Misfits of Vernada ~Wattys2016~

XL

Zappy

By: Ranger_of_the_North

Zappy sucked in a weak breath, causing a sudden tremor to wrack his battered body, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.

Dark scales shifted under his wings, rubbing against him, and he wearily let his head drop to the ground.

Moon was alive, and that's all that mattered. His sister had survived.

Quiet sobbing drifted through the air, irritating him slightly, and he flicked a bronze ear. Almost immediately the sound changed to a sharp gasp of surprise.

"Zappy!"

Zappy frowned a little, too weary to open his dark eyes. His brain chugged slowly into gear, trying to work out who had spoken; going through the archives.

It was a dragon who had spoken. The speaker was male. That must mean he was a male dragon.

Scales scraped against his snout anxiously, and a vaguely familiar scent tingled in his nose.

MetalClaws.

The bronze drake dragged his eyes open, lids heavy with exhaustion, to see the dark red dragon bent over him, hopeful fear in his golden eyes.

"Hey," he rasped, and a feeling of amusement sprouted inside him at his friend's flabbergasted expression.

MetalClaws drew back, joy obvious on his snout as his jaw dropped open.

"Slash—Zappy—You're alive!"

Zappy smiled weakly. "I guess. I don't feel very alive," he groaned. The muscles in his neck gave way with no warning, and his bronze head slammed into the mushy ground with a painful 'oomf'.

"Zappy," MetalClaws's voice was deadly serious, "you—you should be dead right now."

Zappy snapped his eyes open in alarm. "What? Why?" He watched in confusion as a wry smile curled the red dragon's snout.

"Thank goodness it's winter," his friend remarked. "Look." He gestured with the horn on his head, and Zappy raised his head shakily, weariness suffusing his bones, to eye his abdomen with morbid interest.

Blood coated every scale—under them, too—until they abruptly ended, torn away to reveal a gaping hole in his gut. Red ice webbed across the fissure, blocking it off, and Zappy could fee that in some places it went deeper than his scales. His blood had frozen as it drained from him, saving his life.

Another shivering spasm wracked Zappy's frame as he realised how chillingly close he'd come to death. The knowledge terrified him.

"Zappy," MetalClaw's voice was tight with worry, "don't move a muscle; your movement started the bleeding again. You're alive and heating up."