Grandal

That was a good thing when a week after my daughters returned an enormous egg appeared near the hot pond between Belina and Anushka's cabins. It was big enough that two women could have easily stood inside it. However no one had seen or heard Grandal.

My daughters had us help them put up a protective roof over the egg and surround it with a bypass of the hot waterfall waters.

After the sisters were satisfied everything had been done they returned to town. I gave them a ride back and they surprised me when they said that Gula had flown them to the village.

"Not Grandal?"

"No, she had something else to do."

Although my daughters were adults I refrained voicing that Grandal was likely mating with someone somewhere then. It did cross my mind they already knew that.

We talked about their life in town and about the Dragon sisters and Kiley said, "Dad, we saw you riding Grandal several years ago, she told us you were on her back and she instructed us to look west. I was very happy for you and happy to at last see Gula."

Carlotta continued, "We pestered them to take us flying and they have. We flew over the valley where you and Grandal met. We love flying the sky as much as you do."

My daughters could communicate with Grandal from a much further distance than I could.

Carlotta added, "Gula and Grandal went on home after we told them you were going to give us a ride back. Grandal knows the egg is safe with you."

"Home?"

"Yes, their brother is dead. We do not know how."

My daughters apparently also communicated with the Dragon sisters often. I decided it would still be silly to be jealous, eventually.

When we got to town I stayed and did my usual rounds then got them a horse and buggy so they would not need to spend a night on the road each time they came over.

Month after a month they returned and checked on the egg. Gronk's wife Porfi checked on Kiley's nearly teen-aged children.

Kate had quizzed our daughter about her widowhood and Kiley was apparently pleased she was a widow. Kate was certainly pleased.

Her husband had an unfortunate and fatal accident the day her father learned he had been abusing her.

My daughters had us turn the egg, stayed a day touching the egg often then returned to town on each visit.

It took nearly a year before we sensed there was something inside the egg. Our village had gotten so used to the thing in the courtyard we did not always think of it as having an evolving creature inside.

It took another year before we could tell something was moving inside the egg and we were all getting excited to see a newborn Dragon emerge. My daughters Kiley and Carlotta would now come every other week.

It took six more months for us to see something resembling a small dragon was moving inside the egg.

My daughters told us they would stay until it hatched and I helped them dismantle the cover over the egg. They wanted to sleep in the courtyard with it but their mothers insisted otherwise.

They were the only ones of my children that knew there was a Dragon egg in the courtyard. I asked them why they had not told their brothers and sisters and Carlotta said Grandal had asked them not to do so. They did not know why. I later learned that dragon eggs were more valuable than gold.

Soon all of us wanted to help the new dragon escape its shell but my daughters assured us that the strength it gained by the effort to burst through its shell was necessary for its survival.

A week later Grandal returned to the joy of all. We had not seen her in over five years.

She was now as big as the dark one had been. Now most of her wings were red but her body was still bright green although her bottom scales flashed blue. She was absolutely beautiful.

I kissed her and welcomed her back. She was sad about something but I did not ask her what until all had given her their love.

Numa, Kate and Anushka were with me when I asked Grandal why Gula had not come with her.

Her expression was as if she was suddenly crying. She was definitely sad. We prepared for the worse because most of the time it was never the worst and that made whatever it was easier to handle.

With a quivering voice Grandal said, "Humans have found a way to make us disappear from their world. They have invented a weapon that throws a spear very fast and very high, much higher and faster than the big spears travel.

We have learned that too slowly. They shoot us out of the sky. My brother was one of the first killed by the new weapon six years ago. A trap had been set up for him and he was dead before he realized it had been a trap.

My sister welcomed me back to our roost as Queen. I have lived there in peace since then.

That peace lasted until late last fall, human hunters found our roost and killed everyone. My sister and I managed to escape but we were both wounded. She died over the ice seas two months ago, the metal tipped thing in her had made her too weak. She had wanted to search for beached whales before she died.

I have one of those things inside of me too, it is poisoning me. I will be joining her soon. I have not seen another Dragon since my roost was attacked. My son will likely be the last one."

Well fuck. Expecting the worse had not helped, we had severely underestimated its reach.

