Allright, before we begin, I must make this CLEAR. I wrote this 3-4 years ago. My writing style and writing level have changed since then. Just keep that in mind.
Chapter 1
Crying is messy
I hate crying.
Crying is what got me into this mess in the first place. You see when I cry I hiccup and
when I hiccup, I sneeze and when I sneeze, I sneeze fire. Yes that’s right, fire.
I, am a dragon. My best friend is a boy called Alex. He lives in the next village over.
Actually it’s the only village around here. At least until you come to Saramis, which
stands right on the edge of the Trutina forest. I accidentally set some of it on…ah…fire.
The village by which I live I mean.
It wasn’t my fault. Ok, maybe it was. But it was only it was only an old, small, shack
that was filled with pestilent rats and lice and fleas. The rats were okay with me; I probably
would have eaten them anyway. It’s the lice and fleas that bother me. For one thing they
get under my scales and then they itch. It takes forever to clean them out. The
second reason is that building was just full of diseases. Probably. If any of it got out then
the entire village would be doomed. But that’s not the entire story. No, it’s
just the beginning.
How was I supposed to know, although I should have guessed, that the entire village
would vote unanimously to go to the nearest outpost and bring a knight back
to…uh…finish me off, with only one vote opposed. Alex’s argument had to many holes in
it to be legitimate. So now I have angry villagers on one side of me and a trained knight (or
knights) galloping towards the village on the other. I’m a peace-loving dragon. Most of the
time. I was told that when I was younger, I was really terrifying. I like tea, tea cozies, and
books. I’m only a 114, practically a teenager. Too dragons at least. How am I
supposed to defend myself against a knight or two? I, was in trouble.
~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~
Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself. The story doesn’t actually start here. It started when
Alex found me. Or, to be more precise, I, Sylvester, found Alex the Shepherd. He was lost. He had been wandering around for, quite a long time really, before I stumbled upon him. Literally, I almost squashed him. I was looking for mushrooms and new tea ideas. I do love tea. But I told you that already didn’t I? The particulars for this point are that Alex screamed, and almost fainted when I screamed too.
In reality it was more like a roar than a scream. Must have terrified the poor boy. Alex
then valiantly tried to protect his flock from me. From me! Me the dragon who never harms
anybody. Of course Alex didn’t know that.
What a lovely way to meet someone, almost turning them into cream of human soup and
then terrifying them into thinking that you’re going to eat their livestock. Great first
impression. You’ll note I’m being sarcastic. It took me quite awhile to calm him down; in
fact I had to shut his mouth with a bit of dragon magic. Fortunately he seemed rooted to the
spot after I had blown smoke in his direction. I had to make him swear not to tell another
soul that I lived there, so, after that I took him to my cave.
Quite a lovely set-up, if I do say so myself. Just a couple animals to run out. Including a bear, some bats, a badger, and various angry singed squirrels. It wasn’t quite well decorated when I first moved in just some dried leaves and quite a collection of droppings too. I refined the size of some of the rooms to accommodate my large size. Although I guess I could have used my magic pink pebble. It allows me to shrink or grow in size howsoever I wish. It caused rather a few problems when I was younger involving hide and seek though.
Where was I? Oh yes, Alex. He’s one of the shepherds for the village. When I brought him to my cave he kept trying to escape and when he couldn’t find some small way out he started to beg me not to eat him, this was after I had unstopped his mouth. I laughed I’m sorry to say and he cowered again. Watching him cower stopped my laughter right away. I let him speak, and then told him I was not going to eat him.
“I don’t eat humans, dwarves, elves or any such creature like that.” I went to great lengths to reassure him that I wasn’t as cruel as the dragons in the north, great big brutes, those horrible bullies.
“I’m s-sorry your g-great hugeness, f-for screaming and… my general terror. I-its just I’ve
heard so many s-stories about dragons eating people, stealing beautiful maidens, and uh
stuff like that.” He slowly trailed off. I think he realized just who and what he was talking to. I snorted
“Rubbish,” and went to make some tea. Alex, who I didn’t know was Alex, sat
rigidly in his seat, I had taken some wonderful antique pieces from a drafty old castle that
had been abandoned, it was then that ambrosia my wonderful cat walking gracefully into
the room. She sat, and observed the stiff youth.
