User:Metaclaw-the-dragoness/sandbox

== HIIIIIII!! :) Whatever you're doing here is probably kind of silly, since I'm a boring person XD why not check out a few real pages?!

Nah, don't worry, I'm not serious. (Jeez, lighten up a bit!) On this page, since it's my sandbox, you can find a short intro to the book I'm writing (which is still in limbo, for anyone who actually likes this shapeless, gelatinous blob of a first draft enough to want the full thing):

The little gray dragon threw himself forwards with a hoarse roar, just as the much bigger emerald green one moved to eat the murky gray-green lizard dangling precariously from his pointed talons.

“You can’t do this!” the little dragon said desperately. The big one fixed a murderous golden eye on him and smiled the toothy smile that only a dragon in sight of a prize could manage.

“Why not? It looks tasty,” he said slyly, popping the lizard into his mouth—and shortly thereafter, grimacing.

“Eesh! Guess you were right, useless,” he spat at the gray one and pulled the struggling lizard out of his mouth. The other dragon breathed out a sigh of relief that the lizard wasn’t injured, although it was thoroughly slimed with dragon spit. But the green one wasn’t finished speaking. He snatched the little dragon by the wings, digging deep into it’s vulnerable skin for the sole purpose of hurting his little adversary, and smiled even wider. Murderous. “I’ll just have to eat you instead.”

·················

Streakfyre

''This part has been translated from it’s original Drakian. Just for the record.''

I sighed and stretched out in the pale spring sun, the strong metal net that made up the lawn cold on my burning scales. My wings were bound tight in the thin silversteel chains all delinquent hatchlings were forced to wear, but they felt strong. I was, at risk of sounding conceited, pretty smart. A season cycle after I passed my first borozat, when I had four human years under my metaphorical belt, I found the lock, picked it, and was flying around in the caverns under my home. To put things into perspective, I’m barely of age now that I’m about a hundred borozats old.

Eight of my nine brothers were deceived. Brawnie, Steupud, and Gabs? Not a clue. Dim and Dimmur? Barely knew I existed anyway. Zpyr? Duped. Greenmind? Wool in the eyes. Lazai? Ox still in the bag. None had a clue that anything was going on.

But Sliefoks, he was smart. He followed me down into the dry well, down to the caverns, and watched as I practiced. Back then, he was still called Marzi-zeiv, and hadn’t gained his scale name. But from that day on, Sliefoks and I were friendly. More than I could have said for my other brothers.

“Hey lookit this, Zpyr. What issit? D’ya know waddit is?” chanted Gabs, a long sinewy blue and green dragon, to all six of my enemy-brothers (Dim and Dimmur didn’t count). I sighed silently. This was getting old.

“Gabs. Hi. What do you want. Blah blah blah, follow the script. Just like every other time. Would it kill you to come up with a new routine?” I complained.

Gabs, clearly knocked off balance, failed to deliver the punch line, and instead Zpyr, a pale purplish color (though if you called him ‘purple’ he’d practically knock your head off, he was so bitter about his coloration) with white wings, muttered, “Whadja jus say, yurzad?”

I smiled, an undersized shark. “Make up a new routine, darzarudl, “ I swore, “after all, your half-nord one isn’t enough to cover your nifradi attempts to be just like me.”. Now they were all suitably confused—they didn’t know I could get around them. I had humored them for all of my hundred borozats, after all. It didn’t seem like a great idea to have a ton of enemies. But I was leaving!

Honestly, that might still not be a good thing. I was a juvenile delinquent, after all. Funny how you can get so easily branded for refusing a duel to the death for some stupid holiday.

Uneasy with the force of the glares they were shooting at me, I hustled out of the sun, off the tightly woven--yet claw-snagging--netted lawn, into the rock wall, into my room and the tunnel I’d dug to the empty cave.

Before anyone could stop me—as if they were even down here—I yanked off the freezing metal chains (they shattered after I threw them across the room) and ran to one of the miniature lakes that made up the drain for the dry rainwell. Water splashed onto my feet, sizzling when they touched my scales and turning a gelatinous black. My wings tensed, stiff and ready for flight, as I peered into it like one of Zaria’s polished metal mirrors.

Then I realized the time. I was late! It was time to leave, for me to go to the school and learn to be a real dragon. Or at least that was the plan.

