Unformatted text is narration or Norse dialogue.

Underlined text is Irish dialogue.


Canice had been understandably nervous when his wife and son returned in the middle of a rainstorm holding what was clearly a dragon egg. Using her womanly wiles, Orlaith convinced him it was a perfectly fine and normal idea to hatch a dragon egg, and with Aran looking so eager to have a dragon sibling, Canice had a very hard time saying no. It took some thinking to figure out the best way to hatch the egg, and they wound up warming it in the fireplace. Aran had made a comment about it looking like a pebble at some point while waiting, and begun referring to it as Méaróg from that moment on. When Méaróg finally hatched, it was with a bit of an explosion. Canice and Orlaith had frantically gone around to make sure nothing caught fire, while Aran eagerly got as close to it as possible, and immediately introduced himself as the dragon's brother.

Méaróg looked like a smaller, slimier version of its mother. The majority of its scales were a soft pink colour, with slightly darker brown stripes spanning the length of its wings. Its eyes were like pearls, and it stretched, opening its mouth rather wide in what was probably a yawn. Aran put his hand on its head and claimed that he loved him already. Canice told him he really needed to stop touching it because it was slimy and he was getting dirty.

Upon getting the dragon cleaned up (and deciding they would call it male unless he started laying eggs), Canice and Orlaith decided they would give him a sort of probationary period, closely monitoring his behavior. After a few weeks, it seemed clear that Méaróg wasn't about to set fire to their home (on purpose, at least), and they'd all grown fond of the dragon, so it was decided he was part of the family indeed. Aran was eager to show off his new baby brother to everyone in town, and had received quite a few screams in response. Undeterred by this, he simply decided to play with the dragon away from the people who judged them. After a few years had passed, it was quite evident to even the grouchiest of villagers that Méaróg wasn't any danger to them, and they even began to rely on him for heavy lifting.

Méaróg had grown much larger, measuring to about thirty feet long and weighing around two tons. It was evident that the pearl-y eyes were due to his near blind eyesight, though they were unsure whether that was normal for the species or if it was simply a birth defect. The stripes on his wings darkened with age, and despite the ridiculous size difference, one of Aran's favorite pastimes was to wrestle with his 'baby' brother. It kept him rather fit, along with any help he did around the farm. Unfortunately, it also gave him some rather deep scars due to the reptile's claws, but Aran thought they were actually pretty cool after they healed. He liked to show them off.

Feeding the dragon had been somewhat of an issue at first, as Méaróg seemed to refuse any food they provided for him. Thankfully, they discovered that the dragon would only eat fish, and now that he was old enough to fly, he would fly off on his own to get fish from the ocean. Méaróg generally did that in the mornings and afternoons. Any time between then was spent with his adoptive family, helping herd sheep amongst other things. As time progressed, Aran grew increasingly more curious about riding him, but Orlaith and Canice were very much against the idea.

Aran was somewhat frustrated by this, but he supposed he understood. He wasn't a child anymore, after all. In fact, it had become more evident that he wasn't, as he'd become acutely aware of the fact that his body was changing in the way girls develop. He'd always been aware that he was different in mind than he was in body, and his parents had thankfully been open-minded and let him live as the gender he was more comfortable with, but it was rather hard to pass as male when he began growing breasts. When his friends began to question him about it, he panicked and claimed that a witch had cursed him. They didn't believe him. At age thirteen, Aran lost most of his friends. The few who didn't reject him could be counted on one hand, and he was understandably upset by this reality. He spent the next two years of his life truly hating himself, and spent nearly all of his time off exploring the woods with Méaróg and playing the tin flute he'd managed to get from a trader some years ago. It was after his fifteenth birthday that something changed about his self-image.

"Orlaith, I think he's waking up." That was his father. Why was his father in his room? He tried to sit up, but his head felt like it was being squeezed by a very determined snake. Aran groaned and decided he didn't want to sit up after all.

"Don't push yourself." Orlaith sounded… annoyed?

Aran pried his eyes open to look at her, and groaned again, because his mouth also tasted bad, and everything was a bit sore, and he felt pretty gross in general. His chest also hurt for some reason, but he couldn't remember anything. He heard Méaróg crooning in concern from outside his window, as the dragon was too large to be inside the house anymore. Aran very definitely felt like he needed to empty the contents of his stomach, so he succeeded in sitting up this time before stumbling to the window, ignoring the ache in his head, and doing just that. He silently apologized to Méaróg, but he also thought it would be easier to clean up that mess if it were outside as opposed to inside.

"Drunk." He mumbled. He had probably gotten drunk. This was what happened when people were hungover, right?

