Black stone. Horns. Teeth. One red eye.

The Familiar

He found the dragon in a place that did not deserve a dragon.

It was not a cave, not a ruined tower, not the mouth of a volcano. It was a shop beside the road, the kind of place that sold rain jackets, camp cups, toy animals, local stickers, and maps no one folded correctly after the first use. Outside, people came and went with paper bags and coffee. Cars moved through the lot. Somewhere behind him, the van waited with its small rooms, its hidden storage, its chosen clothes, its unsolved questions.

The dragon was sitting on a shelf.

At first he saw only the head.

Black stone. Horns. Teeth. One red eye. Its mouth was open as if it had been caught mid-sentence, or mid-warning. It looked fierce, but not wild in the rabid way. Not out of control. Not drooling. Not hunting for a victim. This was a different kind of mouth. A creature saying, I have fire, but I am not lost inside it.

He picked it up.

The dragon fit in his hand, which surprised him. Its head had seemed larger when seen alone, all snout and teeth and armored ridges. But once he lifted it, the rest appeared: red wings, orange belly, a tail curled beneath, claws tucked close. The fire was not only in the mouth. It was in the membranes of the wings, glowing from red to yellow, like heat trapped under skin.

Black armor outside. Fire underneath.

He laughed quietly.

“A bit like you,” he said, though he did not know who he meant at first.

The dragon did not answer. That was one of its virtues.

He turned it in his hand. In close view, it was all threat: jaw, eye, teeth, spikes. From a little farther away, it became a whole animal. Not only danger. Structure. Weight. Balance. The wings looked too large for the body, but that was true of many things meant to fly.

He thought: this is what happens when I only look at one signal too closely.

The mouth becomes the creature.

The alarm becomes the self.

The old fear becomes the whole day.

But when he held the dragon at arm’s length, the larger form returned. Head, wings, belly, tail, claws. Fire, yes. Armor, yes. But also containment.

That was the word.

Contained.

The dragon was not tame. That would have ruined it. A tame dragon is only furniture with scales. This one was small enough to carry, but not small in meaning. It did not ask to be stroked. It asked to be recognized.

He took it back to the van.

For a while he set it on the counter by the sink, but that was wrong. Too domestic. Then he set it near the dashboard, but that made it decorative, and it was not decorative. Finally he placed it where he could see it when he was deciding what kind of day he was in. Not in the way. Not hidden. Visible enough to remind him.

A familiar was not a pet. He understood that now.

A pet comforts you.

A tool helps you.

A symbol points away from itself.

But a familiar does something stranger. It becomes the visible creature of an inner force you are learning to travel with.

The dragon was not his anger. Not exactly. Not his pride either. Not his body, not his desire, not his courage, not his alarm. It was the shape those forces took when they were no longer exiled.

It was the old fire with a body around it.

For years he had thought the task was to hide the fire. Hide the body. Hide the signal. Hide anything that could be named, mocked, touched, used. Clothing had become a perimeter. The mirror had become dangerous. The question had always been: is anything showing?

But the dragon showed everything.

Teeth. Eye. Wings. Color. Heat.

And still it was not ashamed.

That was the lesson.

Not everything visible is available for attack.

Not everything fierce is uncontrolled.

Not everything that has fire is a threat.

He picked it up again that evening after his walk. The body had been calm earlier, then busy, then tired, then calm again. The mind had wanted to make conclusions, as it always did. Should the trip continue? Would the adventure work? What did the next place mean? Was the feeling a marker, an instruction, residue, or weather?

The dragon, in his hand, simplified the matter.

Travel with the fire.

Do not become the fire.

Do not hide it so completely that you disappear from yourself.

That was all.

Outside, the campground moved into evening. Doors closed. Dogs barked. Someone laughed near a picnic table. A chair scraped gravel. The van held its small temperature, neither house nor hotel, neither transit nor settlement, but something in between.

He placed the dragon where it could watch the door.

Not to guard against the world.

To remind him that the guardian was already inside.

WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.