The Dragon's Boy

By G. Wulfing

The last dragon is dying. She knows it. And she is almost glad: her life has been long, sad, and full of suffering. She is hated, hunted and harassed wherever she goes. And she wonders: what is the point of living when no one wants you to live?
So when she is discovered yet again, she does not bother trying to flee. Wounded and despairing, she waits for her death at the hands of human villagers with their pitchforks and prejudice. Following her would-be destroyers, however, is a strange, solitary young soul who is also unloved, and who wishes for more than his life has allotted to him.
'The Dragon's Boy' is a short fairytale about the last dragon in the world, an orphan named Jack, and faithful, persistent love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. Wulfing
• Release date: Jan 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311261069

G. Wulfing

G. Wulfing, author of kidult fantasy and other bits of magic, is a freak. They have been obsessed with reading since they learned how to do it, and obsessed with writing since they discovered the fantasy genre a few years later. G. Wulfing has no gender, and is of varying age. G. Wulfing lives amidst the beautiful scenery of New Zealand, prefers animals to people, and requires solitude, books, music, chocolate, and masala chai lattes in order to remain functional.

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The Dragon’s Boy

Published by G. Wulfing at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 G. Wulfing

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Table of contents:

The Dragon’s Boy

About G. Wulfing

The Dragon’s Boy

Prologue:

Landscape.

Blue and green, like an embroidered tapestry thrown and draped over the earth, like a rich quilt or lush rug, the land was spread out. In the mild, early morning light, a river gleamed like silver thread, winding between green hills. Beyond the hills the mountains rested, a deep distance-blue wash over the dark green of their forests. The sky above them was a soft pale blue; utterly peaceful. On the lower slopes of the foothills, and in the rolling green pastureland before them, small wood and stone houses clustered, and in one gentle fold in the land they gathered together to form a sheltered village. Hedges and grey stone walls wandered over the curves and into the little valleys, dividing dark brown ploughed fields from tawny ones of stubble and verdant ones inhabited by tiny white puffs of sheep and slightly larger brown spots of cattle. Lines of willows beginning to turn yellow marked the edges of streams. Small birds chirped and twittered. The air was dewy and crisp with the beginning of Autumn.

High on her hill, beneath an ancient pine wood that lay opposite the mountains and their foothills, a crimson dragon looked out at the land, noting again how beautiful it was. She wondered how long it would be before the people here, too, chased her away. She shifted her hind legs slightly where she sat, and winced. There was a gaping, unhealed wound in her left flank where a sword had bitten her.

The tapestry glimmered before her, blue and green and silver. It really was beautiful.

The dragon sighed.

I.

Despair.

Down in the village below the mountains, a boy stacked firewood against the side of a wooden barn, taking it from a cart while the black cart-horse dozed patiently in its traces. His uncle had told him to start collecting fuel for the Winter from the woods on the hills above the village. The boy had driven the cart uphill, gathered dead branches and chopped up an old log that he had found, and brought the load back.

The boy was an orphan. His name was Jack. He lived with his uncle and aunt, who appreciated the facts that he worked hard,