A Benevolent Evil Dragon

It is, in fact, a house, and luckily my head isn't mounted like a trophy through its wall. Instead, I find myself half buried in a garden, covered in splatters of tomato juice, bell peppers, eggplants, and that's ignoring the condiments and other plants that turned me into a well seasoned sack of meat ready to be put on the grill. Going by the mana that I feel around me, I am still in the thing's domain, though, which doesn't make me very happy, aside from having an easy source of mana.

The clearing is not really a clearing now that I have a better look around. There's a few ruggedly made houses and the trees are spread sparingly, but up above the branches link perfectly, spreading farther than they have any right just to keep the dome of green covering everything. Much like at the creature's lake, the canopy dominates the sky.

I'm stalling. I can't even fault myself for it, though, as I feel like I'd rather not be alive. My wings are done, which is starting to become a trend. My tails are broken to the point that even thinking of moving them hurts. I think I have a few bones shattered in my remaining limbs and my scales aren't doing much better, especially after I wasted most of my chaos mana on attacking the plant monster. The rest of my reserves were promptly expended as well from the subsequent attacks, resulting in what I am now. A dull grey bundle of broken bones and dripping blood, splayed in a less than flattering pose inside this random garden.

"While I expected some trouble after welcoming the girl, I didn't thin- what is that?!" My head turns, slowly, towards the sound.

Despite my leftmost two eyes being gone, taken by a branch or maybe a rock, I manage to get a good look at the source of the voice. Frozen in shock stood a rather beautiful woman with shoulder length dark hair and dark emerald eyes. Her clothes look improvised, slightly ragged, made from animal hides and some kind of woven grass patches. She looks… old? No, she feels old but looks young. Not Edith young, but I wouldn't guess she's older than forty or fifty, and even for that she looked too perfect. No ridges, no spots, flawless skin that made me tingle because despite its paleness I couldn't even see her veins.

She looks like a monster to my eyes. More than that. The dryad looking thing at least seemed to belong, seemed like she was exactly how she should be, despite being just as perfect. However she looks like she did something wrong with herself. Just like the Duke from a while back. Too perfect to seem human, magic clinging to her skin in an unnatural way… Something is very wrong here but I like it nonetheless, this much information is dulling my sense of pain.

I can only cheer when my mind is forced to study even more figures, all wearing wildly different robes, but the materials staying consistent. These women had been around in the wild for a while, at least. Let's see, one loo-

A prickle of color draws my eye and from behind the first woman, a child appears. She looks to be around six years old and she wears an incredibly expensive looking dress. It's puffed up, silky, and it mixes white, blue and a rusty red that matches the accents in her otherwise black, curly hair. Her eyes look like two voids seeking knowledge and despite being the youngest around I feel that the only person here with more mana infusing her body than her is the very woman she's hiding behind.

"Miss witch," The child whispers "what's that? Is it a big mole?" The girl seems earnest in her ignorance, but the other women, of which only one other than the first seemed to have the unnatural youth and beauty to her, know what I am and look terrified for it.

"Zofia!" The second uncanny woman with flowers in her braided green and blond hair hisses towards the first. "What do we do?! The Willow is furious! Screaming! And that's a dragon!" She eyes me occasionally as if hoping I wouldn't hear her, but sadly for her I have nothing to focus on but them…

Argh, it hurts, it's horrible, worse than anything before aside from the death magic, because I can't even pass out. The second I can't defend myself, I will be dead, and thankfully there's so much food for me to devour that I should recover quickly, at least in terms of mana. As they bicker between each other I use my neck, the only thing not completely broken, and move my head to the plants in the garden, swallowing them, root and all, because most of my teeth are too broken to even bite down correctly without sending waves of pain into my brain. There's so much nature mana in here and having mana rich stuff in my stomach is faster than breathing in all this.

I only wish I knew how to turn plant magic into a healing spell…

"Shh, we can't make it turn hostile yet! It's ignoring us… Gods, how did a dragon get here…" Zofia, apparently, is just as panicked as everyone else, but she does seem to at least try to keep herself from devolving into terror.

I take another look at her, her appearance reminding me loosely of Meredith, which puts a sour taste in my mouth, one that isn't my own blood. I focus on my central eye and see the mana that floats around her… nature infuses her skin, but at her very core it feels different. It twitches, flows quickly to her finger tips, then exits without forming a spell… Poison. It's poison mana. Interesting.

"Look at it, it's eating plants, it might be too hurt and weak to fight back…" A young witch with blonde, shimmering hair and her blood literally glowing in her veins says, false bravado being the only thing keeping her on her feet.

