Into the reaches of Hydrafell- Dragon Mage chapter 2

Audrey is a lonely girl stuck in a little village. Agni is a misfit dragon prince who cannot stand the expectations of his father. As their needs collide, they are taken on an adventure of their lives

Chapter 2 �" Into the Reaches of Hydrafell:

            A wolf crouched down in the thicket, pressing her belly against the healthy grass below her as tightly as she could. The forest was a dangerous place if you weren’t paying attention, even for a predator like her. Aside from the usual fare of dangerous bears and ugly trolls, there was one creature that prowled these foothills with absolute impunity, the top-dogs of the forest that no one ever wanted to run into.

            Dragons.

            She only had a loose understanding of the draconic monarchy that ruled the forest, but the only part that mattered to her were the dragons whose hunting grounds overlapped with her own. And for her, leagues away from the wyrm fortress of Dragonloft, there was only one she ever had to deal with on a regular basis. He was a young dragon with scales of fiery red, possessing the keen eyesight common to all dragons under the sun. This she knew all too well, for at that moment, he was hunting her.

            She stayed deathly still, slowing her breathing to almost a stop until the only thing left moving was her heart. Her ears swiveled carefully as she strained for any hint of heavy paws mashing leaves into the forest floor. She’d seen the dragon land in the meadow just behind her, and was sure that she’d been seen before she’d been able to scamper into the needleheart bushes. She’d tried to stay pressed against the grass, but knew her coal-black fur offered little camouflage against the bright green meadow. She blended in better below the trees, the thick canopy of ancient wood casting a veiling shadow over the underbrush.

Only the soft amber glow of alsham crystals could have given her away, and she had taken care not to hide too close to any alshams trees. Instead, she crouched underneath a hanging colony of radiant deceiver mushrooms, whose pheromones now bit at her nose angrily for the intrusion. This left her own scent perfectly masked, and leaving her with little else to do but sit, wait, and listen.

Snap! She had to force herself to halt a gasp. A branch had snapped somewhere above her, she was sure she’d heard something over the rustle of leaves in the wind. She pressed even closer against the ground, gritting her teeth to try and prevent herself from bolting. Had that been him? She couldn’t stop her legs from tensing, ready to jump and run, though she knew it would be pointless to try. A moment passed in silence, a soft breeze gently rustling the leaves as she strained to hear. She couldn’t help but lick her lips slowly.

            Did he know she was here?

            An ear-splitting roar shook the forest above her, and Apex jerked her head up towards the sky just in time to see a dragon burst through the canopy, shattering aging branches to pieces upon reentry. Apex’s heart jumped into her throat as she froze, rooted in her spot at the sight of the beast swooping down, his forelegs extended. His flight path arced up just in time to slam into her with all of his weight, and latch onto her with his claws.

            The dragon’s momentum carried him right over her and through the mushroom colony, bursting the fungal mass open, before the both of them bowled through the branches and out into the clearing, thorns piercing through Apex’s fur. The dragon pulled her tight against his chest as he tumbled over the ground, bouncing once, twice, before skidding to a stop in the mud, splashing dirt against his scales. The dragon quickly flipped over, pinning the wolf firmly beneath him.

    “Got you,” the dragon quickly said, flashing the wolfess an excited grin. Easily twice as tall as Apex, it was all too easy for him to keep her pinned with just his weight. She grunted with displeasure as she wriggled under his paws, shooting the dragon a glare.

            “Get off me, Agni!” Apex grunted, batting at her nose to try and wave away the stench of deceiver pheromones. “What were you thinking, jumping through those mushrooms?! Now we both stink!”

            “I couldn’t help myself,” the dragon replied, giving her a gleeful smile as he released one of her shoulders to poke her nose with one of claws. “You didn’t even know I’d gotten that close, did you? Tell the truth… I snuck up on you, didn’t I?”

    “If you could call that sneaking,” the wolfess huffed, thumping the bottom of Agni’s soft belly scales with her back legs. She gave him a deadpan stare. “That was about the least sneaky sneak attack I’ve ever heard!”

