The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company

by L. G. Estrella

  But there were lines she didn’t cross. Contrary to common belief, she didn’t go around killing random villagers. Provided they stayed out of her way and didn’t give her any trouble, she was content to ignore them. It was kind of like how a wolf wouldn’t go out of its way to pick a fight with a bunch of ants. There simply wasn’t any point to it. Random villagers weren’t a threat, and they didn’t have anything she wanted. She also didn’t go after children. She’d been a child once, and it hadn’t been easy. An elf with fire magic like hers was weird enough to begin with, but an elf with fire magic like hers who actually enjoyed using it and had a temper to match? Other elves didn’t think she was weird. No, she was an abomination, her mere existence an insult to the ideals held by many of her so-called kin.

  The first thing she’d done once she was old enough and strong enough to survive on her own was to leave. She didn’t need some stuck up bastards telling her how to live her life. She could make it just fine on her own, and if they wanted to mess with her, she’d show them how useful her magic was. She’d pitied the other kids who’d been stuck with those losers who went on and on and on about their glorious past instead of growing some damn balls and seizing the future for themselves. Well, she wasn’t like them. She didn’t live in the past. One day, everyone would know her name, and that was the way it should be. Ancestors? Who gave a damn about them? Their deeds were their own. If someone wanted to be great, they needed to stop talking about people who’d been dead for centuries and actually do something for themselves.

  Avraniel was content to leave random villagers alone, but she would happily roast entire groups of bandits without a second thought. The way she saw it, fair was fair. If bandits were willing to rob and kill people, they had to be prepared for someone stronger to rob and kill them. It was all part of the circle of life. Their mistake was thinking they were at the top of the food chain.

  Killing or kidnapping kids wasn’t something she did, and she wasn’t about to stand by and watch it happen either. Maybe if some of those people who’d come after her at the start had hesitated a bit more before trying to put an arrow through her eye or a sword through her gut, they might have been able to go home with a few cuts and bruises instead of being reduced to piles of ash. But the joke was on them. She’d been a kid when they’d started trying to kill her, but she’d survived. Each fight had only made her stronger. Now, nothing short of an army was going to take her patch of the forest from her, and she’d burn the whole damn forest down before she let someone take what was hers.

  “You know,” Avraniel drawled as she leapt out of the tree to land in between the mercenaries and the half-elf girl with blonde hair and green eyes. “I don’t like people who pick on kids. No, that’s not quite right.” She grinned. “I kill people who pick on kids.”

  “Stay out of this!” One of the mercenaries brandished his sword at her. “Or we’ll kill you where you stand, elf bitch!”

  Avraniel’s eye twitched. She did not like being insulted, and she did not like being threatened. Being insulted and threatened? This guy was begging to be set on fire. “I woke up in a good mood today, so I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Leave the girl and any valuables you have with me, and you get to live. Refuse, and, well, you’re all dead. I’ll give you to the count of three. One –”

  Someone shot an arrow at her head.

  Avraniel caught the arrow out of the air and snapped it in two. These mercenaries were idiots. They were going to try to shoot an elf with a bow, and not even a good bow? Please. Compared to how quickly an elf’s arrow would have travelled, the mercenary’s arrow might as well have been frozen in mid-air.

  “So that’s how it’s going to be? You want to do this the hard way? Fine. Let’s go.” She cracked her knuckles and smirked toothily. “To be honest, I was probably going to kill all of you anyway. I hate people who bring trouble to my neck of the woods. Oh well. At least this way, you get to fight back. It’ll be more fun.” She nodded at the girl. “Kid, you might want to get down.”

  The girl gaped at her for a moment and then flung herself to the ground. Good. She wasn’t a total idiot. Avraniel drew her bow and put an arrow through the eye of the mercenary who’d fired an arrow at her. He dropped, and she fired twice more, moving at a speed that no other elf – never mind a human – would have been able to match. Two more mercenaries fell, and the others charged. She set her bow aside and raised one hand. Fire rippled outward, a shockwave of heat and force that flung the mercenaries back like rag dolls. Clothes burned, steel melted, and the mercenaries lit up like those quaint trees the villagers always decorated near the end of the year. She would have smiled if it weren’t for the smell. Burning wood smelled nice, but burning mercenaries were a different story. If only they’d been cows. It had been a while since she’d eaten roast beef.

