Chapter 1: The Game

The wind is rushing under my wings and I look to my left to see a dark green figure next to me. The wind is howling in my ears and I give a roar of excitement that the wind takes away. He still hears it and gives a joyful roar as well, looking at me with a childish smile; a lopsided, toothy grin that makes my heart jump.

‘Down there, maybe?’ I ask him with my mind when I see a huge rain-forest. Great for hide-n-seek. He looks down to where I am looking.

‘Definitely,’ he replies. We land with a thud; he is still to my right. Pressing my wings against my body, I look at his slim form - it’s perfect for flying and performing intricate maneuvers in the air. Each of his scales are every shade of forest green one could imagine - accented by a dark brown underbelly and wing membranes. His eyes are an earth brown that reminds me of tree bark after a morning shower.

 

I become aware of my surroundings and smell the air - the fresh smell after a shower. I close my eyes and smile, breathing in deeply. I exhale and a stream of smoke is released from my snout as I open my eyes and see that he is gone already.

“Hey! I haven’t even started counting yet!” I hear a low, childish laugh rumble somewhere behind me and I bound over there. ‘How are you so quiet?’ I ask him as I, myself, turn into stealth mode, walking on the pads of my paws. After about ten minutes of searching the ground, I sit on my haunches and hang my head, feeling like an idiot. I look above me and fly up to the lowest tree branch. ‘Of course he wouldn’t be on the ground. Duh, Grace. He can FLY!’ I scold myself. I leap to a thick, low branch and begin to hop from branch to branch as quietly as I can; I end up breaking one by accident. Giving off a sharp, high-pitched roar, I fall and hit the ground with a heavy boom. The commotion makes the birds close by scatter and, almost instantly, he is by my side. “Jeez, Grace! Are you okay?” I laugh and get up, shaking the leaves and dirt from under my scales, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I lift my wings to let him know that nothing is broken. “I found you, though,” I poke him with a talon.

“No, I found you,” He pokes me back.

“Touché,” I smile. “Your turn to count.”

“Okay,” he turns around and sits, facing a tree; I hear him counting up in my head. ‘One, two, three…’

Bounding off, I quickly find an area that I blend into easily. My dark violet scales blend easily into the shadows, turning into an inky black color, as I slip into the dark parts of the forest. Being the clumsy dragon I am, I realize, about 5 minutes into my turn of the game, that I have been walking with my talons digging into the dirt and start to walk with them lifted about an inch off the ground. Knowing that he will most likely go to the tree tops to search for me, I trot quickly, keeping low to the forest floor, taking advantage of my dark color to conceal me. I feel his presence within my conscience so suddenly, I falter for a second then recover, turning right. Almost right into him. I skid to a halt, very close to him.

“Why are you so good at this?” I notice he is sitting on his haunches with a smug smile on his face.

“Well, you know this thing we have? Called telepathy?” He looks at me with a developing grin and realization hits me.

“Oh, shut up, G’reth,” I give a throaty laugh and sit where I am. The shade of the trees dances on his scales, giving him another array of darker greens that I find absolutely brilliant.

“So, whatcha wanna do, now?” G’reth asks me.

“I don’t kn…,” I stop suddenly as I catch another scent in the air. Lifting my snout to the air, I stand up on guard.

“What is it?” I hear him ask me, lifting an eyebrow. ‘Grace?’

‘Something else is here. I can’t figure out what, though. It makes me feel uneasy.’

G’reth gets up and flies to the trees. I look up after him. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’

‘I need to see what it is…’ I hear him falter and I go through the treetops after him, my build not allowing me to get through easily. I have to stop and land on a branch big enough to support me about half way up to the top so I can untangle myself. When I finish, I scan the area around me, trying to find him.

‘What is it?’ I didn’t need to ask because, instead of finding G’reth, I found what I smelled before; hunters. More specifically, dragon hunters - the few people who know we actually exist.

Reviews

[Patrick Jinks]

Very nice. Not at all proud of the fact it took me so long to realise they were dragons and not angels! It reads really nicely and it is no way dull or boring. The only suggestion I would make is there are a few times you use the same word in quick succession that makes it sound repetative:

On the second line its wind- maybe replace the second one with 'whipping air'?

Then there's 'shower' between paragraphs 3 and 4. Replace the second with'recent rainfall'?

These are minor issues I just feel would help those bits flow a little better.

[The Last Dragoon]

I think it would read better if you used past tense for narration, and even third person past tense. A lot of editors really don't like first person present tense, just sayin', although I understand its more common in the YA market.

The use of italics is confusing, some of it seems to be dialogue by either speaker, some internal monologue. Identify speakers in a dialogue in the more conventional way, and use italics for internal monologue. for example:

They sat in the tree, waited patiently.
"It's time to fly," he said.
"Right," she said, thinking, "hope we can get away." [The "hope we can get away" would be in italics.]

A good editor could help you tune up word choice, e.g., "dark coloring" --> "countershading" or "pressing my wings" --> "folding my wings".

Good luck on the story.

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good chapter. You create good characters and story line. I liked the discussion in the story and the use of the myth and tales. The good description allowed the reader to feel the story in vision and their thoughts. Thank you Holly for sharing the excellent chapter.
Coyote

[Maria]

This is great, I have loved stories on dragons, and well, you are doing well, at this point, and I did not stop reading until the end. Great job, with everything, cannot wait to see, how you take this and create a full plot.