tales of Suchita

Rhea had had enough. She was tired of all the taunts and jokes that children her age constantly subjected her to, tired of running home in tears, tired of seeing her parents helpless in the onslaught. She was sick of it all that at the tender age of ten, decided she wanted to die.

But even at that age, she was mindful she couldn’t simply die. She had to die with honour. She had subjected her parents to enough ridicule on her behalf and she wouldn’t add this on their conscience. She was too young to die in combat and too smart to starve to death or get lost on an expedition in the forest. So what could she do?

This turned out to be a real thorn in her side, trying to find honourable ways to die, but it did distract her from the grim truth that it was only a matter of time until Rhea stopped existing.

It was by pure chance that she ran into Aurum, while on one of her journeyings into the forest – something she did regularly to replenish her mother’s healing herbs. If you want to take a pause here and wonder why a girl her age was allowed to wander in the forest, would you rather she spent time with people who had made it their life’s mission to tease her?

Aurum was a young dragon, well young in dragon years, eons old in human years, mischievous, quick to anger and perpetually hungry. He had killed and eaten every living man, beast and tree in a diameter that was as long as his fiery breath. But he was also lazy, and rather than find another piece of the forest to find some livestock, he had waited in his charred clearing, patiently, for he was in no rush to go anywhere, for prey to walk into his not so subtle trap.

Yes, Aurum wasn’t very bright either, and the only reason he had survived so long was his sheer size, anger and nature which had given him an impenetrable hide, apart from a coin-sized point on his left-hind-foot.

The clearing Aurum had made for himself was also the area where Rhea’s mother’s herbs grew in abundance. An inconvenience she had not planned, she first got angry enough to kill whoever had decided to encroach on her space. She had had a deal with the forest you see – it left her alone, and she left it alone. But whoever this was had obviously not received the instructions.

When she saw who it was, she had first been overcome with awe-tinged-fear, forgetting all about her bloodlust. Such was her amazement her brain didn’t connect with the word dragon at first. It was a golden-coloured beast, not one of those shiny, gaudy golden but a deep, majestic, brownish golden…one that spoke of age and grandeur and intelligence.

Rhea quickly overcame her fear and her tongue loosened enough to say, “Mighty dragon, may I approach?”

When Aurum turned his gaze towards her, she felt it like a physical weight, like a boulder had been dropped on her head. She cowered and moved just in time to avoid the flame that the dragon let lose.

Heart jumping in her chest, Rhea would have laughed at her stupidity had she not been feeling drained from the dragon’s attack. She had been looking for ways to die and now that death was staring her right in the face, she had moved away. She managed a shaky laugh, and thought, I’m just curious. Once I unravel the mystery of this beast, then I can die. But even she knew how false that notion rang.

Aurum hadn’t expected a prey to fall into his lap quite so soon and had perhaps been hasty in trying to kill it. He was glad she had had the sense to move. Now he was curious and though he didn’t like to play with his food, he did want to understand what a slip of a girl like her was doing in a forest all alone. He also understood it was wiser to keep her alive seeing as she had little fat on her to satiate him. Maybe he could coax her to get him some fat, juicy sheep? Ah the very thought filled his mouth with saliva and fire. When it came to food, Aurum, the golden dragon, was full of trickery.

You may approach, he said in his best dragon voice, though to Rhea it only sounded like rocks crashing with other rocks.

“Can you understand what I am saying?” she said loudly.

Of course I can, what do you think me…a fool, said Aurum but to give him credit, he understood before her that though he could understand her, she couldn’t.

Offended that a mere human couldn’t understand what he was saying, Aurum went out of his way to communicate with the girl. And aided by her growing curiosity, owing to the fact she had never seen a dragon before, forget about actually communicating with one, Rhea quickly learnt what each rock-on-rock collision meant.

Thus was born an unlikely friendship between a slip-of-a-girl and a not-so-bright-dragon. Tales of the friendship spread like wildfire in Rhea’s village and though no one is sure where the rumour began, the villagers took it as gospel truth: anyone found troubling Rhea in any way, her avenging angel in a golden garb would rain down fire.

Suffice it to say, both Aurum and Rhea had found a saviour.

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This is 7 of 26 Myths and Legends. To know more, click here.