[1] Era of the Dragons [Thread 1]

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"Like memories in cold decay,"

The melodies of his music sounded into Ian's ears as the bus chugged along. An arm resting on the window and his face buried into it, his eyes just above the sleeve of his jacket as his grey hoodie covered the back of his head. He stared out of the window vacantly as he listened to the song. He watched trees flash by in a blur, the bus not allowing him to take a good look at the contents within the forest. The 16 year old ignored the outside world, lost in his own thoughts and music.

Wasn't like the bus was interesting anyways, it was practically empty except for a few occupied seats. He was going quite far, and even though his uncle was rich, he preferred the cheap way of going places. Ian was alone on the greyhound seat, who would want to sit next to a boring boy who did nothing but stare into space with headphones in his ears anyways?

"Transmissions echoing away"

Ian wasn't depressed nor happy about this trip, simply bored. Nothing seemed to pique his interest. Just another boring trip to another boring school with boring teachers and boring students.

The boy finally heaved a sigh, if somebody had been watching him they would have noticed that this was his first movement, aside from breathing, in an hour. He didn't feel the bus begin to slope up, nor did he care. He didn't want to go on this trip, he didn't want to be here. What could he do? Run away? Where would he go? He couldn't go to his uncle's, and his parents' house was likely owned by someone else. Ian had no choice but to go and be bored in such a boring place.

Far from the world of you and I, where oceans bleed into the sky.

Up in the front, the bus driver looked onward to the dull road. Her eyes were mesmerized by the road, she had been driving for too long, but at least she would be there soon. This was her last drive before she retired. No more of this boring driving where nobody liked to talk, not like she was allowed to talk to them while driving anyways.

THUD.

The driver screamed in surprise as a small bat sized lizard with light green coloring and crazy swirling designs on its body slammed into the windshield, in her panic the lady swerved on accident as more and more of the Misfit Pygmy dragons slammed into the windshield of her bus.

Ian gave a cry as he was thrown off of his seat and into the isle, he scrambled back to his seat as the bus swerved and shook, before finally it slammed into a railing of the cliff side. It bounced back to the rocky cliff, for some reason the bus driver was still flooring it instead of breaking as they crashed into a broken bit of railing and sailed over the edge and rode down the cliff before crashing into trees.

Ian gave another cry before slamming into the seat in front of him as the bus was halted by the bark of the tree. Above the bus and back onto the road, cars had also swerved to avoid the rampaging bus, and as the pygmy dragons swarmed the area with small screeches and chitters of laughter as if this were all a funny prank. Once one spotted the bus in the crashed forest below, it gave a screech and the pygmy dragons began to clear out, realizing their little prank to scare the humans had gone bad.

Ian's eyes were wide as he slowly picked himself up. There was glass on the floor along and some of the few that were on the bus were passed out. The terrified boy stepped over the either unconscious or dead bodies, his music was still playing, but in one ear. One of his ear buds must have fallen out when he was being thrown around, he didn't pull out the other one, and picked his way through the broken glass to an emergency exit in the back of the bus, seeing as the front door was blocked by a tree.

He looked out to find no road, he followed the landscape with his eye to see the road above them with smoke rising from the roads.

Alex quickly shook her head with a soft smile, happy that Nicole had at least made the offer. Still, she didn't need the help at the moment, and the other girl probably had her own issues to deal with at the moment.
"I'm fine, thanks." She responded, leaning down and grabbing a decent sized stick on the ground, using it to support herself as she moved onward, taking notice of the cave.
"So...are we going in there?" She asked, looking at it curiously. It seemed a bit ominous, to be honest.

Calvin quietly followed behind, catching up to the rest of the group and looking at the cave as well, staying back a few steps as he waited to see what the group would decide on.

Ian stared at the inside of the cave as others seemed to catch up. He blinked, staring into its darkness as nobody seemed to go near it.

"I'm not going in first," he stated bluntly. He found it to be complete insanity to want to go first into the cave.

"Please...." the voice echoed again.

((Short post is short, sorry!))

Ugh Noel couldn't believe the cowardice of these people.

"Seriously? Ugh, fine, I'll go in first."

Noel pushed himself up onto some rocks and slowly entered the cave, guided only by the light of his lighter. 

"Please..."


Yeah yeah, okay I'm coming...

"Now that you have someone to be your human shield, do the rest of you want to join me? Or are you gonna stay like this?"

He pointed to the wounds on his body and emphasized his limping leg.

"Your choice."

He turned away and continued forward. That should get their attention...

