• Jaeryldyne was reading the wanted poster that had been stuck to the wall of her alley when the first stone thudded against her back.
    “We have enough rats as it is!” someone shouted. Another stone. Jerry winced as it struck her right between the shoulder blades. Sure, she was an orphan, sure, she was skinny, sure, she was homeless and lived in an alley, and no, she didn’t pay taxes to King Arthur like the rest of the small town where she lived. But if someone called her “Rat-girl” one more time…
    There it was. Something inside of her snapped, and in a whirl of dirt, rags and matted black hair she spun around and punched the nearest person in the face.
    Everything was a blur after that. Screaming, such horrible screaming, and blood gushing from someone’s nose. Yelling, shouts of “Rat-girl is rabid!” and “It’s insane!” filled Jerry’s head. She was yelling, too, probably—but she couldn’t be sure.
    Next thing she knew clearly, she was running, her feet crunching on twigs and dry, fallen leaves, her hair getting caught in tree branches, her heart pounding, her lungs burning. Where was she? Somewhere in the forest…
    A dragon.
    The droplet of memory left gentle ripples in the still, clear water of her mind. The wanted poster…the dragon. In these woods…a dragon. This failed to sink in until she was overwhelmed by a blast of foul smoke.
    Jerry staggered back, coughing almost to the point of retching, blinded by the thick gray air around her. There wasn’t any flame that she could see, just the horrible smoke. She dropped to her knees, then fell face-first on the ground, breathing in the earthy scent of the forest.
    Should the ground be shaking this violently?
    Jerry held her shirt to her nose and sat up, only to be run down again by a tan blur. Thud, thud, thud. Its hooves pounded on her already-bruised back and she gasped with the pain. A deer? Why was it so desperate to get away?
    She sat up yet again, more cautiously this time, to find herself staring at the mouth of a cave through charred and burning trees. A blackened branch, flickering with an orange glow, snapped off of its tree and fell to the ground a few meters away, igniting more dry autumn leaves. Instead of panicking, Jerry frowned and studied her situation. There was a broad streak of ash coming from a point inside the cave, so the flame had come from a single source, a very direct source. Jerry decided to investigate further. Unfazed by the burning forest and fleeing animals she waded through the smaller wildlife and strode boldly into the dark abyss before her.
    The smoke was almost unbearable here, but she didn’t dare close her stinging and watering eyes, peeking out above the grimy shirt she held over her mouth and nose. She didn’t want to stumble right into this famous dragon, and there was no point in coming this far without being able to see what was going on.
    “Who’s there?” someone mumbled nearby, and Jerry stopped dead. “Didn’t I—I mean…” The voice hurriedly deepened and became louder. “I warned you, and if you don’t get out I’ll be forced to take extreme measures!” Then a plump, balding man came out of the shadows.
    He stared at the street urchin before him. She was skin and bones, with wide brown eyes that examined him skeptically from under a ragged black fringe. The rest of her hair fell in tangled hanks to her waist, contrasting with her startlingly pale skin. If she were a bit fatter, he thought absently, with her hair combed and her face made up, then she might even be pretty.
    “Who are you?” they asked in unison. “I’m Jerry,” Jerry added, and took control. “I want to know who you are and why you’re here. Are you in any way involved with this dragon I’ve heard so much about?”
    “I’m his master,” the man snarled, but the rest of his response was drowned out by a clinking and clattering coming from deeper within the cave. Something, a very bruised and chained something, dragged itself through the darkness, leaving a trail of blood. Jerry gasped, but the man scowled and kicked the thing, hard. It hacked up something shockingly red and Jerry couldn’t help but rush to its side.
    It was, in fact, a young man about her age, although it was hard to tell. Jagged black scales painfully protruded from his skin every so often, glinting rainbow in the shafts of sunlight that sometimes found their way through the thick, choking air and sliced through the darkness in the cavern. A gaping slit in his side was caked with crimson, and he wheezed when he breathed. His eyes were scarlet, to Jerry’s surprise, and seemed to glow in the dark.
    “You’re the dragon?” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes from his.
    He didn’t reply, but Jerry knew she was right. Instead he hissed, “Get me out of here!”
    “How?”
    Before he could answer, the other man snapped, “Troy!” and began to advance towards them, slow and menacing. He tugged at a dagger and it slid out of its sheath with a grinding shriek. For the first time in all her fifteen years Jerry was glad of being a rat-girl. She scampered away into a shadowy niche near the cave mouth, then threw stones in rapid succession out into the burning remains of the forest, sounding like hurried footsteps. The dragon, Troy, watched her mournfully.
    The older man stormed out of the cave in search of Jerry, who slipped out of her hiding-place once he had passed by. Now, how to release Troy?
    But apparently Troy already had a plan. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and blew a river of fire at the chain that kept him leashed to a boulder. The metal glowed white, and Jerry knew that she could soon split it with a rock while it was still soft. But should she? She could hear footsteps outside the cave; whatever she did, she had to do it fast.
    “He forces me,” Troy whispered earnestly, reading the uncertainty in her eyes. “Just let me go free.”
    Snatching up the nearest stone, Jerry hammered the chain with all her strength. It gave way after a few tries, but not without attracting the attention of Troy’s master. He came into view and started yelling, but that didn’t matter now. Troy exploded outwards, bursting his remaining chains and transforming until he filled the whole cave with shining black scales and blinding rainbow light. In a moment he was outside amid the burning forest, glistening in the sun, and he tossed Jerry onto his back with a flick of his tail. Then he spread his enormous wings, filling her head with their thunderous beating, and they were airborne. Jerry’s heart and stomach took a moment to catch up with her, and she was giddy with excitement. Breathing in the crisp, fresh autumn air, feeling the bracing wind gusting in her face and sending her hair streaming out behind her, spreading her arms wide and laughing with delight, Jerry knew she was finally free.