The Land of Dragons

Chapter 21

After Chapter 20

"First of all, we should begin at the beginning." Lewis began. Pierre chuckled but kept his comments to himself.

"Dragons don't exist only in a certain part of the world. Which means that in other parts they do." Lewis continued, looking meaningfully at the youngsters. Lando frowned, trying to decipher the logic of what Lewis said.

"Yeah, there's the Comodo dragon, that big lizard, but you can't ride that!" Carlos said. Now Lando was utterly confused. He'd never heard about them before.

"There's also an animal called blue sea dragon," Alex chimed in, confusing Lando even further. "It's a cute sea slug with shiny little tentacles." he explained.

"Noo, I wasn't talking about these." Lewis said. Now even Seb had a knowing smile on his face.

I guess this is a game of barchoba, Charles thought.

"Are there dragons here?" he asked. Seb nodded.

"Yes, multiple of them." he replied.

Either both of them had gone mad, or they're really telling the truth, Pierre mused and gazed around the cave for inspiration.

His eyes fell on the creatures who were playing tug-of-war with the remains of a fish. Dragons... they have two or four legs, two wings and a tail. Maybe...

"The creatures! They're dragons, aren't they?" Alex said suddenly, the puzzle pieces finally falling into place for him the same time as for Pierre.

Seb just smiled.

The dragons - for Alex was right - abandoned the fish and climbed on top of the table. As if on command, they unfolded the bumps on their backs, revealing their colorful wings. The last rays of the sun shone through the thin skin, making them look like they were glowing.

Carlos' dragon was coloured like a squirrel, and its wings were orange at the base, turning into light green like new leaves towards the tips.

Pierre's was light blue, like the sky on a bright day, and the wings were turning from light green to bright yellow at the tips.

Alex's dragon was slimmer than the others. Its scales shone a deep blue, the colour of the night sky. The wings started in a similar dark green, but ended in a cheerful blue, like the shallows of the sea.

Max's was sturdy, with strong limbs. It was dark green, the colour of shiny holly leaves, with wings that were light blue at the base and yellow at the tips.

Charles' dragon was similar to Max's in build, although it had a bit longer legs. Its scales had a deep red colour, and its wings were the colors of fire, from orange to bright yellow.

Lando's dragon was the smallest of all, albeit no less beautiful. The colours of it resembled the sun setting in the evening sky. Its body was blue, like the sky, and on the wings, the colour changed gradually from a deep, almost red orange to an equally rich sun yellow.

All dragons had a thin streak of bare skin between their scales starting a little over their nose and ending at the tip of their tail. The colour was sort of a lighter variant of the scales, and at a closer look, it could be seen that later the bare skin was going to turn into a fluffy, furry mane.

"But you can't sit on these!" Max objected when he took in the view.

"Well, they are quite young yet! They'll start to grow soon and then you can ride them. Ours are already bigger." Seb replied.

"Viserion!" Lewis called towards the cave entrance.

"Viserion? Like in Game of Thrones?" Lando asked in disbelief.

"Dragons are named by their parents when their eggs are laid. They mostly get their names after famous dragons."

Something big landed on the terrace in front of the cave entrance. It was just a bit short of an elephant's size. Its body was blue, with a shade of purple like grapes, and it had a violet mane from its head to its tail. Its mighty wings were dark blue at the base and grass green at the tips. As it opened them, the young drivers stared in awe. One wing alone was the size of two F1-cars' floorboards.

"It's big," Lando added, his mouth still full of food.

"Can he breathe fire?" Max asked. Despite his distrust towards everything, he was amazed.

The dragon lifted its head and blew a plume of fire to the sky.

"Wooooow!" Max and Carlos chorused. They gaped at the dragon, even forgetting to chew or at least swallow the food in their mouth.

"They can only breathe fire when it's warm enough," Lewis told them. "They're similar to reptiles, albeit they can keep their normal body temperature."

"So will our dragons also grow this huge?" Alex asked.

"Eventually, yes. But let's move on to the next question: Where are we right now?" Seb said.

"So," Lewis began, "we're now on the Land of Dragons. You can reach this realm only with the Travelling Amulets, like the one we sent you when you were captured. I don't know if we're on another planet, or in an entrirely different dimension, both options are quite unbelievable. But that's not the point."

Charles felt like he was suddenly dropped into a fantasy book. However, he was starting to believe Lewis was telling the truth. The reveal of the dragons did a great deal to win his trust.

"Compared to the normal world, time flies six times faster here." Seb continued. "This means that while one day passes in the normal world, six passes here. That's how we can spend time here beside F1."

"Okay, but how can we go back? Back to the Earth?" Carlos asked.

"The same way you came here. In fact, the Devils also used Travelling Amulets to capture you."

"So when can we go home?" Lando asked.

Pierre looked curiously at Seb. Lando's was an obvious question, but he had a feeling they hadn't finished yet.

"We would like to tell you a little about the Dragonriders first," Seb replied. "The thing is, not anyone can become Dragonriders. Only the ones chosen by the dragons can join them. When this had happened, it's our task to get the egg to the would-be rider. Then the dragon hatches for him."

"Seb... does this mean we're Dragonriders now?" Max asked. He wasn't sure he liked the idea at all, and he definitely didn't like that it seemed like he didn't have any choice in it.

What do the Dragonriders do? They surely have some obligations! I don't want that decided for me by a random dragon somewhere!"

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Thanks for reading and voting, hope you like the story :)

Please give me dragon name ideas, I'm really going to need them <3

Edited 14.04.2024