Bonding
March-17-11

Disclaimer: I do not own or profit from the Winx Club.

So much fluff.

The forest was thick with centuries old trees. It was untouched by civilisation. It was silent but at the same time teeming with the noises that indicated that there was life. There was the tinkling of water meaning a river was nearby.

A bird soared in the sky. It surveyed the land before him. He was a majestic creature with powerful all-seeing eyes. It was looking for prey to feed its chicks. It circled the valley with its eyes intent on the ground. Unfortunately, it could not see the white sliver of silver scales that winded through the clouds above it. The sliver hid in the clouds and then it struck like lightning. This bolt of lightning had been silent death to the bird.

The bird of prey was quickly consumed by teeth that were hard as diamonds. Only a few feathers floating on the wind remained of the poor creature. Its meat would soften and cook in the beast's belly. Inevitably, the bird's mate for would looking for it and eventually, its chicks would be eaten when there was no supervision in the nest. Death always found the best way to strike.

Circling the circumference of its territory, the silver gray beast made a halo above her lands. She spat fire just above the tree tops to mark her lands. The tops of trees were burnt black and would never grow any higher when there was a dragon preventing them. Deeming her work satisfactory, the dragoness returned to her nest.

She landed on a particularly small patch of burnt forest disturbing dozens of other birds into flight. She ignored them and trudged on into the depths of the forest. Its footfalls were heavy but the path she walked on was worn. Grass did not grow on this path for she had walked on it too often to give nature a chance to make it green. She arrived at the mouth of a small opening beneath the root of a millennium old tree within the forest. The opening was littered with white bones.

She purred gently and thrust her head into the hole. Carefully, she started to feel her stomach reverse its digestive motions. The dragoness stepped back from the hole and widened her mouth. There was a burning sulphuric smell in the air. The half-digested corpse of her avian catch fell unto the compact earth. She waited. Timidly, a drakling ventured out. Its eyes were large and its skull was gangly compared to its short body and tiny wings. It was too small to hunt for itself. It poked its noise at the catch. It smelt like spit, burning flesh and acid. To the young drakling, it was the most appetizing sight and it ate with gusto.

The adult dragon was satisfied and retreated to sunbathe on the burnt earth in front of the hole. The drakling soon followed, contented by its meal. It climbed the stony ridge of his mother's back. The dragoness spread her wings flat on the ground to catch the rays of the sun. The drakling belched small blue flames and then laid its head down to sleep on its mother's back.

A tall burly man with choppy blond hair and cool blue eyes marched forward in the forest. Behind him was a young girl, about seven, with dark black hair following him. Both of them carried light packs and they were extremely cautious. They had not said any words to each other in hours.

The girl tried to take in the new sights. Unimaginably old trees, creatures she had only seen in books, the inexplicable scent of the forest. She was in awe of its sheer size.

The man and the girl arrived at a river. She stopped to look at the fish in the river and then realised that she was on the precipice of something very dangerous.

"Dad?" she said softly.

He signalled for her to be quiet, but he was smiling. He continued along the river.

The girl's heart pounded against her ribcage.

"D-dad!" she said a little louder.

The man turned around and motioned for her to be quiet. They needed to be subtle.

The girl was having second thoughts. Did she really want to go through with this? Was it worth it?

"I-I…Daddy!" she screamed shrilly. Tears started to form at her eyes. She had stopped moving along the river. "I don't…"

The father turned around and saw that his little girl had not moved. He sighed. He retraced his steps back to her. He saw her tears and dropped to one knee in front of her.

"Don't worry. Nothing will happen. I won't let anything happen to you, Dawn," he promised her for the hundredth time.

"B-but I don't want to do this anymore!"

He looked at her with concern. "Everything will be alright. I promise. She won't hurt you."

"I know but…!"

"I thought you wanted to do this?"

"I did! I do!"

"Then what's wrong?"

"I can't! I'm not brave like Ash. A-and I don't want Mommy to get mad at me or you!"

He sighed. "Are you still worried about Mommy?"

She nodded crying.

"Who told you that just because you're a girl, you can't do the same things as your brother?"

