Dragonsbane

Ralem Almost Punches his own Face

Ralem woke up to the sun shining gently on his face. He yawned, stretched and sat up. Rubbing one eye, he cracked the other to survey the area sleepily. He was surrounded by a copse of trees. A small creek loitered its way across the clearing, the water bubbling and frothing as it flowed around the smooth rocks. Hummingbirds and bees happily flitted from flower to flower which were in glorious bloom from the rains. He startled a rabbit, who stared at him with its dewy brown eyes, its huge brown ears focusing on him before it turned tail and bounded away to his family. A fox flitted to its den, weaving around trees to escape the dawning day.

A few birds were taking a bird bath in the shallow stream while others were singing sweetly in the trees. Abruptly they stopped and flew off like one big cloud.

The rabbit sniffing the clovers shot down his hole in a blur of brown. The forest seemed to hold its breath. That’s not a good sign, he thought, his senses all suddenly sharpening. He patted the grass around him for his sword. He cursed, Where is my stinking sword? A shadow too deep to be a cloud darkened the ground around him. In a sudden reflex, Ralem dove into the bushes just as something huge touched down on the ground. Ralem sucked in his breath, still as a statue under the leafy cover of the bush. Peeking out, he saw nothing but a huge shadow drowning out the gentle green of the foliage. Then… it was gone. Ralem let out a deep breath. It hadn’t seen him.

A branch slapped him in the face. “BOO!” a voice called from behind him.

Ralem didn’t think. He acted. He burst from the bushes like a ninja deer, swerving mid-air to punch whatever-it-was’ face in.

 Just as his fist shot out, he made out his own smiling face.

 What the- he caught his own fist before it hit him in the face. Ralem’s eyebrows bunched together before he saw the eyes on his double were bright green. He froze, then let out a feral growl, “Darn! And I thought you were just a dream!”

 The dragon let go of his arm and Ralem rubbed his wrist tenderly. “You thought it was a good dream, right?”

Ralem faked a smile, “Of course.” Now that he thought of the ‘dream’ which was yesterday, he had no clue what had come over him. He just went ahead and hopped on a dragon that he didn’t even know and was talking with him in his head. Great, he thought, I’m going mad! What’s next? Unicorns that grant wishes?

Jaydon turned into smoke and reformed as a great shimmering dragon, flopped down in the clearing, “Well I hoped you had good dreams like me last night because you slept in really late!” he said, smiling in a rather gruesome way upside down, “Just finished a deer. It was delicious! My first catch,” he said proudly, reminding Ralem that, although this dragon was big he was still but a baby.

The second thoughts he had been having crumbled away at the reminder at just how young this dragon was. He couldn’t just ditch him (besides, he thought that even if he tried the dragon would probably follow), and all craziness besides, he really felt the need to like the dragon. It was almost like a father seeing his baby for the first time. He loved this big, crazy creature that he didn’t even know. With a happy sigh resigned to his fate, he returned the smile, “Wow, great job Jaydon! Your first kill! How big was it?”

Jaydon started licking his claws daintily, “Really big by your standards. A nice buck. And I also saw some villagers.”

The smile froze on his face, “Villagers?”

“Yes,” Jaydon said, not looking up, “Why?”

“This is not good, this is NOT good,” Ralem muttered to himself pacing in front of the dragon.