The Dragon Wars (Book 1)

Chapter 4: Patience (Jangra POV)

I spun around, but I saw nothing there. I did not know what she was talking about or if she was messing with me. I turned around and noticed that she looked as if she was almost scared, I had heard about dragons having hallucinations all of the time.
It was not common for dragons, I held her and made sure that she was okay. She pushed me back which hurt me a little bit, not physically but more in the mental aspect. Now I was more afraid then ever to shoot my shot at her. Everyone said that it would work, but I had a bad feeling about it.
"I swear... I saw something moving... I'm not crazy!" Penta said to me. I felt a bit bad for her, but it kind of hurt me that she did not hold on to me. It made me almost not want to feel bad for her. I moved back and just stared at the area she was looking at.
"Penta... It's normal for dragons to have hallucinations, have you not been sleeping well?" I asked her. She hissed at me and then turned around. It kind of told me that what I had asked her was true. She just did not want to admit to it. It still kind of hurt me, her just throwing me off like that.
"You think I'm crazy huh?" She asked me. I groaned inside my head, she got like this pretty often. It was one thing I was not to keen on when I hung out with her. I knew she had problems with sleeping and she would not admit to it.
"I did not say that... Your grandfather has told me that you do not sleep well. I'm just worried about you bec-" I said to her. She stopped me and pushed me down. It did not hurt me physically, I was a bigger male dragon but it did hurt me mentally.
"Let me guess you care about me? My grandfather has tried to get me into you. I know you told him and he wants me to be the daughter of a leader and the wife of a potential new one." She said to me angrily. There was a gleam in her eyes that I had never seen before.
I had not realized that her grandfather had basically told her that I had been crushing on her. But what was more important to me was the words she had just told to me.
I had never thought of her like that, I would not take advantage of her in that aspect, but it hurt me so badly seeing her treat me like this. I had heard of plenty of male dragons abusing their spouses like this, but I had heard nothing of a female dragon doing something like it.
"Yes I do... And I have for a long time, I don't expect you to just put your hands down to me just because I'm the son of the leader. I do care about you, I just want to know what is going on in your head. I know your grandfather, Iplse told me that you had not been sleeping well." I said to her. I was trying to calm her down, whatever I was saying though seemed to dig me into a deeper whole and ignite her even more.
"I used to view you as a friend never any more... I have no feeling for you and I have had my eyes on another dragon for a while. I don't view you as a friend anymore, ignoring me and going after me like this..." She said. She then attacked me with her claws and it scratched me right near my eyes. But luckily it did not get in them.
I did not understand, I had taken all my mother's advice... But whatever I said just sparked an even greater fire than the one I was already in. It hurt me and I looked at the ground sadly, she was looking at me happily as if she was happy to see me sad.
"I ignored you because I didn't want to tell you my feelings... I've known you've had your eyes on him for a while, Kota... Why are you getting mad at me? He is ignoring you right now." I said to her. Everything I said to her just got her even more and more mad. I could see it in her eyes and the way she was talking to me.
There had to be something wrong with this dragon, some sort of mental issues that no one had found out about. I had seen spurts of it throughout our life and our friendship but I had no idea why she was acting out the way that she was acting right now.
It saddened me greatly, I had lots of female dragon friends but she was always so beautiful and sweet to me. Now she was no longer sweet to me and I had no idea why she was attacking me the way that she was right now.
"Shut up! You are such a pathetic dragon, you were always mean to me and Kota was always way sweeter and way stronger than you. Some day we will be together and he will have leader over you, we will banish you!" She said to me. I had never seen her acting the way that she was right now. It hurt me so bad.
Tears began to swell from my eyes... She smiled when she noticed them which made me feel even worse. I had never seen this from her, she had always been so nice to every dragon she had been around. This was just coming out of the blue.
"Kota was never nice to you... I think you need to go look at a reflection when you say pathetic..." Someone said from behind me. I turned around, it was my brother Plok. She hissed at him and moved back a little as if she thought that he was about to attack her.
"Both of you are! Pathetic dragons! Your leader is pathetic! Your father! Me and Kota will be together, you 2 will be gone!" Penta said to him. Plok just looked at her as if what she was doing was completely normal.
Penta then ran off back to the her home in the group. I turned back over to Plok, he moved towards me, he could tell the sadness that was in me. He moved in close and just pulled me in for a deep hug. It made me feel better but I could not forget what just happened right there.
The dragon that I had liked, and maybe even could say loved rejected me when everyone said she would not. But she did not just reject me, she just straight up attacked me.
