On Violet Wings: 01 - New Beginning

Content warning: this chapter has a fairly brutal sexual assault as its sole sex scene. Trigger warning. Assuming I continue this story, sexual assault probably won't feature much - if any - more, and will also have a content warning ahead of time.

Tags up front: abduction, dragon, magic, non-human, rape

Author's Note: So here's the rewrite of On Violet Wings Ch 1, though it's only about half of the original (I'm breaking it up into two chapters, to be in keeping with the rest of my current work being about 15 pages long). This is mostly the same, just some details have been changed in the main character's motivations for his actions. But again, overall, same story, same pace, same plot points, etc.

In a cave, high up the slope of a tall mountain in a long chain of mountains, there laid an egg. The egg was oblong, and large as well, nearly a meter from top to bottom, and around half that in diameter at its widest point. It was also unnaturally hard, so hard in fact, that even the devices of Humans would struggle to compromise it. Heat radiated from it, so much that the air shimmered. The egg seemed plated with scales, each about the size of a Man's palm, and deep amethyst-purple in hue.

Most importantly, however, it was old. Older than any Man, older even than the two-century-old nation it had been laid in. The egg was old enough that, had its occupant been aware of events occurring outside the protective shell it grew in, it would remember the days when white Men first landed on the shores of the continent.

This age was critical because, one winter, towards the end of night, shortly after a blizzard had passed, the egg rattled, shaking in its nest of stone as a faint tapping emanated from it. A few moments passed, and then came another tap and more rattling, this time with much greater force. After several more attempts, the creature inside finally managed to create a crack in the shell, in the seam between two of the scales. Then one of those scales was separated completely from the rest of the egg, and a small snout, reptilian in form, poked out and sounded a squeal. When there was no response, the creature pulled back into the egg and worked to break off another scale. And another. And another and another and another, until almost a quarter of the scales were broken off from the egg, leaving enough space for the creature to crawl out.

What emerged was around a meter and a half from snout to tail-tip. It had scales of amethyst-purple along it's back and sides and limbs, like the shell it had just emerged from, with a cream color along its underbelly. Its snout was narrow, and filled with many sharp teeth. It had a long neck, four legs, a tail which made up a full third of its length, with small spikes running down its back from the tip of its snout to the end of its tail. And, emerging from just behind its shoulders, was a pair of wings, each nearly as long as its body.

Stretching, the creature looked around the cave it had been born into, which was quite spacious, with almost a hundred feet of both vertical and horizontal clearance. Oddly, at least to the young creature's mind, there was a disturbing absence of jewels and precious metals and crystals, quite apart from the lack of an adult of its kind. Taking the measure of the cave, then testing the air with its forked tongue, the creature snorted and shook its body. No, no, this simple hole in the earth would not do at all for a creature so magnificent. Impressions of ruined castles, glorious glaciers, balmy swamps, coastal vistas, and roiling calderas passed through the creature's mind. It needed a suitable lair, and this cavern was not it.

It tasted the air again, then let out an irritated noise, part gurgle, part whine, and part growl. There wasn't even the scent of anything edible within dozens of miles! Trundling towards the cold outside, the creature took another taste of the air. Eastward seemed more pleasant, if only for the lack of the swirling, blowing, violent snow that lay to the west.

Spreading its wings as memories of flight, of gliding through the air and churning it with great pinions, passed through its young mind, the creature read the air currents, then took off with a bunching of muscles and a leap.

A Dragon had been born onto the Earth, and he was now winging from the Rocky Mountains, several dozen miles south of the American/Canadian border, heading east.

*****

Several hours past as the young drake flew through the cold winter sky, and ahead of him, the horizon slowly brightened with the rising of the sun. And as that distant, blinding orb of fire soared up, higher and higher than even a dragon could go, the drake slid a sun-protective inner eyelid over his eyes, under the thicker eyelid that kept the wind and snow and other aerial debris from damaging his eye. Both were transparent, and as the second slipped into place, the only indication that anything had changed was the slight darkening of the drake's violet eyes.

