ONC 2024 ~ On Hold
Once upon a time there was a little golden dragon. He was the last of his kind and knew nothing of the ways of dragons. One day his hoard of gold was stolen by some men from the castle down the hill. This is the story of how the l...
The Red Dragon gathered all the treasure up into her four claws and took off for her home in the Dark Mountain. They flew for the entire night and into the next day until they reached the mountain caves, and the Red Dragon landed and instantly began counting her bags of treasure.
"What are you doing?" Golden Scale asked her.
"I'm enjoying being rich, you silly baby dragon," the Red Dragon said as she ripped open her bags of treasure and spread the gold out to count.
"But, I thought we were going to use the treasure to go free the other dragons," Golden Scale said.
The Red Dragon laughed a fiery laugh. "You are a silly little dragon, aren't you?" she said. "Why would I want to give up all this treasure?"
"So we can have friends," Golden Scale said.
But the Red Dragon only laughed another fiery laugh and began counting her gold. "Since you are only a fifth my size, you should have a fifth of the treasure." And she started counting out four gold coins for herself for every one gold coin for Golden Scale.
Golden Scale looked down at the bracelet present from the wizard of East Castle. Slowly, he began to realize that although he did want friends, he didn't want to trade the treasure to free the dragons, because they might not even want to be his friends. They might all be just as mean and greedy as this Red Dragon. What he really wanted was to find the friends he already had. The friends he had left on the beach at the edge of the world, almost two days ago.
"If all you want is treasure, then here!" Golden Scale took the bracelet from his wrist and threw it at the angry Red Dragon. "You can have my treasure too!" And then he flew north, over the Dark Mountain, past the Dark Forest, and to the beach at the edge of the world.
Golden Scale landed next to the sand castle that he had turned to glass after he learned to fly. He thought about how mean he had been to his two closest friends, and he began to shout their names, worried that they weren't here on the beach anymore. He searched the entire beach, but as the sun began to set, he had seen no trace of the lizard or the bird.
Then he realized they might have started walking back home. Golden Scale left the beach and entered the Dark Forest. He walked and walked, scaring away all the tiny beasts that lived in the forest, until he came across the satyr with a tiny trap filled with helpless animals. And among all the animals, he could see the yellow canary and the green lizard.
"Shina! Yellow Feather! I found you!" Golden Scale raced forward and towered over the small satyr.
"See?" Yellow Feather said. "I told you Golden Scale wouldn't leave us! I told you he would come rescue us, didn't I, Shina? He truly is the best of friends."
"You naughty satyr, what have you been up to?" Golden Scale said.
The satyr cowered in fear. "Please don't hurt me. While you have been away, I have been keeping your friends company, and collecting more friends for you. See?" And he held up the cage for Golden Scale to take.
Golden Scale opened the cage and freed a yellow bird, a green lizard, a brown turtle, a red fox, a tan fawn, a black snake, and a green frog. Each of these creatures was so happy to be saved from the satyr that they all instantly became Golden Scale's friends.
And that is how a Golden Dragon became the friend to seven unlikely forest creatures.
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