Chapter Text
Morgan didn't really intend to be a hedgewitch, it just kind of happened. Sure he liked it, it was fun, rewarding, but no one talked to him. The local village had a rumor going around that if one would visit him for anything other then medical help, he would curse them. Which was wrong, and hurt a bit, but whatever. He didn't like people getting into his space anyway, so he was fine, left alone with his little cottage in the middle of the woods.
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He stepped out the door and breathed in the crisp early spring air. The wind rusled the new leaves and the newly melted rivered babbled slowly. He sighed, it was peaceful, but he knew not for long. He had herd whispers of an illness going around town, luckily one he knew the cure for. Dragonweed, a plant that grew abundantly around dragon lairs. Sadly that plant was the only known cure for this illness, so Morgan started to trek.
Now he had done this before, but one couldn't be too careful. He knew of the dragon lair, but had never met the actual dragon, and you can never tell if a dragon will rip you apart or not until you meet it. So, he moved real slowly as he saw the entrance of the cavern near the top of the small mountain. He just needed to get the plants and go. That's all, a quick in and out.
That was the plan, at least until he heard the flapping of wings. A giant red beast came crashing down, just barely out of the cave and blocking the witch from the dragonweed. He froze, hiding in the shrubs as he watched the dragon cautiously. It was one of those classic looking dragons. You know, the kind in picture books and fairytales. It had ruby red scales, a deep burgundy crown of horns, and bright yellow slitted eyes. It's large leathery wings beat at the air, making the nearby foliage tremble. It growled low it throat, the sound shaking the hedgewitch to his core.
Then it stumbled, ending up laying on the ground. He could see its chest rise and fall as it gasped. Then he saw it, black icore was slowly saturating its side... it was bleeding. Morgan wouldn't be able to explain it, but to see this powerful beast injured, it pulled painfully at his heart. He needed to do something, but what? He couldn't just come out of the brush and talk to it. Wouldn't it just up and maul him or something? This felt kind of stupid but whatever, it was either that and somehow survive, or just leave and probably die by the disease because he couldn't get any dragonweed. He sighed before slowly coming out of the brush.
The dragon had heard the rustling and turned to see the tiny stout human. They hissed at him. He felt himself start to tremble, having their eyes trained on him. Ok, now what, Morgan? You don't have enough gauze in the world to wrap these wounds! This beast is like 20x your size! He glaced around nervously for a moment. Then he saw a spider web, and looked back at the admittedly confused dragon. He then walked over to the web and picked it up with two sticks, hopefully the spiders didn't mind. He then ran off into the woods to gather more natural bandaging. Alex, the dragon in question, just rolled their eyes and started licking at their wounds.
Minutes passed and Morgan came back with a lot of spider webs, a whole pouch of herbs, the strongest needle and string he had, and a pale of water with a rag in it. "H-hey, " he shouted, catching the dragon's attention again, "i," he took a big breath, "I am going the clean and wrap your wounds."
"What?"
"Yeah, I have water and herbs and suturing supplies a-and bandges, kind of, and I'm going to heal you."
"Why?" They growled.
"Because...I'm a hedgewitch?"
They looked at him in shock for a long while before they bursted into a full on belly laugh. The movement jostled their wounds, making them hiss in pain. This made Morgan rush forward and inspect to the injuries. The main one being a large gash along their ribs. Morgan reached into the pale and gently started cleaned the gash, which was covered in dirt from how they hit the ground. The dragon hissed again, side eyeing the witch warily. "Who are you," they rumbled.
"Morgan, " he said not looking up from his work, "Morgan Sterling."
"Are you not... afraid of me," they sneered, baring their sharp teeth.
"Petrified," he chuckled nervously, all his muscles tensed trying not to shake as he dressed the wound.
"It doesn't look like it."
"That's because I'm distracting myself with something important."
"Important," Alex snorted indignantly, "I know of about 50 humans that would disagree with you."
That made the witch tense up even more. So, humans did this to them? Of course they did, humans tended to stab things they don't understand. One of them would have stabbed him long ago if he wasn't so inclined to heal them. "Well, those humans are clearly fools with no worthwhile things to say, " he moved on to the next cut, "how did you even end up close enough to a village to fight humans, can't dragons shape-shift or something?" He remembered reading that in a book once, though he couldn't remember if it was an actual study of dragons or just stories.
"We can yes, but unluckily, a patrol saw me and well, attacked before i could react," they stared as he work, slightly entranced, "I managed to... rid of them all, believe it or not."
"Surprisingly i don't," then the next one, "since you're, you know, talking to me instead of killing me."
"Why would I kill you?"
He shrugged, "I mean I've herd that dragons are really protective of their lairs and their territories."
They laughed, the sound rattling the witch, "honestly, if you weren't so interesting, you'd be dead by now."
Morgan laughed nervously before sighing as he pressed the webbing to the last gash at the base of a wing and stepped back, checking over his work before picking up the pale. "Alright, I need to get some fresh water, don't move."
"I can't," came the dragon's snarky remark as the human rushed off. He rushed down the hill and emptied the blood filled bucket unthinkly into his garden. Which he regretted as he filled the pale back up with river water. Magical creatures usually had strange properties in their blood, right? Like it could be poisonous or something. He walked by the patch again and glanced at his plants, sure enough they were starting to wilt, making him cringe as he rushed back up the mountain.
The dragon looked at him with his rushed movement. They looked much better now that they weren't bleeding out. Now to just clean up their scales. There was a long silence, the beast staring at him. "W-what?"
"You are very strange," they hummed.
Morgan laughed bitterly, "yeah I get that a lot." Then he finished and stepped back to look at his work once again. After checking that everything was alright, he looked to the cave. "You should probably get inside your lair, wouldn't want the rain to wash away the webs and expose the wounds before they're healed."
The dragon looked down at their claws for a moment before pushing themself up, stumbling. Morgan hovered around them, though it wouldn't help if they fell, it was more of a habit. Once they got inside, they gently laid down, leaning against a rocky wall. Morgan then dug around his pack for a moment before pulling out the two sachels of herbs. "I uh don't know how effective these will be, cuase you're a dragon not human. Uh is there anything that is toxic to dragons?"
"No, dragons can't get poisoned."
"Oh! Good! So even if they don't work, they also won't harm you." He then placed the bags in front of them.
"What is it?"
"Painkiller," he smiled at them, "when the pain is getting too much, get a palm full of herbs, chew it up, and swallow. It'll be very bitter but it's very fast acting."
"A palm full?"
"Yes, your dose would be bigger then a human cuase you are, in fact, bigger then a human."
Alex hummed as they looked into a bag. "Thank you," they nodded at him, "do you want payment? I could offer some treasure, or something of the sort."
"Ah no no, I don't need payment," he looked outside to see the sun beginning to set, "I should get going before it gets too dark."
"Ah alright."
"Goodnight," and then he took his leave, completely forgetting about the dragonweed.