    “I think it still counts,” Agni replied, swishing his tail excitedly behind him. “Plus, if you didn’t want to get pounced on, you shouldn’t have been so easy to find! I saw you sitting out there in the clearing from up above, practically taunting me! Your black fur stuck out against the grass like a cracked dragon’s horn. You weren’t even attempting to hide.”

            “I had to make it a challenge for myself,” she retorted, hiking her back legs up and kicking them against his softer underbelly scales. “I know you’re terrible at this stuff. Now get off me.”

“Don’t forget, it’s another point for me!” Agni was quick to point out, a paw shooting into the air to show off his tally, three of his streaked brown claws sticking up. Apex pushed his other paw off of herself, before wriggling free. She rolled over into the grass with a swish of her tail, and pushed herself up to her feet. “Which means… I’m in the lead now!” he exclaimed, bouncing with a little bit of verve in his step.

     “If I had wings, hide and seek would be too easy for me too,” Apex replied, sitting up against the velveted grass and crinkling her nose at the fungal stench which now permeated her fur. “You need that as a crutch or you’d never win.” She groomed herself, trying to lick the spores out of her fur.

            “Can’t help that I was born this way,” the teasing retort came quickly, as Agni pranced up to her, smashing the dewy grass underneath his paws. He sat down beside the grumbling wolfess with an elegant flick of his tail, practically bursting with satisfaction as he leaned his head down right in front of hers. “You know… better than you,”

“Oh, you do not want to go there,” she huffed, her red eyes flashing in a warning glare, her paw still in her mouth. “I’m an amazing creature, you know.”

“I’m just saying,” the red dragon remedied, twirling his paw around in the search for the right words. “I’ve got wings, scales, claws…”

    “I got claws too,” Apex snorted. “Keep going and I’ll acquaint you with them.”

    “Sorry,” the scarlet dragon quickly replied. His wings sagged as he let out an awkward chuckle, trying to clear the air. “I personally don’t think deceivers smell all that bad. They have a unique scent that’s intriguing! There’s a hint of candytuft in there, but I’m not exactly… a mushroom expert or anything…”

    Apex rolled her eyes, switching out which paw she was trying to clean of pheromones. “Maybe I could knock a little sense into you,” she mused. “If you’d pay more attention to your surroundings, you might have seen what you were jumping into.”

    “Huh? I pay excellent attention to my surroundings,” Agni was quick to huff, his smile wavering for a moment. “Maybe I jumped into the deceivers on purpose.”

“You better not have,” she growled. Agni opened his mouth, before pausing, glancing away with a frown crossing his muzzle. Apex ignored him, continuing to focus on cleaning her matted fur, grimacing the entire time. The deceiver pheromones burned her tongue with their acidic aroma, forcing her to turn and spit every few seconds, “Blech.”

“How much longer until you’re ready?” Agni asked, as Apex gagged from the poignant stench, nearly on the verge of retching. “I’m, uh… ready for the next round!” he added, trailing off with a stiff twirling off his paw.

“Deceivers aren’t that bad?” Apex asked sarcastically. “Agni, this stuff stinks! I’m not going anywhere until I can get it out of my fur!”

“Oh,” the dragon frowned. His tail twitched again, his head drooping a little. “I didn’t mean to… no, don’t worry, I can fix it,” he quickly replied, shaking his head at Apex’s unenthused glare.

“You’d better,” the black wolf replied, rubbing at her nose in annoyance. Agni tilted his head to the side, crinkling his scarlet muzzle as he tried to think of a solution. Atis glimmered off his smooth horns, causing Apex to squint. “This is the kind of stink that won’t go away with mere water.”

“Water definitely won’t help… it’ll make the smell worse,” Agni said, tapping his chin as he thought harder. “Oh! What if I found you some dracaena leaves? They smell really nice! We can rub it on your fur and they’d neutralize the scent of the mushrooms.” He let out an excited hop, leaping back in front of Apex.

