Young Hunt
By Jesse Burnett
A crimson dragonet stalked through the underbrush of the Moving Forests. His movements were careful and deliberate to make as little noise as possible. His muscles tensed with every fallen tree he climbed over, every fissure he leapt, and every section of rock jutting out of the ground like a spire he skirted around. Sounds of waves crashing on a rocky shore far away to his left gently broke apart the ambience of insects chirping in the night.
The dragonet made his way down one of the many ravines scarring the land where a small tunnel poked through its side a little way down. He flew down and clambered through the passageway that eventually widened out into a chamber just large enough to fit five dragonets comfortably. Dominating the center of the room was a set of stones laid out to form a crude table with a layer of sand covering its surface.
“Mwahahaha! Welcome, welcome,” the voice of a female dragonet rang out. A cyan-scaled dragonet with dark blue diamond patterns accentuating her scales burst from behind the table and splayed her claws out side to side. “Welcome to the Secret Twilight Meeting of Fangs!”
The red dragonet cracked a grin and tilted his head. “Uh-huh. Tell me, have you been waiting here since sundown?” he replied.
“What!” the cyan dragonet protested. She lowered her snout and placed her claws over them. “Come on, even I wouldn’t waste that much time—” she mumbled.
“To be first?” The red dragonet interrupted, “well… okay fine. Fair enough.”
He strode over to his seat at the table and sat on the cold floor, taking a glance at the large window overlooking the black glass of the night sea. The second after he sat down, the red dragonet winced as a heavy blanket of fatigue overcame him.
“Hey, did you end up using a lot of fire today?” The blue dragonet immediately inquired, sensing his weakness.
“Yes, I…” the red dragonet put a claw over his eyes, “my head’s floating a little today.”
“I know training is ramping up here, but make sure you’re okay for tomorrow night, got that? We need our best fangs forward.”
The red dragonet grunted. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me, River.”
River squinted her eyes, seemingly not convinced.
Then, the head of a small, pale yellow dragonet poked around the corner, catching sight of the two. Behind her, a dark green dragonet emerged into the room and shook some dirt out of his wickedly narrow claws.
“Ah, excellent. We are all here now,” the green dragonet stated.
The yellow one quickly scurried into the room and swept her lower body underneath the table. “Hey! Did you guys hear the howling outside?” she exclaimed, “there’s gotta be Shiny Howls in the woods right now! I’m telling you, they know what we’re doing and are coming for us!!!”
“WHAT!” River roared, slamming the table, “they can CERTAINLY TRY!”
The green dragonet grimaced and wiped a claw down his snout.
“Look, the Howls are always howling,” the red dragonet interjected, “we’re safe down here, like we always have been.”
The pale yellow dragonet’s snout poked from under the table. White dots speckled her sandy scales all over her body, drawing a canvas of sand across it. She scrunched her eyes with suspicion and glared at the red dragonet.
“He is correct Dusty, or did you forget the reason we are sure to travel together in the first place?”
The aptly named Dusty buried her snout in her wings and looked up at the green dragonet with large eyes. “I thought you just liked to hang out with me?”
The green dragonet opened his maw for a second, only for the words to get twisted on his tongue. He violently shook his head as if expelling something from it, then stared at the sandy dragon with a flat expression. “Very humorous.”
“If you are worried about this hunt then you don’t have to take part, you know that right, Dusty?” The red dragonet chipped in.
“No!” Dusty yelled, smashing a claw on the table. Her expression shifted to an intense glare. “I want to kill something strong and eat it as well!”
Every other dragonet in the room broke out into a grin, relishing the prospect of their own hunt. Dusty donned her own as well.
“Well then,” River began, clearing her throat. She raked a talon through the sand on the table in front of her. “Let’s start planning.”
The cyan dragonet took a few minutes to draw a map in the sand of a sundered valley surrounded by forest. She added rocks and trees to lay out the surrounding terrain, then looked back up at the group.
“So, I’ll give the full breakdown on our target,” River explained, a shaky excitement growing in her voice, “I’ve decided it’s going to be a Shiny Howl. Not just any Shiny Howl though, but an ancient Shiny Howl. One that’s been around for centuries!”
