Things took a turn for the better on my way back to the cave.

I was already in high spirits with the brief parting of the clouds, but I was still pleasantly surprised when I flew over the village.

Not much had changed in the human hive... Except for the lack of humans.

They had left their lairs, for some reason. I glided down to see clearly, only to confirm that indeed they weren’t any one of them walking around. No sounds or fresh smells either.

How wonderful!

This was amazing, the humans had left the grounds between my lair and my treasure, and now, finally, I could be at peace—perhaps even spend the rest of the winter without being disturbed.

Tonight was a good night indeed.

Tonight, I was a fortunate dragon.

Then, like it always did lately, my good fortune came to an end. I heard the telltale sound the humans made when they were trying to be discreet.

From outside the village.

What are they doing there?

The hushed sound was coming from the forest, just a little farther in from where the trees started.

To take a closer look at this bizarre incident, I landed on the clearing near the trees. I couldn't get in the dense part of the woods because of my size—at least without crushing a great deal of trees—but from here, I could hear them better. I could also see the flickers of light between the bodies of trees that I guessed were coming from those tiny fires they liked to use.

From what I could gather, the whole human hive had moved into the forest. They had left their perfectly sufficient lairs behind, and chose to stay out in the open in this chilly weather… But—why?

Forget it. Was there any point in trying to understand these creatures? Obviously, they lived their lives according to a completely different logical order.

Somehow though, that unperceivable logic might have worked in my favor for once. Because when I left the deserted village with a boggled mind and flew back to my cave, I saw that the humans were gone. The ones that were staying outside my cave, behind the bushes, were not there anymore.

My tail did a little wiggle dance when I saw that.

I don't know why they had left—or why they had come to begin with—but I was grateful. I slid back into my dark and cozy cave, and curled into a comfortable position.

Finally, finally I was ready to close my eyes and not open them till spring. I was ready for my winter sleep.

Ready for peace.

Ready for normalcy.

Grooowl.

What had disturbed me this time was not the humans, surprisingly. This time, I was betrayed by my own stomach. And my sleep—no—my nap had only lasted a night, and now it was morning, just after dawn.

Being hungry in winter was an unfamiliar feeling, and I think that would apply to every dragon I knew. The preparation for a winter sleep meant hunting for days beforehand and finding a safe place to enter the sleep with a full stomach. I had been prepared well for this year's winter, mind you. A full stomach at the start of the winter was enough to stay cozy for three months.

If one was asleep, of course.

It would be correct to assume that I wouldn't have had any problems with needing to feed myself if I were a proper dragon in a proper winter sleep. However, my body wasn't resting as it should be doing—on the opposite, it has been very active lately.

Ignoring my rumbling stomach was hard, and eventually I had to creep out of my lair to hunt. The air outside had gotten colder, and while I flew over the forest, I could see the patches of brown earth under the bare branches of the trees.

Along with three humans walking towards my cave.

Splendid. Why did they even leave if they were just going to come back?

One of them looked up and saw my large body soaring above them, its eyes wide. It pointed at me and warned the others, making them all go back the way they came, where I was flying towards. They were running now, following my shadow on the ground. Well, trying to anyway. I slowed to a glide, mostly out of pity.

So, as I understood—yes, I was still trying to—they weren't after my lair. They were after me. Humans kept showing up where I was too many times to be a coincidence. Even though they were very slow compared to me, they were trying really hard to catch up with me.

But not always, I thought. Sometimes when I came to where they were, they went in the opposite direction. Mostly, they ran.

I remembered yesterday, the commotion in the village when I was flying to the coast over their heads. I remembered the humans in their shell, throwing away their prey, and later, when I was on my way back, how I had found the village empty, and they had moved into the forest, for some reason. What did all this mean?

The mystery of the humans was poking my mind, making my tail swing with curiosity. Was it worth the endeavor to find out the reasoning behind their actions?

The whirling thoughts were almost enough to make me forget my hunger, but I had to focus on finding a prey when my stomach protested with another growl. The mystery was left to be solved for some other time.

I turned away as my shadow left the humans, speeding up with a flip of my wings. If I wanted to catch a worthy prey, the best place to look would be far from where humans lived, deep in the forest.

I circled above the openings of the woods, silent with my wings sprawled wide. It took me longer than usual to find a prey, I spotted three deer browsing on what was left of the green on the trees and the ground on my third round around the hill. They hadn't seen me yet, and I swooped down silently to keep it that way. It wouldn't be hard to kill them from where I was with a breath of my fire, but then there would be nothing left to eat. As a dragon, using fire for hunting would be futile, and it would only end up with wasting a perfectly edible prey. So naturally, if a dragon was using fire to kill something, it meant the dragon wasn't intending to eat that thing, it meant the dragon just wanted to kill it.

