The Last Dragon

by Ella Hart

  “What’s that?” Paulina seemed to sense that it was something important to him. Something happy. “Is it of your family? Did it belong to your parents?”

  “Maybe later, Paulina.” He didn’t want to go into detail about it at that particular moment. She nodded, and with that, they hurried towards town. “Your car?”

  “Yes. It’ll at least let us get out of town in a hurry.” She smiled. “It’s parked over here.” She led him to a patch of brush over in the forest. He wondered how she had managed to park it here. As they crossed the brush, he realized it was parked in a driveway. The Monson driveway; he’d come down this road many times.

  “Thank you.” He smiled a little. “This is something that not many people would do for me.”

  “My grandparents did ask why I had not come home. I had to tell them that we had been talking and fell asleep, but I didn’t tell them what you are. I didn’t want to risk losing the fragile trust you’ve given me.” She looked heartbroken. “I did my best to hide it, Cobalt, but my best may not have been enough. They are suspicious.”

  “It was your grandparents that pulled the trigger, metaphorically?” Cobalt frowned, visibly taken aback. He’d been good friends with Maddox for years, and with Amelia.

  “No. It was my uncle – Uncle Jason.” She sighed. “I tried to stop him, but I think that only confirmed his suspicions.”

  “Thank you for trying.” He didn’t know what else to say. At least this time, it hadn’t been his confidante that had brought the danger to him, and he tried to take solace in that. At this point, it looked just as bleak as the other times had. He wanted more than anything to know that he was safe, that he could live his life in peace, but it never worked out that way. He hated it.

  “You’re welcome, Cobalt. Now, let’s get out of here before he finds out I’ve warned you.” She got into the driver’s seat of the car. He got in on the passenger’s side, and hid as best as he could to prevent being seen in the mirrors or through the windows. “Are you going to do that the whole way until we get to where we can hide?”

  “Just until we get out of town. Can we get going, Paulina?” He noticed his tone become unusually aggressive, and sighed. “Sorry. Sometimes I can have a dragon’s temper when I’m in human form. It’s just part of being a dragon, and I try to keep it under control. When in stressful situations, though, that becomes much more difficult to do.”

  “I understand. It’s okay. For now, try to relax. Take some deep breaths and let it go.” She smiled at him warmly and started the car. “I’ll pull over when it’s safe to get out of that hiding spot, okay? How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds good. Now drive, please?” He managed to keep a peaceful tone. Suddenly, it wasn’t quite as stressful as he thought it’d be. There was no reason to worry. Paulina would help him get out of this safely.

  He took a deep breath. The car started up underneath him, and he heard the engine roaring to life. She hummed softly as she began to drive the car out of the driveway. He managed to relax a little, and smiled back at her. They were going to be okay. She was getting him out of there.

  He leaned back softly. There was something missing. He wasn’t quite sure what was wrong though. Maybe it was that she was human. That was something odd to him. How could one human care so much about him? She didn’t need to.

  However, that wasn’t much to go on. Maybe it was simply that he wasn’t used to having a human with him for an extended period of time. He was used to seeing dragons around, not humans. That didn’t make a ton of sense, though. He had spent so much time around humans lately. There had to be something else he was missing. Or maybe he was simply trying to readjust.

  Whatever was going on, he didn’t care. He liked the way it felt.

  “I’m going to turn on some music. It’ll hide your breathing a little better.” She broke the silence. He nodded slowly. She turned on the music, just as she said she would. There wasn’t a lot of choice out here for music stations, so she simply had to turn on the little local station.

  That made him more on edge than just trying to hide his breathing. They were talking about an escaped convict – him. Except that he wasn’t an escaped convict. He supposed they had to use that language to make it work; to make people that think he was more dangerous than he was. Granted, in his youth, he was one of the worst dragons around. He had burned down more than his fair share of crops. However, he could see why people didn’t want him around.

  Paulina sighed, and tried to get another channel on the radio. She managed to find one which was playing some old country music. He gave her a thankful smile. That was all he needed. He needed something that wouldn’t remind him of what was going on. of what was happening in his hometown of fifteen hundred years. He’d been there so long he was almost a living legend. There was something odd about that, though.

  Maybe it was just time for him to move on. There wouldn’t be any shame in it. He’d been there so long, people would be bound to catch onto his secret at some point. He was just upset that the mentality hadn’t left. People still thought he was a menace, a monster. A child-killing machine. Something worth killing. Not even a person.

  He was a thing to these people, not an equal. It hurt him to think that they still thought of him like that. How could he live there when that was all he was to them? It hadn’t been easy to begin with, and it wouldn’t be easy now that they knew either.

  Suddenly leaving with Paulina seemed like a good idea. It made much more sense than any of the alternatives. There had been something so innately dragon in his wish to stay, but something innately human awoke in him when he met Paulina. Something different. Something new, something wanted. How could he stay when part of him so desperately wanted to leave with Paulina?

  He didn’t know how to put it into words. Maybe he shouldn’t try to put it into words because he knew that words would fail him.

