September 15th, 737
It’s been three years to the day since Camden passed from this world to the next, and I have missed him every moment since. I will never stop mourning him or thinking of what could have been. Over time that pain has receded — the dull twinge of a healed-over scar instead of a raw and gaping wound.

Nowadays, when I walk in the door, my cottage is no longer empty. My days are no longer spent forcing myself to do my chores while my body aches with grief. My nights are no longer spent staring blankly at the fire in the hearth, thinking of everything I’d lost.

At the lowest point of my life, two unlikely little creatures swooped in to save me from becoming a husk. I hope that my husband is smiling at me from his place in the next life, glad that I am no longer withering away without him.

It doesn’t feel like two years have passed since Sleet and Arra became a part of my life; the days fly by so quickly when each is filled to the brim.

As much cheer as they have brought me, it has still been endlessly challenging to care for creatures I know almost nothing about. I’ve needed all of my patience and energy to raise them, and it came at the expense of my relationships with family and friends.

There have been rumours circulating about me. For quite a while, I was so preoccupied that I was wholly ignorant of the spreading gossip. It came as quite a shock the first time some bold housewife approached me, bluntly demanding to know if what she heard was true. While I was greatly distressed at first, I have since ceased to care about others’ opinions.

And how many opinions they have! Wild stories abound, assuming everything from me losing my mind, to being a witch, to having a secret affair with some wandering trapper camped out in the woods near my cottage. (There is no such trapper, for the record!)

My family remains worried about me, no matter how much I reassure them that I’m fine. They began dropping by for visits out of the blue to check up on me, so now I keep a goose near the edge of my property. I’ve trained it to honk whenever anyone but me comes up the path. Sleet and Arra’s ears are so sharp they can hear it from over four furlongs away.

Though Arra has grown taller than my waist, he still has the disposition of a small baby and has shown no signs of being capable of human speech. I don’t know if dragons grow a great deal more slowly than we humans, or if they simply don’t have the same level of intelligence. He is certainly smarter than any beast I’ve encountered; he understands words and can follow directions, albeit with some difficulty focusing. I find it almost laughable that my father was afraid he’d cast a curse on us the day we found him. Arra can barely pay attention long enough to chase a butterfly, no less do magic!

Sleet, on the other hand, is sharp as a tack. Though he is only two years old, he speaks clearly and coherently. He is fiercely protective of Arra and always makes sure they are both well hidden whenever the goose honks.

They are both growing restless, and I can hardly blame them. I keep them indoors whenever possible, but they’ve grown so much that the cottage has gotten cramped. Tip-Toe, that poor little cat, has adjusted to their presence, but has made the top of the cupboard her permanent residence to avoid flailing tails and wings.

While Arra is content to stay near the cottage or explore the woods behind, Sleet has a much more adventurous spirit. He frequently expresses how much he wants to see the village and meet its people. I suppose that’s my own fault, for I often tell them all about my family and friends and recount funny stories. Sleet’s curiosity is insatiable, and it’s becoming more and more challenging to think up excuses for why he can’t meet the other villagers.

I don’t want them to know they would be hated and feared. How can I tell them about the time Brent the blacksmith nursed a baby bird back to health after it was abandoned by its mother, and then also tell them that he would hurt them if he saw them? It would do so much damage to their young minds, and they would either think that they were monsters, or the villagers were.

Neither could be further from the truth.

November 18th, 737

Autumn has fully descended on Gleann Beithe. Usually, this is my favourite time of year, when the trees have turned vibrant shades of gold and crimson and we all come together for the harvest. But this year there was too little rain, and the yield has been poor. The prospect of food shortages this winter has everyone worried.

I’m anxious over how I will feed Sleet and Arra. My cottage sits right at the border between my father’s lands and the woods, and until now, I could get enough from my rabbit snares and the fish traps I placed in a nearby stream. But our crops haven’t been the only things to suffer, and each morning when I go out to check my catches, there are fewer and fewer things in them. For three days in a row, there has been nothing at all. Arra can get by on fruit, but Sleet can only eat fish.

I’m trying to teach them how to catch food for themselves, but they are still so young, and I don’t really know how dragons and wyverns hunt.

For now, I have enough stores to tide them over, but they are going to have to learn to fend for themselves, and quickly.

