The Opal Dragon
by: Starlett-chan
Summary: In the land across the sea is another country... another world... where not only humans, elves, and dwarves are the prominent species. there are strange dragon hybrids part elf part dragon, or part human and part dragon... but the people have lost the knowledge of their heritage. One girl remains with the power within her to restore their once proud country of it's true inhabitants... but she can't do it alone...
Chapter one:
Finding Something Special
Serena blinked.
She had fallen asleep... again. She glanced down at her hands to find them caked in dirt. Sighing, she brushed her hands on her already dirty breeches and picked up her throwing daggers. The stag she had been tailing for the past three days looked up and swiveled its ears in her direction. She held her breath. It lowered its head to resume grazing and Serena let out the breath. Instantly the stag's head shot up and it darted away into the forest.
She swore lightly under her breath, and started gathering her things to return to the village. Once again she would return home empty-handed. Her trek to Mandar was a dismal one, filled with apprehension of the arrival and the saddened looks on her sisters' faces when she showed them empty hands. Her heart almost broke at the thought, but she steeled herself and advanced into a clearing.
What awaited her was spectacular. A roaring waterfall fed into a crystal clear pool. Serena approached the pool and sat on a rock to unlace her boots. Once her boots were off, her breeches and tunic soon followed. She had found long ago that they were much more comfortable than dresses, and were preferable when hunting.
Clothed only in her loincloth and undershirt, she dove into the clear waters creating a single ripple in her wake. She jumped off a small ledge about six feet under the water, and surfaced with a flourished splash. She flipped her long blonde hair over her head with the sheer force of the jump. Gasping for air, she sunk back into the water up to her nose and watched the miniature waves move away from her to leave the surface of the water clear and calm once again.
She looked down through the crystal depths to watch the fish flit around her now clean toes. While she watched a particularly colorful fish swim to a cave in the bottom, something glinted bright enough to blind her temporarily.
Blinking the stars out of her vision, she focused on the source of her instant headache. What she saw almost made her choke on the water surrounding her. A stone. Pure white, almost opalescant, was sitting on the bottom of the clear pool. She blinked to make sure that it wasn't a vision, and swam to the edge of the pool to ready herself for the dive.
Shoving off from the rocky edge, she shot straight down the water and grasped the stone with both hands. When she tried to push off the bottom she encountered a problem she didn't foresee... the stone was heavy! Hefting it with all her might, she managed to get it up to the edge and deposited it on the grass.
Against the green of the grass, the stone held an almost diamond-like transluscence, yet it was solid, and couldn't be seen through. She felt it for any defects, knowing that any flaw in the surface would cost her dearly, but could find none.
As her underclothes dried, Serena wrung out her hair and moved to wash her tunic and breeches. As she scrubbed the mud out of the once soft fabric, she heard a tapping sound then a muffled cry. Looking around her for the source of the noise, and finding none, she returned to her task. Once her clothes were clean, she set them out on a rock to dry, and lay out on the bank of the pool. Her eyes drifted closed, lulled by the warm sunlight and tranquil birdsong that filled the clearing.
She awoke to another, albiet louder, muffled cry and a persistant tapping sound. She looked around her, and could find nothing out of the ordinary, until she looked at her supplies. There was the source of the noise, that mysterious stone. A fine crack had appeared along its surface, and Serena mourned the loss of such a valuable trinket.
When the crack widened, she almost fell back into the pool, but caught herself. Some thing was trying to escape from the stone, and it scared her to no end. She crept closer, trying to see exactly what was going on, and almost got cut when the stone burst open to reveal a little white, scaly... something.
Serena reached out to the infant, to see if it would try to harm her, and it looked at her with large, golden eyes. The small creature fanned it's small wings, and craned it's neck to nuzzle Serena's outstretched fingers. She felt a slight tingling, and turned her hand over to find a silver-ish oval on her palm. She looked at the small creature in front of her, and it yawned, baring a set of razor-sharp fangs.
"You must be hungry, little guy," she said to it, she assumed it was male.
Rummaging in her pack, she found some jerky for him, and sat back, contemplating a name for him.
"What shall I call you... You're pure white, like an opal, but I think you deserve an interesting name... How about Artemis?"
The creature looked pleased.
"Artemis it is, then. Well, what are you?"
He looked at Serena with a dull expression and she heard a whisper in her mind...
Dragon...
She blinked, "A dragon... My little Artemis, my little dragon."
--.--.--.--.--
Star: So, lemme know what you all think, whether I should continue, or just put it out of it's misery now...
Serena: Oh dear God...
Star: Hush now, I won't kill you... just... dispose of you, 'kay?
Serena: --pales--