Nicole nodded in response to Alex, accepting that she didn't need her help and instead headed to the cave entrance. Everyone seemed to be gathered there, not going in for some reason or another. As she arrived, one male scrambled up onto a rock and into the cave, saying something about being a human shield.
"Jeez you guys are a bunch of scaredy cats," chuckled Nicole with a small shrug, not even hesitating before clambering up the rocks and entered the cave.
"It doesn't look so bad. It's just dark," she pointed out, walking past Noel and promptly heading further into the cave, her curiosity overwhelming whatever natural sense of fear she could develop about the unknown place.

Looking ahead as the other two wandered in, Alex sighed and trudged on forward, heading in as well. She figured it wasn't a good idea for any of them to go off into a cave that could have who knows what in it, especially in the condition they were in. Still, it was worse to have two of them go in alone, so that was that.
"Are you surprised that it's dark in an empty cave?" She asked with a chuckle as she caught up to Noel, passing by and heading further as well.

Calvin scratched the back of his head with a sigh, looking on as the group seemed to split, leaving him back with Ian and Delora. He was still a bit unsure, the cave seemed a bit ominous. Then again, staying out in the open in the middle of the woods felt equally as dangerous.
"Well, shall we go check out the mysterious ominous cave off the side of the road?" He remarked, sounding somewhat uncomfortable about it as he began to walk inside as well, staying a bit further back and not making an effort to catch up to the others.

Nicole wandered deeper into the cave, her common explorations making her adjust to the darkness of the area more quickly than others might. Wandering forwards, she hovered over a nest for a moment before a screech made her jump and she whipped around out of instinct to try and identify what had caused the noise. It was then that the voice began to speak.

Delora had wandered into the cave after the others, figuring it was smarter to remain in a group rather than hang around outside on your own. She did however linger back a little, her eyes taking longer to adjust. She didn't want to risk hurting herself more than she already had in the crash. The short screech coming from a little deeper in made her jump, but it was the sudden voice starting up again that startled her most. Though she could feel fear creeping through her body at their exit being blocked, she made a conscious decision to remain calm and attempted to quell the fears with controlled breathing. As the voice started up again however, she found that she was no longer as scared as she had been previously. It seemed to give off the impression that it did not want to harm them, this impression only strengthening when the white mist enveloped the group and Lora could no longer feel the pain in her leg.

The blonde female remained still as she listened to the voice, but did not outwardly show any fear unlike Delora. Instead, she seemed intently curious at the new creature that blocked their way out of the cave. She had heard tales of dragons and their ferocity, but she had never dreamed that she would see one up close The stories made them seem like some far off danger that she would never experience and had no need to worry about, despite the actual reality that dragons could strike anywhere if they so wished it.

"You do know who I am yes? Humans have been apart from the dragons so long, I don't know if they still remember the Avatars.." the voice had said. Nicole had remained silent for a moment after Ian's half word, but after a few short moments she chose to speak up before anyone else could.

"Uhm.. I don't know if I speak for these guys, but, well, I have no idea who or what you are," she replied, her blue-green gaze shifting to the white mist that blasted towards them. She held her sore hands out in front of her, as if to act as a barrier between herself and the mist. However, as the mist blew past her, she found that she no longer felt the throbbing pain in her hands from where the rough branches had stripped a few layers of skin from her palms. Blinking, she looked at them in disbelief, rubbing her palms with her fingers as if as if to test if what she was seeing  was true.
Looking up, Nicole turned her attention to the dragon that held the staff.
"How did you do that?" she asked quietly, the volume of her voice considerably lower than it had been when she had spoken to the disembodied voice.

Both Cal and Alex jumped back as the shape in the back of the cave moved for the entrance they had just come through, the latter taking it much better as she was still standing, while Cal had fallen into a seated position, quickly scrambling back up to his feet and turning to look at the creature.

What...is that really what I think it is? As the creature's staff-like stick lit up in the area, Alex could see what it was. She didn't know if the sight frightened her, interested her, or maybe a little mix of both. Most likely both. Unlike most dragons that she had heard of, this one didn't seem violent or hostile to them. It certainly wasn't swooping in and gobbling them up, so that was a plus.

After the dragon spoke, a white mist seemed to come from the stick it had. She flinched and lifted her arms in front of her face, unsure of what to expect as the healing energy hit her along with the group, giving her a sense of relief. Most of her pains seemed to disappear, and to confirm it she untied her jacket, noticing that the wound had healed. What sort of dragon could do that, just instantly heal serious wounds? It was strange.
"What...or, who, are you? I don't know if you're aware of what's been going on out there, but I wouldn't say humans and dragons are exactly together and all that knowledgeable about one another anymore." She asked, speaking with caution and doing her best to not heavily offend the dragon.

