The Dragon's Legacy by Martha Woods

Author:Martha Woods [Woods, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

It was a muggy, late July afternoon. Humidity weighed heavily on the forest air, but the sun was bright, and things felt serene. I had spent very little time with my boys in the weeks since I'd been dealing with Dark One drama, and so the four of us were out for a picnic today, enjoying the weather, and the feeling that we were young and carefree– my sons, far more than myself.

I watched in the distance, as Fri paced across a log over a waterfall as though walking across a tightrope. He, of all my boys, reminded me the most of his mother. Always the mediator, the even-tempered one, seeing reason even when his brothers were seeing red with fury about something.

Well- usually the mediator, anyway.

Nol happened to be one of the few people who could really get his ire up, as he was attempting to do now.

As Fri paced his log, Nol came flying suddenly at him in his dragon form, whipping around either side of him, trying to knock him off his balance. He slid his tail between Fri's ankles and started wriggling, causing Fri to hop back and forth from foot to foot in order to avoid being thrown off balance.

“Nol, cut it out! Stop being a doofus! I wasn't bothering you! Dad!”

Fri looked over imploringly at me, and I smiled at him. Maybe I should have intervened, but I thought it might be good for Fri to learn to stand up for himself. And in any case, I knew Nol was just trying to get his brother to play with him, and I was sort of curious to see how Fri would react.

He might not have done so at all, but once again Nol seemed to know exactly which buttons to push. He surged forward, snapping playfully at Fri with his jaws, and Fri was forced to hurry and duck for cover, losing his balance as Nol fluttered past.

“Damn it, Nol!” he yelled, and suddenly toppled off the log, looking like he was about to plunge into the stream below. I may have been the father of a dragonshifter, but I was still a father, and I felt a pang of anxiety as Fri's little body toppled, only for him to catch himself in midair.

He transformed just before he hit the water, beating his small gold wings, and letting out a scrawny, but adequately menacing roar as he surged upward, thinking he was standing up to Nol as he snapped after him, and seeming wholly oblivious to the fact that he'd just given him exactly what he wanted.

Whatever animosity the middle child might have felt to the youngest, it seemed to evaporate quickly enough. Soon the two brothers were wrestling around in midair, biting and scratching at one another, but in a way that, to this observer in any case, seemed a lot more fun than it was threatening.

God, how I wished I could be like that again. So innocent and carefree. My expectations of life not yet dashed by such a cruel and crazy world.

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