“Tell me the story of the fierest dragon this far west.”

Ria blinked a few times, processing what the group of children in front of her had beckoned her to recall. They stared upward at the girl, eyes widened, some hidden behind their hands and peeking at her with curiosity, others bouncing so rampantly on their bottoms that she thought they might take off into the air.

She hadn’t told this story in years.

And _my oh my_, was it a story.

“Ten years ago,” Ria began, withdrawing the image from her mind and simultaneously doing the math to find that, indeed, it had been nearly ten years, “I went on a journey.”

Wisps of grey smoke channeled through the air, the dimness of the fire softly crackling at her feet. Eyes once sage were now ember; campfire once full had been emptied.

It wasn’t death, before you come to that grim—though logical— conclusion. Ria’s companions had retreated many moons ago after getting visions of the dreaded purple beast in their dreams. As if one by one they’d been plagued, infected, consumed— their mentalities tortured so much that they’d locked their doors and never returned.

“_Something disturbed me.”_

A low grumble emerged from the darkness around her. Ria flicked her head up from the ground. The fire only trickled through the environment closest to her, like a beam of warmth, a beacon of light. Anything beyond her amber-illuminated vision was invisible, inevitable. Out of sight, out of mind.

The faint outlines of the thick trees were revealed by the moon’s soft glare, the twinkling stars above her matching the constellations that one of her previous companions used to talk about. She’d always found it interesting how people managed to curate such tales from practically anything.

“_And I decided to investigate._”

The low grumble sounded again, this time louder. Her boots crunched the burnt grass beneath her, picking up a stick from beside and lighting it with what little was left of the camp. After, she stomped the remainder of the flickering flames, eyes narrowing in the harsh darkness.

Once she left the campfire, the rest of the grass was mildewed and soggy; the bottoms of her pants returning from each step with multiple droplets cascading down her trouser-cladded shins. Her eyes wandered over her surroundings— and then she saw it.

“_A cave. Not painfully small, but haunting in proximity and great in size.”_

She trekked toward the cave and precariously shifted her way through, until her eyes perked up, and she froze.

“_A light. Within the cave.”_

Pressing against the jagged wall, piercing her palm against their pointed edges, she bristled, squeezing her eyes shut until she could recover.

A humming was heard from inside of the cave. Not horrifying or tremendously sad. Casual. Melodic. _Sweet_. Ria raised an eyebrow before regaining her footing and stepped inside.

She had a to blink a few times to comprehend what was going on. The sparkling of lilac lights occupied the majority of the cave, and the humming continued, the light tapping of footsteps echoing. There was a second noise; a soft grumble which ruminated in equal intervals, and Ria raised her eyebrows at sight of a minute indigo dragon near twenty feet away from her.

Only it wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t glaring. It wasn’t showing any sort of strength, weakness, hidden power. It had its back faced to her; and within its claws was holding a… a _blanket?_

The soft grumbling noise echoed again, sort of a low _gruffle gruffle. _The dragon draped a blanket down into a woven basket— and in that basket lay the smallest of similar purple dragons, _snoring_.

The dragon finally turned, wiping its hands—“_did dragons have hands? Claws?”_— together. Its face and snout were gently curved, teeth sharp once bared at Ria when they met eyes. But it wasn’t a threatening teeth bare. No— the dragon was… _smiling_?

“Hello, human,” the dragon stated, voice low and traditional of a dragon, but lacking animosity. “I see you’ve met my son and I.”

“I have indeed,” Ria nearly concussed herself on the spot. She was talking to a dragon. _Talking. To. A dragon. “_Forgive me for my impertinence, but, could you please pinch me?”

The dragon laughed, snorting through its snout, and it was a strange sight to behold. “You are not dreaming, my child. This is all real.”

“You are not the monster I was expecting.”

“No, it seems not.”

“Could it be said that it is the other way around?”

The dragon met Ria’s eyes, their own a gleaming moss-green. “I suppose. I could get you acquainted with the history of my kind, if you have time?”

Ria shrugged. It wasn’t often you had the opportunity to talk to a _dragon_.

“Go ahead.”