Friday, July 8, 2011

Red Writing Hood: The Last Dragon

Prompt: "What you know" doesn't necessarily always mean "your comfort zone." For this week, take what you know out of your comfort zone. Try a new genre, a new time period, a geography you've only dreamed of, fantasy or historical instead of contemporary fiction, try the male POV if you usually write women. Or vice versa. Of course this is fiction. No actual dragons were harmed in the making of this blog post.


In the beginning, there were dragons.

We were many.

Majestic creatures we were, proud of the sleekness of our bright rainbow scales, and the way our wings cut through the air.

And oh, what magnificent flames did we breathe across the sky as we flew!

We were many.

We were content.

We lived in our caves with our clans, guarded by our largest males. We mated for life. We birthed children, as warm-blooded mammals do, not by egg as the legends about us say.

We recorded our long history in the language of our people, written on rocks which were laid deep within the caves where we lived.

When the first Men came to our attention, we discussed what we would do at our yearly meeting of the clans. There were some who wanted to kill, others who wanted to show ourselves and strike fear, but the majority of us were determined to remain hidden, to watch and see.

We watched as the Men grew numerous upon the earth, and at first we did not understand our peril. We did not understand that Man did not eat the fire and rock of volcanoes as we did. We did not understand their need to hunt and kill. We did not understand their hunger to conquer.

We were fools.

And thus it was, that after so many thousands of years, our race began to die. One by one, we perished.

Those dragons who killed men were hunted down and killed themselves. Those dragons who appeared in the sky to seek food were also hunted and slain, and those were our strongest males, our Guardians. The mates of the Guardians grew despondent, and threw themselves at the Men so they could rejoin their mates in death.

Without our guardians, the smaller of us were defenseless, and were slain in turn. We hid deep within the mountains, but Man dug into the mountains for gold and silver and discovered our hiding places. Some of us entered the Sleep of Ages through our ritual magic, never to awaken until the world ended. The rest slowly died of despair, since we could no longer fly. There were no more pure dragons.

Except for me.

20 comments:

  1. What a superior opening! I'm intrigued.

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  2. Interesting! Dragons make a great storyline for kids and adults alike. Good start.

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  3. YAY!! I love fantasy! I'm happy to see someone else exploring the world of fantasy, and dragons are key. Great opening here. I love that you took some liberties with this and changed the legend up slightly.

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  4. Wow!!! I love dragons, and this was truly excellent. I felt such emotion and sadness at reading of their plight. Makes me want to hear more of the tale of the last dragon.

    Nicely done! Stopping by from TRDC. Oh, and I adore your disclaimer at the top...ha!

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  5. I can see this going somewhere! Of course it will be a trilogy. No seriously, good job!

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  6. Oooohhhhhh, I love the ending. I love dragons. What a fabulous tale you have spun. I could see the ancient dragon relaying her story for the histories.

    Great job!

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  7. Such an enjoyable perspective! It never would have crossed my mind to write about a dragon's POV. Well done!!

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  8. Such an interesting, creative take!

    I love the magic and the POV {of course} but mostly I love the set apart karate chop lines -"We were fools" "Except for me"-

    Well done!

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  9. Great story. I enjoyed it very much. I'm following from Follow Friday. Doylene

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  10. Now you've made me feel bad about what we've done to the dragons. We've taken over their habitat and hunted them to extinction. I think the last dragon should kick some ass.

    This was a great story.

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  11. The thing I like most about this is that you went with your own version of their history, nurturing relationships and offspring, a written history and a secret magic.

    Good stuff.

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