“Huh?! How are we supposed to hunt a Howl that’s been alive for that long!” Dusty protested, “Mindbreaker, were you in on this?”
The green dragonet referred to as Mindbreaker tapped a talon along the rocky cavern floor.
“If this is in fact referring to the Shiny Howl I investigated, I was careful to confirm its fighting capabilities. We would most probably be able to handle it, with some fore-thought. I am not even certain it is that old, but it has definitely outgrown its pack, so it will be four against one.”
“Exactly,” the red dragonet cut in, picking up the lead, “River and I picked this one because it’s the best match-up for us while still being powerful. It’s also best to take down before it comes hunting for us.”
Dusty recoiled slightly at that remark.
“Thanks to Mindbreaker’s hard work, it’s very predictable. Remember, whatever we fight also has to line up with a convenient time for us to leave our guardians, or else they’re not going to let us tackle something this big all on our own.”
“Yeah! And then it’d be boooooring!” River added, “We’re dragons! We don’t need anyone to tell us what to do.”
“Well I don’t know about that,” Dusty huffed, “my guardians are awesome and would just let me go for it.”
“...but mine aren’t,” the red dragonet pressed, “and I’m sure Mindbreaker’s are the same. They’d have their claws all over this somehow, maybe even tell us the ‘right’ way of doing it. I don’t want to deal with that.”
“Fine!” Dusty exclaimed, “just wanted to bask in the ever-growing glory of how cool my guardians are.”
The red dragonet snorted.
“In any case, that’s the target,” River interrupted, “now, for our plan. I’ll play the first challenger and keep him focused on me while you all sneak from the side. You guys hit it with some fire until it’s feeling spicy, then we dive it from different directions from the sky so it can’t counter any of our attacks. If it ends up grabbing hold of someone, we all rush in on it and let it sit in three streams of fire as long as it wants! Which… I’m really hoping won’t be long at all.”
“Yeah,” the red dragonet added, “and remember everyone: if you get badly injured, just leave. You will only be dead weight if you continue to fight, so get the bloody flame out of there. None of us want each other sent to rest in the Deep Slumber.”
The other three dragonets gave a short nod, now wearing serious expressions.
“Alright, now Mindbreaker. Where do we aim our claws?” River asked.
Mindbreaker cleared his throat and raked his own talons through some of the untouched sand on the table. He slowly drew a sharp and simple representation of their target. “As you are all aware, Shiny Howls possess large sections of hard plating across their body. Our sharps are only going to bounce off those places if we hit them. The better idea would be to either run our talons through the spaces in between them or along its legs if you have a good opportunity at doing so. If you are not able to do so, then slamming it enough with your tail that it falls to its bruises is the next best choice. Other than fire, which is very effective against it as we know. Whatever you do, make certain that you do not approach it from a direction it is looking, as they are incredibly quick and can easily clamp down on you while you swing by for an attack. Our target fleeing is not a concern since Shiny Howls of this age are not willing to surrender their territory to anything.”
The dragonets pondered this information for a few moments.
“Good plan,” the red dragonet commented, “if three of us are injured, we retreat. Better to come biting another day. Other than that, make sure you keep to the paths we talked about and come as close to hunt time as possible.”
“Yup, yup. And fly lower to the ground River, I just barrreely saw you on your way to the planning room at sundown,” Dusty added.
The red dragonet’s eyes went wide. He looked over to see River meet his gaze from the corner of her eye with the most guilty look he’d seen her snout wear all moon. She directed a fiery glare back at the sandy little dragonet.
“Bloody fire blasts Dusty! Why in the sundered earth did you have to bring that up now!!”
“Whaat!?!?! I just thought it was important! Heatseeker, what’d I do wrong? What’d I do wrong!?”
Heatseeker’s low-rumbling laughter rang throughout the cavern….
The next day, Heatseeker flexed his crimson wings, exposing a pattern of black lines crisscrossing lines stretching across their underside. The evening sunlight filtered through the trees and gently stroked the weed-sown underbrush he crouched in. The whooping sound of Chain Feathers echoed across the forest around him, wreathing his ears in a cocoon of tension.
