Introduction: I've been writing fiction for a while but am intrigued by the format and interest generated on this site. You can see some of my other stories on my son's "commentaholic"s account. Here then is the first chapter of a new dragon story set in a historical or past A/U where dragons have basically gone extinct as they were previouly known and are now poised to make a comeback -
I've done a partial re-do of this first chapter due to some very good suggestions.
The nest was broad and low, nestled under the cat-tails in the driest place that she could find on this miserable and muddy lake shore. The three eggs within seemed to glimmer and glow with a magical light that transcended their bleak and humble surroundings. She had waited her entire life, living in the squalor of need and the loneliness of exile before laying them. Others of her kind thought her simple, dull and ignorant, utterly devoid of the special gifting occasionally openly manifesting itself in her kind. For the way of magic, once powerful in her breed had dimmed and dwindled until it was reduced now into something more akin to wishing than invoking deliberately. They used its meager influence to change their luck, causing hapless prey to walk right up to them for an easy meal or attracting the prime males of her species bringing them under their primitive spells of sexual enchantment, thus causing them to do their whimsical selfish bidding.
Candasar had lived alone, hunted her prey by only wit, jaw and claw and conserved every scrap of magical energy she could consciously control and diverting it into her ovaries. Her own self loathing of the fate of her kind bolstered by the strange tale of lost glory passed down to her by her grandfather. He was the one that had told her that their kind had once ruled the skies. Only she, of all the foolish impressionable young, had been gullible enough to believe him when he told her wild tales of their people many generations ago that had been able to fly.
Her grandfather Mo-rung had been born with what most of her people would have considered a severe birth defect. Instead of broad flat flippers to propel himself through the waters his feet ended in segmented pointed joints, bone like, but hard enough to scratch the very rocks over which he scrambled. His "defect" caused him to be almost useless to the other males as they swam swiftly and hunted their prey and he was forced to perform the work of the females in caring for the young while his mate did her meager diminished part in his stead.
Worse than the disfigured feet, were the torn imperfectly formed flaps of skin, that hung boneless and limp sticking out of his back near his shoulder blades Though he could rudimentary still swim, he was slow and likely to be spotted by the men that inhabited the shores at the far end of the loch. Even though he did not attempt travel on the lake often, he had been spotted a time or two. Because of this, the region had developed a mythical reputation for sea monsters and the tribe had been forced into deeper hiding, leaving behind many of their favorite more bountiful fishing areas.
He and Candasar's family had suffered greatly for that while she was young. Though attractive enough, as a female of her kind she was ever deeply contemplative, and found few of her own age group of social interest. When he finally had died he had not been mourned, except by his strange and reclusive grand daughter. His death had severed something deep within her and she had grew more distant and distracted, spurning the advances of several of the larger, more powerful males, even if not magically provoked. Their humiliation and damaged pride caused several of them to begin telling lies about their conquests of her, lies she did not find credible enough to bother to deny.
Somehow these stories took hold and she often found herself the recipient of haughty looks from the females or worse yet, leering or suggestive physical contact from one of them if she happened to cross paths with them as she hunted her own food. Her once smooth flanks were scarred by gouges and teeth marks, souvenirs of her fending off their unwanted advances. Eventually as the prime age for the pairing of her kind was past, the unwanted attention faded to an angry sullen apathy toward her from all others, including her previously sympathetic and tolerant family. She swam and hunted the icy waters of the lake alone, biding her time dreaming at night of the star filled skies and silently stoking the magical fire burning deep within her body that defied everything she had been taught about her place in this world.
Then at last came the day that changed everything. While passing through a deep narrow underwater passageway, hidden from the eyes of men that her people used to remain unseen as they navigated the deep loch she caught the end of a conversation that she had waited far too long to hear. Two females, engaged in quick and furtive glances at her, spoke the words:
"His parents are so discouraged. The poor boy looks like that wretched creature that was Candasar's grandfather"
After doing some careful investigation of her own, she learned that a distant relative had been found to have a defective child. They had hidden him from the elders for many years, and had been successful until the other child, a female, hatched at the same time had begun to speak. The news of her brother's existence was soon forthcoming and the tribe had been called to meeting.
Far less tolerant of the weak was this council than those presiding over the generation of her grandfather, for because of their fear of discovery by man due to his inability to swim, the young male was banished to die, taken to the deepest part of the lake and left behind. As she watched from far out of sight in deepest shadow Candasar could hear the futile desperate splashing, his pointed claws unable to paddle and billowing leathery side flaps hissing and bubbling,with pockets of trapped air as he struggled to hold his head above the icy water, surely and swiftly sapping his strength and pulling him down towards the bottom.
She almost waited too long. The weak willed mother, although resigned to the fate of her offspring kept circling and swimming back toward him, as if to relent and save, but the stern voice of her husband and the elders kept her in line, until it was almost too late. At last, unable to watch, she turned and fled leaving Candasar to race toward the dying drowning male.
It was probably best that she reached him at the end of his strength, for the sharp talons of his strange feet cut deeply into her as he thrashed briefly at her approach. He sought in his desperation to climb upon her and out of the water but taking his slender neck in her jaws she bit down hard enough to temporarily choke him into unconsciousness. Then holding his head carefully out of the water she began the arduous task of towing his limp and lifeless looking body back to her cavern. Struggling to pull him, and herself across the lake she was grateful, in some respects for the hard and physical life of hunting and swiming she had endured. Her flipper ended feet thrashed deeply in the water and her long serpentine neck, unaccustomed to the added weight and discomfort of having to swim twisted to the rear shot silvery bolts of pain arcing through her brainstem.
As Candasar, near the last of her strength pulled the unconsciousness male up onto the muddy banks that formed the edge of her cavern lair, she saw for the first time the extent of his disfigurement. Though very young, the structures protruding from his shoulders were far larger than she expected and riddled through with veins and a cartilage structure far more extensive than that of his grandfather. As he groaned and rolled over, his eyes blinking groggily from his ordeal, a faint wisp of smoke trickled from one of his nostrils and she began to believe, for perhaps the first time, that her children would fly.
Let me know how you like the beginning and don't forget to check out my other stories posted in the stories list of my son Commentaholic