Getting to know you

John and Jeela meet and hit it off, and John finds out why on earth he's so tiny - he's a runt!

Jeela regarded John with thoughtful, jade-green eyes. 'I think I know why you're so tiny,' she said at last. 'You're literally a hatchling.'

'Really?' John was confused. 'Are hatchlings normally this small?'

'They are,' Jeela said. 'Not as small as you, but I suspect you were a...' She cut herself off. 'Never mind.'

John rolled his eyes - a very human-like gesture, Jeela thought amusedly to herself. 'You can call me a runt,' he said matter-of-factly. 'I had a dog that was the runt of the litter when she was a puppy. Naturally, she was enormous by the time she had her first birthday.'

'You'll start growing within a month or so,' Jeela said, not quite able to disguise the relief in her tone. 'Raw meat is usually best, but some of our numbers are squeamish at the sight of blood, and they prefer their meat cooked. Or, if you want to go down the plant route, Henesha knows of some really nice mushrooms you can find in the Black Woods. It's up to you.' She tilted her head to the side. 'You already know flight and telepathy, which is something all dragons know from the time they hatch. Have you tried fire yet?'

'No,' John said. 'What's it going to be like?'

'No idea,' Jeela admitted. 'I've never seen your grandfather use his fire, so I've no clue if creation dragons can actually use it.'

John pondered this. 'I'm going to give it a shot,' he said. 'Stand back.'

Jeela did so, and she felt the moment John gathered his small source of energy, and breathed his first burst of fire. It was pure white, and much, much hotter than anything Jeela had experienced in her life. Laced through with golden sparkles, she couldn't help but be in awe. It was a rather small burst, but all the same, it was damn impressive. 'That was something else,' she commented. 'I think we're all going to be taking lessons from you when you start to grow up.'

'It wasn't much,' John said modestly, but Jeela knew he was pleased. 'What else do I need to know?'

'Those are the basics,' Jeela told him. 'Right now, you just need to master them until they become more second nature to you. Teleportation is something you can learn later on down the track; we just need to get these abilities up to scratch. Though I must say, you're rather good at them already. Must be something to do with your heritage.'

'I did read a lot about dragons growing up,' John said. 'I was really fascinated by creation dragons in particular, but I was always told they were just a fairy tale. My teachers were really keen on forcing mundane theories down my throat, but deep down, I knew that dragons had to be real.' He gave a small trill; being a dragon, that was the closest thing he had to a laugh. 'It's rather ironic, me being so fascinated by dragons, and there was I, totally unaware I was a dragon all this time.'

'You were very lucky,' Jeela cautioned. 'If anyone had even suspected you were the second-last creation dragon alive, you'd have been kidnapped and your powers turned to evil.'

'We really need to do something about those cousins of ours,' John said firmly. 'Margaret is not going to make much fuss, but I know there will be those of hers and Harald's families who'll be out for blood.'

'They can try, but they won't have much luck,' Jeela said confidently. 'Para's defences are strong enough to repel even the strongest black dragon - and they're mean sonsofbitches.'

'I wasn't talking about us,' John said. 'I was talking about my wife, husband, and children.'

'Oh.' Jeela had forgotten he'd already fathered three human hatchlings. 'Kidnapping, ransom and the like?'

John nodded. 'And worse,' he said. 'My children have dragon's blood, don't they?'

'We'd better ask Para,' Jeela decided grimly, offering a foreclaw. 'Climb on. I haven't time to watch you scramble through the air like a fly. This is serious.'

John did as he was told, and Jeela made a beeline back to the castle, her thoughts already churning. She liked John a lot; why, she couldn't say. But she wasn't going to stand idly by and see his family destroyed for the sake of petty revenge from his relatives; of which he had plenty, Jeela recalled. Anger curled tight in her belly. Meghan would also need to be warned, and since she was literally the last unicorn in existence, the world's survival depended on her staying out of the clutches of her various cousins, second-cousins-three-times-removed, and so on. Ooh, I am going to roast someone alive! Jeela thought furiously. 

Author's Note

Let me know what you think!