The red dragonet clenched his teeth. He shook his head to help him keep his focus.
Not long after, his ears picked up the beating of leathery wings coming from above him. Heatseeker looked up to see River, Mindbreaker, and Dusty fly over him. He grunted in a small amount of pain and chased after them, emerging from the treeline with a powerful takeoff.
Dusty absentmindedly glanced around her and caught Heatseeker’s approach from the corner of her eye. She gave an enthusiastic wave, then turned to get the others’ attention just as he joined formation with them.
“Whooo!” River exclaimed ecstatically, performing a roll through the air.
Heatseeker flinched and threw a careful look in every direction. The cyan dragonet noticed and clicked her tongue.
“It’s fiiine Heatseeker, no one will hear us out here. That was the point.”
Heatseeker opened his maw to form a response when a wave of dizziness brushed past his head. He drifted slightly off formation, but the gesture was barely even noticeable.
Unless River was the one looking.
River clenched her teeth and dove at the red dragonet, slamming into him. She caught hold of and dragged him down to the ground where she smashed him into the soft earth just enough to take the wind out of his lungs. Dusty and Mindbreaker panicked.
“HEY!” River fumed, bringing her glittering yellow eyes right in front of Heatseeker’s, “I’d notice that weariness ANYWHERE! You used too much blood shooting flame today, didn’t you?!”
Heatseeker grunted and gasped, trying to suck air back into his lungs. “I… am… fine. I wasn’t going to let Scarwing see me struggling.”
“To the Blood Stars with your guardian, Heatseeker, we needed you at a hundred-ten today! Why did you still overdo it??”
Heatseeker growled. “Look! I… AM… FINE. I’ll take it a bit easy on the fire, but I can still stick to the plan!”
Mindbreaker stood behind the two now, watching them fight while Dusty hid underneath one of his wings. The green dragonet cleared his throat. “What is the matter? Are we compromised?”
River pushed off Heatseeker and stalked away from him.
“No, we’re fine,” Heatseeker shot back, “we stick to the plan. We probably won’t have a do-over at this rate since I won’t be here for that long.”
River huffed and took off into the air. Mindbreaker watched her sudden departure as Dusty emerged from her hiding place and crept towards the crimson dragonet.
“Heeey, is River gonna be mad? I don’t wanna do this if we’re gonna be fighting each other too,” Dusty whimpered, “but I still wanna hunt.”
“No it’s… going to be okay,” Heatseeker replied, “I’ll be doing better after the fly-over and River will get over it. She might bring it up again later but it’s going to be okay. Let’s just… keep moving.”
Heatseeker flapped his wings, shaking the nearby undergrowth as he took off. Mindbreaker and Dusty shortly followed, wearing their own concerned expressions.
After an hour, the dragonets reached their destination. They circled a cratered stretch of grass enclosed by forest. Its only notable feature was a small natural overhang of rock embedded deep into the center of it.
Heatseeker watched River land halfway between the overhang and the edge of the forest. She drew her head near the ground, scanning underneath the rock. The other three dragonets flying above tensed their muscles in anticipation. They all knew the battle could start at any second.
River growled, eyes locked with something hidden beneath the overhang. Heatseeker could see her bare teeth but failed to make out any sounds given how high he was in the air. She crouched lower, legs splayed in a combat position, and roared.
A lone figure emerged from beneath the rock. It was a large wolf-like creature with a beautiful white fur coat. The slowly setting sunlight glinted off the white plates of metal covering most of its body. Heatseeker hovered a little too far away to make out the mystical glowing lines etched into its plating, but he figured he’d get a good look soon enough.
The towering Shiny Howl approached River with a similar hostility to her own: body low to the ground and teeth baring. River faked a snap at it, and their prey pounced on her in a flash of white!
It was time.
All three dragonets put everything they had into diving as fast as possible, wind screaming past their ears. Heatseeker saw River wrestle with the Howl, barely dodging deadly bites amid its sheer raw speed and strength.
