Epilogue

Bubbles wrapped herself around a half-frozen lake far in the Northern Wastes. Lady Hen and Falcon were set calmly in the snow beside her. Even the two of them were unsure quite what Bubbles had done to rescue them, and the dragon refused to ever tell them. Bubbles slowly turned her neck down toward her gut, listening calmly to the groaning of her gut. She stretched her wings out behind her until they pinched with a slight warmth. She quietly burped. Finally, she carefully lifted Lady Hen and Falcon off the ground on a single one of her claws. She set them on her back, “Hold on to me.”

A dozen cedar trees collapsed as the tremendous form of the dragon lifted off the ground. Her wings rose and crashed down with loud cracks. Lady Hen held tightly onto Falcon. The wind raced through her hair past the peak of the tiara. Her brooch flashed on her chest. She placed the scepter in her lap, like I would. It was light for her, but she didn’t want to hold it.

Hen imagined she would be afraid of flying at such a height. The trees, when she looked down over them were nothing but a child’s toys. As they passed over a village, her eyes caught a person walking through the square. He looked up at Bubbles and screamed so quietly that Hen couldn’t even hear him from so high up. “He looks so small.”

“This is how humans always look to me,” Bubbles said.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to where I took you from,” Bubbles darted further through the Northern Wastes. There was a quiet snow. Hen held Falcon out so that he could feel the snowflakes tickling against his growing hair for the first time. He held his hands out, and he was more lively than he had ever been. Hen almost cried as she saw him smile.

Bubbles had little idea what town Lady Hen had actually came from. Over the month they searched together, Hen and Bubbles came to quite like each other. Bubbles had gotten into the habit of finding food and water for people, and it was a pattern she quite liked. When they slept, the pressed themselves against Bubbles’ scales, feeling the heat trickling outside from her fire glands. It was enough that whenever Bubbles’ woke up in the mornings, the snow on the ground around her had all melted. No beasts dared come near her either.

The people of Lady Hen’s hometown cowered as they saw the dragon approaching again. They’d not seen it in more than a year, and the last it was here, it took Hen away from them. Now, she wandered back into the town square while Bubbles beat her wings, hovering overhead.

The door of Lady Hen’s old home creaked open as she pushed it. There was a man sitting inside, and she almost didn’t recognize him. He ran to her, and he put his hand over his mouth. “Hen!” He yelled. He gasped as he saw Falcon in her arms.

She held the baby out to his father, “His name is Falcon, just like yours.” For the first time, the baby was held in a home that would stay standing.

“What’s that?” The man asked. He pointed at the tiara.

Lady Hen took it off and set it beside Falcon, “It’s just something I’ve been keeping safe for somebody. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” She set the scepter beside it and took of the brooch, “Someone else gave me to this, it’s to be sold.”

Her husband eyed the brooch, “What kind of an adventure were you on?” She didn’t answer immediately. She would tell him the details of Dragontown another day. Instead, Lady Hen found her own bed, and she fell asleep. The next morning, she properly introduced Bubbles to the people of her hometown. Bubbles stayed around that town far in the Northern Wastes, and after a year, she asked to be its princess. When the town declined, she settled for calling herself the mayor. She seldom did any actual governing.

Falcon grew up sickly but wise. He was always scrawny for his size, and Bubbles teased him for being meager. Even when an illness looked to threaten him, he always persevered in some way or another. Hen would find herself scolding Bubbles for taking the young boy out flying or hunting in the woods. One time, she flew Falcon all of the way to see Farhaven in the South. She called it the place where Falcon was really born. Whenever Lady Hen got mad at her, Bubbles would remind Hen that she technically saved her life. The dragon was always brushed off for the generosity of her gesture.

When Falcon was seven, his parents had another child. This one was not like him at all. She was a quiet girl, and she was always reaching for the tiara and scepter that Falcon never saw any interest in. She looked like her parents, but had a demeanor entirely unlike them. As she grew, she took more to Bubbles than even her brother did. Bubbles quite liked Falcon’s little sister. His sister shared a name with me.