Traitor to the Crown

Chapter 3

The eye pulsed, its pupil rapidly twitching about, analyzing every detail of the scene in front of it. Vaskin looked at the giant eye, and it stared back. Vaskin blinked, and the huge glowing orb blinked in response.

"Vaskin, I can't hold onto your ankles forever!" Manx called in fright. At the sound of her voice, the eye moved and refocused on her. It seemed as if the giant whatever it was understood her, and she and Vaskin found themselves speeding towards the ground. A huge paw came up to meet them, and it gently used the tip of its wing to place them within its massive palm.

"It's a dragon!" Manx exclaimed in awe and reverence, peering between its pillar like claws. She held onto one of its ginormous taloned toes for balance, examining its moss and algae covered scales. The dragon stretched out its hand and raised it to its face, looking at the two tiny trespassers in its paw. Its face was massive, its nostrils alone being caverns on the tip of its nose. It had a pair of long brown horns, one of them being broken off partially and in between its horns sat two tall crests and it had bony frill-like protrusions at the edges of its jaw that framed its battle scarred and moss covered face. Manx was so close that she could see into its nostrils and smell the acrid breath that blew at her like a warm breeze as it exhaled. And to her surprise it had legions of tiny golden eyes within its nose staring up at her. A frog croaked and hopped out of its nostril, sailing over Manx's head. The great dragon wrinkled its nose, a loud rumbling coming from its throat. Its lip curled revealing teeth longer than Manx and Vaskin were tall and another colony of startled frogs hopping around in its mouth, the stench of its breath hard for her delicate nose to bear.

The dragon's eyes closed and it wrinkled its nose a couple times, before it accidentally showered Vaskin and Manx with a torrent of bewildered amphibians who didn't know they could fly as it sneezed a glorious wet dragon sneeze. Manx shook off some of the slime in disgust, a stray frog jumping off of her head. Manx was speechless from the shock of being drenched in slimey dragon snot. The dragon wiped its nose on a claw and peered at its paw with an apologetic glance.

"You could at least cover when you sneeze!" Manx angrily shouted after a long moment of silence. The great dragon blinked in embarrassment.

"You..you...you're not going to eat us, are you?" Vaskin whimpered in terror.

The dragon contemplated his question for a moment. "You're hardly a nibble." The dragon said, its great voice echoing across the horizon, deep and throaty and in an ancient accent.

"What in the Valdt were you doing under our feet like that? You nearly killed us both by moving so suddenly, you infernal oaf!" Manx shouted, shaking a mucous covered fist.

"I thought all the ground crawlers like you had seen me fall asleep there. I hadn't meant any harm. I didn't even know you were there." The dragon said in its deep low thrumming voice, before looking at itself and saying, "By Gadrock's spine, I've grown plants! And something is itching my nose. How long have I been sleeping? No wonder crawlers didn't notice me."

"We thought we were walking on swamp, and then the ground suddenly came up and next we know we're lookin' into your eyes!" Vaskin said.

"Did we win the war?" The dragon asked sleepily, yawning again.

"What war? You mean the battle with Lyrica? That was a draw, the only reason the carnage ended is because Lyrica backed down at the last second." Vaskin replied.

The dragon scratched its head with a free claw and said, "Who's Lyrica? I mean the war at Ternan's Peak, against the mighty scourge of Tyranos and that young upstart Scabrakh. I fought with everything I had until my wounds had sapped my strength and I fell into a muddy squishy someplace."