Welp, back again from the lands of oneshots and other fandoms, folks. Hopefully there will be plenty more where this came from. If you haven't already, check out the other two stories I've recently submitted, Thassolophobia and The Drunken Dragon.
Just for reference, Dragon has technically been through the seasons a few times by this point, and his instincts make up for his lack of experience. Chances are, he would be staying close to home while the weather isn't up to par. Kind of ironic, given we're going through periods of heat and rain here.
Watching:
While he never came too close again, he definitely was more than a little piqued by what he had seen in the place of two-leggeds. Trees that held food inside them rather than on little sticks on top? Not to mention the way they were packed in together, didn't they need more room? From the smell alone, there had to be lots and lots of two-leggeds in the little cluster of 'caves' he had been in. Maybe it was bigger on the inside, like his rock-hole-cave had been before he'd left.
However, if that wasn't the darndest thing, then the way they hooked up other four-leggeds to pieces of wood and metal to make them drag the entire thing through dirt was. He had watched this practice from the safety of the treeline until the wind changed, the horse catching his scent and panicking with a loud cry that sent him running for fear he would be discovered. But his curiosity would not allow him to really go too far. He would usually be back by the time the sun started to go down, because then something truly interesting happened in the dwellings of the two-leggeds. Just as the giant-star-light sank behind the trees, the little rock-and-earth caves of the two-leggeds started to glimmer with strange, flickering lights. Sometimes he could hear noises, like strange barking, calls, and chitters that carried on into the night, though often enough, he would fall asleep in the bushes as he listened. The reptile would be gone long before anyone even noticed he was there, and no one came to look in his hiding place. It was the perfect place to spy from.
This sort of routine went on for many changings of the silver orb, and eventually the weather chilled a bit with the coming of winter, or the cold-time as the young lizard internally referred to it as. The not-so-small dragon had been through a few winters before, so he merely went along with what his instincts told him; find a nice, safe, warm place and plenty of food. Yet he couldn't break his habit of looking at the two-leggeds, with their strange customs and odd little quirks that grabbed his curiosity, like the weird metal-wood things pulled by four-legged cloppers.
But he couldn't put off finding a safe place to stay forever, so he eventually started to dwindle down the number of visits. Eventually, he stood in his clump of vegetation and bushes on a chilly day as the leaves were nearly gone form the trees, watching the many two-leggeds go about their business in their gathering of dirt-tree-caves. Albeit, there was a particular scene that was drawing his eye; a two-legged child, swathed in brown furs, and his mother walking alongside him. The boy toddled ahead of his parent a bit, after something or other, when he suddenly fell flat on his face. His initial squawk was preceded by near deafening [for the reptile particularly] cries, which immediately made the mother draw to his sprawled form on the ground, sweeping it up into a hug as she balanced the baby on her hip, using a free hand to sweep the tuft of hair out of its face and clean up the dirt that had been smudged all over the child's cheeks.
Eventually, her ministrations managed to calm the boy, and he slowly calmed from cries to whimpers and finally to contented little murmurs as his mother gently spoke in soothing tones, her hands and words easing away the initial fear and hurt the lad had experienced at the little spill he had taken. They moved out of sight, though the image had stayed in the little dragon's mind, long after he had left and headed for his new home for the winter months. As he lay curled up in the darkness of the cave he imagined how it must have felt, the warm, caring touch, and the words there to ease away pains and fears, the thoughts eventually leading into a deep and contemplative sleep.
Alrighty then. There should definitely be more on the way, though please do let me know if you see anything wrong with this one, as this was a work done over a pretty long span of time. Unless you get a really good burst of inspiration [I can't really think of many other reasons to be up at 4 AM.], it can kind of feel a little stale to work on, as you're more joining old phrases and ideas together than really writing something out from the get-go.
Until next time!