Ganymede awoke facing the moon.

It wasn’t the comfort that it usually was.

The events of the past several days were a strange blur to her, a slurry.  The events were so strange that she remembered the moments themselves clearly, but they all ran into each other in a confusing mess.  A dragon from the moon.  Arya collapsed in misery.  Martim collapsed in a heap.  Dal-Sun using magic.  Dal-Sun berating her.  Dal-Sun beating her up.  Dal-Sun falling from the cliff.

A dragon from the moon.

Ganymede shifted in her position.  Here she was, waking up among the rocks and dirt, on a mountain she’d never even seen before until the past few days, her entire body feeling bruised and sore.  Here, instead of in her bed back home.  Here, instead of in the forest she had come to see as her second home.  And she had no family to talk to, no friends, no traveling companions, even.  No people at all.

She was completely alone.

She tested her arms and legs.  She could still move them.  She tried putting pressure on them, and though she was still very sore, she didn’t get the impression that any bones were broken, which was a surprise to her.

Slowly, she stood up.  It was painful.  If the situation had been anything other than what it was, she would have preferred to stay lying on the ground for at least a few more hours.  But she was working on a time limit.

There was a dragon on this mountain.  A dragon from the moon.  A dragon that could fly the distance between the moon and the earth.

Guards were after this dragon, possibly to kill it.

She had been sleeping for several hours.  Surely the guards had already made it there by now, but even if they had, maybe it wasn’t too late.  Maybe there was still something she could do.  She trudged forward.

As she walked, she lost track of time.  Losing track of time was easy for her when she was alone, when she had no one to pull her away from her thoughts.  And as she lost track of time, she would lose herself in time, swimming through memories of everything that had happened to her.  Memories of Dal-Sun, of Martim, of Arya, of her mother, of her sister, of Ash, of Tyler, of James, of Jess.  All of them lost to her now, in one way or another, and yet they all still remained inside her head.

When she remembered, she’d think of the moon, too.  It was still here with her, as it had always been.  It had guided her to this place.  She didn’t know what she felt about that anymore, nor what she should feel about it.  But it was still there, guiding her even now, and with no other road to follow, she continued following it.

In thinking of the moon, she would think of the dragon, and what it might mean.  It had been summoned here, but it had rejected the one who had summoned it, and now the summoner was dead and there were dozens of others on their way to kill the dragon instead.

The dragon was alone in a place it didn’t belong, and because of that, now others wanted to hurt it.  Ganymede couldn’t help but relate.

She wondered what the others might be planning to do with the dragon.  Would they simply kill it and leave it at that?  Would they even be able to?  The bartender had said something about how the town could make a profit off of it.  What did that mean?  Were they going to sell it?  Use it as a tourist attraction?  Even if it attacked them, it was still a living, intelligent being.  It felt wrong to Ganymede to just use it as an object like that.

Eventually, Ganymede found herself approaching the crater in the side of the mountain.  It was clear where it was; nearly everything in the surrounding area had been disrupted in some way, with fallen boulders and uprooted plants.  As she approached, her thoughts and memories were gradually replaced by sheer curiosity and anticipation of what she was going to find.

She hadn’t seen any sign of the dragon or the guards on her way to the crater, so the only place everyone could still be was inside the hole.  She didn’t hear any sounds of struggle or combat, so whatever was going to happen in there must have happened already.  It was only a question of which side had won.

And as she approached, she started to see figures of people lying on the ground, most of them warped with strange green burns.

But then she walked further, and saw one person standing at the entrance.  A wolf dressed in a guard uniform, also a little burned, but not as much as the others.

The guard turned their head, saw her, and tipped their cap upwards in order to get a better look at her.  “Excuse me, sir, what are you doing all the way up here?” they said.  “It’s very dangerous here at the moment.”

Ganymede paused.  “I, uh… I heard about what was happening here, and I… wanted to see if I could help.”

The guard made their way over to her.  “We don’t need any help here, we already took care of the issue.”  They smiled as they got a better look at her.  “But between you and me, it’s a relief to see another wolf around here.  What’s your name?”

“Ganymede.”

