Dragon Marked

Chapter 1: a burned arm and the black flame

13 year old Kate Swordstone woke up to the tweeting of birds, and a sloppy lick to the face from her dog, who slept in Kate's room in the eastern tower fade-in the rising sun. That wasn't the only thing that Kate woke up to, that was the usual stuff. It was pain. A lot of pain. The pain was on her arm, where she had burned herself on the hot sword when playing with her best friend, Meg, months ago. Meg stood for Megan. Her full name was Megan Anna Donner. Whether Meg was named after some Anna, or they just chose a unique middle name, was beyond Kate. The burn hurt worse than it had been yesterday.

They had arrived at Jacob smith's house around noon. It was a beautiful morning, and the sun was shining through the forest. The Duo had stoped for a snack break, as they had forgotten lunch. Jacob lived in a secluded cabin in the woods. The trail to the cabin was very long, and it had been by chance that the two had stumbled into his cabin one morning many years ago. But that's not when this story takes place...

"HEY, MEG! HEY, KATE!" Jacob had called over to them. He was normally in his house. "HEY, JACOB!" The two speeded up, and Jacob walked over to a pile of wood. This was the common routine. The two Girls picked up a few pieces of wood. Kate picked up three, and Meg two. The three logs that Kate picked up was a note to Jacob that this was not business. Meg picking up two logs signified that they weren't being fallowed. After they were in the Smith's cabin, they set the wood down. The Smith cleared his through. "Well," he said, "that's good. What does that bring your streak to, Meg?" This was really a joke, as they had been visiting him for years, never getting caught or followed. "1,234. Days. You should know this. We're the only ones who come here!" She teased, going to the bare wall opposite to the wood pile, bead, and cabinet with all his food. She picked up a pice of charcoal that Kate kept forgetting existed. "12th pice of charcoal." Meg remembered everything to do with numbers. As she said this, she added another line to the wall, having to crouch to reach the lower portion of the wall. Kate smiled slowly, and said way to sweetly "did you get tired of standing on your tippy toes to count? The three of them had a tradition goring back 1,234 days where they added a tally to the wall. The smith was, in reality, pretty short. Jacob's face flushed in embarrassment. "I finished the sword" he informed Kate in an attempt to change the subject. Jacob was more of an artistic Metal Smith. This was his first real weapon commission. "Great! Now Kate can teach you how to sword fight!" Meg stated. A few hours later, Jacob was making a new frame to sell at the market. Kate and Meg were sparing with two of his metal poles. Meg tripped over a knob on the ground and fell backwards. Just then, Jacob dropped a new chunk of metal. Kate lunged forward. Catching Meg at the last second. Kate screamed in pain as the metal came into contact with her arm. She had fallen backwards, and Jacob had put cold water on the wound.

Now, Kate has a blistering burn on her right arm, and it hurt. She slowly got up, and gingerly pulled on her pants, (jeans) being careful to not bend her arm. She went to put on her shirt, a dark blue long sleeve shirt when she noticed something about her right arm. The burn was black. She had a lot of experience with burns from dragons. They were not black. Unless they were burned bones, or house, or tis or that. The list could go on for about a chapter, so I'll skip that. After she pulled herself out of the list, Kate looked closer at the burn. It was started slightly a quarter of the way up her lower half of her arm. It started about 1/10 of an inch wide, and grew to the side of 2 inches, were it split, and turned into little black frames, like a burning black flame that doesn't move. Kate had seen this before, many times... She was marked by a dragon.