Chapter 3- Picture Book

“why are you here? I mean, the water is brackish, filled with crap. The weather is unpredictable. Why are you here?” he snarls.

“I was banished.”“banished! From where? The land of the dragons?”“Koorirando. In the arctic circle.”

“how did you get from the arctic circle to-,”

“I helped someone,”

“you got kicked out for helping someone? that’s ridiculous its-,”

“I helped a human. It is against our law to help human beings. We’re not supposed to interact, in any way with them. Even in a matter of life and death. I broke that law. The most important law.”

“I think that’s stupid,”

“Stupid or not, it happened.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two weeks ago,”

“Two weeks… how old are you?”“I was born five weeks ago,”

“They banished you when you were only three weeks old!”

“Your age leverage is different from ours.”

“Apparently…,” you whisper to your self. You pedal a little faster, arrive home, and pick up Ryuu. “Do not move, or say anything, remember.” he obeys your command, (surprisingly) you open the door and walk in. “hey mom, look at the cute little gift Cara got me, isn’t it cute? It even moves and talks see?” you show your mom Ryuu, and he moves and roars quietly.

“Yea, it is… but Uhm,”“you know what, I’m tired I’m gonna go to my room, see you tomorrow.” you leave before your mom can make another comment. “That didn’t go too bad…,” you can hear Ryuu’s sarcastic snarls. “well at least she didn’t ask anything else,” at night, you place Ryuu on the bed opposite from yours, it was your sisters but she is now away at college. “sleep well ok,” he lies down and nods in your direction.

Your night is beset with many dreams. Not to say nightmares, but they are definitely not dreams you would like to have again. The second you wake up for about the fourth time you take out a pencil and paper. You start making lines and shapes and you don’t even notice the hours pass by.

“you’ve been doing that for quite some time now,” your shaken out of your pensiveness.

“what…? Oh… I didn’t notice.” you put your pencil down. “strange really… I’ve never really drawn anything ever, and yet here I am, drawing like…,”

“what was it you where drawing?”

“I don’t even know… they look like dragons. Like you,” Ryuu walks gingerly jumps off of the bed and then onto your desk. He eyes the pictures for a minute, after you spread out the three that you finished. He sharply veers away. “what’s wrong?” he snarls, as he looks at the pictures from the corner of his eye. He then turns back and steps on one of the pictures.“that is my father,” the picture his claw outlines is a particularly frightening image. Ryuu’s apparent father is a reddish color with a line of green around his chest and around his eyes that are black. The two piercing sharp horns on his head show he’s nothing to be trifled with along with his open mouth filled with sharp teeth. More things that are sharp are lined along his arms and body, and on his tail. He is mounted on a barren and lifeless tree in the middle of an ocean, a sunken ship slowly settling down to the bottom of the ocean.

“him! The scary looking one!” you say loudly, but then regret it. “I mean..,”

“yes, and this-,” he says stepping on a picture that looks still fierce but not one that brings so much trepidation to you as the other picture. This dragon is a silver blue, yet seeming a translucent type of blue, like water. He is mounted on ice, surrounded in a lake full of icebergs floating around, but staying clear of the dragon. His icy wings are at full wing-span, and his head looks like of a mask that is dark blue. It seems to merely be hiding his true features. The glimmer of his translucent water like skin shows all the way down to his frozen tail dipping into the water. “this is the dragon that banished me,” you swallow. “and this,” Ryuu says with much care as he steps gently on the last drawing. This picture is your favorite. It has a soft and near happy expression towards it. The feminine like dragon’s body twists, a part of it tracing out a line of the sun, almost as if she herself carries it. Her sapphire body elegantly swims, her mermaid like tail having silver plates on them. The same silver is aligned on her fragile looking but surely strong wings, and on her forehead. The sun she is holding illuminates all of her beautiful features. “this is my mother,”

“she’s beautiful… do you miss her,” you again regret your question. Ryuu speaks with a voice of parody.

“these drawings are amazingly accurate,” he says “that is the exact tree on which father loved to conjure up storms to unfortunate people who happened to be on the water-for pure amusement-, and scold me for being ‘softhearted’.” he looks at the other picture “this is the exact ice that he banished me. And this… this is the same place where my mother said that the sun was as easy to grasp as the water beneath us.” you look down and see another paper on the floor.

“oh there’s another one,” it’s a picture of the dragon that banished Ryuu, only instead of being on ice, he has coiled himself snugly around the earth. Ryuu laughs.“another accurate drawing, for Ryoku -that was his name- wanted complete control over the earth. He feels humans an unworthy and helpless species.”

“thank you Ryoku. But then again that would ruin the whole no interaction with humans thing.” you say sarcastically “A very nice family you had,” Ryuu scoffs and jumps off the desk, scratching the wooden surface with his sharp claws. You’re about to upbraid him but then think otherwise.

“Lora! Get up! You need to go to the horses!”

“crap! I cant believe I forgot them! C’mon Ryuu, don’t move,” you go to pick up Ryuu but his skin is sharp to the touch “ouch” you say silently. You attempt again as Ryuu lightens up, this time he doesn’t prick you. “alright, alright I’m leaving,” you say running swiftly down the stairs and past your mother.

“Valora!”

“I’m already late, I’ll get something on the way!” you yell.

“Valora!” your mother yells at you. You stop and turn to her. “can you get me some ice cream when you come back?” you sigh and nod. Your mother sulks back into her chair. You slowly walk to get on your bike and place Ryuu in the basket in front.

“who is that woman?”“she’s my mother,” you say.

“she seemed oddly… strange today,” you don’t respond, and ryuu sighs “humans…,”