"It's because of the girl! She's almost a princess, technically… Gods above…" A rather strangely shaped girl a bit younger than Edith trembles. Her right arm looks not only like it has her entire fat storage in it, but it's also covered in dark channels carved through the skin. The moment she hugs herself, trying to soothe her terrified self, water flows out from her shrinking arm. It flows to her fingertips, then drips all over herself, something she clearly doesn't care about.

"Silence.." the oldest looking woman around, one with long hair that defies gravity by itself and with literal holes going through the exposed parts of her body hisses out. Said hissing is accompanied by a whistle similar to wind chimes coming from said holes. "Those are tales and you know it, girl. The duke's kid has nothing to do with this dragon, and even if she did we aren't going to feed a child to a monster… Mother Zofia?" She uses her right hand, which looks more like the framework of an arm, or one like those 3D designs that use as little material as possible, to adjust the long cloth wrapped around her left one as her eyes move to Zofia, who steps forward.

"... Are you…" My eyes move to her, noticing her deep focus on my every twitch."You… Can you understand us?"

Her words made everyone react differently. The light witch froze, looking at me in abject horror, the water one fell to her knees, trying to hug herself and failing to hide her fear. The wind witch took a step back, then ripped apart the long cloth hiding her left arm, which instead of being filled with holes seemed to be covered in white ash, right up until it began decaying as the ash flowed, taken by her own wind and turned into needles pointed at me. Zofia put forward nothing but cold resolution, as a leader would, the flower one that walked up next to her looking just about ready to throw her magic my way before bolting.

"I do not eat children." Is all that I can give them, my voice more of a hissing whistle than the deep rumble it should be.

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"Everyone… Inside." Nobody pushed back at her words, just nodding and going in.

I try to listen in, but something happens and the sound gets cut off. My focus shifts to eating as much as possible. I need to patch myself up quickly. The magic around me no longer speaks weirdly and becomes mine the second I breathe it in, but at any moment that not-stag can come running after me. I messed up its shape, but I doubt I heal faster than a weed.

A little squeak draws my attention and I look down, tilting my head. A very cute looking rat, more similar to a domestic breed than the kind I used to find nibbling my human mother's old books whenever I went to the countryside, returned my gaze and I could see intelligence in its eyes. Similar to the bee, but this one was also different. A mind attuned rat witchbeast. That's rare… I think. The Songstress is the only creature I saw using mind aside from mather, so far.

I look at it, flashing a smile with shattered teeth, then another rat with a different affinity comes to the first's squeaks… then another… then another…

"There's a dragon in my garden." Zofia put bluntly, receiving the looks that could only be translated as 'I respect you too much to say it, but no shit', which she couldn't blame them for. "To top it all off, it's clearly the reason The Willow is weeping, as she began moments before said dragon got here."

Nobody said anything, but it was clear everyone was shaken up. Dragons were something to hear about, not see, yet they had one small, wounded one right outside. A wounded, young dragon that just took on the brunt of their usually docile and listless mistress, yet lived.

"We should kill it…" Once again, it was the radiant Astreta that jumped to violence, something that already proved detrimental. She couldn't fault her, of course, even though she only lived a moment as one, her noble roots showed themselves in the most stressful of times.

"Silence, child! The dragon is already thinking of us as enemies because of you! It heard you!" Feberka was quick to chastise her, the only reason her booming voice didn't get to reach outside was her very own magic weaving into the walls of Zofia's house, blocking out the movement of air around them. Zofia's eyes moved to Helina, who just looked shocked at the empty table they all sat around, almost mimicking young Biechna in showing unadulterated fear.

"We don't know what the dragon thinks…" Said Zofia calmly, letting out a heavy breath. In her eighty years of life, not once did she expect to see something like this… and yet here she was, having to debate what to do about a dragon that was probably recovering its strength as the minutes went by. "It at least speaks despite its size and if it isn't lying, it at least has a moral code…"

"Or a taste for mature flesh… It only said it doesn't eat children." Heline barked out in laughter, showing her terror seeping through. She put a good front for the dragon, but now she was letting reality sink in.

"Is the mole dragon bad?" The child at least managed to temporarily shatter the building tension with her innocence. Zofia thought about how this girl would end up becoming a monster in the future, but only shook her head, knowing that she had no say in that, just in how she treats her now. So instead of letting anyone else do it wrong, she went over and caressed her head, then lifted her and carried her back to the table, keeping the young lady on her lap.