“Another one of your silly plants?” Apex deadpanned. “What makes you so sure I want to smell like dracaena instead of deceiver?”

“Well, I love the smell,” Agni replied, leaning down in front of her with a grin. “I use dracaena to keep my little herb room smelling nice. It’s pretty strong and blocks the scent of all my other plant mixtures. I’ve got more than enough back at the citadel!”

“That sounds nice… but I thought you were avoiding going back there?” Apex asked, raising an eyebrow, and trying to concentrate on something other than the stench radiating from her fur.

“Only during the day,” Agni shrugged. “It’s not a huge deal, really! I go back there to sleep and grab food all the time. I mean… what’s my commander going to do about it if he sees me? Order me around?” he snorted, unable to help a smug, little smile.

“If you say so. I take it that a certain someone isn’t back at Dragonloft yet?” she asked, flicking one of her ears.

“Nope! And he won’t be any time soon,” Agni smirked. “He left to survey our fortresses on the Ghoul Isles a month ago. And there’s always some sort of battle or army in need of extermination down there, he always gets distracted. It’s not a short flight and he never comes back quickly… I’ve got plenty of time.”

“If you’re sure, then it’s no skin off my teeth,” she shrugged. “The sooner you get those leaves, the better. I’ll just be sitting here, so don’t make me wait longer by getting dragged away for slacking off.”

“Trust me, it’s not a problem,” Agni smirked, turning, and spreading his wings, unfolding the leathery skin out over the grass. Even for a smaller dragon like him, his wingspan was impressive. The size of his wings while folded up were deceptively small. “I’ll be back quick as a kirin!”

WOOSH!

            The sound of wingbeats could be heard in the clearing, but it wasn’t Agni taking off. The pair froze at the sound of something much larger flapping its heavy wings far above them. A moment later, gale-force winds hit the clearing, buffeting the trees, and flattening the grass. It was like a tornado had suddenly begun to rip through the forest, and Agni turned and looked up at the sky with a fearful look stricken across his face. He was familiar with only one creature powerful enough to create such a display. 

         “You gotta go!” he yelled, jerking back around to face Apex, eyes wide as the wind forced him to fold his wings back, or risk them being ripped off his back.

            He saw Apex practically trip over herself as she turned in a random direction and attempted to bolt. She didn’t make it very far, as something bright was unleashed from the shadow above them, streaking down into the clearing. It slammed into the ground right in front of Apex, forcing her to skid to a stop as a greatsword of titanic size buried itself halfway, over ten feet, into the ground.

            The massive sword was aflame, burning with dragonfire that quickly spread from the blade to the dry grass whipping in the wind. The flames leapt out into the clearing, fueled by the wind, burning the grass in two neat directions. They blazed a fiery circle around both Apex and Agni to trap them inside the clearing. 

            A thunderous BOOM echoed throughout the clearing as something immense and heavy slammed into the ground. Agni’s eyes burned from the dust kicked up by the figure, but he knew in his heart who this was. He blinked at the enormous shadow straightening up above him. A colossal dragon with deep, gray scales and gorgeous, golden, dragonsteel armor emerged from the dust cloud, pushing Apex and Agni up against the flaming circle. This dragon was so long that even curled up against his body, his tail stuck out of the flaming circle. Not that the fire bothered him one bit. His head was high enough off the ground to scrape against the tops of the trees, and a magnificent golden crown was set between his horns. His eyes, as large as either of them, turned down to glare at Agni and Apex.

            “Hi… dad,” Agni gulped, crouching down a bit to try and make himself seem as small as possible. “Um… when did you get back?” he squeaked, struggling to keep his voice from cracking.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” the enormous dragon asked, his gravelly voice scraping in his throat as the challenge hung in the air, weighing down the very sky onto Agni. The little dragon stared back up, his eyes wide, his legs trembling beneath him.

    “Hunting!” he blurted out, his voice shaking “I was-”

    “Don’t lie to me,” the immense dragon growled, his sharp teeth grinding together audibly. “You promised me, Agni. You told me you would train while I was gone, that you would listen to your commander. I came back this morning, blood still wet on my blade, and what do I find?” he asked, his rancor hanging in the air. A challenge sizzling with animus.