“Seems that you’ve scared him Sylvester dear,” she observed in my head with thought, “Shall I go sit in his lap? Ooh, maybe I’ll get my chin scratched,” happily to me. Without waiting for an answer she padded over to the boy. Staring up at him she meowed loudly. Alex jumped, and then, when he saw it was a cat, relaxed visibly. Ambrosia jumped to his lap and elegantly sat there and rubbed her face under his chin. When he scratched behind her ears her purring became audible across the room. Then he gently chucked her under her chin.
“This boy is good, and no offense Silvy, but you just can’t get in the right places.” She thought-spoke to me.
“I know I can’t, you silly feline. If I tried, you’d become nothing but shredded fur.” I
thought back.
Setting down the teapot, and two mugs, I poured the tea and carefully gave to Alex. who by now seemed to have gotten used to the idea of talking dragons. He jumped again almost
spilling his tea when he realized I had become shorter than before. Now I was only slightly
taller than him. His hands started shaking again too.
“How did you do that?” his voice quivered, “Get smaller I mean.”
“I used this.” I held up the chain around my neck it had the pink pebble tied with wire onto
it. “It allows me to change my size. It’s very useful for dragons that want to hide. Humans
are rarely magical, so they can’t use it.”
“Oh,” there was a pause before the boy continued, “well that explains a lot.”
“I apologize for not introducing myself properly, I am Sylvester Milchweather Pendragon
(we Pendragons come from a long and sophisticated line of historians and book writers,
thus the name) the first. I am very pleased to meet you.”
“And I am Alexander Smith of Trigin. My mother likes big names.”
“And this,” I said pointing to ambrosia, “is Ambrosia, my cat.”
The introductions were complete. That, is how I met Alex.
Alex became a regular visitor to my cave, he even helped me further furnish it. Because
he brought his dinner with him while he did his job as one of the shepherds of the village,
he could always dine with Ambrosia and me. And I always joined him while he watched
over the sheep of the village. While in the woods, I could teach him about the right herbs
for fevers, colds, and various illnesses. And I completed his training in wood lore. Dragons
have to hide from prying eyes so I am very good at hiding.
To pass the time Alex would sometime tell me about his family his annoying little
brother his frustrating parents and his nosy older sister. After relating a funny incident that
had involved a spider, a bucket, and his sister, he asked about my wonderful tea cozies in
had sitting on the shelves he built in the main room. He thought they were play toys for
Brosia, ‘cause they look all tangled up’. I then indignantly told him that they were sets of
tea cozies and I had one for each day, for different feelings, and even for different teas,
there’s even a special on for birthdays that looked like cake. He apologized for thinking
they were unimportant and said he understood about the different feelings different tea
cozy ‘thing’. He didn’t seem too sure about though.
He also liked to show off his “sword skills” with sticks. Apparently his father was the village blacksmith and he had taught Alex how to fight with the long ugly things. He’s quite good at it I’ll admit though I don’t know a thing about the subject, except that the long shiny thing is what you stick straight through the guts and some mumbo-jumbo terms about the sword itself. Alex broke quite a few sticks and de-leafed numerous bushes.
When I would fly off too get things or when I was arriving I would see Alex looking up at
me, and with my vision I would see the expression on his face. It was a mixture of longing
and fear. When I asked him if he would like to try flying, he went sort of pale and looked
positively green around the gills. I swiftly changed the subject to earth related things. I
guessed that he had fear of heights. Later he confirmed this and I encouraged him to climb
trees and small cliffs, I thought maybe it would help him. The first time he tried he couldn’t
climb down and I had to help him. With agonizing slowness he seemed to get better at the
heights.
A large forest filled with many different kinds of trees, surrounds my cave. It also has
several good size hills too. It provides excellent camouflage for protection from woodsman and villagers. Although it won’t help if that knight comes looking for me. Ah, I am back to the beginning aren’t I? Well before I start, there are a couple of things that did happen before the beginning of the end.
For one, Alex somehow got over his fear of heights because his sheep kept climbing higher than him. And after all he had to keep going after them to make sure they wouldn’t slip and fall. I swear I didn’t have anything to do with it. I mean, just for the reason that that I can talk to any being magical or unmagical doesn’t make me a suspect. Another small point that kept occurring was that Alex’s brother, keep in mind his little one, kept following Alex around.
