The first time Paul thought that there was something wrong with him was a few years before he had met Greene. He had been cleaning the forge for his father. He organized all the tools and emptied the forge of ashes. He mopped the floor and cut leather strips for knife handles and the like. He had been so happy when he was told that he was ready to do this much. Though he was a very small child, he wanted nothing more than to become a blacksmith and make his father proud. He knew what he wanted to do.
He awaited the day that his father would tell him that he was ready to work the forge, but though he was growing bigger and stronger with each passing year he was always told that he wasn’t ready yet. He kept being told that even the jobs he had been doing weren’t being done well enough. This only made him work harder. He knew he would be ready one day, all the way up until the day he heard what his father had been thinking.
It came after the day when he had rescued a mouse from the dunking barrel and set it free. He had been caught outside while he still had work to do. He slowly finished his work and made his way back to the house when he felt the need to stop. Someone was talking in the kitchen, his father and his voice carried through the open window.
“…I just don’t know what to do with him. He’s too weak to swing a hammer. His mind goes to other places when he’s supposed to be working. He prioritizes saving the lives of vermin. I doubt he will ever be a good blacksmith. If I leave him alone with a lit forge he’s just going to burn everything down.”
“Dear,” his mother said quietly. “He is only a child. Maybe he will surprise you.”
“He won’t surprise me as a blacksmith, that’s for sure. When I was six I made my first knife with my father’s help and supervision, yet when he was six he couldn’t even tell me which hammer was meant to be used to start working the steel. If I had given him the same treatment my father gave me, either I would have had to do the work for him or he would have hurt me or himself. I will give him a couple more years, and if he’s still not ready by then I will find another apprentice.”
Paul was crushed by what his father had said. He never let on that he had overheard this conversation, and like the earlier comments he had heard it had made him work even harder. Yet still he wasn’t good enough. The years went by. His relationship with his father had grown worse, and he had wanted nothing more than to show him his worth, but nothing was enough.
Then he learned a dragon had been captured nearby and he felt bad for the creature. He crept off at night to give the creature some food. He had rescued it and began to teach it how to talk like him. He had learned that it wasn’t it at all, but rather a female dragon named Greene. Greene became his first friend. He felt bad when he had to chase her away because he had overheard that a Royal Knight was coming to investigate a dragon sighting near the village. It was for the best though.
His father brought in another kid to be his apprentice and Paul was left to do menial tasks until the day he left home for good. He traveled from town to town, doing several different jobs. Each time he found a new job he hoped that this would be it, that this time would be different, but each time he found a new job within a few years he would discover a new reason to be let go.
He was too soft. He didn’t listen enough. He had broken too many tools. He was too easy to fool. He shouldn’t just be giving the bread away if the customer had no money. He was a danger to himself and others. He was nothing but a failure.
He moved on each time he was fired until at last he reached the city. He no longer had the desire to find a new job that he would only fail at. He was in a bad place as he ended up in the criminal underbelly of the city. He would do any small job for money, no matter how legal it was unless it was to kill or hurt someone else.
When he was at his lowest he was in his forties. He was only brought out of it when he saw a wizard demonstrating his power to a crowd of amazed onlookers.
This magic was just used for the show. Some fires crackled in the air. Water was lifted from a bucket that had been empty before. A small wooden figure of a dove became an actual dove and flew away. Paul was amazed.
Then he thought that such power could be used to help people in a way aside from entertainment. Surely it could be used to help feed the hungry, to warm the cold, to heal the injured, or in any other beneficial way. That was when he began to look into wizards. He had learned a lot. He had heard about Timiditempestius and how he was known to take in students from non-wizard families and the rest is history.
He had gotten Daisy ready to go and Greene had helped him move his stuff to the road. He had decided to leave the clock with her so she could do what she felt was best with it. He smiled at her. “I’ll come back here soon and then we can spend more time together. Thank you for letting me stay here this long.”
Greene looked down at him. Some sparks flew out of her mouth as she spoke.
“You can come back anytime. I would like to uh… learn more about human games I guess. It’s nice having you around.”
Once the goodbyes were done he began to ride down the road with everything he owned to the wizard’s tower which was about half a day’s ride away. It was a quiet ride. When he saw it standing tall above the trees he felt scared until he remembered that the owner of this tower was never coming back.
He moved in, putting everything where he wanted it. Daisy moved into the tower stable. There were many books and interesting objects scattered around the tower.
Not only that but there were some good places to do his experiments in. He hoped that he would be able to share the secrets he learned with other people. He knew it would help people.
Then there was the added problem of the Circle of Wizards. He read as much as he could about them, even going to the nearest city to ask around. He wrote all about them in a journal. He wanted to be ready just in case they came after him for what happened to Timiditempestius. Though he knew that Greene had to do what she did, something felt wrong to him. He would share everything he found with her.
Some of his research also lead him to discover something unfortunate. Once someone had taken in the power of a dragon’s flame, there was no known way to remove the flame while letting them live. He realized that there was only one thing to do.
Draconic Ramblings 
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