    The little, red dragon didn’t dare answer. He could only look down at his paws. “I find that you haven’t reported to your barracks-commander in over a month!” he roared, trees around the clearing withering against the heat. “And I hear, from one of my most trusted generals no less, that you haven’t shown your face at training in nearly two. Imagine the embarrassment you caused me when they had to explain where you were and how long you’ve been avoiding them. The only reason none of them haven’t smacked you for insubordination is because you’re my son. The special prince, the royal, little sunflower, who thinks himself too good to work with his fellow dragons!”

            “I…” Agni’s paws felt as heavy as lead. His breath was short and halting, like a tiny lizard trying and failing to swim in the ocean during a storm. “No! I-I practiced! I practiced all day yesterday!” Agni exclaimed, his tail curled against his legs. “So I thought I… deserved at least… one day off.”

“Did you now?” the mighty dragon sneered, folding his wings against his back, as if to settle in. “So, if I were to ask around, they’d tell me they saw you eating your own kills? Not slithering in to grab from the communal pile, I’m sure…”

         “…No, no. I ate alone…” Agni muttered. He was practically whispering, almost hoping his father didn’t hear.

            “Of course you did,” the huge dragon chortled. It sounded almost like an avalanche in his throat. “All alone, weren’t you? Except, you seem to be hanging out with this creature plenty enough…” he snarled, pointing a wicked sharp claw at Apex. The bite in his voice tore into Agni’s soul, causing him to shrink even more. “Too good for dragons, so you instead seek out the company of a mere beast!”

            “I don’t have lots of friends to train with!” Agni exclaimed, unable to meet Alkam’s eyes.

    “Pathetic,” Alkam growled, digging his claws into the ground as fire spurted from his nostrils. “You don’t need friends, Agni. You need a rival. Someone who can motivate you, someone for you to hate, someone to remind you why it is that we train!”

    The immense dragon paused to collect himself, closing his eyes. Agni remained silent, knowing when his father wasn’t done talking. “If you refuse to be motivated by our history… if you can’t be brought to care for any of it… and if you’re too lazy to allow your heart to ache for our brothers and sisters, then it’s time for drastic measures,” he growled. “I should have seen this sooner… you’re too much like I once was.”

            “What?” 

    “You don’t need another history lesson,” he snarled. “No, it needs to be… personal with you.” his voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned ever closer to his son, casting Agni firmly in his shadow. Agni finally faced the king, barely meeting his eyes with growing apprehension. The flames of the circle kept crackling, burning against his ears.

“What-” Agni’s voice cracked, and he quickly glanced back at Apex. The wolfess had made herself scarce, crouched low against the grass. “What do you mean?”

            “If you’ve really been out here hunting, as you say…,” the massive dragon snarled, the flames surrounding the clearing crackled even higher, singing the treetops. “If you truly have been practicing hunting, then I’m going to need you to prove it. You are not to return to Dragonloft tonight.”

“Wh-what?”

“And don’t come home tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next. Don’t come back to Dragonloft until you have a White Stag in your jaws. I don’t want to see you again until you’re wearing its pelt around your neck. You will take no food of ours, no shelter of ours, no protection of ours, not until I see you with the stag’s heart in your claws!”

            “Dad!” Agni exclaimed, his eyes widening. 

            “That is final!” the Successor King roared, spreading his immense wings. “Perhaps, little one, if you actually tried, you might find some glory. But you have nothing to show me until then,” he growled, and wind immediately began whipping once again, putting out the flaming circle. Apex and Agni barely had time to duck as the huge dragon leapt over top of them, grabbed his sword, and wrenched it out of the ground. He took flight at the same time, rocketing into the sky faster than any dragon Agni had ever seen.

