The Dragon’s Pet: Chapter 1

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Chapter 1



The sun was shining with the intensity of mid-summer, while it was only late spring in the English countryside. The land was full of life, for it had been five years since the end of the Black Plague. All across Europe, farmers who had originally been peasants under their barons were now free to claim land for their own and live without being controlled. But while there was the peace of low population and lush farmlands bringing about new life and new generations, there was a great terror that refused to go silently in the night.

Flying along the clouds was a mighty dragon, glistening as brightly as a polished ruby as he glided effortlessly across the sky. While still relatively young, the beast had reached full maturity in both experience and strength. The dragon’s torso alone was the size of six horses, with the addition of his long neck and tail more than tripling his overall length. His limbs were long and powerful enough to knock aside houses with a single sweep and each wing could be used as a king’s pavilion. Each red scale was the size of a human hand, his golden eyes were as large as melons with black slits for pupils, and his jaws could snap up even the largest bull and then split it in half with mere bite-force.

The dragon’s form could be considered a combination of several different animals’ characteristics. As expected, its skeleton was much like other lizards (iguanas and Komodo dragons) though it also had a large limb-to-body length ratio, much like a canine. Its most striking skeletal feature was the human-like characteristics, allowing for very prominent flexibility and the ability to take very specific poses if it desired.

Down below, a winery basked in the early-afternoon warmth. Walking among the aisles of grapevines was the farmer’s daughter, humming in relaxed joy with a full basket hanging from her arm. Her name was Marian and she was the pride of her family, a young woman with long blonde hair and a beauty that was equaled only by the greatest cathedrals. She was eighteen years old and she knew that it wouldn’t be long until she was married. In her mind was the face of the blacksmith’s son she had met the previous year when her family went to the nearby village to sell their wine. She hoped that he would be the one to take her as his bride and that the grapes in her basket would become the wine that they would drink on their wedding day.

As she approached her family’s farmhouse, her fantasies were cut short as she was eclipsed by a cross-shaped shadow. She looked up and all the color was drained from her face and the breath from her lungs. The dragon had spotted her with eyes keener than a falcon’s and what he saw was very appealing; her hair would make perfect lining for the creature’s nest. Marian was able to release a single terrified scream as the dragon wrapped his arm-sized fingers around her waist, tearing her clothes with his colossal talons but not causing her any harm. For the second time, the air was forcefully ripped from her lungs as the dragon pulled back up into the air, making her body feel like its weight had been multiplied.

“Father! Mother!” she tearfully cried as her parents ran out of the farmhouse, just in time to see their daughter carried away in the dragon’s clutches.

Regardless of the dragon’s rocketing altitude, Marian pushed and pulled on the dragon’s muscular fingers, trying to free herself. Annoyed at his prey’s attempts to get away, the snarling dragon reached down with its long neck and threateningly snapped his jaws just a few feet from her head. Marian’s body went rigid in unparalleled terror as she stared at the dragon’s dagger-sized teeth and smelled the aroma of blood on its breath. With tears streaming down her face, she clutched the crucifix hanging from her neck and began to pray, begging God for some scrap of protection against the beast that now held her.



Marian hit the ground with painful force, jarring her from her comatose slumber after having fainted from terror. Hoping she had just woken up from a terrible dream, Marian scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly. She was lying in a wide cave, large enough for the dragon to move around in. Due to the size and the lack of any soil in the ground or walls, Marian figured that the cave resided in the side of a mountain. The creature itself was blocking the exit, staring at her.

In front of Marian was a cabin-sized nest, filled with five eggs that were the size of her family’s wine barrels. Unlike bird or lizard eggs, the eggs of the dragon were made of flesh and riddled with pulsing veins, as if the eggs had their own hearts. The womb-like eggs of the dragons served a unique purpose, allowing them to be laid by the female at a much smaller and more manageable size, then growing with the younglings within until they were large and strong enough to break free and live outside.

The floor was laden with skeletons of everything from rodents to livestock, with the hair of animals like horses and sheep having been cut away to line the nest. Residing behind the nest was a sight that terrified Marian as much as the creature that had taken her. It was the skeleton of another dragon of equal size, obviously the other parent of the eggs, though she could not tell if it had been a male or female.

Marian turned around, whimpering in fear as the dragon blocking the exit moved closer to her. Reaching out with one of his hand-like paws, the dragon knocked her off her feet and pinned her down, as easily as if she had been a blade of grass. Crying in fear, she begged for mercy, both from God and the dragon as the powerful creature reached towards her head with his other paw and one of its long claws extended. She doubled her efforts as the sword-like talon hung just a few inches above her face, but released a sigh of relief as it moved above her head. She became as still as a statue as she felt the dragon’s claw cut off her hair and tear through the stone ground as if it were just dried mud being ripped apart by a horse-drawn plow.

The dragon then picked up the long locks of blonde hair that Marian had vainly spent hours brushing back home and used it to line his nest. With the beast having released her and moved over to the nest, she knew that she had one chance to get away. Scrambling to her feet, she desperately sprinted to the cave entrance. With a snarl of annoyance but little overall effort, the dragon reached out with his tail and knocked her back to the ground.