Sabrinetta and the Fiery Dragon

Princess Sabrinetta lived alone in a white tower at the edge of a great wood. Her father the King was far away, her mother was lost in a story she had already finished, and the only person who stayed with her was her old nurse.

Every morning, Sabrinetta climbed the twisting stairs and kissed her hands to the sun and the trees and the sleeping town below. Every day she swept and cooked and sang and worked hard and was kind to the beetles that came in under the door, and the birds that came to the sill, and the nurse who needed her tea just so.

Then the Fiery Dragon came.

It arrived with a sound like burning, and it scorched three fields before sunset. The King sent his bravest knights, and the knights came back singed and deeply apologetic. He sent his cleverest magicians, and they came back without their hats.

Then someone remembered Sabrinetta.

"But she's only a princess," said the councillors.

"Send her anyway," said the King, who was running out of ideas.

Sabrinetta listened carefully to the problem. Then she went to her cupboard and found a small brass bottle, very old, with a tight-fitting stopper.

"What's that?" asked her nurse.

"I'm going to put kindness in it," said Sabrinetta, "and take it to the dragon."

Her nurse looked at her. "Dragons eat people."

"Only people with cold hearts," said Sabrinetta. "You know mine isn't cold."

The nurse knew this was true, and let her go.

Sabrinetta walked to the dragon's part of the wood. She found it curled between two burnt oaks, eyes closed, breathing smoke in slow puffs.

She sat down nearby and waited.

After a while the dragon opened one eye.

"I have something for you," said Sabrinetta. She held out the bottle. "It's kindness. I expect it's been a long time since anyone gave you any."

The dragon regarded her. Then it sniffed the bottle. Something in its face changed.

"It's been three hundred years," said the dragon.

"I thought so," said Sabrinetta.

She sat with the dragon until the stars came out. She talked to it about the wood and the birds and the beetles and the way the sun looked from the top of her tower. The dragon listened with both eyes fully open.

When Sabrinetta finally stood to go home, the dragon said: "Will you come back?"

"Yes," she said. "Every morning."

And she did. And the dragon never burned another field again.