  One of the mercenaries continued his charge. Impressive. His magic had been strong enough to keep him from being incinerated. Unfortunately, his magic was much better than his swordsmanship. She took a big step to the side as he brought his sword down in an overhead chop. The weapon thudded into the ground, and she grabbed him by the scruff of his cloak and let her magic do the rest. As his whole body was engulfed in flames, she kicked him away to join the others. She’d learned the hard way that burning people could die quite messily, and the nearest stream was a good half an hour away on foot.

  “Die, whore!”

  Avraniel rolled her eyes. These mercenaries really were idiots. They had to have noticed how big the gap in power was after she’d wiped out so many of them so easily, but the mage who’d gathered lightning to throw at her had still felt the need to shout an insult at her. His magic wasn’t strong enough to do more than singe her, but he would have at least landed a blow if he’d kept his mouth shut. Instead, she turned, gestured, and his arms caught fire. He gave a scream of panic and lost control of his magic. The lightning he’d gathered backfired on him and exploded, and the blast hurled him – minus his arms – into a tree. She scoffed. Loser.

  A few blasts of flame later, and only one mercenary was still alive, not counting the guy who was flopping around like a burning fish on the grass nearby, so she weighed up her options. She was definitely going to rob him and strip the corpses of anything valuable, but what happened after that depended on how cooperative he was. Letting him go could prove to be quite profitable. If he came back with more people in a pathetic attempt to get revenge, she could simply wipe them out too and take any valuables they might have. She doubted they’d have anything too valuable on them, but every bit helped. One day, she’d have enough money to leave this stupid forest and buy a nice tropical island somewhere. She’d live in a huge house, and who knows? Maybe she’d have a dragon too because dragons were probably the only creatures that loved fire as much as she did. She’d have to get a young one, not like that old bastard Black Scales.

  “They’ll kill you for this!” the mercenary hissed. He tried to spit at her, but all he did was get bloody saliva all over his own face since he was flat on his back with several broken ribs and a bevvy of burns. “They’ll kill you –”

  It turned out that being set on fire again made it hard for him to talk. What a pity, but if he’d wanted to live, he should have tried to make himself useful. She waited until he’d stopped shrieking – he lasted a surprisingly long time – before she turned back to the girl who was doing a solid impression of a wounded rabbit surrounded by a pack of rabid wolves.

  “Hey, kid, you can leave now, but I’ll be taking anything good these guys have.” Avraniel looked over to where one of the dead mercenaries had slumped against a tree. He was still smouldering, but her control over her magic was good enough to keep her fire from destroying anything valuable. “Actually, that guy there has a nice pair of boots, and his feet don’t look very big. I’m betting you’d fit into his boots in a couple of years. Go ahead and take them. They’re not even singed.”

  The girl’s mouth opened and closed several times but
no sound came out. Avraniel sighed. Kids these days. What were their parents teaching them? Looting the bodies of bandits was a perfectly legitimate way of acquiring new footwear. As the girl continued to gawp at her like an idiot, Avraniel grabbed a stick and went back and forth amongst the bandits. She poked and prodded them to make sure they were dead before she moved in to take their valuables. The best thing about gold was that accidentally melting it didn’t make it any less valuable. The mercenaries had a decent number of coins on them, along with other bits and pieces. She’d take what was immediately useful, stash some of the rest, and sell everything else when she found the time.

  The elves liked to think their forest was some kind of sacred refuge free from the corruption that plagued the rest of the world, but they couldn’t be more wrong. There were plenty of people in the forest who were willing to buy or sell anything for the right price. Avraniel made a decent living wiping out bandits and other troublemakers and selling anything she didn’t want. She also ventured out of the forest from time to time to sell things in some of the bigger towns and cities, but she couldn’t risk it too often. She was a criminal with a bounty on her head, and there were lots of people out there hoping to turn her into a nice payday. She’d run into four of them the last time she’d left the forest. After meeting them, she had four less people to worry about.

