First Meeting

This is a story of Love and Friendship.

Darrina was walking through the forest when she heard the scream.

She lost the trail of the rabbit she was hunting for breakfast, but decided to go check what it was about.

Even more because her senses never lied to her.

She smelled humans, and one of them was afraid.

She leaned against a tree for cover, and saw a young boy, no more than ten years old, running through the forest.

He smelled scared, and as soon as he passed by the tree Darrina was hiding behind, four other people passed, running.

Four grown men in leather armor, all carrying weapons.

And they were chasing the boy.

But he kept running, until he tripped over a root and fell, rolling to the ground, with a skinned knee and a broken leg.

He let out a loud shriek, holding his leg.

"That will teach you to run, you little brat!” One of them said. A gruff man in black leather armor, with long oily brown hair, and a dirty beard.

He grabbed the boy roughly by his arm.

“Now your father will have to pay double to get you back." He said, dragging the boy away.

Darrina was ready to leave her hiding place, and teach the four men a lesson. But when she looked harder at the man dragging the boy, her heart shot into her throat.

She remembered him.

He was the man who took her from her family, Fourteen years ago.

He and his group beat her, made her do the dirtiest chores, barely fed her, abused her in ways a human couldn’t even describe with words.

And if she didn’t comply with anything that man said or did to her, she would only get beaten harder and more abused.

‘I’ll teach you a lesson, Pigsty!’ She remembered him saying one night.

The thought made her blood boil in rage.

Because Darrina wasn’t the same girl from fourteen years ago.

She had changed, she was reborn.

She felt heat inside her, warming her very soul.

She didn’t even know what being human felt like, anymore.

And she decided to save the boy, because it was time to make those men pay for what they did.

“LET THE BOY GO!” She shouted through the trees.

The men looked at where the shout came from, and found her.

They stopped, confused, and then broke out in laughter.

The man holding the crying boy scanned her with malicious eyes, from head to toe.

Darrina felt her skin crawl as the man licked his lips.

"Look what we have here, a sweet peach in rabbit fur. Do you taste as good as you look, girl?" The man had his eyes glued to her.

"I said let the boy go, or you will regret it!" Darrina shouted while narrowing her eyes at the men.

The gruff man, then, squinted his eyes at her direction.

“Wait... I know you... Oh.. My. Gods! If it ain’t Pigsty, how fine you are, little girl. Did you run away, just to decide to come back to us?”

They laughed louder at her, and the gruff man smiled, still holding the boy.

"Grab her!"

But to their absolute shock, just as soon as they started moving, she was in front of the leader of the quartet.

Darrina punched him, and with a loud cracking noise, he screamed in pain, letting the boy go.

She picked him up, and jumped away from the men, putting the boy down behind her.

He covered his eyes and curled up into a ball.

Still holding his chest, the leader looked at his men angrily.

"KILL THAT LITTLE BITCH!"

The men ran at her with their weapons drawn, and Darrina felt strange.

She felt the heat inside her getting wilder.

It was as if there was an uncontrollable fire burning inside her, as the men got closer.

She knew what was about to happen, as the nausea took over her.

It was finally happening!

"DIE!" She screamed.

She felt the heat intensifying, and going up, towards her throat.

Then, she opened her mouth, and barfed a fireball the size of her head at one of them.

The fireball landed on the gruff man's arms, and he shrieked as the skin of his arm began to melt away.

He fell to his knees, and Darrina approached him.

“You remember me, but most importantly, I REMEMBER YOU!”

She spat another fireball, this time, towards the man’s head.

He died screaming, as his face melted away, leaving nothing but the man’s skull behind.

The group looked at her in terror, shaking, and started to run away from her.

She panted heavily, tired.

It was the first time in years, that she breathed fire.

And she used it to save a young boy’s life.

Just the way she wanted to be saved, when they put their hands on her for the first time.

Darrina, then, turned to the boy, still crying and curled up in a ball.

She fondled his hair.

"It's okay little boy, you’re safe now." Darrina’s voice voice was gentle and soothing, and she hoped that the boy would soon stop crying.

But she looked at his leg, and noticed that it would take a little more effort for him to.

“Such a brave boy.” She said, smiling, and still fondling his hair.

He boy looked up at Darrina and hugged her, still cringing in pain.

Then, over Darrina's shoulder, he saw a dragon’s head emerge from the woods. It was as huge.

He screamed and buried his face in Darrina’s chest.

She turned and smiled at the dragon.

"She won't hurt you, don’t worry. She's my mom, so don't be afraid. My name is Darrina, what is your name?"

He dried his eyes in his sleeve, and looked up at her.

"Brandon. My name is Brandon, please, I want to go home. I want my mom and dad." And he started to cry again.

Darrina hugged him tighter. She picked him up and turned to her mother, Tanwen.

Tanwen, then, transformed into her human shape. Brandon looked up and dried his wide eyes, she was beautiful.

Tanwen looked down at him, seeing his skinned knee and broken leg.

Darrina looked at her mother, feeling Brandon’s tight grip on her.

He was feeling a lot of pain.

“Mother, can you do ‘that’?”