This is another piece of my book! I hope you like it! I've decided to call it Dragon Fire. Click/Space (there's information in the project). PROLOGUE: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/618185454/ NEXT: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/644766604/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Sunny's POV) After the white-robed man had re-wrapped my feet and wings and put the clamp around my jaw again, three humans pulled me into another passage. When we were about halfway down this one, an ear-splitting roar made the floor tremble. My head snapped up. That’s a dragon! Suddenly, I had strength again. I twisted, knocking over one of the men as I tried to tell where the roar had come from. The other men shouted, jerking my wings painfully. I wanted to roar, to answer the dragon, but I could only make a rumbling, humming noise with my mouth shut. The roar came again, fiercer this time, and human shouts came with it. “I can handle this one!” one of the men shouted to the others. “Go find out what’s happening!” They nodded, and ran away. I stopped to watch them for a moment, trying to see where they were going. It was a moment too long. The third human had grabbed the ropes coming from my wings again, and when I twisted, trying to pull them out of his grasp, he jabbed the sensitive membrane with a small dart. My vision dimmed, and all my muscles became weak. As the sedative worked its way into my blood, I collapsed and everything went dark.
As it came over, I saw that it was a female human. She had pale skin and short brown hair. Her eyes were different colors, one gray and one brown. “Oh, you’re awake,” she whispered. Her voice surprised me. It wasn’t sharp and blunt, like all the other humans. In fact, she accented the words just like a dragon, although her voice was much lighter. I stared at her. “I’m so sorry you were captured. Are you hurt?” she asked, looking at me with concern. I drew back, very confused. Why would she be sorry that I was captured? And why did she care if I was hurt? “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, appearing to remember something. “Hold still a moment, please. And don’t flame at me.” She reached through the bars of my cage and grabbed my muzzle. I was too stunned to jerk away. While I watched in disbelief, she unhooked a complicated clasp on one side and the metal band fell off. “There. Now you can speak,” she said. I rubbed my muzzle in relief, scratching an itch that had been bothering me. But I wasn’t ready to speak. I didn’t know why she had taken off the restraints, why she seemed to care about me, or why her accent was so… dragon, and I wasn’t going to tell her anything until I knew if I could trust her. “My name is Iella,” the girl said. “I understand you might have a hard time trusting me, but I truly am sorry you were captured. I’m not like those men who brought you here.” “Then what are you doing here?” My voice was slightly hoarse from not being used and my throat was dry. “I am here to help the dragons.” She said this so calmly, I wanted to believe her. But… she could just be a trick. I stayed silent. “I give extra food and water to the dragons without the men knowing, and I watch out for them.” “Why do you care about dragons?” I asked. “Why are you different from the men?” Iella smiled. “Because my mother is a dragon.” “Your mother is a dragon?” I gaped at the girl. How could her mother be a dragon? It didn’t make sense. “Yes.” Iella shrugged. “Well, I suppose I had human parents, but I was raised by my dragon mother and don’t remember them,” she said. “So, unlike all the jerks in this place, I actually like dragons. I’m here because I want to help the dragons here, not because I want to hurt them. Like I said, I give them extra food and water, and if the men are hurting them, I make a distraction so they’ll stop. What’s your name?” For some reason, I knew that I could trust this girl. “My name is Sun, but my brother calls me Sunny.” I drew in a sharp breath. “Is my brother here too?” I asked her. “I don’t think so. The male dragons we have here are adults, and have been here for years.” “Thank the skies,” I breathed in relief. ‘I’m glad he’s still free.” Immediately after the relief came panic. “Oh no. He’s going to be so scared when he finds out I’m gone. It’s going to be like our parents all over again for him!” Iella frowned. “What do you mean?” “When I was only two turns, and Star was eight, our parents went hunting and never came back. I don’t remember much about my parents, but Star was devastated.” Iella’s eyes widened in sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Sunny. What did you do?” “When our parents didn’t come back after three days, Star carried me all the way to our grandmother Raga’s home, about a five hour flight away. We lived with her, and Star learned to hunt. Two turns ago, we moved back to our old cave.” I paused to think, staring at the ceiling. “Star will probably go back to Raga when he comes back and I’m gone.” With a start, I realized that must have been days ago. “Raga?” I looked back at Iella, and her eyes were wide with shock. “Your grandmother is Raga?”
