It was a large church, with endless benches and high, arched ceilings. She had heard even bigger ones existed in the world, but to her, this was big enough. It beat her own town’s church by far.

When she talked, her voice echoed down the rafters, and lingered in the multi-colored windows, great and big and high above her. She had a soft voice, but it was large in this place.

“I told you, I have a friend who needs help,” she said, looking up at the priest.

“And what is your friend’s name, little Faydra?” he said back.

“Jacques,” she answered.

“And where is Jacques, little Faydra?” asked the priest.

“He’s waiting outside those doors,” said Faydra, pointing to the big double doors at the end of the church.

“Well,” said the priest. “Why doesn’t Jacques come in and ask for help himself?”

“Because he can’t.”

“He can’t come in, or he can’t ask for help?”

“He can’t do either,” returned the big-eyed girl.

“And why is that, little Faydra?” asked the priest.

“Well, he can’t talk for one thing…” said Faydra, thinking for a moment.

“Oh my. My dear. Is that the problem he needs help with?” asked the priest. Faydra looked away sheepishly, and stood on her toes.

“How about you come meet him?” she finally said, all smiles.

“Alright, little Faydra. Take me to him.” The priest held out his arm, and Faydra took it, walking down the lengthy church, footsteps echoing inside the expanse, bringing them closer and closer to the double doors at the end of the building.

When they opened them and stepped outside, the priest gasped, brought his arm to himself, and stumbled backwards. Faydra finally decided that the priest wasn’t expecting her friend Jacques to be a dragon, and a quite scary one at that. He was bigger than the entire church itself (which was why, of course, Jacques himself couldn’t enter the building to ask for help from the priest, if indeed the dragon could talk in the first place). There was a pearlescent green sheen coming off the dark brown scales of his body that seemed to catch the sun’s light. These scales were massive and sometimes jutted out from his body, like at the elbows or spine or the great ridge on his neck, and rose high in the air, succeeding in making him look as fearsome as possible. Two mighty wings were tucked close to his body, spiked and horned with bits torn here and there. A nictitating membrane appeared in its green eyes, blinking, then his outer set of eyelids blinked. Rows of jagged teeth were set in its mouth, the longest tooth the length of a man’s arm. It looked at the priest, face to face.

Faydra walked towards the dragon, a small person normally, tiny next to the behemoth. The priest could only stutter at first, eyes wide open, skin gone pale white. He was stepping backward, a hand feeling behind him for the door. Finally, he managed to speak. “Unholy beast of hell!”

The priest flung himself around, ran for the church, and slammed the doors shut. Faydra could hear bolts locking, beams being set in place, and what sounded like furniture being propped up against the door. She sighed, and heard a deep rumbling sound. It took a moment to realize it was the dragon’s belly rumbling, empty and wanting food. She looked up to Jacques, and sighed once again.

“What do dragons eat?”

---

Faydra and Jacques decided to leave the priest in peace and continue on their way. It was wide countryside they traveled in, with lots of ground to cover and no real place to go. It didn’t take long for Faydra to get tired, and so she suggested that she ride on top of Jacques back. After managing to climb her way on top of him (she always prided herself on being a good climber), Faydra nestled in behind the ridges that lined the dragon’s neck. It was surprisingly comfortable, and she found herself almost dozing off in sleep slumped up there, being rocked gently back and forth as the dragon padded his way down the dirt path.

Every once in a while they would run into someone. They were mostly merchants or hedge knights on the road, sometimes pilgrims, sometimes just a shady-looking peasant with thoughts of thievery in his mind. Whatever their thoughts, they always reacted the same way when they were close enough to see Faydra and Jacques. These reactions usually consisted of screaming, running in the opposite direction, or sprinting off the rode and into the wilderness. The pilgrims amused Faydra the most, just because of the things they said while running.

Amusing as it was, it was always depressing when this happened. Nobody seemed to want to help her with Jacques’ troubles. She needed to find someone who knew about things like this, a wise man, or a churchman, or some kind of alchemist at least, or possibly a cackling old blind man. Random peasants and knights were more likely to do more harm than good.

In the middle of the afternoon, Faydra sleepily looked up and spotted a rising hill that abruptly ended in a sheer cliff lined with trees and brush. She pointed towards it excitedly.

“Jacques, look! It’s a cliff!”