I rushed through the tunnel into my room, though there was little I could do for the shattered chains. I’d come up with some excuse. Zaria was already angry, banging into the slick fireproof metal door and screaming, “Get up!”

Naturally.

I sucked in my stomach as best as I could, made myself as small as possible, and slithered through the crack under the door. it was a fairly big crack, because I’d been digging it out for years. An escape hatch, or so they might say. My newly unbound wings scraped against the walls, the door’s bottom, and the floor. It felt good to be free. Or at least, free-ish.

Zaria gave up. She blasted a burst of white-hot fire, scorching the blackened outer side of the door, rolled her eyes and left. I gave a sigh of relief. She was finally gone.

I slunk down the empty hallway, carved from the tall Emerald Cliffs, and finally arrived at the large breakfast hall. My brothers were there, scarfing down breakfast--whole ox today--faster than I could have imagined, had I not been living with them for all my life.

I practically pounced on the table, grabbed a smallish ox (though it was still bigger than I was) and ripped off a chunk, savoring the taste of the meat. It wasn’t every day that I got to eat raw meat. It was a delicacy, and expensive. Usually Zaria just killed a few birds, burned them, and set them out to be eaten.

But today was a big day, especially for the rest of them.

I was leaving.

I would be gone for almost an entire season cycle!

I was surprised that they didn’t throw a party.

I ripped out another chunk of ox, feeling the blood drip down my chin. It was a strange sensation, and I didn’t really like it. Sure, I liked real--well, raw, really--meat, but wasn’t blood a bit excessive? I wasn’t a vampire, after all. I tried to swallow it. The fur on the hide caught in my throat, and I hissed a breath of burning hot fire onto it, scorching the meat beyond repair--but loosening it enough that I could swallow it.

But still. It was meat.

“Varol-zeiv!” shrieked Zaria. “Get! Over! Here!” She was in one of her extremely angry moods. I was getting far more than a little nervous—she was scary when she got mad and was known to kill her own young—but if I let my fear show, the others would rip me to bits. Under a mask of perfect calm, I tore a piece off of the leg of the ox, swallowed, and took another bite. Zaria stormed over, hopping mad, and practically dragged me out front. I dragged the ox with me.

Outside, the lawn was rolled up and instead, hanging in a straight-ish line, was a nearly invisible netting path stretching through the precipices, crags and peaks of the cliffs. It was the way to the Streakfyr, the testing school for dragonlings. Zaria actually grabbed me and threw me onto the path, and I lost my grip on the ox. It careened toward the ground. I hated to see my only half-finished, and extremely delicious, breakfast go to waste.

I somehow managed to catch the ox by the it’s only remaining leg, which was around the time my mind registered that I had jumped off the path into a steep dive and was now hovering in midair.

Zaria gasped. I was flying, for real, in the real air instead of a dank and foul-smelling cave. I hadn’t been wearing the chains, but she hadn’t taken notice until now. She hadn’t had to, and she barely paid any attention to me anyway, except to throw me out of the house every once in a while. She didn’t like me, after all.

Hurriedly I latched onto the path with my tail--another thing that was different about me, I could use my tail almost as another limb, instead of just for balance--and swung up, ox clutched between my claws and my teeth. I dragged it off and ran.

And ran. And ran.

I would do anything to get away from my awful house and my awful brothers. Everything about my life as a dragonling was awful.

But, I planned to change that all. Streakfyr was a boarding school, and I’d be there for almost all of the bororzat: all three springs and summers, and two of the falls and winters. They were supposed to go home over the Freezing break, but I knew I could figure out some way to hide out over there on the break. Zaria would be so excited.

Had I known how long I’d be at the school, I wouldn’t have worried about the far-off vacation.

Had I known what would happen at that varzhod school, I would have run away and avoided it in the first place!

Zaria would have cause to throw her party. I would be gone. But unlike going to school, I wouldn’t ever be coming back.

°°°

But not knowing anything of the sort, I hurried along the path, more excited than I could ever remember being in my life. Small as I was, the tightly woven metal netting caught on my claws and feet rather than passing like quicksilver underneath me like the others. I left a tiny trail of ripped threads and weakened pathways behind him.

Almost a third of all the dragonlings that were meant to arrive at the Streakfyre disappeared somewhere in between. It was my fault, though I never knew it. Those little snags fell into holes when the dragonlings stepped on them, dropping them to the rock cliffs below. They would never be seen again.