"I'm sorry Jangra, I did not know that your friend was like that... You just said she liked your friend Kota..." He said to me. I lowered my head down, I had not ever known that she was like that either, I had no idea what caused that short little outburst.
Maybe it was what I said when she said there was something behind me. But I was still just in disbelief that it had happened. He gave me another quick hug then he hopped up on a little rock right above us and then he looked down on me.
"I will tell Kota about this, I talk to him pretty often, he is often a part of my patrols. I know he is your friend and he will be just as surprised as you were to here it." He said to me. I knew that Kota would not ever be leader and I also knew that he would never attack me like that.
I had no idea what had all of the sudden just gotten into Penta. I just nodded a little bit sadly and he just looked into my eyes and sat down staring me down.
"Some dragons are like that... Jangra wants you to be the leader if anything bad happens to him. I know I am just as strong and brave as you, but I am not stupid, I know you are smart. There will be other dragons to come Jangra." Plok said to me. I wish I could think on the bright side like he did. I knew there would be dragons coming after me, but she was always the one that I had been after, to see her like that just made me lose as trust in dragonkind.
"I don't know if I want to be leader... It is a dangerous job... It takes me a whole lot of time as well." I said to him. He looked at me and then he just shook his head. He then moved in closer to me, staring me down.
"Our father, Hirnt... He wants this from you, do not fail him... He looked up for you... Not me, I know, I know our father... I am around him a lot more than you..." He said to me. I looked down a bit sadly. I did not want to be leader, I just wanted to live a normal life I hated living in this world because it seemed like nothing could go right on my side.
"Please just leave me alone for a while... I don't want to talk to anyone, it is nothing against you." I said to him. He looked me dead in my eyes but then he just nodded as if he understood where I was coming from.
He then began to walked off in the same direction that Penta had gone, except she had gone a bit further. Now I was alone, I had no friends anymore, maybe I would be a hunter like my brother and I would become friends with Kota.
That would really show Penta, I bet she would be so jealous about that. I just shook my head, I needed to stop thinking about her, it just made me feel worse. I knew what my job was to do today. My mother and my brother had taught me.
My sister was a medicine dragon, she could not teach me the things that my mother and my brother could. I was tempted to run back over to Plok and ask for help. If I caught a lamb or something else maybe a bit smaller to the community then I bet that would really show all the dragons.
I bet that would really show Penta, I'm sure that she would run back over to me. But if she did, I would tell her no, that would be my revenge for the way that she had just treated me. I no longer liked that dragon, the way she had talked to me today, I don't think that I ever would again.
I figured that I knew what I was going to do next, it would show everyone in this group how strong I really was, no one would ever doubt me, I was starting to like the idea of me being leader, maybe I would be the one that throws Penta out.
I shook my head, what was I thinking? This was just a pure wrath that was going into my head... If I was leader there would have to be a good reason to throw a dragon out. Much less a dragon that could be of some use some time in the future.
I would just ignore her for good, Kota would not go after her, I knew that he did not have feelings for her. She would be lonely the rest of her life, even if she was not, she could likely attack to one she loved like she had just attacked me a few moments ago.
I shook my head, I needed to go clear my conscious. I remembered that there was a field nearby, I knew our territory fairly well, my brother had taught me from the day that I was born. Where everything was and all of the good spots to hang out and hunt.
That's where I had took all my friends to play, out in this closeby field. Plok told me it was his favorite place to hunt. I saw him once every few weeks hunting in that area. There really was not much if a reason to hunt all that much, they were hard to catch but dragons did not eat much. When they did it would feel them up for days.
I had eaten last night so I was not hungry, but I figured that I would catch something for the group.
I began heading towards the field, it was about a mile away, but it was the closest place, and the best place to hunt... Plok told me it was his favorite place and not many dragons knew all that much about it. Every once in a while I would see another dragon hunt around the area.
They would get mad that we were playing in the area, they would always say that we would run off all of the wildlife. Me and my friends always tried to hunt, but we would always fail, they were always too nimble. It was the only weakness to dragons.
We were fast and could fly to the sky, but we were not all that nimble, and if you didn't sneak up on them then they would dodge you and move left and right over and over. Until you gave up or were too tired.
The thing was about dragons is, they were not nearly as big as humans thought, as a matter of fact we were only slightly bigger than a large human, my father had told me black dragons were a lot bigger but nowhere near as fast.
They were strong in a fight, but they were not fast fighters. I had not seen a black dragon before so I could not figure out if it was true. We were fast, but not nimble at all, the only thing black dragons had on us was that they were bigger and stronger.
In all other aspects we were better than them, when it got to close range fighting though it usually did not turn out well though. If you fought them from long distances, our fire power we could not use that often, but it could often burn them to a crisp and making them a lot slower and weaker.