"Lady Najmila, did His Grace not tell you about dragons?" Her voice was soft, not accusatory. Looking around, she noticed that it helped calm the others down too, as they focused on the girl and ignored the dragon running her garden.

"Mmm… daddy said they're big and scary! But that one was tiny… Like the pony daddy got me! Is that a dragon pony?" Her excitement never left her eyes and even Zofia relented into showing a smile.

"I'm sorry, my lady, but there's no pony dragons. That one is a dragon, a young one that will grow into a big and scary one, but just because it's small it doesn't make it any less scary… Even the youngest dragons can and will eat people…" Her somber words made the child frown, then look at the ground, then back at Zofia.

"But… it didn't seem bad… It just sat there and ate plants like the pony! And… and… It ruined the garden like the pony! Ah… will daddy punish it like the pony too? I miss it…" Zofia squeezed the girl tightly in her arms, seeing the cracks in Najmila's upbringing already. Duke Tarlo wasn't a kind man, that much she knew, but it still hurt to know that even his daughter wasn't safe from him.

"We're wasting time." Feberka spoke out, not angry, but in her stone-cold tone, having collected herself as she was given the chance to.

"I know… but what can we honestly do?" Zofia let go of the girl in her arms as she struggled to free herself, the witch's focus now being set on getting out.

Before Astreta could open her mouth, Helina took charge. "Killing it might not be a bad idea… A coven should be able to kill a crippled infant dragon. The mistress certainly would like that…"

"But… h-how… I don't know how to…" Biechna's quiet words were stomped out by Feberka.

"A coven should. But we're only a coven in name and respect. We're not dancing rituals and preparing magic to assassinate the king, like the nobles think we do. We're just five women hiding under a monster's protection because any other path leads to death. Do you have some secret powerful death spell that can finish an immortal monster? No? then we need to find a way to get it to leave without eating… all of us first." She spoke very matter of factly, but Zofia noticed the undertone.

"We are not giving one of us as a sacrifice for it to leave." Her words left no room for 'ifs' or 'buts'. "We might be a coven in name more than function, but we are still a family. Or did you stop considering me a 'Mother' the second that monster appeared?"

Feberka frowned, but then sighed, letting her worries show. "We're dead… The Willow threw it at us… She wants us to deal with it… Which means she failed. It's young and hurt, but she must be hurting badly too or else she would have murdered it and hung it for everyone to see… What can we do if she failed…?" The sour mood returned, clearly they were all out of their depths. The most aggressive thing anyone has done here was rescue other witches, and even that was mostly Feberka distracting people with wind while Zofia spread her poison about…

Surprisingly, out of anyone, it was Biechna that took center stage for once. "What if we pay it?" Everyone's looks were enough to make her wilt, but she continued. "I-I know we're not… but even without gold we have some things it could value! M-my potions are… not good… but I got one that calms pains! It might help it! It looks hurt so maybe if we give it whatever valuables we have and nurse it back to health, it might just leave?"

"Or it will go and attack The Willow again. Or it will kill all of us anyways. Or The Willow will kill us for nursing her mortal enemy. Or, gods forbid, he kills the Willow and we're left defenseless." Helina, clearly deciding that peace was never going to fly with a dragon, said what everyone already knew. Making a deal was optimistic at best, suicidal at worst. They already had deals with The Willow, trying to play both parts was what lords did, not desperate witches..

"Come now…" Her voice was dripping with venom as her glimmer failed, showing her age and the vines growing through her neck and eye. "You know what happens if she gets sick of us… Plus, we didn't survive because we were understanding towards monsters… Nobles, dragons, they're the same cloth… And we only live today because we defy them."

Zofia's fists clenched as she touched her chest. She knew, much like Helina, that if WIllow ever died, she would too. If their mistress decided that it was time for them to earn their keep, then maybe they had to stomp out this danger.

Everyone's heads snapped towards Najmila's laughter, surprised at seeing her clap as she looked out the window. "See! I knew it! It's a pony dragon! Even the mice are playing with it!" Her innocent laughter made Zofia almost ignore her words, until she realized that her house was strangely quiet. She looked around and saw none of her rats, then rushed to the girl and looked out… only to see all of her witchbeasts tending to the dragon, running all over their small village and bringing in materials. One of them even scratched at Zofia's own door, before pushing the wood away, making it bend. It then came in, climbed up and got a handful of dry mint, then bit down on it and dragged it outside, bending the door all over again..

"Mother Zofia…" Astreta looked out a different window, as did everyone else when they noticed her reaction. "Why is the dragon snuggling your rats…?"

That was something Zofia also wanted to know.