Alfred awoke to sunlight filtering through the branches of the dead tree situated next to his den. A shaft of light shone directly in is eye and he growled, rubbing his face with one golden paw, trying to block it out. Faintly, he heard a familiar voice. "Alfred, are you getting up soon? Papa said we need to go hunting." This voice belonged to none other than his brother, Mathew. The younger brother, he was lucky he and Alfred were the only ones to be born that season, otherwise he would've been neglected and eventually starved, as he was smaller than usual. Their mother had died shortly after birth, so both Alfred and Mathew had been adopted by a nature dragons that had recently joined the pack, Arthur. Apparently he used to have another dragon cub he took care of, but many years ago they'd had a massive argument. The cub wanted to have more, and be considered by the other dragons as more important, and Arthur disagreed, saying that he wasn't and would never be serious or experienced enough. And then, the cub just left, never to be seen again. Or so he'd heard from everyone in the pack.
"Yeah, just give me a min, Matty. I'm still warming up."
"Ok." And with that his brother walked out, moving to sit by the entrance and survey the area. Alfred lay still for a minute, soaking up the sun's rays. During the day he was almost impossibly energetic, something that annoyed the much less energetic Arthur to no end. But all fire element dragons need to soak up sun in the morning, to get their energy for the day. A bit like dragon photosynthesis. One last stretch, and then he left the den. He was greeted by an anxious looking Mathew. "Why did you take so long? We were meant to leave ages ago!"
"Calm down, bro." Alfred looked around. His den was one of 6 in a circle around a pit of fire. The ground was flat and consisted of a layer of red dust and ash, covering the scorched grass. They say that this area used to be a lively meadow, until the first fire dragon came across the land and made it their home. They were so powerful that the ground where they walked became scorched beyond recognition, and had been kept that way for hundreds of years by generations of fire dragons.
The rest of the day was spent hunting for prey to feed their pack. It was a very small pack, but they still needed a lot of food to survive in the harsh, scorched wasteland. He and Mathew managed to catch a quite a few rabbits and birds, as well as some herbs they found next to an almost dried-up lake. As they got back to their camp they were greeted by Antonio, a large, cheerful reddish-brown dragon. "Wow, you got so much today! Well done Al." He was followed by Lars, the stoic dragon that was the healer of the pack. "Hey Lars, I got some herbs, if they're useful at all!" The blue and greyish red dragon merely grunted, grabbed the herbs and one of the birds, and retreated back into his cave. Finally, the brothers came face to face with Laura, Lars' sister and the only female in the pack. Due to that, everyone else in the pack had a small crush on her, but her official mate was Antonio. "Hey Alfred!" She smiled at the sight of the fresh food being carried on Mathew's back. "Woah! Well done you guys, we'll be full tonight." She then walked off to follow Lars into his cave, wanting to help sort out the new herbs.
As usual, Arthur wasn't present, still out patrolling their borders. They lived right on the outskirts of the Fire kingdom, so they were extremely close to the neighbouring territory, which happened to be the Earth kingdom. They were also near the Water kingdom, but since that kingdom was impossibly large, it was rare to find someone at the border. The Earth kingdom, on the other hand…let's just say that they weren't the friendliest of dragons. The border had to be patrolled daily, as tensions were high between the two elements. There was always a small risk of attack, especially since the rain season hadn't reach Earth as much as Fire and the others, so food was scarce.
A few minutes after dinner started Arthur flew into the camp, head drooped from a long day of work. He muttered his greetings, grabbed a rabbit and retreated to his cave, too tired to join the others eating. The rest of the night was uneventful, until Alfred was woken up by fierce coughing. He groggily stumbled over to his den's entrance, just in time to see Mathew mutter his name, and fall to the ground, sticky dark liquid leaking from his mouth.