Sabrinetta and the Fiery Dragon

The Fiery Dragon arrived in the second week of May, and things were not quiet again for some time.

It scorched three fields on the first day, a granary on the second, and a bridge — which everyone agreed was inconvenient — on the third. The knights who rode out to meet it returned separately and without some of their armour. The magicians the King sent came back in a worse state than the knights, having attempted spells that the dragon simply inhaled.

Nobody had a useful suggestion.

Princess Sabrinetta heard about all of this in her white tower at the edge of the wood. She lived quietly, away from the court — there had been trouble with distant relatives claiming the throne, and her nurse had thought it safer to stay in the tower and wait. Sabrinetta had been waiting for four years, and had spent the time learning to cook properly, studying the habits of twelve species of local birds, and being kind to everyone she encountered, which was mostly her nurse, and the beetles.

"You should not go," said her nurse, when Sabrinetta explained what she intended to do.

"I know I might not succeed," said Sabrinetta. "But the dragon is lonely."

"How do you know that?"

"Because everything that burns things is looking for something it can't find by burning."

This was the kind of thing Sabrinetta said, and her nurse, who had known her for sixteen years, simply sighed and found the brass bottle.

The dragon was in a clearing deep in the wood, lying with its enormous wings half-spread and its eyes closed. It was breathing slowly, smoke curling from its nostrils in idle plumes. Up close, it was less terrifying than exhausted — a great, ancient creature, scaled in amber and red, that had been alive for several centuries longer than anyone had been paying it attention.

Sabrinetta sat down twenty feet away and waited.

After a long time, the dragon opened its eyes. It looked at her steadily. She looked back.

"I've brought you this," she said, and held up the brass bottle. "I spent this morning filling it with every kind thing I could think of — the way the sun looks when it first comes over the hill, the smell of bread, the sound of the first bird in the morning. I know it sounds strange."

The dragon lowered its head until its eyes were level with her. She could feel the heat of it, and smell old smoke, and something else underneath — something cold and very old.

"What do you want in return?" the dragon said.

"Nothing," said Sabrinetta. "The knights and the magicians all came wanting to defeat you. I just came to give you something."

Another long silence.

"It's been a very long time," the dragon said finally, "since anyone gave me anything."

"I know," said Sabrinetta. "That's why you've been burning things. Not out of cruelty — out of frustration."

The dragon was quiet for a moment. Then: "Yes."

She stayed until it was nearly dark. She talked about small things — the wood, the birds, what she'd learned about patience from four years in a tower. The dragon listened. Its breathing slowed. The smoke thinned.

When she left, she said: "I'll come back tomorrow morning. I'll wave from the top of the tower — you'll be able to see it from here."

"You would do that," said the dragon. Not a question.

"Of course," she said.

She was as good as her word. Every morning, Sabrinetta climbed to the top of her white tower and kissed her hands to the sun and the wood. And the dragon, curled peacefully between the trees at the wood's edge, watched, and did not burn anything at all.

There are things that armour cannot protect against, and there are things that fire cannot touch. She had known this for a long time.

Now the dragon knew it too.