A series of cracks stirred me from my slumber. I lazily opened one eye to identify the source of the noise, which revealed itself to be Rian, rolling onto his hooves and stretching each one of his legs out in turn. He was absolutely covered in dust and grit, as well as a sizeable amount of mud. I did just drop him on the ground by the edge of the lake, so I guess that was partially my fault. His legs were what was making the cracking. It sounded quite painful.
I lifted my head. "Jesus, Rian. Do you need a massage or something? I'd say you might've just broken something."
"Well what the fuck do you expect when you just throw me on the feckin' ground? Sure there's gravel and all stuck to my fur now," he said, shaking himself like a dog. A clump of mud flew off of his fur and landed right on the end of my snout.
I snorted, the earthy, damp smell filling my nostrils. "If you want to clean yourself there's better ways to do it," I said. I stood up and gestured to the lake, which was currently filled with ducks and a few swans. I remember I used to come here and feed them bread when I was younger. I also remember the time I fell in and got bitten by one of the swans. Ah, good times.
Rian looked incredibly skeptical. "I'm not going in there," he said, shaking his head vigorously. "Sure 'tis probably perishing. I'll stick to trying to shake myself off."
He did just that, to little effect. Some of the dust and gravel came off, but most of it didn't. I grinned. I don't know if it was the look on my face or the fact that my sharp teeth were showing, but Rian flinched.
"Lake it is," I said. Rian's already huge eyes widened and he made to run away, but I was a little too quick for him. I managed to get my snout underneath him and lifted him up. He figured out then that it wasn't a good idea to struggle. Instead, he used his hooves to cling on for dear life. He was still glaring at me as I carefully walked over the rocks towards the edge of the lake.
"Put me down!" he shouted.
"Alright," I said, and tossed my head.
Rian lost whatever grip his hooves were providing and fell right into the lake. There was a splash, and all of the ducks and swans quacked and hissed in surprise before flying or swimming off. For a brief moment I couldn't see Rian, but then his head popped up, his soaking wet mane falling over his eyes. He shook his head to try and get the hair out of his face.
"J-jaysus! 'Tis fucking freezing!" he said, his teeth chattering a little.
I smirked. "Well, at least the mud and gravel is gone, right?"
From the flat stare he gave me, he probably wasn't impressed. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and his annoyed expression turned to a devious one. He raised a hoof and brought it down, splashing me with a spray of icy water.
"Oh," I said, water dripping down my face. "That's how you want to play it?"
He said nothing, he only splashed me again, that same smug look of deviousness on his face.
"You call that a splash?" I grinned and backed up. "I'll show you a splash!"
I started running towards the lake. Rian seemed to realise what was about to happen, because he started back-pedalling in the water. "Wait!" he said. "Stop!"
I ignored him and leapt into the lake. Have you ever wanted to know what a dragon cannon-balling into a lake looks like? Well just ask Rian, because he'll tell you that it looks like a huge fountain of water and a cloud of steam. Or maybe he would, if said fountain and steam weren't blinding him. Even more ducks and swans were frightened away by the massive splash and loud noise.
Rian coughed a bit and used a hoof to try and wave away the steam. "Jaysus," he said. "You're after boiling half the lake I'd say."
"I suppose you were right when you said I was like a hot water bottle," I said. I couldn't help but notice that I was feeling a little chilly now, but it was probably just the temperature of the water.
Rian paddled his way over to me and pressed himself against my side. He had to stand on the tips of his hooves to keep his head above water, but it only came up to about my belly. I laid down in the water to give him better access to my apparently warm scales.
"Yeah," he said. "The water is definitely warmer over near you."
For a while we just sat there in the cold lake, just enjoying one another's company. We didn't say anything, mostly because we didn't need to.
I found myself admiring the gorgeous scenery of the lake. The lake itself was the largest of the world-famous Lakes of Killarney, Lough Leane. Right next to us on the grassy lakeshore, past Rian's grazing animals, stood the stunning Ross Castle. Standing tall and proud for the longest time, it really was a testament to the skills of those old medieval people that they could build the whole thing with no mortar and still have it standing today.
