I turn to the stone slowly and I try moving backward only to be captivated by the stone cracking open and in shock, I see something miraculous that was enhanced by the glowing crystals. The rock -- no egg splintered apart as something rose out of it.
Did I see its head pop out, followed by… two more heads? It pulled itself out of the egg without any fuss and presented its majesty to me. It had feathers that mirrored a gorgeous sunset with a slow gradient that went from red to orange to purple; the purple making up most of the creature's color. Three separate necks held the three iconic-looking heads which gave away what this creature was, a dragon.
It must have been pretty cramped in that egg given how it was twice the size of a large German shepherd with its heads rising to my chest and the lizard-like tail and enormous wingspan. The heads had birdish features to them in how the top part of the ‘beak’ slightly overlapped the bottom jaw. All of its eyes opened at once as its nostrils flared in my direction.
Then I knew true fear, it felt like someone was gently running a knife-edge down my spine as I broke out into an immediate cold sweat. The pressure was immense, my knees were quivering and I could feel death's cold grasp slowly reaching for my throat. My hands couldn't stop shaking and tears welled up in my eyes as all sets of dangerously beautiful eyes locked with me, each pair were like works of art.
The middle head had ruby red ones that felt like they were gazing into my soul as if it could recite my greatest secrets with only a mere look, the one on the left had blue eyes that were only matched the grandest of sapphires or the deepest of oceans, and finally, the one on the right had eyes so pink it would cause roses to wilt in jealousy; and all of those eyes had the signature cold, and calculating reptilian slit. Tightness in my heart increased once they opened their mouths slightly and I saw multiple rows of pearly, white serrated teeth like sharks, and it wriggled front claws that I had no doubt could cleave through me without any resistance.
I can’t move, I can’t move and I'm going to die. The dragon slowly approached me without ever removing its eyes from mine. Every step it took felt like an earthquake in my heart and every breath it took, took mine away. I finally managed to close my eyes and I waited for the worst to come, but it never did. The sudden tenseness I felt immediately fell away as I felt something nuzzling my chest. I opened up my eyes and looked down and saw all three heads rubbing against my body.
What the hell, why? Why is this happening? Why am I not dead? ‘Shut up dumbass be grateful you're not lizard food currently.’ The rational part of my brain said, ‘But why is doing this?’ The curious part of my brain inquired. That is a good question, which I have no answer to. I have no idea why this super predator is acting the way it is unless it is as a bird and it imprinted onto me and it thinks I'm its dad.
I slowly raised one of my hands and one the left head immediately swung around and locked its sight on it. I reached forward and started stroking the top of my head. It felt like I was running my fingers through a bunch of plush blankets as each feather went across my hand. Then the head started to coo quietly and my heart melted as it rubbed itself against me, the middle head noticed I was giving the left one more attention so pulled itself toward my other hand and started rubbing against it mimicking the actions of the left head.
The right head, not wanting to feel left out, started to approach the hand that was petting the middle one only to get snapped at by it. Well, at least I know that the dragon heads all have different personalities, now that I have established that I am not going to die instantly I removed my hands from their heads and gave the right one a small part because it looked dejected.
Now don’t get me wrong that these things aren’t trying to eat me; they are adorable but that might not last for long and I don’t feel like taking the chance that it won’t try later. So it looks like I am hunting for two now... Or is it four? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I need to find out if any of my traps have caught anything yet.
I started to walk away from them and then I heard footsteps behind me. Ah, hell I turned to them with the warmest smile I could come up with and said as I was talking to a dog, “Stay, okay? Be a good boy.” In turn, the heads let out a low hissing noise, my heart started to pulsate once more. How did I screw up what I say!? I quickly blurted out, “ Uh, I mean be a good girl okay! Stay here, be a good.. girl? I just need to get some food.” The hissing stopped immediately and the right head smiled? Then rubbed its head on my chest, and the left head sighed, it sighed and did the same thing! Then the middle head looking all haughty did the same thing.
I patted them all then they went off back into the cavern. Now I know that I did not just have an ‘oh, so you're a girl dragon’ moment! This is ridiculous on so many levels, why wouldn’t the dragon be hyper-intelligent. I swear to god if it - no she starts talking I think I’ll have a heart attack. I sighed and marched off to find my traps and I must say I am surprised out of the seven I placed, three of them were full. I honestly can’t believe that my makeshift handiwork managed to do even this amount.
All the traps were rabbits similar to the one I caught before I quickly killed them, reset the traps, and hauled them back home. I arrived back at the cavern and saw the dragon sitting where the egg once lay and she also appropriated the sleeping bag for something to lay on.
“Hey, I’m back!” I said walking up to her with the three rabbit corpses by my side. I approach her and realize I don’t even have a name for her. My mind jumped to the word once I remembered how soft her feathers were. “Beatitudine.” The dragon cocked all of her heads at once I said.
“That's your name,” I said, pointing at her. The dragon processed this and then walked over to me and wrapped her head around my body. This honestly surprised me. She is showing extremely high intelligence, even what I considered beforehand about how she knew about what a boy and a girl are. “ Are you a good girl Beau?” The cooing from before started again as I petted her. The embrace made me feel dizzy from how comforting it was.
I released Beau and she took the hint as I got up to start the fire for more rabbit stew. I set up the bundle of branches and the pot for more rabbit stew. Here’s the fire starter I almost forgot where I put the thing. Beau watched with interest as I lit the fire. All of her eyes lit up as the sparks flew and how the fire came to life.
Even though she could be scary I could help but smile at her curiosity. “I am pretty cool aren’t I?” I said with a smug tone. She didn’t blink.
“Beau are you, okay?” She slowly moved past me and placed her faces by the fire, “ Hey careful Beau I don’t want you to burn yourself!” I said, wait why did I care this much. Did her imprinting on me affect me too? I reached over to grab her to pull her back from the fire, but then I heard a sound like a deep inhale coming from her and watched as she ate the fire. What just happened? Then as if she wanted to one-up her previous trick I felt a great heat explode out of her as reddish-purple flames jetted out of her middle mouth for an instant the small cooking fire exploded back into existence.
The heat was overwhelming. I almost tripped and fell as I had made a good amount of distance from the flame. I turned my head to look at the flames cooking the stew and saw how the bottom was glowing red and how steam quickly made the lid pop off. “ Beau stop it!” I shouted, the dragon made the inhaling noise once more and the flame stopped as quickly as it started. Ash now stood where the wood once was and the stone that lay underneath was melting. That is not an exaggeration, the floor where the flames ate was in a semi-liquid state and glowed like a goddamn hot plate. Thankfully the cooking pot didn’t melt along with the floor. Beau hung her heads in shame as she realized what she did.
She didn’t mean what she did, I guessed she was just following her instincts and there is not much I can do about it now, no pointing in crying over spilled milk. I approached her and stroked the back of her necks. She looked up at me with regret as I comforted her. I let out a deep sigh, food is probably ruined, I guess I need to go out again, huh.
“Beau, I want you to know that you were just trying to show off for me and you might feel guilty about it, but I don't blame you for it, okay.” She does not look like she believes me.
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