The Dragon and the Fox

Kira stood, chained to four trees. Twelve bears stood in a circle around her, banging their paws on the ground rhythmically. In the background, the other creatures chanted words in a language Kira didn’t understand.

“Um, are you sure about this?” Kira shouted nervously.

“Absolutely!” Harvey yelled back. “This method never fails!”

“And how many Dragon Champions have you had?” Kira responded with equal volume.

“None!”

“Exactly!” Kira swished her tail. “Why do I have to be in chains again?”

“No idea!” Harvey replied cheerfully. “Just stop struggling!”

Kira felt her panic rising. She had thought she could trust these creatures, but apparently they were insane. What was this—some sort of sacrificial ceremony?

“You slimy cave dwellers!” she screamed. “I trusted you!”

Harvey continued smiling and waving, then turned and walked away. Kira fumed.

The chanting and pounding stopped. All of the creatures around her dispersed, turning their backs on her and following Harvey’s lead.

“Guttersnipes! Frizting fiests!” Kira cursed after them.

They just left her alone, not looking back once, even as Kira hurled more insults at them.

As soon as they were out of sight, Kira sat down, panting. She was so naïve! She didn’t even know these creatures. Why had she trusted them?

The ground rumbled under Kira’s paws, but she didn’t care. She was too busy cursing and throwing a fit, screaming to the sky and trying to bite her chains off, with no effect. Her wings flared as she tried to take off, only to be thrown to the ground by her shackles. Hot tears of anger flowed from her eyes, and her vision was blurry. Her chains were vibrating faster and faster.

Kira slumped to the ground, defeated. A small part of her mind registered that the rumbling had stopped.

She started scratching at herself, trying to escape. She sobbed and shrieked, lashing her tail and trying to dig around the base of the chains.

“You look troubled, little fox,” a calm voice said.

Kira whipped around, panting, a mad glint in her eye. A mahogany Dragon was sitting on the ground not very far from her, with glittering emerald scales scattered around the brown surface of his body. His eyes were a cheerful gold, but they twinkled with a bit of mystery. He had huge claws, though they weren’t particularly sharp. It was clear that he dug more than he hunted. His upper body was bigger than his lower, and his wings were rather small, and fit perfectly to his sides. He had a large, jagged tail fin running down his back, and his thick tail was sitting peacefully on his talons. His horns were gigantic as well, curling to rest behind his neck. He was twice as large as Deya, which meant that he absolutely towered over Kira.

“Who are you?” Kira demanded.

“More importantly, who are you?” the Dragon countered.

“Kira,” the fox said stiffly. “What type of Dragon are you?”

“I am an Earth Dragon,” the brown Dragon said humbly. He bowed, which startled Kira so bad that she sat down on her rump in shock. The Dragon chuckled.

“What are you doing here?”

Now it was the Earth Dragon’s turn to look surprised. “You didn’t summon me?”

“No,” Kira replied angrily. “It was the creatures of Riverbed Village.”

The Dragon laughed. “Those animals. One would think that they just don’t want to deal with strangers on their own, the adorable things. Of course they summoned me.” He wheezed, then burst into another bought of laughter.

“Well, I certainly don’t think it’s that funny,” Kira snapped. “They chained me here.”

The Earth Dragon subsided, wiping his eyes with one talon. “I can see that. So, you don’t know why you’re here?”

“Of course not!” Kira cried. Was this Dragon daft?

“You don’t happen to have lost something?” the Dragon asked. “Or someone, perhaps?”

Kira gaped. How did he know?

“So what if I have?” Kira snarled.

“You don’t want help?” the Dragon asked.

“Not from you,” Kira bit back. “I don’t even know you.”

“Strange.” The giant Dragon seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Didn’t you just meet the Princess of the Light Dragons as well? What made you trust her?”

“How do you know this?” Kira inquired, evading his question.

“I know many things,” the Earth Dragon said. “Us Earth Dragons have a reputation of being as dumb as rocks among the Dragon community. But we keep our ears to the ground, listening, commanding the other animals of Cyalia. The Bear Lands likes us especially, but you can find us anywhere. We hear things that others don’t.”

“So you spy on everyone?” Kira said.

The Dragon chuckled. “In a way, yes. But is it really spying if the information is there to grab? You’d think creatures would go to a more secretive space to discuss matters if they didn’t want to be spied on.”

“Who are you? Answer me!” Kira ordered.

“Ah, my name.” The Earth Dragon summoned a faraway gaze, as if staring through several layers of reality. “Cyfrincato, they called me. But you can call me Cyfrin.”

“Called you?” Kira asked, now too curios to be angry.

“I removed myself from the Earth Dragon community long ago,” Cyfrin said. He smiled sadly. “I found that my wisdom, while important to others, was beginning to dumb down the other Dragons. Instead of listening to their own secrets, they came to me for knowledge.”

“Oh.”

“But enough about me. What would you like assistance with?”

Being alone, Kira thought bitterly. But this was probably the closest she could get to finding Deya. Plus, maybe she could convince him to fight along their side. His large stature would surely benefit them in a fight against the Black Dragon.

“How can I defeat the Black Dragon?” Kira asked.

Cyfrin smiled at her. “You must find your companion.”

Kira gasped. “I-I have a companion? How come I was never chosen?”

“You needed to find your companion on your own. You were always destined to meet, but you were unique—you had to find each other on your own.”

“Who is it?” Kira asked.

Cyfrin shook his head. “I can’t answer that.”

Anger pulsed through Kira’s veins once again. “Why not? Aren’t you supposed to know everything?”

Cyfrin laughed. “Even I cannot know everything, little fox. No one truly holds all knowledge.”

“How is finding my companion useful to stop the Black Dragon?”

“I can’t tell you that, either.”

“I’m done with your cryptic answers,” Kira snapped. “This is useless.”

As soon as she said it, her chains fell apart. She glared at them, then stalked off, having had enough with Cyfrin, Riverbed Village, and the Bear Lands.

It was time to find Deya.