Work Text:
This was not how Garwinda Pethnor had pictured her retirement. Although she had not really intended to make a career of being a governess to the royal family either. (Really more of the royal nanny, to be honest.) But her cousin’s best friend’s sister’s mother-in-law was a royal advisor, and somehow when the King and Queen were despairing over how wild young crown prince Johdpur had grown, her name had been put forth.
Garwinda could hardly refuse a royal summons, so off to the castle she went. By the time young Johdpur had started to become more civilized again, Princess Adhelaide had been born and graduated from the nursery. And so it contined, caring for a whole line of royal hellions.
But now the twins – Prince Dywian and Princess Daiwela – had finally come of age and been launched respectably into the world. The young prince off to sea where he would train to one day lead the royal navy – an excellent use of his wanderlust and inability to keep his feet on the ground. The youngest princess had been sent off to a distant kingdom in hopes of a betrothal, and since Garwinda had heard they had a fierce sporting culture there (to rival their own local country), hopefully the princess would be able to keep working off her high energy there as well. (And perhaps impress her future husband with her javelin skills.)
All this was to say, that the minute the two youngest royals had been officially farewelled, Garwinda had raced back to her quarters, packed all her things, and left the royal capital before Crown Prince Johdpur could settle down and start spewing out a new generation of royal troublemakers.
Her brother’s colleague’s cousin had a nice remote cottage he was selling at the foot of the Great Mountain that sounded like the perfect place to finally have some peace and quiet. The nearest town was walkable, but not too close, which meant that there should not be any children running around outside her window or using her stockings as fishing nets.
*****
Then Prince Karnlek went off an adventure and killed the Great Dragon who lived in the Great Mountain, which stirred up quite a hornet’s nest since dragon magic was what helped fuel the magical protections that surrounded their kingdom. (The second prince had never been very attentive in his magical studies classes, but he should have also learned this information in his obsessive reading on magical creatures. Apparently, he’d focused exclusively on how best to hunt them.)
Unfortunately, that had been the only dragon left living in the kingdom, so it was a bit of a crisis. (Although it may, in truth, have been fortunate that there was not another dragon nearby who might take exception to the death of their kin.) With much political wrangling, the royal family searched for where they could find another dragon who would be willing to move to the kingdom of a kin-slayer.
There were, of course, no adult dragons willing to make such a move and leave their dens and hoards. There was, however, a baby dragon whose parent had recently died and left the little one orphaned.
(That was a whole other ridiculous accident. One of the kingdoms to the west had had the not-so-brilliant idea of using a combination of magic, alchemy, and selective breeding to create a strain of so-called battlesheep that could scale the steep mountains for siege warfare. No one had thought about how the pastureland for the battlesheep was in flying distance of one of their dragon’s dens. Who knew the alchemic sheep would be poisonous to dragons?)
Anyway, with a hefty trade deal involved, Prince Karnlek had negotiated for their kingdom to receive the baby dragon. The remaining problem being then, what to do with a small creature with no adult of its own kind to foster and raise it.
Obviously, the answer was the woman responsible for turning several feral royal heirs into semi-respectable members of their country. She even had a perfectly remote cottage at the base of the old dragon’s mountain! Clearly, it was serendipity!
It would almost be a little flattering that the princes and princesses were all united in praise for Garwinda’s abilities as a governess, if that praise had not ruined her planned retirement and saddled her with raising a baby dragon.
(Garwinda had also heard through her niece’s friend’s parents that there were numerous bets and wagers swirling around the court about whether raising a young dragon would be easier or more difficult than raising the young royal heirs. Garwinda was just thankful that there was only one young dragon, rather than several of overlapping ages. Also, her bet was on the dragon being more well-behaved.)
*****
For all that Garwinda had long been a teacher and considered herself rather a scholar besides, there were a shocking number of things about dragons she had never seen written in any book in the royal library. (And she was following the assumption that these authors had never spent considerable time with a dragon, rather than this dragon being unique. Or perhaps it was the situation, as the baby dragon had latched onto Garwinda as its new parent.) Anyway, there were several surprising points she discovered quite quickly.
First, dragons were psychic. Garwinda really felt this should have been worth mentioning to someone before. Although potentially, this was normally part of child-parent bond, and not a facet shared with stray humans. Except without an adult dragon, the young one had been forced to bond with Garwinda instead. The mental link was not so much talking in each other’s minds, as it was sharing emotions, images, and memories. Admittedly, this worked around the language barrier nicely and was perfect for teaching a young being about the world.
