Fantasy
Unchosen
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. They had come down from the North on broad wings, beating the air and filling the sky with their voices. They had crawled on four legs, in from the East, lounging amidst the crags and stones they found along the way. They had slithered on their bellies, burrowing with the one pair of arms they had and digging deep dells and caverns. No, there hadn’t always been dragons in the Valley, but their coming had changed everything. Brown and golden backed lizards of immense size and strength, lounging in the sun and the grass, great green wyverns perched on cliffs and rocks, black-bellied wyrms watching with bright eyes from the shadows and dark of the caverns they carved. The old residents of the valley, living in woods and rivers, watched and waited, wondering how the tension would finally break. The valley was big, but not big enough for everyone, and the natural balance teetered on the point of a knife. Maybe now the strong would finally be held accountable for oppressing the weak, or else there was a new breed of strong.
By alan pierce4 years ago in Fiction
Chronicles of Airtìr
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. In the last age a great city sprawled across the hills. Its skeleton now lay crumbling and scattered amongst the trees, rusty bones engulfed in moss and bracken. Its roadways had become the riverbed of The Sweep, which nourished the life surrounding its banks. Where people once walked, now deer pranced, foxes leapt, and wolves sang their soulful songs. Above it all, amongst the great canopies and clouds, flew dragons.
By Nicole Olson4 years ago in Fiction
Eiran's Bargain
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. What was once lush and green and full of life was now a barren waste. These creatures had truly infested every last inch of the Valley, leaving death and filth in their wake. Kneeling against a granite boulder, I quickly surveyed my surroundings to ensure I remained unseen. A distant shrill cry drew my eyes upward to one of the passing beasts. It did not see me. On the floor of the Valley, a river crisscrossed through the many large granite boulders, like the one offering me shelter. Dry, brown hills climbed upward on either side, giving way to the stark gray peaks littered with patches of snow. In my mind's eye, I relished the vision of the same hillsides green and coated in wildflowers, teeming with life, fed by the constant waterfalls that cascaded down the large mountains. Many of the flora and fauna that once thrived here were now the shards of bones and scorched branches that made up the dragons' wretched nests. My heart sank. This was all my doing. Out of foolishness and desperation, I had brought ruin upon the Valley. It had been nearly a year now, since my bargain with Thann had been made.
By Rebekka Abarca4 years ago in Fiction
These Depths To Which We Sink
“There weren’t always dragons in the valley. In fact, the earliest reports received indicated nothing was living in the black depths of the Valley of Luciad’s Rest. The first mining rig to be lost was assumed to have failed in some way, either due to human error or perhaps a part failure. It is not common for a rig to sink suddenly with all hands lost, but it is not unheard of. Shortly after another mining expedition was launched. Then, several days after the second mining rig had been deployed, a number of the televoces stationed around the coast began to receive a constant stream of communiques all pleading for help, screaming about and I quote-” Lieutenant Skinner pulled a neatly folded vellum sheet from the breast pocket of his uniform and read “…four great leviathans, marine serpents from the depths, and finally giant expletive wyrms tearing the expletive rig apart…” he glanced up from the paper. His company didn’t seem impressed with his reluctance to swear. “None of the rescue missions that were launched found any survivors, or indeed any wreckage. A deep-sea survey ship was sailed over the area, and it detected some fragments of the rig near the deepest parts of the trench. The sketches the survey ship returned clearly show the rig ripped into pieces. Normally rigs fail at the joint between two sections of the bulkhead, so the miners inside drown as the water rushes in to equalise the pressure. This bulkhead failure results in the superstructure of the rig remaining largely intact and given the state of devastation that was observed it was concluded that the televox aboard the rig was telling the truth and was not suffering from some fear induced vision as televoces have been known to do.”
By Erin Coyle4 years ago in Fiction
The Semi-Warring States Of Dragon Valley
There weren’t always dragons in the valley that sits between the kingdoms of Dunkren and Rabicula. In fact, before their sudden and mysterious disappearance a few days ago, they had only been there roughly three hundred years.
By Brian Rosen4 years ago in Fiction
The Valley of Seven
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Or so the people thought. Of course, they also thought that they were safe, and they were for half a millennia. Long enough for the warning stories to become folklore then to become nothing more than fire stories to scare the younglings. They were fools the lot of them. There was a reason the rest of Berul left the valley dwellers to their own. There was a reason no one stepped foot past the southern pass. Elsewhere science and magic had moved on from the rustic practices and punitive guess work the valley relied on. The studies of these creatures, all creatures great and small had taken great leaps forward. You see, the valley dwellers were under the naïve impression that dragons had gone extinct. That they had all somehow, mysteriously died and were now nothing more than history.
By Hayley Holden4 years ago in Fiction
