The Great Red Dragon woke in his lair, surrounded by wet bones, gold and fire. And he was hungry.
Beyond hungry, the dragon was starving, as always he was starving as was his curse. His arms and legs were hardly more than sinew and bones, and his skin stretched so tight across his chest and back, it looked as though the sharpest joints would break through from within any moment.
He could gorge for days never ceasing, but as soon as the last bit of meat fell down his gullet, the hunger would come as ravenous as if he'd had nothing in weeks
He didn't know how long he'd slept before the hunger pains had roused him again, for he'd had no dreams. He never dreamed, that he knew, but he did not realize it was because he was the creature of all others' nightmares.
(Now, the Great Red Dragon had another name, and it sounds sort of silly in some people's heads, but don't laugh when I tell you because then the Dragon may find you while you sleep.)
So Ridley felt hungry, starving though he could never die. And this was his curse, the curse he inflicted on all others. On this day, he felt a special sort of pestilence rousing in him, and he summoned an army of goblins, trolls and kobolds to come with him to raid a distant land.
The fire and the screams – Oh! They defy description. So many innocent people woke from their beds not knowing they would end the day gnashed and excreted on the ground. But these are not things worth talking about.
Ridley's hunger could be sated only by two things: when he swallowed food (and only for a moment) and when he stole and lay himself for the first time on something new and wonderful.
This land was not very rich, just fields of grain ever-continuing, so the Dragon had left his gnomes at home and none of the others were any good at knowing what to search and bring back. Still, he couldn't just leave without searching for something to take with him and lie upon. So Ridley began to creep through the still-standing houses, looking for any trinket he might take with him and keep.
Now, you may not believe this but somehow the Dragon's dark horde had missed a little girl, and Ridley – whose sense of smell was as good as any of his senses – sniffed her out inside her hiding place inside her house and watched and waited as she ran out into the field.
The Dragon, though twig-thin and four-stories tall, was swift as a cat and almost as cruel, so he beat his leathery wings once, twice, three times, then landed near the girl and circled around her twice.
"Where are you going, my pretty thing?" the Dragon said, licking his teeth clean and looking the golden-haired child up and down with one sickly yellow eye.
The girl, no more than seven, wore a nightshirt with no shoes and her face was red with tears. The black joy rumbled in Ridley's belly, deep.
"If I let you have a head start into the field, do you think you can hide and get away?" the Great Red Dragon asked, moving behind the girl quick as a flash and letting her feel his rancid warm breath on her nape as his sharp tail stayed at her throat. He moved back in front and brought his face close to hers. "I'll even count to ten."
Then the girl stopped crying and looked up into his yellow eyes with her own, wet still, but green and burning.
"If I get away, one day I'll find you again and make boots out of you," she said.
Ridley blinked and laughed, then laughed more and smoke and fire began to spill out of his nose. The girl ran away, into the tall stalks of the field and Ridley fell on his back, pounding the dirt with his tail and wings. But he counted, and when he got to about six, he picked himself back up and took to the air, the girl's path painfully obvious and almost no fun. But it was fun.
The Dragon blew his lightless flames on one end of the field, then another and then still another, and finally he closed off the last side so there was nowhere to run. He looked down to watch the impudent little child pop and sizzle, but far off he heard the horn of the Realm's Guard coming to catch them, and Ridley snarled and rallied his horde to safely retreat where he could go back to starving and never dying.
But the Dragon did not know that the Realm's Guard were not really coming. And he did not see the girl dig a firebreak around herself and the stalks then cover herself over with mud. He did not see wind blow just so to choke his fires out, or the Bird People who flew down to find the girl and nurse her back to health and better.
But for the first time when he went to sleep, he dreamt. It was of the girl, grown up, and cutting loose his flayed skin to make into boots.
(And the girl, she no longer dreamt and didn't realize why.)