• Published 29th Aug 2015
  • 4,787 Views, 107 Comments

The Celtic Dragon - JumpingShinyFrogs



I went to bed like any other night, then woke up a month later on a depopulated Earth as a fire-breathing reptile. This should be interesting.

  • ...
16
 107
 4,787

7. Vision

I moved a little bit, the blanket shifting on top of me. The floor below might've been cold, smooth tile, but the fluffy blanket of varying texture that was draped across me was warm and inviting.

At least until it started bleating. My eyes snapped open, and I realised that it was, in fact not a blanket that was thrown over me, but rather Rian and his assortment of farm animals. The sheep that I startled by moving had scurried off of me, leaving a disappointing cold patch in its wake, followed by several more as the rest of its flock joined it. The cow started mooing, and then I heard Rian's voice.

"Jaysus lads, will ye quieten down? Some of us are trying to sleep."

The animals had all left by now, but Rian had stayed where he was, snuggled against my side under one of my wings. How had he and his animals gone from running terrified of me to cuddling up with me while I slept? I felt him get up to his hooves and wriggle his way out from under me. He walked up to my face.

"Hope you don't mind, girl. Twas fierce cold last night, and you're like an aul' hot water bottle," he said.

'Fierce cold'. Yep, that's Ireland for you. Middle of summer and it's 'fierce cold'.

"I don't mind," I said. "I guess dragons are warm because they're associated with breathing fire?"

Rian's eyes widened. "You can breathe fire? Shite, aim it away from me."

I raised a claw to calm him down. "I can't breathe fire. I mean, maybe I could, but I don't know how," I said. That was actually an interesting idea. I hadn't given it too much thought, but I suppose if I was anything like the dragons of legend then I probably could breathe fire if I wanted to. I resolved to start trying as soon as we got back to the park.

Which reminded me that I needed to see where Rian wanted to go. I hoped he'd be ok with moving. The park was wide and open, and a lot bigger than his poky little farm. There'd be plenty of room for his animals. Or his 'lads', as he called them.

"So..." I began awkwardly. "What do we do now?"

"Look for other people I s'pose. I didn't plan ahead very much. Just minded my lads so I wouldn't slowly go insane from loneliness," said Rian, a hint of melancholy creeping into his voice.

"Would you...like to come home with me?" I asked, then realised what I'd said and smacked my face with a claw.

Rian laughed, a nice sound after his previous sadness, even if he was laughing at me and not with me. "Jaysus, 'tis a bit early for that wouldn't you say?"

"That's not what I meant!" I said, my face still under my claw.

Rian sobered up a little and said, "I know. Where are you on about? I won't go anywhere that can't support my lads."

"Trust me, there's more than enough room for your 'lads'. I'm talking about Killarney National Park," I said, lowering my claw and standing up. Rian flinched a little as I did so but held firm.

"Wow," Rian said, whistling. "The park? I'd say there's plenty of room there!"

I nodded. "There's even a massive herd of Kerry cows that I sort of made friends with there. You could make friends with them as well."

Rian laughed again. "Don't you know anything about Cork, girl? I'd say I can't make friends with anyone from Kerry. Sure, I'm a Rebel and they're from the Kingdom. It wouldn't ever work out."

"Then I guess we can't be friends," I said, laughing along with him.

He stopped laughing abruptly and stared at me. Uh oh. Did I strike a bad chord with him?

"I'd take anyone over being alone again," he said solemnly.

There was something behind those words that hit me, right in the heart. So much so that I actually felt it in my chest.

And then I started crying. I can't explain why. I just did. Apparently dragon tears are boiling hot, because they steamed on the ground. But I ignored that in favour of bawling my eyes out. Something about the way he'd said it was just so heartbreakingly sad. He didn't want to be alone. I'd been alone for only a few days and I was already desperate for a friend. How much worse had it been for someone who'd been alone for a month, nobody but animals who couldn't talk back for company? Imagine how bad it would get if someone was left alone for longer. Months, years, decades? How sad would that person be?

Rian looked taken aback by my tears. "Why are you crying? Please don't cry!" he said in a frantic manner, stroking my snout awkwardly.

I surprised him by drawing him into a hug with one scaled hand. He struggled a little at first but then relaxed, falling into the embrace. After a minute of silent hugging, I managed to stop crying, my face wet and nose runny.

"I won't have to cry anymore soon. And neither will you, or anyone else. Because I swear that I'm going to make sure that no one else has to go through this alone. I'm going to find everyone I can and I'm going to welcome them to my home in the park. I'll make it the ultimate paradise of trust and companionship, a place open to all and closed to none. A place where everyone can share their sorrows and their happiness, where everyone, dragon, pony or otherwise, is free to stay as long as they like, to make friends and above all, to not be alone.

"That's my goal, from now until the day I die."

Rian said nothing for a moment, the two of us still locked in an embrace. He finally extricated himself from he and looked me right in the eyes.

"I think that's a lovely goal. I don't want to be alone ever again. Am I welcome in your utopia of friendship and companionship?" said Rian, putting on as thick of an English accent as he could. The result was a hilarious mix of stereotypical English people and a Cork accent that made me laugh a little.

"Of course you can, good sir," I said, putting on an accent that was just as bad as his, if not worse. "You, in fact, shall be the first resident."

"I'd be honoured," he said, still holding up his silly accent.

"Shall we adjourn to said utopia?" I asked, losing the accent about halfway through the sentence.