I said, "I can dig it out of you. I could use drying powder on the damage and I have found a way to concentrate the leafs so they just need to be swallowed."

I could hear the desperation in my voice.

"Thank you but I feel I am already dead. The poisons are in my blood."

The sadness and anger overwhelmed us, the women sobbed openly and I nearly did too. I could not think of anything to say to her so I hugged her as my body shuddered. "I will protect your son," I eventually said.

Anushka, Numa and Kate said, "We will too."

We all knew that was just bravura on our part but it still made us feel better.

I wondered why Kiley and Carlotta had not been with us but then realized they already knew. They were protecting me until Grandal told me.

I spent that day inspecting Grandal's body. I found where she had been wounded and saw the discoloration surrounding it. Scales were falling off. The infection ran deep. Grandal was telling the truth, she would soon be dead.

I went to the cabin on the far side of the waterfall and cried. Grandal sent me a smile and her love.

Early that next afternoon we heard a piece of eggshell crash on the ground. We rushed to see the birth and saw a wondrous red and black thing shake itself free of the egg, squawk, then promptly eat a woman, Belina.

I had seen Carlotta running away as she shouted something to Belina but there was no time for her to react.

Grandal immediately engulfed her son within an intense ball of flame then left for the sky. We were so stunned no one saw her leave.

Well fuck. This is not the way I wanted the story to end.

We stood and watched the young dragon, still standing next to its shell, turn into an inferno until the flames waned then we returned to our homes. My daughters simply got on their buggy and left the village.

We never saw Grandal again but heard her as she flew by later that night. She apologized for her child and rued the death of Belina. She told us she loved us. She told us she was going to the ice mountains in the sea and join her sister. Kate, Numa, Anushka and I consoled each other through the tears the best we could that night.

Everyone was in tears when we told them the next morning.

A week later all of us decided to move into the town and abandon our village. After we put the remains of Belina and the dragon in Belina's home we set our village on fire hoping the remains of the dragon would become ashes.

We explained to the townspeople that our village had suffered a great fire and they welcomed us with open arms. It was my job to tell Artur his mother had perished in the blaze. He took the news as a loving son would. I hugged him for the first time in years. No one told him the truth, he loved Grandal too. I waited to tell him the news about her.

I bought a large rambling old house at the outskirts of town that had a barn and a pasture. I told all that wanted to live there with us were welcome but five opted to live with their children.

Before we told Kiley and Carlotta about Grandal's last message my daughters said that Grandal had come to them on the river bank as they made their way to town and walked alongside them the night of the disastrous event.

"She seemed to be in shock," Carlotta said.

Kiley continued, "After a few minutes of silence she thanked us for our efforts on her behalf and apologized for putting us through such an experience. We told Grandal they were much more worried about her.

There was another long period of silence before Grandal asked Carlotta how much time she had left and her answer was to burst into tears."

My daughters were sobbing quietly and paused before continuing.

"Grandal walked in silence with us for a long while before she said, Tell your father he has been the love of my life and that I did look for a Dragon version of him but there is no such thing. Tell him I am ready to die and I thank him for giving me the gift of life for all these many wonderful years. I will carry his memory to eternity."

Grandal then overwhelmed them with her love and after they showered her with their kisses she left.

I cried in front of them, I was very embarrassed but I could not help it. None seemed surprised or disappointed with me, in fact all were crying too.

I had always known I was just as much in love with Grandal as I was with Kate. Kate understood and accepted it. She adored Grandal too.

Nuna, Kate and I finally figured out why Carlotta was almost never physically close to Grandal. They were joined spirits, they did not need to be close.

We had Kiley and Carlotta move in with Kate and me for a while. We worried about Carlotta's state of mind. Numa and Anushka already lived with us. The presence of Kiley's children became a hidden blessing, we forced ourselves to be cheerful around them

One evening a few days later Carlotta and Kiley gathered the adults in the living room and Carlotta said, "I felt Grandal's body fail her as she flew over an ocean of ice mountains. Grandal was not sure she was close to where her sister had fallen but noticed the current would have brought her to that spot. Grandal stopped fighting the inevitable. She knew she would find Gula.

I saw her fall towards the sea with her eyes but she died before hitting the water. It is a recurring nightmare for me."

