The rumors had reached Jukrit's sanctuary through three different sources: travelers speaking of strange illnesses near the Crystal Caves, creatures falling sick with no apparent cause, and whispers of a terrible beast that had taken residence in the depths. As a healer, Jukrit couldn't ignore such suffering. The journey took four days through increasingly sparse woodland. The closer he got to the caves, the more evident the sickness became—trees with withering leaves out of season, streams running sluggish and dark, small animals too weak to flee his approach. At the cave mouth, Jukrit paused. The air tasted wrong, metallic and sharp. His healer's instincts screamed danger, but the thought of all those suffering creatures pushed him forward. Deep in the cave system, past formations of glittering crystal, he found her. The dragoness was enormous, her light brown fur shimmering with an inner warmth that seemed at odds with the sickness permeating the area. She lay curled around a pool of water that glowed with an unhealthy phosphorescence. Her breathing was labored, and even from a distance, Jukrit could see the tremors running through her powerful form. "Another come to slay the monster," she said without opening her eyes. Her voice was beautiful despite its weariness, like distant thunder rolling through mountains. "Make it quick, little warrior." "I'm no warrior," Jukrit said, stepping into the light. "I'm a healer." Her eyes snapped open—deep gold, filled with pain and surprise. "A healer? Come to heal what, exactly? The poisoned land? The dying streams?" She laughed bitterly. "Or the beast that causes it all?" "All of it, if I can," Jukrit replied, moving closer despite the increasing intensity of the wrongness in the air. "Starting with you. You're in pain." "Observant." She shifted slightly, and Jukrit saw the source of the problem—a massive crystal shard embedded deep in her side, its surface crawling with veins of sickly light. "A parting gift from the dragon slayers who drove me from the northern mountains. They used poisoned crystal weapons. This one broke off." "How long?" "Two seasons." She grimaced. "I've tried everything. Clawing it out just drives it deeper. The poison spreads through my magic, into the land itself. I came here to die alone, but..." She gestured weakly at the corrupted cave. "I'm taking everything with me." Jukrit approached the wound, his mind racing. The crystal was too deep for conventional extraction, and the magical poison was beyond his usual remedies. But... "I need to try something," he said. "It might hurt." "Can't be worse than this," she mumbled. For the next three days, Jukrit worked with a dedication that bordered on obsession. He couldn't simply pull out the crystal—its barbed edges had grown into her flesh. Instead, he began treating it like a systemic infection, using rare fungi that fed on magical corruption, creating poultices that drew poison out rather than pushing it in. The dragoness—Noraxia, she finally told him—watched with growing amazement as the little squirrel clambered fearlessly over her massive form, adjusting treatments, monitoring progress, muttering calculations about dosages scaled to her size. "Why?" she asked on the second night as he changed a particularly complex compress. "You don't know me. I'm poisoning your forest." "You're not doing it on purpose," Jukrit replied, mixing new ingredients. "And you're in pain. That's reason enough." "Most creatures run from dragons." "Most creatures haven't taken an oath to help where help is needed." He paused in his work. "Besides, you're not what I expected from a dragon." "Because I'm dying?" "Because you came here to protect others from your poison. Even in agony, you thought of innocents first." He resumed working. "That tells me who you really are." On the third night, something shifted. The crystal's poison began to recede, condensing back into the shard itself. Noraxia gasped as, for the first time in seasons, the pain lessened. "Now," Jukrit said urgently. "While it's contracted. Can you push it out? I'll guide it to minimize damage." What followed was agonizing but brief. With Jukrit directing the angle and Noraxia using her powerful muscles, the crystal shard finally worked free, clattering to the cave floor in a splash of tainted blood. Jukrit immediately packed the wound with healing herbs, working to stem the bleeding. The effect was almost immediate. The oppressive wrongness in the air began to lift. The pool's sickly glow faded. Outside, birds began to sing tentatively. "I... I can breathe," Noraxia whispered. "Really breathe." Over the following week, as she recovered, they talked. Noraxia spoke of her life in the northern mountains, of the beauty of flying through clouds, of the loneliness of being the last of her kind in these lands. Jukrit shared stories of his travels, his sanctuary, his philosophy of healing. "I owe you a debt I can never repay," Noraxia said as her strength returned. "There are no debts in healing," Jukrit replied. "But... there is something." "Name it." "Travel with me." She blinked in surprise. "What?" "I've been thinking," Jukrit said, tail swishing nervously. "I can reach more creatures who need help if I can travel greater distances. You can fly, cover ground I never could alone. And..." He hesitated. "I've seen how you are. Protective. Caring. The forest needs protectors as much as it needs healers." "You want a dragon as a traveling companion?" She sounded incredulous. "Do you know how much I eat? How much space I take up? The fear I cause?" "I know you chose isolation over letting your poison hurt innocents. I know you could have lashed out when I approached but didn't. I know you have knowledge of the northern lands I've never seen." Jukrit met her golden eyes. "And I know traveling alone gets lonely, even for those of us who think we prefer it." Noraxia was quiet for a long moment. "I haven't had a companion since... since before the dragon slayers came." "Neither have I, well, not officially," Jukrit said, referring to the lioness from a few weeks ago. "Maybe that needs to change." She lowered her great head to his level. "You realize dragons live far longer than fur-folk? This partnership would be... temporary, from my perspective." "All partnerships are temporary," Jukrit said gently. "That doesn't make them less valuable." Another pause. Then, slowly, she smiled—a sight both beautiful and slightly terrifying. "You're either very wise or very foolish, little healer." "Probably both." "Then yes." She straightened, and for the first time Jukrit saw her at full health and height—magnificent and intimidating, but with kindness in those golden eyes. "Yes, I'll travel with you. Though we'll need to work on logistics. I can't exactly fit in most villages." "We'll figure it out as we go." And they did. Word spread quickly—the healer squirrel who traveled with a dragon. Some settlements feared their approach at first, but that changed when they saw Noraxia gently lower Jukrit to help a sick cub, or use her great strength to clear a landslide blocking a vital river. She could carry him vast distances, reaching creatures in need who would have died waiting for help to walk to them. Her presence discouraged those who might take advantage of a lone healer. Her knowledge of weather patterns, geography, and the hidden paths of the world expanded his reach tenfold. In return, Jukrit's presence eased the loneliness that had haunted her for decades. His unwavering acceptance, seeing her not as a monster or a tool but as herself, began to heal wounds deeper than any crystal shard. When suspicious villagers threw stones, he stood between them and her. When she struggled with painful memories, he listened without judgment. "Do you regret it?" she asked one evening as they camped by a mountain lake, the stars reflecting in the still water. "Taking on such a large, troublesome companion?" Jukrit looked up from the tea he was brewing—she'd developed a taste for his herbal blends, despite needing enormous quantities. "Do you regret saying yes to such a small, reckless healer?" She laughed, a warm rumble that he'd grown to love. "Never." "Then there's your answer." They were bound to become legend. The small-framed shaman squirrel and the great dragoness, bringing healing and hope to the far corners of the land. And if sometimes creatures wondered how such an unlikely partnership worked, they need only see the way Noraxia carefully sheltered Jukrit from rain with her wing, or watch him fearlessly tend a wound on her massive form, to understand. Some bonds transcend size, species, and lifespan. Some partnerships are written in the language of mutual trust, spoken in acts of care, and sealed not with words but with the simple choice to keep traveling together, one day at a time, without judgment.
Jukrit meets a dragoness named Noraxia. The character of Noraxia is based on a dragoness I've idealized over 10 years ago. I'm basically re-writing a lost story.
