Too Soon a Goodbye

I was happy there, learning of the dragons’ songs and history, and Tana was a most affable friend, visiting me often on days that I couldn’t make it to the city, supplying me with various books and materials that needed, and informing me of current events in the world. Ultimately, she constructed an orb to link me with the rest of the world that I had for the most part forsaken. In her wisdom, she knew that I could not long shun my fellow man as the information that I acquired was meant to be shared with all the races in the world: elf, human, and dragon. After learning its how’s and why’s, I found the orb network to be quite useful for allowing the public to know of my studies.

With the addition of the orb for the distribution of my notes, my life settled into a routine of sorts: spending the day tending my home and garden, gaining more knowledge and information from the dragons -Tana in particular. Such was the way it remained for five pleasant years.

One night, however, was all it took to begin the storybook that became my life.

With Tana’s help, I’d spent that day securing my garden and outdoor effects as the orb signaled a warning of severe storms in the evening. That evening, when the dark clouds and tempest winds stirred with the setting sun, she and I enjoyed honey and apple cider and the sinewy melodies from her sinard around the hearth. The song she sang spoke of the beauty of the mountain crater lake of Sesra and the elven city of Gheed built at its center. Tana’s strange but melodious dragon voice had me entranced, and hanging onto her every word, oblivious to the outside noises of vast thunderclaps and rain.

Rather abruptly, Tana ceased her singing, and placed her sinard to the floor. I had been about to ask her why she’d stopped, when I heard it -a knock at the door, barely audible over the hiss of the heavy rains. I almost swore I saw Tana smile beneath her translucent white veil, as she stood up and followed me to the kitchen.

The gales of wind blew nearly half a gallon of rain into the kitchen and onto the floor by the time I’d spotted the girl lying on the porch, unconscious. Tana, being a dragon and therefore more sure-footed than I, carried her into the living room and placed her onto the sofa while I forced the door shut against the still howling winds and rain-slick kitchen floor.

I received my first gaze of her as I returned to the living room. She was very young and very beautiful: an angelic face beneath her drenched crown of short-cropped red hair. She wore the simple green shirt and dress and white under tunic of a household maid, and I realized much to my chagrin, that the outfit was both filthy, and so saturated with water that it soaked clear through the fabric of the sofa. Figuring that she’d need something warm to drink, I left the job of removing the clothes to Tana, giving her one of my bathrobes to fashion around the girl as I made my way back into the kitchen to prepare some hot tea.

By the time I’d cleaned the floor and the kettle had begun to whistle, Tana called from the living room, telling me that the girl had come around.