A Dragon's Dilemma

The afternoon sun, usually a cheerful companion to Sammy’s meadow, now felt like a spotlight highlighting her sticky, slightly singed wings. Bartholomew, the colossal dragon, lay sprawled across what used to be her favorite patch of clover, his snores rumbling like distant thunder. Exhaustion clung to Sammy like the lingering scent of dragon breath, a smell that was, surprisingly, not entirely unpleasant. It was a smoky, leathery aroma, tinged with the faint, sweet hint of elderberries.

Sammy hovered a few feet from the dragon’s enormous snout, her tiny fists clenched. She’d tried everything. Glitter bombs that had merely added a festive sparkle to his scales. Tickle fights that had resulted in her being accidentally flicked across the meadow like a rogue dandelion seed. And then there was the sneeze. Oh, the sneeze. It had been a cataclysmic event, a force of nature that had sent her spinning through the air, her carefully constructed battle plan dissolving into a dizzying blur of blue sky and green grass. She’d landed, rather unceremoniously, in a patch of particularly prickly thistles.

But the thistles, and the subsequent bruises, had sparked something. A new strategy, born from desperation and a deep-seated annoyance. Bartholomew, for all his size and potential for fiery destruction, had a weakness. A rather specific, rather delicious weakness. Elderberries.