Legend CVI – Micro, the little dragon child

More about Legend CVI – Micro, the little dragon child

Deep in the young forest, where the light still hesitated to find its way between the trunks, lived a dragon child named Micro. He was small, smaller than the stories allowed, barely bigger than a fox, and his scales shimmered in shades of green and gold, as if moss, resin and morning sun had decided together to give him skin. His gaze was wide and open, filled with a sense of wonder that came not from ignorance but from a quiet trust in the world. Micro had not hatched in a cave, not between fire and smoke, but on a soft bed of ferns, from an egg that no one had looked for. The forest had accepted him without asking questions, and so he came to know the world not as something to be conquered, but as something that answered if you listened long enough.When Micro ran over fallen tree trunks, there was a slight spring in his step and his tail made subconscious patterns in the air, as if testing out how much space he was allowed. Small mushrooms glowed faintly as he passed them, and insects didn't move away but stayed, as if they had recognized that he was not in a hurry. Micro knew no fear. All he knew was curiosity, and even that was gentle. Sometimes he would stop just to hear what the forest sounded like when he wasn't doing anything himself. Then he sat down, put his paws neatly next to each other and waited until the noises rearranged themselves. The forest got used to him, just as one gets used to a thought that remains. Micro didn't know what a dragon was. He knew no songs of burning cities, no tales of gold and anger. When he tried to make a fire, all he would get out of it was a warm breath that rippled the air and evaporated dew without scorching anything. Instead, something else happened. Where Micro lingered for a long time, new life grew. Mosses became thicker, bark closed old cracks, and even tired trees straightened their crowns a little. The forest began to need him even before Micro understood what that meant. He just felt that he should stay in some places longer than others, without knowing why. But even a little dragon child carries memories within her, even if she doesn't have any pictures yet. There was a distant pull in Micro, a quiet resistance to the idea of remaining small forever. Some evenings he looked up at the sky between the trunks, where the light was thinning, and felt something that was neither hunger nor fear. It was a knowledge that he would grow, that his body could become heavier, his breath hotter, his footsteps louder. Then he sat quietly on a mossy trunk and listened to the forest, as if hoping to find an answer before the question fully took shape within him. The forest didn't answer with words. It just made the wind slow and the light linger longer. The years passed without being counted.