The Dragon of Broken Talons

Chapter 2: The School Girl

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A white, sleek, vehicle thrummed over rolling green hills. The late afternoon sun on the distant horizon caught on the dull, tinted windows. A purplish light shone from beneath, creating a whirring sound that compressed the grass below it with an invisible force. It passed over hills and through small valleys effortlessly, never going too far from the ground it hovered above, but never running aground either. Small rocks plastered over the fields caused it to bob softly but otherwise did little to slow its process.

The vehicle rose up a steep incline, cresting atop the hill, before it came to a halt. Several metres away from the nose of the vehicle was a wall. A wall of transparent, blue, shimmering energy, rose from the ground in a large dome. Within the dome, was a home. A large building, with the same sleek white colour of the vehicle awaited outside. A single-story house with a long patio that seemed to stretch all the way around, marked with windows, and the occasional sliding door.

Stretching out from the house were several large trees that marked the edges of a routinely pruned garden, complete with zipping drones diving in and out of the bushes with clipping shears. Further out still, lay a vast blank area of neatly shaved grass. Two parallel fences ran down the centre, cutting the field in two, before continuing in a circle around the house. In each of the fields lay another large building. These buildings were far more robust than the house that lay in the centre, taller, and built from wood and clay rather than the unnatural material of the house. They were bigger buildings than the house, and each had a dome roof, as well as a large yawning opening leading deeper inside.

But, within this picture, it was perhaps the occupants of these fields that garnered the most attention. Dragons. Over a dozen of them. Most were either red or blue, but there was the occasional green, yellow, and even a brilliant white amongst the others. Some were simply laying in the fields, hissing their strange language at each other, while others flew around the inside of the dome, taking careful attention to stop before they went over the fence. Some had a long narrow fin that stripped all the way down from their neck to their tail, while others sported proud spikes that looked eerily similar to long thorns. But the one thing they all had in common was a thin metallic collar strapped around their neck, a blue light blinking in the middle. Almost resembling some technological necklace.

A section of the blue field in front of the vehicle separated itself, like a sliding door, allowing the vehicle to continue into the blocked-off homestead. It came to a soft stop, causing many of the dragons within the compound to turn their attention toward it. A soft hiss emanated from the side as the vehicle's door popped open, revealing a clean white interior with leather seats. There was no driver, though there was a steering wheel, and only one passenger. A girl.

The girl quickly slid off the seat, pulling a backpack stickered with all sorts of alien creatures with her as she did. Long, straight black hair fell from her head, casting itself down her shoulders to the middle of her back. Curious brown eyes gazed from her head as she turned herself toward the fields and house in front of her. A navy-blue dress hung just passed her knee, going up into a buttoned white shirt, and complete with a speckled navy cardigan.

"Will that be all, Mia?" a stilted feminine voice spoke from the vehicle.

"Yes, thank you Mave," Mia responded with a smile, glancing back toward her ride, "Take the car around the back, and let dad know I'm home."

"I can do that for you. 'Dad' has been notified," the car said before the door popped back closed and the car whirred away around the outskirts of the fence line.