1.
Sheldon is one of the better warlocks of his order. This does not make him particularly well liked. It probably doesn't help that he tends to shun his fellows for the ancient tomes that line the halls. He's long adjusted to the whispers about him. They way the mock him about his tendency to hoard knowledge. The dragon they call him, the name follows him through the years, unsubtle whispers behind his back.
He knows better than to pay them any mind. It helps that not all of his peers are determined to torment him. There are a few acquaintances that he slowly begins to consider friends. Mostly through his roommate, Leonard. They are more tolerable than the vast majority of his so called brethren. But Sheldon doesn't have to deal with the masses too often.
Especially once he learned to ward his rooms and possessions appropriately. They claim he keeps secret knowledge, knows unspeakable scripture, they do their best to mask their own incompetence. He is ten times the warlock any one of them is, and they have never manage to get pass even one of his most basic enchantments.
He's quick to move up in the ranks. A rising star, in his own words, and a freak of nature to the fellows of his orders. He finds it easier and easier to ignore the scorn the more involved he becomes in the magic. It fascinates him, consumes him. There is scarcely more to his world. It's all he thinks about.
He doesn't realize the danger.
Doesn't see the jealousy in his professors. Misses the growing discontent among those he considers friends. When the offer of studying mystical caves in the mountains as head of the project comes, he is delighted. Doesn't see the trap for what it is. Considers it one of the most amazing opportunities of his life. Right alongside the invitation to learn magic in the first place, despite it making his own mother part of the crowd that attempted to burn him as a witch. Learning magic is still one of the best decisions he's ever made, of course he jumps at the chance to learn more of the arcane. He invites his friends along. Throws himself into translating the ancient runes and gleaning all the magic he can from the ruins.
He does feel the wave of magic coming towards him before it arrive, however. Manages a protection spell between one heartbeat and the next. The magics collide, twist and tear at him from within. Warp everything that he is. The agony of it follows him into darkness. Once he wakes he finds that he is much larger than he should be. Reptilian where he wasn't, with two great midnight blue wings he could only examine out out of the corner of his eyes.
A distressed rumbling leaves his throat. He supposes it's the draconian equivalent of 'Oh dear.'
2.
Three days, Penny thinks to herself bitterly.
That was all it took, three days for her world to end. One moment she was just another village girl, and the next she had been chosen, declared the loveliest maiden in all of Omaha. The Corn Queen they called her. It was supposed to be a great honor, for all that every village girl hoped and prayed that they were never chosen to wear the crown, not once the dragon had come. As if a fancy title made her fate any better. As if any fate could be worse.
Angry tears dripped from her face as she thrashed against her bindings. The rope bit into her wrist, but the pain didn't register past the agony of the betrayal. A roar sounded in the distance and she froze, her body going involuntarily still. Penny had never known fear like this. It gripped her chest tight, settled in her spine. It took everything she had just to breathe.
Tethered to a pole in the middle of the village square, abandoned by everyone she had ever known. She was left to die. Just another unwilling offering in a long line of helpless, bound girls. Too young to be called women, but too old not to know just what really happened when the Dragon came to carry her off. She would die so that the cowards in her village might live.
She almost hoped they didn't. She almost hoped that the Dragon found her an unfitting meal and burned the Village to the ground. She almost hoped. But this was Omaha. It had been the only home she had ever known. It was where her family lived, traitorous scum that they were. Somehow leaving her to die hadn't erased the entirety of her love for them. If only they had fought for her. If only they had tried to offer themselves instead, the way she would have, if any of them had been chosen. Maybe then she could have offered herself gladly. Met her fate with her head held high, knowing that she was dying for people that loved her.
They hadn't even given her that.
All her father had done was bow his head. Her mother had at least dressed her in the finest gown she owned. Her sister had combed her hair, woven flowers through it. Her brother hadn't even appeared at her send off feast.
And now all that was left was for her to die alone. Sacrificed to the dragon that haunted their mountain. Penny forced herself to crane her head up. She would die as she had lived, beautiful and brave, even if no one else was around to see it. The thought didn't help her keep a shrill shriek at bay as the dragon swooped down and snatched her up with his claws.
3.
