Roman Pro: I tried to make this original and if you find what you think this story is like, then tell me. You might have just come across my story before the rewrite though. Thanks for reading the chapter and taking the time to review!
Chapter 1
Ilse Thorston was frustrated. Why? Ingrid, her third child, was nowhere to be found. Again.
The nearly three year old girl was supposed to be helping set the table and prepare lunch like her two older siblings. Unfortunately, however, she had an annoying habit of running off whenever there was work to be done. She was known to disappear for an hour or two before jumping out of a nearby tree, covered in various scrapes and bruises, her long blond hair matted with bark and sap.
Sometimes, she would even bring back small animals for her mother to cook.
As Ilse scanned the trees at the border, she started to get worried. The child had been gone for at least twice as long as she usually was. The sky was darkening, stars slowly popping up along the eastern horizon.
Wolves often prowled through the thick undergrowth near the many creeks that Ingrid so loved to play in, and several children had died due to both getting lost in the various cave systems, and the fact that the sheer cliffs falling straight into the ocean from hundreds of feet up were very easy to fall off of, and Ingrid loved to tempt fate. Whether it be climbing the most rotten looking tree, or leaning as far as she can over the edge of a towering precipice.
Only when Ilse couldn't see three feet in front of her did she decide to head home for the night. The woman had three other children to feed: her seven year old daughter Embla, her six year old son Martin, and a one year old son Waldhar. As much as she wanted to keep searching, the mother of four knew that the chances of finding Ingrid in the dark dense forest were slim; it was best to just hope that the child would come back home in the morning.
But then she heard a sound. It was like the sound of scraping two swords together, but at a lower pitch and much louder. A huge scaly form burst from the forest, followed by several others. Soon, a swarm of around twenty flying beasts had formed; three or four of them were on fire. As Ilse stared, her mind came to one conclusion. These were the beasts of legends. But these dragons didn't seem like the gentle giants from fairytales, they were more like the beasts from the stories told to keep children in bed during the night. And they were headed straight for the village.
Ingrid
Ingrid was chasing a rabbit through the undergrowth when it ran into a burrow that was much too deep to stick her arm into and pull the animal out. She sighed and stood up, looking around. She hadn't paid much attention to her surroundings as she pursued the rabbit. She had a bad habit of doing that. The girl found herself in an area she had never seen before and noticed that she was only a few yards away from the edge of a cliff.
The child leaned far over the edge and a grin split her face. She had spotted an almost safe-ish looking way down the side of the cliff, and at the bottom was a strip of beach running along the side of the island. She had always thought that the cliffs dropped straight into the water, and was proud that she had discovered a new aspect of the island.
The girl picked her way down the cliff face, arriving on the beach in a matter of minutes. The stretch of sand was quite long, but only a few yards wide. As she explored the coastline, she discovered things that she had never seen before. There were swirly pieces of smooth colorful rock scattered around. Some of them were even on top of crabs! A gust of wind blew a few drops of water into her mouth and it tasted disgusting, not at all like creek water. The girl happily explored the narrow strip of water, thoroughly examining each item she came across.
Only when the sun dipped below the waves did she realize just how long she had been gone. When Ingrid had left, the sun was in the middle of the sky, but now it had almost completely disappeared below the horizon. When the water lapped at her feet, something else came to her attention. The water was now only about two feet away from the cliff face.
She tried to climb up the rocks but found that she couldn't find the place she came down from. She started getting desperate and grabbed the first ledge she could find. However, when she tried to hoist herself up, she immediately slipped off. Feeling around, she found that all the rocks that she could reach were covered in seaspray that couldn't get that far before.
She heard splashes and turned her attention back to the ocean behind her. Large green forms were erupting from the water every so often, like whales do, and spraying water into the air.
A flock of birds was also heading- wait. Those weren't birds. They were similar in size to the forms in the water, but had bigger wings and were, of course, in the air. The flock slipped into the forest, and Ingrid remembered the stories her father told her about dragons. Every night, he had sat the older three children on the bed that they all shared, and filled their heads with legends and myths of the scaly beasts. But she never knew they were so terrifying.
And then one of the beasts shot down from the clouds and plucked her right out of the now waist high water.
Haha! Cliff hanger! I hope you enjoyed the story! Also, how do you use the line thing? I've been trying to figure that out for a while now. Bye!
