Clean story? OH MY GOD
Sean belongs to me
Smokey belongs to Smokescale
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The arid wind blew upwards from the desert, creating updrafts and sucking the moisture from Sean's lungs. He held onto his reigns, attached to the base of the dragon's horns, a bit more firmly as a thought filled his mind from his mount. Dryness. He sighed and nodded, the otter understanding, "I know, Smokey..." The otter spoke aloud as he mentally promised to find a source of water.
He and Smokey had bonded years ago, when he was chosen by the blue water dragon. The dragon identified as Smokescale to the young otter, most likely due to the grey underscales on the belly and chest, a near reversal of what one would expect the coloration on a flying beast to be. The caramel and cream colored otter didn't mind, as he didn't need to hide, and Smokey had other ways of being less detectable.
Unfortunately, the water dragon did not in fact create water, but needed more water than most dragons. And Sean had had to take his injured mother to a healer their clan knew of in the mountains on the far side of the desert. The healer had told Sean to leave his mother there, and he had responsibilities back home at his village, so he set out across the desert towards home, thinking that his last bit in his water skin would be enough. He was wrong.
Below, through the blown glass goggles he wore to protect his eyes from the wind, he saw the sandy lands give way to brushlands, still quite arid, and likely home to succulents and other low water tolerant plants. His eyes scanned the ground, for any sign of a source of more water, feeling his water skin emptily bounce with the motion of Smokey's flight against his thigh. His lips were starting to feel as though they were an onion, with nothing but layers of skin to peel away.
Then, he spotted something, and his very thought caused Smokey's own eyes to turn, to verify it. Together they shifted in midair towards a small lake in the foothills, caused by snowmelt that made it into the rain shadow of the mountains nearby.
Those nearby mountains were part of a long mountain range that ran for days and days by dragon's flight, and perhaps years on foot, Sean did not know, but they were a boundary between the great desert and the more fertile valley lands, which were bounded on their other side by a series of coastal ranges.
They dropped in altitude as they neared the lake. Sean was not sure if Smokey's thirst was enhancing his own or if he was indeed as parched as the dragon, but he ran his dry tongue across his dry lips as the smell of moist soil hit his nostrils.
He felt, through his connection to the dragon, that Smokey was about to make the last few wingbeats to land, when from the water burst an enormous toothy maw. Mental alarms going wild and flight or fight reflexes on full, Sean ducked down and held on tight around the dragon's neck as Smokey twisted in midair, narrowly avoiding the enormous ambush predator's jaws with a roll, before beating wings powerfully to regain altitude away from the small, deep lake.
Head swimming, the otter sat back up with a sigh, stroking the side of Smokey's neck affectionately, "Sorry, I didn't count on that..." He gently took the grips of his reigns back into his hands, even though with their connection he hardly ever used them, except to have something to hold onto.
The dragon's thoughts towards the otter were of understanding and forgiveness, though there returned the insistence that water be found.
"I know... I know, Smokey." Sean sighed softly as they ascended higher, up through a mountain pass as the shrublands turned to sparse woodlands, then denser woodlands. It would not truly become forest until they reached the other side, the much richer valley watershed. The otter felt something odd and worrying. Smokey's wingbeats came less frequently, and seemed more frail.
Smokey then held out that broad wingspan and let momentum take them the rest of the way over the crest, the mental connection to Sean telling the otter that the Dragon had ran out of energy from dehydration and was trying to at least make it over the pass.
Sean winced, "Oh no no no no nononono this is bad... this is very bad... you can do it, Smokey, don't stall, please don't stall, one more wingbeat..." He muttered to himself mostly as he tugged on the reigns, seeing the ground getting closer and closer as the highest point of the pass they took approached.
At the last moment Smokey took one last wing beat and pushed them up away from the ground as it crested, then began to fall away, but Sean could tell that was it, they were descending nearly as fast as the ground dropped away from them. They were falling towards tree level. Sean could hear the canopies bouncing off Smokey's scales, and knew they were slowing their glide down, quickening their descent.