November 30th, 737

My mind is a little more at ease. Sleet has become an adept fisher. I don’t know whether he was able to call on instinct, or if he is simply a swift learner, but he has taken so naturally to snatching up fish as he glides over the water that I’m confident he’ll be able to feed himself. While the nearby stream will likely freeze over in winter, it feeds into a much larger river some twelve furlongs downstream. The water runs swift enough that ice rarely covers it shore to shore even in the coldest months. I’ve had less success with teaching Arra, but as his diet is much more varied than Sleet’s, I think he’ll pull through all right.

My biggest worry these days is how restive the two have become. They’re spending increasing amounts of time out-of-doors and with villagers ranging into the woods oftener than usual to supplement the poor harvest with wild plants and game, I’m more concerned than ever Sleet and Arra will be spotted.

On a day when they had driven me nearly out of my mind with their restlessness, I risked taking them out to pick blueberries. The bushes are far nearer to the village than is comfortable, but luckily we ran into no one else. After they’d run about and worked some of the pent-up energy from their systems, I took the opportunity to sit them down and explain why they couldn’t go to the village. I tried my best to impress on them that no one was the villain in this scenario. That sometimes people just didn’t understand, and they needed time to change their views. I don’t know how well I did. Sleet took it very seriously, and seemed worryingly subdued as we headed home. Arra was also far less rambunctious than usual. I don’t know if he understood what I’d said, or if he was simply picking up on Sleet’s mood.

I wanted so badly to cheer them up, so I read them their favourite story again once we reached home.

I don’t have many books; they are quite hard to come by out here in the countryside. In fact, I’m one of the few people in Gleann Beithe who can read. Camden was a monk before deciding he wanted a home and family, and he taught me while we were courting. Most of my books are scriptures he had brought with him, though I have a few guides on herbs as well (which I have added to in the margins with my own findings). This book, however, is my only storybook. It’s a cheap paper thing, its contents replicated by magic from an original. It has no cover, and its pages are stitched together with rough string. I’d bought it from a travelling merchant when my husband and I had been trying for a child. When that child never came, the book laid neglected for years.

It’s called The Hero Who Wasn’t, and is about a young girl named Maisie who woke up one day with incredible magic powers. She wanted to use her powers to help people, but the other villagers were afraid of what she could do and forbade her to ever use them. One night when her village was attacked by marauding elves, she fought them all off single-handedly. In the morning the people woke, none the wiser about the attack. Maisie kept it to herself, happy in the knowledge that her powers could be used for good. She continued to protect her village in secret until the end of her days.

Sleet begs me to read it almost every night. I have the entire thing memorised by now, but he never seems to tire of it.

December 24th, 737

It’s Yuletide eve. Autumn may be my favourite season, but there is always something magical about this time of year. In the deepest, coldest month when the world is hushed by snow, we decorate the town in colourful banners and gather together for feasting and games.

I’ve already decorated the house with pine boughs and holly and strung strips of cloth dyed red with berry juice along the rafters. I’m not usually so exuberant about the holiday, but this winter has been so harsh that everyone is in desperate need of merriment to pierce the gloom. I suppose my excitement is catching, because Sleet and Arra are practically wriggling with anticipation.

Arra has been especially restless. Even though he is spending a great deal more time outside to hunt, he’s still agitated. He tears things to pieces to express his frustration and wails loudly enough to rattle the window shutters whenever he doesn’t get his way. He teases and chases poor Tip-Toe constantly, and I think the cold and snow are the only reason she hasn’t run away. I have tried again and again to discipline him, but he has been remarkably resistant to it. I often feel at my wit’s end.

I need some time away to clear my head. While my family has become resigned to my reclusiveness, this year they reached out and begged me to join the celebration. As much as I love my charges, I really miss everyone. For the first time since adopting them, I’ll be leaving Sleet and Arra alone for more than a few hours so I can attend the festivities and catch up with my family. I feel guilty leaving them alone, but I need to be around other people right now.

December 25th, 737

Yuletide morn is here at last! I’m already dressed and have my cloak in hand to head to the village square. There will be all manner of games from horseshoe toss, to sledging, to walnut dice. Despite our thinning larders, everyone is bringing dishes to share. Last night a pair of pigs were slaughtered, and this morn are likely already roasting on their spits. The delicious aroma will permeate the air while we dance and play until they’re ready for the evening feast. There will be candied fruits, meat pies, vegetable pasties, and piles of freshly baked bread. I myself have prepared a fragrant soup made from dried vegetables and herbs grown in my garden, boiled in a bone broth.

