A Chance Encounter

Bright summer sunlight shone down on the grasslands, morning dew glittering on blades of grass that waved in a gentle breeze. It tugged at the stiff mane of the dracus who lay curled beneath a poplar tree, dozing as he took advantage of the cooler morning air. The clear sky above promised another scorching day, and he still had far to travel.

Not for the first time—and certainly not the last—Leonidas wondered where his destination lay. He had a map and knew how to navigate using both the sun and stars, but he had no idea where he wanted to go. Where he *could* go, for that matter.

He shook the thought away like so many flies buzzing around his ears. His belly growled on another morning when he knew he would not eat. Leonidas knew how to hunt—he was a prolific hunter and always had been, since he could take his first steps and hunt rats in the cellars of his home. But no matter how much his belly yowled, no matter how warm the prey, he could not force down a single bite. Thrice now his claws had found the hide of some unfortunate creature, and thrice he had left it to rot, shame burning under his pelt like the unforgiving bites of a thousand thousand fire ants.

Today, the dracus would fly as far as he could—perhaps even through the night, he had yet to decide. It felt like he hadn’t made enough progress, hadn’t put enough distance between himself and…

The thought continued on without Leonidas, and he squeezed his eyes shut to will it on its way. There would come a day for him to face the truths about what he had done, to come to grips with his guilt and the lives that he had destroyed, but today was not that day. He prayed that day would not come soon.

A shadow passed over Leonidas’s eyelids and he snapped them open, looking around blearily. As he turned his head to the right, he stiffened in surprise to see a child staring up at him from mere feet away. Big, round, golden eyes that resembled molten disks of gold peered up at him out of a vividly orange face with scruffy yellow fur around his lips and down his whiskers.

The child was a kainu, no more than a yearling with the long legs and gangly knees to prove it—even his horns had only just erupted from the skin of his forehead, covered in downy velvet that had yet to be worn away. He was missing one of his fangs, and his right ear had yet to stand up like its counterpart, blocking the child’s vision at least partially on that side of his head.

“Hel—”

Before he could even finish the word, the child bolted away from him in an explosion of knees and ankles, his short tail and spikey mane streaming out behind him as he ran for the wall of grass that was taller than him. His legs were so uncoordinated that Leonidas feared the child would fall head over heels, but he thrust his way through the tall grass, heedless of its height.

Though he could not see the child from where he lay, Leonidas tracked him by the sound of hooves beating the soft earth and the small, high-pitched sounds of a child at play. The dracus watched as the kainu poked his head out of the grass and reeled back the moment he saw Leonidas watching him, returning mere moments later to repeat the process.

Leonidas twitched his long, skinny tail in amusement and turned his face away, closing his eyes and forcing his ears and whiskers still. He listened as the child reached the edge of the grass once more, stamping his little hooves. Then, taking exaggerated care, the drakling crept out into the open. Leonidas could hear the excited swoosh of the child’s tail sweeping the ground as he crossed the clearing, and the instant before the youngster would have leapt, the dracus turned his head, opened his eyes and said, “Boo!”

The child reared up in surprise, letting out a high-pitched squeal that could have been of fear or delight. The kainu stepped back with his forehooves still in the air and rolled his slender ankle, sending him toppling to the ground. His red, orange and yellow throat and belly scales caught the dracus’s eye as the child fell, which was why he missed the golden figure that galloped toward him at breakneck speed.

A fully grow, large and furious male kainu burst into the clearing, bellowing and raising his forelegs to strike. The drakiri’s wings flared, blocking out the sun and Leonidas felt the breeze from them aggressively beating at him as he launched himself away from the tree. He landed several feet away, twisting in mid-air to face his attacker.

Decades of training to be a soldier, to follow in his father’s ancestors’ footsteps had conditioned Leonidas to be strong and brave, light on his feet and heavy-hitting when he struck, but he had never managed to shake that gut-reaction of fear when something bore down on him from out of nowhere. So as he stood there in the sun, watching the kainu bend his head down to check on the yearling, he could hear only quite murmurs over the thundering beat of his own heart. The interaction was not unlike his own father, checking to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself during training, and he realized that these two must be related.

Leonidas could see the similarities as he watched them, they both had the darker stripes along their chests and shoulders, both had tri-colored scales, but the adult seemed much less friendly.

“I did not hurt him,” Leonidas called, his head and chin held high. He had done nothing wrong, he would not grovel for forgiveness.

“Why were you near enough to him to need to explain yourself?” the kainu challenged, his tail lashing and the feathers on his wings lifting in anger.

“He wandered into my camp site, nothing more,” Leonidas explained. “I rested here for the evening and was going to be on my way shortly. If you’ll allow me to collect my things, I can leave.”

The kainu’s golden eyes narrowed suspiciously and looked aside to the simple leather traveling pack that rested against the trunk of the tree, tipped onto its side now from how quickly Leonidas had fled.

“I suppose you’re the reason I’ve been finding dead deer and boars on my territory?” the kainu demanded.

Leonidas’s practiced, calm demeanor wavered at the accusation, but he did not let shame tilt his voice as he said, “I regret their deaths. It turns out I was not hungry after all.”

“Rebenon!” a new voice called, and a third kainu descended from the air on gilded wings—a female this time. She had paler, but no less beautiful markings that shone in the sunlight as she landed behind the male and nearly collapsed beside the child.

“Evangeline, take Icarus home,” Rebenon said without turning his head. “I’ll deal with him and his insubordination when I return.”

The smaller kainu looked from Rebenon to Leonidas and back, her nostrils flaring as she asked, “Is it him? The scent the patrols found in the woods?”

“Yes, now go!” Rebenon snapped. “You were the one pushing us to fly so fast, worrying the stranger would kill the boy, now take him home. And tie him to something for god’s sake if he tries to wander off again.”

Despite the seriousness of the circumstances, Leonidas couldn’t help but to smile, his whiskers curling just a touch at the ends in his amusement. Clearly the small one had made a habit out of travelling alone, which explained his confidence around a stranger.

“I won’t fowget you!” Icarus called, his head craned back and his tail raised high as his mother herded him away.

At least one of us didn’t forget, Leonidas thought as a heavily pregnant kainu carefully picked his way down the steep embankment that led to his cave. The dracus had immediately recognized the fiery markings and scales, and though the child’s father had been none too kind, Leonidas was too old to blame him for the actions of another. Leonidas was wiser now, and eager to hear what stories this youngster had to tell.