            The clearing was silent for several minutes as Apex and Agni just stared at the rapidly shrinking shadow of the Successor King. It was the wolf who broke the silence, tearing her eyes away from the sky and looking around at the scorched ground. “So, uh… that was Alkam, huh?” she asked, sending the young dragon a reassuring smile.

            Agni slowly looked back down at her; a frown etched across his face. “I’m sorry, Apex… but I have to go,” he said. “You’d better find those leaves yourself. They’re small, blue, and shaped like little diamonds,” he whispered, turning away from her, his voice barely above a crackle. “Good luck.”

            Apex blinked a few times as Agni spread his wings and launched himself into the sky. He went in the opposite direction to his father, as fast as he possibly could. “How rude,” she huffed. She glared after the now tiny silhouette of the Successor King, her eyes glowing a brighter red. She slunk back into the shadows, vanishing into the darkness.

---

            “No one’s been this unlucky,” Audrey groaned, trudging through the forest. The dress robes Tania had ‘gifted’ her weren’t exactly ideal on the packed dirt roads of Redwood, but they were practically impossible to walk in on the uneven forest floor. That was to make no mention of the increasingly steep hillsides she’d been walking up and down for a day now. So she had been forced to walk barefoot, her heels clipped to her side. Her mother knew exactly what she was doing, making her wear something as ridiculous as this. Whether or not the Mages in the cities wore this didn’t matter. This was the wilderness, not the streets of Essence Crux! 

            She winced as she walked over the brambles, her soles hating every step she took. It was noon on her second day of travel, and her little pack was already weighing on her. Atis beat down onto her in every clearing, while the woods were dark, and difficult to navigate. She’d broken her camp last night, and was only now beginning to appreciate the immensity of the forest she was walking into. As the hills grew larger, she was able to see further and further vistas of carpeted canopy, on those rare occasions where the hillside broke up the dark leaves of ogrewood and bleakbark.

    The Reaches had a wide variety of rare trees only seen in this forest. It was due to the magic infused into the very ground of this area, which allowed for strange trees to grow. Ogrewoods were common elsewhere and accurate to their namesake, its bark gnarled and knotted, though none grew quite as large anywhere but in this forest. Bleakbark trees were rarer in the Empire, but named after its pale bark with red scars that looked like blood, though none looked quite as creepy as they did in the Reaches.

    Huge mushrooms were common, as were needlehearts, thorny bushes that pricked and stabbed any who brushed against them. However, the forest was known primarily for two types of trees. The alshams tree that Audrey was searching for and the giant arcanfurs. Arcanfurs were immense, towering hundreds of feet into the sky, and created the canopy of the forest. Their bark looked more like a coat of fur and their sap was a bright blue, though incredibly bitter.

    Comparatively, Redwood had only a single claim to fame. It was the southernmost human settlement in the Empire. Thus, it was the launching point for surveyors and explorers who sought to map the coasts. Audrey had spoken with some of those parties when she was younger, and knew that none of them had ever returned after trying to travel through the Reaches of Hydrafell. The dragons did not want humans in their forest, and the Empire eventually stopped sending explorers.

    Just this morning, she had come out of the trees and into a stony clearing. Dirt and grasses covered weathering stone from an age long past. From there, she had been able to look across the meandering foothills she was passing through and spot an outpost way off in the distance. She’d never seen architecture like it before, for it was an immense slab of brickwork that towered above the surrounding forest. Crumbled stone boulders lay all around it, slowly receding into the grasp of the ancient wood. But at the top, she could see a tower, clearly a much newer and better maintained structure than the stonemasonry below it.

    She had spotted a little silhouette, a lone wyvern flying over the hills towards the tower. Right behind it, she saw larger figures emerge. Flying beasts rocketed straight towards the wyvern and slammed into it. Even across the valley, she could see the glimmer of platemail as the wyvern scuffled with the patrol of dragons. They collided in the air and, moments later, she saw a limp body falling towards the ground. The wyvern had been stabbed with massive spears and burned to a crisp. The dragons did not tolerate any unnatural intruders in their forest, especially humans.

