I know this update is quite short, and that many readers do not like short updates (myself included), but I wanted to show that I am still quite interested in working on this story, and really am trying to work on it. But between real life, writing struggles for the last 13+ months, and the intimidation factor in working on ANYTHING to do with Tolkien, this story's progress is similar to that of a snail. For that, I apologize; however, I will still do my best to write on this.
The masterful works of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and any other works set in the world of Arda (the world of which Middle-Earth is a part of) all belong to the Tolkien Estate. I am a simple fan with too much time on his hands... At least I used to.
With no conscious thought, I slithered back behind the tree, hiding myself from the road. Fast-Breeders were egg-breakers and kingkillers; they were not to be trusted. I was a hatchling—vulnerable, soft, weak, and unable to defend myself against them. If the Fast-Breeder caught a glimpse of me, I likely would be killed.
Why am I making decisions with such absolute certainty? And what's a 'Fast-Breeder'?
… Wait, what was that about me being a hatchling? Was I not small enough already?!
The clip-clop, clip-clop of the horse's hooves and the creaking of the cart grew louder, and the man's singing grew clearer. For several minutes, those sounds steadily increased in volume until they drowned out all the other noises of the forest. Then at last, they became so close to me it was like the cart was top of me. Then the cart itself appeared around the base of the tree.
The cart was simple and generic—it had two large wheels, an open front end. Its sides appeared to be made from a combination of wood and woven straw; what appeared to be supplies along with a large amount of fireworks were stored in the back. A single, medium-sized brown horse pulled the cart.
Guiding the horse sat an old, grey-cloaked man, who was the singer of the song about the road going ever on and on. He was sitting hunched forward, as if his back was beginning to curve with age. A tall, wide-brimmed hat the same color as his cloak sat on his head, blocking much of his facial features in shadow; however, shoulder-length grey hair and a matching beard weren't able to be contained by his hat. A long walking staff that seemed to have been made from a tree root sat next to the man.
Something about the man made part of me want to hiss at him and run away; another part of me felt intrigued by him.
The man kept singing about the road that went ever on and on as he and his cart passed me by and continued on. It seemed like he wasn't in a hurry to get to wherever he was going—the pace he was driving the horse was steady and slow, as if he wished to enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
But then he abruptly stopped singing.
His head snapped to the right, to the side of the forest I was hiding in, and his horse came to a halt without the man telling it to hold. The songs of the birds and other animals fell silent. He stood from the cart, and suddenly he no longer appeared old and frail. Now he was more than a foot taller than I had thought he would have been, and held his staff at his side as easily as one would a twig. He looked experienced and powerful beyond imagining, and the ancient smell to him became so strong it drowned out all other aromas.
The part of me that wanted to run from the man suddenly seemed like it had the right idea.
The man pushed the cloak on his left side back, revealing a long, elegantly-crafted sword hilt. He drew the sword after moving his cloak out of the way. It was a hand-and-a-half sword—a longsword or bastard sword, as it was sometimes called. Its blade was long and sharp and simple, but held its own beauty in its simplicity. It shined brightly whenever it caught a glimpse of sunlight.
The sword both scared me and intrigued me; its appearance made me curious about its origin, and the fact the man was holding it made me nervous.
The man stepped down from the cart, staff held out in front of him and his sword at the ready. He stepped into the treeline cautiously, yet also with confidence in his step. His body language said he was fiercely determined to face and destroy any threat that dared to step in his path.
Not sure if he'll be disappointed when he sees me.
If he sees me. I was now crouching down as low as I could go and staying as I could, letting the part of me that feared the man control my actions—it seemed it had a greater grasp of the situation than I did.
The man moved among the trees slowly, wide-brimmed hat swiveling up, down, left, or right as he moved his head to examine the trees. He walked around the small forest for several minutes, coming closer to me and moving farther away, but then he stopped next to two trees that grew around each other, his back facing me. He shouted a phrase in a language I didn't comprehend, then slammed the bottom of his staff into the ground.
A great white flash appeared from the top of his staff, and a transparent white shockwave came from it. It spread out from him in every direction, like an expanding bubble. When it reached me, the shockwave overloaded all of my now-acute senses with a feeling of ancient and unknowable power.
I shivered from the contact—part of me scared of the shockwave and the other part in silent awe and wonder—and I tried to make myself even lower to the ground.
The man's head snapped around, and I caught the glint of intense grey eyes staring straight at me from beneath the brim of his hat.
He had found me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was trying, and failing, to get up and run away while there was still distance between the man and I. But I had no idea how to use my legs properly, and even with the part of me that apparently knew what it was doing, I only succeeded in taking in a single bound forward before I fell down again.
