Chalice

Challange: Write a  250 word story from a promt/picture/etc
Prompt: http://www.elfwood.com/art/c/h/chrisdien/princessdragon.jpg
Story:

I curl around the tree in sleepy contentment. Rough bark sooths itchy scales as a warm breeze rustles and clatters along cold scales. A contented thrum starts low in my throat as I settle down to sleep, when out of nowhere a small creatures crashes towards me—clanking and brandishing a metal stick and yelling in the most horrible tones. I sit up, prepared to roast the interloper, when a girl darts to my tree. She spins to face the metal man. She shouts at him, pressed against my tree. She doesn’t move but she has a metal stick too. He freezes, eyeing me warily.


Her tones don’t hurt my ears the way his does, but it itches. Reaching out, my claws wrap around a tree branch, ready to smack the next one who talks. When I move, she grows still; he seems to have stopped breathing. My happy thrum rumbles into an annoyed growl.

She whispers, the itching grows worse. I wave the branch threateningly, glaring at her. She shuts up. Good. The metal man drops his metal stick and backs away. The girl looks at him, then at me, and spins her metal stick so it points downward. She assumes the position of Chalice, keeper and binder of the forest.

He says something, his metal suit moving and clanking. I growl—his din scrapes against my ears. She glares and gestures. He leaves. Chalice, keeper of the forest. I guess she can stay by my tree. For now.


Chalice is a postion from a great book by Robin McKinnley, check it out here: http://www.robinmckinley.com/books/chalice/