Dragons of Asgard

by Logan Jacobs

  The thing seemed to shake then, and I slowly walked toward it. Maybe

  there was a reason this egg hadn’t been eaten? perhaps it wasn’t a bird egg at

  all. Could it be some sort of creature from another world? Was I about to

  hatch a serpent in my kitchen? Had I almost eaten some sort of poisonous or

  dangerous creature? Or was something in there being boiled alive?

  This was definitely strange behavior for an egg, especially one I hadn’t

  even considered could possibly have an actual animal inside of it.

  I quickly downed the rest of my pint, then I slowly set the glass on the

  floor and reached over to my bed to pick up my battle axe.

  With my axe raised, I took slow and careful steps toward the stove.

  The silver pot shook violently, then, and my heart rate followed its lead. I had

  no idea what I was about to see, but whatever it was, I didn’t think it was

  edible.

  My axe was at the ready as I reached the edge of the stove, and I

  slowly peered over the top of the pot. The egg was still there, but it flew

  across the pot and hit the sides in a strange show of life. Upon closer

  inspection, I noticed the egg now had several long cracks in it that started

  from the top and ran down the sides.

  Suddenly, the blue, speckled thing stopped in the middle of the pot and became still. The pot itself stopped shaking, and the only movement was the

  small bubbles that still came up from the bottom.

  I squeezed my axe tighter in my hands as I leaned down and stared at

  the egg.

  It twitched once, then again, and I was nearly ready to axe the whole

  damn pot when a large chunk of the egg popped off the top.

  Then I looked into the hole to see if I could find any signs of life, and

  to my amazement, a small, bright blue eye stared back at me.

  “By Odin’s shite,” I whispered.

  And then the eye blinked at me.

  Chapter 2

  “What in the fuck are you?” I asked the egg, and before I could blink,

  the thing cracked even more, and a small blue flash slithered out of the water

  and onto my stove.

  Then my breath caught in my chest.

  The creature I stared at was one I’d never seen before, but I knew it

  instantly. It was as long as my forearm, but thin by nature, almost like a

  lizard, and the bright blue of its body and wings was only matched by the

  vibrant blue of its slitted eyes.

  It was a baby dragon.

  My breath grew shallow as I continued to stare, but after a moment,

  my eyes grew dry, so I was forced to blink. When I opened my eyes again,

  though, I was sure the little reptile had moved a foot closer to me.

  We locked eyes, and a peculiar sensation bloomed in my chest as I

  stared into the azure orbs. I didn’t know how to explain it, but I felt like… the

  little creature somehow understood what was happening. Its eyes were full of

  curiosity and intrigue, and they weren’t the animalistic eyes of the lizards I

  often played with in my garden. These eyes knew something, but I didn’t

  know what.

  I shook my head, unable to believe what I was seeing. These creatures

  were banished from Asgard ages ago, and there were no dragon eggs in this

  realm.

  And yet… here one stood on my stove, and it tilted its head back and

  forth as it inspected me with a small and somehow adorable face.

  The little blue creature made a noise, then, almost like the bark of a

  dog, and I took another step backward as I realized I still had my axe raised

  for battle.

  I didn’t understand what was happening. The dragons I’d heard tales of

  were bloodthirsty killing monsters, but this one that stared at me was… kind

  of cute. Its little face was rounded, with two tiny horns that protruded from

  the top of its head, and little wings sat on its back. It was small, too, but I

  knew I couldn’t trust it. Dragons grew to be massive, and I had no reason to

  believe this one would be any different.

  Still, could I kill the creature? Perhaps I could take it somewhere

  instead, or send it to another world somehow.

  It was just a baby, after all.

  It was an orphan, just like me.

  As I considered my options, the little blue reptile raised its nose up and

  began to sniff at the air, and then it turned around and walked directly to the

  skillet where my cabbage and potatoes were cooking.

  I frowned and watched as it hesitantly tried a piece of potato.

  Did dragons eat potatoes? I was under the impression they only ate

  meat, but the little blue creature turned to me as it chewed, and we made eye

  contact before it went back for another bite, as if it was telling me it liked

  what it had found.

  “Okay,” I said aloud, and I set my axe on the floor next to my foot. “I

  won’t kill you, but I have to figure out what to do with you.”

  The little dragon took another bite of potato before it walked over to

  the edge of the stove and sat down. Then it looked at me with bright blue

  eyes and tilted its head to the side as if it were actually listening.

  Outside, I could see the sun was sinking below the horizon, so I was

  possibly stuck with this thing all night if I couldn’t figure something out.

  “Just… stay right there,” I said, and I walked over and picked up my

  pint glass and refilled it. Then I shook my head as I took a long drink. What

  was I doing? Telling a dragon to stay put? Did I really think it would listen?

  Was this even real? Had Hagar managed to play some elaborate prank

  on me?

