The Last Dragon Riders (Part One)

The Scale Fairy

That night Ralem slept with Jaydon coiled all around the bed, his head resting right below his feet. A green sail-like tail rested over the bed spread. Ralem didn’t want to complain, but he was just a little nervous about the spikes that dotted the ends of the joints in the dragon’s tail. Sometimes it flicked as Jaydon dreamed, but never did it get too close to Ralem’s face. And the dragon’s head took up a fourth of the bed and caused the mattress to bow under the weight. More than one time he almost drifted to sleep and found that he had slid until his back was against Jaydon’s head. But finally he found a comfortable spot on the other corner of the bed and slipped into dream world.

He was having a particularly vivid dream. He was back in Redfield and his brother was having a surprise party for Ralem’s birthday. Drake was there in the corner, serving drinks to all of the partygoers. Ralem was going to tell the vampire to clear off, but his brother shoved a gift on his chest. He opened it to find… a bright green emerald shining from a leather collar. He froze in shock and glanced at Aren, wide eyed and questioning. Then Aren’s face morphed, melding into the cruelly beautiful face of Kat. On the other side of the room, a man turned from his drink and was immediately identified as Jaydon. He marched over to Kat and shoved her into a wall, breaking it clean in two. The scene shifted to his old sword trainer, Lee Wyrchester. He was demonstrating how to cut a cake with a huge broadsword. On the other side of the table, Arianna smiled at him, her beautiful face partially hidden by a white veil. His heart was full to the bursting when he gazed at her in her stunning white dress. She reached out for him, “Ralem.”

“I’m here,” he replied, making to take her hand into his own.

 Suddenly something grabbed her from behind, “Ralem! Ralem! RAALEM!” she screeched, the veins popping out from her face as she struggled. “Arianna!” he yelled, trying to follow but his legs wouldn’t work.

                              “RALEM!”

Ralem shot up in bed, breathing heavily. He gasped as he found he was in his bed, the sunlight just starting to smile through the window and warming his covers. Ralem clasped his hands behind his neck and tried to calm himself. But he almost jumped out of his skin when he heard yet another, “RALEM!” a bellow that shook the huge room, along with ear-bursting yell in his mind. He covered his ears in vain. I’m coming, I’m coming, he said to the agitated dragon, running to shove something on. He feared the worst; his dragon caught in a giant cage, surrounded by Vulnairian soldiers, or even worse, with a collar around his neck.

He stumbled out into the open with his sword in hand, no shirt or shoes. Several other city dwellers were opening the doors, pots and other various objects in hand as they expected imminent attack.

Jaydon was sitting squat in front of a felled tree, his tail wrapped around his body, and his wings quivering. Ralem jumped over the railing and rushed to his dragon’s side. “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently. Lauri and Vali drew up beside them, obviously worried. Lauri’s hair was still in curlers and Vali had some sea shells in her tangle of tassels.

“It was terrible!” Jaydon snorted, “I woke up because I was itching so badly but I could not scratch it, so I rubbed it on this tree here,” he waved a claw at the tree (which was shredded to wood sheddings on one side). “And then…” Jaydon looked on the brink of tears, “I lost it.”

“Lost what?” Lauri demanded, her slippered feet tapping the stony road impatiently.

“My…my scale! It’s gone!” Jaydon keened.

Vali snorted and started padding back to her room. Lauri looked like she was deciding whether to laugh or tell him off. Ralem shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. Jaydon interpreted their look as one of disbelief. “I’m serious! It’s right here,” he swiveled his neck around to look at his rump. When he couldn’t see it he started straining so much that he walked in a circle, going faster and faster like a dog chasing its tail. “I can’t see it! Is there a bald spot? Where is it?” He knocked over several potted plants and a small tree in his rampage.