written for Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's Pet-challenge
It was a nice Saturday afternoon and Ripper was actually too tired to go for a walk.
He'd had quite a busy day. Early in the morning Marge, his owner, had forced him into the car and then they had spent horrible three hours in that car. Ripper didn't really like going by car. Or by bus. Or by train. Indeed, he preferred staying at home, where everything was in walking distance and he could spend the better part of his time guarding their farm and scaring away little children that tried to intrude his territory.
But now Marge had taken him on her holidays which, unfortunately, took place a 3-hour drive away. When they finally reached the little cottage in the Welsh mountains, Ripper felt terrible. He had been sick on the car twice, making Marge stop and take him outside for some minutes each time. And he was still feeling quite weak when he finally got out at their destination.
After Marge had let him into the cottage and placed his basket in a corner of the living room, he had curled up in there and only watched Marge unpack the car and later her suitcases.
He had realised that this just wasn't his day when Marge had gotten up from her armchair in which she had been watching TV by noon and announced, "Come on, Ripper! Let's go into town and have dinner somewhere!" and had picked up her car-keys again.
Ripper had growled at her when she had pulled him towards the car by the lead, but it hadn't got him anywhere – apart from the car, of course.
This was so unfair. Ripper knew that holidays weren't exactly what he'd call fun, no matter how much humans seemed to like them, but this holiday was even worse than the previous ones. It seemed to consist only of driving in the car. And he hadn't even got over his first sickness yet!
All the way to town Ripper had whined on his seat because he wanted Marge to stop the car.
But Marge had only patted his head and said, "We're almost there, Ripper."
After what felt like another hour, Marge had parked her car in a car park and finally let Ripper out.
"See, it wasn't that bad after all, was it?" Marge said in her rough voice and put the lead back on Ripper's collar.
Then she walked him through a nice little town, looking for a restaurant where she could have dinner. The first two ones looked appealing but they didn't allow dogs so she had to continue her search. Finally she found a place that looked promising as it already had a bowl of water at the entrance. They walked into the restaurant and were lucky to find that the owner had no problem with dogs. Indeed, they even offered Ripper a bowl of water just for himself, which made them both happy.
Marge ordered a large cognac and a large steak from the waitress.
"This is a nice place, isn't it, Ripper?" she said, looking around the restaurant and patting his head, "Are you enjoying our little holiday now?"
After a short time the waitress arrived with Marge's cognac and after she had walked away again, Marge poured some of the drink into Ripper's bowl.
"That will make you feel better, my dear," she said while she did this.
Ripper eagerly started licking the amber liquid, making loud squishing noises.
Marge chuckled, "Looks like I need to order another drink soon," she muttered to herself.
By the time Marge's steak arrived, Ripper's bowl was empty and he started to feel a bit drowsy, and by the time she had finished it, a strange feeling of dizziness had been added to it.
And now, Marge had suggested that they took a walk in the countryside to get some fresh air! To Ripper's utter horror, she went back to the car because, as he soon realized, they had to get to the countryside first. When Marge parked her car in front of their cottage, Ripper was relieved for the first moment because he thought that his owner had changed her mind and had decided to go back inside and watch TV. But, alas, he was disappointed.
"Wait out here, I'll be back in a minute!" Marge called over her shoulder as she went inside and came back immediately with a walking stick in her hand and a camera around her neck.
Ripper howled and scratched his forelegs on the door mat. He didn't want to go for a walk! He was feeling dizzy and tired and sick. And all he wanted was fall asleep in his basket, the only object he knew around here.
But Marge only laughed and pulled him towards a path which led into a forest. So Ripper had no other choice but to follow her. Luckily Marge seemed to be a bit tired, too so they didn't walk too fast and Ripper had a lot of time to sniff around on the forest floor, which smelled so different to the one he knew from home.
He also smelled the traces of different animals which had been to the forest earlier. These smells were new and strange to him, too. If he wasn't feeling so bad from the events of the whole day, Ripper would have got really excited about all these new smells and experiences. But right now he was feeling too tired and dizzy to be more than mildly interested.
After some time the trees of the forest became less and less until they finally were on a path which wound through a beautiful valley between the high Welsh mountains.
The sunshine, which warmed Ripper's fur, put some life back into him and he walked a bit faster.
"See, old fella, this is fun!" Marge said and smiled down at him.