Meanwhile, I and the other two thirds of the dragonlings had made it to the fortresslike school of Streakfyre. Almost immediately I felt intimidated. Not only was I abnormally small, but the towering school was designed specifically to loom over everything in the entire Green Drop Bluffs. In fact, the school’s bloody reputation was the reason the cliffs were dubbed ‘green drop.’ it was no surprise to me that I would be sent there.

The fortress (because it actually was just a re-purposed fortress from the Kyrzôn wars, many lifetimes before this story’s time, when the dragons were divided amongst one another and the humans, and all were at one another’s throats. At the end it led the entire dragon nations to go into hiding from the humans, and the fortresses had lain empty until they were used as schools. Strange idea, but successful.) was carved solely from a peak of dark black rock, spiking from the black cliffs. Sweeping spikes and towers rose into the sky, their peaks veiled by thin white clouds. The rock was polished smooth by wind blasting it, and countless wingbeats forcing the small bits of dust lingering in the air to shoot at it faster than a sandblaster, smoothing all the cracks and protrusions. It was an impressive sight to behold.

Herded inside after only a few seconds, I could only imagine all these details. I hadn’t quite gotten a good look at it. Yet. The mass of dragonlings lingering outside the fortress’ double doors was meant to pass under a machine to clip the chains, and I was shoved under like the rest. With the absence of the chains, the machines’ steel blades grated against the dragon’s scales like nails on a chalkboard.

Then it broke.

The tip of one of the clippers snapped off of the machine’s arm and fell to the floor. The other disconnected entirely from the body of the machine and fell onto my back. I wriggled out from under it as fast as I possibly could, slipped back into the line behind where I had been, and waited to see what would happen. As it was, I backed into the largest dragonling in the entire school, the hatchling brothers of which had fallen below to the cliffs. As I looked up, surprised, I caught myself on my own snag and collapsed into a moderate-sized hole of my own making.

The dragon behind me growled, recalling that moment when the hole had opened up on the path behind him and realizing in a flash that I had caused it.

I pulled myself up out of my hole and skittered forward as the line lurched suddenly onward. The supervisor was melting the chains herself! Then I skipped the line and vanished through the doors, into a gray stone dining hall that had clearly before been some sort of dungeon. There were chains attached to the walls and strange stains and burn marks on the floors attesting to some sort of dark history. It fit with my current impression of Streakfyre, anyway.

A dragon on a raised platform cleared her throat with a burst of fire and began to speak. “I am the dragon known as Kjyrônmyr, a Åndæsin word for Fire Eater,” she said in a scratchy voice, as if her larynx was damaged. “I am the master teacher here, for you first seasoners. You will refer to me only as master or teacher, not Kjyrônmyr. I will call you up by name.” With a whir, she clicked on a screen and began reading out the names. “Bayzyr-haith!” A mid-sized dirt-colored dragon stepped forward. “Here!” Kjyrônmyr directed me to a line. “You will remain silent and stand in this line. I do not care whether you stand in front or behind Bayzyr-haith, so long as you are over here and not in your--” She gestured toward them with a dismissive shake of her talon. “--your blob-thingy over there.” She paused, looked at the screen again. “Hæle-valyr, Aynmov-livyr, Zukip-zyrzyr! Cyrzen-holvt! Varol-zeiv--” Kjyrônmyr stopped, dumbfounded. “What is this thing? You can’t be a dragon. Is this a lizard? No, it has wings. Where is Varol-zeiv, you miniature thing?”

I raised my shiny gray wings so that my head appeared to sink deep into the rest of my body--this is the dragon equivalent of a bow, after all. “I’m Varol-zeiv, Kjy--master,” I said quietly. The natural echoing quality of the room amplified my voice many times louder, to a dull roar. “I am a dragon, and Varol-zeiv is my name.” There was silence for a moment. I started to think that she might expel me for not being a proper dragon! Then she snorted, a jet of fire bursting suddenly from her nostrils.

“Get in line, already,” she snarled. “We’re waiting.” She turned back to the list, and I lowered my wings and scurried into place. “Aislera-onver. Kalyri-zyeth. Sávamni-mnumyr.” The gigantic dragonling I had backed into slid smoothly into line, directly between me and Kyrônmyr.

