Saltwater Lake |
 |
After walking through the trees for what feels like an eternity, the trees eventually begin to thin out, and before you an amazing sight meets
your eyes. An immense lake, the water reflected from its surface in a glorious mixture of white and silver, so bright it nearly blinds you.
Above you a blue bird flaps lazily, diving into the mirror-like water and returning to the air, the silver flick of a fish visible in its long, narrow bill.
You hurry down to the lake shore, for the long walk has made you somewhat thirsty and you are almost out of water.
You bend down, taking a scoop of water in your hands, and sip of it, spitting it out almost immediately. This water is SALTY! You are miles inland, but the water tastes
like seawater. You spit it out and are disturbed to see something coming towards you through the water.
Suddenly a large sea-serpent rears out of the water right in front of you, you fall backwards, almost tumbling down a small hillock. The serpentine dragon strikes forward with its head and long neck, but you manage to evade those wicked jaws, rewarding it instead with a meal of dirt and grass. It recalls back, trying to spit out the dirt, but leaving you visibly shaken.
After regaining your composure, you stagger to your feet and dust the dirt from your clothing. You are a right royal mess, but you daren't go close to the water to clean off, for fear the serpent will return. Those small snake-like eyes, the massive crushing jaws and untidy scaly whiskers will haunt your dreams for years to come. Yet, as suddenly as it struck, it was over. You continue walking around the lake shore, the air is filled with insects - dragonflies as long as your forearm, mosquitoes as long as your fingers that tear through your skin and clothing with the greatest of ease... This is not a place to linger!
Swatting insects from your skin and trying to mop up the blood (do they have malaria here? You can't remember!), you suddenly realise that something larger than the mosquitoes but smaller than
the dragonflies has flown past. It appeared to be a giant butterfly. You do a double take, and realise that what you have seen, was a very small, irrediscent dragon. It appears to be
chasing insects, looping merrily around them, through them, chomping hungrily on their fragile bodies, then spittin the wings out. After a while, several more gather, swarming around you and snatching
up those horrid mosquitoes that were bothering you so badly. They whistle cheerfully to each other, with the occasional cheep thrown in for good measure.
You find their company quite satisfying and they also seem to rather like you. As you move away from the saltwater lake, they follow you, darting around your head and occasionally getting tangled in your hair.
It does not seem to bother them that you look a wretched mess.
Up ahead, a large hill seems to loom beside the path. It is the strangest hill you have ever seen, for although it is covered in small scraggly bushes, nothing
on it seems to be growing very well and when you peer at it from a certain angle, it looks ever so slightly like a curled up animal, some type of dragon perhaps?
Whatever it is, it is certainly well surrounded by the little butterfly winged dragons. They swarm over it, tearing out some of the plants with their bird-like talons and
dropping then in a pile on the far side of the path. It seems completely pointless, for there is no way they are actually building a nest, they appear to be weeding the hill.
In reply to your quizical look, one of the dragon-faeries looks at you and says: "whistle, whistle, chirp, whistle?"
But, alas, Dragon-faerie was not a subject you took in school, I bet you wish you had now, don't you?
Now that you'll puzzled, would you now like to travel
North West ,East