This is also how the young dragon was able to indicate that her name was Sky-Full-of-Stars (or maybe Nighttime, it was hard to tell with just images). Garwinda had decided to call her Skye when speaking aloud, as it was shorter and more akin to names humans used. Mentally, of course, she would still address her using the image of a starry night sky.
Second, dragons were shapeshifters. This rather cleared up all the confusing accounts of whether dragons looked more like winged lizards, or if they occasionally resembled birds or cows or goats. Apparently, a dragon could look like whatever it chose; it was just surprising no dragon had ever transformed between animal shapes within sight of a human who might record that information.
Garwinda discovered this attribute when Skye changed from a flying lizard to a baby goat and proceeded to nibble on all the grass surrounding Garwinda’s cottage. As this rather nicely solved the issue of what to feed a baby dragon for dinner, she simply decided to accept this new metamorphosis and move on. Which was wise, as Skye seemed to enjoy exploring the world through new eyes and new mouths as frequently as possible. The goat form was followed by a rabbit, a bird, a snake, a capybara, a horse, and a hippopotamus. (The last, of course, proved the most destructive for her front lawn.)
*****
Teaching Skye not to breathe fire inside the cottage was an ordeal and a half, but obviously a priority. It reminded Garwinda of training Princess Adhelaide not to light torches from the fireplace and run around the palace with them. If she had not been able to use their mental link to clearly show Skye images of the dangers of burning down the cottage – or the whole forest – she’s not sure how she might have managed.
Like with her royal charges, the undesirable behavior just had to be channeled into desirable outlets. Barbequed meats were now a regular addition to their meals – and provided a nice opportunity for Skye to practice precision in not charring and destroying the food completely. The inner dragon fire could also be channeled as radiant heat which could be used to turn the nearby pond into a lovely hot spring. There were some benefits to raising a baby dragon, Garwinda thought later as she soaked in the heated pool.
*****
The mental link also proved helpful with the sorts of mischief that young children got up to and refused to admit. Garwinda had long experience prying these sorts of secrets out her prior charges. (For example, why their schoolbooks were slimy, why there were burn patches on their clothes, and what they had just put in their mouths.)
This last point was a definite issue for Skye who loved to nibble on anything and everything with as many different mouth shapes and sets of tastebuds as possible. And while she had the iron stomach of a dragon in any form, as her progenitor’s death had proved a dragon was not exempt from poisoning or injuring themselves from eating the wrong thing.
Little Skye had not only attempted to hide that she had eaten an entire beehive, but had also tried to hide how poorly it made her feel afterwards. She’d slunk away to the forest to hide under a bush where her discontented grumbles would not be so easily heard. The repeated thoughts of bees stinging the inside of her stomach ended up being rather a giveaway to Garwinda, however, who had Skye swallow four bottles of hot sauce and then go up to the rocky part of the mountain where she could breathe fire repeatedly until it roasted all the unfortunate insects in her digestive tract.
Garwinda had been forced to carry the poor dragon back down the mountain in an improvised sling after Skye had breathed fire to the point of exhaustion. Skye had then proceeded to sleep for two days straight. After which, she maintained a healthy aversion to bees and a strong preference for consuming entire jars of honey from the cottage pantry.
*****
As the first snow of the cold season swirled in, Garwinda sat warming her toes in front of the large fire in the very-securely-built firepit in her yard. She sipped warmed spiced pear cider, pressed from the wild pear trees in the forest. The smell of roasted meat filled the air, as she occasionally turned the spit resting over the fire.
Skye frolicked in the snow around her, diving into a forming drift as a flying squirrel and emerging as a jungle cat. She shook all the snow out of her fur, then turned into a horse to run in circles and kick up loose patches of snow. Next, she grew wings so that she could leap into the air and try to bite the falling snowflakes. Through their mental link, Skye sent images of Skye-the-mighty-snow-catcher and comparisons to splashing in water and digging in dirt. Skye’s mind was tinged with joy.
Through her very rare contact with the capital (at least the royal family had left her alone in her task, for better or worse), Garwinda had heard that the kingdom’s magical protections were slowly being revitalized and showed signs of becoming stronger than ever as Skye eventually matured.
Although strangely, for once, she was not in a hurry for her charge to grow up. When thinking on the future, it was actually a comfort to both woman and dragon that even when Skye outgrew the small cottage, the old dragon’s den was just a short flight away up the mountain – assuming Skye deigned to use the old den. It was unlikely their mental link would ever fade, so although Garwinda would only live a human’s lifespan, the two would retain their bond for as many years as they had left together.
Garwinda Pethnor took another sip of her cider and settled back into her chair. Maybe retirement wasn’t so bad after all.