Sleet has been begging all morning to come with me. I shouldn’t have told him about the celebrations. Of course he would want to come, any child would! I’ve told him again and again why he and Arra must stay home, but he only threw a tantrum. I lost my temper and scolded him harshly, then immediately regretted it when he burst into tears.

I’ve promised to come home early and bring him treats, and that we could play games, just the three of us, all day tomorrow. He seems somewhat mollified, but I still feel terrible. If only I knew how to tell the rest of the village about them. I hate keeping such a big secret from everyone. And I especially hate keeping Sleet and Arra isolated like this. I will have to think very hard over the next few weeks about how I can bring the village to accept them.

Ach, look at how high the sun has risen already! I must away if I want to arrive back home before the sun sets!

December 25th, 737: Evening

What do I truly know about dragons? I’ve never met a dragon or wyvern besides Sleet and Arra. I assumed because they were babies, they were innocent. I assumed if I raised them and loved them, they wouldn’t be dangerous.

I was wrong.

December 26th, 737

I ought to elaborate on what I wrote last night.

I didn’t enjoy myself at the Yuletide celebration nearly as much as I thought I would. Though there was drink, good food, and even better company in abundance, I found myself too preoccupied with worry to appreciate it. I had left Sleet in such a despondent mood, and Arra has been so agitated lately that I found myself loathe to leave them alone all day. Still, it had been so long since I’d spent quality time with my family that I forced myself to stay. And perhaps, I thought, seeing me join in the festivities might also dispel some of the nastier rumours circulating about how I’d ‘gone odd.’

I don’t know how well that worked, but most of the villagers were warm and welcoming, going out of their way to ask me how I’d been and if I needed anything. My anxious mood aside, it was good to be amongst other humans again.

Though I meant to leave quite early, I found myself making my way home hours after the sun had retired below the horizon. My father, Brian, and Brian’s wife, Alyss, were going to walk with me as far as the family farm. They tried to convince me to let them walk me to my door, but I insisted that was unnecessary.

It was bitterly cold. We had only come four or five furlongs from village proper, wading through ankle-deep snow, when we saw a dark mound rising out of the otherwise untouched blanket of white. Curious, Brian approached it. As he got close, he let out a hoarse cry.

We all rushed over. In a huddled and broken heap lay Buckwheat, our sweet and faithful sheepdog. He was so old, I thought he must have finally been unable to withstand the freezing temperature.

But as Father leant closer with his lantern, we saw that he’d died of neither age nor exposure. From the neck down, his hide was torn to ribbons, and something had eaten the soft flesh of his belly.

Living on a farm, I am no stranger to death. I’m accustomed to seeing livestock die of age and illness, or slaughtering and dressing them myself. I hunt and fish and trap as well. But there is something inherently different between killing an animal as humanely as possible for food and finding your beloved family dog torn to shreds.

I turned away from the sight, swallowing down my rising bile.

‘What in the Angels’ names’, breathed Father, his voice shaken. ‘What animal could have done this?’

Brian looked for tracks, but they’d already been covered by fresh snowfall.

‘Foxes?’ said Alyss, looking as queasy as I felt.

‘Buckwheat may’ve been long in the tooth’, Father grunted, ‘but he was still strong and wily. I don’ think foxes could have got the better of him.’

‘A wild dog, maybe?’

Father scratched his chin. ‘Mayhaps. Don’ think I ever seen one, though. We take good care of our dogs here. Don’ just turn them away to go wild in the forest.’

‘It’s been a hard winter. Any other wild animals coming out, looking for food?’

Father gazed down for a while, chewing his lip. ‘I can’ think of any wild beasts in our valley this strong or vicious. But’, he said after a pause, ‘there was that dragon.’

The silence that followed was deafening.

‘But it was so little. It couldn’t have survived, right?’ said Brian, his voice cracking. ‘And if it did, we’d have seen it around before, right?’

‘Don’ know’, Father said curtly.

I felt the bottom of my stomach drop. It couldn’t have been. Buckwheat had been a friend and companion to them, stopping by often during his daily patrols to play. And Arra knew better than to come out this far. Or rather, Sleet knew better than to let him.

Brian took off his cloak and covered Buckwheat with it. Hopefully, it would deter any more wild animals from ravaging his corpse until he and Father could return in the morning to give him a proper burial.

There was no talking them out of escorting me all the way home now. I prayed that Sleet and Arra would hear us coming and hide since it was too cold to keep the goose out by the path. She was snug in the barn with my cow, hens, and goats.

