I met Yora for the first time when it was nearing the end of autumn, when the harvests were freshly stored in the granaries and the farmers awaited the first snows. A time of preparation and worry. Will the snows be too deep? Will the animals have enough feed? Much worry and nothing left to be done. One can only pray to the spirits on the wind to be kind. Prayer and hope.

In those days, I was without purpose. Shan Alee was long dead and the Dragon Emperors were lost to the ages. I had not seen another of my kind in decades. It was a lonely time for me. I sometimes found myself believing that I was the last dragon in the world.

I wandered the nations and observed the comings and goings of the humans. Sometimes, I stuck my nose into their business. A kindly woodsman with a family to feed would check on his snares and find that a host of game had been driven straight into his clutches. An innocent man led to the gallows would have his noose nibbled through, and the true culprit would find the proof of his crime mysteriously delivered to the guard.

People praised the winds when they saw these little miracles, but spirits had nothing to do with it. I didn't mind being ignored. Dragons don't require recognition, but I'll admit that I sometimes thought it would be nice to receive a thank you. Just once.

For years, I wandered from place to place until I found myself in Althandor. Not one of the many conquered provinces, mind, but the true Althandor. The land I explored was and always had been Althandor since the advent of mortal magic. In this nation, there was a small village on the edge of a desert. The people who lived there called it Sandharbor.

That was when I found something I had not seen in a very long time. I learned of a woman, a widowed foreigner, said to have arrived in the night from some distant land. She claimed to have fled a war, and there was no reason to doubt her. Althandor was newly victorious in another conquest, and refugees were far from uncommon.

She came to Sandharbor as a penniless and pregnant wanderer. Her brown skin and golden hair marked her as an outsider, but the folk of the village weren't a cold-hearted people. They took her in and gave her shelter and work. When the time came for her to give birth, the village's sky woman saw to her without asking for so much as a copper.

I watched from the rafters of the inn room that had become a birthing chamber. The sky woman pulled a squalling child from the outsider and lay it on her breast. The child was a boy, with hair as gold as his mother's. The woman smiled at him, she wept, and she named him Yora.

The newborn baby cried for a time, and I thought it best to take my leave. It was my first time witnessing the birth of a mortal, and I found the whole experience draining— saying nothing of the poor woman. I remember thinking that humans should just lay eggs like civilized creatures and be done with this horrid practice.

Then, the most remarkable thing. I looked back one last time. The baby boy was staring at me up in the rafters. I've since learned that infants that young are all but blind, but I swear, newborn Yora looked into my eyes and grew calm. He no longer cried. As his mother sang an old lullaby, he watched me fall in love with him.

I knew then that I would be his protector. I would see him safe from the cruelty that tore down Shan Alee. Yora was destined to become the truest friend I would ever know.

Time passed, but I remained nearby. My urge to move on had vanished. Though I often left the village to see to my own purposes, I always returned. I no longer felt the pull of the wind or the song of the horizon. I wished to stay.

Yora grew quickly by my reckoning. His mother was poor, and they lived in a hovel on the village outskirts. While he slept, I would spend the night curled up beside his basket. Rats and other vermin learned to keep their distance from that place. It was safe there, though I was careful that neither he or his mother learned a dragon now lived with them.

By the end of his first winter, Yora learned to tell when I was near. I sensed that he felt safe, for he rarely cried while I watched over him. He took his first steps before his second winter. He would toddle about the hovel, pulling aside bags and baskets as if looking for a lost toy. This amused and frustrated his mother in turns. As for myself, I liked to imagine that he was searching for me.

Yora's mother became an accepted part of the village. She was much beloved for her kind spirit and her warm smile. To support her little family, she worked as a washer woman and became well known to all. She became fast friends with Janwyn, the sky woman that delivered her son.

Janwyn had a child of her own, a dark-haired girl named Mierwyn. The child's father had been lost to one of the king's wars, perhaps the same war that took Yora's. I often wondered if the two fathers had fought against the other, or what they would have thought to see their offspring chasing fireflies together. For their part, the mothers never spoke of it, perhaps fearing what they might learn.

