If there’s one thing and one thing only that you wanted to know about dragons, it would be – NEVER touch one of the suckers on the nose.
It’s not a common dog, see. It’s lordly. Commands respect. And it’s shiny.1
Raphikii the Second, that was what my sire called me. (Beats me who the first fellow was … seeing as me sire was Foeedloer the Fifth. Don’t even ask who his ancestors were …) I’m what’s called a fine specimen of a Great Eastern Horny. (No, not that kind of horny, fool. We’ve got horns. On our heads.)
Great Eastern Hornies are huge. I mean huge. Great doesn’t do them even a little justice – we should’ve been called the Mega-Ginormous-Humungous-Large Eastern Hornies. But that would have been far too much of a mouthful, now, eh?
A cave hollowed out into the side of a fine mountain side was my early home. Us dragons, we tend to be very close-knit – so in that cave (take cave to mean large hollowed out scoop) there were four families. Nuclear, of course. One male and one female progeny was considered apt. A warrior and a husband, one, and a wife and provider, the other. Have any more than two kids and you’d be called a ‘lusty one’.2
“Hey, Kaelyna, see Deriken the Tenth over there? He’s a lusty bull, that one.”
“Mmm … how many kids did he go and give Joara?”
“Ten! My, my ...”
“Fun, though. All those romps. He BIG, too.”
(The author excuses himself: *gags*)
“Oh yes, by the skin of my scales, definitely!”3
I was, so my mother told me, sixteen metres long at birth. I distinctly remember cramps when I crawled out of the egg that housed me for six and a half months – the damn thing was only five metres wide and six metres high. I had my tail up near my nose, and it was a bitch to ingest nutrients in there.
We look much the same when we’re born to when we mature – except for some exceptions.
Full size is considered two hundred metres long and half that height. My head's adorned with horns, all extremely spiky – that runs down in a ridge to the tip of my gem-encrusted tail. Male colouring goes from shiny greens to dark maroons – females tend to go with ebony or light reds.
Great Eastern Hornies grow fast, and I was sixteen before you knew it – and already stretching fifty and some metres.
Dragon adolescence is a funny thing. I once trashed my room in a fit of pique – only then I discovered that dragonflame is not to be messed with. I nearly melted the rock walls of the cave then. My sire wouldn’t even blink one bleary eye when I did so – he merely snorted and, without moving from his nap position, flicked his giant horny tail at me.
That tail has been known to cause mega quakes. Sometimes thrice a day. When he moves the tail, you get the hell out of the continent, let alone the country. 4
Fast forward to the present – I was twenty-four and a hundred and fifteen metres.
I was to get married to this shy female my mother’d found for me from what she called “social circles”. I dunno – I never see any circles in Dragonville. Or any other shape. Dragon architecture is non-existent.
Anywho – I was to get married on the next cometary cycle – which was in precisely four days and two minutes and six-point-oh seconds. And counting.
So, I was having a fit of the blues. I mean, hell, marriage. You kinda tend to think twice before going through with it.
Of course, I had DOCOD (Dragonly Overly Compulsive and Obsessive Disorder) – so I don’t just think twice. I think it through maybe a hundred, two hundred times. 5
The Pike Range was a pleasant place to be during the late evenings at this time of year. I perched on one of the hills, hunkering down (looking like a hill myself, albeit a dark green one), and my snout between my claws, my tail curled up around me.
Looking out over the forests of the Range, I began to think.
(Author’s note: This might take a while … so I’m fast forwarding to the next morning.)6
Crunch.
“Will you stop that?” I muttered irritably, half-asleep. I gave an angry snort as the sound repeated itself.
“Oi!” I roared. “I’m trying to –”
I stopped short. I remembered where I was. No dragon ever came out here – and I’d just found the reason why.
Some dumbtruck human had set up camp on my shoulder.
Well – ‘tis not like this sort of thing’s never happened before – I’d heard the tale of Old Roaken. The old geezer was so ancient he’d hardly ever move from his naptime spot, which resulted in him being covered in moss, lichen, small trees, bird’s nest, droppings and ultimately a human settlement of fifty people.
Of course, one fine day he died (in his sleep), and dragons like to cremate their dead.
But back to the present.
I couldn’t move. It was on my SHOULDER! I thought of all the dragon gods I knew and prayed.
Footsteps. It’s walking over me. Over me!
