Scattered Mushrooms

 

Marion du Bucles, named "Sir Bucket" by her guard company's sergeant of the guard, had a dragon. Past tense.

Scatter, the young green dragon she had been raising, mysteriously vanished one day. At first, she was not concerned. He was impetuous, and he often disappeared for hours at a time.

But as days passed, she was positive that something was wrong. She spent every free hour scouring the forest. She initially expected to find him gnawing on a carcass relocated from a farmer's field. Later, she was afraid she would just find his bones.

She grew so distraught, she even crossed the White River and started searching through troll territory.

Everything was a little...strange in troll territory. Trees and plants were bigger than normal. Like mushrooms. She was amazed seeing mushrooms she could walk under!

After a week of searching, she found dragon tracks that might have belonged to Scatter. He was still too young to fly much, otherwise tracking him on the ground would be almost impossible.

The tracks led to a chin-high mushroom that had clear bite marks. What effect could it have had on Scatter? Many mushroom were killers. Some would give vivid dreams. Some just made the stew thicker.

Which one was this? She licked an edge and spat. It was bitter.

She sat against a tree to wait for some effect - hopefully not a gruesome death.

Nothing. An hour passed. Still nothing.

She stood to leave, but she felt suddenly heavy. Her hands were tingling. She looked at her hand, and it was undulating like it was on the other side of a heat shimmer.

For some uncounted hours - or minutes - she enjoyed the bizarre sensations, thinking how the giant bites of mushroom must have really laid a wallop on Scatter. Maybe he walked off a cliff or into the sea. Maybe he flew into a mountain.

She never found out what happened to Scatter. But she did cut a section of mushroom, now also waving like a reed in the breeze, to enjoy later.

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