Maybe, a dark thought drifted up from the depths of my mind, it would be better if they did find the dragons and stop this before it goes any further.

I immediately crushed it. There was absolutely no proof whatsoever Arra was the culprit. He wouldn’t savagely tear apart his playmate like that, no matter how hungry and restless he was.

As we approached my cottage, I let out a silent sigh of relief. No sounds could be heard inside.

‘Goodnight, Father. Goodnight, Brian, Alyss’, I said as loudly as I could, so Sleet and Arra would know I wasn’t alone.

‘Erm, goodnight, daughter’, Father winced and rubbed his ear. ‘Ye keep safe. Don’ leave yer house after dark or go into the woods until we’ve found the beast responsible for this.’

I assured him I wouldn’t, and hurried inside. I watched the light of Father’s lantern bob back down the path until it faded into the distance.

It was pitch dark inside, so I lit a rushlight by feel and turned to greet my charges. They were both fast asleep in front of the hearth, and to my surprise, Tip-Toe was snuggled up beside them. The fire had burnt down to glowing embers, so I piled on fresh wood and stoked it until it was bright and crackling again. I tried my best to be quiet, not wanting to disturb them.

How could I have possibly suspected Arra, even for a moment? I thought fondly, as I looked at them curled up together with the cat. There couldn’t possibly be a sweeter sight in the world.

As I was getting up to change into my nightclothes, something odd caught my eye in the flickering firelight. Something was clinging to the corner of Arra’s muzzle. I bent down to gently wipe it away and stopped. Blood. There was blood on his muzzle. And stuck to it, several long, brindled hairs. The same exact length and colour as Buckwheat’s.

A chill ran down my spine.

By the remnants of my rushlight, I wrote last night’s entry, shaken to my core.

Today, I’m not sure how I feel. Sleet and Arra woke this morning, cheerful and affectionate. Sleet asked me question after question about the celebration yesterday.

He must have known something was off because he asked if I was all right. I felt honesty was best, so I told him and Arra about Buckwheat, watching them closely for their reaction. They were both sad over the loss of their playmate, though I noted, not as shocked by the news as I would have thought.

Even so, it felt wrong to assume any guilt. I couldn’t be sure those hairs came from Buckwheat, and attacking him would be wildly out of character for them. True, Arra may rip up baskets, knock over pots, and gnaw on wooden table legs, but I’ve never seen him kill anything bigger than a rabbit.

I want to believe the best of them. Yet I cannot deny I’m still anxious, and I plan to watch them more closely. It would be irresponsible not to until I know the truth.

December 29th, 737

It’s Saturday, and that means market day in the village proper. I took my usual basket of fresh eggs and goat’s milk to trade. As I went about my business, I couldn’t help overhearing the daily gossip. Only instead of the usual: ‘You won’t believe what Angus said..!’ or ‘Did you hear what my lad Baron did?’ the talk was far more disturbing.

It turns out Buckwheat wasn’t the only victim on Yuletide. Several sheep from Dawson’s flock had been mutilated in the same way.

Surely Arra couldn’t have done all that in one night.

February 5th, 738

I’ve just gotten incredible news! Alyss is with child! I know she and Brian have been trying for so long, and I can’t wait to meet my new niece or nephew.

Though belts are still tight and the relief of spring feels a long ways off, a ray of sunshine has permeated through the oppressive gloom of winter. Tonight I’ll be having supper with the whole family to celebrate. I’m brewing a batch of my famous vegetable soup to bring. Goodness, I’m already itching to start knitting little clothes!

February 26th, 738

Everything’s been a flurry of activity as Brian and Alyss prepare for the family’s new addition. My hands are aching from so much knitting, but I know that Alyss is glad for the help. I’ve also started weaving a basket-cradle and have prepared herbs from my stores to help Alyss with her pregnancy symptoms. They don’t seem too bad yet, but better to prepare too much than too little!

Being busy is good. It keeps my mind off other things. Several more sheep, a cat, and two other dogs have been found dead, all of them torn apart and half-eaten just like Buckwheat. We still haven’t found whatever is responsible. It must be very clever; it never seems to leave any tracks or trails behind.

OOF! A no-longer-so-little dragon is crawling into my lap right this moment. He must weigh nearly five stone by now! Ach, and I've spilt my ink. I’ll have to end this entry here. He’s making his purring arra sound, and I can’t bear to ignore him any longer.