It became a recurring nightmare for me.

There were few tears, the news mostly just prolonged our gloom.

But life around us went on. I was already an important member of the town and our children had become important citizens in town.

I eventually made Carlotta my assistant medical practitioner. Her empathy allowed her to understand our patients problems easier and faster than I could.

In just a few months we had become just townsfolk. A year after our arrival we were comfortable in the town of Grandal.

When we moved there the town did not have a name. A town elder had named the town after the Dragon. He claimed he never knew why that name had come to him. That elder was me.

Some people not in my family understood but did not say anything other than voice their approval of the name.

The map I drew from Grandal's descriptions became a popular and well selling item. I sent sales people to the towns on the map and they certified the map was accurate and we sold the maps there. We became prosperous. I interrogated each traveler and amended my maps as needed. Each town that had a name saw it appear in my maps. Towns without names soon got one.

I was still the town's doctor emeritus but my map business made me wealthy. My oldest son Artur ran that end of the business for me. He was then in his late-twenties and looked just like me, minus the scars.

He caused a stir in town when he hired women to draw the maps and gave each a salary. They had a steadier hand and could faithfully reproduce the original.

He married one of the women that worked for him. The family did not like her much at first but she was very much in love with Artur so I became fond of her. The rest of the family quickly joined me in that. The fact that she was the best cook we knew helped her immensely.

We love her now even though she is from the far south with a religion that worships a murdered man. Artur has become comfortable with that religion.

I am now old but Kate and I still feel fine. We make a pilgrimage to the hot pool several times each year just to fuck and play. The old cabin, the kitchen, the latrines were still intact as were the smokehouse and the cheese aging room. Normally we stayed in the cabin for several days at a time. Anushka and Numa accompanied us often.

All my wives and all our children eventually visited the pond and took their spouses for a short lovers tryst. Kate, Nuna, Anushka and I baby sat our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren a lot.

Our hot water pool became a tourist attraction and my sons built nine cabins over the ruins of the first ones and have made it a money making business.They expanded the kitchen and dining area buildings to provide good food to their guests. The most loved dishes were from recipes of Artur's wife Annabella.

The village often hosts people from many days rides away and cabin building has become a continuous process there. Our maps began to make It well known as an interesting destination. I thought it would not take our old village long to surpass the size of Grandal. I named it Belina.

All my sons and grandsons and their families eventually moved back to Belina and built a town around the original plaza. Because it was a tourist town they designed many amenities into it including several parks. Soon wide pathways led to it from the south and east.

A member of a visiting royal family came for a week, commanded the land north of the spa and built himself a small palace. Members of other royal houses did too and each diverted hot waters to their palaces but not from the small waterfall in Belina.

Belina easily surpassed Grandal in size within ten years but Kate, Kiley, Carlotta and I hesitated moving there. The town belonged to our adult children and now adult grandchildren.

After caring for the daughter of a Viscount during an illness he made me a Baron and granted me some land just outside the town. I had a large house constructed there for six. Numa and Anushka lived with us along with Kiley and Carlotta. Kiley's children were now married with children themselves.

We lived as happy a life as people deeply scarred by a past event could be. Artur and his wife Annabella had a house built for them close to ours. We baby sat for them often as they ended up with six children.

Many years had passed since we first left Belina. Most people we meet do not believe in dragons. The only ones that had seen one up close are from our small nine hut village but none of us felt like telling the story of Grandal.

The grandchildren knew their parents had been close to a Dragon as had their grandmothers and their grandfather, me.

My ten children understood that perhaps they would be the last humans to ever see one so they have asked me to tell Grandal's story.

I know I have likely forgotten to tell parts and realize there was much of her story I never knew. I can tell you my wife and I love her and miss her. She is in our hearts.

She is also drawn on every map we make, she is depicted flying over the mapped terrain.The larger maps show Gula flying alongside her.

Artur's wife is charged with the paintings, she is very talented. She paints Grandal and Gula nearly as beautiful as they actually were. Annabella paints them looking at each other. Everyone seems to know they are looking at sisters. We have a large painting of them in our living room.

This has been Grandal's story. We are still saddened by how our adventure ended.

But we are proud to have known the last Dragon.