One of the deer perked its ears when I dived straight down to it, but it was too late when it noticed me coming. I grabbed its neck with one of my hind legs, sharp claws digging into the flesh and killing it effortlessly. Meanwhile, the other two deer sprinted into the trees and disappeared. Oh, well. This one was meaty enough to appease my stomach for now.

I ate most of the deer on the hill where I had caught it. Soon after, I went to drink some water from the stream flowing down the hill. The sky was gloomy like it was yesterday, and there was a promise of rain in the air. I could still make out where the sun was with the brighter gray patch of clouds, but there was no shine to it.

Hmph.

Still, there was no harm in checking.

The despair I felt the other day was replaced with something a little more optimistic, since there was the promise of spring and sunny days. But as I flew to the coast with the leftover prey in my claw, I still hardened my heart to withstand the harsh truth.

Nothing had changed. The sea was still dull and lifeless.

Well that was to be expected. Be still my tail.

Wait, something had changed. Or rather, it changed back to normal. The humans were coming back to their lairs! After spending the night in the forest, they had decided to return—which was good for them, I supposed. The cold weather was harsher on small creatures. There were little ones among them, too, which I had never seen before. They were so tiny! Some barely walked on their own, holding their elders hands to balance themselves.

A few of those younglings lost that balance when they twisted their necks to look up at me. Some fell down on their backs, some were picked up by their elders, but most of the humans were frozen in where they stood, staring.

It's not like you are seeing me for the first time. Get a hold of yourselves.

I ignored them, and landed somewhere near the water with my prey in hand. Even though my treasure was in such a state, it sure was pleasant to eat while I kept my eyes on the dark waves, imagining months later, how much better it would be to come here to eat with the sunshine over my treasure.

***

I gave up trying to sleep after seven days.

The problem wasn't even the humans anymore. It was me. Even when there weren't any humans in my cave, or near my cave, I still couldn't go into a deep rest.

I tried changing positions, I tried hunting and eating excessively beforehand. I even flew for hours, nonstop, to tire myself. And all I got were semi-long naps.

I knew some things would not go as expected when I left the Hive. Little setbacks would happen. Nothing too serious, nothing that couldn't be fixed.

I was far from the truth, I was so far that I hadn't even considered ceasing to be a proper dragon was one of the possibilities. I was broken somewhere, somewhere deep and internal, that I couldn't even sleep! What a pitiful creature to exist, a dragon incapable of sleeping… What would the elders say if they saw this? What would my friend say?

The only thing that distracted me from the shame was the solace my trips to the sea brought to me. I may have been staying awake throughout the winter—this wicked season—but at least I was spending my time with my treasure. This was enough to take my mind off of the things I had lost when I moved into a new lair.

The days passed, and soon I made a habit of hunting in the mornings after dawn and flying to the coast to spend some time with my treasure afterwards. The weather was getting colder noticeably day by day, but it wasn't enough to bother me. After all, the sky above the clouds where I loved to glide at dusk was much colder than the land.

As normal as my days seemed when they were put this way, there was always something unexpected. When humans were involved, I don't think 'normal' is the correct word to describe my days, but even then, I tried to ignore those creatures and make the most of my time with my treasure. They, on the other hand, kept moving out of their lairs, only to return after a day, and occasionally some of them stayed in the bushes in front of my cave. I didn't see any humans hunting in the sea with their shell again, the coast was empty every time I went there. I made the most out of it, of course, with pleasant naps after meals.

This comfortable pattern was interrupted on a windy day, when I was lying on the sand near the sea.

No. Perhaps the change had started earlier, a few days before that, when there were little patches of clouds in the sky. I remember that day well, because I had witnessed the earth change with winter, days passing as the trees turned bare, the earth hardened, and the air got colder. Seeing the sun was possible only on rare occasions, and that day there were weak rays of light that shone between the clouds from time to time.

I was deep in the forest where I least expected to encounter one of them, let alone two.

I had been gnawing on the last pieces of my prey—a large brown buck—in a clearing near the valley, when I heard barking sounds behind the trees. This part of the forest had the kinds of trees that didn't shed their leaves all year and were still covered in green. I couldn't see the source as the barking sounds got closer, and then a deer came rushing out of the trees, from the way the barks came.

It halted when it saw me, its eyes huge with panic, and went right back into the woods across from me.