“Ganymede?  Interesting name.  Nice to meet you, I’m Johnson.”  The guard presented their paw to Ganymede, and Ganymede shook it.  “Well, you look like you can take care of yourself, but it looks like you already had to do that before you got here.  Did you get into a brawl with someone?”

“Something like that,” Ganymede said, rubbing the back of her neck.  “Listen, can you at least tell me what happened here?  I came a long way and I want to know what’s going on.”

“Sure.  It was a nasty fight.  We went after the dragon with all we had, but we could barely make any dents in it.  Fortunately, we were able to surround it and tie it up, though we… we did lose some people in the process.”  They shook their head.  “There’s… there’s something wrong with that dragon’s fire.  It’s a frightening thing to behold.”

“Did you say the dragon’s tied up?” Ganymede asked.  “Is it still in the cave?”

“Yes, it is.  Do you want to see it?  You’ll need to be quiet, everyone else is getting some sleep after the battle.”

Johnson motioned for her to follow them, and they took her to the entrance of the hole.  Ganymede didn’t need a lantern to see inside; the dragon itself was glowing, and she could see it clearly.

It was a massive beast, enough that Ganymede could fit inside its mouth, and it looked like the kind of beast that would put her there if it could.  Its face was fierce and frightening in its appearance, with a permanently arched brow above two glowing blue snake-eyes.  Its snout showed no teeth since it had been roped shut, but the front of the upper lip was covered in ridges that gave the appearance of teeth, of fangs.  Its whole body was covered in ridges like this, and all of them looked hard as rock.  The dragon looked as though it could dig out a mine merely by rubbing its hide against the mountain.

The overall shape of the dragon was one of a bulky lizard.  The body was tough, thick, built for endurance.  The beast’s clawed paws were massive, almost the length of Ganymede’s body, just like the head.  The tail was the length of the rest of the dragon’s body, and it was held to the ground with staked ropes, indicating that the dragon had tried to use it as a weapon–and with the spikes on it, it would make a very good one.  The dragon had big wings, too, but they were tied to the rest of its body, so Ganymede couldn’t get as good of a look at them.

The dragon was dangerous, that much was clear.  And yet, as she looked at it, Ganymede couldn’t help but feel that it was beautiful, too.

The dragon’s body was pure white, and it was glowing bright.  The blue eyes looked like a pair of valuable jewels.  The head had horns and spines curving backwards, giving it the appearance of an exotic bird.  And though she didn’t know how to describe it in words, her canine instincts were telling her that, in spite of its ferocity, this dragon wasn’t built to be an attacker; it was built to be a protector.

But as she looked at it, the one thing that was most obvious to Ganymede, outside of anything else about it, is that it was clearly a creature of the moon.  And this immediately made the dragon more precious to Ganymede than anything else on earth at the moment.

It didn’t deserve to be tied up like this.  She needed to free it.

“May I see the dragon up close?” she whispered to Johnson.

Johnson stared at her.  “Sir, I really wouldn’t recommend that,” they said.  “I don’t think there’s any risk of it breaking free or it would’ve done it already, but we still don’t know exactly what it’s capable of.”

Ganymede racked her brain for how to convince them.  She couldn’t say she was from the Lunites, that would only make her more suspicious.  She thought back through what she knew about the situation.

She was going to have to lie.

“I’m… part of a traveling circus,” she said.  “The ringmaster… has all sorts of dangerous magical beasts as part of the show, and he said he’d pay top price to get an actual dragon.  He sent me to get a closer look at it, to make sure it’s the real thing.”

She felt like an idiot.  There was no way this was going to work.

“That’s really cool,” Johnson said, eyes widening.  “So what, are you like the strongman of the group or something?”

“Um,” Ganymede said.  “Yeah.”

“Wow.  You know, a lot of wolves don’t really respect entertainers, but I do.  I always looked up to them.  And I think it’s amazing you went and followed your dreams like that.  Tell you what… Normally I wouldn’t do this, but you seem like a cool guy who knows how to handle himself in a tough situation, so I’m gonna let you go on in to take a look.  But I can’t go in with you, okay?  I promised I’d stay up to keep watch over the entrance.  So just be very careful.  And you have to be quiet and make sure not to wake anyone else.  Can you do that?”