The towers of the castle were an imposing shade of grey, and they loomed over you when you stood near them. The arrow slits and spiked oakwood doors gave the whole place an intimidating atmosphere. Of course, the somber majesty and power of the castle was offset by the serenity of the lake. Without obnoxious tourists standing around butchering the pronunciations of the town and landmark names, it was certainly a lot more peaceful than it used to be.
The lake was calm, as always, shimmering under the light of the sun and dotted with little islands here and there. Some were little more than barren rocks jutting out of the water, others had miniature forests on them. I couldn't quite see it from here, but I knew that out on the lake was the peaceful island of Inisfallen, where an ancient monastery stood and a herd of wild deer ran. Once upon a time the place was home to a group of revered monks, back when even Ross Castle was still inhabited.
All of the beauty of the lake would be woefully incomplete without the grand, rolling mountains that surrounded it. Like all Irish mountains, they were neither tall nor jagged, tending instead towards the softer, more curved shapes of a hill. But each and every one was covered almost to the top with a thick layer of trees that gave them a striking green colour. It was a delightfully clear day that saw the mountains rendered in almost perfect clarity. It's no wonder that Ireland is often called the Emerald Isle, because it's just as green and just as beautiful.
The gorgeous scenery served only to remind me why I loved the park as much as I did. No matter how bad things were, I could always count on the mountains and lake to stay as strong as they ever were, unaffected by my own struggles. I suppose those mountains were my rock, both figuratively and literally. And, as far as I knew, those mountains would still be there for me during what appeared to be the end of the world.
After a short while of lounging about in the water, the cold finally started to get to me and I had to get out. Rian looked like a drowned rat when he stepped out of the lake and stood on the rocks, his fur slicked back and dripping water.
"Right," said Rian, still shaking a little. "Today, I'm going to set up my lads over by that one house. And I'll start planting a few seeds. 'Tis the right time of year for it and all."
"What 'one house'? There's more than one house out here," I said.
"The big one with the fields and all that shite out in front of it."
"Muckross House?" I guessed. Rian's description really hadn't narrowed it down very much.
"That's the one. That place. Help me carry this stuff out there now," said Rian, turning to pick up a bag full of seeds.
"Wait," I said, picking up a rake in my mouth and talking around it. "If we were going to be using this stuff at Muckross House, rather than out here, why the hell did you have me haul it all out here in the first place?"
"I weren't thinking. You scared the smarts clane out of me when you were trying to drive the tractor," said Rian. "Now gather up all this shite and we'll be away."
I grumbled a little, but did as I was told. After a moment of Rian tossing things onto my back and herding his animals out in front of us, we were off walking down the path.
The path was probably flat at some point, but years and years of jarveys driving their horses and carriages over it had created a huge groove in the middle from where the horses' hooves had hit the ground. Now, even after all the jarveys had vanished and the horses had broken loose, there was still a horse (or pony) clip-clopping along on the path. Except now there was also the awful clacking and scraping of my claws on the concrete as well.
Tall trees stretched their branches overhead, darkening the path even though it couldn't have been later than one o'clock. Birds chirped all around us. It was a surprisingly nice day, though I didn't expect it to last. I remember reading a news article on the internet that said we were in for a really bad summer this year. A gentle breeze was blowing through the trees, drying the water off of my scales. I was still a bit cold though. It would probably go away later.
It only took us around twenty minutes to walk to Muckross House. It was about halfway between Ross Castle and the entrance to the Demesne. A big, elegant looking mansion, the whole place was needlessly luxurious. I'd only been inside of it once, because it's a tourist attraction and you have to pay, but I remember it being really grand and full of stuffed animals. I felt bad for those animals. People shouldn't have been hunting for sport. That was just needlessly cruel. Anyway, I remember all of the furniture and decorations being made of really expensive materials. There's an amazing garden behind it, full of beautiful and exotic flowers that surprisingly never spread to the rest of the park. Those flowers looked a little overgrown and weedy at the moment. Maybe I'd try and fix them later. I'm sure a lot of love and effort went into making the place.