You gotta understand, I’d never seen a human before. Oh, I’d heard the tales, heard the stories, how some wore incredibly shiny clothing that seemed to bang a lot – how they’d occasionally wave shiny sticks they called swords at us – and then proceed to get deep-fried in their aforementioned shiny clothing.
But here I was – my first contact.
It clambered over and into my nostril and began to do something in there.
Holy mother of all things lizardly. It thought my nostril was a cave! (It could well be forgiven for that – my nostrils were, after all, quite … large. Author’s note: Sorry for the mental images of dragon bogeys I’m sure you all must be having right now …)
Oh no. What if I sneezed? Or, god forbid, breathed? I rumbled angrily in my belly, trying to scare the bugger away.
I saw a head poke out of my nostril. I peered at it with slitted eyes. Light hair, compact tunic, well structured body … it turned around.
It was a woman! A human woman! In my left nostril!7
She was pretty.8
I hummed and hawed inside my sizable brain. What to do now? I couldn’t very well kill her …
Well, maybe I could just ask her to leave? Nicely? How was it humans put it … uhm … diplomatically. That’s it.
I had to do this right.
I cleared my throat, which involved a minor earthquake, some smoke, and a lot of creaking and rattling.
Gathering the words in my head, I broadcast them through my mind, using my ears as dishes to amplify the mental words. The human should hear them in her head … if all went according to plan.
(Author’s note: Dragons have been known to overcompensate when attempting to communicate with the two-legged race … no one actually wants to work at the Department of Dragon Affairs anymore – reasons being brain aneurysms, brain tumours, brains exploding from the inside, deafness, retardation – and above all, the flameproof attire isn’t actually flameproof.)9
I waited anxiously. Had she heard it?
Oh, I think she did.
She hit me on the nose in shock.10
What did I say? Never, never, never hit a Great Eastern Horny on the nose. Unless you’re extremely brave or extremely stupid or even both.11
I shook. Oh god, not the nose! Why’d she hit me on my proud, green and shiny nose?
It was all ruined!
My stomach rumbled, the innards roiled, my nostrils filled with smoke. My tail thrashed around in agony. I roared and in that instant, it happened.12
I, Raphikii the Second, sired by Foeedloer the Fifth, Great Eastern Horny, farted. 13
It’s not a common dog, see. It’s lordly. Commands respect. And it’s shiny.1
Raphikii the Second, that was what my sire called me. (Beats me who the first fellow was … seeing as me sire was Foeedloer the Fifth. Don’t even ask who his ancestors were …) I’m what’s called a fine specimen of a Great Eastern Horny. (No, not that kind of horny, fool. We’ve got horns. On our heads.)
Great Eastern Hornies are huge. I mean huge. Great doesn’t do them even a little justice – we should’ve been called the Mega-Ginormous-Humungous-Large Eastern Hornies. But that would have been far too much of a mouthful, now, eh?
A cave hollowed out into the side of a fine mountain side was my early home. Us dragons, we tend to be very close-knit – so in that cave (take cave to mean large hollowed out scoop) there were four families. Nuclear, of course. One male and one female progeny was considered apt. A warrior and a husband, one, and a wife and provider, the other. Have any more than two kids and you’d be called a ‘lusty one’.2
“Hey, Kaelyna, see Deriken the Tenth over there? He’s a lusty bull, that one.”
“Mmm … how many kids did he go and give Joara?”
“Ten! My, my ...”
“Fun, though. All those romps. He BIG, too.”
(The author excuses himself: *gags*)
“Oh yes, by the skin of my scales, definitely!”3
I was, so my mother told me, sixteen metres long at birth. I distinctly remember cramps when I crawled out of the egg that housed me for six and a half months – the damn thing was only five metres wide and six metres high. I had my tail up near my nose, and it was a bitch to ingest nutrients in there.
We look much the same when we’re born to when we mature – except for some exceptions.
Full size is considered two hundred metres long and half that height. My head's adorned with horns, all extremely spiky – that runs down in a ridge to the tip of my gem-encrusted tail. Male colouring goes from shiny greens to dark maroons – females tend to go with ebony or light reds.
Great Eastern Hornies grow fast, and I was sixteen before you knew it – and already stretching fifty and some metres.
Dragon adolescence is a funny thing. I once trashed my room in a fit of pique – only then I discovered that dragonflame is not to be messed with. I nearly melted the rock walls of the cave then. My sire wouldn’t even blink one bleary eye when I did so – he merely snorted and, without moving from his nap position, flicked his giant horny tail at me.
