Ranger's Roundhouse

Tuatara

More schoolwork! Who woulda guessed? Who's looking forward to the holidays, am I right!? But at least it's not formal. For this one, I had to I had to borrow the plot from a classic fairytale and redo it in medieval times~ Still unedited. (The two As of 'mama' and the second of 'Tarakona' should have macrons, but Wattpad's an egg :p)

Once upon a time in a land of green, where trees danced, and oceans raged, rocks were bolder, and flowers brave, there was a mighty mountain. High up on the mountaintop was a deep, dark, dingy cave, and in that cave there lived a dragon. The dragon's name was Mama Tarakona.

Over the months, because she knew that her eggs would soon come, she had constructed a snug nest of molten rock. Slowly and carefully, she had breathed a small plume of fiery heat at the rocky walls. As the melted rock slipped down to the stony floor, she flicked her scaly tongue out and molded it into a comfortable shape. The next day, she repeated the process â€" and the next â€" and the next, and the next, and the next, until the cave had shrunk considerably. Fortunately, she still fitted, so that was alright.

When the nest was finally ready, she laid her first clutch of eggs. And then Mama Tarakona waited. She waited and waited and waited for an entire year! Until, at last, the most delicate of spiderwebby cracks spread across her smallest egg. Mama Tarakona was so excited she could barely control herself! Contenting herself with a joyous bugle, she settled down to watch the egg with narrowed eyes and bated breath.

The egg seemed agonisingly slow in hatching. Mama Tarakona had to wait hours before her baby finally emerged!

And then she reared back in alarm.

Where were his gorgeous, scintillating scales, that shone in the sun like stars from heaven? He was a dull, rough, mottled grey-green instead. Where were his powerful legs, stronger than trees, like great pillars to withstand his might girth? They were short and squat; buckled at the knee, so his stomach dragged low against the ground. But worst of all, where were his wings? Mama Tarakona, who was now utterly horrified, strained her eyes their hardest, but to no avail. Her baby boy was ugly and wingless.

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Kikino scuttled through the underbrush, quick as a whip. He was starving, and determined to capture the small mouse scuttling mere centimetres before his nose. His mother, Mama Tarakona, would gladly have brought him a deer if he so wished, but Kikino preferred smaller prey - and tonight he would catch it himself. He would prove to the other hatchlings that his size and appearance didn't matter. He could fend for himself. He wasn't a burden. And he didn't need wings.

Abruptly, the mouse swerved to the right, and Kikino dashed to follow. Because he was so small, he hoped he could pursue the miniscule creature until it cornered itself. But it was not to be.

With a triumphant squeak, the mouse scuttled into a hole so tiny that it barely managed to squeeze through itself - Kikino didn't have a chance.

He scrabbled desperately at the hole, a growl rumbling deep in his throat, while his tail lashed the air angrily.

"Well, well, well." The small dragon froze as a taunting laugh rang in the cool evening air. "What have we here? A scaly rat, failing to catch a mouse."  The earth shuddered beneath the weight of a dragon - the very dragon whom Kikino had hoped would keep away.

"What do you want, Toma?" he snapped. The spines along his back rose in annoyance and mistrust.

"Oh, nothing, nothing." Toma waved his wing dismissively. "I was just wondering, what are you doing?  You can't hunt like that!" His face drooped in an expression of dismay. "You're so small that everything will escape if you try and run at it. Find a tree and stay there, Kikino; keep out the way of the real hunters or you'll starve. Let us do the work. You need wings and fire to hunt."