Dragon Fire

“That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you.” —Narrator, Princess Bride

Belle backed herself against a tree, knowing that if they got behind her she’d be finished, a thick tree-limb clutched in almost numb hands. A small pack of wolves stalked closer, so scrawny she could see prominent ribs beneath ratty coats. One sprang closer, only to feel the broadside of the limb. Another lunged, and grabbed hold of her sodden dress-hem and yanked, making her stumble forward, a scream choking in her throat.

A roar rang out, and a silver and red bullet dropped through the leafless tree branches above, massive wings unfurling at the last minute to catch him. Before the dragon even touched the ground, he’d caught one of the wolves in his claws and tossed it away from her, before landing in front of her with a thud. Snarling, he hastily pushed her behind him with a bleeding wing, putting himself between her and the wolves. The wolves were snarling as well, scenting his blood, and hungry enough to disregard that their intended prey had just become far too large for them to handle. They circled for another few moments, and jumped, as a collective unit this time.

The fight swiftly became a bloodbath, as the dragon flung the wolves off of him repeatedly, killing them only when they got too close to the woman he guarded. Within moments, the pack was either dead or fleeing, finally convinced that a dragon was too much trouble.

Once they were a fair distance away, the dragon turned to Belle, his breath pluming out in front of him, blood staining his silvery hide, and dripping onto the snow. One of the wolves’ claws had managed to rake over his eye, scoring three bloody lines across his face. There were other scratches and bites on him, but they were nothing compared to the deep, horrible gashes that stretched along his body and shredded his wings to tatters. His claws were painted red with blood not his own, and the bodies of the wolves was a harsh reminder to Belle that this was no tame animal in front of her, but a dragon, a killer.

“Are you alright?” his harsh growl was a welcome sound after the vicious, killing snarls of minutes ago. Belle nodded hurriedly, amber eyes wide and locked on his dark grey-red gaze.

“Fool. I told you you’d die if you tried to leave,” he spat, and then jerked his head in the direction of the sinking sun. “Come on, we need to get back before we both freeze to death.”

“But—but, you’re—” She gestured to his wounds, feeling helpless again, and hating it.

“We’re going back now. I’ll deal with them later.” He shoved her forward with a wing, before folding them onto his back again, and taking a few unsteady steps after her, limbs shaking with exhaustion. He knew—from his last, and only escape attempt—the longer he stayed outside the castle, the weaker he became.

They stumbled back to the castle together; cold, wet, and aching as cold seeped to their very bones. It was long after dark by the time they made it back, and they only barely made it into the Great Hall before collapsing. The blood on the dragon’s sides had frozen—the only reason he hadn’t bled to death long before—and Belle was courting frostbite.

“In front of the fireplace,” he rumbled, taking her weight without complaint as she leaned against him, even though she pressed against the worst of his injuries. By now he was too cold to feel the pain, which worried him. If he was this bad off, even after the magical pressure had been taken off, how must she—smaller and weaker than he—be faring?

Belle barely noticed when a nest of blankets and cushions appeared on the floor, or when the dragon sank gratefully onto them, taking her with him as he collapsed, so that she half-lay against his side.

“Belle, you must get out of those clothes—you are soaked through,” he rumbled, nudging her. She stirred only slightly, flinching from him. Swiftly hardening his heart, he snarled, shoving more insistently now. This time she snapped out of her daze, and scrambled back, fear in her eyes mixing with uncertainty as she stared at him.

“Get out of those clothes, before you freeze,” he grumbled, turning from her to light the fire laid in the grate before them. He could feel Belle’s gaze as he sent his odd, purple-colored flame streaming into the grate, and told himself sternly that he didn’t care that she was terrified of him.

Instead, he twisted his neck stiffly, like a cat, trying to reach the worst of the cuts on his back. The dragon could hear the splat of wet clothes somewhere behind him, and the rasp of newly summoned dry ones over cold-numbed flesh. She padded back over to huddle nervously by the fire, its flickering purple light softening some of the room’s harsh edges, and bringing some color back to her ashen face. She wore a magnificent nightgown, he noticed, perversely torturing himself with snatched glances of the girl inside the long, opaque negligee. She was chaffing at fingers and toes, working to get blood flowing again, snatching glances of her own.

Furious to have nearly been caught looking, he ignored her, twisting to clean wounds that she’d indirectly caused, even when she whimpered from the same pins-and-needles sensation that he was feeling in his wings. When the noises stopped, he hoped it was because she’d fallen asleep. If not, he’d be obligated to encourage a conversation, and he wasn’t sure he was up to the accusations that he imagined would come.

