It was a sunny day of spring in St Sofia. The city with its concrete blocks and streets of asphalt buzzed with life. All around you could hear the pedestrian voices, the bells of the electric trams and car horns come together like a regular heartbeat of the city itself.
A young couple was walking next to each other pushing a stroller in which a baby was sucking on his pacifier.
- "Do you think we should pull down the sun cover? Isn't it too hot?" asked the man.
His wife looked at the baby and touched his forehead. It was quite cool. Besides, he seemed more interested in the intricate mechanism of his five-point safety harness (his father insisted on it) than in the temperature outside. She replied:
- "I think he's fine."
- "Are you sure?" asked the worried father. "You heard the story of how you boil a frog alive..."
- "Stop worrying," the mother smiled. "I doubt the sun will boil him. Besides, we've been out for less than five minutes."
- "Okay..." relented the young father but he didn't seem too convinced. "But you know, this breeze can give you the impression that it's cool outside and the sun can still burn you."
The woman smiled:
- "My mother, aunts, neighbors, even some of my former classmates who have kids, all told me that fathers become more disinterested after a while, more... laisser-faire, as far as the child is concerned. I always thought they were trying to warn me, but now I'm starting to think they actually wanted to put me at ease. Relax, it's spring and it's a beautiful day. If we feel the sun becomes too hot, then we'll pull the cover. Okay?"
The young father smiled and said nothing.
- "Hey," his wife pointed to a store nearby, "let's go in".
- "Can you go ahead?" He jerked his head in the direction of a vending machine. "I want to get a bottle of water first."
- "Sure", she said, handing him the stroll.
- "No," he said, "Take the stroll with you, so you can use its basket as a bag for anything that you buy."
- "Okay", she said.
She considered whether or not to tell him that she realized he actually wanted to take the baby out of the sun. She chose to smile to herself instead.
The father took out his wallet and inserted the bills one by one in the vending machine. He glanced at a water bottle and then at a soda bottle. He knew he drank too much soda... Still he took out another bill to cover the difference but it was too crumpled and the machine kept pushing it back. Sighing he tried to smooth it out with his hand. It seemed as though the universe was conspiring for him to make the healthy choice.
- "We need to get a car", he heard a woman's voice behind him.
- "I don't know," said the young man next to her carrying several bags. "I don't see the need."
- "You don't see the need, she said in a way that clearly emphasized <you>. "I, on the other hand, want to be able to move easier."
- "But think about the environment," he said.
- "You're only saying that because you're afraid of the driver's test. If you really cared about the environment, you'd pay more attention to your recycling."
The man wanted to reply but had no comebacks. The father smiled. They were probably in their 20s, so about 10 years younger than him and his wife.
It was a beautiful day of spring. Some of the trees planted next to the sidewalks already bloomed. It was such a beautiful day in fact that he decided that a soda wouldn't add much to his good spirits so he chose to go with the water. His wife came out of the store pushing the stroller with their baby. He realized that until he had a baby he had never been bothered by the fact that there weren't enough trees in the city to provide adequate shade from the sun during hot days.
And yet a shadow appeared over them. He looked up to see what it was, shielding his eyes from the bright sun with his hand. At the same time he heard sounds of amazement around him. From above, flapping its large wings a figure was slowly descending. A dragon!
He'd seen dragons before, but never in real life and this close to him. Only in movies, books and YouTube. Besides, these days dragon sightings were rare. Medicine had advanced enough to produce vaccines against the virus that caused the terrible mutation. What the hell was a loose dragon doing in the city?
He could now feel the air move by the beat of its wings. The dragon was descending slowly, in a controlled manner. Finally it touched down on the pavement. If the father stretched his arm he could touch the light brown leather scales. It was the size of a school bus, which meant that, as far as dragons were concerned, it was neither big nor small. He noticed that it was standing on its hind legs, leaning on its bent wings. No front legs – this was a wyvern type dragon.