Looking down at his chest, he noticed a few things. He was shirtless for one, and that revealed bandages wrapped around him. Another thing he noticed was that his chest was flat, and some memories came back to him. He'd been having a particular awful day, and somehow managed to get his hands on some alcohol. After that, he supposed his impulse control was shot, and he'd done… something really stupid. He couldn't remember exactly what, because the pain had been rather intense and he was likely trying to block it from his memory, but he recalled burning his chest afterwards- perhaps in an attempt to close a wound? After that, everything went blank. Perhaps he'd passed out. He wasn't quite sure how he got home, but he supposed Méaróg had something to do with it.

"Aran?" Orlaith seemed concerned.

"Sorry mum, I'm fine." Aran turned to look at her, rubbing his head a little. "I just want a hot bath. And water? And I'm starving…"

"Well, I'll get the bath going for you, and your father can make you food, how does that sound?" Orlaith's voice was soft, and Aran managed a smile, nodding.

Aran spent perhaps a bit too long in the bath after washing his mouth out, but he felt rather relaxed. He had to make sure his bandages didn't get wet, but otherwise it was fine. Afterwards, he made his way to the dining table, where his father had prepared a meal of eggs amongst other things Aran didn't have the energy to pay attention to. He drank a lot of water before going back to his room and getting under the covers. Then he slept for a good long while, ate again, and went back to sleep. In the morning, his mother changed his bandages. None of them really talked about what he'd done to himself, but he silently decided he didn't want to drink again for a long while.

Several days passed, with Aran taking it easy due to his burn healing. The leathersmith in town had crafted a saddle to fit Méaróg as a gift for Aran's fifteenth birthday, but his parents forbade him from flying until he was healed. Aran felt that was fair, but he also really wanted to fly, and he was going crazy from not being able to do anything. All he'd had to look forward to for days was talking to the owner of the bookstore so he could learn to read, and also learn a couple words from a few different languages. As most people in town are aware, however, his stories tend to be a bit on the long side, and sometimes he got caught up in telling those as opposed to teaching Aran what the weird lines on paper meant. Not that Aran disliked the stories particularly (they were actually quite fun to hear on occasion), but he also like trying to read. There were plenty of books in the store that had fascinating pictures, and he was rather interested in what the less visual ones had to say.

It was a rather cloudy day when Aran couldn't wait any longer to ride Méaróg. He wasn't sure where he was planning on going, but he thought his chest was probably healed enough for him to go on an easy flight. When he woke up, his parents were already up, tending the farm, so all he had to do was sneak to where he knew Méaróg's saddle was without them noticing. It wouldn't be too difficult, as he'd already scouted out where it was. He didn't know how long he'd be flying for, so he decided to bring his tin whistle and sketchbook with him, along with a writing utensil. He put those in a little pouch before leaving to get the saddle.

Méaróg was excited to fly, and that only fueled Aran's energy. He marveled at the craftsmanship of the saddle for a moment before fastening it on his dragon and mounting him. The two of them took off, and Aran felt his heart pounding in his chest as they began to fly. It was an incredible experience, being in the air like that. Even though they were going at such a leisurely pace, Aran felt the wind whip at his face, and he took a moment to tie his hair back at the nape of his neck. Brown eyes darted around, taking in everything he could see. He pulled out his sketchbook, drawing the house he'd lived in from the new angle. After nearly dropping the sketchbook, he hastily put it away, and decided to focus on the actual flying. Maybe he'd be able to do that kind of stuff later, but right now it was kind of difficult just trying to stay balanced.

Aran didn't really have to do much besides balance though. Méaróg had been flying nearly his entire life, and though it was weird having the new weight on his back, he didn't struggle too much. The flight was quite pleasant, really. That was, before he realized he was flying in the general direction of a rather unpleasant storm. By the time the brothers noticed, the winds were stronger than Méaróg was accustomed to flying in, and Aran was having a hard time just trying to stay on his back. A harness would be a good investment in the future, but there wasn't anything he could really do about that in the moment. Of course, that was assuming this wasn't his last moment alive. It was just his luck that he'd get caught in a storm on his very first flight…


Word Count: 1,946

EDIT 6/6/18: Changing Irish from italics to underlined.

EDIT 2/19/18: Again, mostly just taking out mentions of Johann.

A big problem I had with the original HTDWV was like... the reason Aran left Ireland? This time, it's really a complete accident that came about by his impulsiveness. As opposed to a sudden random dragon raid out of the blue. Yeah. Anyways, here's this uwu


Guest Review Corner! (I'm Bean, don't question it)

MMM: poor dragon will Aran dad let him keep the egg?

Bean: Well, Méaróg's mom always died at the beginning of the story. This time I just made it so she was already dead because it was kinda weird that she'd ask a tiny human child to care for her young, haha. As you can see here, Aran's dad did indeed let him keep the egg. That wasn't gonna change from the original story haha. (also, hello MMM! It's nice to see you're still reading my stuff)