Chapter 2: First Death
Almaris sighed again, he had been doing that a lot lately, but he had a damn good reason! In front of him was the most absurd thing he had ever seen.
In front of him sat his sister, a small, shy girl, with a dragon in her lap! She was casually petting it whilst whispering sweet nothings. And the dragon was purring along with her strokes!
The dragon itself wasn't too big, its body about the size of a fox's with an oversized head, and a tail as long as its body.
Its scales were scarlet red all over and surprisingly smooth to the touch. When Almaris had touched it, he had felt an unnatural heat coming from its body.
It had four short legs and bat-like wings sprouting from just above its front legs, although they looked too small to properly fly with.
It had vertical eyes with flaming red irises and a forked tongue which occasionally darted out of its mouth. It had a pair of sharp fangs on the outside of its mouth, reminding Almaris that this cute reptile was still a baby killing machine.
Ilmiris stared up at him with wide eyes and a pleading look as she opened her mouth to speak.
"No," said Almaris cutting her off, "we're not keeping the dragon."
"Why not!?" shouted Ilmiris clearly distraught, "Ignerbia will behave."
"What in Mother's name did you just call it?"
"We have to call her something so I named her Ignerbia. Look, Ignerbia likes it," she said whilst stroking under the dragon's snout, to which it gave a purr of satisfaction.
"How did you even come up with such a stupid name?"
"It's not stupid, it's epic! All legendary dragons need to have a legendary name like Ignerbia."
Almaris looked at the small dragon sitting in a small girl's lap whilst purring in satisfaction whenever she stroked it.
'Legendary dragon my ass,' thought Almaris.
"Well, I'm not calling it such a stupid name."
"What will you call her then?"
"I'll call it Red," said Almaris, "better not to put too much thought into it."
Looking down at Red, it seemed to be glaring back up at him now.
'It can't understand me, can it?'
"So," said Ilmiris, with a sly smile, "since you've named Ignerbia, we have to keep her now."
Almaris stared at his grinning sister and let out his deepest sigh yet.
"Fine."
"Yes!"
"But no one sees it and it has to get its own food, we can't afford to feed it."
"Thank you, Al," Ilmiris said with a bright smile, before turning her attention back to the dragon.
'Maybe this will work out,' thought Almaris, 'Red will keep Il happy for now and it'll probably leave as soon as it learns how to fly anyways.'
***
Five days later, Almaris awoke with a yawn, getting out of bed, slipping his tunic on and looking out the window towards his fields. The first thing he saw was the grey smoke rising from them.
"Shit!"
Almaris sprinted downstairs, grabbing a bucket and dashing out of the house.
He sprinted towards the fields at top speed, before stopping dead in his tracks, the bucket falling from his hand.
An inferno of fire swallowed the crops, far more fire than he and his bucket could ever hope to put out.
'I'm done,' he thought, 'without this harvest, I'll never be able to survive.'
His mind was in turmoil desperately trying to think of a way to fix this, to make it okay.
But there was nothing but a black pit of despair.
"Aaaaagh!" a scream reminding him of a banshee's rang out from the farmhouse.
"Shit!"
Almaris turned on his heel and sprinted back to his house like a mad bull. Once he got there he noticed the door was wide open! Not wasting any time he ran inside.
Inside he was met with a blood-curdling sight, straight out of a nightmare he would've wished he never had.
Inside stood the gruff man with his back facing Almaris and his tunic bloodied, holding an iron shortsword. Beside him stood one of the men who were with him at the market, carrying a rope net.
The other man lay on the floor, his eyes dull, his throat a bloody mess and another shortsword in his limp hand.
"The damn dragon killed John!" spoke the other man, "I say we kill it!"
"The damn dragon is worth far nor than John's life, I'll cut your heart out if you try to hurt it!"
Looking past the trio, Almaris saw Red standing on top of a brown mound, red blood dripping from its stained fangs. It growled at the two men, stretching its wings to their full length, which was barely over a foot.
It was only when Almaris realised what Red was standing on, that his blood ran cold.
It was Ilmiris.
Her lifeless eyes were wide open and her jaw hung limp. There was a scarlet red hole in her chest, still oozing with blood, which soaked into her brown dress.
Almaris' vision went red.
He ran to the shortsword, quicker than he ever thought he could, adrenaline flooding his system.
He grabbed the shortsword from the dead man's hand, and, waiting for nothing, he stabbed deep into the net-wielding man's back. The sword went all the way through, the blade on the other side glistening with blood.
The man let out a shocked grunt and collapsed, dead.
The gruff man reacted quickly thrusting his shortsword towards Almaris' chest. Desperately, Almaris yanked the sword out of the dead man's chest, swinging it upwards in a wild arc. It slammed into the gruff man's sword moments before it would've killed him, sending it upwards but doing nothing to stop its forward momentum.
Almaris felt the blade cut into his upper cheek, through his left eye and out through the skin under his eyebrow.
"Aargh!" Almaris shouted, more at the shock of losing part of his vision than the pain. It felt like he had been hit by a blunt object and for now, he ignored the cut, focusing on the gruff man who was giving him a sadistic smile.
That smile was wiped off his face when Red jumped up behind him, flapping its small wings to gain extra height. Red just barely missed the man's neck as he desperately jumped to the side.
But Red managed to sink its fangs deep into the man's left shoulder and it pulled upwards, ripping a large chunk of flesh out of the man.
"Aaargh!" the gruff man shouted, clearly in far more pain than Almaris.
Clutching the red mincemeat that used to be his shoulder, he looked at Red's bloodstained mouth, then at Almaris' bloodstained sword.
Gritting his teeth, the gruff man turned and ran out the door.
Almaris thought about giving chase, but he didn't want to leave Ilmiris.
Numbly, he dropped the sword and walked to Ilmiris.
"Il?" he asked in a soft voice, "Il, you can wake up now, I scared them off, I promise."
He shook Ilmiris' body, "Please get up Il, don't leave me. I promise I'll be nicer. I won't shout at you again, I mean it."
He looked down at her soft brown hair, her small face, her innocent brown eyes.
"You can't leave me Il, we still have to get nice things together."
A tear of blood dropped from his blind eye and onto her perfect face.
"Il, y-you're the only nice thing left in my life, please don't leave."
She stared back at him, her beautiful, lovely, innocent, nice face unmoving.
Almaris rested his head on her body and tried to cry.
But no tears came.
He was far too angry.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
m1le
m1le Thanks for reading!
I'm not sure how well I wrote the bit at the end but it was hopefully a bit sad:)
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