"M-mommy," she said guiltily. She felt like she was betraying her mother. "I know that she will get mad at you and throw fire at you. I don't want to do this if she is just going to get mad at you."

"Dawn…" he said softly. He held his daughter tightly in his arms and buried his nose in her glossy black hair. He kissed her forehead. "Tell me. Do you want to see Celeste?"

"Yes! You always tell me about your adventures with Celeste and how you fly in the skies at night burning rebel armies. I want to see her but Mommy says that she might eat me and that it'll be all your fault if something happens."

The father rolled his eyes. At times, his wife was certainly trying. How ironic that she happened to be the Keeper of the Dragon Flame but he could not always blame her for her fears. Dragons were fearsome creatures to anyone, only if they did not understand them. This father however knew much about dragons and their habits. He understood their need for territorial boundaries and other social niceties and had worked his way into dragon society. He knew that these terrifying creatures could be a great ally if one knew how to approach them. Dragons were no more fearsome to humans as humans were to dragons. "I won't let her eat you," he promised. "She hasn't eaten me, has she?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Plus, she has had other draklings and she let them near me. She has allowed them to get near me and even let me feed them. That means she respects me. You don't think she won't understand that you are my baby? Sure, there are times when she burns me for getting to close to her eggs but that is because I care. Getting burnt is normal; they are dragons after all."

He was going to get into another argument with his wife again later on, he knew. "Forget what Mommy said. I brought you here because you want to see Celeste and her new baby."

She nodded.

He pulled out a white handkerchief and handed it to her. She wiped her tears on it. "Now, let's keep going. We're almost there," he said.

The continued on. Dawn started to notice something weird. A lot of the trees were black. She wondered why and then realised that they were reaching their destination. Her father did not need to tell her for she could tell by the bare bones that littered the ground. She glued herself to her father's side scared. She held his hand tightly but he patted her head to reassure her.

"Don't worry, Dawn."

"What if she doesn't like me?"

"Celeste? How could she not like you? You're too cute."

She and her father hid in the shadow of a tree. He kneeled and asked her to stand near him.

"Do you see that hole there?"

She nodded.

"That is Celeste's nest. There is another exit on the other side. She and her baby live under the tree." It was a dark ominous hole underneath the tallest tree Dawn had ever seen in her short life. The nest was surrounded by a myriad of skeletons. The earth was stained with blood and littered with scraps of carcasses. Many of the trees were black and had turned into piles of ash. Vegetation was sparse.

"Are they in there?" Dawn asked.

"Maybe. Remember the tune I kept telling you to remember? The one I used when you used to take a nap?" He whistled a cheerful leitmotif.

That song was deeply ingrained into her memory. Ever since she was young, he had been teaching her the same song. He used to whistle it when she was a baby, then he eventually taught it to her on the flute and piano. A few years ago, he had even added words.

She whistled the tune with him. "You said that this song is only for Celeste."

"Yes, it's a warning to tell her that I'm nearby. If anything happens, whistle this loudly. You can sing it too. Got it? Now, I'm going to go tell Celeste I'm here. Stay here and wait until I get you."

Her eyes grew wide. "Don't leave!"

"Shh! Don't scream! We don't want to scare Celeste. I'll come back."

"But—!" She held unto him tightly but he effortlessly pried her off him.

She watched her father make drop his light pack on the ground. He kept his sword and knife on his person. Her tied back his blond hair with a strip of leather and put on his fireproof dragon leather gloves.

Braver than anyone Dawn ever knew, Daddy disappeared down into the pit of skeletons like a brave warrior about to confront the infernos of Hell. She watched him scan the small wasteland. He approached the black hole under the tree and briefly slipped in before jumping out. No dragon.

He was deeply perplexed. Her father left the hole to go under a tree root that arched over the ground. He disappeared under it and darted to the left. He was out of sight.

Dawn sat down holding her father's pack tightly. She could not see him. She waited and waited and waited. She jumped when she heard a massive growl or roar of sorts. She waited and waited and waited. She hoped her father had not gotten eaten, like Mommy said he would be. She imagined the horrible scenarios her mother had fed to her about dragons.