I didn't need to eat more for the day, so I didn't bother chasing after it. Also, I could smell humans from the way it ran towards, which I wasn't fascinated by the idea of meeting one. The day had been perfectly peaceful so far, why tamper with it?

It turned out the barkings were coming from the small domestic wolves humans kept—dogs, if I was remembering right. Three of them ran out to the clearing, chasing after the deer. They changed their route drastically when they noticed me though, so I assumed they would have to run a large curve if they wanted to catch the deer. Their legs are fast enough and their nose is keen, I approved with a crack, biting on the last bones of the buck.

Good hunting and fleshy prey to you, too.

Then, I heard the dogs stop and fall silent, and a struggle. To my surprise, the deer emerged back from the trees, running aimlessly for its life. It had noticed me in the clearing just before, but now it didn't seem to care, meaning something worse had been waiting for it in the forest. I couldn't imagine what.

The deer almost ran past me with a stick in its neck, but I wasn't going to let a prey run past me twice, which would hurt even my pride as a hunter. I pushed the thrashing deer down with a swoop of my hand, pinning it to the ground. It was much smaller than the buck I had caught, and I wasn't hungry, but it could be saved for later, perhaps as a late night snack. It smelled delicious, but its scent was also mixed with something else.

I killed it with a swift grip of my claws, breaking its neck, and it stopped moving. I moved onto eating the last remains of the buck, and I was mostly done when I heard the telltale sound from inside the woods across me, followed by the scent.

The sound was coming from deep in the woods, and of course, it belonged to humans. Two of them, to be exact. They were also making lots of noises with their walking, crunching branches and dead leaves on the ground, so much that it would be embarrassing not to hear them getting close to me. And then there was their talking, the particular sound they made when they were not screaming or yelling at each other. To me, it was all gibberish and strange, but they probably understood each other enough to communicate.

"Why do you think the deer changed its way like that? The dogs look scared too, don't they, Tho-Master?"

"Don't call me master."

One of the voices was gruff, the other one high—and a little familiar.

"But-but you said you would teach me. You told me I could be your stude—"

"I said I would help you learn. Just enough to keep you alive in the woods. Nothing more. I'm not a bloody teacher."

"But mast-but sir, I want to learn how to be a good fighter. I want to get stronger."

"Boy, what exactly do you expect to do, huh?"

"I… I want to help the people, help the village. If I can be useful in some way…"

"So, what happens when you get stronger? Are you gonna slay the dragon? Save the village? Go to the Capitol and become a knight?"

"No, I..."

"Do you know what the people in the village did wrong, kid? They tried to take down that beast with a few rusty swords and arrows, and a handful of people."

"We were trying to—"

"I know. And you did well enough on your own. You all are lucky to be alive, honestly. But a dragon is… It is more than a bunch of farmers and fishermen can handle. It takes several knights to take one of those creatures down—or at least a High Knight. You don't stand a chance."

"Even then… I can't just sit still and do nothing! We can't keep using the forest as a shelter every time the dragon flies over our heads! It's freezing in the night, soon it will be snowing, and there are babies and children and old people in the village. I-we have to get rid of that thing before it can't find any animals in the forest, and it decides to have an easy meal in winter. So, please, please teach me how to get stronger, sir!"

"Settle down, Tom. Call me Thorn. Everyone else does, and so did you since you were a toddler… But I am not a swordsman, and I can't teach you how to fight. I am a hunter, and that's all I'll help you with. If you have the talent, that is. "

There was an ongoing whining in the background, much farther than the humans, that I thought was coming from the dogs. The humans were silent for a while.

"... Thorn. Do you think... if we can't kill it… maybe we could make it go away, somehow? Like, chasing it away or-or scaring it?"

"Ha! What would scare a giant, fire breathing, flying beast? If someone like us can make that thing afraid—for some reason—I'll eat my beard."

Now, I could hear them just behind the front row of trees. They would come out to the clearing any moment.

I wouldn't be staying long anyway, and well, I was too comfortable with a full stomach to move right then, so I ignored the humans closing in. There wasn't much harm they could cause—except disrupting peaceful sleeps, of course.

I licked the remains of the buck from my claws, diligently cleaning them. The dried blood wouldn't feel good on my scales and my claws would become dull with layers of gore, so keeping them clean was important.

With my hunger sated and the sky semi-bright, I was in a good mood. Even the two humans staring at me at the border of the trees couldn't change that.

They didn't move.

.

.

I kept on licking my claws.

.

.

Eventually, one of them made a sound.

"That's why the deer changed its course, boy."