Brenda expected to spend her twenty-first birthday alone in her home in the quiet village of Charmia just waiting for the day to pass her by. She’d done everything she could to insure that attention didn’t come her way. She grew her own gray cloud stalks, created a pond for her massive horde of frogs, and planted grains so she’d never have to visit the baker for bread but even though she kept to herself the villagers still turned their nosy eyes in her direction. The morning of her twenty-first birthday, she expected the sun to greet her with its welcoming shine upon her glossy straight black hair but when she opened her windows there were villagers holding torches, prepared to burn her cozy home down.

“Witch!” They screamed in unison, fingers pointed at her who stood with a confused look as she scratched at her head.

“Hello…” Brenda started, the faces of the villagers all unfamiliar to her.

“Look at those strange plants, she’s growing, she’s planning on poisoning us!” Someone, a middle-aged woman, holding a baby in one hand and a torch in the other shouted.

Brenda scrunched up her face, confused by the villager’s loudness when they stood but a feet apart. She looked over to her garden which contained a hefty amount of gray cloud stalks ready for a plucking.

“Oh, those aren’t poisonous,” she laughed at the thought. “Why, I use them for—“

She stopped herself. Ever since her mom died in her fourteenth year of life, Brenda’s found herself casted out of many villages. Here, however, she’d finally made a home but that didn’t matter to the angry villagers in front of her. The true usage for the gray cloud stalks stayed glued to her tongue and her lips seemed sealed as they spoke her true nature again with disdain.

“Get the witch!” Someone in the back of the crowd yelled, which is how Brenda ended up tied to a wooden pole carried by two men who were taking her to the dragon’s den.

“So, you burn down my house and garden, kill my precious frogs, but you’ll have a dragon do your dirty work?” She laughs as they walk closer to the dragon’s den.

“Shut her up,” says the man carrying the front part of the pole to the one carrying the back.

She didn’t know how long they carried her but not once did she see his face. But she knew if she did it would not display a friendly one. The man carrying the back of the pole is young and burly, there’s an aura of confidence that oozes off of him and his face, while handsome, did little to hide the ugliness of his heart.

“You both do know dragons aren’t real, right? I’ve traveled to many villages where they claimed such and every single one is actually a lizard named Bob. I think they have a network…”

“Shut her up!” The man in the front of the pole says again and all Brenda feels is pain in the side of her face then darkness.

Brenda awakens lying on her side in a large cave full of glowing bugs that seem to cover every part of it. Her face is puffed up, her hands are numb still tied up to the pole, and feel as if they’ll fall off at any moment. There’s a soreness in her back from what she suspects is from when they threw her on the cave ground.

A pained groan escapes her lips. She closes her eyes, ignoring the sweet song the world whispers to her. Her frogs were gone, she’d had them since they were tadpoles and now they're all gone. Everything she tended to with love is gone, wiped out in that hateful fire. Tears fill her eyes, the world’s sweet song is trying to get her to listen but she ignores it. How could a world that sings to her not understand its melody made her an outcast. Her mother always called their magic a gift from the world but what is a gift if it must remain hidden?!

A curse.

Maybe she should’ve locked herself in her home as they burnt it down.

The sweet song of the world’s melody changes. It is full of disappointment. It is pleading. There is light in this song and it’s begging her to take hold of it.

Brenda doesn’t want to. She ignores the world’s song, sinks into darkness.

And screams.

She hears the sound of flapping wings. It brings about a heavy gust that places a chill upon her. She descends into silence. The flapping wings stop and there is a heavy drop.

“Are you alright?” Brenda hears a deep voice say.

Brenda wants to laugh at the question. So she does. She laughs. And laughs.

Her laughs become sobs.

Heavy sobs from a broken body. A broken heart. She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut as she continues to cry. The sound of footsteps, large, tentative, get closer. Soon, she feels the presence of something looming over her.

She keeps her eyes shut. Within seconds, her tied hands are free. She feels her hands drop on the ground of the cave. Whatever loomed over her doesn’t do so any longer. Opening her eyes, she flips herself on her back.