And the young dragon flew on, soon coming to forested land. And though his senses would be able to sense prey even from his staggering height, still he dived until he was only a few hundred feet above the treetops.

A mistake, he soon learned, as a loud noise shattered the early morning. A small, hard shard of metal slammed into the dragon's body, tearing through the lower limb of his right wing. Bellowing in pain, the drake instinctively curled up, and he plummeted from the sky, crashing through the forest canopy and hurtling into the earth.

After several moments lying in the snow, with a pained groan, he twisted and arched his long neck, bringing his head around to investigate the injury. Golden blood seeped from the inch-wide wound, and while the injury hurt, the drake was relieved that nothing important within his body seemed damaged.

Focusing, the drake extended a sixth sense into the wound, quickly finding the piece of metal with his ability. He snarled at the object, a gross thing of base metal, nothing like the gold and silver and jewels he coveted. With a growl of pain, he flexed the limb, squeezing the object out with powerful muscles. A quick sniff, and another growl at the acrid scent.

It was only then that memories of Man came to the drake, and he learned an important lesson: avoid Men at all costs.

Standing, the dragon looked at his wound and realized that he couldn't continue flying - at least, not for a few hours. His body had already started to heal the wound, but using the wing would reopen the injury, delaying him from his journey even more than walking for half the day would.

Turning eastward once again, the dragon started out, slipping through the trees with a stealthiness that belied his large size.

*****

It was after noon when the dragon started to consider taking to the air again. He had made good time and had even managed to bring down a stag as he had traveled, sating his newborn hunger... for a day or two at most.

Flexing the injured limb, the drake focused on how moving it felt, wondering if perhaps he should wait a while more. So deep was his thinking, that he didn't notice the human ahead of him until he nearly ran her over.

She was tiny, though she stood taller than he did since she was on two legs and he on four. Her tear-stained eyes were wide in fright and awe as she started at the drake, and her long ginger hair was pulled into a pair of braids under her hat.

The drake considered eating the girl for a moment - she would certainly fill any holes the stag had left in his stomach - but an intense dislike of the idea burned within him. A dislike he found odd, as vague memories of his ancestors consuming Humans danced through his mind. Even more peculiar, he felt a desire... to possess her? Yes, to claim and keep her, like the gems and precious metals he craved.

But there was a problem with that, if not two or three. First, he had nowhere to keep her, no lair of his own, no place to guard his Hoard. Second, he was too small to carry her away with him to his future lair. And third, there was something... missing. He couldn't put a talon on it, but the dragon knew, if he somehow took her now, his claim of her would be... incomplete. Simply keeping her as part of his Hoard would be a waste, he knew. What he didn't know was how to make it be not a waste.

The girl sniffled, and the drake decided against eating her - a decision made the moment he'd even had the idea - and against trying to claim her for his Hoard. He would ruminate on the issue, try to figure out how to truly claim the girl.

But that left a few questions. The drake knew from his ancestral memories that Humans lived in groups, and children were raised by their parents until they were adults themselves. So where was this young Human's parents? The dragon scented the air, and picked up a distant scent that the girl's matched.

Walking towards the smell, the drake called for the Human to follow, but stopped short when she simply stared at him, fresh tears brimming in her eyes. Huffing in annoyance, the drake returned to her side, and gently grabbed the hem of her odd covering with his mouth, pulling her towards the scents. The girl seemed to understand, and followed as the drake led her off to the north-east.

They walked for a long time, though neither had a good concept of time. After a while, the girl hesitantly placed one covered hand upon the drake's back. After glancing back at her and seeing nothing amiss, the young dragon tolerated the touch of his future prize.

After much more time, a large pile of wood and stone and other, strange materials appeared through the forest. The scents seemed to be emanating from it, and the drake wondered just what kind of lair Humans lived in. The girl squealed with joy and broke into a run, quickly reaching the building where she was met by a pair of equally-joyful adult Humans, a male and a female, who emerged from the structure at the sound of her cries.