A shame Rian seemed to have plans to turn the space in front of it into a farm.
I think I remember reading somewhere that Muckross House was done up in Victorian times because the Queen was supposedly coming to visit. In the end she cancelled on them and the family that owned the place struggled for money. History can be fascinating sometimes. There's a lot of history surrounding the National Park, but at that particular moment, Rian was only interested in the quality of the soil.
"Deirdre, get a clump of the soil for me there," he said, kicking a shovel towards me.
"What am I, your slave?" I asked, grabbing the shovel.
He sat on his haunches and waved his hooves at me. "Do I look like I can be holding any shovels?" he asked.
I made a show of slowly and painfully pushing the shovel into the ground, a task made much easier by my weight as a dragon, before I oh-so helpfully tossed a ball of damp muck at Rian.
It hit him square in the chest. "Funny," he said.
I laughed and brought him the rest of the soil. He tutted.
"'Tis poor soil all right. 'Tis feckin' soaked through. But I suppose I'll have to make do. Help me dig a few furrows now," he ordered.
I gave him a flat stare before doing as I was told. The soil was wet and gloopy, making it hard to dig. It was also full of rocks, which I tossed into a pile for later use. It took me almost an hour and a half to dig all of the furrows, by which point I was sure that the cold I was feeling was something similar to what happened my first day. I was coated in soil and dried mud by the time I was done.
"Grand out," said Rian, nodding his head in approval of my work. He grabbed some of the seeds and started dropping them into the little trenches, holding the bag loosely in his mouth. I can't imagine he had much control over the bag, but he managed to go through the whole process with very little need to correct any mistakes. While he did that, I casually munched on a few of the rocks I'd gathered. The cold was definitely tied to the rocks. Just eating a few small ones made me warm up a little.
Rian turned his head to the sound of me crunching up a piece of what I think might have been sandstone.
"Are you eating a...rock?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.
"They taste good," I replied, tossing another small rock up into the air and catching it in my mouth. "Also, I think they might stop me from freezing to death for whatever reason."
Rian looked at me for a moment before shaking his head and carrying on with his seeds. "Well, enjoy your food then," he said.
It wasn't long before Rian was finished with the seeds, and then I had to fill in the soil again. We didn't have any fertiliser, so Rian was really just going on a wish or something when it came to growing these plants. Hopefully it'd work out for him, or else I really didn't know what to do. I'd be fine even if things went really bad. I could fish, or...hunt. But even the sight and smell alone of the canned tuna I'd eaten for breakfast today had grossed Rian out. I honestly thought he was going to throw up. I guess he could eat the grass, but I can't even imagine how humiliating that would be to him.
Once I was done filling in the soil, Rian turned to me and told me to 'feck off', to use his words.
"I don't want you getting in the way of me while I'm trying to sort out my lads. They're clane terrified of you after you were chasing them and trying to kill them with the tractor. Feck off and go eat more rocks, or something. Come back later," he said.
"Erm, alright," I said. Rian was probably right. I wouldn't be doing him any good while he tried to build a pen or whatever it was he was doing. I'd only be getting in his way. With nothing better to do, I decided to use my unexpected free time to go back to the mountain.
Torc Mountain was a fair distance away from Muckross House. Normally in order to get there I'd have someone drive me, but that wasn't really an option anymore. I have a horrendous sense of direction, so it was a miracle I even managed to find my way there at all. It took me almost an hour to find the base of the mountain, and another hour and a half to climb back up to the peak where I'd fallen asleep the other day. I could probably have gone back to Rian at that point, but I decided to leave him to his own devices for a bit.
Once I was at the peak, I looked back out over the lake. From the top of the mountain, it's possible to see Ross Castle and the whole lake on a standard day. On a really good day like today, it's possible to even see Muckross House. With dragon super-vision? I think I might have been able to see Rian and his animals if I squinted.