  A grin crossed her lips as she stumbled across something especially useful. It was a sack that was larger on the inside than the outside. She’d heard of these before and had even seen them in action a few times, but they were difficult to get and very expensive. Scum like these mercenaries had no business having one, but maybe they’d murdered some merchant for it or something. However they’d gotten it, it was hers now. It was a shame that none of them had good boots in her size. She’d been hoping to get some new ones, but waltzing into some boot maker’s shop wasn’t an option for her. The elves would try to arrest her the second they laid eyes on her, and although she should be able to fight them off without too much of a hassle, she doubted she’d be able to fight them off and get new boots at the same time. Hopefully, someone in the next bunch of bastards she wiped out would have a new pair of good boots in her size.

  “Uh…” the girl whispered fearfully as she eyed the carnage around them. Avraniel was slightly impressed. Most girls her age would have emptied their stomachs. “Um…”

  “What?” Avraniel growled as she continued to search the bodies. Damn it. Didn’t these jerks have any decent food? She didn’t have a dog, but if she did, she wouldn’t have fed it the crap the mercenaries were eating. The closest things she had to pets were the damn squirrels that occupied this part of the forest. The little bastards were always trying to steal her stuff, but they had the decency to keep an eye out for trouble and warn her whenever an elf patrol got close since she also kept most of their predators away. In return, she’d refrained from filling her stomach with fried squirrel whenever she got hungry although it wouldn’t have made much sense to eat them. They were nosy bastards, but they were very good sentries.

  The girl’s lips began to quiver, and Avraniel scowled. Was she going to cry? At her age, Avraniel had already been spending almost all of her time away from everyone else. Then again, Avraniel had sort of killed more than a dozen men in front of her. Most kids lived sheltered lives, and this kid was dressed like a noble. This was probably the first time she’d seen a dead body.

  “I… I was going to visit my father, but these men killed my guards, and… and…” The girl broke down and sobbed before running toward Avraniel. She practically tackled the elf, and Avraniel could only grimace as the girl wrapped her arms around her and wept.

  “Yeah, fine. Whatever.” Avraniel tried to pry the girl off, but it was like trying to pry off one of those killer vines that grew in the darker parts of the forest. In the end, all she could do was stand there and wait for the girl to cry herself out. “Look, kid, where is your father? If you tell me where he lives, I can point you in the right direction. You can even have some of the… uh… food those bastards had.” Inwardly, she cringed. She was getting soft, and the mercenaries’ food was absolute crap.

  “I don’t know where he lives. I haven’t met him before.”

  “So he’s that kind of guy, huh?” Avraniel laughed. “He sounds like a bastard to me.”

  “Don’t call him that!” the girl cried. “I… he’s a good man! My mother told me so! He’s… he’s… he’s an elf lord!”

  “Am elf lord? That’s just another way of saying that he’s a bastard amongst bastards.” Avraniel could honestly say that she despised all of the elf lords. Hell, if it weren’t for the fact that they had armies to throw at her, she would have burned the lot of them by now. “But, hey, you must be pretty valuable, right? The daughter of an elf lord and all…” Profit was important, and this girl had profit written all over her.

  The girl nodded quickly. She was clearly still shaken, but she was doing her best to recover. It was almost admirable. “I… I can pay you.” She reached into her cloak and produced a stone that shone like the full moon and seemed to ooze magic. “Do you know what this is?”

  “I do.” Avraniel snatched it out of her hands. A gem like this – a lunar opal – was worth far more than mere gold or silver. “And it’s mine now. See you later, kid.”

