Then, on a sunny afternoon when Kyra had finished her study session with Cyrus early, she arrived to find the satyr standing next to the egg flanked by several other satyrs. Unlike him, none of them had staffs. Instead, they were each dressed with leather armor and armed with spears and axes.
“What are you doing?” Kyra asked.
Njar smiled at her and held a hand up to settle her nerves. “It is only a precaution. The dragon will hatch today. When he emerges from his shell, I will be better able to judge his strength and energy. The warrior’s are here only in case the dragon has already been turned. If he is unharmed by the curse, they will return home to my village without a word.”
Kyra heard everything that he said, but her mind grasped only upon the fact that the dragon would hatch today. She dropped her books and ran to the egg, placing her hands upon the smooth shell and checking it for any sign of cracks. “When will he come?”
As if in answer to her question, a sudden thump slammed into the egg directly below her palm. Kyra jumped, pulling her hand back for a moment and laughing. Her eyes sparkled as she looked to Njar. He smiled, but his expression failed to hide his serious doubts. Kyra looked back to the egg and placed her hand upon it again.
“Well come on out then,” Kyra coaxed. “I have waited a long time to meet you.”
Another jolt, and the entire egg quaked as cracks tore through the top end of the egg and ripped through several inches of shell. Next, there was a bright glow coming from within the egg. The satyr reached out and gently pulled Kyra back just a couple of steps. She looked to him questioningly, but he pointed to the egg. A blast of fire tore its way through the cracks, the flames hissing and crackling as they stretched out several feet into the air.
“Be careful not to get too close until he is out,” Njar warned. “A hatchling will use everything it has to escape its shell. Until it can see you, it will have no regard for your safety, for it is unaware of your presence.”
Kyra shook her head. “I will be fine.” She pushed him away and move back to the egg.
“Be careful not to help him,” the satyr said. “Struggling against the egg helps prepare his body for the world. Should you help him break his capsule, it is possible that his muscles will not develop.”
Kyra nodded. She had figured as much already, for she had once had large butterflies at her home. She had nursed them from Caterpillar to butterfly, and had received much the same warning from her mother when it came time for them to burst out from their cocoons. She placed her hand against the other side of the egg and called out again to her dragon. “Hit it over here.”
A moment later a great force struck the inside of the shell just under where her hand was. So strong was the assault that a piece of shell roughly the size of a saucer plate popped out and fell to the ground. Kyra held her breath and positioned herself to look into the hole. At first she could see only large, brown scales. They shifted and then an eye slightly smaller than a hen’s egg looked up at her from inside the egg. The pupil was large, round, and dark, and it was surrounded by a golden yellow iris that had small green flakes in it. The eye twitched up and down as it looked at Kyra. She smiled and the two stared at each other for quite some time. Then the eye disappeared, and the egg shook terribly. Cracks appeared in various places as the egg fell to its side. A pair of long, sharp claws emerged from the hole that had been pecked out and then ripped another hunk of the egg off. Half a minute more of struggling and the egg shattered apart, falling to the ground all around the dragon. Great leathery wings with a span longer than the height of a man stretched out to either side of the dragon. It lifted its head into the air and roared triumphantly.
The satyr chief was quick to examine the dragon. He was not intrusive about it, for he was able simply to assess the creature’s energies from a distance. After a moment he nodded and all the other warriors disappeared through a portal back to the village.
“He is yours to name,” the satyr said. “You are the closest thing he has to a mother, and I want no part of naming him.”
Kyra looked at the satyr and understood without asking that the reason he wanted no part in naming the dragon was because he still assumed that one day the curse would overtake it. If you were to give it a name, it would be harder to label the dragon as a monster and kill it if that day were to come.
Kyra walked toward the dragon and his head twitched back suddenly to look at her. She stopped, half wondering if the dragon would attack her. After all she had no experience with such creatures. It was one thing to read about them in a book, but it was quite another to see one in person. From the snout to the tip of his tail he was just over six feet long, more than big enough to do serious damage if it wanted to. The dragon cocked his head to the side again and their eyes met and locked for several moments. The slight apprehension she felt melted away and again she was confident that the dragon would receive her kindly.
“Do you know who I am?” Kyra asked.
The dragon made a strange sound, something like a purr but much, much louder, and then it came to her and stuck its head under her hand using his neck to make her pet him along the back of his head. She was surprised to see that he was not scaly as she had thought when she had first seen him. There were lines that appeared to be in the shape of scales, but his skin was leathery and smooth.
“A hatchling will form its scales in the first few weeks of its life,” the satyr said, as if he understood what she was thinking.
Kyra smiled wide as she reached down to pet the creature with both of her hands. “I have a name for him.” She gently slipped her hand under the dragon’s lower jaw and tilted its head so that she could look into its eyes once more. “I will call you, Leatherback.” The dragon let out a small puff of blue flame and then he circled around Kyra and dropped to the ground to rest.
