Prologue - Cruel World

She had been on the run for hundreds of years. She had lost everything. Was there anything left for her?

She stared up at the starry sky. The small cave she was in wasn't by far big enough for her, but she had managed to crawl in and stay hidden. Her stomach grumbling loud she sighed and turned her huge silver eyes to the ground, searching for any glitch in the quiet landscape. There was none. Still, she thought, they might be just around the corner. I can't...

The years had come and gone. The first thousand. Then the other one. Finally, she had gotten to the year 2118 and that only by being as cunning, deceiving and smart as she possibly could have been. She didn't know if any others of her kind were still left since for over 500 years now she had been alone. Her family was gone, destroyed in the battles in the 1500-s. She didn't even understand how she could have survived...

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the slightest movement, a small blade of grass moving in the wrong direction and instantly she was up and alert, well, as up as she could be in the tiny dark hole she had chosen as her hiding place for the night. With her ears tilted forward and her eyes scanning the rocky terrain she remained still and waited.

After half an hour of being completely still and scanning the ground she relaxed a bit. They were gone. They never lingered around long if they couldn't find anything. She was just about to close her eyes and get a few hours of sleep when she heard a distant shout. Her heart pumping loud in her chest she peeked out and saw a flash of brilliant white light on the horizon. Small, dark figures were darting around and shouting something in their confusing language. She strained her ears and could faintly distinguish the words that meant they had caught someone. And then she saw him.

He was much bigger than she had ever been. Of course, that also meant that he was very cunning and smart for being able to stay hidden for that long. She felt her heart skip a beat when she saw his majestic wings unfurl in an attempt to get away from his captors. She heard the men screaming when he ripped them apart one by one. But there were too many of them. Even fire didn't help. She felt his pain, heard him scream " a plea that pierced her ears and made her heart cry blood tears. But she couldn't help him. She was too smart to try and save him now. She was too far away, they would notice her before she could cover even half the ground and then she would be of no help to anyone. So she cringed down and looked helplessly about as the small figures slowly tamed him and finally carried him away.

Morning came. She peeked out and saw to her relief that the sun was coming over the tops of the trees. She could conceal herself better when the sun was out. A little bit of magii that she had learned from a nomad she had encountered a few decades back. This had helped her enormously. She would forever be grateful to that poor creature who got killed trying to save her. She had sworn to pay back for him. And she would pay. She had nothing to stop her now.

She quickly scanned the ground and upon seeing nothing slowly crawled out of the cave. As soon as sunlight hit her she disappeared. Well, she didn't disappear exactly, but the spell used sunlight to create an illusion around her body that she wasn't there. When she was certain she had been concealed she stretched and yawned, then unfurled her wings and took to the skies. She had hunting to do.

If anyone would have looked up that day they would have seen a glitter moving fast across the bright blue sky. A glitter much like the glint of a scale in sunlight. A scale of a dragon in flight.

Jack in the Pulpit Aug 1, 2011

•   Coffee & Tea

Author's Note

This is so not the end. If you don't want it to be. I had this lingering in my thoughts for a while and when I saw a contest for fantasy pieces I wrote it down. It's definitely not completely thought through and you might have quite many questions about it, but as I didn't want to make the story too long I couldn't explain everything. If you want to know more and there are many of you who want to know more about "her" then I might consider writing more. ;)

Give me critique!! Mistakes, bad sentence structures, anything! English is my second language, bear in mind.

Reviews

[Jupiter Jazz]

That was good. I like the personification in the dragon. I'm kinda disappointed in her for not helping her fellow dragon, but it's understandable. I think it woulda been cooler if you expanded on how she lived and made it through all those millenia.

1st paragraph, 2nd sentence, 3rd line, "quite' should be "quiet"

[CLUTZ]

I like it, but it could definitely be added to. Especially because you still have a lot of space for a back story on how she ended up where she is now. I was wondering, also, if your character had a name or if you purposely left it out?? Good job though, and I can't wait to read more if you decide to keep going

[PyroKitty24]

My favorite part was probably how you left certain details out purposefully, but still gave enough to keep us interested and, slightly not confused. If that makes any sense. I do think this would make an amazing chapter story, and that you should continue. I'm curious as to what these creatures are, who they are hiding from, and why.