~°Hidden beneath your scales°~ ( Dragon Shifter X Reader)

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You slowly closed the gate to your cottage with a faint creack that you barely heard over the loud chirping and singing of birds, buzzing of bees, ribbits of frogs, and crickets of, well, crickets.

You took one last look at your house covered with plants and flowers while checking if everything was ready to be left alone for the next few hours, you checked the gate again while going trough your mental list of things you should do before you leave the house, :

- turn off the lights and any kind of electricity

- estinguish fire ( usually only needed for winter so not something you have to worry about right now in spring)

- fill up the bird feeders in your garden

- water your plants (it had rained little during the night so no need for that today, u could still feel the humidity in the air)

- and lastly make sure the gate is locked, which you have just checked, again.

You finally let go of the wooden door with a heart carved in the middle, it had no paint that could have been splinting off after years of use.

You started taking the familiar trail to the nearby village with basket in hand and a few extra fabric bags just in case you found something that you would never need but just HAD to have.

You slowly passed the rose bushes around your house that slowly but surely started hiding the wooden gates that hopelessly tried to contain them in your property.

You chuckled softly to yourself while you turned on your headphones, you clicked on the first song recommended from your Playlist on Spotify and started following the dirt path north in direction of the fields and forests.

The song softly started to play into your ears and your shoulders relaxed as you took your time greeting your neighboors and accepting some cherries from Ms. Cherry.

She had alot of cherry trees in her garden and gave them to her neighbooors or baked things with them and gave those delicacies to neighboors. With her around, nobody ever bought cheeries or cherry flavored products, whatever it was, Ms. Cherry would already have it in stock.

You bid your goodbyes and watched her small form dressed in a cherry print dress and red shoes dissappear from sight behind the corner of a gate.

You smiled and your eyes wrinkled.
You continued on your quest to get to the market.

Your hips swayed to the beat of the music and your step took a lazy rythm.

You would've liked to stay in the village today but the only good and affordable market was in the next biggest village on Saturdays so you had no choice, since mostly old people who live of their retirement money live here and no real shops were available.

You had to admit choosing to live on the countryside really had it's difficulties but you enjoyed it nonetheless. And what would the villagers do without their dear vet to care for their animals when they're injured or sick??

You knew they would have to walk all the way to the next civilization to get basic medical care for their animals since the few herbal doctors (who were very good at their job!) that lived here wouldn't be able to care for animals instead of their expertise in human biology for long.

You were yourself only a herbal healer at best but you had specialized in animal biology for years and knew you woulndt feel comfortable treating humans if not for emergency cases so you could imagine what position they'd be in without you.

With this and other positive affirmations in mind you proceeded to go trough the main gate of the village which consisted of a round top metal gate with vines and flowers sprawled over the whole construction.

Wisterias hung from the top, swaying softly with the breeze, it reminded you of the ones on your balcony. Though yours were pink, these were white.

You stepped trough the open gate, eyes on the path and slightly lidded, while your body tilted and swayed while you tried to match your step with the rhythm of the music still playing in your ears.

Your eyes snapped to the right when a little creature flew by you. It was green, a butterfly? A moth perhaps? No it was bigger, the size of a squirrel perhaps? You wondered, but when you looked it was already gone.

'What a shame', you thought, until you heard a loud groan.

An animal in your area had made that sound, maybe a few hundred meter to your left? On your right there were only wide planes of grass and flowers.

You had a frown on your face before you knew it, you didn't recocnize the sound, not a animal you had treated yet, or maybe a wolf? You'd only treated one of them once or twice. But it was too low of a growl.

Maybe you had misheard? You waited a few moments and heard nothing, so you went to take another step before another growl emerged from the forest.

Your frown deepened. You definitely didn't recognize that sound.

You turned to your left, your gaze landing on the forest.

It was usually warm and welcoming but now it had a certain gloom to it, not creepy, just mysterious.

You huffed and looked back at the path you were supposed to be taking one last time and started walking towards the deep growl coming from the forests core.

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