Njar moved in close and spoke softly to her, “He will need food. If you are sure you want to undertake this, then it will be up to you.”
Kyra looked at the satyr and drew her eyebrows together. “I don’t even know where I am, how can I find enough food for a dragon?”
Njar smiled and nodded knowingly. “Perhaps I can help for the first night. You may enjoy his company for now, but I would warn against forming a deep bond with him.”
“But you said his energy was clear.”
The satyr nodded again and sighed. “For now,” he clarified. “But there is no way for me to know how long that will last. His parents were already established adults before the curse came into the land. Even if he possesses their strength, he is not mature.”
“Then help me keep him safe. We only need to protect him until he is able to fly. Then we will fly northward together. He will escape his curse, and I will escape mine.”
The satyr chief began to shake his head, but his expression softened when he locked eyes with Kyra and he gave in. His shoulders slumped and he looked to the ground and nodded slowly. “I will do what I can, for I still do not understand how it is you could reach into the past. Perhaps there is a chance.” He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “But if he turns, we will have no choice but to destroy him. You must remember that.”
*****
The next morning, before her studies began, Kyra use the portal to come back and visit Leatherback. She couldn’t wait until after classes had finished for the day. She found the young dragon curled up next to an aspen tree. It lifted its narrow head as she approached and turned to the side so its golden eye could focus on her. It was unlike any other animal she had ever encountered before. There were no expressions on its face, like perhaps with a dog, to show that it was happy at her approach. It neither wagged its tail nor rose to its feet. Still, she felt calm and excited at the same time as she moved toward it and stretched out her hand to pet its head.
Leatherback closed his eyes as her hand stroked over the top of his head and down the first part of the back of his neck. Her fingers traced the lines in his skin that denoted where the scales would eventuall
y form. Today she noticed that there were several small bumps along the top ridge of the dragon’s forehead. From the many books she had read, she knew that these would turn into horns of different sizes.
The dragon tilted his head back, exposing his throat to Kyra. She stroked it gently and then turned to sit next to the large creature. The dragon made a sound somewhat like a large cat purring and then it snaked its neck around to lay its head in her lap.
“I brought a book,” Kyra said. “This is one of my favorites. I read it to you a long time ago, while you were still in the egg, but I think we should read it again now that you are hatched. It’s about a dragon like you. He didn’t have a curse over him, like the satyr says you do, but there were others who tried to shackle his abilities and prevent him from becoming all that he could be. They wanted to choose a lesser life for him, like many would do for you.” She reached into her bag and pulled out the book that she had read several times over the last few months and opened it. The dragon lifted its head to sniff the pages, his nostrils flaring with each breath. It laid its head down and closed his eyes as Kyra began to read.
“You will like this book, I promise.” She read the first two chapters of the book with the dragon laying his head in her lap and listening intently. She knew that she should go back to class but she figured Cyrus could do without her for one day. After she finished the first two chapters, she closed the book and asked Leatherback if he was hungry.
The dragon snapped its eyes open and pulled its head back, cocking it slightly to the side to look at her better. She asked again if he was hungry, but the dragon sat there motionless.
“It will be some time before he can speak,” Njar’s voice called out from the side beyond the trees.
Kyra turned, straining her eyes to find the satyr. “I didn’t know you were here,” she said.
The black furred satyr stepped into the grove and smiled as he leaned upon his staff. “I never left. After you returned yesterday, I stayed to watch your little friend.” Njar swept his right hand out gesturing toward the trees. “The aspens here seem to do a fine job of cleansing the energy. As of now there is no sign of the taint in the young hatchling, and I will work on finding ways to strengthen the grove to keep it that way as long as possible.”
Kyra smiled and reached her arm out to embrace Leatherback’s neck. “That is wonderful,” she said softly.
The satyr moved in closer to her. Leatherback stood on all fours and moved between Kyra and the satyr. He didn’t growl, but he stood firm with his eyes intently studying the satyr.
“He has bonded with you,” Njar said. “He is already showing signs of protective behavior.”
Kyra smiled proudly. “He is a gentle soul. Don’t hurt me and he won’t hurt you,” she said with a wide smile.
Njar sniffled and wrinkled his nose as he looked down at the dragon. Then he looked back up to Kyra. “There is something else I wanted to discuss with you.”
Kyra leaned forward and used her hands to help push up to her feet. She looked down and realized that Leatherback, even though it had only been one night, had already grown several inches taller than he had been yesterday. Now his back was level with her waist. “Do dragons normally grow this fast?”
Njar shook his head. “Since he will be more susceptible to the curse the longer he is immature, I have added magic to the grove that will help him grow and mature at a much faster rate than normal. Hopefully this will strengthen him against the curse and give him as good of a chance to fight it as possible. There won’t be any adverse effects, but if we are wrong and he does fall victim to the curse, then it will make it harder to put him down.”
“Stop saying that,” Kyra demanded. “He isn’t going to turn on anyone.”
The satyr nodded, but she could tell from his expression that he was unconvinced. “The other thing I wish to discuss has to do with you.”
