A Guarding Dragon
Turffield had always been a quiet, humble town, its rhythms dictated by the growth and harvests of the nurturing bowl formed by its many terraced farming fields. While life had taken a quicker pace in the town itself, especially after the local stadium was built, its surroundings remained as quiet and bucolic as ever. And so it was for you that day, on the same old dirt lane, next to the same old apple orchard, all under the same old sky under the drifting clouds.
You even stood guard on the same old stand put out for harvest time: a shabby table with a raised ledge at its deep end you sat on, overlooking cardboard cartons resting at an angle that were stocked with the same red apples that grew year in and year out. They were set out next to the same old sign and the same old chipped cup offering them up for sale. Three for the price of one of those 'soda pops' that were all the rage.
Clink.
Along with the same clatter of metal against porcelain that jolts you to attention. You raise your eyes briefly from your disguise and see a gray-haired woman dropping some spare change into it before grabbing at one of the apples on the shelf. You let your gaze linger jealously on her for a moment, only to turn away and slink back into your cover as the sound of footsteps shuffles off. Just another normal sale, and from one of the same old customers to this orchard. One that'd probably been giving business for quite a while.
The family that ran this orchard had set aside a small portion of their stock every growing season for travelers for years, perhaps for centuries. If the stories told by your mentor who used to keep watch for the orchard were to be believed, they'd kept this practice alive since the times when humans wore metal armor and fought with blades much as Sirfetch'd do. Times that even a dragon would find to be from a distant, unrecognizable era. Fortunately, the process by which the orchard dispersed its stock was simple to understand: take an apple from the hoard of red fruits set out, and then add some change to the hoard of coins in the cup. A gesture of goodwill and trust to those passers-by.
"Oi, look, there's free food just lying around there."
Except, every year, there were always a handful of travelers that would abuse that trust, and you were pretty sure you could see a few more of their ilk right now from your hiding place: a stocky young man and a gangly girl. The pair were both dressed in black with ridiculous pink hair and face paint.
That was why you were here: to serve as the orchard's trusted guardian over its little hoard of fruit and coins. The loutish humans hadn't noticed you yet, and you keep a careful, watchful eye over them as the man reaches for one of the apples and bite into it much to his partner's skepticism.
Your mentor told you stories in the past of how sometimes it was best to take a gentler approach with passersby who would abuse the trust of the orchard. When they were needy or desperate, or when they'd simply failed to read the sign. Circumstances that merited a stern but patient warning, or sometimes even a blind eye in understanding.
"Aren't you supposed to pay for that first, bruv?"
"I don't see anyone actually bothering to sell them. And someone just left this money lying around! Finders keepers!"
Though from the man's words and way he was reaching for the coin-hoard in the cup, a gentle approach would clearly not do. You uncoil yourself from your hiding place, a larger apple hiding in plain sight on the raised shelf at the top of the stand, and stretch your neck out to telegraph your warning.
"Wait, why does it suddenly smell like flowers right now?"
The humans turn and look up at you, with your disguise revealed. You uncoil your body and spread your wings, fanning them wide to make yourself look bigger and remind the pair that even if it was a modest hoard, that it was yours and since you were a dragon, that they stole from it at their own peril. To make your message clear, you raise your voice and let out the fiercest roar you could muster…
Which judging from the look on the man's face, still needs a bit of work to make it sound more imposing.
"Ah, it's just a Flapple," he scoffed. "What, come here to help yourself to some apples, too?"
You narrow your eyes and feel bile build up at the back of your throat after seeing the man pick up the cup. You'd given him fair warning, now it was time to show this would-be thief that you meant business. You spit up a spray of fluid at his coat, which sizzles against the fabric, bubbling up as the acid eats away at its surface. That gets your message across, and the humans' arrogance quickly evaporates as their eyes shoot wide and they recoil with startled yelps.
"Ack! Blimey!"
"I told you you were supposed to pay for that!" the woman cried. "Let's get out of here!"
The man hurriedly throws aside his jacket as your acid burns holes into it and the pair take off running down the path, the man dropping his purloined apple along the way. Good riddance, really.
You make your way down from your perch and right the cup and the coin-hoard, carefully returning the loose coins that came out. Then you turn your attention to the jacket and tug at it to move it off the path. No sense in leaving it lying around to make other travelers unsafe and scare them off. You bite down on a corner and pull it away onto the other side of the road, when you hear a jingling noise. A quick nose into a pocket and search with your claws turns up some coins in it.
Enough to have bought at least three of the stand's apples had the man just been honest.
You take the coins and add them to the cup, before taking the bitten apple the loutish man abandoned before he fled and returning to your perch. For whatever reason, humans had a habit of turning up perfectly good apples after someone else gave even the littlest of bites to them, but that was hardly a loss for you.
It was back to the same old quiet, watching over the same old stand on the same old lane outside of Turffield. Except now you had a snack as you waited for the next traveler to come by.