It was quiet for a long while after I’d finished speaking.
Then:
“You’re serious.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you really need me?” His voice sounded small.
“Yes.”
“What can I do?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But it must be something.”
“He told me. That a boy wizard would come. That he would need my help. That I would need to make a choice. That I could choose to help you. That I could choose to help the other. Or I could do nothing.”
“And he hasn’t been here? The other.”
Zero shook his head. “No. Just you.”
“Those are some serious choices you have to consider.”
“They are, aren’t they? I asked him what I should do. What was the right choice to make. Do you know what he told me?”
“No.”
“He told me that a dragon’s heart is a wondrous thing, capable of love and hatred. Of death and destruction. That there were dragons who had rained fire down from the sky. That burnt lands until they were nothing but ruins. That killed because they could, leaving nothing but wastelands behind them. And even though I was young, even though I didn’t know very much about the world, I knew that was wrong. That I could never be a dragon like that. I never wanted to be a villain. I just wanted to make things grow again. So I flew as far away as I could, far away from everyone else, and found a place that looked like a wasteland. That looked like it had already been burned and destroyed. And I stayed here to prove to myself that I could make it beautiful again, even if I could never be beautiful myself.”
Ah gods, how my heart ached.
He looked out at the forest around us, the trees swaying in a breeze, the birds that sang melancholic songs, the lights from actual fireflies, blinking lazily in the dark. “It was my gift,” he said quietly. “I thought it was my gift to a world that had lost its way. That if I could make a little corner of it better, then I wasn’t going to be like one of those bad dragons. That I could be one of the good guys. Does that make sense?”
“More than you could possibly know,” I said honestly. “You’re very smart. And very brave.”
I thought maybe he smiled at me, though it was hard to tell. He could have been just flashing his fangs, the cheeky bastard. “I don’t know about all that.” He hesitated. Then, “Are there… bad dragons?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “There aren’t many left. You’re only the second I’ve ever met. But maybe. I think that if you’re intelligent, if you can form thoughts in your head, there’s a chance that you could be a villain. And dragons are smart. So there might be some that are bad.”
His tongue flicked out. “I don’t want to be bad.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“If I help you, do you think I’d… do you think I’d be doing good?”
“Yes.”
“Even though you don’t know how yet.”
“Yes.”
“You’re asking me to take this on faith, wizard.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe in it? Do you believe in your friends? In your family? Do you believe in yourself?”
And I didn’t hesitate when I said, “Yes.”