(OLD/DISCONTINUED) The Dragonriders of Calem

The Dragon Beneath the Lake

Nira soared over the streets of Calem, towards the lake. The people training for The Test were doing what they usually did, focusing less on training, and more on intimidating other contestants. They mostly overlooked Nira, thinking that she was just some regular teenager on a dragon until she started to do a complex array of flips. See? I'm just as good as all of you. She thought scathingly.
After the flips, she was treated as a regular contestant by everyone else. Which was basically a synonym of enemy. Riders would fly annoyingly close to her, but she really wasn't special. That's how most of them acted like that to each other too.
She ignored them, setting her sights on the lake. The dawn light glinted off of the surface, and oddly, on such a windless day, was much wavier than usual.
Nira glanced around the perimeter of the lake, not seeing Skandar or Triton. It took her moments to realize that they were circling a particularly wild area of water.
She squinted at the grey water, not seeing what was obviously kicking up the water. It couldn't be wind, for sure. She quickly realized that it was a dragon when a long, grey-green tail flicked out of the water for a moment. The dragon it was attached to must have been huge.
Nira and Eclipse joined Skandar in circling the area, locking onto the windstream that Triton had made.

"What kind of dragon is that?!" Nira asked over the rage of the water below.

"I can't tell. It hasn't raised its head yet!" He responded, not taking his eyes off the water.

Whatever it was, it had never been seen before in the lake. How it had managed to sneak into the water at night was beyond Nira. Suddenly, a thought hit her. What if it was hibernating?
Plenty of water dragons would hibernate. Most breeds did, actually. Mainly in the larger types, the nostrils would constantly suck up water and expel it through the gills. Those breeds could breathe air too, but would dry up if they stayed out of the water too long. Smaller breeds would have to stay underwater and moving at all times, like fish.

"If this thing was asleep, something must have woken it up!" Nira offered. Really, she was just thinking out loud.

"Triton was zapping some fish over here when it started to freak out." Skandar told her, motioning to the area where the thrashing dragon was.

"I'd be pissed off too if I was shocked awake!" Nira joked.

A roar bubbled from beneath the water, and the tail surfaced again with an aggressive thrash. Seconds after, the head of the dragon rose from the water, a long neck following it. The same grey-green covered its scales, and it blinked its moss-coloured eyes heavily before settling its diamond-shaped pupils on the dragons and riders that were circling it.
It was truly a terrifying dragon. Its head was the length of Eclipse's long neck, with sharp teeth filling its long snout.
The riders and dragons rose in the air, gliding out of its reach. Or so they thought. Beneath the water, the massive dragon rose on its hind legs, rising above the lake to reveal that it was, in fact, quadrupedal. Long claws extended, with webs between them for swimming. It lunged at Triton, who barely dodged its snapping jaws.
It sunk back down, standing on all of its legs, letting out a vicious hiss. Nira couldn't recognize what type of dragon it was. She'd never read about them, and definitely never seen one.

"What is that?" She shouted over the beast's roars.

Skandar paused, staring at the seething dragon, thinking.

"I think that it's a Colossal Sethergill. I've never seen one in a lake before, they're supposed to be in the ocean!" He replied after considering for a moment.

Nira had heard that name before. The breed sounded so familiar, and then it hit her. There was an old story about a Sethergill, highly fantasy, I may note. She used to read it daily. But the dragon in the story was a highly intelligent, wise creature, who spoke to humans and warned them about danger. The pictures depicted it as a bipedal, navy blue dragon with spiraling horns. The creature that was thrashing in the water below Nira was hornless and grey-green.
Nira was slightly angry at whoever wrote it for portraying the Sethergill wrongly, but there wasn't any time for that. If it noticed the town, it might attack.

"What do we do with it?" Nira asked over the Sethergill, who had started to shriek angrily at the dragons who soared out of its reach.

Skandar stared at the dragon. It was very angry, and could attack a large portion of the town before having to return. It, like most of the larger breeds, could last out of the water for a certain amount of time. In Sethergills, it was an hour. Which was plenty of time to attack.

"If we get it into the river, it would follow the current, which would lead to the ocean!" He said suddenly.

It was the perfect idea. They wouldn't have to hurt the dragon, and it would be able to finally go home. Nira felt bad for it. She didn't know how it ended up in the lake, but she knew that it knew that it didn't belong there. It must have survived there for a long time, before having to hibernate alone.
They attempted to lead it in the direction of the river, but it wouldn't follow them. It moved oddly, clawing at the bottom of the lake in an attempt to hurl itself forward. But it wouldn't move.
Nira realized what was happening. One of its hind legs was stuck. Through the churned up water, she could see that one of its legs was yanking itself off of something. Probably a tree root.
The Sethergill could probably chew the roots off, but it was too enraged at Nira and Skandar. It automatically assumed that they were the ones to awaken it. (Rightfully so, too.)
Nira narrowed her eyes, a daring idea filling her head. She reached into her pocket, closing her fingers around a knife.

"Distract it for me!" She shouted before instructing Eclipse to dive.

Sorry for taking so long to update! I had terrible writers block. But it's over now! I can finally write again! Yay!