“I,” Ganymede said.  “Okay.  Thank you very much.”

“No problem, buddy,” Johnson said, patting her on the back and waving her in.

Ganymede stared at the massive beast in front of her.  The beast stared back at her.

Ganymede looked at the ground, littered with burned bodies.  Most of them sleeping, perhaps.  But maybe more that weren’t.

Ganymede slowly moved her way over to the dragon, stepping over each person delicately, being careful not to make any sounds.  Or at least, she hoped she wasn’t making sounds; she had trouble hearing, since she could feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

The size of the dragon became more apparent and imposing as Ganymede actually approached it, as it became altogether far too clear to her how gigantic it actually was in comparison to her.  There was no way she was going to survive if it turned on her.  But this wasn’t enough to stop her.  She had come too far to stop.

She stood directly in front of the dragon’s head, the same head that could swallow her whole.  She looked at the eyes that were still staring at her.

As quietly as she could–barely making any sound at all–she whispered to the dragon, “Blink twice if you can understand what I’m saying.”

The dragon blinked twice.

“I’m going to cut the ropes keeping you tied down,” Ganymede said.  “I want you to keep absolutely still until I’ve cut every one.  Can you do that?  Blink twice if you will.”

The dragon blinked twice.

“Okay,” Ganymede said, now shaking all over.  “Here I go.”

She carefully pulled a knife out of her bag and knelt down to start on the rope holding the dragon’s snout closed.  She wanted to look back over her shoulder to see if the guard was looking, but she knew doing that would just make her look even more suspicious, so she stayed looking at the dragon instead.  She did her best to mimic the movements of a judge inspecting a hog at a fair to see if it was worth winning the prize.  In the meantime, she slowly worked away at the unusually thick rope with her unusually ill-fitting knife.

Ganymede could tell that she was too nervous to really know how long it was taking, but it felt like just this one rope was taking several minutes to get through.  She was sure Johnson would be stepping behind her to ask her what she was doing at any moment.  And yet, they didn’t, and eventually she did cut it all the way through.  But then she had the rest of the ropes to worry about.  When she moved to the next one, she tried to position herself so that she could keep an eye on the entrance, just for the sake of calming her nerves and hopefully steadying her paw.

The work was long and agonizing, and every time Ganymede cut another rope, she felt as though she had cut through one of the mental threads holding her own sanity together.  Her heart was still pounding, her fur was all matted with sweat.  She no longer knew whether what she was doing was even the right thing to do, but she had gone far too deep to back out of it now.

And then, finally, with no interruptions from anyone else, she cut the final rope apart.

And the instant she did, the dragon lifted up, grabbed her with its back foot, and slammed her against the back cavern wall.

Then the dragon stepped forward, away from her, and started breathing torrents of green fire all over the people sleeping on the floor.

Ganymede heard only one scream, and only for a moment, most likely from Johnson.  No one else even had a chance to wake up to understand what was happening.  Or if they did, they didn’t have time to express whatever pain they might be feeling.

As the fires continued blazing, Ganymede could only watch, completely stunned.  She didn’t intend for this to happen.  Was that naive?  Was this her own fault?

How many more people were going to die because of her today?

After what felt like far, far too long, the dragon finally stopped, and looked over what it had just done.  Ganymede couldn’t even recognize the bodies as bodies, anymore; they were just a bunch of warped, black lumps on the floor.  The dragon huffed and nodded, as if satisfied with this development.

And then the dragon turned around and walked back towards Ganymede.

Ganymede cowered against the wall.  She was afraid she was about to die, but if she did, she couldn’t help but feel that she deserved it.

But the dragon didn’t attack her.  Instead, it simply sat on the ground in front of her, considering her plainly.

“Little wolf,” the dragon said in a loud, deep, growling, husky voice.  “Be at ease.  You have nothing to fear from me.”

Ganymede looked at the dragon’s face, then looked to the charred remains on the floor.

The dragon looked back, opened its mouth in what looked to be a look of surprise, then turned its head back to face Ganymede, spreading its two front paws in defense.

