Inhuman Relations #14
Pinned upon your back, you squirm and shout helplessly as the dragon's muzzle looms above you, jaws parting so close that you can count every razor blade contained within. No, you think, it can't end now! You've come so far, only to fall prey to this thing, no more than a reptile, an animal! But you are an animal too... Your thoughts spin and weave into one another, the threads unraveling too rapidly for you to hang on to a single vein in the turmoil, all the while with that beast snarling like a demon. That monstrous head lowers slowly, taking pleasure in your distress, until it jerks to the side at the last moment; something feathered that screams like a wildcat comes out of nowhere, harrying it so terribly that its attention diverts for those few crucial seconds.
Wriggling free, you scrape a deep breath into your bruised lungs, snatching up the bow, which has tumbled within arm's reach, and skidding towards the only other thing that may be used as a weapon - the dragon's broken spike. It is long and smooth, narrow and sharpened to a deadly point...just like an arrow.
"Cain! Do it now!" Sadhana screeches, beating her wings wildly as she veers away. "Now!"
You know what she means, how can you not know? You would have to be a fool to not realize. Drawing on the years of practice, you steady yourself, bring the bow up with a practiced ease and nock the spike to the string, still taut after all its time underwater. The dragon's head arcs after Sadhana as she makes her escape, giving you a clear shot. You level the bow at the creatures head and fire.
Flying true, the makeshift arrow sinks deeply into the dragon's eye socket, coming up short against the interior of the dragon's skull; the animal howls in pain and drops like a stone, writhing like a snake. The dragon strikes out blindly, demolishing boulders and scattering smaller rocks until it loses it's balance, only scrambling upright again with great force and many labored breaths, it's flanks heaving like bellows.
Too agonized to know what it is doing, the dragon shakes its head, trying to dislodge the arrow, and smashes its head into a piece of rock that juts out from the cave mouth - luckily so, for it's suffering was ended all the more quickly. It crumples pitifully into a heap of scales and spines, jaws parted for its last breath to escape its lungs, and falls still.
Written by Amethyst Mare on 26 June 2012
