The Festival Pt.3

"About nine hundred years ago, when I was still a child…" Finor starts his story.

Damn, this man is over nine hundred years old? It took us a Cisca to figure out how to live that long on Earth, and these elves are just born like that?

"The legend about the Inferno Dragon was very much an infant. There were only a handful of sightings, and people could not tell the difference between the Inferno Dragon and the other dragons back then. A couple of rumors floated around Alventyr about a fire-breathing dragon, and that was about it…"

The old man takes a pause.

"One day, I was out doing hunting training with my fellow young'uns like usual. We were all way in over our heads when we decided to see how far west we could go in one day. Now, black ogres roamed the woods at night back then, so I, as the youngest in the group, got scared and decided not to join them.

They promptly left without me, laughing as I watched them disappear into the woods. I sat there for a while, wondering why they were so happy that I didn't go with them. That was when I realized that I had always been a burden to the group.

I got mad, really mad. And in my heat of madness, I rashly decided to prove to them how capable I was. So, as a stupid child, I grabbed a horse and went into the forest to catch up to them. Little did I know, they came across a sleeping black ogre not two hours into their trip and ran back to the village.

So, there I was, riding through the forest looking for my friends who were all sipping tea back in the village. I rode and rode and saw no one. When the sun was beaming down from above, I heard a roar, a thunderous roar, one that shook the ground and startled the horse.

In the distance past the branches, I saw a cliff, and guess what was resting beside it? The Inferno Dragon! In all of its glory and majesty, sleeping under the noon sun. Of course, I did not know it was the Inferno Dragon when I saw it.

Seeing it sleeping made me realize that the roar did not come from it, but the Inferno Dragon was awakened by it.

I looked up into the sky to see where that roar originated, and I saw another dragon, one covered in dark blue scales. White vapor came out of its mouth as it breathed. When it descended onto the ground, I noticed the air immediately getting cold around me.

The Inferno Dragon stood up from its rest, and it was not happy. The two traded roars, deafening me and my horse, despite the fact that we were a good distance away from the place.

When the situation escalated, the two dragons took to the skies and rammed into each other. What followed was the single most epic event I have ever witnessed in all of my years.

Fire and ice rained down from the sky as the two titans tried to rip each other's throats out, intertwining in the air, clawing and biting. Unfortunately, I missed out on much of the battle, as I was caught up in my own trying to calm my horse.

However, I did catch the final part of the battle. They were terribly hurt and exhausted, both barely able to keep themselves flying. The Inferno Dragon was clearly superior in intellect, as it used the environment to its advantage. When the Ice Dragon was struggling to gain altitude, the Inferno Dragon came back down on the ground.

It climbed on top of the cliff, standing higher than the Ice Dragon, and jumped down, picking up speed as it glided toward its opponent.

And BAM! The fire crashed into the ice, sending the blue dragon flying into the forest. Later, the villagers said they had an earthquake, and there was no doubt in my mind that was just the impact of the Ice Dragon slamming into the ground.

The Ice Dragon somehow managed to stand back up and retreated, wobbling as it flew back to where it came from. The Inferno Dragon wasn't looking much better, despite its victory. It slowly landed back on the ground, bleeding and panting.

That was when it happened, a miracle. The Inferno Dragon glowed brightly and flooded the surroundings in white light. I had to cover my eyes, and when I looked again, the Inferno Dragon was gone.

As the stupidly audacious boy that I was, I rode my now-calm horse to the site of the battle to see what had happened. When I got to the destroyed clearing beneath the cliff, I saw a woman, naked and covered in wounds.

Her hair was the color of fire, and she possessed incredible beauty, rivaling that of our sweet Faye. She was sleeping on the ground, in the middle of where the Inferno Dragon was a second ago. Of course, my conclusion was that the woman was the Inferno Dragon itself.

I got off my horse and walked toward her. The dragon woman's wounds were bad, and she was bleeding out. I had some bandages with me, so I patched her up and stayed by her side for a while, but she showed no sign of waking up. When the sun was close to setting, I knew I had to go, or else the black ogres would get to me. Seeing that the woman was not an elf, and likely not a human, either, I figured she would be safe from the ogres.

So I left. I told my friends all about it, and not a single one of them believed me. When I brought them there the next day to show them, the woman was gone."

Old Man Finor finished, and the crowd was silent. Only the crackling of the fire could be heard.

A different voice from before calls out, "It was a completely believable story until the end, old man, are you sure you weren't knocked out by the horse and dreamed up the last part?"

The crowd starts laughing.

"As I said, I will leave it up to you to judge its truth," the old man says.

"But how can that even be possible?" Another voice asks, "A dragon turning into a human?"

"I do not know the answer to that, but I do know what I saw was what I saw," Finor says.

The crowd chatters amongst themselves, laughing and mocking the old man.

Finor scans the crowd with an irritated gaze, landing on me and Lohikaarmi. His eyes widen as a sense of recognition appears in them.