  I downed nearly half the pint, then I turned back to the stove and saw

  the dragon was sitting in the exact same place as it had been before I turned

  my back on it.

  “Why didn’t you move?” I whispered, almost to myself.

  The little creature’s head followed me as I paced back and forth in the

  small hut. Had it actually listened to me? Did it understand what I was

  saying?

  It certainly looked like it was conscious of what was happening around

  it. Something about the little dragon made me feel as though it wasn’t a

  mindless animal, like its instinct wasn’t to harm me.

  I slowly walked over to the edge of the stove, about a foot away from

  where the dragon sat, and then I laid my hand out with my palm upward.

  “Come here,” I said softly, and to my surprise the little dragon scurried

  over to my hand and put his front two paws on it.

  The moment the creature touched my skin, a zap of energy flew up my

  arm, and I gasped at the sensation. My skin tingled, and the hair on my arms

  rose as I stared down at the azure-colored reptile.

  “What in the name of Odin was that?” I muttered.

  The dragon looked up at me then with vibrant blue eyes, and its reptile-

  like mouth seemed to form into a sort of smile before it closed its eyes and

  rubbed its head gently against my thumb.

  I had to stop myself from pulling my hand away at first, since the feel

  of the thing was so foreign and exciting, but as it rubbed against me, I couldn’t help but think it liked me.

  It had actually listened to me, too.

  What in the world was going on?

  “Would you like some more potatoes?” I ask
ed, and the small creature

  tilted its head to the side, so I reached over and picked up a piece of still hot

  potato from the skillet and held it out to the small creature.

  The little dragon bit into the piece in my hand, and where I would have

  been surprised a few minutes before that it hadn’t tried to bite me, I knew by

  now it wouldn’t. I trusted the little thing, though I wasn’t quite sure why.

  As I watched it eat, though, I realized how adorable it was, and

  beautiful, too. Its scales were such a vibrant blue it was hard to look away. I

  reached my hand out and stroked down the dragon’s back, and it was smooth

  and hard like the scale I kept in the box under my bed. Then, when I moved

  my hand back up toward its head, the thing tilted its nose up and bumped my

  finger before reaching a small, split tongue out to give me a lick.

  “I was right,” I chuckled softly. “You are magical.”

  The creature barked again, the same sound it had made earlier, and I

  realized it was a sort of happy sound.

  I couldn’t believe what was happening, but I couldn’t send the small

  creature away, not now. I wanted to know more about it, and it seemed to listen to me, so what was there to fear?

  Still, I had a million questions. Where had the egg come from, and why

  was it in one of the Loti’s huts? Had they stolen it from another world, and if

  so, then how did it hatch here? Was it the heat of the water? Or was it

  because I talked to it?

  I’d worry about all of that later. For the moment, I just wanted to get to

  know my new friend.

  “Here,” I said, and I gently nudged the dragon’s front feet off me

  before I gathered two bowls from the cupboard and split the cabbage and

  potatoes between them. “Follow me.”

  I walked to the small table in the corner of the room and set the bowls

  down, and the little dragon scurried over to the table and climbed up my chair

  so it was right by my shoulder.

  “This one is yours,” I said, and I pointed to the bowl across from me.

  A strange sensation tickled up my spine as the little dragon scurried

  over my shoulder and down my arm to the top of the table. It went right to

  the bowl I’d shown it and began to devour the cabbage and potatoes inside.

  “Hungry, I guess,” I chuckled as I watched the thing eat.

  Its little head was buried in the bowl, but when I spoke, it quickly

  looked up, licked its lips, then dove back in.

  I picked up my own bowl and ate my cabbage and potatoes as I

  watched the little dragon hastily eat. Bits of potato and cabbage spilled from

  the sides as it pushed its head against the insides of the bowl, and its tail

  seemed to wag almost like a dog’s would when it was happy.

  I had a thought then that I hadn’t considered before… Was this a male

  or female dragon? How would I know? Could I ask it somehow?

  I didn’t know much about dragons at all except they hadn’t been in

  Asgard for centuries, and I especially didn’t know anything about their

  physiology. They laid eggs, obviously, but did they even have the same male

  and female parts Aesir did, or were they more like birds? I could never tell if

  they were male or female either except by their feathers or markings, but I

  wouldn’t even know where to begin with a dragon.

  I set down my bowl of potatoes and cabbage and stood up, but the little

  dragon looked up at me like it was curious as to what I was doing.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Keep eating, I’ll be right back.”

  The thing went back to its dinner, and once again I was astounded it

  seemed to completely comprehend what I was telling it, and not only that, but

  that it complied as well.

  I walked over to my bed and pulled out one of the books I kept beneath

  it. It was a history book of Asgard I’d found long ago. I’d read through it a million times, but what I particularly liked about it were the drawings in it.