The forest was eerily silent. Before, she had heard the cries animals and the trickle of water from the river. She had even seen animals she had only seen in books. Where were the noises of the forest? She looked at the nest, a veritable wasteland. Where was her father?

The wind blew playing a noisy staccato on the grass. Where was Daddy? She wanted him to hold her and tell her that everything was alright. She was having her doubts about wanting to see Daddy's dragon. She could not imagine how her brave brother Ash had done it. It was not that she had a desire to be like him, but she wanted to see dragons for herself. She had an unmatched curiosity for such creatures. Her father had raised her on tales of heroic deeds involving his partner dragon that he secretly told her at night but her mother had instilled a fear into her about the ferocity of those dastardly beasts during the day.

She wondered if Celeste had eaten her father yet? She whimpered. Why had her father not come back? She was plagued by her greatest fears. In earnest, she cried heavy tears.

Time passed slowly and she sat their obediently waiting but she did not want to. She was scared, truly scared that something had gone wrong.

She screamed when she felt a hand on her head. She swatted it away and looked to see her father kneeling over her. She jumped into his arms and held him tightly.

"Dawn, Dawn, Dawn, I'm right here," he cooed. "Nothing happened."

"Where were you?" she cried into his shoulder.

"It's only been a few minutes, Dawn." Sky held his daughter and rocked her.

He was a patient man and understood that he was doing something that was potentially dangerous to his daughter. When his first son Ash had been born, it had been him who had raised him for is wife Bloom knew very little about raising little boys meant to be kings. She understood that Sky needed to instil in him all the values of a good ruler as well as the brutality of a warrior but Bloom had firmly declared that it would be her who would raise Dawn. While he had very little qualms about teaching her to be a proper lady, he could not let Ash be the only one to hold the kingdom on his shoulders. He needed to teach these same things to his daughter Dawn, something that Bloom greatly protested.

Maybe he was going behind his wife's back doing things she did not like. He felt guilty about it, but his guilt was a sufferable thing compared to the well-being of his kingdom. Admittedly, he was a bad father in many ways but he knew that every day could be his last and he did not want to waste such precious time over the trivialities of raising children properly.

"Let's go see Celeste, hmm?" he cooed.

She nodded against his shoulder after several minutes. "Yeah." Sky stood up and held Dawn's hand.

They descended into the pit of bones and ash. He guided her under the root he had disappeared under. He whistled the familiar leitmotif. Terrified, she tried to hide behind her father. It was one thing to know the leitmotif to calming a dragon; it was another to put it into practise. She was too terrified to sing the tune.

She heard the quiet rumble of thunder.

"Celeste," Sky said in greeting. He made an equally scary sound that sounded like a roar. It was the first time she had ever heard him do that. He looked back at his little girl. "Dawn, look." He kept a hand on her shoulder and urged her to look.

Dawn looked and gasped.

Celeste had long thick body made of silvery scales. She could see the slightest hint of an aurora borealis. Her body was as long as a hallway. She had a regal equine head raised to observe something trivial like the movement of a flower and a long neck. Her wings were spread on the ground catching the suns rays. They were like blue glass. Dawn wondered if she was looking at a statue made of white diamonds. She had a crown of sapphire blue spines that descended from the top of her head to the base of her neck. She was curled about in a half-circle.

"Dawn, this is Celeste. What do you think?"

"She's very pretty."

He chuckled. He stepped to the side and then Dawn realised that the dragon could see her by the way she was acutely looking at her with its large yellow eyes. She quickly hid behind her father.

"No, no, no, don't hide. Celeste won't eat you." Sky moved to stand behind his daughter. "Look her in the eye. Be strong, be brave."

Dawn looked at the dragoness with wide eyes. She watched Celeste and Celeste watched her. She wondered what the dragon thought about her. The white dragon rose on her forelegs and crawled forward with her head low to look at Dawn. The dragoness closed the inches between them. Dawn could feel Celeste's hot breathe on her face. She kept snorting.

Dawn's legs trembled. Celeste's breathe was rancid.