I turned around to face the other side. That view was no less stunning. I could see all of the nearby mountains, from Mangerton to Carrauntoohill, the tallest mountain in Ireland. A winding river meandered its way through the valleys, and the Old Kenmare Road walking path followed it fairly closely. Brownish-gold mountain grass covered the whole area, and random pools of water collected in the boggy soil. A few herds of sheep wandered about, freed from the confinement of their farms.
Aside from the path, there really was no sign of human influence anywhere around here. No buildings, no telephone poles, no radio masts, nothing. Even the path was starting to become covered by the grass after a month with no upkeep. I found myself wondering if the whole world would look like this eventually. Wild and untamed, like nature always intended. Would whatever had happened to the world ever reverse? Or would the world be left to only a few changed survivors, left to eventually forget the old world?
As I thought about the future, I found myself subconsciously opening my wings to the breeze. The wind was much stronger up here, and it felt amazing on my wings. I gave them a little wiggle, and they responded fairly well, to my surprise. I tried moving them up and down, like I would if I were to actually try and fly someday, and though it was a little clumsy at first, I eventually got them moving at will. After that, I just sat and let the wind blow over me some more, enjoying the sensations that came with it.
And then suddenly I wasn't on the mountain anymore.
My claws were grasping at nothing, and my open wings were acting against me as they caught the air and lifted me higher and further away from the mountain peak. A particularly strong gust of wind had picked me up and pushed me away from the mountain, and now I was half gliding, half falling backwards. Through a tremendous effort I managed to flip myself over in the air right as the wind died down and I started to dive.
The rocks and trees below were approaching far too fast for my tastes. The force of the air was extremely painful on my wings, probably because they weren't angled right. They were open, but that only counts for so much. If I could just get the damned things angled correctly, whatever the correct angle was, then maybe I could glide into the lake. It wouldn't exactly be a soft landing, but it would be a lot better than ploughing face first into the rocks.
Moving my wings was almost impossible at the speeds I was going, something that was not helped by my complete and utter lack of fine control. Any second now I was going to smash into a large tree, and I couldn't see that ending well.
Close to the last possible second I managed to tilt my wings ever so slightly. The wind was knocked clean out of me as I suddenly switched direction from plummeting almost straight down, to gliding up in a curve. I lost speed, until I seemed to stop for a moment before I went down again. This time I was ready, and with a little bit more fiddling, I went up again. Then down again. Then up again. After a few more up and downs, I eventually wound up travelling at a leisurely pace over the lake water. Another few moments and I was in the water.
I was near the middle of the lake, and it was quite deep, but I was more than happy to awkwardly doggy-paddle my way to the shore by the castle. The water was not any warmer than it had been earlier, and I was shaking a bit when I finally reached the lakeshore. Surprisingly enough, Rian was standing there waiting for me when I hauled myself out of the water.
"Well, that was fair odd. I came back here to look for you, and sure what do I see but you crash landing in the middle of the feckin' lake?" he said.
"I was just sitting on top of the mountain minding my own business, but the wind had other plans. But hey, at least I know I'm capable of flight! Sort of," I said, shaking my legs a bit to try and dry myself off.
Rian gave me quite the flat expression. "That wasn't flying," he deadpanned.
"Well, gliding, but still. Gliding surely leads to flying, right?" I said hopefully.
"Maybe," said Rian, though he didn't sound very certain.
"Well whatever," I said with a toss of my head. "Toss me a few rocks, I'm freezing."
Rian's stare was absolutely priceless. "After your...meal, come and see what I built over by that one house. 'Tis grand out I'd say, though I might be wanting to fix it better later. But I'd still say 'tis fair good for not having any hands to work with."
"Lead the way," I said.
After Rian showed me his very ramshackle animal pen, which looked like it had been constructed with no screws (which is probably true), we went back to the castle. We spent quite a bit of time talking, both making plans and messing around. After a few hours it was still bright out, being the middle of summer, but we both knew it was later than it looked. Rian was the first to fall asleep, which was quite convenient because it let me eat my meaty meal without feeling bad about it.
After my dinner, I curled up next to Rian and let myself drift away to sleep. Even though I nearly died plummeting off a mountain today, I still think it was a good day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?