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[x-lavenderclouds-x]

Draconic Misadventures

short story on one of my ocs! she's an aspiring dragon behaviourist. her social status of being a woman, however, limits her. she's quite rebellious and curious, so i hope you'll spend a few minutes of your time on reading about her adventures!

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The dragon growled as I stopped right outside its striking range. My heart ached to see a creature of the sky bound to the ground, ropes digging painfully into its wings. Two rows of teeth gleamed in its ruby-red mouth while it sneered at me. The brute’s colouring reminded me of a Venus flytrap. Heart racing, I snatched my hand back from the iron bars of the cage – just for a powerful tail to strike the area where my hand had been only moments ago.

It was a female jungle dragon, a species that considered their male counterparts as expendable. Quite unlike some certain noble families, I thought wryly. The gaudy headdresses made from the feathers and scales of these expendable males was about the extent of the research we had on them.

A pattern was starting to occur – the dragoness, who I had resolved to naming Nepenth, seemed to grow more and more agitated as I continued to write. By the third paragraph and a detailed sketch of her limbs, she had had enough. My hands frantically covered my ears, quill clattering to the ground at the sound of an ear-splitting shriek. Footsteps were bound to follow the roaring, and thus I gathered my things and left.

~

The city of Tempest had suffered big losses from a recent dragon attack. Evidently, that did not decrease the disfavour against studying them. For my father, however, it was something to be celebrated – many more requests had come in for the ‘disposal’ of such brutes. Softly closing the door behind my father’s study, I opened the dusty covers of the draconic records my father thought I knew nothing about.

Aware that not one person would believe my findings, I carried on. Dragons were smarter than they seemed – and I could prove it.

[Nepenth, for one, incredibly disliked me documenting her.]

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this was just a random snippet i'd thought to write about a story im still formulating, so it may be inconsistent (sorry about that!). as im pretty sure its already evident, im an amateur writer; constructive criticism is more than welcome, and i hope you enjoy reading the things i try to make!

[x-lavenderclouds-x]

aspiring writer here, so constructive criticism is more than welcome!

wof fanfic from the perspective of a random Leafwing with mild leafspeak, Cypress

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The leaves rustled as a panther stalked by on a flattened tree trunk above them. A few dragons around him eyed it, and Cypress was itching to fly up there and snatch it for himself. However, just as he was making his decision of abandoning his troop, a loud voice rang clear across the field, over the sound of the Snarling River at their feet. Queen Sequoia shouted, “The Hivewings near. Do not let them past the venus dragontraps.” Somewhat as an afterthought, she added, “good luck.” With that, the leafwings fell silent. The chatter of the occasional young and obnoxious dragon, the shuffling of talons and swishing of tails, all stopped. They waited in silence.

Cypress angled his wings up and held his chin higher. The golden scales littered across his wings shone faintly in the morning sun. We have a good chance of victory, he hoped. He found himself searching the crowd for uncertain faces, but all of them showed only one emotion as they stared across the river border: rage. The hostility in his tribemate’s faces startled him. He had found Hivewings curious dragons ever since he had been born in the Poisonwing dome. Sure, Queen Wasp was a pain, in the drove-your-tribe-to-near-extinction way, but surely every dragon of her tribe wasn’t just like her?

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted yellow and black scales, and turned his attention back to the frontline. There were thousands of Hivewings, all in eerily synchronised rows. One Hivewing claw lifted, every other Hivewing followed at the same time. The black-and-yellow dragons marched closer, and as they came into view, Cypress noticed their pure white eyes. Oh, right. She does that often; he remembered in dismay. All second chances for these dragons were drowned out by the presence of Queen Wasp’s mind control in their skulls.

The long grasses of the savanna were whispering something amongst themselves, but he couldn’t make out their leafspeak words. Come to think of it, many of the plants were mumbling to one another with words unintelligible to him. He felt whispery tendrils snake across his mind, as if they wanted to block out his vision and make him fall into a deep pit that never ended. The breath of evil. It was coming closer, in the form of the dragons infront of him. Cypress dug his talons into the damp earth below him. Even if the rest of the Hivewings could be saved, Queen Wasp would pay. The Leafwings would make sure of it.

