A Dragon's Tale #Watty's2015

Back In Time

25 years earlier
Tacoma Dragon Preserve, North Texas
November 13th, 2004
-20 Fahrenheit

“Mom? Dad? Anyone?”

My voice hardly seemed to piece the quiet darkness. The cold air bit into me as I walked along, I had no idea where I was. I was cold, hungry, thirsty, but most of all I was tired and was beginning to have problems keeping my eyes open. My paws were cracked and bleeding. I was leaving a trail of steaming blue where I walked, every step hurt.

I stopped and sat down where I was, using my tail to keep me out of the snow. I tried to figure out where I was. The moon was high in the sky and lit the frozen, misty forest, but I couldn't see four feet in front of my snout. I started again, hoping I could figure out a way back to the den, when I spotted a small dragon, about the size of Fireclaw, sitting in a clearing. The tone and pitch of it's crying told me it was a female.

“Um?”, I called, “hello?”

She jumped up and turned in my direction, relaxing when she saw me.

“Hi”, I said shyly as I walked up to her, “I'm...Tyro. Who are you?”

“Adelind”, she replied.

“Why are you out here?”, I asked.

“I got lost”, she said, “I can't find Mommy or Daddy.”

“Same here”, I replied, “plus, I think I broke my wing.”

My left wing was laying limp against my side. I had tried to pull it in a few times a few hours ago, but it hurt to much.

“I found a cave”, Adelind said, “just over here, we can spend the night.”

Adelind led me a few hundred feet and soon we were at the entrance of a ginormous cave. It was about 20 feet up, 100 feet back and fifteen feet wide. It went down into the ground a good ways and you'd need some pretty sharp claws to scale the sandstone surface, but really only if you were little, and we were.

“We can spend the night here and then go our separate ways in the morning”, Adelind said as she slid down into the cave.

My paws were already sore. It hurt just to stand up and the surface of the cave looked really rough, but it was either tear my paws up, or freeze to death, wasn't really a hard choice. I slid down into the cave. The sandstone collected bits and pieces of my paws as I did and there was a smear of blue where I had slid. Adelind turned around and saw it and basicly threw a fit.

“Where are you bleeding?”, she asked.

“My paws”, I replied laying down, “there cracked and sore from the snow and the sandstone.”

Adelind didn't answer. I curled up and wrapped myself in my wings to try and counteract the chill that seemed to reside in every scale and spike on my body. My teeth were chattering and I could tell the fire that burned inside of me had gone out. Then, I felt Adelind lay a wing over me. I looked up at her. She didn't say anything, but I could tell she was thinking about something.

I felt her move closer. And closer. Closer still. Now we were touching. The heat coming off of Adelind helped to warm me up just enough to spark and relight my own fire, thus warming me back up to 1,500 degrees I needed to be.

“You know”, Adelind said, “I think your kinda cute.”

I felt my cheeks get hot.

“You think..”, I paused, “I'm cute?”

She smiled and nodded.

“Well..”, I was slightly worried how'd this come out, “I think your cute too.”

Adelind smiled again. Deciding to push my luck a bit,I un balled and stretched out. Adelind moved even closer to me. I could feel her relax as sleep took over. I looked around. The moon light was coming into the cave and dimly illuminated the entire area. “One day”, I thought, “I might love to have a den like this.” I placed my head between my paws. I had little on my mind and sleep soon took me over.