    And so she was forced to take a detour, giving the towering ruins a wide berth. Her textbooks, which exalted dragons as creations of Arkosh, spoke of the western dragon kingdom as being the most territorial by far. A kingdom headed by a dragon king who claimed to be the descendant of the very first dragon.

    She stayed under the cover of the giant arcanfurs, in the lazy darkness of the canopy. She could more easily pass unseen here, allowing her to relax a little. Though as she tried to let her nerves go, it allowed her to realize how much her feet ached… and how little progress she was making.

    She stopped by a tree with an incredibly fat trunk that was only about twice her height. Its branches were short and stubby and strange fruit grew at the ends. But it was the distinctive ring pattern in the bark that marked the tree as an alshams tree. Audrey leaned against the trunk and checked every square inch, praying that she could find Blaze Crystals.

            But the bark of the tree was smooth and unbroken, free of the crystalline growths she was searching for. She let out a sigh as she pulled away from the wood, letting her hands fall down to her sides. She knew the crystals were rare and that they required dragonfire to grow. And this area, completely unscorched, had not been very likely to have had her crystals in the first place.

    But she had been checking every tree she found regardless, hoping that a random dragon had passed by and breathed a bit of dragonfire onto the tree. She had found nothing so far, of course. So she’d just keep moving and searching. The deeper she went into the forest, the more common dragons would become. And the more likely it would be that she would find Blaze Crystals.

            “Who am I kidding?” Audrey mumbled as she winced, stepping on a rock she hadn’t seen. “Stupid crystals, supid trees, stupid dragons…”

            Audrey ducked under a low branch, pushing through a heavy layer of bushes. She stumbled over their roots and made her way into a clearing, yellowing grass pining for the rain it wouldn’t see for another season. She turned and looked up at Atis, squinting a little. The sun was still high in the sky, but it was past noon. Dusk wouldn’t be for another few hours, but maybe here was a good place to stop for the day. “Maybe it would be better to rest now,” Audrey sighed. She hadn’t come too far, but her feet ached, and the scrapes on her arms stung. She was tired, and surely there was enough distance between her and that outpost to rest in a warm spot.

    Perhaps it was time to read that spell scroll she’d been given, no doubt it would be useful. She plopped down in the soft grass, unlatched her spell scroll, and unfurled it. There wasn’t a single word on the page, but rather a series of drawings and symbols. Like all spell scrolls, it was up to her to figure out what it all meant, put the spell together, and then actually cast the spell.

            Audrey studied the scroll for a moment, before setting it on the ground. She hopped up to put her feet on a soft area of ground, and struck a pose. Following slowly alongside the diagrams, Audrey silently performed the somatic components of this spell. She repeated the gestures several times, increasing her speed each time until she felt comfortable enough to try adding in the verbal components.

            The pronunciation of this spell was confusing, so she sounded out the words slowly while moving her arms throughout the air. Hamu… or perhaps hému? No way to tell without practice, and the full spell was longer than what she was used to. She knew she looked stupid, but at the least no one was watching her. She could feel her tongue tripping over her words, no matter how slowly she said them. She tried one last time, this time pumping a bit of her Essence into her words, igniting the base of the spell to see how close she was to getting it right.

            A small spout of flame leapt from her fingers and ash tumbled from her palms… but nothing more. “Well that wasn’t right,” Audrey sighed as she dusted her hands together, shaking off the ash. She would need more practice.

            She made her way back over to the scroll and plopped down to continue practicing, focusing on her enunciation this time. Hému, hamu, tuzgeto… gato?… Runes were so difficult to read, and definitely wasn’t her forte. She let out a bored yawn, looking up at the sky. Only for a shadow to pass over top of the clearing… and over top of her. The shape of the shadow was unmistakable.

            Dragon.

            Audrey stared up at the sky, completely stunned for several seconds, before scrambling to her feet. A dragon! No, this couldn’t be happening already, she couldn't be seen! She turned, almost tripping over herself as she sprinted for the bushes. The moment she made it near the clearing’s edge, she leaped to safety, tumbling through the brambles and into cover. She ignored the thorns that snagged her as she fell over.

