Jays chest felt like it was about to blow. He hopped from foot to foot and used his hands as fans to cool himself.
"Chill, little brother. The Dragon Heart Test is nothing to fret about." Said James.
Jay glared at his older brother, who stood as five and a half feet, with his storm gray eyes, and bulging muscles.
"Of course it is! Three out of five dragon hunter apprentices DIE at the test. That's more than half!"
James rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, I'm sure our Father will give you the smallest dragon to kill."
Jay raised his fist, which was a tooth pick compared to most Dragon Hunters. James snorted at him.
"Face it, you're only getting a go at this because you're Fathers son. I'm going to go. Finish getting ready. I'll see you in the ring." James said.
Jay gulped. As James left, he turned to face his choices. Two daggers, a sword, or a bow. He stared at it for a bit, before picking up the sword. He held it tightly in his hands. He tested it out, before sliding it into the sheath and walking out the door. He tried to look confident, but his hands were shaking.
Will Father let me choose not to go? No way. Could I run away? He glanced at all the dragon hunters. Not a chance.
Sooner then he hoped, he found himself at the arena, the nine other apprentices were either hugging their family, or sitting silent in the corner. Jay was the latter. He sat with his knees hugged to his chest, until he heard footsteps.
"Are you ready, Jay?" Asked a kind voice. Jay looked up and saw his Mother. A tall, thin woman with dark brown hair and a small button nose covered in freckles. Well James looked and acted like his Father, Jay favored his Mother. He smiled and hugged her tight.
"Yes, Mom. I'm ready."
She patted his head, tears were forming in her eyes. "Good luck out there. Your Father wants you to go first. You must go for the stomach. It's the only part of them that's not covered in scales." Hesitating for a moment, "Please be careful."
Just as she finished, someone called Jays name, Jay tried to give her a comforting smile, but it came off as one that read, 'Good bye'
Jay entered the arena filled with cheering people. The roof was made from iron, so the dragon couldn't escape, there was gritty sand that somehow got in his shoe. I wonder how much blood was spilt here.
"Go get 'em, my boy!" Shouted his Father from the crowd. Jay gulped, but he put a smile on his face, and tried to look excited, but it only made his mouth twitch.
From a gate, to hunters pulled a green dragon into the ring, its eyes were furious, it thrashed back and forth, when it caught sight of Jay, who was only a couple yards from him, it snarled. The hunters let it go, and ran back for cover just as the dragon tried to wack them with his tail. After the dragon failed to catch them in his claw, it turned, and focused on Jay, who was paralyzed.
"Move, you idiot!" Someone shouted from the stands, this noise startled the dragon, who spread its large wings and tried to flap them to escape, it rose, exposing the dragons belly. smoke began to swirl from the dragons mouth.
That's my cue. Jay thought. He remembered a stunt he'd seen, and tried to slide forward. When the dragon saw him, it barred its teeth, and head-butted Jay with its head, the horns just barely missing him, Jay fell back, the dragons figure stood above him, blocking out the sun. Jay squirmed, tears rolling down his cheeks, he clutched his sword tight.
"Use your sword!" He thought he heard his mom shout from the stands, Jay, without realizing what he was doing, threw his sword at the dragon. It missed, and hit the dragons scales. The dragon fell back in shock, giving Jay just enough time to recover. He charged forward at the dragon, his sword finding the soft flesh of its underbelly, the dragon howled, and collapsed to the ground. It made feeble attempts to get up, but all Jay had to do was put his foot on it to keep him from standing up. He raised his sword, ready for the final blow, this was it!
An arrow soared past his nose. "Get away from her!" Called an unfamiliar voice. Jay stopped, his heart pumping fast, he saw a young girl with a bow and quiver, she had another arrow nocked, and looked ready to shoot.
"She's my partner and friend, now get away from her, or I'll shoot this arrow and finish you right now!" Shouted the girl. Jay backed away slightly, the rest of the crowd reacted.
"Dragon Rider! Get her!" Several people charged at her, they overwhelmed her quickly, Jay watched in terror.
Stop them... A small voice whispered, Jay shook his head. No, Dragon Riders were evil, they were in league with the fire breathing beasts, dragons. She deserved years in prison.
Then he saw a glint of silver.
A sword.
Someone was about to swing it at her.
"Wait!" Jay shouted, his voice breaking from exhaustion. "Don't, she could have- er, useful information." He tried to sound more confident then he felt, but his voice still shook.
The man with the sword glared at him, then back at the girl regretfully as he tugged her to her feet and lead her away, she looked back mournfully, first, Jay thought it was for him, but then he looked behind him and saw the dragon, its eyes were half closed, the strike was more powerful then Jay thought, and blood was dripping from it. At first, Jay was proud, he had beat this beast. But then, as if a dam broke inside him, guilt flooded in. He stepped forward to get a good look at the monster, he squatted low and carefully reached forward and stroked its nose, it didn't seem to mind.
"Jayson! What are you doing?"
Jay groaned, and turned, "I was just checking to make sure it was okay, for, you know, blackmailing reasons." His Father grinned, and patted him on Jays back.
"That's my boy, go back and rest, this would've been a great victory if it had not been for that meddlesome rider. I will deal with this beast." Said Jays Dad. Jay tried a smile, and walked past his Father, and out the arena, outside, some of the other students looked disappointed. Most likely because everyone was too excited about catching a Dragon Rider to do anything else but gossip.
Jay treaded his way back home, he opened his bedrooms door and flopped onto his bed. He couldn't sleep, it was only the afternoon.