The dragon wearily turned his head while walking, silently looking off into the distance at the cliff. He just kept on walking.

“C’mon, Jacques, let’s go! That’s a great place to jump from. You could probably fly from there.” She eagerly kicked her legs, squeezing on his neck, trying to prod him into heading that direction, but Jacques just kept walking the road.

Faydra sighed. “Jacques, you have to be able to fly. You have wings! C’mon! Fly! We could go places much faster if we flew. You can learn by jumping off that cliff right over there. Let’s go. That way.”

The dragon only tucked his wings in closer to his body.

As much as Faydra couldn’t believe it, she was traveling with a dragon that was afraid to fly. They walked wherever they went. She always thought all her life that if there was one good thing about befriending a dragon, it would be that she could fly all over the place, up high, through the clouds, swoop down fast across the fields. But no, Jacques was terrified of heights (which was troublesome for such a tall creature). Jacques was the only dragon Faydra knew, so she had resigned herself to the fact that she would most likely not fly through the clouds and swoop down across the fields anytime soon.

The cliff definitely looked like the place to learn to fly, but it was soon far behind them, and Faydra just sighed once again.

When they saw the village in the distance, Faydra told Jacques to stop. She climbed down from off his back, using the pointy scales as hand holds, and stood in front of him, craning her neck, looking up.

“Alright,” she said, whispering. “You stay here and hide, I’m gonna go check this place out myself. With all those people that saw us, I bet there’re all kinds of rumors about a dragon heading this way, and I don’t want any trouble.” Jacques seemed to think it was a good idea, and lumbered his body around, off the road, and hid himself among the thick brush. Faydra wasn’t quite satisfied with his hiding spot, and decided to cover parts of his body with big wide leaves. Finally, she put her hands on her hips, nodded her head, and started her walk towards the village.

It didn’t take long to reach the town, but when she got there the sun was already going down, casting a long orange glow over the place. It was a fairly good-sized town, bigger than her home village, with plenty of people milling about. Not many paid her much attention. Her stomach was rumbling by now, and when she saw a tavern sign up above a building, she decided to head for it and see if she could get some food.

It wasn’t very well lit inside, and the smell reminded her of when she went into a pigpen back at her hometown. Little lamps hanging on beams overhead cast yellowy light through the dusty air, just enough illumination to see what one was doing. It was a full place, and most tables were taken by weary shopkeepers or filthy farmers covered in dirt. Faydra had no money, but her mother once said that a sad face could work wonders, so she knelt in a corner and watched a merry looking fellow eat a plate of ham and apples. He bit into the fruit with his mustachioed mouth, whiskers brushing the skin, a bit of juice drooling down his stubble chin.

“That’s a good apple! Yes!”

Faydra knelt, and looked up with impossibly enormous eyes, and licked her lips, and salivated, and shifted in her spot, until the large man eating his ham and apples finally noticed her and smiled a great big smile.

“Fancy that! A lost child!” he roared, his voice mixing in with the rest of the crowd. Somewhere, a fistfight broke out, but it was at the opposite end of the tavern, so Faydra didn’t care.

“I’m very hungry, sir,” she said. “If you could spare some food, I’d gladly eat it, sir.”

“A lost hungry child! Have an apple!”

The apple was sent soaring through the air at her, and she deftly caught it, looking it over with almost mad eyes. Suddenly, her stomach rumbled, and she remembered Jacques out there alone, hungry and starving. She looked back up at the mustachioed man with the food and asked: “Do you know where one could find some livestock, sir? Sheep? Maybe cows?”

At that, the man laughed a monstrously hearty laugh. “My! My! Youare hungry, are you not, child? You want to eat a whole cow, do you?” He finally settled down after a while, and motioned the girl to shuffle closer to the table, which she did. “I am no farmer, so I have no pigs, no sheep, no cow, no goat, child.”

Faydra slumped her shoulders, looking down at the apple. She decided to save it for later, and wrapped it up. The jovial man continued eating while talking.

“You! You are not from this town! Tubal knows all, yes! That is me, Tubal. I know all the faces in this village. All the men. All the women. All the children. You are not a face Tubal knows! Tell me, child, what are you looking for, besides a cow to eat?”

Faydra shifted in her spot on the floor, entranced by this strange man while also being wary of his reaction should she tell the truth. “Well,” she said. “I have a friend, he’s traveling with me, and he has a terrible, horrible problem right now. I’m trying to help him, or else there’s gonna be a lot of trouble.”

