Inferno Legacy: Valor of the Dragon (Book One)

Chapter 27

He pulled his arms behind his back to stretch them out a little more, before he circled the fire once or twice. After a few minutes he got bored enough to grab a random stick and just start poking the fire for no reason. He would stick it in the bed of the fire, right in between the glowing coals and the slightly elevated logs until it burst into flames. Then he would carefully pull it out, and wave it around in the air until it went out by itself, spit on it, or dig it into the dirt to put the flames out.

“Inferno,” he chuckled to himself as he watched the flames go out right in front of his face for what must have been the hundredth time. With a sigh he snapped the stick in half and tossed it into the fire, watching it slowly burn to ash before him, but this time he made no attempt to put it out, only placing another log in the flames to slowly perish with the rest of its kind.

Cody pulled himself back a few feet until he had his back against the tree he had slept under only about an hour earlier. But to him, it seemed as though it had been a decade since he last slept. His imagination began playing tricks on him as he began to think that his face and skin was shriveling up and falling loosely around his frail frame after the many years he had suffered without rest.

            I have to stay awake! He scolded himself as he straightened up slightly, and his skin returned to its natural appearance. He attempted to rub the sleep from his eyes, but it didn’t seem to work at all as the steady rhythm of the fire continued. It was almost as if the flames were dancing before him as some shapeless being sang him to sleep. I’ll just shut my eyes for a minute, and I’ll just wake right up again in a minute or two when I’ve gotten some rest.

He continued to tell himself things like this, even though if he were a little more conscious he would have realized that he wasn’t going to rest, he was going to pass out. But he didn’t see it, and before he could even put up a fight, his head fell forward. His black hair completely obscured his face from anyone that would care to look at him, but he didn’t notice. He was already deep in subconscious thought, following his dreams with absolutely no obstacles in the way. He didn’t realize what would happen if he fell asleep, he simply no longer cared for anything more than sleep.

~

            Cody surprisingly dreamt after he fell asleep. It was nearly the exact same dream he had had around the time that he had found Inferno egg. He was running through the forest not far from his house, which seemed entirely foreign to him after he had been gone for what felt like forever, as Inferno soared high above him.

            The first time he had had the dream, the dragon had seemed vicious, evil, and terrifying to him as well as entirely unknown, which was why the first time he had been trying to hide from him. But this time, the rider could easily recognize the ice-blue eyes and the broad figure of the dragon, though he seemed a bit older than he actually was at the time of the second dream.

Cody also hadn’t noticed himself the first time he had had the dream, and as he ran he noticed that his hair was pitch-black and equally dark as his dragon’s scales, even darker than it was when he was awake. He could only imagine how blue his eyes had become, probably seeming incredibly unusual to anyone who saw him since the blue in the dragon’s eyes wouldn’t seem to fit a human, but Cody was told that it would be so.

The rider continued to run through the forest and tried to keep up with the dragon’s amazing speed, but even with enhanced skills he was nothing compared to the awesome power of any dragon. Inferno frequently had to circle around to be level with him again, even though he could have easily flown at a speed level with his rider’s. They never slowed one bit, but continued to run for whatever reason and Cody couldn’t tell what it was.