Left in the Sun

You must have worn this for…years…it tastes like flesh and soap and…time. Do you need a nugget around your finger? Does it taste so good? But humans eat as I used to, with teeth, mouth.

Such a small thing and yet, it could begin a hoard. Today’s lost treasure will be amply storied as a fundament of this hoard. You will be remembered as a hero. Only worthy gold finds it ways to dragons, even chained ones. Even transformed ones.

Wait! Before you search among my roots, consider whether I can consume more than gold. And listen, a story for free.

The dryad came to me, called me flabby, even though my hoard was large enough, then, to shed gold into all the streams flowing from the forest. She smelled like acorns and cracked her knuckles like some cow stumbling through the trees. Said that I drew people too close. The rumors of the gold, the stories that I whispered as I slept about the pieces I slept upon wound like vines through the trees, blooming at the edges of paths and roadways.

She said I needed to awaken. And then she offered me a pouch of pollen, claimed it was magic and it would make me fierce, for the knights were coming. And I believed her. Dryads talk always—they carry the stories as easily as the wind—and I feared spiked hooves and magic swords at my throat. These are the stories of heroes, after all. And I tell the story of every piece of treasure, faithfully.

I let her pour the pollen down my throat, coughed fire, and then rushed out to drink from a nearby stream. When I began to writhe, she chained me, dragged me here. Left me in the sun, smelling like resin, and much too wakeful. She returned, to cover herself in gold and scales and stories.