Forest Encounter

Author's Note: This is a write up of what I'd look like as a dragon.

You walk quietly down the path. You ponder the out of the way village that you had been sent to work at as an apprentice. It shouldn't be too far down the road…

You come to a clearing in a path. You sit down to admire the black and blue butterflies flitting around in the sunlight. Suddenly, there is a sound of wings from above. You run out from the dappled light under the tree branches, and look up. Your mouth falls open with awe…

What must be a dragon is coming in for a landing in your clearing. Outlined against the midday sun, you can't get a good look at it. It comes down and back wings into a landing, scattering the butterflies. The first thing you notice is its deep purple color. Nothing in nature you know of has that color purple. The second thing you see is that she is wearing a pack tied between her wings.

She turns her head over her shoulder to look at you, and it jerks in surprise. Clearly she hadn't expected you here. She cocks her head to get a good look at you, perhaps never having seen a human before. You see that her eyes are a deep green with vertical, lighter green pupils. While she is looking at you, you are admiring her.

She? Yes, she's a girl; you can see it the way she looks at you, and the way she holds herself. She has two very mobile, constantly flicking ears on the sides of her head, other then that there are no frills or horns of any kind. Her muzzle tapers down to a rounded point.

As the butterflies come back to flit between you, she shifts her body around to sit on her haunches. You can see that her belly is pale lavender, with an indistinct border with the purple on her sides and back. Her fore-limbs fold across her chest as she considers you, and you can see that they are jointed like a human's, with long fingered hands at the end. The straps to the pack between her wings come down across her shoulders and under her fore-limbs. She is slim, with no real bulge at the stomach. Her tail beats the ground in front of her, and you can see that the end is whip like, with no real tail spike.

She drops to all fours to circle you, and you can see that there are no spines running down her back and nothing on her tail either. She really is very streamlined. Her wings, emerging from above and just behind her fore-limbs, are folded tight to her back, only the support bones visible, and no membrane. These too are streamlined, with no claw at the apex. She circles you a few times, getting a good look at you, and you at her.

Having looked her fill, she walks through the butterflies to the other side of the clearing and sits down. Untying her bag, she gets out what must be her lunch, some jerky strips and a piece of fruit. By the way she handles them; you can see that she must be young, but not too young. Your stomach rumbles, reminding you that it is indeed lunch time. After one last look at the dappled sunlight on the dragon's back, you go back to your side of the clearing and get out your lunch.

When the dragon is finished with her lunch she reties the pack between her wings and walks back to the middle of the clearing for a take off. She nods to you pleasantly, and you smile. It was so nice to be able to share your lunchtime with this marvelous person.

She backs up a few steps with an eye to the sky. Then, with a few running steps, she beats her wings and takes off into the blue. As her wings unfold, you see the brilliant pink membranes stretched between the support bones. You catch one last image in your mind of the dragon flying off, her wings outstretched with the sun shining through the pink membranes.

End