Spring, 1287

“Heavens. How did you survive that?” Logan exclaimed.

Mera sighed and shook his head. “I honestly do not know. Somehow I did. I kept acting vicious, and I kept being beaten. Yet despite everything the butchers did to me in that shop, I survived, and I kept living. And I kept not getting sold.”

“Did you ever try to escape?”

The dragon grimaced. “All the time. But my bindings were too tight. My prison was too secure. I never did find a way out.”

“So you were rescued.”

There was an extended silence before Mera finally nodded. “For weeks in captivity I prayed for someone, anyone, people, gods or demons, to help me. But no one ever answered. I lost faith in fairness and justice in this world. My parents were gone. My brother was gone. I lost everything except my miserable life.”

***

The little dragon crumpled to the ground, wilting under a storm of blows.

“Little shit! Just die already!” Doug yelled as he kicked and struck at the beast below with a stick. Phillip quickly intervened, pulling the assailant away.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

The bald butcher finally was pushed away by his partner and slammed against the side of the shack.

“Can’t you see that every blow you make makes this creature even more worthless?” Phillip yelled at his partner. “The easiest thing we could have done is to pretty it up and sell it for a tidy profit. Then it would be dead and we’d have some pretty coin to celebrate its demise. But no! Your stupid ass can’t keep your emotions in check for a few days, and look what that’s gotten us!”

The loquacious butcher turned to stare at the scrawny, bloodied and bruised little wyrm trembling beside the mud, dirt and trash of the market street, before shaking his head in frustration.

The bald butcher finally began calming down, breathing hard as he saw what he had accomplished.

“Maybe someone will take it for the meat.” Doug awkwardly exclaimed, scratching his neck.

“It looks like shit.” Phillip retorted. “I don’t even think the stewpots would want this now.”

“Well maybe we let it heal up a bit.”

The talkative butcher knelt down and checked up upon the defiant little wyrmling curled up in a ball. Nothing was broken, but the dragon looked like a rabid, wild monster. Phillip did some mental calculations. The cost of feeding and healing the creature, the rapidly approaching date of the Spring Festival, the time it would take for the dragon to become sell able again, all zipped through his mind. Finally the talkative butcher stood up and shook his head.

“The holiday is too close. I don’t think we’re gonna find a buyer for this one. ”

“Well, maybe if we raised it another-”

“You oafish idiot will just keep wasting our money!” The loquacious butcher exploded as he wheeled back at his partner. “You fucked this up Doug! We paid good coins for these monsters and you made one worthless! This is coming out of your share! Useless ruffian!”

The bald butcher recoiled under his partner’s onslaught of oaths and obscenities. For minutes nothing but curses rapidly rained down. Finally the talkative butcher stopped, having exhausted himself yelling at his partner.

“So now what?” Doug asked after a long pause.

“You’ll get what you want. Take care of it.” Phillip fumed, taking out and tossing a knife to his partner before storming off. “Make sure the blood is fresh. Then throw it in with the other garbage.”

Deeply calloused hands roughly grabbed the little dragon, who immediately lashed out, writing and kicking and attempting to bite at Doug through his muzzle. With immense difficulty and a string of curses the bald butcher dragged the wyrmling out to the back lot, littered with the rotting corpses of dozens of other disposed beasts. The dragon desperately fought for its existence, drawing blood and dealing bruises repeatedly upon the butcher, until finally the wyrmling left itself momentarily exposed and a fist slammed against the side of its head, leaving it stunned. Doug immediately took advantage to kick a blood-stained bucket under himself and his product, then grabbed and pulled apart the dragon’s muzzle and chest to expose its neck, before finally bringing his knife to the creature’s neck.

It was over for the little wyrm; its struggles for survival had been in vain, and as a sharp knife drew across his neck, the battered creature made its peace and closed its eyes.

***

“I could feel the blade cut through my flesh and my lifeblood began to trickle down to the floor.” Mera recollected. “And I had stopped caring. I was an animal. I hoped to burn that abuser to death with just my hatred. If I could just spite that human one more time, I would be satisfied.” The dragon shrugged. “What was life worth living for anyways? Who knows, maybe I could rejoin my parents and brother and we could all be happy together once more.”

Logan evaded the wyrm’s gaze. After a minute the dragon leaned back to sigh at the ceiling. “I should have been killed right then and there. What happened next was a stroke of luck. After I had lost everything, perhaps the heavens finally did answer my pleas.”

***

“Good heavens! What are you doing, sir?” A voice suddenly called out, interrupting the dragon’s execution.

“None of your business-” The bald butcher snarled in response, annoyed at the interruption. However another voice immediately followed.

