DragonBound (Complete First Draft)

Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 3

It was beautiful. Her azure eyes glowing and pulsating with fading life under prominent hairless brows. Her crystal blue scales wrapped themselves around her elongated snout and stretched along, disappearing to the shades of defined ridges. Her lips were partially open, revealing lengths of jagged fangs, dyed red with the blood of the redge that had felt its flesh in her mouth. Her spine hunched, each vertebra's bone jutting out to form spikes before giving way to two leathery bat like wings.

Rioan felt underwear grow a little moister. He heard a snap and his gaze flickered to a tiny little blue lizard, what seemed to be the redge's body under it, flesh being ripped out and bones splintering to the tiny beasts jaws. Rioan felt the mother's wet putrid breath wet his face and his eyes snapped back, the little lizard only a fragment of his awareness.

Her blue eyes examined him, the blue piercing deeper into Rioan's pupils, peering into him.

He was naked, vulnerable to this beast. He was at her mercy.

Greetings, human child.

Rioan didn't hear her voice. he felt it. A pulsating, rich and tranquil voice echo through his mind. Though the undertone held a pain to it along to the sound of raspy breaths. The thing he heard as the beast breathed upon chest, her exhalation humid with saliva and blood.

Rioan's eyes finally examined the beast in front of him with newfound curiosity.

She was almost dead. Her abdomen was in shredded a mesh of scabs and purple bruises. Indentations appeared in her scales all round her lower half but grew themselves scarce as they neared the head. Her lower back was completely scorched, the spine trailing into a tail burnt and flaking with blackened ashy scales. Though that was nothing compared the piercings in the beasts ribs, gouge marks penetrating into the darkness around her ribs, flesh torn out into barely solid lumpy sludge. Blood drained itself along the unrefined, formless tendrils, dripping to the floor and soaking into the earth where the trees around the crater greedily sucked it in.

"What happened to you?"

Rioan was surprised sounds could come out of his throat, much less the fact that they formed words.

There was no fear anymore. Just the exasperated beast in front of him, keeping its child safe.

Quite intuitive ,huh. Curious analogy of the child next to me. Correct nevertheless.

The beast stretched out her neck, twisted it and picked the her child with her jaws. The motion earned her quite the few annoyed yelps from the child. The little monster came into view, scratching the air with tiny little claws and thin spindly legs that looked like the would break if the wind was a little too strong. After a little while the tantrum throwing brat calmed itself, exhaustion obviously wearing into its tiny frame. It looked like a miniature model of its mother, save for the metallic bronze blue scales and the skeleton like body other than its bulging stomach which had plenty to feast on judging by the fact that its stomach rippled and swayed to the slightest motion, a gelatinous bubble of fat like an ocean. She stilled, beady and humongous eyes wide open. The mimicked their mother's, a clear azure, the only difference in the blackened rims of her eyes.

Human child. I will ask of one favour of you.

My gaze peered into hers.

Thank you.

"For what?"

It burned.

Morning came with gray skies and dew, the moisture turning the clustered trunks into spider-like beasts, branches like spindly legs in the fog. The ground was moist, and sticky, the dragon's corpse still oozing out its former life, dyeing the soil to the colour of rust.