A Very Interesting Discovery - Part One
#1 of Short Stories/Gift Art/Commisions?
Well here is the first part of a gift story for The Dark God. My first ever request for a story in the three and a half years I have been on this site. Wooot! Okay there is still two more parts to this one, figured I would post teasers, so that way while I type the second you can read the first and... Well you get the idea. ^,=,^ Anyways, here we are, A Very Interesting Discovery.
A Very Interesting Discovery
The young dragon looked around, sniffing the air with his keen sense of smell. He was scared, looking around the dark forest with a cautious pair of golden eyes. He hissed at the air, the agitation of his captors finally at an end. The scent was gone, even as the wind blew from his tail there was no trace of the humans in it soft whispers through the trees. Growling softly to himself, he walked around at the barren cold expanse around him. He was getting cold, though his natural body was quite warm on its own. The temperature though was telling him that it was soon time to enter his hibernating state.
He looked around for a shelter, his stomach rumbling at him as he trudged through the snow, leaving paw prints deep in the snow. After each step however, his swished his tail back and forth, wiping them away. The result was disguised as a simple drift, because with each step he flapped his wings as well, creating a soft downdraft that swirled the snow in its wake. The black and stone grey scales stuck out though against the white of the snow covered earth, and he soon became agitated once more and shot a fireball into the sky, roaring loudly in disgust.
Even for being a warm blooded creature, needing cool water during the summer months to keep his body cool; this was a bitter cold that soaked through the heat in his scales, and dragons dislike a permeating cold. Just then out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a cave with a sleeping bear inside it. He froze in place, eyeing the sleeping creature with a ravenous eye. He lowered himself and churred softly, his hunger brought out by the bear, and the cave would provide adequate shelter while he slept through the winter.
He pounced onto the bear, gashing it with his razor sharp front talons, causing the bear to roar loudly. The dragon then snapped its jaws around the head, ripping it off and swallowing it whole. It roared itself, proud to have killed its first wild animal, finally forgetting about his pursuers and gorged on his kill. The dragon ate, knowing if he smelled the humans again. They have very unique scents, and not all are bad, he hoped. The last batch that stumbled onto him tried to shoot him.
The bullets couldn't penetrate his scales, but he was a hatchling, so he ran in fear. Not knowing what to do in that scenario and no parent to teach him, he followed his instincts and escaped. Now full from the bear, the dragon disposed of the bones and broke a few logs to make a fire. Stacking them in a pyramid shape, the dragon backed into the cave and inhaled deeply. He concentrated the goop from the two glands at either side of his maw, and then spat the flaming liquid at the logs. The flaming ball that ejected from it exploded onto the trees, causing the wood to ignite and create a blazing barrier that supplied enough warmth to fend off anything that would try to disturb him.
Murring deeply, the dragon flexed his stiff muscles and felt the cold melt off of his frozen scales and wings. He snaked his tongue out into the air, smelling for any other humans in the area. Not one, not even a dead one. The dragon murred again, curling up on the stone ground and watching the entrance to the cave. He smiled, sharp teeth exposing themselves from a strong square maw. On either side of his jaw were a few spines, as well as two horns behind his eyes and brow. They were an ivory white, and they also dotted themselves down his back, creating a razor sharp defense mechanism when he used his tail to keep attackers away.
He folded his golden wings, curling himself up as his eyes sagged. He needed to sleep, and hopefully in the warmer season he would find a way out of his current predicament. A place to go to get away from the evil humans that only want to do one thing, kill him. He growled a bit, before sighing to himself, as he then hoped that one human would not want to do that. Then with a subtle shrug of his strong shoulders and a swish of his tail, fell into his hibernation hoping for a new beginning. He drifted off to sleep, and waited for the warmth to be natural.
The fire would last a day at best, but anything that would try to wake a sleeping dragon would be nothing but a pile of ash. The dragon chuckled loudly, sounding like groups of large stones falling against a hard cement floor, waking up for a brief moment again before sleep overtook him.