It takes him an embarrassingly long time to adjust to being a dragon.
His first attempts at contacting his order for assistance are naive and in vain. He's equally embarrassed by the fact that he doesn't understand the betrayal until he has several knights set on him. It isn't terribly difficult to fight them off using fire, fangs, or claw, but there is distressingly little magic available in his new form. Despite the sheer potency of the magic he can feel in his new scales. He needs only to think of a way to access it.
For a time he considers revenge. Ravaging the castle that once housed him, and reaping vengeance on those who had been jealous of his power. But in the end he finds that he has his priorities straight. He is a dragon. And dealing with the new reality of being a magical creature takes precedence over revenge. Not that he doesn't plan to pursue his vengeance. It is simply that it can wait. Whereas learning to fly cannot.
He needs to figure out how to become human again. He doesn't know how to do magic as a dragon. Can't write his usual missives and magic them to his grandmother, his Meemaw, the clever hedge witch that had saved him from being burned alive. He hates to distress her.
So he flies away.
Far away. To a mountain full of caves that seems perilous to climb. Settles in to figure out his new shape and how to turn himself human again. He's flying in an attempt to find sustenance when he spots a witch burning in the town at the valley of his new mountain. His memories of Meemaw demand he interfere.
4.
Flying was terrifying.
At least at first. She had never been so high up before, and she had no way of knowing how long they flew. Her village seemed smaller and smaller as they flew further from the ground. Penny couldn't control the breathless giggle that bubbled up. She was flying. It might be the last thing she ever did, but it was amazing. Her fear ebbed and flowed with every powerful beat of the dragons wings. Gliding along the winds, rocking her carefully in the cage of it's talons. Penny almost felt like she could enjoy the sheer novelty of it. She was up so high.
How many people could say they had seen the land from the sky? Like a bird, or a cloud. She had been part of the heavens from some time. The weightless happiness leaves her as soon as they begin to land.
The Dragons claws tighten and Penny thinks it's the end. That it will rend her limb from limb with it's claws before it feasts on her corpse.
It doesn't.
It dumps her, none too gently, on the ground. There is a cut on her palm from where the claws had nicked her, and the grass burns against it when she goes on her hand and knees, caught between automatically pushing herself up and the knowledge that she's about to die. She goes still, terrified. Will it burn her alive instead? Roast her with it's fire. She stays frozen in fear for what feels like forever before she realizes that it's flown away.
She looks up at the sky, expecting to see it roaming. Perhaps it wants to chase her down the way hunters enjoy hunting down game? She doesn't spot hide nor hair of it and supposes it doesn't.
She doesn't understand.
But she's alive, nothing seems immediately predisposed to kill her, so her day is definitely looking up. She starts looking for shelter. She doesn't know why the Dragon had spared her life, but she doesn't want to be found should it change it's mind.
5.
Sheldon has a bit of a breakthrough in his attempt to regain humanity. It's mostly due to the village girls blood on his claws, and he considers them fully even despite having just saved her life. It isn't much, not the careful, steady hands he once wielded, but surely having his voice back is useful? Or he supposes it would be, if he had anyone to talk to.
Loneliness has never been an affliction he'd actively suffered from. There was always an experiment to run, or something new to learn that helped him push the feeling to the back of his mind. He'd also been unable to avoid others completely, having to interact with people in order to get food, or check books out of the library. It always served as a reminder of how much better off he was without others. He'd once dreamed of becoming a hermit. Now that he's been forced to become one by circumstance, he's surprised by how lonely he feels now.
He considers the village girl again. Surely the trek down the mountain would take sometime, perhaps, now that he could speak, he could offer her a ride. He imagined it would be less alarming to be approached by a dragon now that he could make his intentions clear.
He tracks her down by scent and finds her sleeping in the hollow of an old tree. He accidentally crushes the trunk when he attempts to nudge her awake. She shrieks and he realizes that he has failed. She seems very alarmed indeed.
x
I don't even know y'all. I seem to be in a mood to write magical medieval Au's? I didn't know that was thing, but apparently... I've started like three in the past few days. This one is the one with the most finishing potential. Also this is gonna be a three shot, please tell me what you think? I don't have a very concrete idea of where I'm going with this...