“If I didn’t kill THEM, then they would’ve killed YOU!” the dragon roared.  “OR WORSE!”

Ganymede curled herself into a ball as the dragon shouted at her, covering her head, her entire body still shaking violently.

The dragon stepped back and sighed, then spoke more softly.  “Forgive me.  I did not mean to frighten you, wolf.  Truly I didn’t.  I only wished to remove a threat.  You do not know what those people were capable of, but I do.”

Ganymede continued huddling for a few seconds, but gradually removed her arms from her eyes so she could look at the dragon again.  It still reminded her of the moon.  Still bright and beautiful, but also apparently full of horrifying power that she didn’t fully understand.

“Please, wolf,” the dragon said.  “I would know why you released me, if you are willing to say.”

Ganymede struggled to gather her thoughts.  What should she say?  How could she possibly explain?  What did the dragon want to hear?

“I-I-I, I, I-I,” Ganymede stumbled.  “I-I saw you t-tied up and I-I, i-it felt wr-rong, l-like they wanted to sell you, use you–”

“They did,” the dragon said, softly.  Or at least, as softly as the dragon was capable of speaking.

“A-and, I just, I l-looked at you and I couldn’t, I couldn’t just leave you like that.”

The dragon nodded.  “I see,” it said.  “And yet, I also wonder what brought you up here in the first place.  Was it simply to rescue me?  Nothing else?”

Ganymede stared at the dragon.  The dragon shifted its head to look at her from the side, giving her a big smile.

“Are you a princess, perhaps?” the dragon asked.  “Come from a faraway land to rescue the dragon from the evil knights that had captured her?”  The dragon chuckled.  “Come to ask for my paw in marriage?  My, what an unusual tale, indeed.”

“No,” Ganymede said.  “No, I didn’t come here… just to rescue you.”

The dragon nodded.  “Of course.  Go on.”

Ganymede sighed a shuddering sigh, and gathered up her courage.  “You… you came from the moon?”

The dragon maintained her gaze.  “Yes.  I did.”

Ganymede swallowed.  “I… I’ve been searching for a way to get to the moon… for a very, very long time.”

The dragon kept staring.

“I… I didn’t know, but I thought… maybe… there was a chance… if I came here… to where you were…”

The dragon kept staring.

Ganymede scrunched her eyes shut.  “I need to get there,” she said.  “I need to get there, no matter what.  If there’s anything you can do to get me there, if you can fly me there, if you can send me there, if you can just… tell me what I can do to get there, anything, it would mean the world to me.”

There was silence for a moment.

“I suppose,” the dragon said, “you probably heard what I did to the other one who asked me for the same thing.”

Ganymede kept her eyes shut.  “Yes,” she said.

“You are very brave, wolf,” the dragon said, “and very honest.  Though, I would ask you now: What would you do if I refused?”

Ganymede opened her eyes.  She wasn’t sure how to read a dragon’s expressions, but she didn’t think the dragon looked angry.

“I’m willing to do almost anything you ask of me, if there’s any possibility of you helping me at all,” Ganymede said.  “But if there’s really nothing you can do… or you just don’t want to help me, for whatever reason… then I won’t try to force you to.”  Ganymede closed her eyes again.  “I won’t hurt you.  I won’t hold you prisoner.  If I did anything like that, it would defeat my entire purpose in going.  So I would just… leave, I guess.”  Ganymede looked back to the dragon.  “I would leave, and I would look for some other way to get there.  And I would leave you alone.”

The dragon stared at her a few moments longer, then huffed and turned her head away.

“Forgive me,” the dragon said. “In truth, I only asked that last question to sate my own curiosity.  There was nothing you could’ve said that would’ve changed my answer.”

With that, the dragon turned her back towards Ganymede, and spread her massive wings, finally giving Ganymede a good look at them.  Each wing was bigger than the rest of the dragon’s torso, and they were shaped like bat wings, except that the hard leather of the wings was glittering blue, not unlike the dragon’s eyes.

“Get on my back, wolf,” the dragon said, “and I will fly you to the moon.”