The Dragon Knight traded scales for clothes and wings for muddy roads, and he couldn't be happier.
For the longest time, this baffled the men around him-- men who were not knights, simply soldiers he was assigned to.
Like babysitters, they thought at first, uncharitable and suspicious.
Like guardians, they thought later, more affectionate.
But even after suspicion turned to familiarity turned to fondness, they still watched him trot barefoot in the muck alongside their horses, keeping up with ease, and wondered why?
* * * * *
They all knew the story.
How years ago, a dragon landed atop the royal astronomy tower and refused to leave until it had an audience with the King. It had been a small dragon, gray and scrawny for its kind, with a surprisingly good grasp of human languages.
How the King and his council argued for hours about what was to be done while the guards outside spent all their time either telling people to stay indoors, or watching the dragon as it sat politely on the tower roof.
How, finally, the King and his Magician had gone to negotiate, a spell of silence woven around the grounds so that none could hear the parley. And how, from that day on, the dragon -- a lizard no longer, now in the form of a man-- had joined their squad in service to the King.
"He is my Knight," the King had announced. "He will travel with you as you patrol the kingdom."
And standing beside him, as small as a man as he had been as a dragon, green-eyed and grinning, the Dragon Knight had agreed.
But the question remained: why?
* * * * *
The Dragon Knight is the only one among them who doesn't wear armor. His scales are gone, but his skin is still impenetrable, and he wears layers and layers of clothes and cloths in eye-searing colors. The only things he packs for journeys are quilts-- colorful, patchwork quilts sent directly, it was said, from the King-- and often, he had one wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak.
It was lucky, some of the men said, that they didn't do stealth missions.
"Are you cold?" the Captain asked once when the Knight had first joined. Maybe, he reasoned, something in the transformation from dragon to man had affected his tolerance for cold.
"Nope!" The Dragon Knight had said. "They're soft. Feel."
And he had held out a corner of the quilt, and the Captain had dutifully touched it. It was, he agreed, very soft.
"Why the bright colors?" the Captain asked a different time, too afraid to ask the real question burning in his mind, Why are you here?
And the Knight had beamed and said without guile, "I love colors! I used to be gray. Gray. And now, I'm not!"
And the Knight had wrapped a quilt around himself and hurried ahead down the road, nearly skipping.
* * * * *
These days, most of the squad have figured out the answer to the why, but the Captain was the first to really understand.
It happened when once they were traveling through a wild mountain pass on a trail too narrow for horses. It was morning still, and they had been swapping stories of home when the Knight stopped suddenly, green eyes gone wide like a cat's.
He shouted, "Hide!" then dove back beneath the rocky outcrop beside the trail. The others obeyed just as an enormous shadow blackened the sky. A roar filled the air, rattling the rock and shaking the earth.
"What is that?" the Captain said.
The Knight shook his head, but still answered, "Dragon. Big one. Hunting."
The roar came again, angry and loud.
"If it's another dragon," said the Captain, "shouldn't you say something? Greet it?"
The Knight kept his eyes on the sky. "No."
After some time, the dragon passed them by. The Captain marveled at how slow its shadow was to leave, how large the dragon above them must be for a shadow to take so long to pass. But even after the shadow and dragon had gone, the Knight bade them stay hidden.
Just as the Captain was coming to believe that the dragon, this other dragon, had well and truly left, there came the sounds of animal screeching, harsher on the ears than even the roars had been. And as soon as he had that thought, there came more roaring too, echoing off the mountains. The shrieks and roars mingled, and the ground shook as somewhere, not too far off, two enormous beasts met.
"What is that?" said one of the soldiers.
"Do you know?" said the Captain.
The Dragon Knight said nothing, and the sounds of a not-distant-enough battle filled the silence between them.
* * * * *
It was near midday before the Knight finally deemed it safe enough to travel. They moved on, determined to make as much distance as they could, but they hadn't been traveling long before they found the dragon's corpse.
It was a massive thing, bigger than a barn, bigger than ten barns, and splayed out awkwardly in the narrow valley below their path. It's wings were broken and torn, looking like shredded sails. Its enormous jaw hung open, nearly disconnected from the rest of its head. It's side was torn open, and the thing that had eaten it had been a messy eater; all around it were discarded viscera and steaming puddles of blood.
"Was that the one that was hunting us?" the Captain said.
"Yes," said the Knight. He looked to the sky again, obviously anxious. "Let's get out of here."
"What could tear apart a dragon that big?" wondered one of the men.
"Another dragon?" supplied another.
And for the first time since they'd known him, the Dragon Knight's voice took on an animalistic quality, not entirely unlike the noises they had heard earlier.
"There are bigger monsters in the world than dragons," he snarled, teeth looking sharper, longer than usual, scales sprouting around his eyes. For a moment, just a moment, he seemed larger than before, his shadow deeper, his eyes brighter.
The men nearest to him stepped back. The one who'd suggested dragon raised his hands placatingly. "I'm sorry," he said. "I meant no offense."
The change was immediate. The Knight shrank inward, back to his normal, unassuming self. His face was flushed, but it seemed more of embarrassment than anger.
"Sorry," he said, covering his face for a moment. "We really need to get out of here."
Then he pulled the quilt more tightly around his shoulders and marched ahead.
The others followed after, but the Captain lingered a moment, eyes on the dragon's corpse.
There's always a bigger fish in the sea, he thought. And that thought birthed another: how did fish keep themselves safe? Perhaps they could try to defend themselves (and here, the echo of those monstrous shrieks filled his ears), or they hid. And sometimes. . .
He looked up towards the others and saw that the Dragon Knight had already mingled among the men again, outburst forgotten and forgiven.
And sometimes they school.