Within a moment, the dragonets slammed into the ground on all sides of the Howl and rapidly recovered from the force of their impact with a swift roll. They cut the blood flow returning to their hearts from their heads, then loosed it in a stream of terribly scorching fire. Three streams of orange flame engulfed the Howl as River voluntarily allowed it to sink its powerful jaws into her tail, choking back a sharp yelp. She struggled to keep it from fleeing as its armour heated up to scalding temperatures. Heatseeker took a split-second to notice his flame was heating his side faster than the others so he slowed the pace to keep it consistent.
River lost control of her grapple and the shiny white Howl bounded out of the circle of flame. The other dragonets leapt forward to form a wall in front of River until she managed to right herself, then they all took to the skies once more. They circled the Howl as it snarled at them with a cold fury in its eyes in stark contrast to the plates of searing metal attached to its flesh.
It had realized it was part of a hunt and challenged them to dare approach again.
As it focused on Heatseeker, Mindbreaker swooped in from behind and raked his talons across its leg. It snapped at him, just missing him by a fang’s width as the green dragonet swung back into the circle. Right as Mindbreaker rejoined, Dusty gashed its legs from the other side. She barely avoided another snap while Heatseeker took his opening and briefly refreshed the heat on its metal plating. The plating burned into the sides of the Howl, looking terribly painful from the outside, though their adversary’s calculating eyes betrayed none of it. Heatseeker took a small gash wound on his tail as the Howl attempted to rip a hole into it on his way out. All four dragonets drew in a deep breath and swallowed, the challenge of their task now sinking in.
The battle raged on for what felt like hours, though it didn’t even constitute one. The dragonets slowly chipped away at the Howl’s vitality while he did the same to them with every dive they made.
As the sun began to tuck itself beneath the golden horizon, the Shiny Howl stood with shaky, bleeding legs and badly burned sides. It attempted to alleviate its burns by rubbing them in the mud every chance it got, resulting in its white coat becoming smeared in blood and grime. The dragonets, on the other hand, all drew heavy breaths with sore wings and numerous wounds lining their sides.
River feinted a dive to catch the Howl’s attention while Dusty hit him from the other side. The sandy little dragonet swooped in for an easy swipe across the hind leg.
Without warning, the Howl whipped around and clamped its jaw down on her neck!
“DUSTY!” River shrieked.
Dusty’s momentum rolled the two across the ground as Mindbreaker’s eyes went wide. He slammed into the Howl’s side and unleashed a barrage of flame to get it to run while Heatseeker flanked him. The crimson dragonet began to cut his blood flow until his vision went blurry. His head spun in circles as the sounds of the raging battle swam around him. He doubled over onto the ground.
Move, move, MOVE! Heatseeker screamed internally, commanding his fuzzy mind to take control of his body.
River raked her claws through its backside while Mindbreaker turned his flame up to eleven, desperately pouring everything he had into the Howl’s side.
He wasn’t waiting to match Heatseeker’s pace.
The Howl’s eyes shifted from Dusty to Mindbreaker in an instant before releasing its catch and pouncing on him. It sunk its fangs into his shoulder and bounded across the crater with him flailing around in its mouth.
“Dusty, you’re out!” Heatseeker hollered as he gave chase. He didn’t even turn around to check if she was alright. There was little he could do if she wasn’t.
The Howl reached the treeline and froze. It stared out into the gently falling leaves of the forest for a second, realizing where it was headed.
It pondered for a moment.
Then it slammed Mindbreaker into the ground and punctured his throat deeper as he clawed at its face. The two lay there locked in a death grip. Mindbreaker glared into its eyes with a burning hatred while the Howl returned a look of freezing fury so sharp it could slice his scales in two.
Heatseeker leapt onto it, digging his talons in all the chinks of its armour. A flash of heat raced over his side and the crimson dragonet turned to see River catch up. She unleashed her own flames, unbridled anger swirling about her eyes. Heatseeker clenched every fiber of his being and loosed a deafening roar of fury.