They had those as well, but we could use fire nearly once every few hours, it took them a couple of days. It was what beat them in the war when my father was extremely young, he had never told me if he had fought the black dragons or if he was just a child. All he had told me was he was younger and he remembered it clear as day.
Once I was in the open field I could see all around, I saw a cow from not that far away that was just eating grass. I slowly began heading towards it. I was not supposed to fly in the air, I had heard it was the worst idea possible when hunting.
Everyone had told me that when you flapped your wings everything within a large radius could here you. I had not payed that close of attention but I could here it when the real young kids moved around the camp just first learning to fly.
Normally dragons were not allowed to fly in the camp but the younger kids were an exception. I only flew when I was with my friends, and when I did I was not paying that close of attention to tell how loud my wings were flapping around.
Normally when I was with them we were playing games, sometimes some sports that humans liked to play, we were often a bit to big for it, but it was still fun none the less. I sat back remembered the good all times with my friends.
Kota was always the main one from our group, but there was a solid group of nearly 20 of us, all of the really young dragons, after Kota had begun training the group had died off. He was the oldest out of all of us.
It all came into a big picture to me, everyone always told me that female dragons used to be attracted to the leader. Kota was the leader, not me, just because my father was the leader. If Penta ever came after me when I was leader I would deny her up and down.
Plok had told me I was going to be the new leader, I would find another dragon, even better looking than her that would actually treat me sweetly.
I shook my head clearing all those thoughts from out of my head. Penta would be lonely and it was her own fault, I knew Kota never had feelings for her, she had lost her mind.
I felt bad, I probably would not talk to her or her family ever again, which was a bit sad, because I liked her grandfather and he was one of my fathers main men that he tended to trust. I knew Ipsle really liked me, he would be upset when he heard the news.
I knew that he was the one getting into my fathers head that I should be the next leader. I never understood what it was about him that made him think that I was so worthy of all of those things.
I shook my head once again, I needed to get back to the presence. The cow, that's what I was doing. I slowly began heading towards it being as quiet as I possibly could. Remembering all the things my brother had taught me about how to hunt.
I slowly but surely got closer and closer, and once I was close enough... I knew that it was time to strike. I ran towards it but for some weird reason I decided to fly up to it. The cow heard me and it spun around looking at what it was that made such a racket.
Once it saw me it began running, dodging every which way I was trying to follow it. Then it got into the woods, while I was more nimble than most dragons I was nowhere near the pace of a cow in the woods.
I sat down a bit sad, I had scared of the other cows in the group of cows I had gone after and there was none left. I cursed myself for being so dumb, I did not no what had just gotten into me. I don't know why I began flying, I was hunting it like I had already caught it.
That was not the way to hunt. I got up and began flying to the sky, seeing if there was anything nearby. Once I was up there I spotted some lamb that were nice and ripe for me to go after.
I got back down and then sat down to relax for a few seconds and get back to my feet before I would decide to go after the lamb. I could not wait to catch one of them, I had nearly caught one a few months ago when I had been out with my brother. If I came back with one that would give me a strong case to be trained by an important dragon.
I figured why not... Most dragons would want me if they knew my father was leader, but if I caught something before I had been fully trained then every dragon in our group would come after me.
I began moving towards it, I did not want to even think about flying towards it this time much less flying when I was hunting it. They were right by me in the woods. They were hard to catch, I had to be dead silent. I looked at them, I was afraid to try and catch one.
All of the sudden something came from the middle of nowhere. It ran after one of the lambs, it was very large I could not tell what it was. It looked scary however.
It was large, and dark, like a very dark purple. It got up with the lamb and looked right at me. I noticed it had seen me and I was tempted to run away, it was too late at this point. I knew what it was, it was bigger than me, and it was a dragon! A black dragon! I had never seen one before!
"Hey I saw you hunting! Just figured Id show you the way its done." She said to me. I did not even no what to say, whether to be afraid or what, I was tempted to run and tell my father, black dragons were not supposed to be anywhere near our territory...
"What are you doing on our land... I'm going to have to report you to my father..." I said to her. She laughed and then headed towards me looking me right in my eyes as if she was about to attack me.
"No need for that... I was just going over when I found you... Had something I needed to tell the red dragons..." She said to me. I slowly nodded, I was still a bit afraid, I had heard horror stories about these types of dragons and what they would do to red dragons.
"Uh... Okay... I'll take you back... How did you catch it without flying, red dragons are supposed to be faster!" I asked her. She laughed and then smiled at me.
"You just have to have patience..."