  The girl looked between her suddenly empty hands and the lunar opal and began to cry. Avraniel winced. She wasn’t actually going to steal the opal. She was just joking around, but maybe now wasn’t the best time for a joke. This girl might be an elf lord’s daughter, but she hadn’t been lying when she’d said she’d never met him, and it wasn’t like she was to blame for all of the crap the elf lords had put Avraniel through. Those bastards had sent their soldiers after her and then gotten offended when she’d had the audacity to fight them off. Well, if they didn’t want her to pummel their soldiers, then maybe they should stop sending them after her. Likewise, if they didn’t want her stealing their stuff, then maybe they should do a better job of protecting it.

  “Oh, come on, kid. I was joking. I’ll take this, all right, but in exchange, I’ll take you to your father too. What’s his name?” And, hey, if she happened to steal a few things from whichever jerk was this kid’s father, so much the better, right?

  “Lord Galterion is my father.”

  Avraniel made a choking sound. Lord Galterion was one of the elf lords who’d been especially zealous in pushing for her capture and execution over the years. Her lips curled. She even had it on good authority that he was the one who’d suggested they try to kill her in the first place, back when she’d been a lot younger and naïve enough to think they’d simply leave her alone if she stayed away from them. She’d set the bastard on fire twice, but he’d managed to survive thanks to his powerful ice magic and a lot of luck. Really, that limp-dicked son of a bitch was more like a rat than an elf. She snorted. She might have to stop calling him limp-dicked. The kid was living proof that he’d been able to get it up at least once in his life. He was still a son of a bitch though. If she saw him dying on the side of the road, she wouldn’t keep walking. No, she’d find a nice rock and finish him off. But helping his daughter would be a great form of revenge. Elf lords were obsessed with honour, and owing her a debt of honour for saving his daughter would drive him crazy. She chuckled. Leaving him to suffer in existential agony would be way more enjoyable than simply robbing him or killing him.

  She smirked. “You’re in luck, kid. I happen to know where that bastard lives.” She waved the opal around. “Give me this, and I’ll take you right to him.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” The girl scrubbed at her tear-stained cheeks. Her long blonde hair was a mess. It must have come undone while she was running from the bandits.

  “Take a look around.” Avraniel snorted. “If I wanted to rob you or kill you, you’d be robbed or dead by now.”

  The girl gulped and turned very, very pale. “I… I guess so.”

  “Exactly. Now, le
t’s get going.” Avraniel tossed the girl the lunar opal. “There. If you’re so worried about me betraying you or something, you can keep that until after I get you to that loser you call a father.”

  “Wait!” the girl shouted as Avraniel started to walk away. “What about the monster?”

  “The what?” Avraniel asked. What garbage fairy tale had the girl’s guards told her? It wouldn’t be the first time some noble kid got fed a bunch of lies to keep them in line.

  However, the girl seemed genuinely terrified. “The monster. My… my guards told me all about the monster that lives in this part of the forest.” She sniffled miserably. “They… they said the monster wears the shape of a hideously deformed elf with eyes like lamps and teeth like daggers. They said she breathes fire and slaughters anyone who wanders into her territory.” She shivered. “No mortal can kill her.”

  Avraniel burst out laughing. This was too good. She’d been turned into the elf version of the bogeyman. Earlier in her life, she might have been insulted, but right now, she couldn’t be happier. This was something to be proud of, to savour. The elves, proud and powerful masters of the forest, were terrified of her.

  This would make her life so much easier. Young elves would grow up into soldiers, rangers, mages, and guards who would be too terrified to fight her properly. They’d try, but they’d remember those stories their parents told them, and they’d be afraid. She was now officially the second scariest thing in the forest after Black Scales. Not bad, not bad at all.

  “Relax,” she said once she’d managed to get her laughter under control. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. I won’t let the horrible monster hurt you.” She snickered. “Now, let’s get moving. We’re wasting daylight, and you half elves don’t always have the night vision us full-blooded elves have.” Half elves reached the peak of their powers more quickly than full-blooded elves, but they lived shorter lives and often lacked some of the other gifts elves possessed. Her voice sobered. “And don’t bother asking about your guards.” She listened keenly to the chatter being exchanged by the squirrels in the trees around them. “The mercenaries got all of them.”