The Summer Of The Burn

A coming of age love story with a fantastical twist, by Pam Martin-Lawrence

Baal was dreaming.

Deep into a cold winter’s night, icy winds whistled around the dark corridors of Dragonhoard Castle. Baal was cosily snuggled up warm and toasty beneath his cruelty-free comforter, soft and thick as a cloud and made from locally-sourced lambs’ spring haircuts all frizzed and fluffed and stuffed into fine linens. Only the retroussé tip of his grass green snout poked out from beneath the bedclothes, little snuffling streams of breath escaping into the chilly air, looking for all the world like smouldering fumaroles.

Lost in his slumbers, Baal’s mind wandered, and he found himself escaping into memories of warmer times as he trod again the familiar, meandering path away from the castle. When he reached the golden sandstone bluff overlooking the swimming hollow in the bend of the river he paused, remembering. . .

The year of the Burn. That summer of lasts and firsts. He and his cohorts spent every day of that blazing summer down at the swimming hollow, comparing their pubescent pointy tails and freshly forked tongues, basking on the scorching red rocks, and flexing their iridescent scales to catch the best reflections. And always with one febrile golden eye on those human wenches primly splashing their pretty pink paws in the shallows, peeping admiringly at the dragolescents from under their lashes.

What swishing of tails they incited! What incendiary snorting and husking. Baal’s unready throat was sore for a month after the day he first set eyes on her, and she set him afire. The first to flame. All his friends still jealously green.

Glimmer, he called her, trying to capture her radiance. A goddess, she eclipsed the sun. Eyes of purest amethyst, and hair rose quartz pink, spun into cotton candy. Her shoulders flushed rosily in the morning light, became burnished copper as the afternoons drew on, then glinted pure gold with the sultry setting of the sun.

When she left each evening all the day’s brightness left with her. Baal spent every night burning for her in the darkness.

Long before the birds began to greet the dawn, Baal was up and about, skinnying out through the bars of the still-locked castle gate and trotting eagerly along the path, determined to be first to the pools to claim the best posing spot.

As he hurried along he would hum a little lovehum he was composing for Glimmer, in hopes of winning her heart with his fine (if he said so himself) tenor voice.

Every morning felt full of promise, as day by searingly hot day Glimmer would appear early, her eyes seeking him out until they widened as they fell upon him, and her cheeks stained the very prettiest of pinks as she realised that he was watching her too. His throat scales flushed fully scarlet on sight of her, and each day his husks and snorts grew huskier and snortier as he worked up the courage to speak to his beloved wench.

Until that fateful day.

Glimmer was paddling in the scoured-out pools, pretending not to notice that Baal was following her every move adoringly. So intent was she on appearing artless that she wasn’t paying attention to exactly where she was placing her little paws on the waterworn rocks.

Without warning she lost purchase, slipped and plunged pink-head-first into the river just where it ran deepest and fastest into the bend, without a squeak or even a splash. Nobody but Baal had noticed her fall.

Baal jumped up and rushed over to where Glimmer had disappeared. Without a second thought he leapt into the water. The cold of it came as rather a shock, as he wasn’t typically one for swimming. In fact – and this only occurred to him as he hit the water with an ungainly splash – he didn’t actually know how to swim at all. He was more of a flying around Verdant County and accidentally setting haystacks on fire sort of a dragon, if truth be told.

This realisation combined with the chilliness of the river quite took his breath away, and he huffed and choked and sank, while trying to call out to Glimmer and establish some sort of rhythm with his uncooperative limbs at the same time.

It was as he was going down for the third time that he caught a glimpse of Glimmer. Far from coming to harm, his naiad was coming to save him! Lithe as an otter, swimming fast against the stream, she swooped past him to grab hold of the end of his tail and manoeuvre him into the shallows, before unceremoniously hauling him out onto a little sandy beach downstream, where he lay a moment whooping and hawking and spitting up water, grateful that none of his friends could see him.

As his breath began to settle and his eyes finally cleared, he became aware that Glimmer was peering into his face worriedly. Scarcely a talon’s length lay between them, and Baal’s face assumed a goofy grin at the sight of his beloved wench’s forehead all furrowed and her eyes wide with apprehension, which softened to relief once she saw he was unharmed.

“Oh Mr Dragon, you did quite put me to fright! You should take greater care in the water, for I mightn’t always be there to save you.”

Baal smiled contentedly as she scolded him, wagging her little front paw at him, nails twinkling glittery pink in the sunshine. Oh she was quite, quite perfect!

“Won’t you call me Baal? Mr Dragon is my father.”

Well, the good news was that he’d found his voice, but why oh why did that voice have to sound quite so wispy? His drenching seemed to have had a humiliatingly quenching effect on his burgeoning huskiness. Baal attempted to clear his throat a few times, unsuccessfully, then fell silent.

“Baal? ‘Tis a pretty name, Mr Dragon!” Cherry-cheeked, her eyes skittered over his features, and it felt like the sun coming out on a dull day. “But I shall call you Baaly!”

Her voice softened on the last word, and both Baal’s stomachs executed a series of competition-worthy back flips, so many that he felt giddy as a girl and had to close his eyes for a moment. . .

“Baaly? Wake up!”

“I’m not asleep, just felt a bit dizzy. From the shock, you know.”

“What shock? Little Tallay’s awake, you promised to take fair turns, and we bothknow she’s a daddy’s girl!”

Daddy?! Baal’s eyes flew open and he stared wildly around for a second. Then his eyes fell upon Glimmer, lying close beside him looking at him expectantly, and everything fell back into perfect place.

“Of course, dearest one. I’ll go and settle her this very second.” He placed a gentle kiss on the turned-up tip of his beloved’s beautiful nose, and threw back the covers, shivering in the frigid air.