Flo, Mama D, and the Knight

© 2008 by Sarah Matanah

Flo woke up to Mama G and Mama D arguing in whispers at the entrance to the cave.

“I don’t see why you have to go,” Mama G was saying. “They never wash those swords, you know. You could get a nasty infection.”

“You know I have to, G,” Mama D said. “If someone doesn’t fight these creatures every once in a while, they just keep spreading. I’ve seen them ruin a good magical wilderness in twenty years. We don’t want to have to move when the kids have just hit adolescence. No one will let us in their neighborhood then.”

Mama G clicked her beak skeptically.

“Besides,” Mama D added. “I haven’t been in a good fight in six months.”

“Fine, but if you get an infection, don’t expect me to go begging Dregg for help.”

Mama D laughed. “Okay, I won’t.”

Flo heard the rattle of heavy chains as Mama D put on her most impressive ruby necklace.

“Mama D, can I go?” Flo said.

“No,” Mama G said.

“Come on, Mama D, please? It’ll be educational. And traditional. There’s nothing more traditional than fighting knights. I’ll bet every other dragon my age has seen a proper knight fight.”

“Honey, it’s not that exciting,” Mama D said. She was buffing all her bulkiest rings on her belly scales before putting one on each of her claws. “They’re kind of pitiful really. You puff a flame or two at them, they drop the sword, and then you just squish them.”

“But you said ‘a real fight.’”

“Well, once in a while one of them has some style.”

“I’ll wake up Mo,” Flo said. “He’ll be mad if he misses out.”

“Flo,” Mama G said, “I said...”

“She’s kind of right though, G,” Mama D broke in. “It is traditional. Besides, you wouldn’t want me to have to do another one just to teach the kids.”

“I suppose,” Mama G said. She hunched up one of her wings and raked it irritably with her beak.

It was a bad morning for flying. Banks of dark clouds built up, dumped rain on them, and were blown away only to be replaced by new storm clouds. Gusts of wind kept catching Flo’s wings, so that she had to flap especially hard to avoid being pushed in the wrong direction. Beside her Mo looked just as miserable as she felt. None of this seemed to affect Mama D. She flew as if she were being pulled across the sky, sometimes forgetting to slow down for them until she was almost out of sight. Flo’s wings felt sore and heavy by the time they finally caught up with Mama D on a field surrounded by rows of jagged boulders. Mama D craned her head around, scanning the horizon.

“All this wind isn’t good for flaming,” she muttered. “Your own fire can blow back in your face and burn your eyes.”

“Are you sure someone’s coming to fight you?” Mo asked.

“Yeah. They should be here.”

A moment later the weakest looking human Flo had ever seen came stumbling up from between the boulders. He was very thin and wore a chain-mail shirt that was far too big for him and a helmet that wobbled on his head. He carried a sword but didn’t seem to be strong enough to hold it up properly. It kept catching on rocks so that he almost tripped over it. He took two more steps and did trip. As he pitched forward, the helmet fell off his head. He grabbed the helmet and shoved it back on, but not before Flo noticed his trembling lips and the tears dripping down to his jaw.

“Mama D, you can’t fight him.”

“I told you, Flo, sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s just quick. I’ll make this a quick one.”

Flo looked over at Mo to see if he was going to help her, but he was watching the knight’s struggle and pretending not to be aware of the argument.

“Flo, I don’t like it either. So stop now, got it?” Mama D said. Tiny flames flickered at the edges of her nostrils, a sign that it was time for Flo to stop arguing. She settled for stalking off instead, whipping her tail just enough to show her disgust without Mama D actually calling her out for rudeness. When she got past the first ring of boulders she stopped in surprise. Most of the boulders they had flown over were actually just painted shells. They had all been turned on their sides, revealing hundreds of human soldiers with bows almost as tall as they were and serrated arrows, some of them trailing ropes and chains. Many more ropes lay at the soldiers’ feet.

“Mama D,” Flo shouted. “It’s a trick!”

Even as she spoke the soldiers started shooting. The soldiers with the ropes attached to the arrows shot first so that Flo found her wings caught almost immediately in a tangle of five ropes. She was able to untangle herself by breaking most of the ropes and setting fire to the others, but while she was doing that, other arrows were starting to hit her. Most of them bounced off her scales, but one of them caught the edge of her wing and ripped it before she was able to take off.

As she flew back past where Mama D was, she saw that Mo had taken off ahead of her, but Mama D was still fighting. There were ropes all over her body, but they didn’t even slow her down. She seemed to be breathing fire in all directions at once, while hitting five knights at a time aside with her tail and effortlessly flinging others past the rows of boulders. So many arrows were hitting her and bouncing off that it looked like she was standing in a rain storm. The knight lay near her, curled up, with his arms over his head. Mama D’s tail hit the ground a few inches from him, almost smashing him.

Flo winced. She dived down, grabbed him by the ankle and yanked him into the air. An arrow bounced off her shoulder as she flew away, but she kept going. Soon the only arrows that she saw were flying far below her. Her wing hurt, especially with the extra weight, but she kept going until she reached some trees by a river. She landed and dropped the knight down beside the water.

He scrambled away from her on all fours. “Don’t eat me, please.”

“I’m not going to,” Flo told him. “I brought you with me because we both didn’t want to fight. I thought it would be interesting to watch, but then I really didn’t want to. Did you think you might want to fight and then change your mind?”

“No,” the man muttered. “I never wanted to fight. They said, ‘Be the bait then, chicken.’”

“Oh,” said Flo. “It was kind of cheating, you know, but they’ll never beat Mama D. She’ll just enjoy having a decent fight. Why did you want to fight a dragon anyway?”

The man put his head in his hands and pulled at his sweaty hair as if he was trying to yank something out of his brain. “The mayor says that dragons have huge caves full of treasure. He never thinks he has enough treasure, so he wanted to capture one and make it bring him to its cave. Also, if you eat a dragon’s heart you can live forever.”

“Hmm,” said Flo, feeling quite irritated with this mayor. “Does he have a huge cave full of treasure?”

“No. He’s got treasure all right, but he keeps it in his house. Why?”

“I’ll fly you back to your town,” Flo told him. “If you want, you can tell them we fought. Then they won’t think you’re a chicken.”

On the way back Flo stopped at a large stone house in the middle of town. She heard a few screams as she pushed her way through the doors, but she didn’t see anyone. It turned out that the mayor had some really good treasure.

Mama D came home tired and with arrow nicks in her wings and belly scales. She hadn’t even laid down before she started grumbling about Flo and how she snatched the cause of all the trouble out of the fight. Flo stopped her with a flourish, handed her a box of gold coins, and slipped five ruby bracelets over her tail.

Mama D cheered up right away after that. She told the story of the fight to Mama G three times, making the bracelets rattle for emphasis. Mama G groomed her wings harder each time until finally she left in the middle of a sentence to go fish.

Flo followed her quietly. “Sorry, Mama G. I know you didn’t want us to go.”

“You don’t have to be traditional,” Mama G told her, clawing at a fish and missing. She still sounded grumpy. “Live your life your own way.”

“I know,” Flo said. “That’s what I’m doing. But I still have to know what to choose from.”

“Yeah,” Mama G said after a while. “I guess that’s right.” She caught the next fish and tossed it onto the beach. “Come on, let’s go up and have some lunch.”