Satisfied that his treasure-to-be was safely back with her sire and dam, the dragon walked away, taking to the sky after marking the place in his mind. He would visit later, though he wondered at just how much later it would be before he figured out the missing piece. Hopefully it was before she aged to death, as he knew the mortal humans did, though he didn't know how fast they aged, nor how fast they matured into adulthood - another thing to investigate his ancestral memories for.

Angling east once again, the drake flew with his back to the sun, searching for an appropriate place to lair. He didn't know what he was looking for - ruins or cave or swamp or caldera - but he was confident that he would know it when he saw it.

*****

Amtheryn beat his wings powerfully as he carried the four sheep, which bleated in terror, back to his lair of just over nine years. As he forced the irritating sound of the fuzzy prey from his mind, memories of the girl from the forest surfaced. It had been three years since he had last checked on her, in the hopes that seeing her again would break through the wall his memories had encountered as he tried to figure out how to properly claim the girl for his Hoard. He'd begun to wonder if age - either his own or the girl's - had something to do with it, that he wouldn't be able to summon forth the memories until the appropriate time.

He just hoped it was soon. Nine years was a long time to wait.

The dragon himself had changed over the nine years since his hatching, aside from his tenfold increase in size. Horns had sprouted atop his head after a year, now curving back from his face. After another year, feathers had begun to sprout across his body, flowing from the limbs of his wings, framing the sides of his head, sheathing his shoulders and hips, and sprouting from the tip of his tail. And he had learned the name that his dam had wished for him, once he had learned to delve deeply into the memories that were not his, and stumbled across her experiences leading up to the laying of his egg.

Huffing and shaking his head, the house-sized dragon descended from the sky towards the hollow in the forest in which he made his lair. With sheer walls all around, a small lake with a small island and tree on it, and even a cave which was accessible both from the shore and from an underwater entrance, the location was perfect. Even better, the nearest Human was dozens of their miles away, and in his nine years living there, none had encroached upon his lair.

Setting three of the sheep down on an open, grassy area of his lair, the dragon tossed one into the air and snapped it up in a heartbeat, sating his hunger for a short while. What he really wanted was a fat cow, but the Humans he had been taking those from had become more and more protective of their herds. Amtheryn knew he could easily take his meal by force, but he recalled all his accumulated memories of Humans - 'stay away,' and 'do not provoke,' were the top two messages he had from those ancestral experiences. Even if they were from centuries past, though that only made them more worrying, since the small beings clearly had created new devices and machines, more dangerous and complex than any his ancestors knew of.

Glancing at the remaining sheep, the dragon huffed and dove under the lake's water, lazily circling the island for a few minutes before entering the cave from the waterway, and surfacing into his den. A small pile of precious items - mostly gold and lost human jewels - took up one corner of the cave, leaving the rest bare. Even at ten times his original size, Amtheryn had plenty of room in the cave.

The dragon settled into a curled position, preparing to sleep for a day or two. But thoughts of the Human girl haunted his mind, and sleep refused to come. After an hour, Amtheryn growled, then stood and strode out of his cave. With swift bites, he swallowed the remaining sheep, then threw himself into the air, deciding to fly over the cluster of Human-lairs where the girl and her sire and dam sometimes lived.

The first time Amtheryn had tried to check on the girl - three years after he had first encountered her, during the season of cooling - the scent of her and her family was weeks old at their lair in the forest. He had managed to follow their scent - and that of their strange metal carriage - along Human-made trails of foul-smelling rock, hours away to a cluster of dozens of lairs. Ever-wary of alerting Humans to his presence, the drake had simply circled overhead for a while, picking through the thousands of scents until he found hers. Not wishing to endanger himself, he had left, planning to return again later.

The second visit, another three years later, found her at their forest lair during the warm season, and he'd still not been able to figure out a solution. Amtheryn was starting to become impatient, and he wondered if he would ever figure out how to claim her.