People cautiously got out of its way. For many of them it was the first time they encountered a dragon, but they knew the rules. Usually a dragon wasn't dangerous, as long as you didn't stop it from taking what it wanted. They were generally drawn to gold, platinum, precious stones and pearls. The older ones also fancied silver items if they had intricate patterns, like watches or expensive jewelry. The young ones could mistake copper and quartz for expensive jewelry. As long as you didn't stupidly cling onto your wedding rings or grandma's pearls, you were more or less safe. And no sudden moves, especially if you were behind a dragon. A startled dragon could turn you to ashes in less than two minutes.
The wyvern straightened and took a careful step. Its large tail was in the street, blocking the ongoing traffic. Suddenly it grabbed the baby stroller in its snout and pulled it out of the stunned mother's grip.
- "Hey", the father cried and throwing caution to the wind, hurled the water bottle at the dragon while charging towards it.
The wyvern didn't feel the impact of the bottle with its head but the water sprayed it in the eye. More out of surprise than discomfort it let go of the stroller which began to roll slowly down the sidewalk into the street. From within you could hear the baby crying. Both parents rushed to the stroller but the wyvern was quicker. A large rear claw grabbed its handle. Then effortlessly, flapping its large wings it started to rise. In a split second the father made up his mind and rushed towards the wyvern's tail, trying to grab hold.
All of a sudden there was a deafening bang, causing the father to fall to the ground, his eardrums ringing. Two more bangs followed and the street was filled with a thick black chocking smoke in which one could barely see. There was a sound of breaking glass from a store front. The wind made the smoke disperse rapidly. But it was too late. The dragon was in the air, a few meters above. No one could reach it.
The mother started to cry. The father felt his heart sink and stared at the ascending dragon refusing to move his teary eyes. Maybe something could happen at the last moment.. If he'd only managed to grab onto its tail...
The dragon was gaining altitude fast. Suddenly it felt itself being jerked out of balance. Something had moved its tail. Startled, he flapped its wings desperately, barely managing to realign its center of mass with its center of lift. It recovered and turned around.
An enormous jet of flames came out of its mouth. After a few seconds it stopped, expecting to see whatever it was that disturbed it fall to the ground in flames.
- "Well, you know how they say you're supposed to fight fire with fire? I bet you they did not think of dragons back when they invented the expression."
The Vyver looked up to see where the voice came from. It was a second wyvern, much smaller. The larger dragon noticed the newcomer's leather scales were jet black. Also, its balancing was superb, hovering in mid air in the same spot with minimum effort, a good distance from where the fire had been targeted.
- "Why did you come here? Or more importantly, what do you want with that baby?"
The larger dragon let out a angry roar and sent another jet of flames. But its target was fast, moving to one side, the fire barely missing it.
- "Can we talk about this?"
A third and fourth burst of flames followed. The smaller dragon was avoiding the flames, but was so tantalizingly close.
- "I see, you're the strong silent type. I, on the other hand can never shut up. Sometimes I think people find me annoying but they are too shy to tell me."
The larger dragon was growing increasingly frustrated, kept blowing flames, just centimeters from its target which always seemed that would be hit but dodged at the last second.
- "Obviously you don't have that problem."
While they were preoccupied with this dance in the sky, they were gaining altitude, rising more and more above the buildings, until their roofs were well below them.
- Seriously now, isn't kidnapping babies too much?"
It dodged another jet of flames.
- Why can't you be more like other dragons and ... I don't know... ransack a jewelry store or something?
The smaller dragon kept making the larger one waste its flames which began to dwindle in their intensity. The latter chose to conserve its fire and changed its strategy. It rushed towards its target, but the black wyvern didn't wait around. It started flying straight up at high velocity. Then it stopped suddenly, turned and plunged rapidly towards the larger dragon stopping short under its belly right in its blind spot.
