365 Days- Book I

11. Dragon

July 11, 2018

"Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language."  

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Aindri stared at the village from her vantage point on top of the mountain ledge, perched on a branch, she was well hidden by the thick green foliage but that did not calm her thundering heartbeats. She kept staring at the villagers who had gather at the village square, tiny matchstick figures, gesticulating in wild animation. It made no difference that she could not hear a word, she was aware of what they were talking about.

At that realisation, anger coursed through her, anger at those villagers, anger at Nin and anger at her great great grandmother (actually her great grandmother's great grandmother) who was responsible for Nin coming into her life.

Nin was a dragon, straight out of her childhood tales, though it was much smaller than what those stories said. She - the dragon was female, as informed to Aindri with a mind-numbing screech in her head, was small, no larger than a huge mastiff, without the cuteness. While it is true that mastiffs are also not very cute, one look at Nin would render even a vicous bulldog as a cute animal.

At the thought of Nin, Aindri looked at the cliff that rose above the ledge she was stationed on, hoping that Nin would stay hidden in the cave as she had instructed, which was again, a wrong choice of words, as she had requested or rather had begged. She sighed, why could not her coming-of-age birthday gift be an ordinary one? No, it was a dull russet veined stone, that she wore around her neck, strung in a black thread and had caused Nin to appear in her life. She had hoped it was a was the talisman that gave her control over Nin but had soon learnt that Nin did not bow to any living creature, least of all a young human.

Aindri would not have minded that dragon being her gift, if only she looked like the ones in the tales, huge, with glinting colourful scales, shining sharp claws and a long tail with a pointed tip. It should have been a dragon that could spread its wings, wings of iridescent hues and sinewy muscle; a dragon that could soar in the wide open skies; a dragon that could breathe fire. Nin was like a toy, with tiny pale wings, a drab grey skin and a stubby tail; the only fire she breathed was in her words, the acidity of her conversations could set Aindri's mind ablaze.

Despite her initial disappointment and persistent ire, Aindri had come to love Nin and was convinced that Nin too liked her. Over the past few months, they had developed a bond as each learnt about the other, though Aindri began to get suspicious about Nin, for she felt that Nin was not what she looked like and had a deep history and dark secrets. Before she got a chance to discover any of them, they had been spotted one of the villagers, who had screamed, fainted and once recovered had run to the village.

'My premonition that it did not bode well for Nin was right,' she thought, as she watched the villagers with weapons, or anything that could be used as one; and when she saw them leave in a group, she knew that Nin would have to go, though she was not sure how she could flee when she could not run very fast, let alone fly.

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Nin glared at Aindri, as though she was somehow responsible for the villagers coming to hunt her, Aindri could feel those waves of angry despair, one which echoed her desperation. She was not sure how she could protect Nin but she would not allow her to fall into the hands of those villagers, Nin could be an angry, irate and rude dragon but was definitely harmless; Aindri had not seen her harm a single dragon fly, even when those had swarmed all over Nin. Nin had done nothing to earn the wrath of those villagers, not a single livestock had been eaten by her, for she seemed to prefer catching fish from the mountain ponds.

As Aindri wrung her hands in frustration, her ineffectual determination battling with her gnawing helplessness, she felt the talisman burn against her skin and heard a kind voice. Startled, she stared at Nin who was speaking; Nin who had always been a grumpy and biting, whose idea of gratitude was a grunt and a thump was sounding kind and affectionate.

'It is fine, child, I will be alright, one does not live for nine hundred and fifty four years without picking up survival skills. I will make my way from here, but I promise I shall return, there must be a reason why I have been bound to you, a mere human child.'

"But how will you escape, you could be a dragon, an old one, as you say, but you hardly look like one..."

'Looks are deceptive little one, few can see my true form but for you, my kind little keeper, so worried about me, you should see.'

And then Nin breathed, a soft gentle breath, but one that was fire, a breath that let Aindri know her Nin was a fire dragon. As the wind howled on the ledge of the mountain cave and against the ruddy skies, Nin changed into the dragon of the tales. As Aindri watched, awestruck, the drab skin melted into lustrous gold, each scale gleaming with tints of the rainbow. The pale wings were magnificent, thick muscle with aurous skin covering them, the sunlight rendering them translucent at the edges. Even her claws and the talon at the end of her long sinuous tail seemed to be of polished gold.

Nin stretched her wings, the span of them almost blocking the mouth of the cave, and then bent her neck so that she could look at Aindri, who had not moved at all. She wanted to reach out and touch Nin's snout, it was round and smooth, with no scales on them, though the skin also glistened gold and the tips of the flared nostrils tapered into fine wisps. She frooze with her outstretched hand, when she saw Nin's eyes, a brilliant rusty red, with gold flecks. Pulling back, she grasped the talisman round her neck; it was a miniature version of Nin's eyes.

She watched Nin, surprised to see kindness in those garnet eyes, they gave Nin an aura of agelessness and then heard her in her head 'Run home, little one, I shall fly away for now. Just beware the man with eyes of blue and be wise of the woman with raven hair.'

Aindri watched her Nin disappear to a speck before running to home, scampering down the mountain side like a goat, wondering why the golden Nin seemed so familiar. It was only at the threshold of her cottage that she remembered what Nin had called her and the realisation made her stumble to the ground.

She was a keeper, a human guardian to a fire breathing dragon, of golden form; a dragon from ancient myths, one that the legends spoke about in awe; she was a keeper to Annynth, Champion of the Skies.

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Word count 1190 and a story which truly rambled from the prompt, I guess I took 'descriptive' a  little too literally.