Dragons, long lived and seldom born as they are, do not think as men do, in days and hours. Dragons think in years, decades, centuries. They blink, and five times has the world gone round the sun. They sleep, and a decade has passed. So, Varas paid little mind to the village built at the base of his mountain.
They were so tiny, really. These little places humans scraped out of the wild. fragile, even. This wasn’t even the first time a village had been built here. The first had come and gone so quickly he had not even noticed it until he had stomped through its ruins on one of his walks. Goblin raid, if he had had to wager. Nothing left but ash and bone.
So Varas paid them little heed and went back to his doings, flying, hunting, sleeping, pondering as Dragons are want to do.
If he had to pinpoint the moment things changed, it was when he had woken one day to find a thief robbing his hoard. A dragon’s hoard was his pride, and that could not stand. He had awoken in a rare fury, burning the thief to cinders, and casting his ruined form from his cave.
He supposed the body must have landed in the village, because soon after, things changed.
They started leaving him things. At first it was livestock. A cow, a goat, a drop in the bucket of his appetite. Still, they were appreciated. Food was food, and the livestock tasted good enough.
Then it was more exotic things, accompanying the livestock. Treasure. Rare books. Even fancy dresses. The treasure was appreciated, of course. The books even more so, his library was the pride of his hoard after all. He had no idea what to do with the dresses so he stashed them in the back of his hoard, thinking they might one day be of use.
It had been a status quo of sorts, one he had tolerated even as the village grew and grew, becoming a small town.
Then, some foolish knight had come to slay him That happened to Dragons, foolish humans thinking they could make themselves legends by slaying a dragon. Pah, only the greatest of humans earned that right, and their names were venerated even among the Dragons.
Sigurd, George, Heracles. Their names were etched in the memory of every Dragon. This knight was none of them. Some foolish vassal of a vassal with ahead too big for his own good. Varas had not even bothered with his fire. He had merely knocked the human off the cliff outside his cave and let the mountain do the rest.
After that, the humans left a girl.
He had just awoken, stretched and yawned, and found the usual offering of a swine and a box of treasure, but with them was a shivering slip of a girl in one of the fine dresses he was now accustomed to getting, although it was almost comically too big for her, and she was shaking, sobbing, and crying.
He emerged from his cave and the girl screamed and fell to the ground, shielding her head, muttering and praying.
Now this was just ridiculous.
“Human,” he growled, and the girl froze.
She looked up, slowly, and met his great gaze. “Y- you speak?”
What? Did humans think Dragons were mute? Eh, who cared. “Why are you here?”
She blinked, fear giving way to confusion. “I- I am your sacrifice, great one.”
Sacrifice?! What was this?!
“I have no need for man flesh. Get thee gone from my door.”
He said little more, merely snatched the other offerings, leaving the girl out there, confused and frightened. After that he confesses he quite forgot about her until the next day, where he found she was still there, sleeping huddled behind a rock.
Now he was starting to anger. Did he not tell her to go?!
He went to her, and prodded her with his talon, waking her. She cried out, pressing herself against the mountain, eyes terrified.
“I told thee to get thee gone. Why have you defied me?”
the girl shivered. “D-Dragon I just- You’re meant to eat me!”
Eat her?! where had this come from? “I have no appetite for your kind.”
The girl shook her head. “B-but the Knight! Sir Evans!”
Oh Fates, was THAT what this was about?! “He came to slay me. I cast him from the mountain and ate his horse.”
She shook her head. “But- but it was a message! You- you aren’t satisfied with our offerings and wanted more!”
The dragon snorted. “I asked for no offerings. You left them to me of your own will. I took them because they were given. I would care little if they stopped.”
The girl shook her head. “But- but the story- one-hundred years ago when Sciath was first founded you cast a thousand burning corpse into the town square, demanding tribute! We have a day of remembrance and everything!
A thousand- what?! “It was one thief I burned and sent down the mountain.”
she stopped and stared. “One- One thief?”