There was a loud thud right in front of me, and suddenly I was staring at the reflection of my own scaley face on the blunt side of a sword.
I instinctively pulled my head back to get away from the blade, raising my neck off the ground. The man's hand was around my neck the second I raised it.
Logical thought left me at that moment, replaced entirely by a sense of fierce pride that I had to defend. I started thrashing, twisting, snapping my jaws, frantically flapping my wings, and swiping my claws. I was not some Ground-Crawler to be handled and killed when it convenienced a Fast-Breeder. I was a dragon! I was to be feared and fearsome, no matter how small I was or if I was captured or free! I would not die like this!
A terrible roar was loosed from my throat, a roar that should make all lesser creatures scatter in fear and horror, and send all prey into a mindless frenzy.
In reality, my roar was a pathetic squeak.
That sobered me, let me gain a hold of my… Instincts? It felt like that was a fitting term for that side of me. I ceased my fighting and went still, focusing on taking deep breaths. The man had not tightened his grip on me during my attempts to fight him, and hadn't killed me. I think that meant he didn't want to kill me.
Not yet, my Instincts warned.
After I continued being calm for about half a minute, the man picked me up from the ground by my neck; it did not feel excessively uncomfortable.
I was staring into the man's face before long. It was aged and weathered and long, and thick bushy eyebrows were above his intense grey eyes.
"Of all the dark peoples and beasts of the world, a dragon hatchling is one of the last things I expected to find in this part of the world," said the man, his voice hard and carrying a regal quality to it that fit his smell.
You don't even know the best part yet, buddy.
The man looked me up and down. "Not an ordinary dragon hatchling, either, but also an Urulóki—a fire-drake." He used his staff—which at some point he had picked up again after sheathing his sword—to poke me in the stomach lightly. Then he used it to extend my wings one at a time. A thoughtful look appeared on his face after he did these two things. "No, not an Urulóki, not entirely. You are a Half-blooded. You are Urulóki, but you have the blood of another breed in you as well. How very curious. You are too young and small to be hunting for yourself. Where is your mother, hatchling? What evil has brought her this far into the South and into the West?" His questions seemed to be meant for himself.
Unable to move in the man's grip or understand the significance of a dragon—OR THE FACT I WAS THAT DRAGON!—I just kept staring at the man's face, not trying to give him a reason to cut my head off with his sword. Although, he could decide to do that no matter what I did.
Great.
"Hmm. No tensing at the question of your mother. Not very drake-like of you," said the man, as if making mental notes along with observations.
My mom's a long way from here, old man. And also not a dragon... Hopefully.
"And no reaction to a perceived insult to your pride. How exceedingly… Strange." The man frowned. "At first you behave like a cornered dragon—clawing and lashing and biting with more ferocity than any other creature in this world can match. But now… Now you are completely docile. It is as if you think yourself as not even a drake."
That is a lot closer to the truth than you'd think.
The man shook his head. "Oddities for another time." He walked back to his cart, still holding me by the neck. He dropped me into the back once he reached the cart. Cords of rope and string were underneath the fireworks I had seen before.
The man uttered a word in the strange language he used before. A section of rope next to me seemed to take a life of its own, moving off the floor of the cart and floating in the air. It shot out toward me, separating into four thinner strands that secured my front legs, mouth, middle, and tail all at once.
"There. That should hold you, should you decide to act like every other dragon I have met in my life." The man returned to his seat at the front of the cart, facing away from me. Soon after, I felt the cart moving forward and to the side. The feeling of the wheels rolling over the dirt of the road quickly changed, along with the sound the wheels had made. We were on the grass, turning, heading back toward the other smells I had picked up while still not fully awake.
"My apologies, Bilbo my friend, but I have an unexpected matter I must attend, and your days of fighting dragons are long behind you. I may be late for your party," I heard the man say to himself, barely audible even to my new, extremely sensitive ears.
Who's Bilbo and what's so important about his party?
The cart returned to the road, and the old man turned around enough to look at me over his shoulder. "Now, then. Let us find your mother, hatchling; her presence and yours will not be tolerated in this part of the world. Not by the locals. Not by the Powers in the West. And not by me."
… He's going to kill me, isn't he?
Just when I thought I couldn't wish any harder for all this to be an elaborate hallucination.
Again, very short, but this update is mostly just to show that I am interested in writing this and that I haven't abandoned it even after two years.
If you have constructive feedback to give, feel free to give it; and if you have serious problems with this story, give me a convincing and respectable argument. I listen to all feedback, but I will defend my own view points and explain why I wrote a certain scene in a particular way.
Thank you all for reading, and I again am sorry it took me two full years to write anything beyond a prologue on this.
See you soon.