“Trouble and children go hand in hand, Tubal knows this,” said Tubal, scratching his chin. “Have you asked for help?”

“Many times, sir. I’ve asked all kinds of people, even priests, but they won’t help.”

“Hmm…” mused the man. Eventually his mouth broke into a wide grin, and he pointed his fork at Faydra. “When no man will help you, ask a Fairy, child!”

Faydra’s eyes lit up at the mention of a Fairy. “A Fairy?”

“A Fairy!”

Not quite believing him, Faydra couldn’t help but squirm a little on her spot, impatient, wanting to know more.

“What kind of Fairy?” she asked.

“Why, none other than the Fairy Queen, child. Yes! Tubal knows this! Which way are you and your troubled friend traveling?”

“East,” responded the girl.

“Then you are in luck! Continue on your way for yet another day, look for the spot where water falls, and there you will find your Fairy Queen!”

“How do you know this?”

“Tubal knows all! Go! Ask her for help! East! Where the water falls! Go!”

Faydra suddenly felt a rush of excitement course through her, and could do nothing but spring from her kneeling position, apple in hand, spurred on by the booming laughter of Tubal who knew all, and she ran through the crowd of people, out the door, through the village, into the darkness, all the while swearing she could still hear Tubal roaring his baritone laugh.

---

It got cold quickly at night, so Faydra would spend a few minutes gathering some wood, and then have Jacques use his fire breath to light it up. With a dragon, one was never cold at night.

Faydra sat cross-legged by the fire, looking at her apple. It was a big apple, red and shiny. Her stomach was in a knot, and it moaned at her for not putting food in it. She looked up at her dragon, and met his poor eyes. Jacques was just as hungry as she was.

“I guess we better split the apple,” she said. She looked around pointlessly for a knife, but didn’t fine one. “Hmm…we don’t have a knife.” She looked from the fruit to the dragon and back again. “Tell you what, Jacques, how about I eat this apple, and then you can have the next one we find, deal?” Jacques simply rested his massive head on his front arms in response. Faydra guiltily bit into the apple, and quickly found it was the most delicious apple she had ever tasted. Within minutes, it was gone, core and all.

The night grew darker and colder, and Faydra grew sleepy. The fire was dying down, sputtering in the cool wind, and Faydra began to shiver. It didn’t take long for her to crawl to the dragon, seeking his warmth, and nestle next to the massive belly that would gently breath up and down in a hypnotic motion. There she went to sleep, with thoughts of waterfalls and Fairy Queens floating through her head.

---

“So hungry…” complained Faydra.

Jacques stomach rumbled in agreement. He was walking down the dirt road once again, Faydra on his back, lazily swaying back and forth while holding onto his ridges. “I don’t see any sheep,” she said. “You must be just as hungry as I am.”

She squinted, lifting her hair out of her eyes, and scanned the horizon, looking over the vast green fields for any kind of motion. There was none, except for that flapping flag…

“Look!” Faydra pointed. “It’s a castle!” She kicked at Jacques, spurring him onward. Off in the distance stood a solid gray castle with dozens of banners flapping in the wind. “A castle has to have food for us.” Her father took her to a castle once when she was younger. It was a fond memory. She seemed to remember that the castle gate was up and open back then, not down like the one she was looking at now. She also remembered crowds of noisy people everywhere, entering and leaving the place, unlike the stillness on the outside of the one she was looking at now. Also, when she visited the castle with her father years ago, there were only a few soldiers here and there, smiling at her, tipping their arms. At this castle, there seemed to be rows on rows of fully armed and shielded soldiers all standing way high up on the ramparts. At the other castle, she couldn’t see scary-looking catapults and trebuchets and spear launchers sticking up from behind the walls, like she could see with this one.

“I wonder if they’re friendly,” she said.

Jacques seemed to slow down, apprehensive.

“It’s alright, Jacques. Don’t worry about hiding. I’m too tired and hungry for all that business. And besides, they’ve probably already seen us. Let’s go!”

Eventually, Jacques continued his walk towards the castle. When they were within yelling distance from the walls, she could hear a horn blast through the air. The rows of soldiers stood still on top, faces grim. A tall man dressed in crimson wearing a golden hat appeared at the very top rampart above the castle gate. He looked out before his castle, and then at his men. “Archers, hold!” he bellowed, raising a sword in the air. “Wait for better distance! Catapults, pull!”