Luckily, they came to a clearing, and Smokey altered the angle of decent, and came to a rough, if safe landing, before collapsing.
Sean slipped off his saddle and hugged the dragon's neck tenderly, "I'm sorry, Smokey... I should have brought more water... Can you walk with me?"
The dragon thought a negative to the boy, and licked him with a very dry tongue as a sign of affection.
The otter nodded, "I'll find you water, if just enough to get us moving again..."
The dragon nodded as well, and lay down to rest and conserve what moisture was left.
Sean stretched his legs and then began to walk. He sniffed the air. They were in a high altitude forest, above where the fog usually lay and where it was dryer, but not high enough to be near the snow pack. The otter headed on downhill, trying to remember what the elders had told him about inland plants so he'd know what to avoid.
Suddenly, after what felt like miles, and the sky gradually darkening with the passage of the sun in the sky, he came to a break in the woods and stared across a cleared piece of land. Pasture land with feral sheep... no... domesticated. This was bad. This was incredibly bad.
He had come to a human settlement.
Humans hate dragons. For very good reason. Humans raise nonsentient animals as livestock, and nonsentients of all kinds was a Dragon's favorite meal. And Humans mistrust the sentient animals, like Sean was. They did not understand, and what they do not understand they fear. He had also heard horror stories of groups of men who enslaved even sentient animals, or worse, ate them as readily as the ferals.
But, Sean remembered, they were very adept at gathering resources from whatever environment they were in. That meant there would most definitely be water somewhere in this settlement.
Cautiously, he began to cross the field, taking off his goggles, placing them in one of the pouches on his belt, and making his way towards the buildings he saw there, and hoping he looked nonthreatening.
"Hey!" The otter started at the sudden call, looking for its source, "You after chickens, Weasel?"
Sean turned to see a shepherd walking towards him, hand on the hilt of a knife on his belt, "Water." He managed, remembering the word in this language, "Need water... not weasel." He added, worriedly looking at that knife.
The shepherd looked him over carefully, and nodded, "Oh, I see... Yer an Otter. What you doin' this far inland, critter?"
"Take mother to healer. Run out of water." He said, hoping he wasn't butchering the human's language.
"Well, as long as you don't cross anyone, critter, yer free to use the town well." The Shepherd nodded, and whistled to his feral dog to tend to the sheep, or so the otter assumed, since the man began to walk alongside him towards the town center, "C'mon, I'll show ya."
"Thank you." Sean managed, his throat feeling scratchy and sandy.
When they entered the town proper, he could feel the eyes of the settlement upon him, looking distrustful. He paused when an imposing figure approached and spoke to the Shepherd. "What he want, Aloseus?"
The shepherd, apparently Aloseus, eyed the other man with what appeared to be begrudging respect, before speaking, "He needs water. This otter's strayed too far from rivers and lakes."
Sean tried to follow the human tongue, managing to get the jist of it, he looked up at the authority figure, guessing he'd try his luck even though he couldn't remember human's modals, "I buy... vessel for water?"
The man looked down his pointed nose at the otter, "A bucket? What do you have to offer for a bucket?"
Sean reached for the belt that held on his loincloth and untied a small coin purse, delving his webbed paw inside and pulling out a gold coin.
The man stared at it, "Where'd you get that? You one of those fucking dragon-lovers? Dragons have all kinds of gold they steal from us..." His hand strayed to a utility knife on his waist.
Sean's eyes widened, and he scrambled to think of the words, "I dive, find sunken gold from wrecked ship..."
The man looked over him carefully, before nodding, "Take yer gold to the carpenter for a bucket."
Sean sighed and muttered to himself in his own tongue as the tall man walked off.
Aloseus looked down at the otter, "Don't mind him, none. He's all wrapped up in his own importance."