Varas nodded. “Yes. Now that you know the truth, return to thy home, girl. I have no care for sacrifices.”
With that, Varas returned to his cave, considering the matter settled. However, much to his shock, the girl was still there the next day, looking tired and miserable.
Now this was just mad. Did she have nothing better to do?!
“You’re still here?” he asked, going out to her.
The girl nodded. “I- I don’t want to go back.”
Now this was strange. And interesting. Varas settled down, extending out one wing to shade the girl from the sun. “You do not wish to return to thy den?”
she shook her head, tears in her eyes once more. “They- they sent me here to die! It doesn’t- doesn’t matter that you didn’t they thought you would! All of them- my own parents- I- I-”
She broke down crying again. Varas said nothing. The ways of humans were strange to him. But he understood that betraying your own kin was wrong, no matter the nature.
“Dragon,” she said in a small voice. “I- I am so hungry. So thirsty. May- may I have something to eat? It’s been days.”
The dragon cocked his head, curiously, and rose. “My name is Varas, human. What is yours.”
“R- Rose. My name is Rose.”
“Enter and be welcome, Rose.”
Like that, a new normal had been established. Rose stayed in his cave for a day, and then he blinked and a year had passed.
She availed herself of his hoard. She learned to read from his books. Learned to fight with his the weapons in his piles of treasure. She taught herself to cook, to sew, even to smith.
He aided her, of course, curious to see what she could do. He helped build her a forge and a workshop to pursue her interests. He even parted with some of his gold (scandalous!).
The years turned to decades as they did for dragons, and Rose grew from a slip of a girl, into a powerful young woman.
It was strange, to see one grow up close. Their lives were so short, these humans. It was a privilege to witness this, he had realized.
And it was… nice. Nice to have a companion.
When twenty years had passed, they left another girl at his doorstep. another cringing slip of a girl, who nearly fainted when she saw Rose and himself. Rose took the new girl, Evelyn, in, and started to teach her all the things Rose had taught herself.
And then, one day, Rose came to him, asking permission to leave.
“I want to go out into the world.” Said Rose. “I want to help people, fight their enemies, maybe even meet other dragons!”
Varas looked her over. She looked so different, clad in armor and armed with sword and shield, both of which she had forged herself. sometimes he looked at her and saw the frightened child that had been left on his doorstep.
“I’d like to take Evie with me, she’s my squire after all.”
Varas sighed. “You have never been my prisoner, Rose. Thou hath been free to leave whenever you wished.”
She nodded. “I- I know Varas. You’ve just been so- so good to me. I- I wanted your blessing, I guess.”
He leaned forward and touched his snout to her brow. “It is given. I bequeath to you the world, Rose. Take it.”
Rose smiled and kissed the horn that rose from his snout.
He would never see Rose again.
Time passed, as it did. The village would leave him gifts, always with a maiden now. And always would he take them in. Sometimes they would leave, sometimes they died in his cave. He had a dozen living in his cave at this point, the eldest nearly eighty, presiding over the girls like a grandmother.
Before he knew it, a century had passed.
And then, one day, a knight came to his cave.
She was a resplendent creature, clad in burnished plate and armed with a familiar sword. The young woman knelt to him as he left his cave, and announced herself.
“Mighty Varas, Lord of Mount Crakefen. I am Arya Morrigan, Dame of the Knightly Order of the Dragon’s Rose. I am here to pay tribute to the father of our founder, and return an ancient relic to you.”
And with that, the knight unbuckled her sword and presented it to Varas, and he recognized Rose’s handiwork.
Varas accepted it and beheld the knight. “Tell me of her.”
The woman looked at him. “Who, Mighty Varas?”
Varas settled down by her, extending a wing to shade her from the sun as he had to a shivering slip of a girl a century ago. A blink of his eye, a drop in the bucket of his immortal life, and yet somehow a moment that had changed everything.
Dame Arya smiled. “Lord Varas, let me tell you the tale of Rose Varasdaughter, the greatest hero the land has ever known.”
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