The dragoness sniffed tentatively. Dawn felt uncomfortable being so close but her father kept a firm grip on her.

"Daddy!" she squealed when Celeste was only an arm's length away. She wanted to run.

"Look on her back between her wings, Dawn. What is that?" Dawn could hear the hint of a smile in his voice.

Dawn looked past Celeste's imposing head to see an ugly gray lump on her back.

"I-is that the baby?"

"Yes, like you."

"I'm not a baby!"

He chuckled again. "Oh, you will always be my baby girl, Dawn."

Dawn scrutinised the lump. It had an oddly overlarge head and a small body. It was a weird kind of baby.

"Lift up your hand to Celeste, Dawn."

"No!"

"Dawn, a relationship with a dragon is give and take. If you give her your hand, she will give you some of her space. Now, lift it up."

Tentatively, Dawn raised a hand to Celeste's nose.

Celeste saw the gesture and came closer to smell her. The dragoness settled on the ground and watched her with golden eyes.

"Can I touch her?"

"Yes."

Dawn felt with her hands the rough dryness of Celeste's snout. It was hot, even burning hot. She pulled back her hand afraid that she was burnt.

"Hot, huh?" Daddy asked.

"Yeah."

Sky reached with a gloved hand to lift up the Celeste's jowls to show Dawn her teeth. They were pristine white and as long as Dawn's forearm. "See these teeth? Don't ever put any body part of yours in here. These can wreak a car in an instant. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Good." He turned to Celeste. "Thanks. This is Dawn. Dawn. Dawn…" Sky made sure to pronounce her name well to the dragoness. She nodded in acknowledgement.

Several minutes later, Dawn sat watching her father do what seemed like a medical examination of Celeste. She was fascinated by how docile the dragoness was. She understood that it had taken years for her Daddy to have built such trust with such a dangerous creature, but she was still amazed. Dawn sat on a blanket her father had laid out.

Her eyes got heavy and soon enough, she was sleeping on the blanket.

BOOM!

Dawn woke up wide-eyed at the sound. It was dark and there was a small fire going. She was still at the nest. The sky was slightly orange and yellow but the moon was definitely in the sky. She found herself to be curled inside the blanket.

Her first thought was her father. "Dad?" she called out into the darkness. She panicked.

She wondered where the heavy sound had come from. Was there a storm coming? She found herself to be still at the nest but not in the same place she had fallen asleep at. She looked across the bones lit orange by the fire to see an elk crying out. It was near the fire and crying out in pain at the arrow lodged in its side. She got up to look at it.

It was dying. It was not the first time she had seen a dying animal for her father was an avid hunter. She was not yet quite numb to the sound of dying animals for she did feel pity that such a cute creature was dying but she had bigger concerns.

She called out for her father again. Had Celeste eaten her father?

Without warning, Sky dropped out of the sky on a strong wind and onto the dying elk to finally silence it. Dawn screamed in surprise. She looked up to see Celeste circling in the sky. Amazingly, in the dying orange of the sunset, she saw Celeste clutch at the bark of the millennium old tree like a lizard and climb down head first to the nest. Celeste climbed down from a root over her nest to curl her body around the perimeter of the fire's light.

She watched her father dislodge arrows out of the elk.

"Dad?"

"Hmmm?" he said casually.

"Umm…." She was unsure of what to ask.

"Right, Dawn, do you mind putting wood in the fire and getting the utensils from my pack? Also, get the spices. We're eating dinner. Get the tarp so that I can put the meat on it." Sky pulled out his knife from his belt and cut open the stomach.

Dawn looked to the sky. She supposed that time had passed by during her nap and that Sky and Celeste had gone hunting in that time. The sound that had awoken her had been the sound of the elk's body hitting the ground from Celeste carrying it.

Her stomach rumbled and she set out to do what her father had told her.

She realised that she was freezing and added a huge heaping of wood to the fire. She pulled out a tarp from their packs and set it on the ground.

"I just need the skewers, baby," Sky said. He was making quick work of the beast. "Put the meat on the skewers like this and put it on the fire. You can put some on the rocks too."

Dawn did as she was told but then she realised that her dad was preparing more meat than they needed.

