back home," Melody mentions.
         "I guess we could paddle back with our hands or I could swim the boat back," Fionn suggests.
         "No, we're too far out, it's too dangerous, you'll never make it back," Melody responds worriedly.
         "Then, I guess, we'll just have to wait till morning for my dad to wake up and notice the boat and me are missing," Fionn sighs just as they feel a slight bump against the boat and them starting to move.
         Kayda swims mostly submersed pushing the boat with her head.
         Fionn peeks over the back of the boat and whispers to Melody "Something's pushing us."
         "What is it?" Melody whispers back.
         "I'm not sure," Fionn answers as he peeks over the back of the boat again trying to get a better look. He briefly sees Kayda's wings break the surface of the water. "That can't be," he confusedly whispers to Melody.
         "What?" she whispers back.
         "It looked like dragons' wings," he answers.
         "You're crazy," Melody responds as she crawls closer to the back of the boat to see for herself. But Kayda's wings are back under the water so Melody sees nothing at first. But then they pass through a beam from the moon and Melody can see Kayda's outline under the water. "I take it back," she says to Fionn.
         "So you saw it?"
         "Yeah, the whole outline."
         Kayda pushes them to where it is shallow enough for Fionn to swim the boat the rest of the way back to shore. Then, Kayda turns and swims off uneasily, knowing they saw her.
         Eventually, Kayda flies up out of the ocean and heads back to her cave.


         Jacques, who fancies himself an amateur astronomer, is watching the Angelid meteor shower through his telescope. After the meteor shower is over, Jacques zooms his telescope into each of the planets and then the moon for a better look at them when suddenly, across the field of the telescope's vision, he sees Kayda fly in front of the moon.

CHAPTER 11

         The spring is an uncommonly warm one and blends almost seamlessly into an even hotter summer. The temperatures soar with record highs and there is little relief from the oppressive heat. A drought begins even before summer officially does. The rain stops, the grass browns out, crops die, the trees lose their leaves, and the ground hardens and cracks. Dust is kicked into the air with every step someone takes. The park that was once full of children and laughter in the spring becomes abandoned and desolate, the swings hanging limply from their frames and the monkey bars and slide looming empty over dead tufts of grass. The beach, however, becomes more popular than ever, parasols stuck in the sand every few feet casting paltry shade on towels, blankets, and even robes placed on the sand to try to mitigate some of the heat radiating up out of the sand. There are so many people at the beach that one can hardly walk more than ten steps without stepping on someone's towel or blanket and the water is so full of people that there is hardly any room to swim at all.
         Kayda spends all her days either in the ocean or on top of the distant mountain. At night she sleeps on the sand in front of her cave because the air in the cave is far too stuffy.
         One night, some teenagers decide to go camping in the forest to celebrate one of their friend's 18th birthday. They talk and laugh, play games, and hike during the day. At night they tell ghost stories and roast marshmallows around a campfire, and they pass around a bottle of ale that one of them snuck away from their father, before going to sleep on blankets under the stars. After a breakfast of oatmeal on the third morning, they pour their remaining water on the fire and head back to the village.
         But, unbeknownst to them, the fire smolders on after they leave, and with all the dead leaves and pine needles on the ground caused by the drought, it doesn't take long for a spark to catch. And soon a fire starts, and it spreads, and left unchecked it continues to spread until large pillars of smoke rise above the trees for everyone to see. With no rain in sight, the wildfire burns, consuming acres and acres of forest, sending animals running and thick smoke billowing through the air causing an orange haze to cover the sun. Soon the fire draws close to La Mer Wald. With the fire threatening the village and no sign of rain, the village makes plans. The Mayor gathers volunteers to try and fight the fire and protect the village. Villagers gather belongings and pets and the fishermen start to ferry families to other villages. But there isn't enough time to evacuate everyone and far too soon the fire is threatening the village. Panic ensues.
         Kayda is aware of the wildfire, saddened by the loss of such a beautiful forest and the animals that lived in it. When the fire gets too close to the village she is roused from her swim by the sound of the panicked villagers. Kayda abandons her swim and flies up into the sky to see what the commotion is all about. Instantly she can tell that the fire is closing in on the village and she knows she needs to help. Kayda flies over the village and the edge of the forest to assess the situation more thoroughly. As she does, screams erupt from the villagers, "Dragon!" "Ahhh!" "Save us, save us!" Klaus, the armorer, runs to his shop and gathers as many spears, bows, and arrows as he can carry. He hurries back as quickly as his heavily laden body will allow and starts handing out the weapons to any able-bodied man he sees.
         Kayda makes another pass over the village and the men start to through spears or shoot arrows at her. She is forced to divert from her path. She approaches again from a different angle, swoops down, and breathes fire on the trees as she passes.
         "It's trying to burn us out!" "It's going to kill us itself!" "It probably started the fire itself." The panicked villagers shout as they urge the armed men to attack Kayda.
         "It's not, it didn't, no, stop, don't hurt it!" Conrad yells as he runs up to Klaus, having been alerted to the commotion by Gilbert the Fool.
         "Back off, Man, can't you see it's trying to roast us alive."
         "But, it wouldn't," Nixie pleads.
         "Foolish girl, of course it would. That's what dragons do, eat people."
         "Not this one. This one helps," Melody chimes in.
         "Does that look like helping to you," the mayor asks pointing to Kayda's continued attempts to burn the forest.
         "Mayor Asmund, I'm positive that it has a good reason for doing what it is doing," Aiken answers.
         "Yeah, and what is it?"
         "I, well, I don't quite know exactly," Aiken admits.
         "Now you lot scram, or I'll have you all arrested," Mayor Asmund says.
         Kayda keeps making passes over the edge of the forest, burning more and more of the perimeter and the arrows and spears keep coming. Eventually, Kayda's last pass brings her too close to the village and she is hit with three arrows in her left flank.
         "Nooo, what have you done?" Aiken yells.
         Kayda lets out a loud, piteous roar. She drifts to the ground in pain. When she does, the men with spears charge her, spears above their heads. Tears streaming down her face, she lifts back off. She hovers in place, flapping her wings, and fanning the flames away from the village. Then she flies along the perimeter of the forest fanning each section of the fire away from the village. It takes several hours, but eventually, the two fires reach each other. Without any fuel for the wildfire to consume, it comes no closer to the village. Then the villagers understand what Kayda was trying to do. The men who attacked her hang their heads and scuff their feet in the dust in guilt and shame.