Faydra heard a strange crunching sound, and saw an object fly up from the castle. The sun was in her eyes, so she had to squint, and she couldn’t really see what it was. She lost the object in the sky. Suddenly, she heard a violent crashing sound from behind her, in the wooded area she had emerged from.

“Jacques! Did you hear that? I think there’s something in those woods behind us! Let’s go to that castle, quickly!”

The man on top the castle was frantically screaming at his men. “We’ve overshot the beast! It’s charging for us! Spear launchers, loose!”

Jacques was trotting at a medium speed towards the castle when Faydra felt a sharp wind against her face. Her hair was pulled up in the rush, then settled again as a high-pitched noise flew past her.

“What was that?” she asked, bewildered.

“Fire again!” screamed the lord of the castle. “Archers, ready and loose at will now!”

Faydra bounced along the dragon’s neck towards the castle, and flinched backwards when several shafts of wood struck and shattered on Jacques armored plate of ridges around his head. “Hey! Are those arrows?” She looked up at the wall. “Stop shooting at us!” she yelled up at them, shaking one of her fists.

The tall man on the wall stared down, eyes wide open, mouth agape. “Hold your fire, men! The foul beast bears an innocent one!” He leaned down and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Never fear, young maiden,” he shouted to her. “We’ll save you from the clutches of this monster!” Then he disappeared behind the rampart, making new orders to his men.

“Do you have any food?” shouted Faydra up at the castle, but nobody seemed to hear her. She cupped her hands, and this time screamed at the top of her lungs. “I said, do you have any food for us to eat?”

“Dear God,” roared the lord of the castle when he appeared again. “She’s screaming in agony. The beast plans on eating her for food! Ready my steed! I shall vanquish this spawn of hell as a lord should!”

Faydra thought a moment, then cupped her hands to her mouth again. “Is there a waterfall anywhere near here? Does the Fairy Queen live there?” she yelled.

“The beast lives behind the waterfall!” came a scream from on top the wall. “If it escapes, we know where to track it!” A moment later, the castle gate began to screech and clank as men labored to raise the portcullis and swing the wooden doors open. There appeared the lord of the castle in a brilliant suit of armor mounted on a black warhorse. Rows of knights flanked him, all carrying the longest lances Faydra had ever seen (or the only lances she had ever seen, actually).

“I think we better leave this castle alone, Jacques,” said Faydra. The dragon turned around in agreement, and began to run at full speed, its wings tucked close, the girl struggling just to hold on and keep from falling off. She could hear cries of men behind her, but didn’t look back to see what was happening.

---

They had left the horses in their dust long ago. It was a good thing, too. Off the beaten road, Faydra finally spotted it. There were trees encircling it, but the mist was unmistakable. A waterfall was churning down some rocky crags a few minutes distance from the pathway, almost hidden.

“That’s it,” said Faydra, still on Jacques back. She was grinning. “The waterfall. Let’s go.”

The dragon lumbered its way off the road and into the forest. The ground was rocky and slick, but proved no trouble for a dragon to traverse. Vines and branches sought to smack Faydra in the face, so she ducked behind Jacques’ ridges at his neck. Soon, they could hear the sound of the water rumbling. Suddenly, Jacques stopped in his tracks, and perked up, standing completely silent. Faydra slowly realized he heard something else besides the waterfall with his dragon ears. Faydra listened silently, and she heard it as well. Horse hoofs beating against the ground, men shouting and raising war cries.

“They’re still after us!” said Faydra. “Quick! We have to get to that Fairy Queen!”

Agreeing, Jacques began to charge through the forest, branches cracking, trees knocked down left and right with his front claws, his mighty tail swinging frantically behind, creating a path of destruction in his wake. Faydra grabbed on tightly, and was suddenly engulfed in light.

The canopy cleared, and brilliant rays of light shone down onto the little pool of water at the bottom of the falls. She squinted at the sun, looking up at the top of the cliff, at the origin of the falls. It smelt wonderful, like pure, fresh water (which it was), and the mist sprayed against her face. Her hair soon became damp, and she welcomed it. For a moment, there was a brief sensation of bliss, but it went away when she lowered her head and spotted the Fairy Queen.