"Dad, are we going to eat that much?"

"No, it's for Celeste and her baby. I'm making it easier for Celeste by preparing the meat for her. She is too big to get all the meat off the body properly." He tossed scraps onto the blue tarpaulin. Celeste eyed it carefully.

"Oh." Dawn looked at it. "We're sleeping the night, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"Mom's going to be mad."

Sky stopped and sighed. "I know, baby." He put on a smile. "Watch the meat cook. You can mix the spices with water to make a sauce."

Dawn nodded. Actually, she was intrepid about staying the night in the forest. She watched her father work furiously at the body to get all the meat off. A body soon became skin and a skeleton as Sky diligently worked.

She heard an ugly sound erupt from the hole under the tree root. "Daddy?" she called because she was scared.

"Be calm, Dawn."

Dawn watched a gangly drakling crawl out of the underground cavern and make those ugly meows or roars.

"It's hungry," Sky said.

Dawn watched the baby crawl up to Celeste's side mewling for food. It was indeed ugly but it had the same golden eyes as its mother.

Celeste dipped her head into the pile of scraps on the tarp much to Dawn's surprise.

"Dawn, feed it the skewers in the meantime," her father said.

"What? Why?"

"Celeste has to digest the food she ate before she can vomit it out. It takes time."

"Like a bird?"

"Yes, like a bird. Cooked meat is soft enough for the baby to eat. Take the strips by the ends and hold it above the baby. Purr like this to get its attention." Sky made a rumbling sound with his throat that she failed to emulate. He laughed at her. "It takes practise. Stand near me and I'll purr."

The baby turned. It heard Sky's purr and mewled back. It crawled like quick lightning and approached Dawn who held a long strip of meat. It smelt the meat and made an odd snorting sound. It was not quite like begging.

"What's it doing?" she asked.

"That's prusten. It's snorting to say that it's peaceful. Hold the meat up in front of you."

Dawn did so and the drakling jumped up to eat it. As soon as it jumped, she let go. It had ivory white teeth like Celeste.

"Don't drop it, Dawn! He has to take it from your hand. Try again."

"Oh, sorry!" Dawn tried again and held the meat. This time, she was not surprised when it jumped.

"Better."

Dawn did it several times before Celeste purred and began to regurgitate the meat she had eaten. The drakling left Dawn to attack the meat its mother had produced. Soon enough, Sky had produced enough scraps from the elk to feed Celeste. He stopped and sat beside his daughter to eat the skewers.

Sky pulled out fruits that he had picked up during his and Celeste's hunt. He gave a handful of berries to Dawn. They shared a bottle of water. It was dark and soon Celeste folded her wings and urged her drakling into the underground cavern below the tree root with her snout.

"Dad, we don't have sleeping bags," Dawn said.

"I know."

"Where are we sleeping?"

"With Celeste. Her body's very warm."

Dawn was too tired to act scared. Over the course of the afternoon, she understood her father's trust towards Celeste. It was unparalleled. His tales about her seemed to be true.

Sky wrapped up his daughter in the blanket she been sleeping in earlier. He held her in his arms and descended into the dragoness's nest. He whistled the familiar leitmotif to both his daughter and Celeste. Dawn had had a tiring day walking through the forest and facing her fears about dragons. He was planting seeds that would take root over the years to come.

"You were very brave today, Dawn. I'm so very proud of you."

In her sleep, she smiled. She did not regret coming with her father to see her first dragon. Her mother was wrong about them.

In the darkness, he felt his way through the cavern to Celeste's side. He could feel the unnamed drakling try to crawl under his mother for warmth. He deposited Dawn on the ground. He laid his and his daughter's backpacks on the ground and fished out more blankets. Using their packs for pillows, Sky laid them near the forearm of the dragoness. He laid one blanket on the ground as a sheet and manoeuvred Dawn to sleep near Celeste while he slept on the edge. They were going to sleep parallel to his partner dragon. He pulled the last blanket over him and curled himself about his daughter. Unbeknownst to Dawn, she slept with her back touching the warm side of the drakling.

Sky seems like an awesome (?) father.