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Once upon a time, there was a small red songbird nestled in between a dragon's horns, asleep. It is important to understand that this is an unusual occurrence— songbirds are told to stay away from dragons, and for good reason, seeing as many birds have died in dragons' fiery breath. This particular songbird had a fondness for messing with things larger than him, however, and he'd never been good at following rules. Luckily for him, this dragon had never been all that interested in eating songbirds, either. No, this particular dragon was much more content to carve out contraptions of any sort than to do any of the burning-villages or hoarding-gold sort of nonsense activities that were stereotypical of dragons his size.
And this is the peculiar pair our story will follow— a little red songbird, whom we will come to know was called Grian, and a large black-scaled dragon, whom we will call Mumbo. They lived in a grand mountain range, nestled in the northernmost corner of a faraway island— and that is where our story starts.
- How a Songbird befriends a Dragon
Ever since the songbird had learned to fly, he’d loved it. The sky held infinite possibilities, and Grian wanted to explore them all, forever flying closer to his namesake.
However, flight was not the only thing Grian loved. He was mischievous, a trickster, and while his pranks were always in good fun, his presence came to be associated with a certain amount of chaos in the flock. While most of the other birds enjoyed Grian’s antics, there was one group that hated them and took to watching his every move, waiting for the day he would go too far and they could force him to stop.
Grian knew this, and for a time, he kept his pranks and tricks far away from them, not wanting to sow any real discord amidst the flock. He had no particular desire to draw the wrath of the watchers (as he’d started referring to the group in his thoughts), but he’d never liked being told what to do, and the longer he went without stirring up some sort of excitement in the flock, the harder it became to remain in acquiescence.
When the tension became too much to bear— one of Grian’s more explosive pranks had gone off a little too close to one of the watchers’ favorite berry bushes, and though no birds nor berries were harmed, the watchers had retaliated by hiding his nest-building supplies so that he couldn’t access any of his things— he flew away for good.
His wings began to ache as he flew over a seemingly endless expanse of trees and the sun slid lower and lower in the sky. Unwilling to stop, unwilling to risk the watchers finding him and dragging him back to that place where nothing interesting ever happened, he grew so tired that he didn’t even notice when he entered the cave, the light outside already having weakened to the point where he couldn’t see more than a few inches ahead.
Not long after he entered the cave, however, he admitted to himself that he needed to rest, and he carefully landed, flying slowly to account for the fact that he could barely see. The surface he landed on was cool and smooth, unlike the rough bark of a tree that’s been sitting under the sun all day, but in his exhaustion, he paid the strange texture no mind.
In fact, Grian didn’t notice that anything was wrong at all until the next morning, when he woke up to the sight of large, sharp talons encircling him and keeping him trapped. He turned around, desperately hoping to see an opening he could fly away through, but instead of open air he was met with a gigantic red eye, glowing faintly in the dim light.
Now, if this were any other story, or if it had been a dragon of a different sort that Grian had found himself in the claws of, that fiery eye very well might have been the last thing Grian ever saw. But instead, the dragon just let out a sleepy sigh and mumbled, "What's this?"
Grian was wishing he'd never left his flock, but it was too late to go back, with a dragon's claws surrounding him and keeping him trapped. The giant eye blinked beside him, and the claws separated just enough for the dragon to get a slightly better view of Grian's tiny form.
"A bird!" The dragon let out a laugh. Everything Grian had ever been taught about dragons had prepared him to be scared if the dragon ever started laughing, but the laugh seemed so plainly good-natured that Grian couldn't bring himself to be afraid. "There aren't many birds around here anymore."
Grian wanted to come back with a clever response, something like, 'that's probably because you ate all the birds who used to live here,' but he had enough presence of mind to refrain from taunting the dragon who literally held Grian's life in the palm of his clawed hands. Instead, Grian kept quiet, anxiously waiting to see what the dragon would say next.
"Would you like something to eat?" The dragon asks. "I'm afraid I mostly eat the local vegetation, but you might find that more enjoyable than the other dragons do. I suppose"
The dragon seemed nice enough, so Grian agreed to eat with him. After they shared the meal and properly introduced themselves to each other, it was clear that the the two were meant to be friends, their different species and sizes clearly of no importance the minute they started teasing each other and falling into a comfortable rhythm of conversation.
That night, Grian flew up to sleep between the two great horns on Mumbo's head, and he found that it was much more comfortable there than anywhere he'd ever slept back with his flock.
