A Tale of Dragons

Chapter 02 - The Dragons

"This is your secret?!" Max exclaimed while following the path of the winged creatures. "Y-you have dragons? Actual dragons?"

Nigel turned to Max who still held his gaze on the dragons, his eyes wide with amazement as he watched the majestic creatures soar around the room of the spacious cavern.

"We don't have anything, Max. Understand? There's nothing here. In fact, we never took you here, got it?"

Max got the hint to keep his mouth shut and continued to admire the dragons. He understood that they were a secret, quite a magnificent one, and he needed to keep it that way.

"How long?"He asked in awe. "How long have you had dragons hidden away? I mean, I thought they were just legends."

Alyssa turned sharply towards Max. "Nigel found them first." She explained. "That was about two years ago, then he showed George a couple months later. I only found out last summer." Again, she disregarded the second half of his statement. Dragons were that of legend, but she didn't have an answer as to how these creatures were here.

The dragons circled around the group waiting for command. Max could see that two seemed to be smaller than one. Their colours were different too. The smaller two had green glistening scales that shone in the sunlight while the other had rusty red patches here and there, in which the sun only brightened.

"Why is one different? Is it like a different kind?" He asked curious.

"It's been Primed."Nigel answered quickly.

"Primed? What's that?"

"The dragon is assigned a task, a mission, or as some put it, a quest. He is trained separately from his siblings resulting in bigger size from stronger muscles and the inheritance of a blood-red colour. It's called being Primed. The other two can be Primed as well."

"How would you know that?" Max says harshly challenging Nigel, a hint of jealousy in his tone.

Nigel strode over to Max edging closer to his face as if to challenge him.

"I am a dragonlord." He says quietly. "The last dragonlord. I am the sole protector of these dragons now. Like me, they too are the last of their kind."

"Did you Prime the red one?" Max asks, trying to break the awkwardness of his taunt.

"No."Nigel replies curtly. "My father did before he died. He knew about the dragons for a long time. I wasn't supposed to find them until I was older. I came upon them by mistake. My father was supposed to teach me more about them but, it was too late. I come here everyday to learn what I can from the dragons. They are the only ones who can teach me now."

"S-So these dragons, they're yours then?" Max shifted his feet in the brown sod.

"No!" Nigel replied sharply, feeling slightly offended. "These dragons do not belong to me, or to anyone. They are free-roam creatures. One does not simply own a dragon. It doesn't work like that. You don't choose the dragon, the dragon chooses you."

Max takes a step back from Nigel having felt cornered by his outburst. "Do you guys...take care of these dragons?"

"Sometimes," George admits, speaking up in place of Nigel. "One got sick a while ago and Nigel skipped out on lessons to take care of him."

Alyssa moves towards an opening in the wall after the conversation had seemed to die down a bit.

"Follow me." She beckoned towards Max with a smile.

Max follows hesitantly letting Nigel and George trail behind him.

"Where are we going now?" He asks confused.

"You'll see." She teases, lifting vines from her path.

Alyssa led Max into an even larger room where the dragons gently landed on the brown sod floor. The red one edged closer to Nigel and George as if it were greeting old friends.

"Does that one like them?" Max asked Alyssa.

"Yes. Very much so. All of the dragons love Nigel because he spends all his time with them learning and protecting them. As for George, only the red one likes him. We like to think it's because he's the only ginger out of all of us."

Max smiles. The secret had been revealed to him at last and he was learning more as each minute passed.

"Do the other dragons like you, Alyssa?"

"Maybe now that you're here. I'm not the newest visiter anymore. They are very shy creatures. Anyway, this wasn't why I brought you in here."

"Then what for?" Max shifts uncomfortably looking from George and Nigel gently petting the head of the red dragon then back to Alyssa.

"We're going to ride them."