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Short Story: Hilda's First Encounter With Denize

This story is written from the perspective of Hilda, a pillager who first appeared in the Fudge Fjords episode of Candy Crush Saga. She describes her first encounter with the dragon Denize who resembles the kind that's the figurehead on her ship. This story also features a few call-backs to other episodes from the game. See if you can find them all!

Today I set out on a treasure hunt. At first, it seemed like all the ones I went on before.

But this one was different.

I began roaming some grassy fields after I stepped off my dragon-shaped boat. Many minutes later, a long shadow suddenly loomed in front of me, and then I heard a female voice say behind me, "Hello there, little one."

I turned around to see who said this greeting and my eyes were assaulted by the sight of a towering, serpentine beast standing before me on study legs, with jagged jaws and thorny spikes running down her long spine. A dragon! It has been such a long time since my people saw such a legendary creature. Having been briefed on how dangerous they could be, my defensive instincts kicked in as I held my shiny lollipop hammer en guarde.

Suddenly, the dragon then said, "Whoa, whoa, put that down! Look. I don't find humans like you very tasty," holding her tiny clawed hands out.

With some relief, I then strained to look up at the dragon and replied, "That's nice to know, because if you did, I could smash your knees out with my new hammer." She then saw something interesting in my new weapon and then decided to ask me, "So...how did you get that weapon?"

I then said, "A little girl named Tiffi forged it for me."

The name somehow suddenly rang a bell for this beast. "Tiffi, you say...? Well, that's a very familiar name, actually," she said. And to that, I asked how. She then replied, "This Tiffi you speak of did help me before. You see, my favorite food isn't anything alive. Never has been. It's a fancy treat called zongzi, and it gives me a sweet burst of energy. A great while ago, I was going to be in a river race at the Delightful Docks, but somehow I just didn't have anything left in the tank right at the moment. As I sat on the docks, thinking maybe I'll have to sit out this time, Tiffi happened to have my favorite bite on hand when I needed it and, boom, I just blew the whole competition out of the water, as I've done before. You see, swimming is one of several things I'm good at. People say I can swim 100 knots an hour, if I could exactly figure out what that is."

"I too don't know what a knot is, but if you're talking a hundred," I then commented, "then that's really, really fast. Not even my boat over there can keep up with you." She then briefly glimpsed at the boat and noticed that it looked like her. "Ooh, that's an interesting-looking boat. Why'd you make it look like a dragon?" she then asked.

"My people fear dragons like you," I answered. "They look tough and scary. Although I don't exactly remember if they actually hurt us. And we wanted to adopt their ferocity in our raids. But strangely, they've been quite hard to find most of the time." Then, I decided to ask the dragon, "Just how many of you are out there, anyway?"

The dragon slightly frowned as she only had this for an answer: "Well, to be honest, I have no idea. Other than my husband and kids, I haven't seen anyone else of my kind."

I was slightly underwhelmed by her reply, but when she brought up her family, I wanted to continue the conversation, asking, "So, you have a family?"

"Yep. We all live at a sparkling lemonade lake. Tiffi was there too when the lake ran dry and the valve that dispensed the lemonade inexplicably gummed up, leaving my hubby very unhappy until she fixed it. He enjoys the lake so much that he drank too much and couldn't breathe fire anymore!"

"Well, that's unfortunate," I commented upon hearing his mishap.

"I still love him. It's no big deal," she replied. Then she said, "By the way, I didn't catch your name. What is it?"

I introduced myself. "I'm Hilda. A young, fearless treasure hunter and pillager." The dragon then replied with a more interesting name. "You can call me Denize. That's Denise with a Z."

"It's nice to see you, Miss Denize," I then said, before asking her, "By the way, what's with the weird spelling of your name?"

To this, Denize replied, "You may dispense with the formalities. And my name is spelled differently simply because my parents wanted me to be someone special."

I then asked her, "Are your folks still around?"

Denize then answered, "I don't know, and it's been a long time since I've seen them. But I'm sure they'd be sooo proud to see me all grown up at the ripe age of over 200. I've come a long way from being a little hatchling that's almost as big as you, and we dragons still don't even consider that age to be 'old'."

I was quite taken aback at the insane lifespan of these beasts. It's not every day you get to meet a friendly one. But in the interest of time, I had to move on. "I'm very pleased to see a friendly dragon like you, Denize. And if you could please excuse me, I've got some treasure to hunt."

Denize then said, "It was nice seeing you around too, Hilda. Maybe someday we could both see this Tiffi we both know about. If you ever see her, tell her I said hi."

I then replied, "You too. And maybe I could see your kids as well later on and realize how fast you all can grow. See you later." We then briefly shook hands, which Denize had to do with her tail because her arms are way too short, before we parted ways. Now if only I could convince my folks that what little they know about dragons was about to change.

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