I finally got ASCENDANT, by Diana Peterfreund, from the library! I've just started it, but I loved the first one, and I'm so excited to have it in my hands. Not only are the books great, but I love the looks I get when I tell people they're about bloodthirsty unicorns. Haha!
In honor of Ms. Peterfreund, the prompt for this weeks is: Mythical creatures.
Put a spin on it (i.e. sparkly vampires, killer unicorns, etc.) or stick to the normal themes, whatever you like. :-)
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My response:
Her massive heart pounded, the roaring of blood flooding her ears and drowning out the sounds of the chaos below. Her taloned feet brushed the treetops as her wings pummeled the air, pushing her scaly body forward like a raptor in a downward dive. She opened her mouth and hurled a jet of flame at the trees, but her aim was off, and the leaves only curled in on themselves and smouldered instead of catching. She barely noticed. There was room in her mind for only one thought: would she get there in time?
The air was heavy with the scent of little men and running horses. Never before had they dared approach her fortress home, not since she'd driven them out, decades ago. The shining, marble city on the hill still gleamed in the sunset, the prize she'd won even as a youngling, fresh out of her egg. Vines and shrubs encroached on the wide road leading up to it, but it was well built, and the men came back all too easily.
One generation of men was not too long for a dragon to wait out, and egg laying was a serious business. Eggs were helpless. They had no talons, no tongues of flame to protect themselves. She pushed herself onward, thinking only of her eggs. When she saw the doors of the palace, broken open and hanging loose from the hinges, all thought left her. Only panic remained.
Her flames would not hurt her eggs, and she knew it. She filled the palace with them. Horses screamed. Men yelled. She heard none of it. Diving through a crumbling cupola, she landed among ash and cinder, roaring out her punishment upon the men who dared invade what she had rightfully stolen.
Then all was silent.
She coughed, ash-darkened spittle dripping from her jaws to sizzle on the stone. Egg shells littered the floor, scattered among the skeletons of men and their mounts. She looked to her nest. The carnage continued. Trembling, she reached her long neck out, heart aching at what she knew she would find, but driven, nonetheless, to see for herself.
Then she heard it. Faint, and buried. A scratching, or a thumping. It was muffled. It didn't come from the nest. Then men had been thorough. She twisted around, searching. There. A leather bag, strung across the remains of a horse, blackened and cracked, but still whole. One careful nudge from her claw snapped what was left of it, and one purple egg emerged.
She lifted her head and cried, then snapped her head back down and carefully picked the egg up in her jaws. They had won the night, but she had won the day, and if not tomorrow, surely in the next few days, there would not be one lone dragon on the mountain, but two.
“Wow! Wasn’t he great? John Desmodus, everyone! No wonder he can charm the human girls into giving him their blood!” The crowd showed its agreement with deafening applause, calls, and hoots and the vampire glided off the stage. Euryale Gorgon, tonight’s MC, had to wait for it to die down before she could continue, though it was obvious by the way her snake-hair twitched that she was impatient. “Now, it is time for the annual Association awards. This year, I am excited to invite Asterion up to the stage to help me announce them!”
ReplyDeleteThe crowd parted reluctantly to let him up to the stage, though all were careful to give the minotaur a wide berth. Everyone present remembered how he had gone berserk two years ago and mauled poor Michael Corvin for trying to ride him on a drunken dare. Sure, Michael had been asking for it, and his werewolf metabolism had allowed him to recover almost instantly, but that wasn’t something you lived down in only a couple of years. The steps up to the stage creaked, and the stage itself sagged as his bulk thumped across it to stand next to Euryale at the microphone, though he was careful to stay out of reach of her waving, serpentine hair.
“And now, the awards.” Euryale had to stoop down to take the box full of award cards from Dalaigh, the leprechaun and Association Treasurer, who promptly scurried back off the stage as soon as he could, his green coat flapping behind his miniature form. The crowd again went wild. The annual Evil and Benign Mythical Creature Association awards were the highlight of the evening.
Euryale opened the box and removed the top card. “First, the award for most improved in 2013 goes to…” Euryale handed the card to Asterion and waited for him to read the name. “…R, for landing his first starring role in a major movie!” bellowed the Minotaur. The crowd waited patiently as the shy, almost-recovered zombie, moved up to the stage to receive his award, though their patience wore thin after a couple minutes of unintelligible grunts as he tried to give his acceptance speech.
The awards continued through the night, as did the laughs and tears. Sasquatch again won the award for best practical joke, while Chakora won the award for most humans affected without them knowing about it. But, as all nights must, the evening grew late and the party came to a close.
“And, finally, the award for Most Elusive!” cried Euryale. All the room was caught in the moment, breaths were held, even by those present who had to breathe, as Euryale pulled out the final card. To win the award for most elusive, a mythological creature had to be so sly, so cunning, so aware of its surroundings that no human could even catch a glimpse of it, while at the same time, humans had to at least suspect its existence. It was what all mythological creatures strived for. This was the pinnacle of all that it was to be a mythological creature. All eyes watched the blue card as Euryale handed it to Asterion. His deep bellow shook the walls as he called out, “the award for Most Elusive goes to….THE HONEST POLITICIAN!”