CHAPTER 12

         "Dragon! Here, Dragon!" The Dragons are Real Society call out to Kayda, waving their arms at her.
         Exhausted and in pain, Kayda lands awkwardly in the village square. Children run up to her yelling "Yay Dragon!" rushing to hug her.
         Mayor Asmund apologizes to the Dragons are Real Society, "I, uh, shouldn't have threatened to jail you."
         "No, you shouldn't have," Greta says pointedly.
         Rosalynn sits down next to Kayda and she notices the arrows sticking out of Kayda's flank. "Oh no, it's hurt," she cries.
         Mayor Asmund looks around and calls, "Healer! Over here! Healer!"
         The town healer rushes over to Kayda and assesses her injuries. "Well, they don't appear to be buried too deep in the flesh. I reckon I can just pull them out," he says. So he lays out some bandages and iodine and prepares to pull out the arrows. "I'm Sorry, Dragon, this is going to hurt," he tells her and then pulls out the first arrow. Kayda whimpers, raising her head towards him. He jumps back with his hands out in front of him placatingly. "I'm sorry, but I need to get the other two out as well. I'll try to do it as fast as possible." And he pulls the second and third arrows out. "Now, I need to clean and bandage the wounds so they don't get infected. It'll sting a little, but not like the removal of the arrows," he informs her as he does it.
         Kayda spends the next few days in the village square. Villagers bring her food and the children come and play with her. The Dragons are Real Society, which by now has received many requests to join, visits her every day trying to get to know her better. Through a series of "yes" or "no" questions they learn that she is a girl, what her name is, that she is not the only dragon, but that she is the only one who helps humans, and that she has lived in her cave all her life.
         One night, a week later, the quiet is broken by an enormous rumble of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning. This is followed by the clattering of rain as it hits rooves and the barren ground. Villagers happily walk outside into the torrential rain, throwing up their arms and laughing. The drought is over! And with the coming of the storm, the wildfire is extinguished once and for all.
         Kayda sticks her head out of her cave, relishing both the rain and her newfound friendship with the villagers of La Mer Wald.












         

The

         

         End

         

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