How to not train a dragon

The Park

Play the song later, I'll tell you when...

It was a late March afternoon.

The Autumnal season had sprung upon the small country of Dosh.

Cafés and coffee shops had stocked their shelves with bags of pumpkins seeds; ready for the grinder, and had replaced the sugary syrup for shaved ice with cinnamon sticks and chocolate chips.

Street vendors on the street had also swapped out the normal menu of food, instead of blocky fifty cent icy-poles, they instead sold banana and apple muffins accompanied with orange juice; freshly ground might I add.

The biggest change? Schools were filled once again.

After the five week holiday of Christmas, the kids begrudgingly went back to school in early February.

And the one advantage of that?

No one was in the park at 2 o'clock anymore.

The swings sat deserted, swinging coldly in the warm breeze; the slide sat neglected and in desperate need of attention, and the monkey bars and tyres? They stayed stiffer than a grandmothers back.

And one bookshop owner took great advantage of that

Bronx Jane Adams; had taken her devilish rascal of a dragon out for a walk.

You see if she had done this during the school holidays, poor Winnifred would have been harassed, harped, petted and badgered.
Because most of the school children will not grow up to have dragons of their own (in case you're wondering people can't own dragons until they've passed several exams, and even then it's not guaranteed).
So instead of parading around a walking fire hazard she had stayed in her above-store apartment; instead of burning down a park.

And after three months of being cooped up in the apartment; the only exception being potty, he had grown restless.
So when she told him he can go out again he immediately cawed in agreement flapping his leathery wings in happiness and levity.

Bronx chuckled heartily, and stood up from where she sat, filing newly ordered books next ago an old oak desk at the back of the shop.
She pushed the big velvety chair back into place as she turned around, and grope for a large red leathery leash, that she shackled around his neck; and started for the door.

-x-

Winnifred inhaled the air deeply; as his small bite-sized claws clacked against the pavement, his snout twisting, bending and sniffing; he could smell the warm air, sniff the pumpkin and cinnamon and whiff the scent of leaves and bark.

It was glorious.

Freedom had become a fresh taste in his mouth; the small patch on the bed made for him had been left far behind along with his post thoughts of captivity.
He could hear everything now!
God! He missed hearing the sounds of coffee shops, the sound of dogs barking and the humble buzzing of the workplaces.

He could feel the pavement, the smooth cement and the pebbles that had been forever fermented into the sidewalk.

"B-Bronx, h-h-how far aw-away is p-park?" Asked Winnifred his thoughts disappearing and evaporating like clouds of steam rising up, and eventually gone.

"Just down this street." She replied complacently, not even giving eye contact as she looked over beadily at a statue of a tall lanky man grappling a sword holding a dragons head. They were dark times...
Winnifred didn't even bat an eye.

-x-
The gates to the park were two large dragons, one of them was named Athenius he was the protector of the seven mountains way back when before the time of the dragon hunters, back when Ghenrian soldiers used to camp out in the mountains and raid small Doshian villages in the more isolated areas; he would burn the camps, and ate the soldiers. They had no mercy, why should he?

Athenius, after all was a big brute of a dragon, he had a gnarled snout and a horn missing from his many a violent tangos with the Ghenrian forces. His statue arched over to the middle where the two statues met, the second statue being Ergoan.

She was a rogue-dragon of the Ghenrian forces when they were invading Dosh, she turned back on them and set fire to a quarter of a fleet before she was shot down; but not killed somehow, she managed to escape but not without getting a sword lodged in her shoulder: months later she returned set fire to three large military camps, and a small fleet of armada warriors, she was shot down by an archer in the crows nest.

Her statue arched to head-butt with Athenius', and her tail was long and whip like, and similarly to Athenius, she had a twigged horn.

The duo passed under, paying their respects silently to the warrior dragons, they were half the reason they had only a half invaded country.

-x-

The big rolling grasses of the park was freshly watered and smelt of fallen leaves spritzed with mud.

Bronx unleashed her small ball of energy to bound upon the grass.
She watched with a silent smile as he snuffled leaves, drove his snout into the soft ground and scampered around in bushes. Bronx reclined in her seat, nudging her handbag off of her haughty shoulder, and a blue disk tumbled out...

That brought a thought to mind...

Play song here!!

"Oi! Winni! Catch!" Screeched Bronx as she quickly picked up the frisbee and hurled it to her left.
His small blue head popped up out of the orange bush he was searching in; his head snapped up and he tumbled out of the bush, tripping over his wings and sprinting, he had seen the frisbee! It was so close... only a metre or two ahead of him! He just had to fly! He just had to lift his pudgy little body off the ground...!

Bronx looked at his scampering little body with a humorous gaze... he truly was a splendor to behold.

Wings flapped desperately, and the grass only felt like brushes under his ornate claws! He had done it! Now all he had to do was catch the frisbee! It was so close to his little maw!

3... just a little bit closer!
2...  COME ON YOU SLUG MOVE!
1...

His little jaw rocketed out and he grabbed it with a quick sharp bite that grinded his gums against ridged plastic. He landed on the ground with an exhausted huff, his wings falling to both sides of him; his jaw went limp and the frisbee toppled out landing on the ground softly.

Bronx watched from the bench, his wonky chase, lousy take off yet victorious retrieval.

And now she watched happily at his exhausted antics, poor bugger.
She got up chuckling, as she walked over to his pathetic heaving body, his face having gone bright red with huffing and puffing.

She kneeled down to him and picked him up he went limp in her arms, fully relaxing, half asleep! How damn pathetic!
Bronx only grimaced, as she nestled him in her arm, picked up the frisbee, turning around walking to the bench and picking up her handbag, and leash; and started walking home with a partially dead dragon in her arms.

-x-

Glossary

Ghenrian wars, a period of dispute between the two continents (that were later to be divided into four), Dosh and Ghenri, Ghenri thought their idealism's and ways of life better suited the simpler lives of the Doshians; so the invaded 693 years ago on an August night.