So it came as a shock to him when something touched his side, startling a noise somewhere between a roar and a whimper of pain from him.

“What the—” He stopped the question uncompleted when he saw the cloth in her hands, and the gently steaming basin of water at her side. In the water there were several different herbs floating, steeping into the liquid. Belle was dabbing at the cuts, her head bent over the task so that her hair hung like a fiery shied between them. She finally risked a glance up a moment later, and hurriedly looked away again when she saw him staring. It was another several moments until she spoke.

“I—um—I’m sorry you were hurt. It—it was stupid to run—”

“No, it wasn’t stupid.” He was staring into the fire when she looked up in shock, his reptilian face unreadable. “It was intelligent enough, just badly timed. If you’d run during the summer, you would have been fine.”

Her eyes narrowed on the dragon, fear draining away. Belle couldn’t help remembering that he’d had a human form not so long ago. And he’d been injured in her defense in the woods. And now, even though she was right there with him, he looked…lonely.

“Why’d you come after me?”

“There are wolves in the forest, and other predators like to use it as a haunt. Thieves, bandits, murderers,” he added, in case she hadn’t understood the first time. He turned, eyed her pointedly. “Rapists.”

“So? Why would you care enough to come after me?” She challenged, because his words had sent a chill through her.

“Why are you trying to help me?” He responded with a question of his own, nodding toward the cloth she held. The dragon didn’t understand her; didn’t understand this strange mixture of audacity and fear. She was confusing, a mass of contradictions ready to put forth fire or flee at any given moment. An enigma of the highest order, he decided, watching her warily.

“You got hurt because of me,” she retorted, dabbing again, harder than was strictly necessary. He snarled, drawing away, his eyes blazing red-gold for a moment, before they faded back to gold-grey.

“That hurt,” he growled reproachfully, before adding: “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

Belle snorted, as though to say that the evidence of that was right in front of her, and started on yet another cut. The dragon growled low in his throat, and struggled to gain his feet. She simply shoved hard against his scaled flank, over-balancing him and sending his falling back into the pillows with a muffled thump. His eyes gilded again, a gold sheen over silver, and jerked his head up so he glared down on her with all of the intensity of an irritated dragon.

She ignored the look, as she would any when she knew she was in the right, and continued to clean off the blood that had caked itself to his scales. The dragon allowed this for a moment, and then decided he’d had enough.

Belle fell backwards with an ‘oomph’ of surprise, and found she was pinned flat to the blankets and pillows by the dragon’s tail. The basin of water and herbs had disappeared, and he settled himself comfortably, still pinning her easily, with his hindquarters curled beside him, and his front paws crossed before him, wings folded neatly against his back, like some huge cat that’d caught the wayward kitten he was tired of chasing. The dragon’s arch look was far more convincing from this angle, his dark silvery eyes narrowed, and holding a tint of blue, instead of gold, with amusement. The scratches, though they probably hurt, gave him a rakish look, and there was a kind of innate nobility that seemed to be ingrained in the sharp bones of his lizard-like face. With an inner jolt, Belle realized that she was beginning to get used to him. The dragon had far more human to him than she’d originally thought. More than some of the people she’d met.

“Stop fussing,” he commanded, the amusement written in his eyes obvious in his voice as well. “They will heal on their own, with time. Now sleep.”

“But—” she struggled to sit up, and was thwarted again by his tail. He eased completely onto his side, looking even more like a dozing cat, and watched her with half-lidded eyes.

“Sleep, Belle. If you like, I’ll go,” he added, realizing that it was very likely she wanted him far away from her while she slept. It had, he realized, been merely a day, for all it was an eventful one. She had no trust for him, no assurances save from his own mouth. Odd, he mused with a sad sort of humor, that it had felt so much longer. Enough to give a terrible kind of hope, but not enough, not nearly enough to heal the years of loneliness.

The good humor that had held him for a few moments fled, he released her, and shifted to stand, moving gingerly to avoid pulling his wounds.

“No, wait—please, it’s alright. There’s already a fire—and—and it’ll be warmer if we stay together, right?” she queried anxiously, eyes imploring him.

The dragon paused, and eyed her thoughtfully. “I suppose,” he rumbled doubtfully.

“Stay? Please?”

He blinked. “You are sure?”

Belle nodded quickly—she didn’t want to be alone tonight to revisit those horrible hours in the forest before he’d come in her dreams, and for a moment, just for a moment, he’d been in a good mood. Now something had put the sorrow back in his eyes, and she was too sensitive a person not to have noticed, and ache for her savior’s pain.

Eyes locked on her face, searching for any doubt, he eased back into a comfortable position. “As you wish.”