Her eyes meet the cave ceiling but she feels something beside her. Turning her head to the side she sees a creature with its head tilted downward and a gentle smile on its snout… a dragon.

She blinks, her head pounding and wonders if the hit she took conjured this impossible image.

“Let me guess your name is Bob,” Brenda utters to the conjured vision.

She’d seen images of dragons before in those awful books for children where witches were always evil and scheming something. Maybe all the villagers talk of a dragon made her mind come up with one of her own.

“No. Bob? Whoever heard of a dragon named Bob? My name’s Grief,” Grief, the dragon, replies in a huff.

“Grief, what a strange name,” she replies, blinking at him, waiting for him to disappear.

“Strange, no, it’s a great name. My full name’s even better Grief Grave, the 99th,” he introduces himself, raising his snout in the air.

“Oh, the 99th? Okay…this is very detailed for a…”

Another pain throbs in her head. She lets out another pained groan.

“You should come inside. I’ll whip you up something that can help with the pain.”

Brenda studies the dragon with knitted brows, taking in his snout, sharp claws, along with sharper teeth and a large form that almost touches the ceiling of the cave. “You…cook?”

“A little. Gotta find some use for that fire in my belly,” he jokes. “Would you like me to help you up?”

He offers out a claw for her to take a hold of. She grabs for it, expecting to touch nothing but air but instead touches the scales of his palm.

Inside, her stomach twists with a fear that seems to numb everything inside her but her tongue.

After a minute, she says, “So you're real? This is real…I’m talking to a dragon.”

She drops her hand and lets out a scream.

“Hey! What’s that for?”

“You’re real! A dragon! A real dragon!!! The villagers sent me here to be killed by you!” Brenda shouts, trying to stand up and scurry away but falls before she can. “My ankle.”

Grief, the very real dragon sighs. “I’m not a killer, no dragon is or well they would be if they weren’t all hunted out. I—I’m the last one left. I haven’t had a visitor in over six hundred years, think it’d be very rude of me to kill it.”

“Six hundred years? So dragons are and …you don’t want to kill me?” Brenda looks at him, hesitant. “Why do you want to help me?”

“You need it,” he responds back.

She looks away from him, her hands clenching. “I—I’m a witch.”

Brenda’s shoulder’s slump, her eyes close shut, as she prepares to feel heat spread through her body and a snarl of hatred from Grief’s deep voice but it doesn’t happen.

“So was your mother,” he replies in a low voice.

“How did you…” she opens her eyes and turns back towards him, afraid.

“I can feel your grief,” he lifts one of his claws upward. “It claws at you.”

She stares at his claw. “Today’s my birthday, seven have passed since I’ve spent it with her and I spend most days wishing I could join her.”

“Are you disappointed I do not wish to hurt you?”

“No, I’m relieved,” she admits but her words sound hollow. “When the villagers were accusing me I could’ve done a teleport spell and ran…I’ve done it before. This is my thirtieth village in 7 years and I thought I finally had a home here but…I was wrong.”

Brenda looks away from him.

“It is hard to live in a world that doesn’t accept you, isn’t it? Especially if the world takes away the only people who ever did.”

“It wasn’t the world that did that but its inhabitants,” she spits. “The man who killed my mother, they protected him and my magic…it won’t allow me to do any harm.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Grief remarks.”Of your mother. And of your home.”

“Thank you,” Brenda says, turning to look back at him. “I’m sorry for your loss too.”

“I’ve come to peace with it…” he replies, frowning.

Once again, he puts out his claw for Brenda to take. She scoots forward, takes hold, and stands up, using him for support. Her legs wobble and even with the support, a fall is imminent. Grief lifts her up, carefully, and takes hold of her in his scaly arms. A shock expression crosses Brenda’s face and she starts to protest but knew she couldn’t walk on her own two feet just yet. She closes her eyes, taking in the coolness of Grief’s skin that eases some of the pain in her body.

Around her, the world sings its sweet song, offering her its light once again. As she drifts off to sleep, she takes hold of it and though her pain lingers, a dream filled with loving memories welcomes her.