Ace and the Dragon

An Adventure Cut Short

Another chapter arrives! I seriously cried writing the first dragon scene. It was fun writing about the various dragons! Enjoy~

Everyone was asleep, a good distance away from the island, when a huge roar sounded and the ship suddenly dipped to one side, throwing everything that wasn't bolted down to the side. Lamps broke, plates fell out of the kitchen cupboards, and bodies were flung off their beds.

Ace was tossed to the side, but luckily didn't land on Ivy, who was sleeping in his hand under the covers to keep her extra warm. The rooms got chilly at night. She woke up from it and started crying under the covers.

Ace swung his feet off the bed with Ivy in his hands. She was scared. Ace needed to go outside to see what was up with that roar. It didn't sound good. He put her back under the covers, where they were too thick to fall off the bed. "I'll be back in a little bit," he said softly before sprinting out of the room, barefoot and in sleep clothes.

He flew down the hall and out onto deck, welcomed by screams of terror. And he saw why. It was the massive dragon he'd seen before that had flown into the volcano. It had landed on one side of the ship that was destroyed under its weight. The railing was gone, and there were indents on the deck from where its massive feet were.

Whitebeard came out soon after Ace, followed by some other commanders. They had told much of the crew to stay inside. The giant man looked up at the dragon, that was at last twice as tall as he was. And it was furious. It roared again and stomped a foot down, snarling at the man.

The moment it opened its mouth, Ace ran in front of it, planning to deflect the fire he was sure it was about to spit. And he was right, through the fire was actually hot to him. It was white and blue fire. Hotter flames than Ace's. But it didn't burn him, it was just hot. He deflected and absorbed it, able to keep the fire from spreading to the deck too much and the sails.

"What do you want, dragon?!" Whitebeard called. The dragon didn't speak back, but swiped at the captain with its clawed feet. He deflected the leg with a quake to its forearm. The dragon hissed at him, clearly in pain.

It sniffed loudly and its eyes turned to the entrance into the interior of the ship. It lunged at the closed door, shredding it into splinters. It then stuck its head as far as it could go into the halls. It roared again before pulling its spiked head out and thrusted its arm inside, looking for something.

Then it clicked to Marco. He sighed and looked down in what could be seen as shame. This dragon was looking for its baby. Its dead baby. That they had killed. He made the connection because the baby looked like a smaller version of this one.

"I'll bring you your baby!" Marco called up to it. As if it could understand Marco, it pulled its arm out. It had done a lot of damage to the inside. Ripped apart some of the walls. The others watched nervously. The dragon would no doubt be furious about its baby being killed.

Marco hurried into the ship and pulled the horse sized dragon out. He wished he could do it more gracefully and carefully, but it was quite heavy. When he pulled it out of the interior, he quickly hurried away from it.

What they saw next made them all terribly ashamed of what they'd done. The parent dragon whimpered and touched its baby's dead body, poking it and sniffing it, before it made the most heartbreaking noise. It rubbed its face against its offspring. Tears cascaded down it's scaled face. It licked its dead baby, shaking with whimpers.

"We're sorry, dragon. We didn't know it was a baby," Whitebeard said loudly and sadly, feeling for it. He had had some of his sons die, and that had been excruciating. The dragon snarled at him, pulling its baby closer to it gently. "We will not do anything more to it."