When he reached the cluster of Human-lairs, several hours after departing from his own lair, Amtheryn snarled at the acrid air, then focused past it, searching for the girl's scent. When he found it, he huffed, then angled west towards the forest. Her scent was several days old here.

Hours later, in late afternoon, he flew over the forest lair, and while her scent was fresh, the drake could smell that she wasn't in the lair. Amtheryn was briefly annoyed at her absence, as he much preferred to look at the girl. He hoped she hadn't gotten herself lost again - if she was, and he still hadn't figured out the solution, he doubted he could just lead her back home like last time. After all, he was far larger than when he had first met her, and destroying trees for such a silly reason as a lost human was not something he was interested in.

He was somewhat surprised when her scent led to a lake, and he found her simply floating in the water, a pile of things with her scent on them lying on the shore. Curiosity flickered in his mind, but then Amtheryn laid eyes on her, caught her true scent, and his mind ground to a halt for a moment. He knew. He finally knew how to claim her.

It had been related to age. For sure hers, but possibly his own as well.

The desire to possess her, to claim her surged forth again. As did another desire, and one as strong as he desire to grow his Hoard. He desired her.

Tucking his wings, Amtheryn plummeted towards the earth as the girl swam to the shore and walked out towards her possessions. When the shadow of the dragon blocked out the sun, she looked up at the sudden dimness, gaped in shock, then screamed as he suddenly opened his wings to slow his descent, the winds he caused toppling the girl to her back.

Amtheryn loomed over the girl, taking in her appearance now that she was ready. Her curly ginger hair fell to her lower back, and was pulled back behind her head. Wide emeraldine eyes stared at Amtheryn in shock, her pale features accented by freckles that paraded across not only much of her face, but her upper chest as well. She was lithe, around five feet and six inches tall, and her slender body covered in two pieces of dark green material across her chest and waist. Somehow, Amtheryn found the Human... appealing, despite her not being a dragon.

After a moment of regarding her, the dragon leaned his head down to her level, taking a deep breath of her scent. It was at that point that the girl turned, stumbled to her feet, and ran back towards the lake, diving under the water once she got deep enough. Amtheryn huffed in annoyance, then beat his wings several times, becoming airborne, before folding them against himself and diving, slicing into the water. His keen senses quickly found the girl, who was still swimming down along the lakebed. It was a simple matter for the dragon to swim to her and catch her up in one talon.

As they broke through the water, Amtheryn's wings churning in the air to gain altitude, the girl started screaming. The drake paused over her pile of things, grabbing them up in another talon, before ascending above the trees and flying back towards his lair, his new prize safely in talon. The girl hit his foot and leg with all her pitiable might, and Amtheryn simply ignored her defiance. Eventually, not even an hour into their flight, the girl stopped her feeble resistance.

Amtheryn was deep in thought on the way back, trying to work out his desires and how they could possibly be put into action. As he puzzled through the issue, time slipped by, and he was surprised when he realized he had reached his lair. A glance at the sky showed that dusk had arrived.

Landing on his hind legs first, the drake carefully deposited the girl and her possessions on the ground. He stared at her for a long moment as she simply lied on the ground, shivering. Frowning, he realized that her skin had been tinged blue during their trip. Then he cursed himself wordlessly. He hadn't taken into account the fragility of humans; flying through the sky was alike to walking through deep snow in winter - freezing cold. Amtheryn didn't comprehend the intricacies of human coverings, but he realized that they must warm them somewhat, depending on what it was they were wearing.

Growling in irritation at his own thoughtlessness, the dragon curled around his frozen treasure, surrounding her completely with his massive body, and covering her with a wing. While partially reptilian in nature, dragons were not cold-blooded, and Amtheryn was confident that he could restore his prize's warmth with his own heat. And in the meantime, he would delve into his ancestral memories to try and discover a solution to his problem.