Hi, everybody!! Wow, I haven't been on AFF in sooooo long! And when I do visit it's only to read my subscriptions xP

I wanted to post a part of a story I've written today. It's not done or anything but this is what I have so far. I has absolutely nothing to do with Asian singers, by the way xDD

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          “The best dragon tamer in the world.”

          “You won’t see anything else like it . . .”

          “You’ve got to experience it for yourself, laddie.”

          “There she is now . . .”

          I’m used to hearing these things wherever I go. It got annoying after the first few months. However, after eleven and a half years, I’ve become immune to the praises and impressed grins of strangers.

My mud and dragon crap encrusted boots crunch on the cobblestones with a finality that silences the people on the streets. I no longer feel the stares on me, but I know they’re there anyway. My burgundy coat tails flap behind me as I walk with purpose. My breeches stretch comfortably along my legs and stomach even as the dust and dirt ingrained in the material chafes my skin. My whip is coiled and strung through my belt loop. Some think it is for my insubordinates. Some say it’s for the dragons I tame. Some even claim it’s for my own purposes.

          I am all alone. All I have are the dragons.

I turn and stop in front of a street booth, feet slightly apart, stance solid, face blank. My hands find their ways into my coat pockets. With a subtle flick of my head, my heavy hood falls back. My face was obscured, yet all the townspeople recognized me.

“Mendel.”

The man in the booth turns to glance at me over his shoulder.

“Jale.”

“Have my packages come in yet?”

Mendel faces me. His smock is covered with stains, stiff with grease. Dirt smears over his skin like paint. His hair is a nest of knots and his eyes are big and dark. “You came to me with that question yesterday and the day before that and even the one before. And I shall answer you in the same way: No. They are not to arrive for another month.”

“I don’t have a month, Mendel.”

“I cannot magically make them appear, Jale.”

“Who is delivering my orders?”

“I told you, Jale. The foreman himself.”

“Thank you.”

“Good day, madam.”

I turn and walk back the way I came. The busy lives on the cobblestone streets separate for me as they always do. I flip my hood back up to hide my face and stuff my hands back into my pockets.

I am alone. All I have are the dragons.

“We have been brought a new one today, Tamer.”

          I don’t blink. “What would you have me do?”

          “Tame them, as usual.”

          “What is it this time?”

          “A gargoyle.”

          “When would you like me to start?”

          “Tomorrow morning if you will, Jale.”

          “Yes, sir. Good day.”

The ground beneath my feet is trembling, but it the most solid thing in this horribly surging world. The sky, the horizon, is teeming with wings and white-hot fire. Blue streaks paint the heavens and the earth glows with blood-red. The screams of the dragons pierce my ears, shattering, keening. Lonely.

          My white shift flaps crazily, whipping my bare legs and my fair hair catches on my sticky lips and dripping teeth. I stare at my arms, covered in green-gray scales, red drops soiling my clothing, salty and metallic on my tongue. Burning and blistering my skin: dragon blood.

          I hear a scream. I arch my neck and find myself eye to eye with a Black dragon hovering above me, its rotting carcass smell engulfing me.

          I close my eyes and keen to the rolling sky.

The dawn light reaches my eyes and I awaken. I can already hear the hydra screaming to the morning sun. Not exactly pleasant, but it is familiar. I sit up in my cot, letting my fair hair fall forward. I need to get it cut again. It is too long and is a big distraction when I am in the stables and dens even when pulled severely back.

          It only takes me ten minutes to fully dress. I don’t bother with bathing; I am never completely clean afterwards anyway. Besides, who has need of smelling like lavender – a scent that never fails to crinkle the muzzles of the reptiles – when they are only going to smell of dung, smoke, and sweat the second they step into the stables?

          Glancing into the mirror I contemplate merely hacking off my hair right now – but then I hear Demlyn’s voice on the other side of my door calling me for breakfast and I let the thought pass.

“Jale!”

          I recognize the voice even before I look over my shoulder at Tallon. He’s one of the stable hands and I’m sure he’s been in love with me for the past five years when he first came to work here. What I don’t understand is why someone who is so obviously terrified of dragons applied for a job at the Dragon Yard Pahcove.

          “What is it, Tallon?” I ask when it becomes apparent that he’s waiting for me to say something. I’m not a person that says much in a whole week, yet Tallon manages to draw them out of me without knowing. My words knock him out of his daydreaming and his eyes focus on mine. With a bit of a quiver in his voice he says, “It’s the Black dragon.” He his lips.

          I stay silent this time, my gaze intimidating and fearsome in its steadiness. Tallon swallows, his Adam’s apple jumping, and hoarsely continues, “We don’t know what’s happening – but he’s beating himself bloody, madam.”

          I’m utterly still. Then I turn sharply on my heel towards the underground dens on the other side of the yard. It takes a second before Tallon can catch up to me.

          “Has anything different happened today?” I ask Tallon quietly with measured breaths despite the break-neck pace I’m going.

          Tallon is just the opposite. “No, madam Tamer,” he wheezes, practically running. Though he is twenty years old he is not exactly tall so he cannot match my long strides. He also has asthma, but it is his own choice to risk an attack to come with me to the dens. “Maybe it’s the erratic weather we’ve been having lately?”

