Set in Stone - Chapter 1

"Wonderful… Consciousness…" came the deep, sighing grumble from the depths of the cave. Of course to a human, it would only sound like a growl; but to many others, it meant the day was finally about to get interesting.

It was noon when the tall figure of a dragon walked slowly and cautiously out of the cave, bleary eyed, licking its scaly lips with a forked tongue. It flicked its limp brown mane out of its dull eyes and stretched its thin body like a tired old cat before standing up and looking around carefully once more, only then spotting the feathered head poking up out of the bushes nearby.

He jumped, startled, flame flickering at the back of his throat, before he realized who he was staring at. Almost instantly he held himself a little prouder and smiled down at the mischievous griffin who had just tumbled out of the bushes.

"Come on Ala, you know you weren't supposed to leave the nest again yet. You can barely fly to the base of your mountain without exhausting yourself." The dragon chuckled, nudging the young griffin in the direction of a tall spire of rock that loomed in the distance, barely visible through the canopy.

"But Ma said I could come see you today, Kale!" Ala chirruped, tumbling over onto her back. "She wanted to know something about how you're doing, or something about something that happened to Audrey. Who's Audrey?"

"Run along back now and tell her I'm doing fine then. Go on, she'll be getting worried." Kale replied, giving a tight smile and picking Ala up gently with a claw before plopping her on the ground and pushing her gently towards her home again.

"Okay, I'll tell her. Bye Kale!" Ala trilled before bouncing off clumsily into the underbrush. For a moment Kale stared after her, but then his gaze narrowed sourly and he rubbed his stomach with a claw.

"Hatchlings." He grumbled to himself, glaring around the clearing as if to challenge any more intruders to come at him. Seeing no one, he grumbled to himself grumpily and unfurled his huge gold and green wings, and pushed off into the sky.

"Agh, watch it Kale!" someone screeched, causing the dragon to swipe a claw in the direction of the voice and grab the speaker, only to realize it was another griffin he was clutching in his paw. "Hey, I said watch it!"

"How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me like that, Darias?" Kale grumbled as he released the griffin in question, starting to fly out over the forest again.

"How many times have I told you you shouldn't be so jumpy over everything?" Darias retorted, flying alongside him.

"What in the world does a guy have to do to get breakfast around here?" Kale snarled, eying the griffin oddly and licking his lips again.

"Come now, I know feathers give you indigestion." Darias raised and eye-ridge and chuckled. "Besides, there's a perfectly good, untouched lake near the territory crossings that has enough marine plants to feed a cavalry, and a herd of deer living beside it that the humans haven't discovered yet."

"Please, don't mention those greedy apes. You know about Audrey…" Kale snapped, narrowing his eyes again and refusing to look at the griffin. A moment passed, and then Darias clacked his beak.

"Fine, I'll leave you to go snag your breakfast. Geez, are you ever grumpy in the mornings…" Darias laughed, turning away from Kale in one quick wing flap and aiming towards the rocky spire in the distance.

"By the way, Ala is wandering around in the woods somewhere, you might wanna find her!" Kale called after his long-time friend, hearing a screech in response. The dragon flinched at the noise, before turning his head back to the path. "Great, now every human within five miles of here knows there's a griffin flying about."

Still, Kale flew on and managed to get to the point where the territories of a few dragons met, and spotted the lake Darias had been talking about.

"Well well, seems he wasn't pulling my claw this time." Kale mumbled, a smile twitching on his face as he spiralled downwards, landing on the edge of the water and leaning over to take a drink of the cool, clear water.

A yell ripped through the air and Kale whipped himself around, growling. There was a flash of something metallic in the bushes and a human emerged, in full armor and screwing back their arms to whip a large javelin. "Dammit, humans!" Kale snarled, lashing his tail back and forth as he shot a quickly readied flame towards his target.

To his surprise the knight dodged to the side, stumbling a bit but chucking the huge spear.
Adrenaline pulsed through Kale's veins and time seemed to slow as the gleaming point cut through the air and towards him, but then he reared up suddenly. Just as the spear would have pierced his gut he leaned a little to the side and "caught" it so the shaft was just stuck between his leg and his side. And then with a loud roar, he allowed himself to stumble back and fall into the lake with a giant splash.

'Humans.' Kale thought with a frown as he sunk down into the now murky water, tossing the splintered shaft of wood away from him and swimming a little farther from the shore he had just been on. His lungs were starting to burn.

Raising his snout just above the surface of the water so he could take a breath, he observed the group of five on the shore with a cold sort of amusement as they tried to look through the dirt his fall had kicked into the water. Eventually they just turned around and back into the bushes, probably to retrieve their steeds.

Taking a large, refreshing gulp of water, Kale waited a minute, and then climbed out onto the bank of the lake, fuming. Humans didn't live around this part of the forest, so an attack was unexpected, not to mention uncalled for. 'Those guys are gonna pay. You just don't screw around with Dragons!' Kale thought with a snort, and slunk off into the trees, quickly locating and following the scent of what were surely cavalry horses. He would wait until the opportune moment, and then he would strike.

Kale would have been discovered quickly has he taken the cleared out path that the knights were, so Kale slunk along in the bushes beside the path, crouching very low so as to not be seen. Eventually it came that he was traveling practically beside the humans, completely in earshot of their conversation; not that he could understand the human language at all, much less speak it.

Now that he looked more closely though, there was a bit of a reddish gleam on the armor of one; and the way they were acting? Smug, and just a little worried. Again, highly suspicious. Not to mention, they weren't going in the direction of any human settlements Kale knew of.

Kale hissed very quietly, as he stumbled on something, throwing his front feet out and catching himself before he made any noise large enough to alert the nearby horsemen. Stifling the growl of annoyance that rushed up into his throat, Kale looked back to see what he had tripped on.

His breathing quickened and his eyes widened as he realized just what he was standing on.