The Bonded

The Bonded Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The next morning when I woke up, I made a startling discovery. Thrax wasn't yellow, like I had previously thought. Instead, he was a bright, magnificent gold.

A gold dragon was a sight like no other. His scales caught the light and sent golden sparks around the clearing. Whenever he moved, his scales shone brightly as if he himself was made of pure gold. One would imagine that his eyes would at least be a matching color, but instead they were still the wonderful blue they had been since he was born.

"Thrax..." I whispered, rubbing one of the golden scales near his head. He turned to look at me sleepily. "You're gold." I informed him. Thrax shook his large head slowly.

"No, I'm not. I'm yellow remember?" He asked, looking at me worriedly. "Did you hit your head on the ground yesterday?" He licked my forehead, as if he was checking my temperature.

"No I didn't hit my head." I said slowly, shaking my head. "But you're gold, I promise." I told him again, watching as he shook his big gold head.

"Are you sure you're ok?" He asked, rubbing his head against mine.

"I'm fine." I said quickly. "Just look at your scales." I told him, pushing his head around so he had to look at his body. I watched as his eyes widened quickly. He snorted air out of his nostrils, and shook his head quickly in what looked like amazement.

"I'm gold." He said softly, and then looked at himself again. "I'm a gold dragon." He said, his eyes showing the wonder he felt.

"Yes you are." I told him, a bright smile lighting up my face. "You, my friend, are a gold dragon."

Gold dragons were very, very rare in Grælin. In fact, there had only been a few in all of existence, and only one that I knew of in my lifetime. As far as I knew, gold dragons always grew to be great, and powerful. I hoped that Thrax and I could become like that too.

That day, we planned to start our journey. Thrax was big enough that he could fly me without straining, and he said that he could do it. I was still somewhat doubtful, afraid of hurting him, but he would hear nothing of it. He was right though, we had to leave before we were found. It just wasn't safe for us to stay that close to a village for such a long period of time. As much as I wanted to wait a few more days, it just wasn't possible.

After I had convinced Thrax of his new color, we started to get ready to leave. I made sure everything we had except for the blankets was packed into my bag, including some dried meat left over from the morning's meal. Once that was packed, I layered each of the blankets on Thrax's back. I had them in between two of the fins on his back, right near the bottom of his neck. It was a very temporary saddle; there was no way it would last very long, not with the sharpness of his scales. At the same time though, I couldn't afford even a small piece of leather. My hides were good, but not good enough to use as a saddle. I couldn't clean them well enough to use for anything important, as I had never been taught how. My plan was to buy new blankets every time the ones I was using as a saddle were ripped up.

As I finished fitting the handmade cloth saddle to him, Thrax turned his head around to look at me. Of course, when he did, I could only look into one of his big blue eyes at a time.

"So, any plans of where we're actually going?" He asked, curling his tail around me and lifting me into the saddle when I was finished.

"This seems to work fine." I told him as I settled myself into the saddle. "And I was thinking we should go South. There's a lot fewer villages in the South, we just have to steer clear of most of the villages we can on the way." I told him, leaning back against one of his spikes. The spike didn't feel sharp against my back, just hard, like a rock.

"That sounds reasonable." Thrax said, kneeling as I slid back off his back.

"I'm just going to clean up our camp, and make sure that no one will know we've ever been here. Then we can leave." I told him as I moved toward our fire. I put it out, and covered the ashes with dirt. In the cave, I made sure all proof of our living there for the past few weeks was gone. I also made sure that there were no animal remains lying about from one of Thrax's meals.

Once I was absolutely certain there was no evidence left behind from us having been there, I went back to Thrax. When I walked into the clearing I had left him in, a smile hit my lips. He was curled into a ball, not unlike a cat, and making a low humming noise in his throat. I had come to connect that humming noise he made with his happiness. Adding to the peaceful scene was the rays of sunlight streaming through the leaves on the trees. Because of the sunlight hitting him just so, his scales radiated their own rays of sunlight around the clearing. The entire effect was beyond magical, even more magical than the fact that I was staring at a dragon.

Finally, Thrax turned his head in my direction and opened one of his eyes to look at me. He smiled and stood up, arching his back in a stretch. "Are you ready?" He asked, tilting his head to one side. I smiled and nodded, walking up to him and rubbing some of the scales on his neck. They were still cold, like the first time I had felt them, but it seemed normal to me by then.

"Yeah, I'm ready. Are you?" I asked him, still rubbing his scales. He leaned into my hand slightly, enough that I could feel his weight but not enough to knock me down, thankfully.

"I'm ready, but I was thinking." Thrax said, moving back so I could look into both of his eyes instead of just one.

"Oh really?" I asked with a smile. "What about?" Thrax ducked his head a little, turning slightly away from me.

"I don't think we should go South." He said quickly, refusing to look me in the eyes. I frowned, shaking my head.

"What? Why?" I asked quickly. He shook his head, showing me a dragon-like frown.

"I don't really know, to be honest. I just have this strange feeling that we don't need to be going South. I feel like we need to go East right now." He said, turning to look at me for the first time since his announcement. There was a slight confusion in his eyes, but I could tell that he honestly believed we needed to go East.

"I still don't know if this is a good idea, but we can go East if that's what you think is best. I don't know much about dragons, so maybe this is some dragon thing. I trust you Thrax, and I know you wouldn't be willingly leading us into danger." I said, rubbing his scales once again.

"You know that I would never hurt you Reaya." Thrax said, licking the side of my face. It had really become a habit for him to do that. "So we're going East?" He asked, lifting me up onto his back with his tail once again.

"Yes, we're going East." I said with a small smile. Thrax hummed low in his chest once again, and then raised his wings. With a few great thrusts, were started rising in the air, quickly going above the trees. I grinned, laughing as Thrax flew in a circle.

It was time for our journey as Bonded to really begin.