When she stopped, muttering something to herself about taking pictures to show Colonel Fubster when she got back, Ripper saw a movement from the corner of his eye and turned his head.
There seemed to be a small animal in the bushes nearby. Maybe a rabbit.
It had been a long time since Ripper had chased a rabbit but now he suddenly felt in the mood for it and ran towards the bushes. But when he put his head through them he realized that bushes had only been hiding a huge meadow on which Ripper was facing the weirdest creature he had ever seen. This animals was everything but small! It seemed that the movement Ripper had realized had only been the tip of the creature's tail. Ripper was indeed facing a full-grown dragon! The dragon was at least twenty feet long and six feet tall and had bright, shiny green scales. Ripper had never seen a creature like this and started to wonder weather he had drunk too much of Marge's cognac. After all he had been feeling quite funny since.
He tried to get closer to to examine the monster but his lead was too short and he barked loudly to get Marge's attention.
"What's the matter, Ripper?" she asked, "What have you found in the shrubbery?"
Ripper barked again and pulled on the lead.
"Alright, alright," Marge replied, loosened his lead and came stumbling through the shrubbery behind Ripper, wondering what was the matter with her dog. There was only one layer of leaves left to push aside before she could see the dragon when suddenly a thorn of one of the plants pushed through her shoe and she howled in pain, hopping on one leg and letting go of the lead. Ripper immediately ran towards, the dragon, still barking. Suddenly the dragon turned its big head and looked a Ripper interestedly. It had big yellow eyes and rather sharp-looking teeth which made Ripper stop dead. For what felt like ages the dragon looked at Ripper and Ripper looked back at it. He could feel the dragon's hot breath on his face, even though it was standing more than ten feet away. After a while the dragon came walking towards Ripper who still couldn't move a limb. The closer the dragon got, the more Ripper started to shiver. And when it was only inches away from his face he whined quietly.
Meanwhile Marge had sat down on a patch of grass and taken off her shoe to have a closer look at her foot. The thorn still stuck in there, when she had pulled off her sock and she had to clench her teeth as she yanked it out!
While she was still examining the thorn which was quite long and seemed to be from a plant she didn't know, she heard someone talking next to her.
"Excuse me, but is this your dog that I can hear howling over there in the bushes?"
Marge looked up. A young man looked down at her, smiling. But she didn't smile back. This guy didn't look very trustworthy and certainly not like someone she wanted to be seen in public with. To start with, he had long hair which he had tied to a ponytail. Then there were his strange clothes; he was wearing very worn-out leather-boots, an old pair of jeans and a long black coat, he had wrapped around his body. But the worst thing about his appearance was that he looked as if he'd come straight from a brawl. He had a black eye and something that looked like a burn which covered half of his face and as he walked towards Marge, she could see that he limped.
"It's only, that there are wild foxes around in this area and there's always the danger of rabies," he explained.
"What?" Marge exclaimed. Ripper was one of his best stud dogs and she surely didn't want him to get ill. She was just about to jump up when the stranger said, "I'll get him for you!" and disappeared through the bushes.
When he got to Ripper and the dragon, Ripper came running towards him and hid behind his legs.
"There you are," the stranger said, ignoring Ripper, and walked towards the dragon, "You've caused us quite a lot of trouble, you know?" Then he took a thin stick out of his pocket and pointed it at the dragon. Ripper stared in surprise as the dragon's head swayed from one side to the other and then slowly sank to the ground. When he realized that the dragon was sleeping, he became braver again and went to examine it as he had planned to do anyway. He was just about to sniff at the dragon's back when the stranger picked him up from the ground.
Ripper barked loudly, snarled and tried to bite him. But the young man only laughed and said in a quiet voice, so that Marge on the other side of the shrubbery couldn't hear them, "I've felt worse than your little teeth on my skin to be afraid of you, old boy!" And he carried Ripper back to his owner who had gotten up from her spot when she had heard Ripper bark at the man.
"Thank you." she said but not sounding like she meant it, when she took the lead from the stranger and put Ripper back on the ground.
"You're welcome," the young man said, still smiling, "But you'd better stay away from this area next time. You know because of the foxes and so on."
Marge nodded and they walked away into different directions. And when Ripper turned his head to look at the man who was neither afraid of him nor of a dragon, he had disappeared.
Note: I hope you liked my story and didn't think Marge was too much out of character. But I imagined her to be much friendlier to her dog than to Harry because she liked Ripper.
Please leave a review to let my know how you liked it!