Dragon Tamer - Book 1

Chapter 14

It was awhile before she woke.

Sensation came to her slowly as if pulling her up from the deepest of dreams. Feeling came into her fingers and she twitched them, clenching her hands into fists.

She felt oddly disembodied as if her body were not her own, her mind clouded by fog.

She curled her toes when drew her knees up to her chest, then rolled her shoulders and turned to her side. Her senses began to catch up with her body and she was aware that her mouth was very dry as though she had not drank for days. She heard, as if from a distance, a snuffling , like that of a small animal moving across the ground. She breathed through her nose and caught a faint burning smell. Then something licked her nose.

Her mind finally caught up with her senses and her eyes flew open. A pair of eyes the colour and depth of obsidian greeted her.

She stared unblinkingly into them, her mind not quite yet ready to process what she saw. The eyes blinked and made a huff sound, then the creature backed away cautiously and she got a proper look at it.

It was clearly a Dragon, just a tiny replica of the huge one that she had provided meat for, and this one was pure black rather than scarlet.

It was roughly the size of a large cat, small spikes growing from its head, continuing down its neck before disappearing then reappearing at the base of its tail and travelling down the length ending in a large cluster at the tip. They, like the other dragons, looked to be wickedly sharp despite their small size. Plastered to its sides were its wings, the length of its body with strong looking bones and the wing membrane stretched between them.

The crystals overhead caught the small Dragons scales in peculiar ways, whereas its mothers (for that was who Marcie assumed the large dragon to be, based on quick reasoning) scales glittered like diamonds giving her the appearance of being deigned with thousands of rubies, her child appeared to have the very night sky blanketed around its form, each reflection of light like that of a single star. The effect was magical, and disconcerting.

Marcie was again wary of how to move or react to the realisation that the huge Dragon she had discovered was not the only one in existence and what more, it was the mother to a little one. She assessed her knowledge of animals protective behaviour towards their young while she locked eyes with the child Dragon. Many animals, when becoming mothers, more so than humans became incredible protective of their young, as they should when living in such an unsympathetic world, and would not care for anyone, human or fellow animal to approach them, regardless of motive.

So Marcie kept very still, she raised her eyes slightly to keep the little dragon in her sights but also to watch the mother, who appeared at that moment to be wholly unconcerned with its child's proximity to the human girl, its head lay on its forelegs and it was blowing small rings of smoke from its nostrils, eyes only half open, as if dozing.

The baby Dragon seemed to overcome its original shyness and padded silently forward, large eyes blinking in much the innocent way that a curious child would, Marcie was reminded of Luce's many children, she had been at the birth of three within the past several of years and had even sung the birthing song to two of them, welcoming Merrick's latest sibling into the world. The moment when they first opened their eyes and looked at the world with the fascination of the nearly born had always struck her as a most magical moment, to see the world for the first time and for it to be so incredible and amazing, not stained with suffering and hardship.

She always treasured those moments and sometimes wished that she could also start anew, unaware of the pain the world brought upon its people. So it was as she watched the tiny creature, that would one day surely be as large and fierce as its parent sniffing at her and gazing at her in wonder that her heart reached out to it and she, without conscious though, reached out her left hand, the one that she used to draw her bow and touched the dragon upon its brow.

The Dragon tensed and went still and Marcie went to remove her hand from its scales when a shot of pain raced up her arm. A hot yet bitterly cold lance that seemed to boil the blood in her veins flew from the tips of her fingers up her left arm and straight to her heart.

She gasped, the Dragon let loose a short cry and its mother raised its head and bellowed with a horrid, piercingly mournful sound.

Marcie lost all feeling in her body apart from the pain in her chest, she felt the blood rushing through her body and could hear it clearly in her ears, then the pounding stopped and she knew she was dead.

But she could still feel the pain, and somewhere in her mind she was aware that she could still see and her gaze was locked with that of the baby Dragon who's eyes betrayed the same fear she herself felt.

Then, her heart began to beat again and it began to beat faster and faster until...

She broke.

The pain fell away, the pounding in her ears disappeared. Her mind was clear, and while she thought, she felt as though her thoughts and feelings were mirrored, as though another being was present in her mind and she felt them alongside herself. She was so focused on this added presence that she failed to notice the earth tremble as the mother dragon roused herself from her doze, lift her huge body and spread her wings.

Marcie failed to notice this, her mind unable to cope with the shock of having a being invade it, she once again found herself falling into blackness, she had just enough awareness to realise that she seemed to be doing a lot of that recently and to realise that her arms were wrapped around the warm body of the young Dragon and that Dragon seemed to be contentedly asleep.

As her eyes drifted closed she felt her mind fill with a feeling of love that was not her own.