Faydra mechanically began to climb down her dragon, and landed on spongy ground. She looked towards the water, where the Fairy Queen stood rigidly, looking back at her.

“It’s a statue,” said Faydra, emotionlessly. She walked towards the figure, closing the distance between them, and looked at it closely. It was to human scale, and was gray rock shaped into a woman’s form, with lifelike facial features. She wore flowing robes, and from her back were two large pairs of wings that spanned several feet. Her surface was slick with water from the falls, and her expression was blank, staring at the new arrivals with apathy, and maybe a hint of a slight smirk at her lips. She stood on a stone pedestal, surrounded by six small pillars. Faydra was now standing right before her.

“It’s a stupid statue,” she said. “This isn’t a Fairy Queen. It’s a stupid statue.” Faydra’s arms were straight at her sides, and her small fists were balled and trembling. “We came all this way to see a stupid statue. By a stupid waterfall. All because of that stupid fat man at the village.” In a rage, she kicked the pedestal of the statue, and whirled back to Jacques. “I was patronized!” she suddenly yelled, and collapsed to a kneeling position. She had heard that word used once, and it sounded like it fit the current situation, so she decided to use it.

Jacques crept closer and lowered his body in a laying position, massive head level with Faydra’s body. She could feel his breath lightly blowing against her, warm compared to the cool wind from the falls. He looked sad and defeated.

Faydra could hear the rush of horses coming closer. They were no doubt in the forest by now, charging for the falls. She suddenly felt very tired, and her shoulders slumped, and her head lowered, and she felt tears well up in her eyes. She tried to fight them back, and looked up at the dragon.

“I’m sorry Jacques,” she said. “I tried to help you. You know that. I just…I just don’t know what to do now. And now those men are after us, because you’re a dragon. I tried.” Jacques simply looked at her, silent as ever, dragon lips pursed together. “I guess this is the end,” Faydra continued. Suddenly, with her red eyes full of tears, she leaned forward, puckered her lips together, and kissed the dragon right on the nose.

And even more suddenly, Jacques’ gargantuan body leapt backwards in a near panic. His wings flapped outward and beat in the air. He reared up, his front legs pawing the air. Faydra stumbled backwards in shock, and noticed something odd about Jacques’ wings. They were I shrinking /I . Crunching inward, into his body. His powerful tail whipped this way and that, until it too began to shrink. His scales morphed and moved, growing smaller and smaller, losing their brown and green color, turning paler. His head shrank as well, and his claws, and ridges, and arms, and belly. His entire form grew smaller and smaller, until he was the size as Faydra herself. Brown hair appeared where once only spikes sat. Actual clothing, brown and torn, appeared where before only scales rested. Within seconds, there was a small boy curled up on the dirt.

And then the horsemen appeared.

“Where’s the beast?” the lord of the castle bellowed.

Faydra looked up at the menacing figure wide-eyed. “We managed to jump off of him! He continued running east! Hurry!” She was pointing wildly to the east, her shocked state not feigned one bit.

“Tally ho! To the east!”

The group of knights clanked their way past both figures on the ground and was soon out of sight. There was only the waterfall then, and the Fairy Queen looking down on the two children sitting beneath her.

The boy looked up, weary, confused, messy brown hair, dark eyes fixed on Faydra.

Faydra looked back on him, wiping her tears away, and suddenly smiled.

“Jacques! You’re back to normal!”

Like a mad child, she leapt through the air, arms forward, hands spread open, through the water’s mist and through the sun’s rays, and she tackled Jacques, rolling into a ball, planting the biggest kiss she had ever given right smack on his lips.

Jacques looked up dazed. He put a hand to his head, and spoke for the first time in several days. “I shouldn’t have eaten that mushroom.”

Faydra smacked him across the face with an open palm. “I told you not to! We should always believe cackling old blind men when they give cryptic warnings, you stupid!”

“Mother’s going to kill me,” said Jacques.

“Not as much as Father’s going to kill me!” returned Faydra. “We better hurry our way back home! Now come on!”

“Ooof. Just wait a moment. I need to resituate myself.”

“Resituate indeed. I wish I had eaten that mushroom. I wouldn’t have been too chicken to fly.”

“You also would have eaten me,” said Jacques. “And I never wanted a whole sheep, you know.”

“That’s what dragons eat. Now shut up and come on. Let’s go home.”