Friday 28 April 2017

Dragon Diaries - X is for Xena - A to Z Challenge 2017 #AtoZChallenge

Dragon Diaries

elcome to my contribution to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2017:


So, what does that mean? Well, each day, I'm going to tell you about a dragon - a dragon inspired by a name that I generated randomly using a name generator (I haven't looked up the derivation of any of these names, I have just run with how they make me feel, their sound on the tongue).

I'll tell you all about my Dragon of the Day, and share some flash fic about their lives. Any genre, any character, any look - prepare to be surprised and (I hope) entertained by my dragonly inspirations :).

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Previous Posts

X is for Xena

A name like, Xena, comes with a certain warriorly reputation.

And Xena is a big dragon too. She stands head and shoulders above other females and easily equals the big male dragons. As befitted expectations of her family, Xema had become a soldier and she had excelled to the point she rose to the rank of beta. No one challenged Xena unless they wanted their arse tanned. She maintained order for her alpha, Karan, and everyone respected her, were even a little afraid.

There’s no messing with Xena.
~
Little Secrets

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“...and stand!” Xena barked the order and her squad stepped back from the coordinated fire attack they had been practising. “Good dril, people, now get your arses down the mess for your grub,” she dismissed and turned away as the gammas let out various rumbles of approval.

Xena did not follow the troops: one of the perks of being beta meant she had her own quarters up near the top of the cliff which made up the barracks. She flew straight home and plodded into her cave. She’d chosen carefully when she’d been offered her own digs, this place had a small entrance, she barely fitted, and the corridor that led away from the outside world turned so tightly that any dragon of a significant size had to breathe in. Yet, Xena wanted it that way, it meant this place was private, it was all hers.

She stepped out of the passage into the wider darkness, leant over and breathed on the torch that was waiting there. The fire caught on the flammable material and then travelled around in a thin line along the cave wall, lighting up the room. Xena looked around and sighed warmly: home.

To the left was her hoard, a collection of human-handmade quilts that were a personal obsession and also lined the cave walls. It was a secret no one knew about, well, except her mother, since the collection had started from an early age, but there was also another secret curled up in the middle of the pile of quilts. Jemima lifted her fluffy head and meowed a greeting. Xena snorted and walked over to her. The cat stood up, arched her back and then rubbed herself all over Xena’s lowered snout.

“Hello, sweetie,” she greeted and nuzzled back. “Mummy needs a bath now.”

Jemima meowed again, but when Xena turned around and headed towards the most costly of the secret things she had had put in to her digs, the cat laid back down again. The best thing about being in this part of the cave system is that her cave had already had running water from a stream that trickled down the side of the room. Xena had had some of it diverted into an area she’d had dug out of the floor, and that sunken bath was heated.

With pausing, Xena walked into her bath and sank down under the warm water. There was nothing better for clearing the drill ground grime off her scales than the gently flowing liquid and Xena relaxed, placing her head on the side of the bath. This was it, this was heaven and nobody would ever know.


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2 comments:

Thanks for stopping by - I'd love to hear from you. :)