  Yet he couldn’t help but wonder how her uncle had figured out his secret. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as he thought; maybe it had indeed been Paulina that had told him what had happened. He wanted to trust Paulina’s version of the story, but as the doubts crept into his mind, he wasn’t sure he could.

  Could his only friend have betrayed him without meaning to?

  Chapter Seven: Getting Acquainted

  Paulina continued to drive, straight past the town limits. He continued to mull over what he had done. What they had done – she had done, really. Now that someone knew his secret, his worst nightmares were coming alive right before his eyes again.

  He wasn’t sure he could do it again. The move. The attempt to start fresh in a new city. Someone always thought he was odd. Weird. Strange. Whatever adjective they wanted to use.

  “Hmm,” she said softly. “I think we’re good. We’re on a highway now. If you want to try, you could get up into the seat.” She didn’t sound convinced that it’d be a good idea. “I’m not sure if it’d be safe, though.”

  “I can try. Maybe it’ll be safer to be in the seat with a seatbelt.” He managed a smile. Either way, there was something else for him to focus on.

  Slowly, he extended his legs. That would be the first step to getting up into the seat. Well, technically that was getting turned the right way. He had to make his back face the seat, instead of the engine as it was. It took him a moment, but, he made it happen.

  Now his legs were too long for the confined space he was in. This was the easiest part of the transfer into the chair. He pushed against the floor with his feet, and shimmied up into the chair. Once his butt was safely in the chair, he did up his seatbelt.

  “If I had known it was that easy for you to make it right, I would’ve suggested it a few miles back.” She laughed a little. “Welcome to the wide-open spaces of wonderful Arizona.” Her smile widened. “We’ll be hitting New Mexico in a couple of hours. I think you’d really like Louisiana. It’s a couple of days of driving, but it’ll be worth it. We could go to New Orléans.”

  “You’ve always wanted to
see New Orléans, haven’t you?” He smiled a little as she blushed. Paulina nodded slowly.

  “Yes. I’ve heard amazing things about it, and I’m simply curious about it.” Her words were quiet, as if she wondered what was going on in his head instead of hers. “Aren’t you curious about it too, Cobalt?”

  “A bit, yes, now that you’ve mentioned it.” He smiled. “I’ve never lived there before. I have lived in Florida, Spain, France, and England.”

  “England?” She sounded surprised at that. “How old are you really, Cobalt?” She took her eyes off the road for a second and looked at him quizzically.

  “Do you want the real answer this time, Paulina?” He wondered what she would think if she knew how old he really was. There was so much he could tell her now that he hadn’t been comfortable telling her before. But that was only if she was comfortable knowing he was really over a thousand years old.

  “Yes. I’d like to know your real age. There needs to be some level of trust in this relationship, and that means I need to trust that you’re ready to tell me what I want to know.” She smiled at him.

  “All right, but please... don’t freak out after I tell you. It’s kind of... a weird thing to hear after what I’ve already told you.” He took a deep breath after warning her what was coming. “I’m four thousand years old.” The words fell like heavy drops of water from his lips.

  “Wow.” She smiled. “That’s amazing. So, you weren’t lying with all the stories you told me last night? You just didn’t tell me how old you were when it happened so that you wouldn’t have to put a timeline on it all?”

  “Yeah, something like that. And I’ve got plenty of other stories like the ones I was telling you. If you want to hear more, that is. I’d understand if you didn’t, though. It can all be a bit overwhelming for someone at first.”

  “Are you kidding? I’d love to hear more stories! It’ll help pass the time.” She smiled at him. “That, and I would love to know more about you. There’s something interesting about you that I can’t quite place my finger on. Maybe it’s because you’re wise beyond what I originally thought you were.” Her smile widened as she spoke.

  “All right.” He smiled. “I’ll tell you a few more stories. They’re rather intense and long. There aren’t many that I can think of off the top of my head that wouldn’t take a long time to tell.” With that, he took a moment to think of a story.

  “Well, while you’re thinking, can I tell you a story?” She seemed happy to let him know as much about her as he was telling her about himself. He nodded slowly. She started to tell him about a time her bike had gotten stuck in a strawberry bush. It was a whimsical story – a little like the ones he had told her the night before.

  She’d been riding it really fast, enjoying the wind in her hair. There was a hill that she hadn’t seen coming, and she accelerated too quickly. She couldn’t stop in time, and had to turn hard. It worked; she avoided running right into the side of the hill. She did end up running into a strawberry bush, though.

  The bush had no berries on it, but it was rather thorny. Her clothes got stuck in the thorns, and the more she struggled, the worse it got. She finally got free when she managed to turn and rip her dress.

  She’d gone home without a skirt on her dress that day.

  He couldn’t help but laugh at her story. Going home with half a dress was one of the oddest things he could think of. Her story had only made him feel closer to her, and he cherished the moment. “Your turn to tell me a story, Cobalt.” Her cheerful voice interrupted his thoughts. He frowned, not sure which story to tell her.

  “Oh. Here’s a good one.” He smiled a little. It was one of the few stories he could think of that involved his family.

  His mother had attempted to set him up with the dragon girl next door. She had been a girl of two thousand, and him a young man of two thousand five hundred. Five hundred years between dragons wasn’t so much to them. It was like two or three years to humans.

