When I woke up again, I felt that only a few hours had passed. Slowly I got up and stretched.
I carefully extended my wing and noticed that there was no more pain. Was I mistaken about the severity of the injury? Perhaps it did break when the female kicked me, but there still should have been some discomfort. Did I have really fast healing? It was something to explore at a later time.
After stretching I decided to look around my new cage. There wasn’t much to see really. The walls are all made of stone, same with the roof and floor. The stone was surprisingly smooth with only a few irregularities of the floor which looked like claw marks.
Experimentally, I tried to scratch the floor with my claw, but it only left a small mark. My claws were still too small and I too weak.
Dejected I headed towards the pond near the door and drank some water.
After finishing I took some time so take in my appearance. I couldn’t see much as the water was not that reflective and although I could see perfectly well in the dark, it was hard to make out colours.
From what I could see, my scales where very light, white perhaps, but the tip of each scale seemed to shimmer slightly. My body was about 45cm long, from my snout to the tip of my tail. I extended my wings, and each appeared to be just as long as my body. I had four legs each tipped with wicked looking claws and an elegant neck. Slightly curling my lip, as though in a snarl, I could see very sharp teeth. Lastly, I looked at my eyes, I could really make out their color, but I thought perhaps that they were the color of what I would expect the sky to be, there were fleck of another color though or it might just have been the ripples of the pool, I would have to wait until I had better light to see in.
With nothing left to do I went back towards my spot at the back of the room and waited, I wasn’t tired and had nothing better to do. I would have to spend this month growing and getting ready for a fight. I wonder what I’ll be fighting, perhaps the other dragons that I smelt. But why? It didn’t make any sense.
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A few hours later, the stone door opened slightly and someone through meat in. I did not see who it was, I could smell that it was a dragon, but it smelt different than the female.
This time the meat was almost twice my size. Still, I could easily drag it to the back of the cage. Quickly I started to devour it, just like last time I finished everything in a relatively short time, not really sure where all the food went, but I couldn’t care less. I felt tired again and quickly fell asleep.
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This time I slept a whole week. I felt bigger and went over to the pond see how much I grew.
I appeared that I almost doubled in size, being about a meter and a half long now. I also felt a lot stronger. To test it out I dug my claws into the stone and this time large scratch marks were left behind.
Feeling slightly restless I started to move around a bit. At first, I only walked around the outside of the cage but that soon became boring, so I started to run. That soon lost its interest as well and I stopped. I wasn’t feeling tired in the slightest.
Then I got an idea, gingerly, I spread my wings and then I flapped. At first nothing happened but I started flapping them harder and faster. Eventually, I felt myself lift off the floor, but only a few meters. Gliding back down I realized that I had no idea how to land.
But it was too late, and I crashed into the floor. A bit dazed, I just stayed there for a few seconds before jumping back up. There was a mad grin or my face. That was fun.
So, I did it again. This time though, I took a running leap before beating my wings frantically. It worked! I was flying. There wasn’t a lot of space in this cage though, I had once thought it so big, but now it seemed small.
Beating my wings a few times to stay in the air I flew in a tight circle before gliding back down to the floor. This time my landing was slightly better but not by much. I managed to land on my feet, but I soon collapsed, my momentum too fast.
My grin soon vanished though, as I realised, I would soon be too big to fly within this small cage.
Dejected I dragged myself to the back corner of the cage and curled up before going to sleep.
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The rest of the month passed much the same. Food got delivered every few days and after eating it I would go into a deep sleep for varying lengths of time. Every time I woke up, I found myself to be a little bigger.
After dragons hatch, they grow very quickly. They grow the fastest in the first month and then slow down slightly. By the end of their first month, they are usually about five meters tall.
After the first year they are about 10 meters tall. At 50 years they’ll be about 20 meters tall and when they reach 100, they are an astounding 40 meters tall.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Dragons never stop growing but after reaching 100 it slows down significantly.
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On the last day of the month, I was getting restless. I haven’t seen anyone since I’ve been put in my new cage. Whoever brought my food only opened the door enough to throw in the meat before promptly closing it again. I’m not sure who it is but I know it’s not the female.
So, all I could do was pace up and down. I was about 5 meters tall now and flying was impossible as my wingspan was 10 meters. Being as young as I was, I was brimming with energy and had no way to release it.
Suddenly, my head snapped towards the door, and I froze in place. Someone was approaching. I heard the steps echoing off the stone walls. My senses have greatly improved in the last month.
