The Last Dragon

Chapter 1: Angels, Elves and Dragons

Guzray expertly manipulated his shuttle into the APARS docking station. The frightened chirping of six Kokakos echoed from the cages in the back. He released the steering wheel and grabbed the two cloth-covered wire cages that contained the near-extinct birds. He whistled their song as he walked. He was happy at the moment, mostly because of what he was carrying. Of all the creatures in APARS birds were his favourite. Apart from one. The most beautiful, misunderstood beast he’d ever seen was the dragon. As soon as the dragon had been brought in, Guzray had begged to be its caretaker. His boss had been a bit uncertain at first. That was until the dragon stole, and demolished, the boss’s favourite CD player. The boss didn’t care much for the dragon after that. Anyway, Guzray was happy. Until he saw the boss’s secretary, an elf by the name of Scinef. Guzray was an angel. Literally. He had long, white feathery wings sprouting from his shoulder blades which he folded up under his shirt when around humans. He had short orange hair and the pale gold eyes that were common among his kind. But not even angels are perfect.

“What?” he grunted, annoyance at what the elf could possibly want with him written all over his face... It could only be bad.

“The boss wanted to see you,” the elf explained. Guzray looked down at the cages he was holding, then back up at the elf.

“Can’t you tell him I’m in the middle of something right now?” The elf sighed, as if frustrated that the world would not revolve around him.

“Fine,” he relented, then spun on his heels and headed in the opposite direction. Guzray continued to his destination, a small door labelled ‘Kokako’. He opened it to reveal the large enclosure within. It was quite large, and made cosy by the temperature control every enclosure featured, already set to the heat the Kokako liked, as well as the trees, ferns, ponds and other natural things you would find in their habitat. Guzray gently removed the cloths and opened the cages. The Kokakos carefully stalked out to explore what would be their new home. Once all of them were gone, Guzray left the room and closed the door behind him.

Sometime later, Guzray finished his lunch and walked down the clean, white corridors that riddled the interior of APARS central. He reached the end of an especially long one and came face to face with a door labelled ‘Dragon’ – and groaned. The lock had been cut open, the door was scratched and the hinges were bent. The door was large, so Guzray knew which animal had done this. The door was wide open, and Guzray knew what he would find inside – and find it he did. A large, sapphire blue lizard with enormous wings and a long tail that it had curled around itself lay snoozing on the floor. That wasn’t the bad part. Horrified, Guzray stared at the mauled remains of a...

... Set of speakers. Guzray sighed and set to cleaning up the mess of wires, metal, plastic and other bits of electrical equipment.  The dragon opened one large, emerald-ringed eye and snorted.

“Why?” Guzray demanded. “Why must you constantly do these things? Is it for attention? Do you want to get me in trouble?” The dragon snorted again and closed its eye. “I guess he’s just bored,” Guzray murmured to himself as he hefted a bucket of destroyed speaker to the door.

Guzray stormed down the hall. As much as he respected his boss, this was going too far. Chain him up, he said. Chain him up! Guzray slammed open the door to the common room. He had just emerged from that ‘talk’ the boss had wanted to have. He sighed and sat down on one of the many cushion-covered wooden seats. How are you even supposed to chain up a dragon, anyway? Guzray sat there for about an hour thinking about the task ahead of him. Slowly, he stood up.

“Guzray,” called a familiar voice. “I heard you needed some chain, so...”

Guzray whirled around. It was Scinef again!

“What?” Guzray growled.

“I said I heard you needed some chain,” he replied smugly. “Here.” Scinef handed Guzray the length of heavy chain and skipped off as Guzray glared at him. Guzray started to make his way to the dragon enclosure.

The lock smiths didn’t so much as glance at Guzray as he stepped past them into the dragon’s den. They had been through this routine enough times to know exactly who he was, no ID needed. The Dragon’s enclosure consisted of a 2500 meter square area of grass and a small cave system off to the side. The dragon was laying in one of the flatter areas, half asleep. He had not moved since the last time Guzray had been in here, nor was there any reason to. What was a single, lonely dragon to do all day? And since dragons were so rare, there was little known about them, least of all how to entertain them. Give him something precious to destroy. Guzray thought bitterly. As Guzray entered the large room, the dragon eyed him warily.

“Don’t give me that look,” Guzray muttered. “You brought this on yourself.” He shifted carefully towards the dragon, holding the chain in one hand, and keeping the other free. Just in case. The dragon grumbled, then decided Guzray wasn’t a threat and closed his eyes again. Guzray let out a sigh of relief. He picked up a box that had been left on the floor and found, to his horror, a collar and some hooks for the chain. Guzray breathed in deeply, then took a step towards the dragon. As he moved, he clicked the chain onto the collar, and quickly whipped it around the beast’s neck. Startled, the dragon raised its head suddenly, Guzray realised he was holding the chain too close to the collar. Too late. Guzray was flung through the air holding tightly onto the chain. Then the wall rushed up to meet him, and everything went black.