Right in front of its snout was the stroller with the crying baby inside. The larger dragon zigzagged a few times trying to find its target but the black wyvern was in its blind spot. It kept mirroring its movement, keeping out of sight without taking its eyes off the stroller. Then it inhaled profoundly and instead of blowing a large blast of flames, it released two extremely thin jets of flames out of its nostrils. With an almost surgical precision the two jets, thin as pencils, intersected the stroller's handle. The plastic melted instantly and the stroller plummeted towards the emptiness below. The black wyvern dived and caught it with its claws, and then sped towards the roof of a tall, modern building. There it took cover behind the building's centralized air conditioning unit.
The larger dragon realized it no longer carried the stroller. It let go of the plastic handle and started scanning around for the missing cargo. Eventually it spotted the metal container with a large fan and decided to go investigate. As it approached it, the smaller wyvern launched itself in the air, carrying the stroller in its claws, unwilling to risk another direct confrontation. The larger dragon dashed in pursuit of its prey. But whenever it was just about to catch it, the other one would suddenly change course.
They were now racing between tall buildings. The agility of the smaller dragon was definitely proving to be an advantage, especially when it came to negotiating tight turns. The larger dragon realized he had no chance unless he came up with some sort of a tactic. He slowed the pace in order to lure his target into a false sense security and to consider his next move. He clearly had the advantage of speed thanks to his large wingspan, he just had to anticipate the next movement. There! In front of them on the left was a concrete building with narrow windows. This meant that the black wyvern would have no choice but to turn right, on another street. If he continued to fly straight or up, he would get caught and if he If he swerved left he would crashed into the building.
With a beat of its wings, the large dragon pushed back large volumes of air, launching forward. As expected, the other one turned right... and its back was hit by a large jet of flames. Its pursuer was using its last reserves of fire into one big flare, carefully aimed to avoid the stroller.
The smaller dragon let out a cry, dropped the stroller in the air and fell towards the ground. The larger dragon, spotted its stolen cargo and rushed to it, catching it in midair. He hovered in the air for a while longer, flapping its enormous wings, looking for its opponent.
It then turned and started to fly away, rising as high as it could, to avoid being followed. It left the city unhindered.
When the sky was clear the smaller dragon came out of its hiding place. Its black back was completely unscathed. It spread its wings and flew to the roof where it tried to hide before. There, he removed a metal grating and retrieved the baby from his temporary hiding spot. Upon seeing his face the little one started crying.
• I know, I know, cooed the dragon sympathetically. We don't have the friendliest of appearances. I'd smile to calm you down, but then you'd see the fangs.
Yet the baby paused his crying for a bit, listening curiously.
"Let's go to Mommy and Daddy," said the dragon, carefully putting him down. You want to go to your Mommy and Daddy?
The baby began to cry again. The dragon sighed:
- I'll take that as a yes.
He then lifted him up carefully in its claws and flew off.
Somewhere below, on the sidewalk, the two crying parents saw the dragon descending from the sky. It landed lightly, and with a quick flap of its wings, put the crying baby down in front of them. The mother rushed up to him and took him in her arms.
The dragon turned around and prepared to take flight.
- Wait! The father called.
For a second the dragon hesitated. Then it turned around. The father swallowed hard. Raised on its hind legs, with its wings spread out and flapping gently to maintain its balance - the dragon towered over him. Even though it was a small dragon by comparison to the other one, a full grown man could barely reach its chest. Yet the father willed himself forward and simply said:
• Thank you.
The dragon looked at him for a second and ever so slightly gave a small nod. Then he flew away.
In his wake the people were recomposing themselves. A young man was helping an old lady get back on her feet. The woman who earlier wanted a car was picking up the contents of the bags that her boyfriend dropped from amongst shards of broken glass. Various people were either picking themselves up or they were calling their loved ones. And in the middle of them all two young parents were holding the baby they thought lost.
Outside of town, somewhere south, the large dragon was flying away, carrying an empty baby-stroller.