Friday 14 April 2017

Dragon Diaries - L is for Laila - 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 :).

~
Previous Posts

L is for Laila

Laila is six and three quarters, and she desperately wants to be seven, because that is when she is allowed to start flying lessons.  She has watched her big brother, Malcolm, who is eight and a half, learning to fly, and he is allowed to fly above the instructor’s head round the playground.

Laila wants to do that.

Her mummy says her wings have to grow a bit more first, but Laila has been flapping them lots every day since she turned six to get them big and ready for flying.

Laila knows she’s ready.

~
Big Girl

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“You can’t join, you’re too little!” Malcolm sneered, turned and flapped his grey wings until he took off and hopped up onto the climbing frame with the other big boy dragons.

Laila glowered up after him and stamped her foot.

“Am not!” she sniped back, smoke coming out of her nostrils in her temper.

The boys laughed down at her, which just made her madder.

“I’ll show you, Malcolm Barigan,” she said, puffing herself up as big as she could get.

That wasn’t very big, really, but she pushed out her chest and raised her crest and flapped her wings hard. Dust from the playground scattered around her as she flapped and flapped, craning herself upwards and willing her wings to lift her even a little way off the ground.

“Aww, look at her ickle wings,” James, one of the big boys teased.

Malcolm laughed: Laila growled and snorted smoke and kept on flapping.

“Can’t breathe fire, can’t fly, baby,” Malcolm taunted from his vantage point.

Laila felt her face heat up at the nasty words, but she kept going, harder, faster: she'd show them all. Her chest began to ache, she wasn’t used to so much flapping, and she gasped in a breath, but she was not going to give up.

“Go play in the sand pit, little girl,” Kim laughed at her.

“No!” Laila would not be beaten.

She forced her wings out and down one more time and it happened, all of a sudden, her feet were no longer on the ground. It was such a shock, she almost forgot to flap again, but she did, and she stayed off the ground for another few moments. Then she flapped funny with one wing, teetered sideways and landed on her bottom as she tried to keep in the air, but it didn’t matter: Laila Barigan, aged six and three quarters, had flown when everybody said she couldn’t.

The boys weren’t laughing now, they were staring, even Malcolm didn’t have anything to say.

Picking herself up, Laila stuck her nose in the air, tossed her head towards her big brother and then turned away. Feeling big, and bold, she folded her wings back over herself and marched away,


~

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6 comments:

  1. Hi Sophie - yes good 'old' Laila - glad she achieved her dream and bet in the end she soared better than the boys ... cheers Hilary

    http://positiveletters.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/l-is-for-legendary-beasts-of-britain.html

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  2. Good for Laila! I can see this being a great picture book that kids would love!

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  3. Such a lovely little story :-)

    @JazzFeathers
    The Old Shelter - 1940s Film Noir

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  4. Aww. You go girl!

    ~Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    Story Dam
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

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