So, I've been reading all this kick-ass literature on the 'text board and it inspired me to give it a try.
I like the whole serial format, it builds suspense, so I'll add chapters as I finish them.
If you have any opinions, notice any major flaws or have any tips on how I can improve just shout
One last stall before I unleash this abomination... when I outlined the plot on the back of a starbucks napkin it didn't seem quite as dark as it's turning out... just a heads up. I'm usually cheerier
without further ado
**********Collar
**********Chapter One
The entire pack was there. All in a row, all on their knees, except for Ness, the packs soon to be ex-Alpha. Ness was kneeling a few paces in font of the row of raptors, his arms stretched out under the heel of a foot the length of his body and twice as wide. The maroon dragon who's foot it was, stood in silence towering over them. Ness's frantic screaming went on for twenty minutes after the dragon put the full weight of his left foot down on his arms. Then there was a period of sharp cries every time the dragon ground his heel to bring Ness back to his hellish consciousness.
The pack was completely silent and attentive in a way their Alpha could never inspire, bearing witness to the interrogation.
For the tenth time the dragon repeated his question, "why have you come?"
Ness was silent, another black-out was the only explanation. The front of the dragons foot lifted as his heel twisted on Ness's crushed arms. The wet snaps that were so horrifyingly audible at the start were now soft enough to be completely drowned out by the ear piercing shrikes of the raptor.
He didn't here the question but knew it was the same he'd been continuously asked. "I didn't know!" he cried and pushed his face into the side of the immovable heel.
Ness had been professing ignorance of the dragon's residence. As far as Garett knew he was confessing the truth, but the dragon didn't seem to believe him. Ness had lead Garett and the pack into the southern wastes with the promise of easy targets for raids. At the time Garett was glad for an alternative to two months of scavenging tasteless nuts and roots followed by a season of bitter cold, snow, rationing and, in all likelihood, disease. Of course now he'd sell his soul to be in a cramped, stinking cave rather than in the marble hall of the gilded citadel kneeling before that shattered wreck of Ness that could be a mirror image of his own impending fate.
The weak whimpers died off and the thundering voice of the dragon startled the pack. "I've decided on the price you will pay for your trespasses." The dragon lifted his heel off of Ness's arms.
Garett shut his eyes tight. He'd avoided throwing up so far but any image to go with the wet sucking sound might ruin that.
When he opened one he saw the dragon had Ness on his back with his left foot now covering Ness to his belly. Garett braced for the final crunch that would end Ness. The weak kicks and flicking tail were the last bit of resistance that Ness had to offer. Garett tried to swallow but his throat was to dry. There wasn't going to be a final crunch.
The struggling stopped and the dragon left the stillness to sink into the kneeling raptors before he continued, "all but one of you may leave and never return."
Garett's heart sped at the thought of possibly avoiding a slow, painful death.
The dragon paced the width of the hall crossing the line of the fourteen remaining raptors a few times before stopping in front of them. None of them dared to look up but each knew when he was being inspected when the massive ivory claws seemed to point at him.
Finally the clawed toes pointed at the far right, pointed at Garett.
They edged closer to Garett. He could smell them. His stomach pulled in on itself and his mouth flooded with the acidic bile of his nearly empty guts. He managed to choke it back down in time to hear the barely discernible "leave" muttered by the dragon. He heard claws scraping and the rushing steps of his pack-mates as some already ran for the door. But when Garett tried to stand his head hit a warm low ceiling. That's when he notice there was only one clawed foot on the floor in front of him.
Without warning the vomit he'd just forced down rallied and broke through his clenched teeth. Garett retched.
"Don't do that, slave. You'll just have to clean it later."
"Sorry, master," Garett knew exactly how he would play this. "Slave" was not necessarily a death sentence.
"You learn quick." He turned and beckoned Garett to follow.
With a last look at the backs of his fleeing pack, Garett did and got his first chance to examine his captor. Deep red scales and a crown of horns gave him a demonic look. Garett remembered the tapestries he'd glimpsed years ago at a monastery. The dragon would have fit in nicely with the pantheon of the underworld.
