When you come to, you awaken to a world of pain, and you let out an involuntary groan...and then stop short, hearing a throaty, thunderous rumble.
{{That sounded like one of those dinosaurs off Jurassic Park}} you think. {{Something big}} You lie there frozen for a while, only even lying still scares you. {{I have been brought back as live food for some predatory monster's brood}} you think unhappily. {{That's what's happened}}
In your head, you hear another voice, speaking sort of drolly, {{If you keep making noises, you dummy, then you just might alert the male whose territory you have invaded like a fool. Open your eyes, and do try not to start screaming again. My ears still hurt from last time you barked into them}}
{{Did I just hear a voice speaking in my head?}} you ask yourself. After a moment, you decide, {{No, no. I am just imagining a voice. I always did have an active imagination. Mom says I spend too much time reading fantasy}} Against your better judgment, you part your eyelids, and then a bolt of fear, shooting through you, freezes you to the core.
In the moonlight, you see a blue, scaly creature, its body about the length of a cement-truck, not including his neck and tail. The neck and tail are harder to estimate, considering the tail is curled loosely around its folded-together fore-paws, and its head, containing large, intelligent eyes of gray, is bent toward you.
{{Perhaps it is like on the movie}} you think. {{Maybe it can only see me if I move, so I will just stay perfectly still and wait for it to go away}}
{{You may lie still as much as you like}} the voice in your head says, {{but I have collected some poppies for you. You might feel more comfortable if you chewed on them for a while, and besides, some plant matter will help you refill your fire-bladder}}
To your horror, the kyanite-blue monster waddles toward you. {{It surely must have seen me}} you think. As you wait to die, though, an odd calm washes over you. Certainty that your life is at its end makes everything pass in a slower sort of manner, and while the world is moving slowly, you find yourself taking in details and somehow having time to analyze them. You realize that the monster has what looks like wings that are furled at its sides, but they are bulging out oddly as if stuffed with something. It doesn't have horns or spikes of any kind, but it does have a crest on its head and also large ear-fins, which are presently folded tightly against its scalp similarly to how a cat can flat its ears. The paws are curious: in shape, they are not unlike those of a house-cat, cross-bred with those of a reptile and the hands of a man. The chimerical pattern of the creature's body is ever-present, actually, with the overall build of its body lying somewhere between that of a lion, a horse, a stoat, just possibly a human, and an alligator. Perhaps comparing its body to these creatures might be erroneous, since this creature is obviously either an alien monstrosity or something that took a vastly different evolutionary path from any other animal.
As it gets close enough to you to snap you up in its jaws, it abruptly turns to the side, dumping a load of some sort of odd flower out of its wing, which it sticks up and shakes out to make sure that none of them remain stuck in the flaps, and then it snakes around and dumps out the other wing, much in the same manner.
After this odd act, it retreats to a few (of its) paces away, and it looks you in the eyes again. {{Listening to you talk to yourself sure is funny}} the voice in your head says, tinged with humor. The voice sounds like that of a thirteen or fourteen year old, about two or three years younger than yourself.
{{I fell?}}
{{Yes}} the voice says back, and as it speaks, the creature tilts its head as if a little chagrined. {{I guess it's my fault I wasn't prepared to catch you after you got yourself out of that bad hole...although I didn't realize you weren't going to have presence of mind to open up your wings}}
{{Wings?}} you think, meaning the thought only for yourself.
{{Yeah}} the voice answers. The creature opens up its wings and spreads them up toward the evening sky. {{You know, like you're born with?}}
You slowly start to remember what is going on, and you try to get up to examine yourself, only to remember how much pain your shattered body is in from multiple fractures. As you fall back to the ground, your foreleg flies out in front of you, and you see the beautiful emerald color of the scales, although it seems a little closer to green tourlamine.
{{Yeah, you might not want to move}} the voice intones ironically. {{While you were unconscious, I managed to close up a nasty gash in your side, from when you tore your way out of that hole. You'd best not move too much, or you might tear it open and start bleeding again. I'll bring you a carcass tomorrow, between morning tutoring with the elders and some dumb chores, and that will help keep you from getting dehydrated. For now, I left the stems on the poppies, and that ought to help}} The dragon starts to get up to wing away.
{{Wait}} you plea with your mind. {{You're going to leave me here?}}
The dragon looks back, looking suddenly like a kid that might get caught doing the wrong things. {{Well, yeah. I'm not even technically allowed to fly over solid ground without supervision until I'm sixteen}} He looks at the ground, a little anguished as he petulantly adds {{It would have been this year, but I fledged late because of my dumb overprotective mom. It's not fair}}
At that, the draconic teenager rises up onto his hind-legs, looking quite incredibly human-like now, and he flaps his wings--clumsily a few times and then finally with a little more rhythm and grace--and with an athletic somersaulting sort of motion and lash of his tail lifts himself up into the air.
Chewing on the poppies does help your pain, though, and soon, they help you sleep.