Dragon Child

Games and Training

Rhzvanzin awoke to the sound of something opening the growths behind him. Rhzvanzin lazily rolled over to see another of the strange dragons standing at the opening of the cave and glaring at him. The man said something in his strange language and did not move. Rhzvanzin continued to lie on his back and stare at the man. The man tossed him some strange objects that landed just short of him Rhzvanzin stared at the shapeless lumps of something the guard had thrown at him before he looked back at the strange dragon again.

The strange dragon motioned for another strange dragon to come forward, this one was much thinner in girth and limb than any of the strange dragons he had yet seen. The guard tossed more of the shapeless lumps at the dragon and it started to unfold and put the lumps on. Soon the dragon was wearing the lumps in the fashion he had seen others of the strange dragons where their skins.

“You put on old skins?” Rhzvanzin asked, “Why?”

The strange dragon ducked behind his piece of bark and the other dragon paled considerably. The dragon used the stick to prod the old skins towards Rhzvanzin; Rhzvanzin batted at the stick but soon lost interest. The strange dragon kept prodding the old skins toward Rhzvanzin. Rhzvanzin figured that they wanted him to put on the old skins as they did; he saw no harm in trying.

Rhzvanzin nosed around the old skins looking for an opening in the skins. He finally found one he thought that might admit him and lifted the material with one of his claws. Sticking his head inside Rhzvanzin tried to figure out how to crawl his way into the old skins but they kept getting caught on his claws. Soon Rhzvanzin was hopelessly tangled in the material and could not find his way out.

Rhzvanzin felt something forcing its way up his legs and snarled trying to get whatever it was off him.

“Rhzvanzin!” Sara’s voice called from nearby.

Rhzvanzin stilled as whatever the thing on his legs where finished working its way up to the top of his waist. Rhzvanzin then felt something untangling the material around his head and pulling his arms through it. Finally, Sara guided his head out of the material and Rhzvanzin shook himself, it felt different with the material clinging to his skin. For one thing the material itched, a lot.

Sara guided him out of the cave he was in and pointed down a long tunnel that several of the strange dragons were walking down. Rhzvanzin looked at Sara and she pointed down the tunnel while making that violent head motion she had done before.

“Go,” Sara said, while pointing down the tunnel.

Rhzvanzin figured that Sara wanted him to head down the tunnel, though why he could not say. He figured ‘go’ was just the verbal way of pointing in this society of strange dragons.

Rhzvanzin decided to make sure he was translating right and asked, “Why?”

“Go,” Sara repeated, still pointing down the tunnel.

Rhzvanzin shrugged and walked down the tunnel and noticed that dragons Josh and James where following him. He wondered why but figured that they meant him no harm. After all, he smelled no hostilities coming from them, though he did smell a lot of fear coming from them. Was the thing at the end of the tunnel scaring them? Rhzvanzin got ready for a fight just in case.

When Rhzvanzin came to the end of the tunnel, he saw that it led outside and he was all too happy to go. Rhzvanzin noticed that while it was outside many strange trees grew next to each other forming a barrier almost as tall as a sleeping dragon. Rhzvanzin headed for the trees and jumped up onto the top of them to get a good look at where he was. Rhzvanzin saw that he was no to far from where he was when he had been ambushed by these strange dragons. In fact the next tree over was the one he had leapt from to attack the horses.

Rhzvanzin heard a noise behind him and turned to see what it was. Down on the ground there was several of the strange dragons shouting something at him. One of them threw a long stick at Rhzvanzin which he easily caught and toss back to him. The group of strange dragons jumped away from the stick as it slammed into the ground before throwing more of them at him.

Rhzvanzin easily grabbed and tossed all the sticks back causing the dragons to scatter or grab at them to try and throw them back at him again. Rhzvanzin laughed merrily as he did this, this game was so much fun he knew he’d teach it to his friends when he got home.

Eventually the dragons stopped throwing their sticks and just stood there gasping for breath. Rhzvanzin was disappointed that the game had been so short and wanted it to continue. Maybe with some encouragement they would start again.

“Come on guys,” Rhzvanzin begged, “just one more game. Please?”

The strange dragons’ heads jerked up when they heard Rhzvanzin talking. Rhzvanzin wondered at this, these dragons almost always reacted poorly whenever he did not speak their language. He wondered at such open arrogance from dragons, every dragon he knew never cared if someone spoke just a little differently than he did or looked different. Yet these dragons seemed to be shocked and nervous if Rhzvanzin did not speak their language, they were so weird .

Rhzvanzin noticed that James and Josh had been approaching behind their pieces of bark. They seemed to like to move that way whenever they knew he was around, he wondered why. They came up to the edge of the tree line and looked up at Rhzvanzin before arguing with each other briefly.

Josh gulped and said, “Rhzvanzin, down.”

Rhzvanzin cocked his head at the new word and tried to figure out what it meant. The sentence that Josh had used was obviously a demand of some kind and was obviously being directed at him because they used his name. However, without a visual reference, Rhzvanzin still had about five hundred and eighty two meanings for the ‘down’.

Some fear crept into Josh’s voice as he pointed to the ground and said, “Rhzvanzin, down.”

The visual reference was all that Rhzvanzin needed to understand what ‘down’ meant.

