10-14: Divine Predator
The scales glimmered in the afternoon sun, the shine warping with each large breath of the dragon.
"Is it... is it sleeping?" Cassidy asked with a whispered tone.
"How do we wake up a dragon without it killing us?" Seraph wondered.
"Wait, Lilith, you said something about the color, right?" Veronica examined the slumbering beast from a distance.
"Yeah..." Lilith said, her eyes wide.
"What uh... what does red mean?"
"It means it's one color away from being as powerful as it can be. Look there, some of it's scales are already turning gold. It has to be seven-no, eighty thousand years old. Ninety at most."
"So, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked are we?"
"On a good day, three. Bad day... more than the scale allows."
"Okay... so... we probably can't kill it... and it is rude to wake it up. So, how do we do this?" Sirtia questioned with her eyes closed, trying to think of a solution.
Though, it didn't really matter, as the dragon rose from it's slumber, flicking it's head towards the girls.
“Ra-sythra zha ul’naakh… vor’khar thra ra-thrum zha sluun?” The dragon spoke, not loudly, but it still shook the very earth they stood on.
"Ver, translate." Cassidy ordered, sweating buckets.
Veronica breathed in, readied a finger as though she was about to teach someone. "I... have no clue. I don't know dragon. Lilith, translate please."
"They always spoke common to us..." Lilith said, trying to rack her brain with the solution to their even bigger issue.
"Dragon, I am Sable Avealonia dey Fontaine, and these lands, this mountain, belong to my family. Your occurrence has troubled our people. We wish to end this peacefully." Sable spoke to the dragon, attempting to use her status as some form of leverage.
"Ra-thrum thra," it rumbled. "Vor’khar ra-sythra zha ul’naakh. Sluun."
The dragon was clearly becoming more and more agitated. The girls clearly had no way to know to stop it. Even Lilith was trying to remember something, anything, but nothing came to mind. It was as if the girls had committed some huge transgression.
"H-How do we calm it down, Lilith?" Aviris worriedly asked, resting her hand on the handles of her weapons.
"I-I don't know! The Dragons were always cool headed!" Lilith started to freak out.
The dragon, however, it's eyes stared at Lilith and Veronica, almost as if it recognized them.
“Ra-vael thra Kethzul. Ur-asha koraeth. Vyr krazeth.”
Their blood boiled, hairs standing, and a chill down their spine. It was only mid-autum, and all the girls were sweating as if they were wearing winter clothing during the summer heat. The warmth from the draconic beast didn't help much either.
“Ra-veth thra. Va-mor’eth thra-stayn.” It spoke, the motions it made seemed to indicate that it wanted the group to leave. Or else...
"W-We can't leave, Dragon. The people are scared, and your presence has scared monsters into their territory—" Seraph tried to plead.
The dragon’s massive claw swept forward like a living storm. “Thra-fey zha. Ra-thrum thra kraz. Ul-naakh ra-kharos.”
Seraph collided with the mountainside, pain shooting through her ribs. She scrambled back to her feet, breath ragged, already sensing that the dragon’s patience had limits beyond comprehension.
"Great, we passed it off even more!" Cassidy yelled, preparing her spells for combat.
Everyone else drew their weapons. The only issue being... this thing in front of them. Old, strong and large. Leaving wouldn't solve the issue of the monsters invading the Fontaine's territory, and the dragon is clearly too strong to kill.
'Is this how I... how we die?' Veronica wondered, her grip on her sword slipping from her shaking. It was unlike any foe she had faced before.
It's scales looked so tough that her sword wouldn't be able to cut or pierce through. No one had any blunt weapons on them. Even if they did, would it make a difference?
The dragon spread it's wings and stepped back. Only a few steps, but it's size made the distance seem even larger. Then, the air felt warm. Much warmer. Too warm, in fact, it was starting to get sweltering.
"Take cover!" Lilith barked. Everyone dived for whatever the could find to cover themselves.
It unleashed a powerful breath, obviously with the intent to cleanly wipe put the girls. Fire spewed hundreds of meters. Even without being touched by the fire, it still caused the girls to be burned and singed from the air itself.
Whatever stone that was in a shorter distance to the dragon had melted completely into magma, and showed no signs of cooling down any time soon.
There has to be a way to calm down this beast, since killing it is put of the question. But how? What could it be...?