~~~
Wyrmwood woke up with a heavy feeling on its chest. Unburying itself from the torso up… that is, somewhere slightly below its stick figure looking arms but above what might start to count as tail, it bent its head down and to the side to look at the area. Wyrmwood was alarmed to find it had grown fur on its chest! The ‘fur’ was a subdued green color that matched its dull brown scales quite well.
It reached a claw up and gently poked the area, finding it to actually be some kind of hard wood. Wyrmwood panicked a little, was it turning into wood?! It didn’t want to be a tree though! It was still learning how to be a dragon! Its massive length was pulled fully out of the ground as it writhed in worry.
Thanks to the nightmare it had and its current panic, it had forgotten entirely about the seedling. As the long coils of the dragon’s tail flopped and slithered around nervously, being very noticeable, Wyrmwood learned something very important. Dragons weren’t the only apex predators in this forest.
A piercing cry was all the warning Wyrmwood got before something crashed into the clearing with a resounding BOOM!
Right in front of Wyrmwood was the nemesis of all dragons in the world. Its large, feathered wings stretched magnificently behind it before folding to properly press against its lion body. Its entire form radiating predatory menace as its avian head glared down at the hatchling before it, its lion tail swished behind it in agitation.
Wyrmwood immediately started thinking of how to escape as the giant gryphon looked balefully down at it. This thing was even bigger than the Venus Dryad! Its eyes made Wyrmwood shiver, seemingly scanning over its long coils as if considering how to best gut the hatchling.
Wyrmwood gave its best menacing hiss, posturing to try and make itself look as big as possible. The gryphon almost looked amused as it suddenly slashed out with its front talons, scoring 3 deep cuts along Wyrmwood’s side.
It was the first true injury Wyrmwood had felt since hatching. It started to roar in surprise and fear when its lungs forced it into a coughing fit, the spores billowing out thick enough that they almost seemed like a solid mass! Yet the gryphon just unfurled its massive wings and beat them a few times, instantly blowing the cloud away.
Once it had its breathing back in control, Wyrmwood tried to swing its sharp pointed tail tip around to slash at the gryphon while the rest of its body started to flee, it realized a weakness it had as its tail was long enough that slithering away would take a few seconds for its tail end to follow its body. Seconds that the gryphon wasn’t keen on giving it.
The gryphon reared back with a screech, dodging the clumsy slash, it then grabbed Wyrmwood by the midsection and took off, pulling the now also screeching dragon into the air. It rose just above the treeline, flying at speed before letting Wyrmwood go.
Wyrmwood was tossed by the gryphon diagonally and slammed into a tree, its long form wrapping around the trunk from sheer inertia. Wyrmwood gagged as it felt what was probably its broken ribs poking painfully against its stomach. It felt dazed and everything hurt. It started to feebly try crawling away, its will to live stronger than any pain it currently felt.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
It could hear the gryphon almost languidly screech again as it circled overhead. The bird was toying with it! Despite being part bird, it still had a cat’s nature. Wyrmwood looked up to see the beast diving at it again, to the wounded hatchling it looked like death incarnate.
Yet, instead of smashing down onto Wyrmwood, ending its life, it got only about half-way there before there was an explosion of feathers! There were roars as feathers did indeed drift down, falling on and around Wyrmwood like rain. It tried to focus on what had saved it, but its vision kept getting more and more blurry until it simply fainted from the pain, its battered body needing to shut down to heal such extensive damage properly.
~~~
Wyrmwood woke with a start, bolting upright and hissing as threatening as it could at its surroundings.
“Oh ho ho, glad to see you’re up kid!” An unfamiliar voice rang out.
Wyrmwood took the time to examine its surroundings, it was in a cave of some kind.
Stalactites hung from the top of the cave far above, dripping some kind of healing mineral water down on Wyrmwood’s still aching form. It notices it had been laid in a shallow pool of the stuff. Its ribs no longer feel broken at least. As Wyrmwood checks itself over the voice speaks once again.
“Aye, yeh be fine now, lil’ biter.” The voice seemed to let out a few huffs of amusement, “I tell you what, it was quite the surprise to hear old FloofMane squawken up a storm about ‘insolent lizards.’ The thing was tossen yeh about like yeh were an old pigskin!” The voice guffawed.
Wyrmwood finally noticed who was talking as some bioluminescent cave moss began emitting stronger light, better illuminating the cave’s dark interior. With its coils wrapped around the edges of the shallow pool Wyrmwood was warily resting in, the behemoth sized Quetzalcoatl moved its head better into view, its dulled rainbow plumage poofing out before flattening again in bemusement.
“So? Who’d I have the pleasure of saven? Name’s Mayflare by the way.”
Wyrmwood hesitantly tried to mimic the much larger dragon, chirping and squawking in obvious incomprehension. It’s naturally sickly voice sounding like a dying bird’s wheeze more than an actual attempt at speech. Mayflare’s main poofed out again, this time in surprise.
“Not a kid, but a babe?! Where’s yer parents, little one?” When the little tike didn’t respond, Mayflare just gave up and used appraisal on it. “Oh, systemless aye?”
Wyrmwood didn’t know what to make of this much bigger dragon, but was relatively sure he wouldn’t harm it. Wyrmwood just gave up and coiled in on itself, hoping the Quetzalcoatl would either leave or at least do more than just make noises at it. Though, now that it considered it, it recognized that the noises did sound similar to the ones that plant creature was making. Wyrmwood started to get the tiniest inkling that the noises were supposed to actually mean something.
“Fah,” Mayflare suddenly scoffed, sounding surprisingly angry and putting Wyrmwood on alert once again. “Back in my day, being systemless was something to be celebrated! Sure the risks were higher and death was much more common, but at least we could still proudly say that some of us were born free!”
The large dragon seemed to be raving mad!
…
Wyrmwood wondered if it could somehow tunnel its way out of the encircling coils.
“How could they have forgotten where they came from?! Did they think our noble lineage would stay that weak from birth?! This blasted system is nothing but fancy chains to bind us to the humanoids’ ‘rules’!!!”
Wyrmwood was testing the bottom of the cave pool’s floor for digable spots. This large dragon was loud and rather scary.
As the old dragon huffed and puffed from exertion, coming down from his rant he noticed the strangely shaped hatchling had started burying itself in cave mud, blending in surprisingly well.
“Ahem, sorry about that lil’ tike.” He said abashedly. “While I didn’t mean to go off like that, I couldn’t help but notice yer sorry predicament.” Using his heavy tail feathers like a broom, he gently wiped away the mud Wyrmwood was trying to hide in. “I just so happen to be a lonely old codger though, and you lil’ one…” He smiled down warmly at Wyrmwood’s now curious expression. “Looks like a great project to spend time on.”
Wyrmwood panicked, its arms flailing as Mayflare gently picked it up with his teeth. Holding Wyrmwood sideways, from just above its midsection. He chuckled fondly as the hatchling instinctively coiled around his head and snout as best it could.
“Let’s get going then,” Mayflare said as his whole body began to float a few inches off the muddy cave floor. The feathers all along his body rippled rhythmically as he kept him properly afloat. “I have much I can teach yeh, and have learned over the years that time is always shorter than we think.” And with that he slither/floated deeper down the tunnel, Wyrmwood still panicking as the strange dragon carried it off to who knew where.
~~~