Kyra looked at him and drew in her brows. “What about me?”
“You have changed something,” Njar said. He sighed and looked to the ground before continuing. “Before I took you to the Pools of Fate, I was able to see much about your destiny. I couldn’t see everything, mind you, but I could see some of the larger events in your life. For instance I knew you would find the egg, and I knew you would fight for his survival. Up until yesterday, I knew that if I showed you the fate that awaited him, you would allow me to do what needed to be done. In none of my previous visions had I ever suspected or seen any hint that any other fate could be achieved so long as you saw the visions at the Pools of Fate. However, after you altered the past by reaching out to this dragon’s mother through the vision, all of that changed. While the dragon slept last night, I tried to revisit my visions about you. Kyra, I could see nothing. It was as if when you reached back into the past, you destroyed your future, like you simply do not exist in the grand design of fate anymore.”
“I have never believed in fate,” Kyra said.
The satyr held up a hand and nodded his head impatiently. “I don’t mean fate in the sense that everybody has a prescribed destiny that they must fulfill. Instead, I see fate as a grand design, a series of events that logically and predictably affect each other. Usually when I have visions, I can see what people will choose to do based upon certain knowledge. Sometimes, my visions show me forks in the path of destiny. Such was the case with you. There was a fork, where if I intervened I could save much suffering and protect the balance by killing the dragon. The other path from that fork would lead to destruction and much suffering were I not to interfere. So you can see, there was a choice for me to make, and not one prescribed way. This is how fate works for all of us. The problem is that now I can no longer see any path that lies before you.”
“Most people cannot see the future,” Kyra replied. “I suppose I will have to make my own.”
The satyr went silent and frowned. His eyes alternated between watching her and studying the dragon. She could tell there was something on his mind, but whatever it was he wasn’t sharing it. The silence soon became unbearable and Kyra broke it with a different idea altogether.
“Leatherback is hungry, how do I feed a dragon?”
The satyr pointed to the book in her hands. “All this time studying dragons, and you have no idea how to feed one yet?” Njar asked with a wry smile.
“I don’t exactly have an army of servants who can hunt elk and deer at will and then pile them up in front of him,” she snipped.
Njar laughed softly and pointed to the far side of the glade. “Take him hunting.”
“But you said only inside this grove is he safe from the curse. If I take him out, will he be in danger?”
“Undoubtedly. However, no deer or other game animal is going to wander into this grove smelling of dragon as it does. You will have to take him out to hunt. I will follow you, and watch over the dragon.”
Kyra nodded grimly. She knew that the satyr chief did not mean watch over so much as watch out for what he may do. She understood the very real possibility that the strange wizard would kill the dragon if he were to see any change in his energy.
“What if I hunt for him, and then use the portal to carry food back, will that work?” She asked.
“The dragon must learn to hunt for himself, unless you plan on gathering enough food for it even after it is fully grown and requires several tons of food every day. Are you able to do that?”
Kyra shook her head. She knew that she could not. She and the dragon left the glade and the satyr followed a short distance behind them silently.
Kyra tried to think of how to show Leatherback what it was they were trying to do, but she needn’t have worried. A large, white snow squirrel ran across the ground in front of them. Leatherback caught sight of it and leapt through the air with such blinding speed and ferocity that Kyra stumbled back out of the way. So fast was the strike, that Kyra almost missed the impact when Leatherback used his tongue to pull the snow squirrel into his mouth. Two chomps and then a quick swallow and the
snow squirrel was gone. Leatherback opened his mouth and looked eagerly from side to side. From that point, Kyra followed Leatherback as he used the scents upon the ground to track game. They spent the rest of the morning pursuing snow hares and other winter creatures.
Leatherback must have eaten twenty small animals before he finally slowed his pace. Every time he took each animal whole, chewing only a couple of times before swallowing it. Kyra would have gone and watched Leatherback all day, but the satyr chief came up to her with a worried look on his face. Kyra prepared for the worst news, wondering how she could convince the satyr not to kill her friend.
“You need to leave,” Njar said quickly. “I will take the dragon back to the grove. He is fine, but there is something that pursues you.”
“Something?” Kyra looked around them and then back to the satyr chief. “What is it?”
Njar shook his head. “It is something evil. Go, now!” Njar opened the portal for her and motioned for her to go. At the same time he opened a second portal that led back to the grove. He looked to Leatherback and pointed for the dragon to go inside.
“Are you going to hurt him?” Kyra asked.
Njar shook his head emphatically. “The dragon is fine, but I must protect you now. Go! You can come back later tonight.”
Kyra looked to Leatherback and pointed toward the portal that led to the grove. The dragon leapt through the open portal. As soon as he was safe on the other side, Kyra went through hers and found herself back in her room. She turned around to look through the portal, catching only a glimpse of Njar as he jumped through the other portal to the grove. Both portals shut and she was left alone to wonder what it was that had spooked the satyr chief.
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