Though he now knew the meaning he had no idea why they wanted him to come down from the trees, he was probably safer up here then down there. Rhzvanzin knew that he would have to speak simply if they where to understand him just as they needed to speak simply for him to understand them.

“Why, ‘down’?” Rhzvanzin asked.

“Rhzvanzin, down.” Josh repeated his voice now full of fear.

“Why?” Rhzvanzin repeated trying as hard as he could to make it sound like a question.

James finally walked up and shouted, “Rhzvanzin get down here now!”

While Rhzvanzin only understood half of what James said, he figured it was a more forceful way of saying ‘down’.

Though Rhzvanzin still did not understand why they did not want him on the trees he complied and leapt off the trees. Every one of the strange dragons lifted their piece of bark up over their heads as Rhzvanzin did so. He landed right in front of James and kindly asked him, “Why’d you make me come down?”

James drew back behind his piece of bark and motioned for Rhzvanzin to move back inside. Rhzvanzin simply shrugged and sighed before he walked back to his cave and curled up in the sunlight coming in through the hole in the cave. He woke up when he heard Sara coming toward his cavern.

Sara entered and tried to put her foreclaws under him again. Before Sara could try to throw Rhzvanzin off balanced, he jumped backwards away from her and glowered. Sara made the sound as if she was going to breath fire again and pulled something out from behind her.

Sara pulled out a piece of horsemeat and quickly yanked it out of Rhzvanzin’s reach. She managed to save most of the meat but Rhzvanzin was to fast for her to save it all. Rhzvanzin stalked Sara as they circled each other, Sara always keeping the meat just out of reach. She pointed one of her tiny talons upward and Rhzvanzin figured that Sara wanted him to stand as she did.

Rhzvanzin hesitated before shoving off the ground with his foreclaws and trying in vain to balance on his hind legs. Rhzvanzin toppled over, fell onto his back, and quickly rolled onto his belly. Sara was making that strange noise again and Rhzvanzin saw that Sara had also closed its eyes.

Rhzvanzin swept past her, snatched the meat with his jaws, and closed the growths with a kick of his hind legs. The growths slammed close with an odd click causing Sara to open its eyes and start making sounds of protest as she pushed against them. Rhzvanzin ignored Sara and dug into the horse meat with vigor, enjoying every bite.

When Rhzvanzin had finished his meal, he saw a dozen of strange dragons on each side of him with sticks pointed at him. Rhzvanzin spun himself around quickly with his claws out and sliced off the only part of the sticks that looked like they might hurt if they poked him. The strange dragons turned there hides very white and again Rhzvanzin wondered how they did that.

Rhzvanzin saw that the strange dragons did not seem to be ready to play at the moment so he decided to go back to the cave they had given him. The growths would not move when Rhzvanzin pushed on them so he backed up a step put his weight into the push. A large section of the growths went flying to the back of his cave and Rhzvanzin shrieked at the awful noise they caused.

Sara did not move for a moment then she looked at Rhzvanzin with a look Rhzvanzin’s mother had given him many times, he was in trouble. Though why he was in trouble he did not know but he was obviously in trouble.

“No!” Sara said in a firm voice pointing at the growths Rhzvanzin had knocked to the back of his cave, “No! Bad Rhzvanzin! Bad!”

Though he did not understand what Sara was saying, he was differently in trouble; he could tell from the tone of voice and look on Sara’s face. Therefore, he tried to do what he did whenever he was in trouble with someone who was not his mother. Rhzvanzin got up and walked slowly to corner with his head hanging low; when he reached the corner, he curled up looked at the person mad at him with innocent eyes and made a small sad smile accompanied by a soft whine.

Sara seemed taken aback by his actions and slowly walked over to him and ran her hand slowly across his head and whispered, “I sorry Rhzvanzin, it’s ok.”

Sara then got up and walked off with each of the strange dragons, Rhzvanzin let a smile slip through his wide-eyed frown. His strategy had worked with Sara and he had gotten off with nothing more than a scolding. He loved just how often the strategy worked at getting him out of trouble.

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“Captain wait!” one of Sara’s men called after her.

“What is it you want private?” Sara asked turning to face the man.

“Why are you keeping that man alive back there?” the private demanded, “He is obviously dangerous and wants to kill us all. He has already killed half our force and nearly caused more injuries today on several occasions!”

Sara stopped and looked the man in the eyes before she responded, “I keep him alive because I do not think we have the force of arms to kill him. That man took three arrows to the back without flinching and half dozen razor sharp swords plunged into his back with all the strength a man could muster hardly broke the skin. Do you think we could kill something that tough?”

“Well I…” the private stammered

“Secondly," Sara said continuing, "he obviously has no idea how strong or powerful he is. He is a wild child and was raised by animals to think like them, he might no even realize that he has killed dozens of men. While I have no idea what raised him, just trying to keep up with it turned him into a monster and killing him might bring the monsters that raised him down on this village.”

“Oh well I…” the private started before Sara cut him off.

“Finally," Sara said, "he has shown that he is willing to follow orders I give him and will listen to me. If I can train him with a weapon and make it to where he obeys me, he would be an unstoppable soldier. An entire band of thieves could descend upon the village, all we would need to do was send in this Rhzvanzin to kill them all, and he would have it done by sundown. Is that reason enough for you to keep him alive?”

“Yes mam.” The private saluted and walked out into the night shuddering at the thought of working along side a man that seemed more like a monster than a man.