Smoking
You've just won the Nobel prize for literature and you're going to smoke a cigar and enjoy a scotch with the Princess of the Galaxy in celebration. Describe that scene.
Yike
When the dragon attached itself to the outcropping, she had to admit things seemed to be going from bad to worse, but ...
2 comments:
Misfortune Compounded
Hot breath seared her
in the sudden
morn. Held frozen,
she inspected
her close-up view:
drake bicuspid.
She did not dread
those pointy teeth.
Rather, the long
slide down to grief.
There's no relief
from a dragon's
slow digestive
juices. Dagon's
guts gushed flagons
of such acids,
after all. And
surely His kids,
among whom this
scarlet beast reigned
foremost, were like
that ancient Bane.
She was ashamed
of being caught
off guard, but her
whole day seemed fraught
with troubles wrought
from prior debt.
Coach wrecked, gem lost,
woods torched, sword bent—
and Day young yet!
Sighing, she reached
for her belt pouch.
Red dust unleashed
inspired a screech
as its nostril
felt hot pepper's
sting. “You wastrel!”
she cried. “I will
dose you again
'less you withdraw!
Go to your den!”
Sneezing, it went.
She blinked, surprised.
A victory?
And she, pint-sized
elf, still alive?
Yes, the frightsome
monster was gone.
“All's not undone.”
She licked her thumb
and smirked. The heat
on her tongue gave
her bittersweet,
if incomplete,
satisfaction.
Her trek resumed.
“Fine distraction,”
she mused. Traction,
however, on
her path was poor.
Below, deeps yawned.
She slipped, growled, “Damn.”
'Twas not her day.
Yike
When the dragon attached itself to the outcropping, she had to admit things seemed to be going from bad to worse, but then again, she was dealing with a dragon who just didn't seem to have the fire in her guts.
"Quetzalcoatl!! You have to try harder!"
Quey as everyone called her kept making the same fly-overs and kept failing to light the valley on fire. She could blow fire on command. She could roar and terrify anybody in a twelve block area. She could swoop down over the town and bring darkness and dread into everyone. But for some reason she just couldn't do them all at the same time.
"Everyone is so excited to have a really scary dragon in the valley, Quey, but you have to be able to soar, scream, and breathe fire all at the same time. Now let's try again."
The inhabitants of Limbo remembered, at least in the songs the minstrels sang, the long ago days when their dragon set the standard for dragon-ness. Quey's dad created such chaos and such fear in the land even the people of Limbo feared him. He once melted an entire mountain and incinerated all the irritating elves living there simply because he thought they seemed pompous. His shrieking shattered the King's finest china and new ones needed to be imported from the pewter mines of Loquacia. His wing span blotted out the sun for twenty minutes as he flew over.
But times changed.
Dragons fell out of fashion.
Quey's dad finally proved he was mortal.
And his daughter seemed to be more interested in playing soccer than protecting the citizens of her realm.
Leaf-Girl had left an elementary school teaching position six months earlier to help Quey find her way to ferociousness. Quey never seemed to work well with her tutors. Her progress seemed to be non-existent, and from time to time a frustrated baby dragon roasted and consumed her educators. Leaf-Girl knew the perils she faced by taking the job, but as with most elementary school teachers, she felt certain her method would prove efficacious.
"Now we'll do it again honey, and then we'll call it a day. We can go for coffee, meet up with the team, and go to karaoke tonight. Sound okay?"
Quey shook her enormous head.
She made a few timid moves to let go of the outcropping and fly, but didn't seem fully committed to her assault on the villagers.
"WAIT! Maybe that's it! Maybe you're afraid of heights. Just wait right there one minute," she told the red-scaled, yellow-eyed, behemoth. She went to her backpack, pulled out a bottle of Dramamine, and poured the contents into Quey's mouth. They waited the prescribed twenty minutes. Leaf-Girl shared her own story of being afraid of heights and how every lesson up there on the rock outcropping sent shivers down her spine.
Finally, with a calm stomach and renewed hope, Quetzalcoatl pushed away from the stone tower and soared over her people bellowing loudly and lighting the sky with volcanic heat.
Sedatives do wonders for dragons with stage fright.
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