  They were beautiful and colorful, and I often looked at them before bed and

  imagined what life was like all those years ago, and how my own could have

  been different if I’d been born back then.

  I flipped to one of the familiar pages. It showed Odin on the left page

  of the book, and his wife Freya was on the right page. Odin wore a golden

  breastplate with a long red cape attached to the back, and on his head was a

  golden helmet with large wings that protruded from both sides. Above his

  massive white beard, he stared out at you through the page with his one good

  eye, but the other was white with blindness. It was said he traded the eye for

  a drink from the Well of Urd in order to gain the knowledge kept there.

  Whether the story was true or not, I couldn’t say, but I’d seen Odin in the

  flesh, and I knew the blind eye was true at least. With the way our people

  created tales, there was no telling whether or not the story had been

  exaggerated over the years, but I liked to believe it was true. Odin had been

  on a quest for knowledge for many years, and I’d always respected that about

  him. It was one of the reasons I held him in such high regard as my king.

  Freya, on the other page, was more beautiful than any woman had a

  right to be. She wore a beautiful white and golden gown in the drawing, and

  it clung to her sensuous curves before it fell to the ground beside her. Her

  long blonde hair hung down to her waist, her blue eyes were slightly hooded as they stared back at me, and her pouty, red lips were held in such a way that

  it seemed as if she might open her mouth to speak at any second.

  I stroked my hand across the pages, then I walked back over to the

  table, set the book down, and turned it so the images faced the dragon.

  The little creature looked up at me, with its lips still smacking the

  potatoes in its mouth.

  “This is a man,” I said as I pointed to Odin, and then I moved my

  finger to the other page. “And this is a woman. Which are you?”

  As I spoke, the dragon’s eyes followed my fingers, and it inspected the

  images on the page before it walked over to the book and put its front two

  paws on the depiction of Odin.

  “A boy?” I asked. “You’re male.”

  The dragon stomped its little feet on the picture, then turned around

  and went back to its dinner.

  “Okay,” I said with a smile. “A boy, then. We’ll need to give you a

  name eventually… I can’t just call you dragon forever.”

  I finished my cabbage and potatoes as I thought about different names

  for the dragon, but somewhere along the way I began to question myself

  again. Could I really keep this creature as some sort of pet like I would a dog

  or a cat? It would more than likely grow to be larger than my home, possibly nearly as large as Odin’s castle.

  As I watched the little dragon eat, though, I couldn’t help but feel as if

  it was the right thing to do. It felt as though we understood each other. There

  was a strange sensation in my stomach that told me I needed to protect the

  little blue reptile, and that he would protect me, too.

  I decided right then, even if I would have to send him somewhere

  eventually due to his size or if he showed a violent nature, I would still keep

  him for the time being.
Something told me I had to, and I was much too

  curious as to what would happen between us to just let him go. Besides, he

  was so small, I couldn’t leave him somewhere on his own. And I couldn’t

  exactly request access to the Bifrost to drop off a dragon in another world.

  What world would I send him to anyway? I had no idea where he’d come

  from.

  After I finished my dinner, I waited for the little dragon to finish his,

  then I walked over to the metal sink in the kitchen and placed the bowls

  inside. I poured myself another pint of mead and filled a smaller cup with

  some water for the little beast, but when I walked back over to the table, the

  small blue reptile was on his back with a huge lump in his belly like a snake

  that had just consumed its meal for the next month.

  I couldn’t help but laugh as I took in the sight of the almost bursting

  little lizard.

  “Here,” I said as I set the water down on the table.

  I took a pull from my pint glass, and the dragon flipped over onto all

  fours and walked over to look at my cup.

  “No, no,” I said, and I moved the water closer to it. “The water is for

  you. You were nearly just born, I can’t give you mead.”

  As I said it, though, I wondered if dragons drank mead? Could they

  consume alcohol in the wild? Where would they get it?

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head, more for myself than the dragon.

  “You can’t have any. You have to drink water. Maybe when you’re bigger.”

  The little thing narrowed his eyes at me, but he waddled back to the

  water glass and began to lap up the clear liquid. Apparently, just because he

  listened to me didn’t mean he wouldn’t have an attitude while he did it.

  Still, it was rather adorable, and I smiled to myself as I took another

  drink of mead. Then I looked around then and remembered the pumpkin still

  on my counter, so I stood up and walked over to it. The fire was still lit under

  the stove, so I wiped out the skillet I’d used for dinner, cut open the pumpkin,

  and emptied its contents into the pan.

  Roasted pumpkin seeds were one of my favorite things, and they’d be

  ready after just a few minutes. In the meantime, I cut up the rest of the

  pumpkin into small, bite sized chunks and threw them into a bowl.

  As I walked back to the table, the little dragon lifted up on his back

  legs and sniffed at the bowl in my hand.