A/N: Hello there! This is the first chapter of a mini-series I'm working on, each chapter highlighting what it's like to ride the different species of dragons. These are not meant to be reader-insert, merely a poetic sort of passage highlighting the experience of riding a dragon. The "you" that I've used is supposed to be the infinite "you", as though someone is telling a story aloud.

I hope that makes sense! This first chapter is about the Monstrous Nightmare (one of my favorite dragons).

Happy reading!

Song of Choice: "Beyond the Clouds"- Audiomachine [listen to this for full affect!]

Riding the Sun

Riding a Monstrous Nightmare is like riding the sun across the sky. Flames dance up and down its scales with burning intensity as you soar over grassy plains and rocky mountains towards the ocean, watching anything and everything speed below you in a blur of motion. The limbs of the Nightmare are lithe and flexible, the pump of its wings powerful and quick, and the coiling and uncoiling of the muscles in each part of its body radiating a danger that speaks to the back of your mind "stay away".

When you are on its back and pressing yourself along it, feeling it breathe and rumble below you, staying away is the last thing on your mind. The Nightmare is warm, and the pulse and beating of its heart is quick and full of life. Running your fingers along the smooth scales, you can feel the tremor of excitement and spirit, the eager quivers vibrating through your fingertips and into your own body. It's the feeling of eagerness and daring nerve, and it leaks into you and fills you with warmth.

Riding a Monstrous Nightmare is smelling the smoke streaming from its mouth and hearing the sizzle of your clothes on its skin. With every down stroke of its wings you pitch forward, with every upstroke you fall back, and it's only when you're in sync with it and the way it moves like fire eating up foliage in its path can you feel as though the both of you are one. When that bond is made, you are no longer riding the sun.

You are the sun.

Both of you tumble and soar across the sky, leaning and moving in sync, heat and burning energy conquering the endless blue. As clouds move past you, they turn to steam at any contact, and the ocean below you reflects back bright sparkles of liveliness and the push and pull to go faster and faster-

It's with an enormous burst of speed that you pitch forward through the sky, falling and flying, twisting around and around as fire dances around you. You can feel the excited growling of the Monstrous Nightmare below you, hear the satisfied hissing and sharp pops of sparks flowing from its open mouth as it tastes the thinning air. Letting go of the reins, you can spread your arms and let out a yell of your own, the sound mingling with the great roar that rises from the huge animal as the two of you spiral down, wings folded and falling with the sunset.

Straightening out, coming so close to the shore of the beach that you can feel sand peppering your face, you climb upwards, leaving the earth behind. It isn't until you feel that you are high enough in the sky that you unhook your feet from the stirrups and swing your legs over the thick neck. Everything seems to go still, even the Monstrous Nightmare barely seems to breathe as you place yourself carefully on the saddle, crouching hundreds of feet up in the air with nothing but the heat and precarious balance of the dragon below you.

With a deep breath full of smoke and embers, you stand.

Standing on the sun, with the sun, leaning forward so the wind doesn't blow you away, it's just you. You and the Monstrous Nightmare with only the beating of your hearts and the heat radiating off of you both, spreading your arms like a second pair of wings, standing on the neck of something fierce and wonderful. An endless expanse of sky is in front of you, the golden eyes of the dragon trained forward and trusting you not to fall, trusting you to not break the moment between you. The thrumming, pulsating energy around you causes another sound from your lips, but this time it's a laugh.

You laugh with triumph and success, all of the pent-up energy and heat and burning passion shooting from your body and out of your mouth, the fear of falling merely a tingling in the very pit of your stomach. The Monstrous Nightmare rumbles and shakes and seems to laugh with you. You are flying on the sun, you are the sun itself, rising and falling and always moving with the fire and flames and wonderful feeling of simply being alive.

This is how it is meant to be, how it is to live.

This is riding a Monstrous Nightmare.

Fin

A/N: It got a little reader-insert-y at the end... poo. Oh well.

Reviews are welcome and very much appreciated! Next should be the Deadly Nadder.

- Ryska