Fantasy
The Dragon, the Reaper and the bulldozer
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But here we are, watching a pair of gray backed dragons down below, making their way through the ceder trees. Ben coming around the truck pulling out his binoculars to watch. “Remember when the only thing game wardens had to worry about was people hunting out of season?” he said.
By Nicole Mcclellan4 years ago in Fiction
The Mercenary's Blade
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There was also a time when the sky wouldn’t rumble with thunder and rain blood from the sky. When the sea wouldn’t burn a fire brighter than the sun on the hottest day. But, that’s what happens when a foolish king thinks that he can simply take and have anything he wants.
By Cameron McDonald 4 years ago in Fiction
The Shadow in the Sky
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. They didn’t exist, unless the stories parents told their children counted. Sometimes a crazed person would claim they had seen one and word would spread quickly up the trade routes. But those stories were always proven to be false.
By Larissa Key4 years ago in Fiction
The Plains of Fear
There weren’t always dragons in the village. The woman watched it drag parts of itself along the floor in the corner of the room with indifference, though it moved on rotted wooden floorboards all its sounds were that of a dead weight dragging against deep sand. Now that the woman had cried all the tears she had left whilst watching her last child starve until his last breath, she marveled at how different dragons were to the image conjured in collective imagination. Where dragons in children’s tales and historic scrolls blew breath of white-hot flames, the dragon in the corner of her room blew a breath that was more similar to that of a void. with every muted dragging she heard from it, its breath would slowly remove any whisper of wind around it and move the temperature closer to a point where it could not be felt on the skin. The dragons that were slain by great heroes had thick leather wings, armoured with scales that arrows could not pierce; this had wings that were smooth and warm, weighted to the point of an embrace. The woman knew that if she were to just move closer to the dragon she could be enveloped in those wings and all sound and light would be cut from her world, she would feel comfortable lying on those rotted floorboards- pressed down just enough to not feel interested in once again joining the world that for her was being slowly drained of any colour. A dragon’s roar was meant to be a grandiose, shaking terror. The roar this dragon had was the silence between the woman’s cries of grief for her child; it was the thing she feared the most, those moments of silence. The dragon’s roar forced the moments of silence to grow longer and longer and the silence in that lessening physical world was to the woman the loudest roar she could possibly imagine.
By Oliver Ridge4 years ago in Fiction
The Wyvern Child
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Yet there one lay, the unmistakable curve of the firm myrtle green tail snaking towards the husk of a long dead tree. Only the tip of the tail crept out from beneath the undergrowth. The green scales, each larger than a human hand, were dulled with mud and dust. Twigs burrowed between the scales, protruding at all angles, catching fallen leaves in their path. Dense cobwebs wedded with dewdrops bound the tail to the sandy creek bed. This dragon had not moved in a long time.
By Sheridan Ward4 years ago in Fiction
A Kingdom of Embers and Nightmares
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Not until the Queen of Ikaria decided to become a conqueror and took over the lands that no human ruler had dared enter for a thousand years - Eldernell and the Wastes beyond them, also known as the Dragon Kingdom.
By Yordanka Yordanova4 years ago in Fiction
The Colors of Fairies and Dragons
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Once upon a time, fairies, elves, and monkeys filled the valley, but that time has long since passed. One day, a knight errant from one of the kingdoms of man slew a powerful dragon, and the dragon’s young fled. The knight gave chase and smote the dragons one by one until only three remained. Those three hid in the valley where they were protected by the plants, animals, and fae that called the land their home. The knight scoured the land for the dragons, but his efforts bore no fruit. He returned home, and the valley knew peace again for a time.
By Brody Salazar4 years ago in Fiction
The Druid and the Dragon
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Torinville was a simple place, a calm place once. Torinville was founded by the children of Torin McKay in the days of the druids. Legend has it that the clan McKay settled here after Teague, second son of Torin, fell in love with a druid girl. The druids did not agree with their kind mixing with non-druids. It didn’t help that the druid girl was a princess and already promised to another druid clan. When her parents found out about Princess Aine’s relationship with Teague McKay, they declared war on the McKay clan and drove them out of the highlands. The McKay clan eventually settled in a valley land they called Torinville in Ireland. Now you might be wondering what happened to Princess Aine after the Teague and the McKay clan left the highlands for the valley across the ocean.
By Heather Dotson4 years ago in Fiction
A Dalliance of Dragons
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Legends speak of a time when the crumbling ruins held not the nests of giant serpents, but instead housed families and trades and even rooms bursting of oltek. These edifices stood as monuments to humanity’s dominion over the very skies that we could build stone and metal a hundred mitres straight up. Majiks drawn from the earth lit torches that chased away the very night and carried the summer into winter, and every person bathed in the luxury of calm. They even built fires so hot they could burn through the finest crafted armors of our smithies. They certainly were not forced to mudcoat their skin to hide their scent, nor hide their villages in the cliffs and high hills. The weapons of humanity past would have sliced a dragon in two with a passing thought, and their forage into the lowlands would have been a casual walk instead of a lottery.
By W. Lawrence4 years ago in Fiction
