She found herself gazing at the child.

Dragons are accustomed to solitary places. Her heart was creased and caged by the years she had lived.

In her mind she could see her life stretched out in a long train of high haunts and gleaming fortresses. She was no longer proud of the way she could make men run in fear and trembling when she came to the breaches and swooped down to take their treasure–gold, jewels, bolts of silk and brocade. Before she had brooded over it like a nesting bird, but now her gaze had shifted.

Now she watched the boy. He supplanted all thoughts of other treasure. In times past she would run her scaly claws through the things she owned, anxious to keep things. Now she wish–ached to be able to take all of it to Someone–someone who could with power and promise keep this child safe–from the darkness in the world she knew too well.

When she found it she knew. The title (poorly translated from the Greek) was “The Draconian Guide to Raising Humans”

Now, while the Dragon herself felt that Draco was a positive figure in the aggregate history of human government, she was not sure how his stringent moral law would help her find nourishment for a baby.

So she was vastly and conspicuously relieved when she opened the book (only slightly singed) and found original talon-drawn illustrations and a surprisingly maternal self-portrait of the author–Naga P. Doxia. It appeared that this esteemed authoress and dragoness had pioneered a little known and even less understood movement to foster understanding and community between dragons and humans.

Dame Naga had put forth the idea that when human population experienced paroxysms of orphanage, dragons should fill the gap. This was a controversial prospect from the outset. The dragon communities felt that their benevolence would be mistaken for usurpage or worse yet, kidnapping. They were a solitary and cloistered folk, and the scrutiny and prospect of intrusion and misunderstanding filled them with a grim and slithery fear.

And the humans? They took immediate and vociferous umbrage at the idea entirely!

Yet, Doxia had persevered, doggedly pursuing her trifold goals of fostering understanding, writing about her passion, and adopting actual human children. It was the last of course which drove and illuminated the others.

It was a thoroughly engrossing read.