A traveling merchant meets a lost infant dragon with no family anywhere to be seen. They adopt the young dragon, caring for them, and search for the hatchling's family while traveling the trade routes. -- DaniAndShali
Adult Dragons are huge. Everyone knows this. What might surprise people is that the babies are ludicrously tiny. Orgoloth the Mad found a creature ze initially mistook for a microdragon huddling in the shrubbery. Ze wondered briefly why it was moist and sticky, but a quick cantrip amended both problems. It liked the softer foods when it could not get soup, and liked to perch on Orgoloth's lap.
It was enough of a draw to make people less averse to approaching a Dark Elf. And in the tiny pass-through town of Bendihollow, ze found out what hir presumed-pet was.
"How in the world did you survive acquiring a baby Dragon?" asked the mousy little maid at Bendihollow's only inn.
Orgoloth took hir smoked glass spectacles off to stare at the creature snuggled up to hir chest. Ze didn't have a pet. Ze had a family. And it wasn't even that time of the decade[1]. "I am so very sorry, little one," ze said to hir new child. "I mistook you for a non-intelligent creature."
An upgrade in accommodations was definitely in order. No more birchbark on the floor. They would have a bunk, and story-time, and more conversation, and... "Do dragons wear clothes?" ze wondered.
"Only when they shapeshift into more... mortal creatures," said the maid, chucking the baby Dragon's chin. "But 'choo can't do dat yet, no you doesn't do dat yet, you's a diddle bay-bee."
The Goodwives of Bendihollow swarmed at the news of new baby and Orgoloth found hirself with an abundance of handicrafts, good advice, and supplies to keep the little one fed.
Thankfully, Dragons did not get their weaponised breath until they were old enough to understand the trouble it could cause.
The bit about 'surviving' kind of stuck in hir head. Someone, somewhere, had stolen more than one Dragon egg. Which meant that there may well be an angry Dragon parent razing some countryside looking for their missing child.
Well. It was going to be a long search, for certain. How the little one made it all the way to a trade road was a mystery to Orgoloth. Ze cuddled or carried the baby Dragon whenever possible, and pondered a good name.
It was the stars that did it. The stars, and a little song that the Humans sang to their children. Orgoloth translated it into Elven for amusement's sake. "Gleam and glisten, glittering sparkle," ze sang, and the baby dragon squirmed in glee.
"You like that word? Glittering sparkle?"
Squirm, wriggle, nuzzle and stretch. The baby was pleased.
"So be it. Your name is Titinwee," ze finished the baptism with a kiss to hir baby's forehead. "Until I find your true parents, you are mine and my beloved."
Trading still had to be done, and until Titinwee could speak and let their gender be known, they were Orgoloth's child. Neither son nor daughter, but somewhere... up to debate[2].
News of rampaging dragons, let alone those rampaging due to the loss of a child, was rare. Orgoloth kept looking all the same, and did whatever ze could for the welfare of hir child.
[1] Most species with ludicrously long lifespans have a period of enforced biological imperative. This, amongst other social factors, is how all the rumours about Elves stealing children got started.
[2] Gendering Dragons comes with some evident hazards. If a Dragon tells you they're male or female, arguments to the contrary are rebutted with deadly breath and sharp talons.
[Image by Alyzah K on Unsplash]
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