Don't think of a cow, he thought to himself. it was the one thing he'd taken from the long week training to become a monk. Don't think of a cow. The monks taught him the mantra. Garett tried to remember the whys and whats of his brief unpleasant endeavor when his thoughts were snapped back to the situation at hand.
The dragon lead the way, taking for granted that the raptor would follow. Garett's legs were numb from the floor but he pushed it out of his mind and tried to focus.
Faster than Garett thought possible the dragon spun to face him. His foot flashed up and pinned Garett to the floor. The raptor's head was wedged between two toes. Two pitch black eyes glared down at him. The weight forced the air out of Garett's lungs.
"You have a choice."
The thundering voice was a muffled echo as Garett struggled to inhale. Panic and darkness pressed in on the edges of his vision. His eyes clenched shut. He didn't want to see the end.
************
Where am I, Garett thought. He knew it wasn't a dream from the dull ache coursing through his body and the throbbing veins in his head. His throat felt tight and he could still taste the vomit.
Garett pushed himself up on to his knees and noticed an added weight around his neck. He tugged at it. A tightly braided cord, a little thicker than his thumb, dug into his neck. He tried to get his fingers wrapped around it but when it tightened further he fell forward and began rabidly clawing at it and gasping for air.
"So you're not dead."
Garett started forward away from the dragons voice. The collar constricted more, turning his gasps into a sputtering hiss.
The dragon shifted from his reclined position and stretched out his leg.
Two toes clamped around Garett's leg and began dragging him back. Almost immediately the collar began loosening to where he could breath.
"I'm only going to go over this once. Nod if you can hear me."
Garett nodded and turned to face the dragon.
"You feel that choking? It's your curse. That collar will bind you to the position of a foot slave. If you're close enough for the collar to touch a foot you be able to breathe perfectly fine... but once you start moving away..." the dragon let out a laugh.
Garett tried to question him but all that came out was a rasp.
The dragon lifted his foot from Garetts leg and the choking started again.
"Don't interrupt me, slave. I am being far more compassionate than you deserve." He put his foot down next to Garett's head. "At two feet distance you will find it quite uncomfortable. At four you probably won't be able to swallow. Around six and it'll be hard to breath. The further away and the tighter it will get."
Garett's mouth hung open. He knew he had questions but his thoughts wouldn't seem to pull together.
*************
The citadel was surprisingly opulent, if not a little spartan. The walls and floor were made of huge marble blocks. The roof was domed and to high for Garett to be sure of the material but inlaid with red jewels that, up close, would be larger than his head. The walls were bare except for the occasional white silk banner that would fluter like a ghost with a light breeze that came in form the sky lights. The many sky lights were the only source of light but the light colors reflected enough sun for it to be adequate for most of the day.
Garett counted three days passing through the glimpses of the sky. He sat with the sleeping dragon's feet to his back for the entire time. after the first day he'd given up trying to pull the collar off. he needed a knife or perhaps a nail. The rectangular lock on the front gave him an idea of the size of key or pick he would need to open it.
For the most part he tried not to think at all. his mantra kept his mind on a cow and off his bondage and the giant dragon feet radiating warmth and musk over his back.
The boredom was becoming a torture all its own. How long could dragons sleep, he wondered. He tried sleeping himself but it was fitful and brief. Now hunger was creeping in.
He thought about his last meal. It was a rodent of some kind. The pack was pretty bad off before things took a nose dive at the citadel. They'd left the woodlands of the north with whatever they could carry and moved south. Garett only brought the clothes he wore, a coarse wool short-sleeved shirt and pants that were made of mostly patches and holes. Those and his knife that he traded for the dead rat four days ago. The rat he'd thrown up three and a half days ago.
Garett wasn't one for self examination but he couldn't help but feel he was doing something wrong in a karmic sense to be here.
His stomach made another noise. He clenched it. The nagging emptiness was getting overwhelming. If he kept it up much longer he knew he'd be to weak to escape when the chance came.
He sighed and turned his head. The rhythmic breath of the sleeping dragon remained constant. He spun around still sitting and looked at the feet. Waking the dragon was a last resort but it was coming down to that. Garett scanned over the three-clawed toes down to the heel of the left foot. He saw what he was hoping for.