We were almost discovered several times. It was very frustrating for both Alex and me.
The last one is that Alex finally got on my back. You know for flying. It made things so
much easier for Alex and I. he could fly on me over to my cave rather than trudge through
the forest while I had to wait for him.
Alex didn’t need a saddle to ride me because of a smooth spot behind my neck and
between my wings that had no rough edges. A row ridges created perfect handles while my
spines jutted up to form a “back” to the “seat”.
Legend tells that the queen of elves had given dragons this spot because in a battle between the Gryles (great ogre like creatures with cloven hooves and four arms) and the elves with the humans, a human hero had been wounded along with his dragon and were being tended to when a elf runner from the queen told the camp that the Gryles were winning. The man was so distraught he refused further treatment and left to see for himself.
On a hill that the generals were using for overseeing the battle and giving orders was a young dragon whose saddle and rider was missing. He was scanning the battle anxiously. The dragon’s saddle had been slashed off and his rider had been lost. The young man frustrated that the battle was not going well and he could do nothing about it, sulked. The dragon next to him was still scanning the battle when the dragon’s head jerked back in surprise, muttered something, and looked for someone to tell what he had just seen. The only human who didn’t look like an busy ant was the fellow next to him. the dragon asked the young man to look at where the enemies’ leader was.
Frowning he did as he was told. He glanced back quickly at the dragon whose worried face had turned into toothy smile. The man smiled back. What they had seen was the enemies leader alone without his magicians to protect him. He’d sent them out to help with the battle elsewhere. He had thought he was powerful enough to withstand any human, dragon, and elf attack but someone could take him out from behind. The young man grabbed his sword and climbed up to his seat. They took off did the deed and the battle was turned in the good guys favor. Without their leader, the bad guys were useless.
When the young dragon landed his rider was immediately taken to be treated because the rough scales of the dragon had rubbed the thighs of the man raw. The elf queen in a random act of kindness gave all dragons a smooth spot on their back that was harder than any metal and could withstand any weapon.
The night I accidentally burned down the old run down shack at the edge of town, was Alex’s birthday. Instead of Alex coming out with the sheep in the morning like
he usually did, the village sent somebody else. Oh, joy.
All I knew was that it was Alex’s birthday.
Ambrosia and I had planned a small surprise party and I had even made a small
celebration cake (I have opposable thumbs) although it took forever to make and I got out
the birthday tea-cozy. Because of the cake I didn’t get going till after lunch. I had expected
Alex to be where he usually was during the day, a meadow with rock outcroppings.
Someone was there but he wasn’t Alex.
When I settled down on the earth the sheep didn’t even bat an eyelid. They had become quite used to me. The boy who was Alex’s replacement for a day was not. He immediately began screaming bloody murder and then he ran as fast as his twig-like legs could carry him, towards the village. Knowing he would tell the entire village all about me, I rushed to stop him. unfortunately I had forgotten the sheep. Toad’s tears he’s getting away! I thought to myself angrily. I quickly set up for take off. Shooting up into the sky I hovered looking for the escaping boy. No. No. I swung around desperately to find him and…There! I swooped in making sure I didn’t get caught between the branches of the tree. “Wait, stop, please.” I shouted after him clawing my way through the branches. “I’m not trying to harm you! I promise I won’t eat you.” He wasn’t stopping, the sound of breaking foliage continued as he surged forward in his haste. I reached the floor of the forest and hurriedly became smaller. I raced after him again and quickly overtook him. I lunged for his legs tripping him face first into the snow, he screamed again and then, he began pleading.
“Please don’t eat me, plea-ea-ease. I want to live.” This was not some act this was real snot
and tears mixed together in an ugly mess. I stood him up and pushed my snout in his face.
“Stop crying.” I hoped he would soon. First he squeaked and sat down hard on his rump.
then, he fainted. I didn’t know what do for a second. I couldn’t think. I was terrified. I can’t let them find me, I thought desperately. As my imagination supplied the right sounds for the moment.
Scrambling away I dashed for my cave not flying, lest they should see me
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