Mindbreaker grew limp beneath the Howl’s clasp. Feeling satisfied, it released him and whipped its body around, throwing Heatseeker to the soft earth. The dragonet twisted just in time to see their enemy refocus its attention on the next source of its biggest threat: River. It snarled in an attempt to catch its breath before its next lunge, circling the equalling snarling cyan dragonet just outside of her fire range.
Heatseeker watched them stare each other down in what felt like slow motion. His head pounded as he righted himself and saw the world swim before his eyes. River flexed her wings, and the Howl pounced.
And Heatseeker pounced as well.
The crimson dragonet roared as dozens of sharp teeth pierced his side, blocking the way forward to River. The Howl growled, and Heatseeker clamped his jaw down on its neck. The two writhed around, vying for control over the other while not letting up their own grips. Heatseeker was still dazed, but the Howl looked terrible as well.
My mistakes, MY payment. The rest of your fight is with ME!
The dragonet twisted his weakened enemy around, pulling him past the treeline and into the forest beyond. As the Howl resisted even more, its footing slipped on a pile of leaves and mud. Its torso fell downwards, but much more than expected. The two had emerged onto a steep incline without noticing it, and the Howl dragged Heatseeker down with it as it began to slide.
They tumbled, crashing into rock and root. A branch slammed into Heatseeker’s head and almost knocked him out cold, but his consciousness focused on nothing else but holding on. Blood soaked his scales and filled his maw as the two stuck fast to their mutual death grips. Before Heatseeker knew it, his ears were filled with the sounds of his own screams, directly opposed by the Howl’s furious howls.
AND DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO KILL US AGAIN! He screamed inside his mind, eyes clenched.
Heatseeker pumped everything he could into a point-blank stream of fire that rolled off his opponent’s metal and fur, lighting dead leaves in their wake. They rolled for half a minute, the likes of which felt like lifetimes as the landscape attempted to dump them into a crevice at the bottom of who-knows-where.
They hit something in their path and the two were forcibly wrenched apart and sent into freefall. Everything sped past Heatseeker’s eyes in a blur as his already dizzied consciousness flickered in and out. His body hit the ground and sprawled him across it like a skipping stone.
The last thing he made out through his blurry eyesight was a limp, unmoving beast. The target of his first, own hunt.
...and send me a message from the Deep Slumber.
The dragonet blacked out.
Embers of setting sunlight flashed off the emerald patterned scales of an adult dragon as she stalked the underbrush of the Sundered Forests, making sure to obscure herself as much as possible. She approached a small basin naturally carved into the face of the landscape by some violent earthquake in the past. Near the lip of it lay two blooded and bruised creatures. One, a monstrous wolf-like creature with plates of metal growing out of its skin and the other, a young, crimson dragonet.
Ah, so the eldest succeeded, she remarked to herself, a joyous day indeed.
Before anyone else could arrive, the dragon pulled into a thick patch of forest where she could just barely keep an eye on things. She buried herself amidst a pile of dirt, leaves, and stones and waited patiently until one-by-one, three dragonets barreled down the slope and into the basin, rushing to the fallen dragonet’s side. They attempted to force-feed the fallen dragonet some of their blood to help replenish what he lost, focusing on his recovery.
The green dragon felt a warm sense of pride in her chest. One of her young had successfully completed their own large hunt, with the help of similarly skilled allies of course. She knew that when he grew old enough not too soon, he would be prepared for the Trials of Pride.
As she pondered these things, the eyes of the crimson dragonet snapped open to the delighted faces of his fellow wings. They leapt off him and spun in a circle, unleashing a roar of triumph before helping the downed dragonet back up. Soon enough, all four dragonets moved over to their kill and roared into the winds to let the world know they had fought and earned their victory.
The emerald dragon’s lips twisted into a smile.
Yes, dear younglings, she thought to herself, THAT is what it means to be a dragon. Let no one stand above you, ev==en if it means defying us. Hunt for strength so you can show the world that not even it can drag you down. Somewhere in the glory of battle and the golden rays of sunlight lies a place for you in the skies. Never lose that spark.
The dragon settled down and waited for the opportune moment to emerge. The young ones believed they would return to a scolding, but they'll never expect to find a celebration instead.
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