The Laughing Flames
On the Isle of Scalpay, where the sea gnawed at the shore and the winds roared like distant thunder, there lived a boy with a dragon. He wasn’t the son of any laird or lord—just another lad among the fishing families, his clothes patched and mended, his hands rough from the nets. But there was a spark in him that marked him as different, something the others sensed even if they couldn’t name it. It was in the way he held his head high, his green eyes alight with something most children on the island didn’t dare to dream of.
"At school, everyone laughed at me when I said my friend was a dragon.
But I laughed even more when the school burned."
The schoolchildren talked about him in hushed tones, casting sideways glances as they dared each other to mock his wild stories. The boy told them, with a quiet conviction, of his friend—a dragon with scales like polished sea glass, green as the moss on the rocks after the rain, and eyes that shone with an ancient wisdom. It was his companion, his secret, unseen by those who didn’t believe.
“You’re daft if you think anyone would believe you’ve got a dragon for a friend,” sneered one of the boys, a smirk tugging at his mouth. The others laughed along, their voices high and bright in the cold classroom air.
The boy just shrugged, his lips quirking in a smile that was both knowing and kind. “One day, you’ll see,” he replied softly, as if the truth of his words was as certain as the tide.
One bleak winter’s afternoon, as thick clouds cast shadows over the island and the smell of salt filled the air, a strange heat began to rise in the schoolhouse. The teacher stopped mid-sentence, a frown creasing her face, and glanced toward the windows. Outside, a thin coil of smoke snaked up from the thatched roof, dark and twisting, reaching toward the sky like the fingers of some ancient curse.
“Fire!” came a shriek, piercing the stillness. Panic spread like the flames themselves, children stumbling over desks, grabbing at coats, eyes wide with fear. In the chaos, they barely noticed the boy standing off to the side, watching the rising smoke with a look that was neither afraid nor surprised.
And then he laughed.
It wasn’t a loud laugh, but it cut through the din like the ring of a distant bell. The children froze, confusion clouding their faces. How could he laugh while their school burned? But his smile held a secret, something ancient and unyielding, as if he saw beyond the flames, beyond the smoke.
In that brief, still moment, a flicker of green shimmered in the distance, half-hidden by the haze. Scales, glinting like polished stones, vanished into the shadows with a flash that left the children rubbing their eyes in wonder. The boy’s dragon, as real as the wind that lashed the coast, had come and gone.
When the villagers finally doused the flames, and the last embers smouldered in the charred timbers, they gathered, murmuring and shaking their heads, casting wary glances at the boy who stood alone in the ash. Whispers rose like the smoke—had the fire been truly accidental, or had something older, something unseen, stirred among them that day?
The boy never answered their questions, only gave a small, secretive smile, the kind that made you think he knew more than he let on. After that day, the children of Scalpay thought twice before laughing at his tales. They’d seen the glint of green in the smoke, the shape of something wild and impossible, and in their hearts, they wondered what other mysteries lingered in the shadowed hills and windswept shores of their island home.