“You’re not supposed to carry me like this! Are you listening? Kid! Brruughfft – this is so undignified.”
Tamar let the Dragon complain until his complaints ran out. He’d pay for it later when the Dragon got bigger. Didn’t take too long for that to happen, but maybe by then he would be a Dragon himself and nothing could hurt him.
“You think you’ll get to be one of us? Not likely.”
His luck to be put in charge of a Dragon that could read thoughts. His thoughts. The line across his forehead where the elders had carved his skull open didn’t hurt, but he could feel it. Every time he scrunched his nose or laughed. Sometimes with every blink. He could not feel the Dragonstone inside his head. Not yet. Once he was ready, he would.
It only did one of the things it was meant to do at the moment: broadcast his thoughts to mature dragons. This one wasn’t a baby — size meant nothing in terms of age — but it wasn’t full-grown, either. How could it hear what he was thinking?
“This is why you’re not worthy to be a Dragon. You don’t pay attention to your lessons. If you did, you’d know the feathers on my wings mean I am full-grown. Old. I’m small because of that damn spell. Now stop messing up my back and support me properly!”
Art: “The First Flight Of The Black Dragon” by Fernando Rubio Monroy