(Note--I've changed the name Selethra to Eldra, simply because it's a better name than Selethra. But I'm still struggling. If you have any better ideas, please tell me about them! I would appreciate it very much, perhaps enough to reveiw something...lol)
CHAPTER 1
Eldra shifted into a more comfortable position. Tell me about that man you called your master, she asked.
Conan smiled grimly. "Strange old man," he started, sending the dragon a mental image of the man with the hard, scowling features and wild gray hair. "Cross, hubris, fould old goat."
Doesn't sound like you enjoyed him that much, the silver dragon commented with an ammused air. Then, suddenly serious, she send him a memory of Conan when he was nine, falling to the ground under the mental attack of the senior Hunter. How did that man get in your mind?
He shuddered. "Not voulantarily."
What do you mean?
The youth bit his lip, thinking. His mental connection with Eldra wasn't a new thing, but even though their communication link had just resently grown complex enough to excahnge words, he still liked to speak out loud. His human lips and tongue seemed to be the only thing separating him from dragons, and though he loved the dragons very much, forgetting what he was frightened him.
"My master got in my mind the same way all senior Hunters get in to their apprentices' minds," he explained. "There's a special spell that can connect minds, one that requires rare ingrediants. And it can be very...unpleasant if you're not very eager to connect." He watched as the last sliver of the golden sun sank behind the vast abbyss of the evergreen forest. "I never enjoyed deer-hunting, and knew that hunting dragons would only be worse."
Eldra's long neck snaked back to better look at the youth beside her. SHe had grown a little since the night he had met her. Then, her head had risen seven feet over the ground. Now she was just under eight.
Time in the dragon society seemed to strech, his short days flashing by the long dragonic years. Dragons lived longer; it only made sense that they should mature slower, too.
Maybe their sense of time was the reason why they were called drag-ons.
Tell me about your father, Eldra asked him, her silver scales slimmering in the last dying rays of the sun.
Conan pursed his lips. "I don't have much memory of him. His face is a blur, now."
Why do you have a better memory of you master than that of your own father?
"I never spent any time with him. My master was the one who taught me all I needed to know to survive as a Hunter. I had meals with him, we shared a room for sleeping and whatever little possessions we had...by law, I was not allowed to leave his side until I was officially claimed a Hunter by the Order."
Eldra bent her head low to clean her claws, her long, pink tongue sliding over her deadly talons. Conan recongized it as one of her angry habits, whenever she was frustrated or annoyed and tried to keep calm anyways.No dragon liked the mention of the Order of the Hunt, and Eldra was popular among her clan for her love to shred Hunters.
Conan gazed up at the sky, the first flickering starts emerging from the sky, fading slowly from dark blue to black. "Why didn't you kill me?" he asked finally. It was the same question that had burned him for seven years. He had never been able to portray it in the simple, primitative connection they had had before, and for hours he had patiently answered Eldra's questions. He knew she wanted to know more about him and his past than the simple memories and images he was able to send her. "Why did you choose me to live?"
She raised her head, gazing at him, still as a pure silver boulder. Finally, she sent him an image of a Hunter of about thirty, lunging at her with a deadly iron knife and a feral, savage gleam in his eyes.
Knowing that Conan didn't like the memories of her gruesome encounters with other Hunters, she abruptly cut the memorical link and explained simply, That man is in several interesting shapes now.
THen she sent him an image of young Conan, trembling with fear, stepping towards her with reluctance and indecision. No feral, savage glare. Just child-like innocence, brutally controlled by older, more powerful men.
How could I kill you?
Conan smiled and leaned against her shoulder, a small smile creeping up his lips. "It's cold," he said. "Perhaps you could breath a little fire and warm me up?"
Eldra huffed indigantly. Common myth, nothing more, She snorted. [Whether created by humans or dragons, most common myths are false.[/i] then slowly she grinned wolfishly, a sight that would have scared Conan witless if he hadn't been used to it. Perhaps if you wore some warmer clothes...
Conan tugged at the loose, crude wolfskin tunic he wore and the rough deerskin pants. "You first. Make some fire."
She laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that used to make Conan jump.
The youth laughed and smiled at the surrounding forest, running a hand through his long, platinum hair. He had never left the mountains after Eldra had brought him here. Not only because the other dragons didn't trust him enough to let him go, but also because there really was no reason to. Eldra brought him some stray animal she had managed to snag, he would make his clothes (clumsily) out of the useless skins, and dry brush for a fire was not so hard to find in the mountians.
He never found out how Eldra had been able to help him. Back when they had their primitave communications, the dragon had shown him her brother's shocked expressin when she appeared with a human on her back, how she had finally persuaded him to help her revive him, and then moving him to a remote cave where she, her brother, and a handful of other dragons tried to get Conan back to full health. Then she relayed her fear and devastation when he steadily grew worse. The others had been sure that he would die, and left Eldra alone with him the last night he would be alive.
Then, miraculously, he was better the next morning.
Gradually, their patient got better and better, until he finally came to hs sense several months later.
But Conan recongized a...a gap in her memories. She hadn't shown the night they had alone.
When he sent the "gap" feeling back to her with a sense of a question, she had hurled it back at him with a snarl. Ever since, the subject of his resurrection was an awkward subject.
Suddenly, Conan felt Eldra tense uner him. Her fear suddenly flowed through him, making him jump.
"What is it?" he asked.
The dragon was staring at the forest below, growling at a certain sight.
Confused, Conan scanned the forest for something that would distrub her so...then his eyes widened.
A soft orange glow shone fomr the trees at the base of the mountains.
Campers and deer-hunters don't come this far, she said pointedly. Unless they are insane, scuicidal, or both. She gave him a worried glance. Do you recongize anything about him?
"I can't see Eldra...."
With a frustrated huff, the dragon quickly took flight, soaring hurriedly and tightly over the glow, sending Conan the image of a man crouching by the fire, a black dragon's skull embroided across the back. Conan's heart sank.
"Either he's very loyal to one of the Seven Orders..." he started nervously
...Or a Hunter.
"Yes. A Hunter."
THey both were silent for a while as Eldra started flying back towards the mountains, wings flapping hard for more speed. Let's get back to the Clan. Quickly![/b]