    She pinned herself against the ground just in time to hear something land in the clearing behind her. The wind from the dragon’s wings ruffled the leaves of the bush she was hiding within, and her auburn hair. She stayed deathly still, low against the ground, hoping and praying that she hadn’t been seen. What had she been thinking, stopping in a clearing for any dragon flying overhead to see?!

    She heard the dragon sigh, followed by a thud. Fallen branches and twigs crunched under the dragon’s weight as it moved throughout the clearing. Audrey licked her lips slowly, straining to hear. She couldn’t tell if the dragon was suspicious. She couldn’t feel its burning gaze at the bush she was hiding in. But, surely if it landed at this clearing of all clearings, it had to have seen her. Why else would it be here?

    How could she have allowed herself to be so stupid? Why had she allowed herself to get caught like this? All of this was her fault, she could feel her dreams slipping through her fingers. Tania was right… how could anyone be this stupid? The moments dripped by, filled with silence. She couldn’t hear a thing, save for the breeze blowing across the canopy. She strained, waiting for the sound of approaching heavy pawsteps. She knew they would come, that it was over.

    But as she waited, cursing herself silently, she heard… something else.

Sniffling? Audrey mouthed to herself. The dragon didn’t sound like it was moving any closer, no, instead it sounded like it was panting, or congested somehow. She didn’t dare move yet, her chest rising up and down, as she kept trying to listen. She couldn’t really be hearing the dragon making that noise, could she?

Audrey’s eyes widened as she heard the sniffling turn into full on sobbing. She blinked, feeling even more mystified. But her curiosity got the better of her. Unable to help herself, she lifted one of her hands to press it against the black dirt beneath her. She carefully pushed herself up, her head peeking out through the bush ever so slowly.

The dragon was scarlet red, and rather small, perhaps the size of a large horse. It was wearing none of the armor she’d seen dragons on patrol wearing, just its bright, red scales and horns. The dragon was facing away from her, its wings falling to its side, only loosely folded. She stayed deathly still, her eyes wide.

It was bawling, lying on the grass with its legs splayed out. Its front paws were covering its eyes as tears rolled down its muzzle and onto the grass. It let out a strange hiccuping sound, before continuing to cry, its tail and wings completely limp.

“Why… why am I so pathetic?” Audrey heard the dragon say, though only barely intelligible above the sobbing. It was enough for her to identify the dragon as male. She stared at the bawling dragon, still mystified by the turn of events. But oddly, she could feel herself pitying this dragon, something that she hadn’t expected to feel today. The dragon was completely distraught, letting out another miserable hiccup.

She couldn’t help but agree with the dragon’s whining, unfortunately. She knew that this wasn’t something she was supposed to be seeing. The most important thing was that she hadn’t been noticed. Arkosh had blessed her in that small way, and she needed to get out of here while she still could.

            She carefully eased through the bush, unaware that one of the spindly branches had grabbed onto her skirt latch. She bit her lip as her head exited the bush, eager to get out of here. Unfortunately, the branch holding onto her skirt was stronger. It suddenly snapped backwards, pulling her and launching her spell scroll from its place on her side back into the clearing. It sailed through the air, and Audrey helplessly watched in horror as it bounced against a smooth stone, the metal binding on the side clanking loudly as it did.

    Immediately, the dragon stopped sobbing, whipping up and around to see Audrey awkwardly leaning out of the bush. She stared back, and for a moment, the both of them made horrified eye contact. “Wha… human?!” the dragon exclaimed. “Y-you, you aren’t allowed here!” he roared, though his voice quivered. He reared his head up, smoke pouring from his nostrils.

    Audrey panicked, struggling to free herself from the branch that was trapping her. She knew that it was over. Where there was smoke, there was fire, and it was doubly true for dragons. It was a split-second warning for their victims of the inferno which would follow. Even a powerful Mage would struggle to protect themselves against dragonfire.

    And at this range, she was toast.