Mierwyn was a lovely child. Anyone with eyes could tell that she would grow into a great beauty. Before Mierwyn had seen her eighth winter, Janwyn had heard dozens of offers to have her promised to some snot-nosed brat of the village. The sky woman had other designs. She could see who her daughter treasured above all others, so there was never any doubt that the jewel of Sandharbor would someday be wed to Yora.

I would watch the children play through the years. As they explored the countryside, I was their silent guardian. Wolves and scale lions never came within a league of them. When they picnicked beneath the summer sun, a dragon battled the marauding ants. I was privileged to be party to the innocent love that grew between Yora and Mierwyn.

Then came a day I will never forget.

Yora had grown well in the twelve years I'd known him. He was taller and stronger than any other child of the village. He often spent his days running errands for folk, calling out that he would mend their fences or thatch their roofs for a few coppers. His price was gladly paid, because there wasn't a single unkind thought in the village for the boy. Where Yora went, so did laughter. Goodwives and goodmen would see his golden head dashing down the lane and feel warmer. Anyone who saw his lopsided grin couldn't help but smile back. He brought light and joy to whomever he visited.

While he went around town to earn coins for his mother, I had fallen into the habit of making myself into a dog to follow him. I began to realize that I was becoming careless with myself because I started to hear the villagers comment on a silver-furred pup they noticed roaming about. Most dismissed me as just another stray scrounging for scraps, but a few whispered of a spirit come to steal babies from their mother's arms.

These whispers were enough to capture the fancy of Yora. That day, while I padded through the village, I noticed that I couldn't hear him calling out to folk. I worried that he had given me the slip when my paw landed in a snare. I was yanked from the ground and found myself hanging upside-down in the middle of an alleyway. I yelped and struggled, but I was caught like an idiot rabbit.

A triumphant call sounded out, and Yora burst into sight with Mierwyn hiding behind him. He approached me and said, "I told you it follows me. No spirit will be stealing babies while I'm around."

Mierwyn was skeptical, to say the least. "It's just a puppy. Look at her. She's not going to hurt anyone. Please, don't kill her."

That was when I noticed the knife in Yora's hand. Out of instinct, I fought to free myself. I still don't know where Yora learned to make snares that well. Blustering boy probably just figured it out on his own. He was always too smart for his own good.

It was a curious feeling. I still ponder what it all meant, that tangle of so many emotions I didn't have names for. A young boy I loved meant to put an end to me, not out of malice but out of wanting to protect others. He was wrong, but he was also so very right. The wrong thing for the right reasons. It makes you want to embrace someone and strangle them at the same time. I guess, in the end, I was more proud than anything else.

Yora came closer, and I about decided that while I had enjoyed my time with him, I'd rather not get skinned to preserve my secret. I took a moment, and I prepared to change back into a dragon to slip from my bonds and escape.

Before I could transform, my eyes and his met, and he stopped in his tracks. It felt like an eternity, us looking at each other. The corner of his mouth twitched, and then that lopsided grin I'd grown so fond of appeared on his face.

He reached out and cut me loose from his snare. He held me to his chest and stroked my ears. Then he said the four most beautiful words I've ever heard.

"I finally found you."

It bears mentioning that when a dragon takes on the form of a creature, we unfortunately take on a bit of that creature's manner. Dogs are, as a rule, disgustingly sentimental beasts, so I can hardly be blamed for furiously licking his face.

Yora recognized me without ever meeting me. It was then that I truly understood. We were linked, and we had been from his first breath. Perhaps sooner.

Mierwyn ran up to us, laughing. "You see?" she said. "That's just a dog."

"No, she's not," Yora replied. "She's a spirit."

I'll confess to taking more pleasure than I should have from what came next. For the first time in centuries, I felt whole. I wanted it to go on forever. I wanted more. Selfish, perhaps, but I don't regret it.

"You're both wrong," I said to them.

Yora dropped me in his surprise, and poor Mierwyn nearly fainted. Their eyes became as wide as wagon wheels, and Yora went to his knees.

I sat back on my hindquarters and tilted my chin proudly. "I'm considerably more than a dog, though somewhat less than a spirit."

The two mortal children gawked at me as if... well, as if I were a talking dog. I let my disguise fade away and revealed myself to them both.

"I'm a dragon, and my name is Deebee."