As the steps got closer, I realised it was the female, I could smell her. The footsteps abruptly stopped as she paused outside the door to my cage. Then the large stone door started to open, but unlike all the previous times this month, it opened entirely and not just wide enough for food to pass through.
And there she stood with a small, cruel smile on her mouth and started to speak.
“It seems you’ve grown 200. Come, your first fight will be starting soon, and we don’t want to keep the audience waiting, do we?”
At first, I was hesitant to move, until I remembered what happened last time I didn’t listen to the female. I quickly followed her out into the corridor.
The stone corridor was empty, just like every other time I’ve walked through it. I wondered why I never saw any other dragons.
As we walked further along the corridor, I realised that the numbers on the doors got smaller. We had just passed door 150. The spaces between each door got progressively bigger, suggesting that the cages behind them also got larger.
After a long fast paced walk, we reached door 101, in between this door and door 100 there was another corridor that had a slight upwards slant. I didn’t remember seeing it the first time I was carried down the corridor, but I might just not have been paying attention.
The female turned down the corridor and I obediently followed. Then I paused. The thought of obediently doing anything struck a nerve. I somehow felt that I shouldn’t be obedient to anyone. I was a dragon. I had pride. I was not a slave.
The female seemed to have realised that I stopped following her and slowly turned around. There was anger in her eyes.
“Why must the youth always be so rebellious? This always happens you know? The hatchlings or the failed ones always rebel at first. They learn quickly though, just as you will 200.”
I was scared, very scared, but I wouldn’t back down. I was a dragon. I was not some pet or a slave. I had pride. And besides, the female was much smaller than me now, what could she possibly do to hurt me?
And then she moved, so fast I barely followed her movements. When she was in front of me, she paused, smiled, and moved again. The smile unnerved me, and I prepared for whatever she had planned, it was in vain.
The next moment I felt incredible pain on the side of my head and my whole body was thrown against the side of the corridor. Collapsing on the floor, I was in too much pain to move, wing was definitely broken, and I was sure some other bones too.
She had punched me and with one punch, thrown me across a 50-meter corridor.
It was then that I realised, I didn’t matter that she appeared smaller than me in her two-legged form, she was much stronger, and much older.
As I struggled back to my feet, I noticed she started walking towards me.
“You know 200, I was going to wait until after your fight to put this on you but seeing that you’re being difficult I’ll do it now.”
I was confused, what was she talking about?
When she stood in front of me, she pulled something out of the folds of her cloths. It was a small circular piece of metal with strange writing on it. She reached towards my neck, and I flinched back instinctively but there was nowhere to go.
I felt the cool piece of metal press against my scales and heard the female say a strange words in a foreign language.
The metal started to expand and quickly encircled my entire neck.
Now I was panicking.
The female reached back into the folds of her cloths and brought out another piece of circular metal. This time I moved out of the way as fast as I could. I didn’t want another on me. The one around my neck felt wrong, oppressive, evil.
“Mastrak.”
Pain.
So much pain. My entire body was engulfed in it. My entire being. Nothing else mattered. I forgot who I was. I forgot everything. The pain seemed infinite; never ending. Time no longer existed.
And then it stopped.
Only after it was over I realised it came from the metal band around my neck. I looked towards the female with fear filled eyes.
“Stay still this time,” she said in a voice filled with nonchalance as though she wasn’t the cause of the worst pain I had ever felt.
And I did, I stayed still. She moved towards me and placed the second metal band against the scales on one of my legs.
“Faht,” she said in the same foreign language and the melt band expanded around my leg.
She repeated the process three more times until I had a band around each of my legs and my neck.
“These are slave collars. They allow me and the other authorized Imperial Dragons to make you feel unimaginable pain or restrict your movement. It is not profitable to physically beat our slaves into submission every time they misbehave, after all we need you to fight. Now come. We’re already late.”
This time I followed her with no resistance and as we walked further along the corridor, I started to hear the cheering roars of dragons.
When we reached the end of the relatively short corridor there were two slightly curved corridors, one turned left and the other right. We followed the one to the right. Not long after we reached a door and passed through into a large room. At the other side of the room there was another door, and I could hear the thunderous roars of hundreds of dragons cheering.
Suddenly the female spoke again, “When the door opens, you’ll go through and enter the arena. The fight will not start until the announcer says so. You will not kill your opponent. Any failure to comply with the rules will result in severe pain for you.”
She the abruptly turned around and left me alone in the big room. Feeling confused and very scared I curled up in one of the corners and lay down, waiting for the door to open.
Suddenly the roars outside reached a crescendo before slowly dying down.
Then the door started to open…