The Book Of Dragons

Chapter 1 part 1: The car journey

My breath fogged up the car window as I sighed, staring out at the views flashing by.

The road was bumpy, and my dad wasn't the most careful driver. I could probably drive better than him, if he hadn't insisted on driving. Besides, I didn't know this road as well as he did. Trees and bushes flew by the window, along with blurred colours that I knew were dragons hiding in the brambles. Reds, blues, purples and oranges stood out vividly against the green of the trees. The multicoloured scales of these dragons got me thinking; did I really want to do this?

My dad was a dragonhunter for a living, and it was the only way we made money. My mum died years ago, and I don't work yet, so I really depend on dad to keep us both going. But that was going to change soon. I was in my final year in school, and I was going to be headed off to college. Hopefully.

"Dad, why are we doing this again?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"I want to get you introduced to the system, so that if you want to, you can join in."

Dad has this great idea that as soon as I leave school, I should join his little gang. Oh, and by the way, dad's the leader of the group that he works in.

"You're kind of forcing me to join the hunters dad, you know you are."
"I am most certainly not!"
"Dad! You know I want to go to college! Why else would you be getting me to come!"
My dad sighed. "Look, Aoife, if you want to go to college you need to decide what you want to do in the future now. I'm just..."
He hesitated before finishing.
"Giving you another option."

I fell silent after that. I couldn't come up with a good enough comeback, so I resumed my staring out the window. More green, more green. I watched as dragons on the road scampered away when we got too near to them. It was strange... this was my first time ever seeing a real live dragon, and I felt a strange pull toward them. So it broke my heart when I saw the corpse. A thin, long, navy coloured shape, lying on the ground at the edge of the road. A dead dragon, most likely one that had gotten hit by a car. I turned in my seat to stare back at it, although it was out of sight within a few seconds. It struck me as strange that the dragon had got hit, because it was a snakespine dragon, one of the fastest dragon species out there.

Wait...

How did I recognise it as a snakespine? It was far away, I only got the quickest glance at it...
And I've never even studied dragons before.

Strange.