Scattered Stars

I

The rain was a shower of ice-cold daggers, attacking the moist earth with almost as much barbarity as the raging thunder bellowed its wrath out to the sky. The dark grey clouds that had earlier been drifting aimlessly across the sky now danced madly in the gales of wind that unrelentlessly harassed the treetops. 

As all of this pandemonium continued, a scaly green creature perched on the edge of a steep grey cliff, ignoring everything happening around her. 

She was a very peculiar thing to gaze upon. She wore a tattered black shirt (which was ripped at the bottom) and torn grey shorts, from which a green, reptilian tail sprouted. Two forest-green horns protruded from the sides of her head and ended in slender, thin points. Probably most noticeable about her was the pair of humongous green wings that grew out of her back and flopped onto the stone, slick and sopping wet. These wings were marked with scars and bruises here and there, some barely big enough to be seen and some that, upon seeing them, would cause you to be concerned about her physical health. 

Other than all of this she was completely human, a girl of about sixteen, with extremely short mousy-brown hair, and the same disturbing decor along her arms and legs and face as her wings. She was of small stature, about five feet tall when standing on her toes. She had a strongly set jaw and short, stout eyelashes, and a small shower of freckles about her cheeks. Her nose was just a little longer than average, and she had thin lips that were purple from cold at the moment. 

And thus, this human-dragon creature sat stiffly on the cold stone cliff in the pounding rain, awaiting her companion’s arrival. This continued for about fifteen more minutes, until finally she gave a disgusted hiss and leapt off of the cliffside.

All too late she realised her wings were too soggy to fly, and she roared some words I would rather not put into this book, but you can imagine what they were.

Her leafy wings tangled up around her as she plummeted to the ground and she angrily lashed her tail, which immediately got wrapped around her leg. 

She bellowed uselessly.

Eventually (much sooner than preferred) the girl slammed into the ground, her face and arms and legs and wings and tail all instantly screaming painful arias at her. She groaned and pulled herself up, attempting to stand up and walk but failing as she tripped over her tail and flopping back into the muddy grass. 

You may have noticed that this girl seems unnaturally alive after this neck-breaking fall. 

You also may have noticed that nothing about this person is natural so what makes you think a 1500-foot fall from a cliff would hurt her?

The girl growled in frustration, and after untangling her tail, she tried walking again. This second attempt was successful, and she trudged along across the muddy plain towards a wall of oak trees that could be seen a few yards ahead. 

It was about twenty minutes later when the girl reached the forest. She stopped and panted a bit before walking through the barrier of trees. 

The forest was a beautiful and magical sight. It was obviously a regular oak forest, but the branches grew in such a way that made you think that they had been carefully designed to cover any patches of open space overhead with their leaves. Bushes and shrubs stood as “walls”, with bits of uncovered space for “windows”. 

And, of course, what would a village be without lights?

Instead of normal village torches (because fire) fireflies hovered around, scuttering up and down trees, flashing on leaves, and of course flying at full speed right in front of your face because who doesn’t want a bug up their nose?