Hm....

So you know that dragon story I did for the blogfest? Well I experimented...

Chapter One

            “Tell me a story,” a blazing red-haired child swept into the room. “Tell me a story about dragons.”

            Raven, a tall woman who had the hair color of her namesake, leaned away from the wooden table and smiled at her child. Dragons were a great story topic for Fox (names in their family were traditionally animal) and it entertained her.

            “But Fox, why? You know dragons aren’t real.”

            “But daddy always said there once was,” Fox chirped, plunking herself onto one of the chairs and beaming at her mom.

            “How about you do this,” her mom grinned, tapping Fox on her small nose, “you’ll draw me a dragon, and I’ll give you a story about it.”

            “He. It’s a he,” the girl frowned disapprovingly at her mom.

            “Alright, I’ll tell you a story about him.”

            Fox jumped out of her chair and fetched a sheet of paper and charcoal that her mother had paid a fortune to purchase. She had noticed her daughter’s abnormal ability to draw life-like fantasy animals, and naming them bizarre names. Such drawings she would ask Fox if she could sell them at the market to earn their family a bit of money. Sometimes she would yield, but other times she hung them up in her room to keep. There were things called ‘fairies’, ‘unicorns’, and even ‘griffons’ that seemed to be real animals morphed together. Even though the combinations should have scared Raven it didn’t. Though there were no such creatures to have ever existed, they seemed to have their own beauty.

            The only recognizable name Fox produced for her mother was ‘dragon’, but the picture was very unlike the stories. The stories presented dragons as large winged snakes, with the ability to melt anything with some sort of magic. But her daughter drew them with four powerful legs and paws, a broad chest, a lashing and long tail, and a lengthy neck with a diamond-shaped head. In some pictures the dragons issued fire from their jaws.

            Fox had never allowed her mom to sell any dragons.

            “I’m done!” Fox grinned, and handed her mom a picture of a magnificent beast with branching horns. His eyes seemed to stare into Raven’s soul, and the dragon seemed to radiate authority.

             “He’s wonderful,” breathed Raven.

            “He’s the first one of them all,” Fox commented. “Now tell me his story.”