Sean was too busy being glad he hadn't run into slavers, and that his bluff had worked. It was partially true. He and Smokey had dived together to salvage a sunken ship, and added to the dragon's hoard well that day.
The shepherd guided the otter over to a little shop near the well, and told the carpenter what the otter wanted.
The otter once again held up his gold, and was rewarded with a wax-sealed wooden bucket with two metal bands for support and a rope handle. He thumped his tail happily, "Thank you..." He croaked with his dry throat and hurried his way to the well. It take his dehydrated mind a few minutes of staring at the pulley system to figure out how to operate it, and lowered the attached bucket.
Aloseus had followed him, looking ready to help if he got lost, "Our dowser found an underground river leading to a spring miles away for us, and we dug this well generations ago."
Sean yelped as he felt a pull of current on the bucket. Indeed, this well lead to running water, not ground water rising. He tugged, but managed to pull the bucket upward and out of the well. First, the otter drank. He rank a full bucket's worth and lowered it back down to get more. The second bucketful he dipped his empty water skin into and filled it, before capping it and returning it to his belt. Then he refilled the bucket once more, and transferred that water to his newly purchased bucket.
Lifting the rope handle and carrying it with both paws, the otter looked to the shepherd, "Thank you." Sean said, his voice much clearer now that he had something to drink, and he felt his strength returning as he walked his way out of the village.
The Shepherd followed him, as he was on his way to the fields to tend to his flock once more. Then, the bell tolled in the village, and someone shouted out "DRAGON SIGHTED! A DRAGON LANDED IN THE WOODS!"
Sean felt his blood run cold. He continued walking, determined to not seem panicked, knowing the shepherd was behind him.
"You sure ya wanna go into the woods with a dragon around?" Aloseus asked.
Sean froze, before looking back, "It where I go..." He resumed walking again, cursing his memory for forgetting modals. He'd have liked to have a "Have" or "Must" in that statement and hoping his stilted words didn't give away his panic.
"Well, stay safe, little critter." The shepherd whistled to his dog again as he got back to work.
Sean managed to say "Thank you" one more time, before walking a bit faster, but not running. Running just draws attention. And spills water.
He made his way up the hill to the woods, hearing snippets of the far off rallying. Apparently they were deciding whether to try to slay the dragon in the woods. Sean certainly hoped they'd wait until he and Smokey were long gone before setting out on such an endeavor. The otter walked as fast as he could, as smoothly as he could, and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt his mental link to Smokey return. Moments later, he heard movement in the forest behind him. Heavy bootfalls crushing forest litter beneath their soles. Lots of them.
He muttered a swear to himself and entered the clearing Smokey was resting in.
The dragon had perked, feeling Sean returning in an agitated state, but grinned, leaning down to nose at the otter, before drinking from the bucket.
Sean looked behind him and saw the light of a torch moving through the woods in the dark understory.
Finishing the bucket, Smokey realized through their mental link what Sean was worried about and scooped him onto the harness in one deft flick of the head, standing up.
The otter dug out his goggles, putting them on, before he grasped onto the harness as the men broke into the clearing, "Thanks again!" He called out in his native tongue, and Smokey was off, narrowly avoiding arrows shot at them both. His mind was filled with images of how close the escape was, coming from the blue dragon as they climbed into the red and gold twilight.
Sean sighed, feeling he had betrayed the trust of the shepherd who'd offered him water, but then again, Smokey hadn't gone after his sheep, either. The dragon's mind pressed against his own, and he felt soothed, getting back into the simplicities of flight as he watched the world go by below. It would be a few days before he had to return to bring his mother home, and next time he'd be more prepared.
With this thought in both dragon and rider's mind, they continued over the valley, towards the setting sun, flying towards the coastal ranges and the Cliffside cave that Smokey and most often Sean slept in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments? Questions? Concerns? Commission Requests? Post them Here.
