It was a quiet morning for Malduran, the young mana dragon, in the forests that he called home. The air was still cool and slightly wet from the overnight rains, dew coating the leaves on the bushes and trees, the rest of the water hanging in the air creating a light fog at a distance, giving enough visibility to see by, but just giving a slightly eerie feeling to those who would be unfamiliar with the area. Nonetheless, the sun was shining, peeking in and out through the clouds, shadows dancing in and out of existence almost constantly. He was travelling around, looking for the day's first meal, searching through the bushes and grasses for small creatures to snap up, not one to be preying on those in possession of sentient minds, unlike others that he had encountered in the past during his various wanderings. Today, though, fate had a different idea in store for little Malduran.
As the young dragon continued to root around, he came across one bush that was rustling and shaking by itself, no wind blowing to disturb its leaves. Malduran's ears pricked up as he watched it, swaying to and fro, with the pattern of something moving around inside it. Whatever it was, it obviously had not noticed him there, else the movements would have stopped as whatever it was would be fleeing by now. Most creatures did when he fixed hungry eyes on them. He crouched down low to the ground, positioning his hind legs, wiggling his rump a little in a slightly childish way, betraying his intentions to any who might be watching... Then, without a second of hesitation, he pounced at the bush, jaws clamping down on what felt like a big, bushy tail, although something seemed amiss, for this tail was not furry, but smooth, but not like scales, more like plastic or latex. He knew he would have to see when he dragged its owner out into the open. He pulled back on the struggling creature, his strength easily enough to move it where he wanted. When he saw what he had caught, he immediately dropped it, backing away a little and standing straight on his hind legs, peering down at his would-be catch. The creature did have a big, bushy tail like he had surmised whilst dragging it into plain sight, pitch black, except a pair of white stripes that ran up along its back, meeting just shy of its forehead to run on to the tip of its muzzle. The rest was black, squirrel like, in a sense of the shape, but definitely not a squirrel, for this creature was bigger, and its whole body had a shine that told the dragon that it was not made of flesh and blood like he was. Immediately, he recognised that he had dragged out of hiding a skunk, and not an ordinary one at that.
He had heard rumours of latex creatures before, beasts made from the substance, given life through unknown means, but he never thought he would find one loose out in the wild. He double checked his mouth, making sure that nothing was still there. He found his mouth devoid of anything except for the saliva that had built up over the past few moments, and nothing was on his hands or fur... Yet. As he looked up at the skunk, he saw it just turning around to face its rear towards him. The rational part of his mind told him to run whilst he still had time, but for some reason, he found himself unable to do much but stare as its tail raised. He could not quite tell what had happened next at first, as Malduran found himself with his hands raised to protect his face and the feeling of something covering his lower half, below his waist, as if somebody had doused it with water. He heard the skunk scurrying away into the undergrowth again and lowered his hands, looking down at himself. His entire lower body was covered in black spots of various sizes, each with the same feeling as the skunk had in his mouth, only it was mixed with the feeling of being wet. The area immediately surrounding him was also dotted with black, his mind immediately realising that he'd just been sprayed. The smell of musk, along with that of latex quickly hit his nose, making his nostrils twitch. He thought that was the end of the experience, and started to wander again, trying to find a stream to wash the black stuff out of his fur and off of his scales. Unbeknownst to the little dragon, his problems with that skunk were far from over.
