Nesbit

The dragon unsheathed its claws as it arched its back, yawning with its whole, lithe body, and curled its broom of a tail at its side as it sat back on its haunches. The creature continued to stare at the line of light that slit across the bottom of the massive stone and steel door that locked it within the cave. Fur. The tail swished idly, back and forth, a metronome knocking down moments impatiently given. The slit. It was scarce high enough to admit the saucers of bread and cream the guardsmen fed the creature. Yes, once the dragon too had been massive, once his bulk had barely allowed him admission into the cave, through the door that now loomed towering and black before him. Once his tail had swept down villages and mounted knights in armor, mounts and all, with as much thought as that which the creature now gave to each passing flick of this furry mass attached to his rear. But now… now he was as soft as the bread that soaked in the saucer of cream.

A shadow had dimmed the light beneath the door and the saucer had scraped towards him across the stones, pushed by a long pole. The pole had to be long. The door was the width of a broad bull, a broad bull reinforced with spellcraft and cunning. Perhaps the sharpest sword had failed to pierce his hide, but a wizard had pierced his mind and led him into captivity, like a puppet, like a dog.

And yet now, now… how had he grown so feline? And why?

He pondered the old question as he lapped at the saucer; cream jiggled like fat dew from his whiskers while he gnawed at the bread with his diminutive fangs. Likely it was some potion dissolved into the food they allowed him, food that had at first come to him in barrels, back when the door had opened on occasion. The wizard would seize him then, and he would have no other power left him but that of observation - and that blessed gift had never done him any good. He’d watched as the containers had shrunk with him, from barrel to trough, from cauldron to cooking pot, until finally the saucer had scraped across the stones and ever since the door had remained shut.

It remained shut, and the wizard did not come. The dragon did not smell him, he did not feel him, and the saucer of milk and bread did not fill the creature’s belly, though he ate every damp morsel and lapped up the last droplet.

The dragon retired to clean his whiskers, licking at the back of a paw he kept busily massaging his furry face. It was quiet. It was always quiet. Amusement came when a guard or a boy - because sometimes they sent boys - struggled to fish the saucer out of the cave and back under the door with the pole. There were prongs, meant to hook beneath the lip of the saucer. But when the dragon batted at the pole or stood upon the lip of the saucer to have it lift out of the prongs, the boys and men seemed to have no choice but to persist.

The dragon allowed them the saucer when he saw fit. Until that time, the saucer was his.

But today, no one came for the saucer. The dragon waited. In time he slept, but the saucer was where he had left it when he woke. And they brought him another saucer.

The bread was bigger. It had been squished down into the cream to fit beneath the door, and the dragon watched it rise slowly, a little crookedly, with wrinkled and slightly torn patches that didn’t unwrinkle, until it had regained the essence of its original shape like the resilient and hungry fat sponge that it was.

Curious.

The broom of a tail flicked out the moments, patting softly against the stones. A tufted, pointed ear twitched. The dragon licked its mouth, and then padded forwards and began to lap. A bitter taste curled his little pink tongue.

The taste was not entirely bitter, for it was still cream, but there was the hint of herb magic in this potion. The dragon drank it and ate the spongy bread, and the emptiness that had plagued his belly was temporarily relieved.