That tail has been known to cause mega quakes. Sometimes thrice a day. When he moves the tail, you get the hell out of the continent, let alone the country. 4
Fast forward to the present – I was twenty-four and a hundred and fifteen metres.
I was to get married to this shy female my mother’d found for me from what she called “social circles”. I dunno – I never see any circles in Dragonville. Or any other shape. Dragon architecture is non-existent.
Anywho – I was to get married on the next cometary cycle – which was in precisely four days and two minutes and six-point-oh seconds. And counting.
So, I was having a fit of the blues. I mean, hell, marriage. You kinda tend to think twice before going through with it.
Of course, I had DOCOD (Dragonly Overly Compulsive and Obsessive Disorder) – so I don’t just think twice. I think it through maybe a hundred, two hundred times. 5
The Pike Range was a pleasant place to be during the late evenings at this time of year. I perched on one of the hills, hunkering down (looking like a hill myself, albeit a dark green one), and my snout between my claws, my tail curled up around me.
Looking out over the forests of the Range, I began to think.
(Author’s note: This might take a while … so I’m fast forwarding to the next morning.)6
Crunch.
“Will you stop that?” I muttered irritably, half-asleep. I gave an angry snort as the sound repeated itself.
“Oi!” I roared. “I’m trying to –”
I stopped short. I remembered where I was. No dragon ever came out here – and I’d just found the reason why.
Some dumbtruck human had set up camp on my shoulder.
Well – ‘tis not like this sort of thing’s never happened before – I’d heard the tale of Old Roaken. The old geezer was so ancient he’d hardly ever move from his naptime spot, which resulted in him being covered in moss, lichen, small trees, bird’s nest, droppings and ultimately a human settlement of fifty people.
Of course, one fine day he died (in his sleep), and dragons like to cremate their dead.
But back to the present.
I couldn’t move. It was on my SHOULDER! I thought of all the dragon gods I knew and prayed.
Footsteps. It’s walking over me. Over me!
You gotta understand, I’d never seen a human before. Oh, I’d heard the tales, heard the stories, how some wore incredibly shiny clothing that seemed to bang a lot – how they’d occasionally wave shiny sticks they called swords at us – and then proceed to get deep-fried in their aforementioned shiny clothing.
But here I was – my first contact.
It clambered over and into my nostril and began to do something in there.
Holy mother of all things lizardly. It thought my nostril was a cave! (It could well be forgiven for that – my nostrils were, after all, quite … large. Author’s note: Sorry for the mental images of dragon bogeys I’m sure you all must be having right now …)
Oh no. What if I sneezed? Or, god forbid, breathed? I rumbled angrily in my belly, trying to scare the bugger away.
I saw a head poke out of my nostril. I peered at it with slitted eyes. Light hair, compact tunic, well structured body … it turned around.
It was a woman! A human woman! In my left nostril!7
She was pretty.8
I hummed and hawed inside my sizable brain. What to do now? I couldn’t very well kill her …
Well, maybe I could just ask her to leave? Nicely? How was it humans put it … uhm … diplomatically. That’s it.
I had to do this right.
I cleared my throat, which involved a minor earthquake, some smoke, and a lot of creaking and rattling.
Gathering the words in my head, I broadcast them through my mind, using my ears as dishes to amplify the mental words. The human should hear them in her head … if all went according to plan.
(Author’s note: Dragons have been known to overcompensate when attempting to communicate with the two-legged race … no one actually wants to work at the Department of Dragon Affairs anymore – reasons being brain aneurysms, brain tumours, brains exploding from the inside, deafness, retardation – and above all, the flameproof attire isn’t actually flameproof.)9
I waited anxiously. Had she heard it?
Oh, I think she did.
She hit me on the nose in shock.10
What did I say? Never, never, never hit a Great Eastern Horny on the nose. Unless you’re extremely brave or extremely stupid or even both.11
I shook. Oh god, not the nose! Why’d she hit me on my proud, green and shiny nose?
It was all ruined!
My stomach rumbled, the innards roiled, my nostrils filled with smoke. My tail thrashed around in agony. I roared and in that instant, it happened.12
I, Raphikii the Second, sired by Foeedloer the Fifth, Great Eastern Horny, farted. 13
Bronze trophy winner
Honorable mention
Adding your comment:
My first response was "Well where else would they have horns? ... oh."
(you didn't work on the crashed mars orbiter mission by any chance? - *groans at my own failed humor attempt *)
