Night on the Cliffs

 

            Aria looked down with pride at her clutch of four dragon eggs. After gently breathing fire on them for weeks, they were finally ready to hatch.

            Her mate, Elton, was no less proud as he waited by Aria’s side. “Is it going to be soon?” he asked impatiently.

            “It should be sometime tonight,” Aria said with a smile. Aria and Elton were first time parents, but dragons always hatched exactly five weeks after being bathed in their mother’s fire. Aria had first fire-breathed on her eggs near midnight five weeks ago. It couldn’t be much more than an hour that they had left to wait.

            Aria surrounded the nest protectively, while Elton stood guard on their rocky plateau. It was a clear night, and the hot summer air had turned pleasantly cool. Suddenly, Elton sniffed alarmingly and cried, “I smell humans!”

            Aria immediately drew closer to the eggs and prepared her fire, just in case she needed it to drive off the humans.

            Elton stood at the edge of the cliff and gave off a warning growl as a grappling hook suddenly appeared at his feet. He snapped at the line with his powerful jaws and was rewarded with a startled yelp.

            More lines appeared over the top of their cliff, and Elton started to cut those lines as well. However, there were too many, and men dressed all in black started to appear. Elton took care of them easily with one swipe of his mighty tail, but these humans were determined. More and more humans appeared, and Elton did his best to fend them away from their nest. However, Aria noticed a small group of them circling behind Elton from her position by the eggs. With a snarl, Aria ran to defend her mate, and roared out her fire on the humans.

            Soon, Aria and Elton had cleared their plateau of all the pesky humans. They both roared out their challenges as the relentless creatures finally stopped appearing over the top of the cliff. “Are you all right my dear?” Elton asked Aria with concern.

            “I’m fine, thank you,” Aria replied. “But what about you?”

            “Not even a scratch,” Elton said, totally unconcerned. “I don’t know what they were thinking, attacking us like that.”

            Suddenly, Aria let out a frustrated shriek. “One of our eggs is missing!” she screamed in a panic.

            Elton looked over to check on the nest and saw that there were indeed, only three eggs nestled together. He took a great sniff and growled out, “Humans!” He told Aria, “Stay with the other eggs, I’ll be right back with the missing one.” He launched himself into the air with his great powerful wings and flew off into the night.

            Following his nose, Elton picked up the human scent easily. He also caught the faint scent of the dragon egg. Furious, he followed it, and quickly caught up to the small group of humans that were left from their previous attack. Elton descended out of the sky with a roar and breathed out his hottest fire directly onto them.

            Cries and screams rang out as the humans scattered. Elton followed the scent of his egg, and quickly located it, hidden away in a rocky outcropping. Laying more fire about him, he carefully retrieved the egg with his massive talons and flew off back to Aria.

            Aria was truly relieved when she saw Elton returning with their egg. “You’ve got it!” she cried happily as Elton gently lowered the egg to lay next to its fellows.

            “Silly humans,” Elton grunted, annoyed. “Why would they try to steal one of our eggs?” 

            Aria mused for a moment before she quietly answered. “I’ve heard stories from the other side of the mountains about humans stealing eggs and raising dragons themselves. Then they use them as slaves to carry them about everywhere.”

            Elton felt a shudder go all the way down his back to the tip of his tail. “Well, that’s not going to happen to us!” he said protectively.

            A loud crack rang out in the night and Aria said excitedly, “They’re hatching!”

            Both dragon parents looked on proudly as their four hatchlings broke themselves free of their eggs. “They’re beautiful!” Aria cooed as she breathed warm flames on them.

            Elton sat up tall as he looked on his family. No humans were going to steal any of his hatchlings. The proud parents nuzzled each other as they stared down at the next generation. The Earth shook as they both roared out their happiness to the night sky.