Scales

Chapter Twenty-five

​​Finding a small animal that was almost thirty times smaller than me was not an easy task. Not to mention that I had to do it from the air. There were the wind conditions to worry about, which were the very essentials of flying. If you slacked on your wing and tailfin positions, you'd spin out or crash to the ground. At the same time, your senses and a certain portion of your brain had to focus on the ground below you, keeping track of movement, sounds, and smells.

After a good ten minutes of searching, I spotted a hare, barely visible amongst the browns and greens of a slightly rocky clearing. His ears were up and alert, so I backed off slightly, waiting for when he'd be relaxed and oblivious.

To stay out of his eye range, I came down as low as possible to the trees without hitting them, and flew around the clearing slowly in wide circles, flapping my wings only occasionally to avoid any evidently abrupt wind current changes. The plan worked well, as the hare soon returned to grazing, and although he looked up occasionally to check, he showed no signs of tension.

Finally, the hare finished grazing, and settled down for a quick rest in the middle of the clearing, right beside a small rock. From my perspective, it looked as if he was attempting to use it as cover.

"Not useful enough, smart alec. You're not going to win this time," I whispered silently, recalling my experience with the goshawk. As if God himself had been watching simultaneously with me, a strong gust of wind blew briefly, and I grabbed my chance. In a flash, I quickly banked down into the clearing and landed on the rock, keeping my wings open to avoid making any noise. The trick was that the rustling of the trees' leaves masked my landing, canceling out the sound of my feet hitting the rock's gritty surface.

With a lightning-quick motion, I leapt over the rock and jumped down. The hare immediately noticed and tried to run, but it was too late. I lunged with my arms and seized him, my sharp claws digging into his hindquarters.

Even after being gripped and sustaining numerous stab wounds to his body, the hare wouldn't give up without a fight, and tried to scratch my arm as I pinned his feisty body against the rock. When the scratches became too much, my dragon instincts took over and overruled my sympathetic human heart. With a gulp of regret, I bared my sharpest fingertip claw and jabbed it deep into the hare's throat and ripped it out, leaving a long thick bloody gash.

As the hare went limp under the weight of my other mighty hand, I simply gripped onto its body, leapt up, and flew back to the cave. Having successfully located, captured, and slaughtered my dinner, it was now time to cook. There was just one major problem: how was I going to light the fire?

Recalling the heavy breathing I'd done at around noon, I decided to try again. Taking a few breaths, I slowly increased my exhaling from slow, short ones to brief, fast ones. After about twenty breaths, I felt something change in my throat. My breathing felt heavier and more energized than before. Then, down below, my chest started to rumble, as if some kind of trapped material was trying to burst free.

I figured that there was another, third lung somewhere within my chest that was connected to my two main lungs, and a valve in it was trying to open, but only under a certain amount of pressure. I took a deep breath and held it in. My chest rumbled with considerable turbulence, and expanded only slightly – though I could feel the muscle and tissue inside my chest stretch to almost painful levels.

Roaring to boost the pressure levels a little bit more, I pointed my head at the fire pit, opened my mouth wide, and exhaled as hard as I could.

BOOM.

That was all I could hear as a thick streak of searing heat shot right out of my mouth. Though not very large, it hit the fire pit hard head-on, almost knocking it completely over. The pine twigs and the large oak branches all lit up in a bright orangey-reddish-yellow mix of colorful flames and embers.