“Stop and shut up Doug!” Phillip snapped. The bald butcher looked up to see his partner had reappeared from the market stall, nervous but eager, and then turned his gaze to the other speaker, a well dressed bearded man.

A very well dressed man in fact, a man dressed as a Caelian lord.

Doug's knife dropped. A split second later the dragonling also dropped to the ground.

That man was Lord Jonathan Haight of Cael, the thirty-six-year-old ruler of a large tract of fertile land along the Cneausian River. Raised by the finest tutors, he was introduced to unconventional ideas such as “forest critters are friends” and “perhaps the Guesters and Tulusculumians aren’t so bad.” Upon inheriting his father’s estate, Jonathan sought to put these ideals into practice with limited success: serfs freed from their obligations ended up in town spending their newfound freedom on excessive drinking, while likewise banning tourneys as barbaric met with strong resistance from villagers who were outraged by the loss of both revenue and entertainment, forcing a quick reversal of the decision. Still, the lord had good land and a few successes in his ventures allowed him to persist in his idealistic pursuits.

In essence, Lord Jonathan Haight was a well-meaning but somewhat ineffective ruler.

On that day, Lord Haight was walking back with his Castilian companion, Jakey, after a fruitless attempt to buy cloth from the bazaars of Cael when they heard a commotion while passing by the wet market. The main market was already an exotic jumble of goods-cloth and china from Jiangshan, spices from Shindu, metallic swords, shields, and incense from Fars, and salt from Alkebulan. Yet the wet market in the back was an entirely different world, filled with bizarre and unsettling creatures-from horses and hounds to griffins and other monsters from mysterious lands-that were kept in pens or chained to posts,to be destined for entertainment, companionship, or the table. Disturbed by the grim spectacle, Lord Haight had once tried to shut down the wet market, but the backlash was so fierce that he had to retract his decision. Since then, the Lord of Cael had avoided the area, but the disturbance today had aroused Castellian Jakey’s suspicions and stirred Lord Haight’s own interest and both went over to investigate.

Phillip rudely shoved his partner aside, then quickly brushed the blood and grime from his apron. The talkative butcher was all smiles as he bowed before the two especially powerful visitors. “My lord, we're just two humble tradesmen plying our trade. May we be of help?”

Jonathan pointed at the battered and bloody wyrmling huddled on the ground beside the knife and bucket. “What is that poor creature?”

“It's a dragon, my lord.” Phillip replied. “A foul demonic thing. We were planning on offering it to the soil during the festival, but-”

“That's barbaric.”

The talkative butcher did not miss a beat. “Indeed it is sir, we've done our best to try to redeem it. We've fed it and tried to raise it back to health, but sadly our funds have run low and we have to give up-”

“How much do you want for it?”

Doug looked down at the bloody, battered figure trembling on the ground.

“It’s a broken thing.” He muttered. “You can have it for a thou-”

“Greatest apologies, my partner is ill in the head and mixed up our stock.” Phillip interrupted again. “This thing is a little rough-which shows you how powerful and dangerous it can be- but you sir, are obviously good at finding hidden gems. It was originally 5000 lions, but for you, only 3000.”

Lord Haight nodded and turned to his castellian for the purse. “Very well, I’ll take it.”

The talkative butcher immediately smiled. “Yessir. You are a man who knows his business well sir! Doug!” Phillip barked at his partner. “Clean this beast up, with our best oils and ointments and collar and be gentle!” The talkative butcher glared back at his partner- who flinched under the gaze-before reassuring his customer. “Only the best for the Lord of Cael.”

***

Doug could be surprisingly gentle when pressured. In a short time, the dragon was cleaned, its wounds sutured and disinfected. Clay and even wax were used, leaving the near dead wyrmling shiny and bright when he was handed over. Evidently the butchers were experienced in dressing beings up under intense scrutiny and time pressure.

“Here you go my lord.” Phillip smiled as he clicked the coins in his hand, watching Doug carefully transfer their product over to Lord Haight, who cradled the creature like a baby.

For once the dragon didn't struggle or bite. He knew what had happened.

Since the death of his mother, the dragon had been chained, caged, displayed, and beaten by a dozen humans, all eager to profit off his misery.

Now for the first time the wyrmling had run into a human who was not trying to harm him, and was in fact trying to help him.

Despite everything, the dragon decided to trust this individual who saved him.

As Lord Haight walked out of that marketplace of horrors and death with the wyrmling nestled within his arms, it began to drizzle, the gentle patter of water seeming to wash the savagery and ghastliness of the place away.

Jonathan gave his rescue a gentle pet on the head. “Rest now, little one.”

The little dragon obeyed, curled up in the human’s arms, and finally drifted off into a deep sleep.

Bob Marley - Redemption Song

From TheDinosaurMann !