Unfinished Writing Vol. 2: Untitled

This particular story chunk is destined to be a book one day, assuming I ever get my act together and start working on it again. This is only part of what I currently have, which is two and a half pages long, too much for a blog post. Anyway...opinions?

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    It was time, once again, for Draigfest.

    There were hundreds of different clans and provinces and other self-governing colonies of dragons in Attria, some of which were constantly at war or just disagreement; others pretended that certain colonies didn’t exist for the sake of peace. Dragons are not, by nature, cooperative with those unlike them, resulting in a tangle of boundary lines to confuse even the most accomplished of cartographers. The colonies were not receptive to new dragons emigrating from other colonies, and their leaders rarely had any kind of meeting because of the everlasting tensions between them.

    But Draigfest was different. Draigfest happened in the very center of the valley, where no colony claimed territory, and it was a festival, or possibly a convention, for those dragons that weren’t really concerned one way or another with the misdeeds of their neighbours’ ancestors and were curious about the other colonies. Some, over the years, had even built up long-distance friendships with other dragons.

    This was the twenty-fifth annual Draigfest, and like the others, it was a spectacular success. Countless wooden stalls selling crafts, services and other interesting objects had been set up by the vendors of that year, and hundreds of tents and other portable shelters lined the valley, so that there was barely any room for the walking dragons to move through the campground. There was green grass underfoot, blue sky overhead, and forest all around. Dragons of all colours and shapes and sizes walked among the stalls, looking for something to do or something to buy, and others sat in the open areas and caught up with friends from other colonies. Speed dragons zoomed between the structures, their feathers glinting in the sun like jewels.[1]

    Amid all the shouting and twittering and whatever other noises turned up, there sat a lone dragon. He was the sort of person who is easily overlooked, rather small for a dragon and a generic green colour. His horns had no particular distinction, his muzzle was not more than usually pointed, and his tail lacked even a standard diamond-shaped barb. All in all, it was not particularly odd that no one seemed to notice him sitting there, apparently waiting for someone. Any number of his own kind were here today, mostly larger than him.

    Certainly no one noticed the way he was watching the sky, or how his eyes followed the movements of something no one could see.

    After some time, something descended from a great height above, landing in a cloud of dust and cursing several feet away. The green dragon smiled and made his way through the crowd to the settling dust.

    An orange dragon was sitting among the dirt clods and torn grass of her landing, shaking her streamlined head and struggling to fold red-feathered wings. She shifted her weight in an effort to get her bearings and began carefully grooming the red crest on  her head. The green dragon sniggered. “Oh, now you decide to take pride in your appearance?”

    “Shut up, Tadpole,” she snapped, flattening her crest self-consciously.

    “Hey, it’s not my fault you never learned how to land.”

    “I did, too. But the stupid instructor apparently assumed I’d only ever be landing on my dinner and not, say, the ground.” Finally satisfied with her appearance, she dropped to four legs and fixed a yellow stare on Tad. “How did you know it was me crashing here, anyway? It could have been anyone in my flight class.”

    Tad gestured vaguely toward his eyes. “I think it’s a species thing, but I’ve never asked anyone else about it. Shouldn’t you know that by now? I thought Darasci was supposed to mean ‘intelligent’ or something.”

    “Huh.” Darasci snorted. “I’m not much for memory, but from what I’ve seen I doubt anyone else in your colony has the eyes of a hawk. Your cousin Werther runs into trees all the time, anyway.”

    “Well, Werther’s…Werther. But who cares about him? What interesting and insightful pursuits have you set your mind to since last year?” Tad grinned.

    “Oh, look at Mr. Subtle. You know I don’t go in for work. I’m not made for it, no matter what my aunt says. I’m doing fine with my life.”

    “Which consists of what?”

    “Um…hunting, sleeping, reading and wandering around the forest. But it’s very fulfilling,” she added defensively. “Anyway, what have you been doing that’s so great?”

    “Well.” Tad cleared his throat, as if preparing for a long speech, and then shook his head. “Let’s walk. I’m hungry; I’ve been waiting for you to land for hours.”

    “Pfft.” Darasci rolled her eyes, but she followed him when he headed for the nearest food stall. “So?” she prompted.

    “Right. Well, there was a seminar thing last week about our cultural identity, something like that.” He laughed. “Most of it was complete garbage, of course, but there was some decent information there. One of the things they mentioned—”

    “Who’s this they?” Darasci asked accusingly.

    Tad waved a claw dismissively. “Oh, just some religionists or something. I think one of them was named Zag. Anyway, one of the things they mentioned was this island somewhere in the South Sea—it’s called Partiani—where there’s a cave guarded by some sort of tiger or some such.”

    “Ooh, a cave. Why’s that so interesting?”

    He glared at her. “I was coming to that. Apparently, somewhere in the cave is the Eggstone, which is some kind of purple gem shaped exactly like an egg, with gold wrapped around it or something like that. And supposedly it has some kind of power.”

    “So what’s this got to do with anything?”

    “I’m going to find the Eggstone, just to see it. It sounds…important.”

    Darasci was silent for a few moments as she contemplated this. Then, to Tad’s annoyance, she burst out laughing.

    “It’s not funny,” he said indignantly. Darasci shook her head and waited for the laughter to subside.

    “I’m sorry,” she gasped, “it’s just so ridiculous. You’ve never been out of the valley, and you want to go all the way to the South Sea and find something that probably isn’t even there? Really?”

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[1] Speed dragons were something of a joke up in the mountains, but here in the valley they were recognized as helpful messengers, since they could speak most languages with relative ease and flew very fast, as the name indicates. They had a clan system and lived in large groups in the forest, and worked for payment in food only, because they didn’t have a currency. They only seemed to have four colour variations, possibly as some kind of subspecies indication, but they were bright enough to be noticeable anyway.