  His mother had arranged the date. They were to go on a walk around the park, and then go to dinner together. It didn’t happen like that. Instead, the female had decided that it’d be more fun to cook for him. After the walk, they had returned to her place.

  She cooked spaghetti for him. Except, they had no noodles. They had hot spaghetti sauce, but nothing to eat it on. He’d offered to get noodles for her, but she had declined. They ended up eating the sauce on some garlic bread. It would’ve been better with noodles, and she was really embarrassed.

  They mutually agreed that they weren’t really compatible and that it wouldn’t work out between them. Despite this, their parents and respective siblings had thought they would learn to get along and become a well-fitting couple. As a result, they were continually set up on dates. Each time they laughed and chalked it up to their parents’ wishes for them to marry. They spent their time hanging out as friends, and never considered it anything more. It finally stopped when she found a dragon she liked - one of his brothers. Her and Cobalt’s brother became the new fixation of the family.

  That worked out in the end. He got to be the best man at his brother’s wedding, and she was happy to see him there. The only difference was that he was now her brother-in-law.

  Paulina smiled at him as he finished the story. She didn’t seem to find it as obnoxious as he had found it in the moment. He didn’t mind if she laughed. It took her a moment to realize that it was a bit of a funny story, and she began to laugh.

  “That’s hilarious.” She smiled a little. “Do you have any other funny set-up stories?” Her question was asked in honesty.

  “Not as funny as that one. Do you have any stories about being set up with someone?” Honestly, he was now curious about it. If he had some good ones, maybe she did too. She pursed her lips together as she took a sharp left turn. He pressed against the door to keep from being thrown into it.

  “Yes. I do.” She finally managed to think of one. As she began to tell the story, he began to wonder how old she was. There was no way she was older than twenty years. She looked too young to be legal quite yet, at least.

  She told him a story about being set up with the biggest jerk she’d ever met. Her parents had thought it would be a good way to get her a boyfriend, and they had been completely mistaken. The guy was a total jerk; he made her pay for the date, and he refused to cooperate with her when she wanted to take some pictures.

  He had insisted that they go to the park for pictures. She had taken a photography class, and told him the pictures would turn out badly with the fact that the sun had set. Either way, he insisted they go to the park. She begrudgingly gave in. They went to the park, and he picked a spot under a street light.

  They took some pictures. Then he wanted to get pictures under a tree. Again, she tried to tell him that the pictures wouldn’t do well. He still insisted. She gave in, again, and told him that he could take the pictures. He tried, but then realized she was right. He then wanted to get pictures under another street light. This pattern continued for a while, until she eventually left him to go home.

  That was when it got weird. He grabbed her by the arm and said that he’d been waiting for a friend. He’d only go after she met his friend. She sighed, and said she’d wait another ten minutes. If he didn’t show in ten minutes, she was going home.

  She waited her ten minutes, and then left. She never did know why he had insisted on waiting for his friend. What she did know was that she hadn’t wanted to meet him after that disaster of a date. Her parents had tried to set her up with him again, but she had gotten out of it by way of a math test she had to study for. The third time they set her up, she confessed that she didn’t like being set up with that guy.

  They respected her wishes not to be set up with him anymore. Granted, they continued with their attempts at setting her up until she left to care for her grandparents, but that was beside the point. She sighed softly as her story came to a close.

  “I’m glad you got out of that without an is
sue, Paulina.” He smiled at her. “That sounds like it could’ve ended horribly if you hadn’t been paying attention.” She nodded slowly.

  “I never felt like that on a date again. It was the worst date ever, and partly because he wouldn’t let me go home when I wanted to go home. I have a feeling he was trying to wait me out, to get me to fall asleep before I went home so he could do something. I avoided him like the plague after that.” She sighed. “That was actually the hardest thing to do. He was in a lot of my classes last year.”

  “Did he try to approach you after that date?” He furrowed his brows. He’d seen this kind of behavior before. She nodded.

  “Yeah. He’d always watch me, and when I was alone, he’d walk towards me. I always walked towards the bathroom or a crowded hallway after that. I couldn’t ever figure out what he wanted that he could get from me when I was alone with him.” She sighed.

  “He probably didn’t have very good intentions.” He put his hand softly on her shoulder. “Was he arrested for something after that date?”

  “Yeah. Actually, he was arrested for attempted rape two months after our first and only date.” She stopped as the realization hit her. “Oh my gosh... he was going to...” “Why didn’t I see that before?”

  “What matters is that you got out of there before he could hurt you, and you knew not to let him approach you when you were alone.” He managed to say something to make her feel better. It didn’t help much, but she did seem thankful that he was trying to make her feel better.

  “Thanks, Cobalt.” She smiled at him. “I guess that is something I should be thankful for. So... any other stories you want to tell me?” She wanted to get her mind off of it; he could tell that much. What other stories could he tell her that wouldn’t bring those memories back to the surface?

  He thought for a moment. There was the time he’d been trapped with miners in the 1950s. There was a story about going to Russia and getting picked to be an astronaut. He finally settled on telling her the story of when he had met Queen Victoria. That had been quite the day. He’d never forget it.