The Silver Dragon (Unpublished, unedited version)

Chapter 2: Tourists and Problems

Silver watched as the sun began to descend into the horizon, casting illuminated colours across the sky. The colours reflected eagerly off her shell casting her in an almost celestial light, and it annoyed her to no end. No doubt she would be visible from all ends of the valley in this sunset. With a slight growl she took off from her perch and flew into the sky, concentrating on trying to darken the shell as much as she could, to no avail.

Her stomach growled hungrily. Not having eaten was going to be a problem now. Her family had probably already finished with their meal, so she would have to hunt by herself, not that she minded hunting, but the revealing sun had caught her at its most prime time. If she was going to go hunting she would have to wait until she was less like a beacon in the sky.

An idea came to her and she tilted her wings, descending down towards a small wooden hut that camped on the edges of the lake. It was a rather simple building, with wooden logs stacked neatly side by side for walls and wooden slabs angling downwards for a roof. A simple door was built into the wall and glassless windows were pickpocketed around the house. A small metal chimney sprung from the top that had a trickle of smoke running from it. A large patio stretched out in front of the house, large enough to accommodate a dragon, which was also made from wood.

Silver came to a landing outside the patio and carefully padded underneath. As soon as she was out of the sun her back stopped glowing and she let loose a sigh of relief. The glare it created was more then she could handle, and it didn't help that it attracted quite a substantial amount of heat. Under the shade she could cool down easily.

As she walked up to the door of the house she couldn't help but notice a series of voices coming from inside. Interested she poked her head through one of the windows to see two humans chatting in front of a fire. Her sudden presence startled one, and it leapt up in quite a shock. She chuckled slightly as the other one turned to scold her.

"Silver? What are you doing here?" it said.

She smiled and rested her head on the windowsill, "Nothing. I was bored and mum told me not to come and bother you, so I decided to come and bother you."

"They can talk!?" exclaimed the other human in the room, staring at Silver in fascination.

"Of course we can. Liam said that in his blog... thing, So you should know," she turned her head to the other human, "You never told me we had a guest."

The other human, Liam, shrugged, "He only came in this morning. You were out so I didn't tell you."

Liam was a strange human, or at least that's what Silver's father had told her. He came to her shoulder in height and had long brown hair that flowed down his shoulders. He wore a plain grey T-shirt with a dragon on the front and long cargo pants. The picture of an extremely relaxed individual.

"Hmm," she said, and turned towards the new tourist, "What's your name?"

"Zach," said the human, still staring in wonder at the metal dragoness.

To Silver the two of them looked relatively the same, though Zach had starched blond hair while Liam's was a dark brown. He looked as if he was ready for adventure, with a strange looking bag sat beside his chair and a utility belt around his waist. If she didn't know better then she would think he was going caving. A human in a cave in these parts was a dead human.

She scoffed slightly at his attitude before turning to Liam once again, "Do you have anything spare I can eat. I'm hungry and its sundown. Prey can see me from a mile away."

"Why didn't you grab anything sooner?" asked Liam.

"Wasn't hungry," she smirked slightly.

Liam sighed and got up from where he had been sitting, "Just wait there, I'll be back in a moment."