- How a Dragon Befriends a Songbird
Mumbo can't deny that he's been much happier since the night Grian flew into his cave. True, the little bird has a knack for getting all tangled up with Mumbo's redstone, nearly always breaking it in the process, but if anything, that just pushes Mumbo to create even more reliable contraptions. Mumbo had been so lonely in his cave before Grian came along, and having a friend is a wonderful change, even if that friend does happen to be every redstone engineer's worst nightmare when it comes to button-pushing habits. Grian brings a burst of fun, chaotic energy that Mumbo's little (for a dragon) cave had been sorely lacking.
Sharing his cave with Grian was definitely been an adjustment. Mumbo wasn't used to being around someone so small, and sometimes it took him a while to figure out where, exactly, his friend was, which wasn't helped by Grian's penchant for zooming about at high speeds. It was all worth it, though. Mumbo hadn't been unhappy before Grian had inadvertently wandered into his life, but he'd been somewhat lonely. It was easy to fall into a rhythm of teasing Grian and being teased back, and Mumbo had even started gently picking Grian up and scooping him into a pot whenever a redstone project is in a particularly delicate phase of development. Grian could fly out any time he wanted to, but it was more fun for both of them if Grian playfully complained about the horrors of being small (Grian never seemed to mind his size when he curled up on Mumbo's head to sleep.)
The unlikely pair spent many peaceful (or not-so-peaceful, depending on whether or not Grian was doing a particularly elaborate prank) days together, and before long, the idea that there was a time when the two weren't friends began to seem absolutely ludicrous.
- How an Elf Joins the Group
Scar knew his duty. As one of the King's loyal knights, he had to go to the cave in the outskirts of the woods and slay the dragon that lives there. It was too much of a threat to the kingdom, according to the King, but Scar thought that was nonsense. Anyone who had ever done any research on dragons at all knew that the legends misrepresented them---sure, they tended to hoard things, but that's about where the similarities between myth-dragon behavior and actual-dragon behavior ended. Actual dragons were, if one were to make a generalization, fairly similar to Scar's general idea of humans: mostly just wanting to relax and not be messed with by people wanting to kill them.
Scar made his camp a short distance away from the entrance to the cave. It was still early in the afternoon when Scar finished setting up his tent, but he decided to relax for the day and deal with the dragon in the morning. After all, maybe he'd have an idea for what to do that didn't end with him killing the dragon or being killed by the King for refusing to complete a mission. It was a tricky situation he'd found himself in, but Scar had been in tricky situations before. He could get himself out of this.
Hopefully.
The sun rose much too early, in Scar's opinion. The King wanted proof that Scar had done the deed, which meant that Scar couldn't just wait out here for a reasonable length of time to be fighting a dragon and then head back. Reluctantly, Scar dons his armor and heads into the dragon's cave. Maybe he could convince the dragon to give up some gold (if the being has a hoard) and bring that to the King as proof. It's the best option he can see, at the moment.
He's immediately surprised to see a little bird flitting around the dragon's head. It's a pretty cute scene, actually. He felt quite bad about interrupting it---in full armor, nonetheless---and he took a step backward, trying to sneak out and find some other way to fool the King into thinking he'd slain the dragon. He couldn't afford to lose his knighthood. It was the only thing keeping food on his table.
Before he could go anywhere, though, there was a very angry bird in his face, and Scar's vision was filled with flapping wings.
"Don't you dare hurt Mumbo!"
Scar blinked a few times, partly due to the bird wings and partly out of sheer shock. Okay, he thought. There's a talking bird. And I guess this Mumbo is... the dragon?
"Trust me, I don't want to."
"You have a sword at your side. Is this a 'I don't want to but I have to' kind of thing?"
Scar shook his head. "I just need some way to trick the King into thinking I've killed Mumbo. Maybe a bit of gold?"
The dragon inched closer, and great red eyes fixed an impressive stare on Scar. "I don't hoard gold."
"Ah," Scar said, shifting his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. "I can't go back to the city without some sort of proof."
"Don't go back to the city then," the bird said.
"What, I should just live out here?" Scar asked, indignant, but after a few moments an idea occurred to each one of them at the same time.
"It would be nice to have a human to help out," the bird said. "You could defend us from humans and other humans."
"As long as you leave the sword in my safekeeping at night," Mumbo said. "Welcome to our cave. I'm Mumbo, and that's Grian."
"I'm Scar." Handing over his sword, Scar bowed. Mumbo returned the gesture with a dip of his head.
And thus, a human came to join the dragon and the songbird. The three of them lived long, happy lives together, full of adventure and shenanigans, and they all lived happily ever after.