Tears of a dragon

23. ROTTEN MEAT

"Tomorrow?!" I outburst. Dusty stared at me. "Yeah, the sooner the better." He said. "Why so surprised, Blue?" William asked, giving me a strange look. This was awkward, with both of them staring at me. "Well... I wasn't expecting the fight to be... so soon." I defended myself from the deadly stares.
Suddenly, a door opened. Not the one connected to the arena, but one far within the corridors. The first thing that hit me was the horrid smell. A human came in, holding what seemed to be a bucket full of meat in his right hand. Or at least that's what I thought it was, the smell was nothing like the fresh kill I was used to. He walked past cage after cage, tossing the buckets content to the hungry dragons. Most dragons didn't receive food here that often, so they ate whatever they were given, even if it was dubious. Eventually he arrived at my cage, threw me a piece and proceeded onward. It smelled awful, and had an alien, rubbery texture to it. I labeled it as a foreign substance, there was no way this was some sort of meat. And the human didn't even care to look at me, even after throwing something like this at me. This wasn't the case with Dusty though. The human properly stopped at Dusty's cage. He nervously placed his shaky hand in the bucked and brought out one big piece of fresh meat, uncomparable to the rest. He carefully brought the piece closer and closer to Dusty's cage. Dusty himself stared straight at the man with a teasingly angry look on his face. The human male quickly threw the meat into Dusty's cage, but Dusty didn't even look at it. He slowly pulled out his spikes, eyes fixed at the human. "Dusty stop!" William whispered. But he didn't. He continued to press out the spikes more and more, then let out an icy roar. The human dropped his bucket and ran straight towards the exit as fast as his legs would carry him.
Dusty withdrew his spikes and smiled at us. His tail took a grip of the bucket and dragged it inside his cage. "Here, take this." He tossed a piece of meat into my cage. This one didn't smell bad, and looked infinitely more appetising than my other piece. "Thank you." I said and turned my eye to the dubious meat, pondering if I should eat it or not. Who knows when we will be fed again? Maybe I would regret being picky later. Eventually I decided to save the one Dusty had given me for later. But as I placed my teeth into the lesser piece Dusty interfered; "I wouldn't eat that if I were you." His tone was serious. I looked at him. "It can make you feel pretty ill if your body isn't used to it." He said. I still had the meat in my mouth, when I felt the most repulsive taste I had ever experienced and immediately proceeded to spit it out. "What in the stars was that?!" I fumed, still trying to regurgitate the small pieces from my mouth. I was about to say something but both Dusty's and Williams' laughter drowned my words. Their laughs infected me as well, and once again we were all laughing together in a moment of joy. I succeeded to spit out the last pieces of meat and suddenly realized one thing: Maybe my situation wasn't so hopeless after all. Yes, I was trapped in the world's most dangerous place for a dragon. But I wasn't here alone. I had William, my first ever real friend, who helped me through the battles. I had Dusty, my guide and first dragon friend, and he was almost the same age as me, too. In this moment of realisation, my worries stopped. Right now was a moment of bliss. Right now I was happy.
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Aghh I'm so sorry for taking this long to upload! School has been taking up all my time for weeks now, but I've not forgotten this story or you, my little hatchling readers <3 There is much more to come!