"Not before I get some stuff for my lads," said Rian, his thick West Cork accent returning. "I need medicine, and food, and general things to take back. I'd say you don't have much at the park right now, do you?"

"I have some miscellaneous things that I looted from an outdoor store and that's about it," I said. "I also have some bags filled with stuff from around Ballyvourney and an entire petrol station's worth of Coke and Thai Rings. Those bags are at our old school though."

Rian raised an eyebrow, a gesture that looked extremely strange on a pony. "Coke and Thai Rings?"

I felt myself blush, but I'm not sure it showed through scales. Hopefully not. "It was an impulse, ok?"

"Right," said Rian, rolling his eyes a little. "Anyway, I need to gather my stuff from around the farm. I need milking equipment for those Kerry cows you mentioned. They're dairy cows, I'd say they've an 'oul infection by now from not being milked."

"Maybe now's the best time to mention that I don't have electricity? I didn't think I'd really need it out in the park. I'm sure the internet doesn't work anymore, and neither do the phones. Radios can use batteries, so I'd say we can just break into a two euro store and take all the batteries from it," I said.

"Yera," said Rian, nodding his head upwards. "I don't have any electricity either. I need more non-electric milking equipment for that many cows. While I get things sorted here, you go to the co-op and get more feed and equipment."

I nodded. "Got it. I'll be back soon."


Should've told Rian that I know absolutely nothing about farming. I didn't even know what the stuff he was talking about looked like. I also didn't know cows got infections from not being milked. Now I felt really bad for that herd. And maybe a little impressed. They didn't look like they'd were in any great pain. They were doing a good job toughing it out.

The co-op was back in Ballyvourney, but it was at the end closest to the farm, so I wouldn't have to haul that crap too far. It was still a bit of a walk though. At least it wasn't in Macroom, which was a solid fifteen minutes up the road from Ballyvourney by car, so god only knows how long it would take to walk there.

After about half an hour of walking I'd reached the co-op. And then I realised that I hadn't brought anything to carry the stuff with. I face palmed—er, faceclawed again as my mistake dawned on me. I poked around in the dusty shop looking for a wagon or something, and I managed to find one. It was a small trailer meant to be pulled by a horse. I'd been under the impression that it was a lot faster and a lot more efficient to pull things with a car or tractor, but whatever.

I poked around for a harness or something to pull it with, and I did manage to find one. I fiddled with it for a while, trying to figure out how to attach it to the wagon. In the process I ended up tearing the leather with my claws, so I had to go get another one.

After quite a bit of faffing around, I did manage to attach it to the trailer. I left it like that and set about getting the things I'd actually gone there to get in the first place.

I grabbed a few sacks of chicken feed from the shelves. Something had already eaten one that had fallen on the floor, but the rest were untouched. I tossed the sacks into the wagon, and then moved on to the sheep section. I grabbed a few sacks of sheep nuts and a set of shears, even though Rian hadn't asked for them. I figured that since the electric shears wouldn't work when Rian needed to shear the sheep again, these manual ones would come in handy. I also picked up this stuff called sheep dip. I hadn't a clue what it was for but Rian had told me to get it.

I wandered over to the cow section, where I picked up some cow nuts and some medicines that Rian had told me to get. Again, I had no idea what they did, but the farmer had spoken. Finding the milking equipment he wanted was surprisingly difficult. I suppose since most farms now used electronic milking parlors, the old stuff wasn't being used as much. I managed to find a few sets, but not a whole lot of them.

Rian had also asked me to get him some stuff for crops, which I guess made sense. I picked up a lot of seeds and chemicals that I didn't understand the purpose of, as well as some random pieces of equipment, like rakes, a hoe, and another harness for a horse. I hadn't seen a horse while I was at the farm, but I supposed he probably had one. It had probably just stayed well away from the stampede yesterday.

The wagon was decently full by the time I was done, and weighed a tonne. I struggled in to the harness I'd left attached, my wings awkwardly getting in the way and the whole thing being a size too small. Still, it worked as intended. The wagon rolled along behind me as I walked, being careful to turn in such a way that it wouldn't roll over when I rounded a bend.

I pulled it out into the street and turned, not toward the farm but back towards the school. I wanted to pick up my bags, in case it rained, and also so I didn't forget them. I reached the school quickly, my bags exactly where I'd left them. I tossed them over my back and into the wagon, then turned to leave, but something stopped me.

I could feel a weird pulling sensation drawing me towards the school football pitch. As much as I wanted to ignore it, I felt like I had to go investigate whatever it was. I wriggled out of the harness and left the wagon behind, cautiously approaching the pitch. The pulling sensation got stronger the closer I got to the field. It didn't feel ominous, but it didn't feel good either. It just sort of felt.

I followed the strange feeling until I reached whatever was causing it. And how strange it was.

Near the centre of the pitch, a circle had been burned into the grass and soil. It was a perfect circle with a smaller circle inside it, but the weird part was the strange symbols in between the two circles. It looked like a code of some kind, or maybe a foreign language. It seemed vaguely familiar to me, like I'd seen that type of code somewhere before, but I didn't know where.

I felt compelled to look into the circle, and I did. And slowly, surely, I felt myself being drawin in...

Author's Note:

Fun fact: Deirdre's speech about her vision for the park? Completely improvised. I'd had a plan for what the park would eventually be like, but after writing this chapter I've changed it, and I honestly think I like the new version better.