Cal stayed towards the back of the group and gasped slightly at the mist, feeling his injuries somehow heal, despite how ridiculous it sounded. There was a strange feeling in his back as the healing dislodged the shard of glass in it, knocking it to the ground behind him. He turned around, looking down at it.
"So, nobody wanted to tell me there was a piece of glass in my back? Okay then..." He mumbled, looking over at the nest with curiosity.

The boy leaned in closer to the egg, taking notice of the crack slowly beginning to form inside it. It was strange to him, seeing that sort of thing. He had never been there to see an egg hatch before, let alone a dragon egg. Come on now, let's think about this. You're about to take a dragon egg. A dragon. You know, those things that have a tendency to screw up towns and such?

"This is a bit much to take in..." He commented, reaching for the cracked egg and pressing his hand on it gently. The egg seemed to shake somewhat, almost as if it didn't want to be touched at all.

"Simple?" Alex threw her hands up in exasperation, looking around at the various eggs in the cave.
"You're asking us to raise dragons, and then kill three of these elemental ones, whatever they are. Simply isn't exactly the word I would use for that." She paced by the eggs, despite her complaints about this still somewhat curious about the idea.

"Perhaps not simple..." commented Nicole, slowly turning and heading towards the egg nearest to her, "But rather exciting!" she finished with a grin, crouching down near the egg and holding a hand out near it. It appeared to be striped horizontally, the stripes curving with the surface of the egg. Each stripe was a different shade of blue, the colours fascinating Nicole. It was rather beautiful, which she found almost ironic considering the stories of how the dragons attacked and devastated towns and cities.

Perhaps she was a fool to buy so easily into the creature's words, but it was as if something inside her had reacted to the prospect of seeing such magnificent, but possibly dangerous creatures. It was as if a tiny flame of determination had ignited within her, despite having no previous ties to this voice or these eggs.

Gently touching the blue striped egg, she felt it's solid surface. It was moist to the touch, a sensation she hadn't expected upon looking at the egg; yet another interesting discovery that piqued her natural curiosity.

Delora stood with her arms crossed in a corner of the cavern area. She watched Nicole and Calvin touching a few of the eggs within the cave, wondering whether it was actually safe. She had neglected to agree or deny the voice her help, but she felt torn. The request came out of nowhere after all; she'd been headed to a boarding school... and now she was in a cave, with a bunch of dragon eggs. Dragons were well known as dangerous and unpredictable creatures, famous for their fiery destruction, but what other reason could they have to heal the wounds that the group possessed, if not truly in seek of their help?
Reluctantly, Lora uncrossed her arms, glancing to the white dragon before she made her way forward, spotting an egg that had a beautiful blue and white sheen on it's pale lilac surface. The others were touching the eggs with no repercussions.... so the eggs themselves were safe at least. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Delora slowly made her way over to the egg, crouching nearby. With a fully outstretched arm, she cautiously touched the egg that had caught her eye. It felt almost soft to the touch, though the shell of the egg was most definitely solid. Blinking, she inched closer, running her fingers along the soft surface of the egg. It was then that the egg cracked suddenly, causing her to reel her arm back sharply in surprise.

Nicole, ever curious, wrapped both hands around her egg, raising it slightly off the ground and testing how heavy it was. The egg began to crack in her hands as she lifted it from the cave floor, and she quickly replaced it in it's small nest, fearing she might drop it due to it's moistness.

"I guess she's got a point, but, uh...anyone want to address the elephant in the room of the fact that none of us have probably raised a dragon before? How do we even go about that?" Alex questioned, as a rustling sound came from the nest. An egg rolled out and bounced against her leg, resting on the ground beside her and shaking somewhat. The girl picked up the egg as a crack could be heard, the shell popping and a dark purple head popping out, two tan and still developing horns poking out from the back of its head. The hatchling's lower jaw was a gray, maybe silver color? She couldn't completely place it, looking into the red eyes of the dragon that broke its way out of the egg, crawling onto her arm as it looked back at her.

Cal's egg began to crack as well, giving him a jump as he nearly dropped the egg, bouncing it around in his hands. Finally managing to catch it, the dragon egg shook once more as it cracked, as if trying to get out of his hands. It managed to succeed, dropping onto the boy's foot and hitting the ground as the creature inside trotted out. It seemed different from the other two, more horse-like from the looks of its legs. The pasty gray-ish hatchling looked back up at him, not making any attempt to get closer to Cal.

"I've got to say, thinking on it, I'm not so sure this is a good idea..." He commented, looking at the way the dragon eyed him with what, disdain maybe?
"I don't know, I think I can work with this. We're with them when they hatch, they'll probably listen to us. You know, motherly instinct, imprinting, that stuff." Alex cut in, watching her own hatchling nudging its head against her arm.