Everyone will think I'm either a coward for not killing that rider, or really smart for not killing her. Or they will think I somehow cheated. Hunters are jerks.
A least we're not as bad as riders, they're a whole bundle of jerks.
"Son!"
Jay jerked upwards, his Father was standing in the doorway with a goofy grin on his face.
"I bring good news!" He shouted, loud enough for the entire village to hear. "You're going to be the one to interrogate the Rider!"
Jay let that sink in.
What!?
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138,304 Literary Works • 672,100 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Well, this was a pretty interesting chapter right here...there's a pretty cool premise going on here...and I like that, and you do a pretty decent job with conveying all the emotions our protagonist here has to go through. And that ending was pretty on point there too.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Well this is off to a lovely start, two people about to take on a test that can potentially end up killing them, well that's not something that you run into too often...and, well you can certainly you've got my attention and gotten it quite quickly right here at the very beginning.
OKay...I have a feeling that comment about the father is not meant to be a reassuring one, that almost sounded a bit like an accusation...it definitely adds an extra dimension to that conversation there cause you do wonder where that comment could've come from there.
Okay...a little bit too much description there, not that's it bad to have description at the beginning of a novel, but with the flow we have here and the general vibe of this scene with a big dragon fight, slowing the pacing to discuss details that specific seem like it slows things down a touch too much there.
Well, that's a pretty nicely done scene there, you get a very good sense of the kind of nervousness and fear that this person is experiencing right there...and you do get the weight of what could potentially be happening here, and that's always a nice touch there to have at the start of a story.
Well here we go...looks like this story is going to get itself off to a pretty action packed start here with an actual dragon fight occuring right at the very beginning here...so that we instantly will get to see what's happening. And well, as far as the opening salvo of this fight goes, this is pretty neat right here.
Well, you can clearly see that Jay isn't at all experienced in this here...aaand he's quite scared not to mention, this is also a pretty good dragon by the things of it. That first exchange of blows certainly concluded with a victory for the dragon here.
Well that turned on its head quite quickly, and while I think the "move away" shout great, the other seems like a bit too obvious, and I've no idea how that actually managed to motivate this person into all of a sudden getting the upper hand on the dragon there. I feel like that fight just didn't quite flow very well there, it begins, dragon kind of wins and then boom Jay suddenly wins. It doesn't quit manage to tell much of a story there.
Ooooh...well this is starting to sound rather similar to How To Train Your Dragon a little bit, not gonna lie but that was a fun movie soo...welll I don't mind seeing something similar...but you might want to think of making things a bit more different here. And well...so well predictable plot twist there but an interesting one nonetheless.
Well...that does seem like the right thing to do in that situation....you definitely don't want to go around murdering people quite thaat casually...definitely tells us a thing or two about this here protagonist.
Well....looks like he had a bit of a change of heart on that one...well its certainly a predictable change...but uhh, well it definitely complicates the situation, so all great stuff to have right here in the first paragraph. His transition is fairly nicely done, you can see the doubt within him, while he still calls the thing a monster...that's a nice touch there.
Well we know what's going to end up happening to that poor dragon...well, that was a bit of an anticlimactic ending to this chapter here...we come in all ready for a super intense dragon fight but then things conclude with an interruption and then everyone is just dismissed here by the looks of things.
Well...not the worst way to end things there, we also have a nice nod to the opinion these communities seem to have on each other...I have a feeling that should be somewhat useful going forward in the story.
Oooh, and we have ourselves a bit of a bombshell there to end things on...that is quite nice to see there, always a nice style of ending, definitely makes us readers want to come back and read more to see what happens next here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall not a bad start this one, that fight scene could perhaps use a bit more than what it currently has, but on the whole I'd say, not a bad first part that you've got right here. Anyway, that's about all I've gotta say for now.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey!
So I'm here for a review and the plot is good I like the concept and the story world seems really interesting. What I really loved is this set up idea of dragon rides against dragon killers and I kinda am guessing our main character is going to become a dragon rider by the end of the novel.
I have a few little problems with the way you've structured this (these are ideas don't feel like I'm being too harsh)
--there's no up build of tension--not at one moment do I feel any tension or fear while reading this
--it feels quite rushed and everything is over really quickly which is sad because I LOVE this story idea so keep it going
--there's no real physical attributes to anyone
--the "he's your dad" feels pretty forced so try to maybe keep that going for later. You could hint at it but maybe don't straight out say it.
--there's a real shift of tone in the last paragraph when he calls Dragon riders "jerks@ it humorous it just doesn't feel as it fits
--Describe the place and time of the era maybe?
The rest is fantastic!!
Hope this isn't too harsh and if it is just ignore me
Laura
Hey....tinybookfarie here for a review!
I would like to say how good this was. I really loved the dialogue. When I was reading this, I couidn’t help thinking of the movie “Toothless”. Now, there are some things I would like to point out. The part that said.....hesitating for a moment, “please be careful.” I believe that that part was a little strange for me to read. I think you should have put something else like.
She was hesitating for a moment then finally said, “Please be careful.”
And then you need an apostrophe between Jay and “s” when it said...then someone called Jays name.
Anyway, those were mostly all the ones that popped out to me and thought that needed to be corrected. Other than that, I think this was a great piece and I really enjoyed reading this. I love dragons and the fact that you wrote one about them, just makes me smile. Keep up the good work and hope you keep on writing.
~Best of wishes,
Tinybookfarie
Thanks for the review.
Np