The Dragon's Arithmetic

Old Thom had never intended to host a dragon. Certainly not in his modest cottage at the edge of Widdershins Village, where the most exciting event in decades had been Farmer Giles growing a turnip shaped remarkably like the mayor's nose.

Yet there the dragon sat, curled impossibly small upon his hearth rug, its scales gleaming like polished copper pennies in the firelight.

"You're smaller than the stories say," Thom ventured, clutching his walking stick.

The dragon blinked jewel-bright eyes. "And you're braver than you think," it replied in a voice like warm honey over gravel. "Most men your age would have fled by now."

"At eighty-six, running isn't much of an option," Thom chuckled. "Besides, where would I go? This cottage has been my home since my Eliza passed."

The dragon's head tilted curiously. "The stone-keeper."

Thom startled. "How did you know? Nobody called her that but me."

"Dragons remember," it said simply. "She found one of my scales in the creek bed sixty years ago. Kept it warm in her pocket every day after."

Thom's gnarled fingers trembled as he reached for the small wooden box on the mantel. Inside lay a copper scale no bigger than a thumbnail, still gleaming despite the decades.

"She said it brought us luck," Thom whispered. "Three children, all grown and moved to the city. Seven grandchildren I've never met."

The dragon's eyes softened. "The children of stone-keepers are my concern as well. The winter grows harsh, and your chimney smoke has weakened these past weeks."

Thom nodded. His woodpile had dwindled, and his joints protested the axe's weight more each season.

"I have come to settle the debt," the dragon said. "Stone-keepers and their kin fall under my protection."

"I need no charity," Thom began, but fell silent as the dragon exhaled a gentle flame that warmed the cottage without burning a single mote of dust.

"Not charity," the dragon corrected. "Arithmetic. A scale for a life of warmth. It balances perfectly."

When spring came to Widdershins, travelers on the north road spoke of a strange sight: an old man on the back of a copper beast, soaring toward the city, a letter clutched in his weathered hand, his laughter trailing behind like birdsong.

And when he returned, it wasn't alone. The cottage at the edge of the village needed extension after extension as grandchildren came to hear stories by a hearth that never grew cold, no matter how fierce the winter winds howled.

Some said it was magic. Thom called it dragon's arithmetic: the sum of small kindnesses, compounded over time, accruing interest in ways no human banker could calculate.