The dragon's heel was a darker shade of from dried blood. Garett edged as close as he could get without touching. There were a handful of scraps of flesh, coated with dirt and grim but enough for Garett to get a few bites worth of nourishment.
He let his head slump in defeat. It's not like he liked Ness very much anyways. "This is a matter of survival, right," he asked himself. Unfortunately he could not give himself an impartial answer.
He tried psyching himself up, "c'mon Garett, this is just like eating any three day old scrap of meat... that's been stepped on..." As much as he racked his brain he couldn't think of a more disgusting thing he'd eaten.
With his thumb and forefinger he peeled a strip of Ness-meat off the base of the dragons heel. it looked like mostly skin with a few strands of purple meat clinging to it. He gave a reluctant sniff to try and tell how rotten it was but could only smell the dragons sweat.
Closing his eyes he dropped the meat into his mouth and swallowed without chewing.
Garett did this several more times, cursing the dragon after every swallow, but was surprised how quickly the meat was gone. It was just enough food to remind his stomach what it had been missing.
His fear of the dragon was giving way to hate. With every fiber of his being Garett believe he didn't deserve this. He vowed to every deity he could think of that he'd kill the dragon if given the opportunity. But all the hate and curses didn't offer an alternative to his last resort.
Closing his eyes again and muttering "don't think of a cow" under his breath Garett leaned in and licked the dark brown stain on the dragons foot. He tasted the copper tang of the dried blood but it was overwhelmed with the salty bitter taste of dragon sweat.
He forced himself to give another lick when the booming voice of the dragon spooked a frightened noise out of him.
"Hungry, slave?"
Garett crawled around the bottom of the foot to gauge the dragons expressions. "Yes master. Very." Mentally he added an assortment of curses.
"You should have woken me earlier. Is this the kind of care you show your master's property?"
"I'm sorry master, I didn't want to bother you."
The dragon stretched his arms and stood. Garett fought his common sense and stayed within arms reach of the dragons feet. The collar was uncomfortably tight but Garett did not want to be any closer.
With out warning the dragon pinched Garrett between two toes and started walking.
Garett's ribs were aching by the time they stopped but the pain took his mind off the motion sickness he was getting from the swinging steps. He pushed away from the toes until the collar began squeezing off his air. They were back in the main hall.
He saw Ness's body unmoved from where he was killed. Strangely there were no flies buzzing about the corpse. apparently even the bugs of the southern wastes knew to avoid the citadel, thought Garett.
The dragon lifted his other foot and brought it down on the dead raptor. There was a snapping sound. He lifted off his foot and bent over the crushed remains. Garett looked on in morbid fascination as the dragon used the tips of his claws to pull out half a rib cage and wrench off a leg.
The dragon dropped the carrion in front of Garett.
"No way," he burst out. "Anything else but--"
His protests were cut short as the dragon took a step back. Garett drop to his knees and wanted to beg forgiveness but only managed hacking noise.
"I could be far crueler, slave," spoke the dragon, "you have no connection to your past life now. Any morals you once held are dead. Do not forget that."
The dragon put his foot back in front of Garett. With gasps Garett tried to express his gratitude for the dragon not letting him die but couldn't find the right words or manage stable speech so he opted for a more primal display of affection and crawled forward and began planting kisses on the dragons toe.
The dragon squatted down, "see, slave, acceptance can make things a lot easier. But some things just have to be learned the hard way."
As soon as Garett caught his breath he reached for the severed leg. Instead of cursing the dragon to the gods he uttered apologies as he sunk his teeth into the raptor flesh and took greedy bites.
After hours of feasting Garett felt ready to burst. The full stomach and oppressive exhaustion tugged at his eyelids. He looked up at the dragon who'd been staring down at him. He seemed to read his mind. "Relax, slave," he made a welcoming gesture over the top of his foot, "I have no tasks for you. And tomorrow you will need to make an important choice."
Garett wasn't sure if he preferred the hard ground to resting his head on the dragons foot, but the close contact would let him breath unrestricted and give better warning if the dragon moved. He swung his legs over the dragons big toe and leaned back so his head could rest on the relatively softer flesh between the joints. If he wasn't so tired the smell would have kept him up but his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of what his "important choice" could be. That mattered little too as within minutes he was lost in a deep dreamless sleep.
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