          “It hasn’t changed too drastically. It was colder yesterday. How long ago did you see the dragon?”

          “Not too long ago. A half an hour perhaps?”

          My face tightens. “Why so long?”

          “You are very evasive, lassie.”

          We have reached the dens. I stand still before the massive gates and let my senses feel.

          After a few seconds I feel a faint tremor under my boots and a long, high-pitched roar of fury, barely reaching my ears from the hundreds of feet below the surface. I do not wait for Tallon; I sprint through the gate. The Keepers to the Black dragon’s den see me coming and trip over themselves to raise the heavy iron grate.

          It falls behind me with a deafening crash. I don’t stop running.

          The black tunnel is lined with torches on the wall, just enough light for me to see my feet. I see the cage of the elevator up ahead and throw myself in. I begin the long decent by pulling hard on the pulleys.

          I can taste death on my tongue before I’m even halfway to the den.

          I’m already out of the elevator before the cage clatters to the ground. There are at least fifty men in a seething pack in the den, each with a silver whip. But they are far from the beast.

          The den is massive, easily able to fit six Black dragons alone. But there is only one. The swamp that takes up most of the den is rank with filth and carcasses, floating bloated on the sludge’s surface waiting to be ripe enough for the dragon’s taste. The longer it rots the better.

          A long jet of sizzling, poisonous acid shoots up towards the ceiling and the dirt immediately bubbles black and dark green, letting off a horrid stench that could kill a man. But here, five hundred yards below ground, the dragon’s powers are weaker.

          The Black dragon emerges from the swamps depths and rockets towards us humans. The men scream, even as the beast slams against the invisible force as they know he would. He claws at the unseen barrier, enraged beyond comprehension and breathes his acid at the wall. Upon making contact, it goes up in flames, leaving behind a sulfuric gas in place of the poison.

          I grab the arm of the nearest man, none to gently at all, and shake him. “What in God’s name has been going on?” I snarl. “Have you dared to touch him?”

          “Jale Tamer!” the man cries, in obvious delicious relief. “The creature has been like this for almost two hours!”

          “Two bloody hours!” I screech, eyes blazing. He cringes away from me, begging for mercy. “Why am I just hearing about it now?”

          “We could not find you, madam!”

          I shoved him away with disgust. The men, hearing my growl of rage, jump back towards the rock wall, trembling like the cowards they are.

          My whip is out and in my hand, humming with power. It is not made of silver like the den Keepers and den hands have. Mine is of pure white gold, yellow gold twisted smoothly on the tight coiled surface. I stalk right up to the wall and stare at the reptile. The Black dragon is only three men tall, but it is the most deadly of all dragons. He is of one particular race: the Bane Dragons. Black, Red, Blue, Green, and White. The Yard has all these dragons. This is why other countries fear us so.

          The Black dragon stares down at me, acid dripping revoltingly down its chin and out the corners of its bellowing muzzle. I don’t remember when I had ever been afraid of these creatures. Nothing about them tells me I must fear them. Maybe I had trained my body and mind to not cower away. All I know is though I don’t fear them, I wouldn’t trust them to hold their breath if I told them to.

          “Daemo’cch.” The name is harsh and unforgiving in my throat, but I am the one of the only people here at the Yard that knows how to correctly pronounce the dragons’ names. The last syllable in this name sounds like I’m choking up phlegm, or gargling without mouthwash, dry.

          The shriek that Daemo’cch answers me with imitates that of a thousand knights simultaneously drawing their steel swords. My bones grate against my joints. I take a step forward, gliding effortlessly through the invisible barrier. Daemo’cch bellows again but backs up, head arched to the ceiling, screaming his call. He roars until all that’s left is his deadly gas, steaming up to the ceiling. His teeth slowly clack together, closing his maw, and he brings his head down to my level.

          He is a beast.

          But he is mine like he will never be anyone else’s.

          His eyes reflect zero compassion, a cold-blooded reptile, a wrath swirling in the inky depths. His eyes are obsidian, never-ending, drowning his victim with a hypnotizing dark glare. Daemo’cch pulls back one side of his mouth, revealing razor-sharp fangs in an ugly growl. Acid bubbles over his lip onto the ground, hissing. His thick massive horns, protruding from the sides of his head, curving forward and down, reaching past his mouth, seem to encircle me. He is very close to me. The smell of decaying flesh seeps into my every pore; I breathe it and taste it. My stomach roils dangerously.

          “Daemo’cch,” I repeat softly. He replies with a low menacing rumble in his chest, gas oozing lazily between his teeth. I lift the hand that holds the whip up to one of his horns and it along the scales. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even shiver at the enchantment embedded in the gold. I do not trust him, and he does not trust me, but the last thing he is is afraid of me.

          I remove the whip. As soon as the metal has left his body, Daemo’cch screeches again, right in my face, effectively rendering my ears useless for the rest of the day. I can hear only muffled thumps as Daemo’cch rears away from me before lunging over me. He lands with a terrifying grace, a grace that is not beautiful, and snaps around to face me. He slithers low to the ground, hissing, and he launches himself around me in a circle. He slaps his skeletal tail onto the water, covering me in rotting sludge and pieces of dead fish. An eyeball of a stag hit me in the head.

          He runs around me faster and faster until he was curved around me in a tight circle. No one on the other side of the barrier can see me.