The old mahogany tree to his right ruffled its leaves just enough for him to know that a dragon was in there. The tree groaned protests as the clumsy visitor tumbled out of it and nearly landed face-first onto the ground directly infront of one of Cypress’ friends, Evergreen. Cypress looked over his shoulder to see the new iridescent dragon... Blue, if he remembered correctly. The flamesilk. Blue caught his eye, and he gave a friendly nod as the Silkwing smiled and flew a little way back to the spot where the cure was located. What was it called, salvation something?

Suddenly, he heard a sharp battle cry. The Leafwings charged ahead. He ran, barrelling himself into a Hivewing that was approaching the other side of the river. It let out a hiss, but it sounded as if Queen Wasp had layered her own voice onto the dragon’s own. Cypress shivered at the thought of being one of those Hivewings, but had to drop it as the other dragon lunged for his tail. He raked his talons down the dragon’s side, and the Wasp-dragon roared in pain.

After a long while of dodging and attempting to lead the dragon away from the Snarling River, Cypress slipped up. The Wasp-dragon bounded towards the river, and had just made it to its bank when Cypress bit onto its tail. As it tried to get away, he jerked his head, and the end bit of the dragon’s tail came right off. Queen Wasp roared, although the dragon’s own voice was weaker. Cypress spat the blood out of his teeth as the river carried the tail-bit away in a crimson fog of water. Both of them were covered in cuts and scratches. Slowly, the Hivewing’s eyes flickered back to their own amber, and as soon as he was free, it flopped down on the ground, panting.

His cuts weren’t that bad, but Cypress knew that the wound he’d received on his shoulder would make it impossible for him to do any effective fighting. He had one last look at the Hivewing. He worried that the pitiful state of the now free Wasp-dragon would never leave his conscience.

Green smoke lifted onto the sky as Cypress limped forward over to a flat rock that gave him a decent view of the battle. The Root of Salvation was being burnt, and its smog would free the Hivewings from Wasp. He looked back at the Hivewing he’d been attempting to kill, and found him testing his wings, wincing with the slightest movement. He wore a worried and pained expression, one that conveyed that his surroundings were not ideal.

Cypress took the initiative to befriend this dying dragon and called, “That’s quite the predicament that you’re in. Anything I can do to make your last moments a bit better?”

The dragon shot him a glare and cautiously curled up his limbs, wincing ever so slightly. The former sighed, but kept an eye on his surroundings, yet more Wasp-dragons arrive. Cypress drew in his breath sharply, as a stinging sensation filled his senses. He reached out to the plants for answers, but found none. Birds called to others, alarmed. His eyes started to water as he noticed that the green fog was settling over them. That was when he finally caught a scrap of what the Mahogany from earlier was saying; Danger. Evil plant is spreading. Must resist.

The wind billowed around the smoke as Cypress attempted to fly up, away from what must’ve been smoke from the Breath of Evil. He faltered, as his shoulder injury impaired his flight, and came stumbling down a few dragon-lengths away from his rock. The other Leafwings around him were writhing in pain or fear, most of them with their eyes closed. The spikes along the back of his neck rustled as he swung his head around, desperate to find a comrade that hadn’t yet fallen victim. His throat tightened. There were none.

The tendrils from before erupted into his thoughts, more confident now that they were inevitably to win. They whispered ballads of freedom and vengeance, while Cypress found himself being lulled to their sound. He couldn’t escape it; he wasn’t strong enough. He was stupid to think he was.

~

Fires burnt faintly in his view, the world a blurry haze. Realizing that he was once again conscious, he tried to fly up for a better picture of the situation. He tried to swish his tail, to tap his talon, to blink. All of them were in vain. The blurriness slowly faded as his body moved against his own will towards the fires- staring in horror to notice that the Jungle was ablaze. And then, he heard his voice speak. No, not his. Somebody else’s. Wasp hissed in his consciousness. A sense of dread and panic started to overcome him. All of the Leafwings that inhaled the Root of Salvation smoke, were now being mind-controlled by Wasp.