“Ashae-lyroth,” I heard the dragon say before Sávamni-mnumyr, the gigantic green dragon, shoved my face in front of mine. I stumbled backwards, tripped on a crack in the rough stone floor, and crashed backwards onto my wings with a sickening crunch, made many times louder by the acoustics of the hall. I knew immediately that it was dislocated, but I wasn’t badly injured. I flexed my wing and snapped it back into place. Sometimes it came in handy to have brutes for brothers.

Sávamni-mnumyr studied him, with a fiery emotion I could not recognize in his eyes. Something like anger. . . but I hadn’t done anything to him. What could he be angry about?

I rolled my shoulders and jumped up, backing farther away from Sávamni-mnumyr as soon as I was on my feet. The big dragon’s unblinking fierce golden stare was making me uncomfortable. I breathed in deep, preparing to flame out if Sávamni-mnumyr did anything, when the big dragon sat back on my haunches and growled just loud enough for me to hear.

Or anyway, that was his plan. Sávamni-mnumyr had not planned for the echoing quality of the room, and every noise he made was clearly audible to everyone in the room. Kjyrônmyr looked over interestedly, but went back to reading the list after a second or two. Several dragonlings, excited by the prospect of a fight, stared at the two. Sávamni-mnumyr ignored them, but as I was unused to the pressure, I stared back boldly at the ringleader, a regal, hook-scaled silver and purple dragoness named Mardo-laor.

Suddenly, Sávamni-mnumyr lunged forward at me with a snarl of “You!” “Me?” I asked, dumbfounded, as I flattened onto the ground. Sávamni crashed headlong into the wall behind me. Unfortunately, that meant Sávamni-mnumyr landed on me, too. My wing was disjointed again, I was absolutely sure, and I thought that my left leg might have been broken. The much larger dragon leapt up and opened his mouth to snap at me, for whatever reason, and I blasted the inside of his throat with fire. Sávamni-mnumyr made an odd noise and grimaced. His expression was almost identical to Dimmur’s, when I had tried it on him at one point. Dragons’ insides weren’t nearly as fireproof as their scales and wings.

As soon as I was satisfied that Sávamni-mnumyr was out for the time being, I tucked my hurt leg underneath me and ducked underneath Mardo-laor’s leg, out of the way. Sávamni-mnumyr picked his injured self off of the floor and barreled into the silver dragon, knocking her aside in my effort to get to me. I was nowhere to be found. The gigantic green dragonling swung his head side to side, scanning the room for a flash of gray scales or shiny gray wings.

He sat down on the floor and leaned on the gray walls to think. A muffled curse and a sickening crunch came from behind him. I had been hiding flattened on a crack in the wall! I jumped out and into the air, where I spent almost two minutes flying around at top speeds in random evasive patterns before I realized that Sávamni-mnumyr was not following into the air.

In fact, he looked ready to do anything but fly. All of the dragonlings stood on the ground, staring at me. I stared back down at the mass, unused to feeling larger than any other dragons. It was. . . strange, but kind of nice. I spent some time up there, then Kjyrônmyr finished the list (Glyrwr-shiav!) and began to take notice of what her students were actually doing…

“You! Move it!You—yes, you—get over here! You!” This last “you” was directed at me, and I braced myself for a barked order. The white dragon’s rough voice rang out again. “Nice flying.” She paused for a minute. “But get down here and get moving! We’re going to the bunks, and all of you over-privileged brats are late!”

The dragonlings started to file out of the hall, deeper into the fortress. Sávamni-mnumyr was one of the first to leave.

I fell into a steep dive and pulled up just before the floor. At this point, only Mardo-laor was watching my aerial stunts. Dragons really weren’t into the whole acrobatics thing. As he paused to land, Mardo-laor sidled up to me.

“Look,” she said, with the slangy accent marking that she came from Zaur Point, “I don’t think you know the deal with Sávamni-mnumyr. But I do.”

“I’m listening,” I replied.

The silver dragoness took a deep breath. “He’s nuts, has been for a while. But he blames you for something. But I dunno what.” That's the prologue and chapter 1 together. It's not that good, I know, but someday once I finish/revamp/edit multiple times/publish the book, it'll hopefully be good. (I'm working width a word goal of 87000 words for a three hundred year story, it'll have a ton of chopped parts. but not much I can do about that.)

=THANKS FOR READING! YOU'RE AWESOME!=

(P.S. I'm not likely to write about the book once I finish it: that's kind of up to you.)

Metaclaw-the-dragoness (talk) 23:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)