Made for a prompt for YouAsTheNarrator which can be found on DeviantART.

Prompt:
Something Old, New, Red Blue

I wasn't much of a reader, but today I'd picked up one of Adrian's old books as I left in the morning it was something of our mother's that she'd handed down to Adrian before we lost her, some book about a vampire named 'Dracula'.

The hardest part about getting up in the tree I usually sat in was getting up holding the book as I climbed it ended up wedged in my mouth so I could free both my hands up. As I looked down at my backpack below I realized I probably should've just brought it up with me.

I'd only been sitting there for an hour, reading on and off when something started to fall from the sky.

It was like watching a drop of sunlight fall, throwing off glints of light as it tumbled down.

The streak of yellow that rocketed through the otherwise clear sky startled me so much I ended up dropping the book.

I didn't quite know what to do. Did I just pick up the book and continue reading, pretending I never saw anything at all... or should I go see what it was and abandon reading the book for the moment?

Before I could make up my mind, my body was in action. I'd already jumped down, almost spraining my ankle, and scooped the book up and chucked it towards my backpack nearby.

My feet knew the path towards the area the yellow thing had disappeared into, from my courtyard to the orchard was a frequent route they took.

Trees and bushes that I usually spent the time navigating around tore at my clothes and one branch skimmed across my cheek leaving it feeling like a bolt of hot iron had been laid against my face.

I didn't dare stop nor even slow down in fear I wouldn't reach the fallen yellow thing before it disappeared.

My pants tore as I made my way through a particularly spiky bush of roses. Adrian was going to kill me for yet another article of clothing of mine riddled with tears but at least I was making quick progress.

By the time I reached the orchard, I had no breath and felt ready to collapse as my legs screamed in agony. My breaths rattled as I slowly jogged my way through the trees.

Just when I thought my legs were about to give up on me, I rounded the corner and saw the yellow thing from the sky.

It was pretty big, but not huge probably the same size as a teenage boy. It definitely wasn't a bird. No bird I knew of was that big, golden-yellow and didn't have feathers. Birds definitely had feathers last time I checked.

The yellow thing let out a low, pain-filled moan and I'll admit, although I'm a man, I almost screamed.

Another painful moan came from the thing again and it rolled over enough for me to see what looked like a giant cat-scratch down its side. And the scratches oozed a weird dark blue liquid.

It fully rolled over onto its back, revealing all the scratches that ran from the thing's stomach to around its left side.

And the liquid was blood.

I felt as though the wind had been completely knocked out of my lungs. My hand absently swiped at my face where the tree had slapped me and it came back red with my own blood.

For so long I'd wanted to see one with my own eyes and know why everyone feared them.

And finally here it was.

A dragon!

Broken, battered but unfortunately still alive...

My hand had instinctively gone to the small knife everyone from The City was required to carry after they turned of age it was a new one again for me as I had a tendency to lose mine every few weeks.

The short distance from where I stood to the dragon seemed so far and I knew I wasn't close enough to kill it. As I drew nearer I realized it wasn't just my knife that wasn't close enough, I felt it inside myself. I wasn't ready for this.

Rabbits, fish and birds were one thing but this dragon a dragon that might have killed someone I knew I couldn't bring myself to kill it.

The low moaning picked up again and one of its big silvery eyes turned and locked on me.

I could plainly see the suffering it was going through and it wanted me to end the pain it felt.

I knew I should but I couldn't do it even when it was all but begging me to kill the poor beast.

A single tear rolled down its scaled cheek and I ran to it, dropping by the dragon I knew I could help even if I couldn't kill him.

He groaned and growled as I ran to and from the lake and to get my backpack full of supplies for healing myself whenever I would cut myself.

I patched up myself before starting on the dragon; although I was no doctor I had helped The City's doctors enough times to know how to fix up a bleeding wound.

"You'll be okay." I murmured to him as I gathered up the supplies.

My hands were still bloody when I began to try to stop the dragon bleeding.

Before I could do much more than touch his wound he let out a piercing cry that sounded somewhere between joy and agony.

And I was lost in a blur of images and feelings that weren't all my own.

My knees buckled and an electric shock ran over my body, neither painful nor enjoyable.

A flash of colour, golden with red eyes and so angry scratched at my side and blocked any other thoughts I could've had.

A burning like fire lit up, starting at my heart and spread outwards, searing the electricity from my veins.

My own race to the orchard appeared behind my closed eyelids, how desperately I wanted to get here.

And finally the chill that sent shivers the whole way from the top of my head to my toes.

Calming and relaxing, it sent me off into a whole new bout of memories of both mine and the dragon's.

When my eyes could open I looked around, confused and afraid.

The experience was so insanely intense and new to me I didn't quite know what else I was to expect.

Then I realized; the dragon was gone.

He'd disappeared from right in front of me.

There were no tracks that lead away, no blood trail and I was able to gauge he wasn't in any state to fly.

And yet he was gone.

My thoughts swirled uneasily the entire walk back to my courtyard.

Perhaps I'd imagined the whole thing.

Maybe I'd fallen out of the tree and knocked myself unconscious and when I woke up I'd be laying on the broken slabs of concrete and jutting grass below.

But my hands were covered in blue and red so some part of it must've been real...

I sat back up in my tree, book in hand but mind elsewhere.

There were no words to adequately describe how I was feeling...

Alive alive was close.

Whole.

Yes. Alive and whole.

It felt like a part of me had been missing all my life and suddenly it was there, like the missing puzzle piece finally found.

My hand found my bleeding scratch on my cheek and began to idly rub it but it felt more like a scar I'd received long ago rather than a few hours before.

I scavenged around in my bag looking for the small mirror I usually kept within. My hands finally closed around it and I brought it to my face. And it quickly dropped to the ground shattering.

The cut was fully healed and just a pink scar stood up from my face.

But that wasn't what scared me so badly.

My eyes had changed. My hazel eyes which I'd gotten from my father and shared with Adrian were no longer hazel; they'd changed to the golden yellow of the dragon's scales.

Nythnir.

The stray thought ran through my mind and suddenly I was torn in two. The wholeness I'd felt disappeared just as the dragon, Nythnir, reappeared in front of me.

And then I screamed bloody-murder.