The Forgotten Zodiac

"I can help you," she said, eyeing his maimed wing sadly. "I'll get the spices later. Besides, Vaira won't care how it tastes." She sidled over to him and fastened her claws into the carcass, helping him tug it along towards the Sacred Plains. She was small, much moreso than Boko, but strong. She easily was able to help him drag the cow up towards the Plains.

"That's not true," Boko said, his voice slightly strained as they tugged the meat up a hill. "If it's spiced nice, Vaira will notice. She'll thank you as much as she'll thank me, and I want you to be happy, and you're happy when mommy notices you, so you've gotta spice it." He insisted, smiling at her.

Shiya blinked her large eyes at him, then smiled softly and bent her head forward, gently licking his chin. "Thank you, Bokie..." she murmured, keeping her muzzle close to his as they reached the plains.

A few passing dragons glanced their way as they lugged the cow past, some merely greeting the prince and his little girlfriend while others gave approving comments on the kill and congratulated the two.

Boko hopped along with glee, scurrying to the food pile. He hurried away for a moment, then ran back to Shiya and the cow with a handful of what appeared to be spices. "I asked an elder if I could take these from the pile. Can you use any of this?" He offered, nudging them towards his future mate, a happy gleam in his eyes.

"Of course," she purred, gently picking up the pile in her mouth and giving Boko a little nudge with her nose. She turned back to the cow and began to delicately poke the plants into various places within its flesh. It might've seemed silly to outsiders, but dragons were naturally extremely vain creatures. Seasoning their food was an art form to them; they couldn't exactly paint or sculpt with precision and skill, as much as most of them envied the abilities. So they found other ways to express themselves.

Thus, grooming their scales, gathering treasure, and creating tasty meals.

This was what was in Shiya's mind as she set to work on the cow. At least, until a huge shadow suddenly fell over her, causing her to look up in shock.

A gigantic dragon, nearly as big as Mithor (and Mithor was HUGE) was descending on her, a dragon she had never seen before.

She screamed and leapt backwards as the strange dragon snapped the dead cow up in its claws, arching skyward with a deep groan.

Boko didn't even hesitate. Furious, he let out a hot stream of his silver flame, but the dragon was already out of his range. "Shoot...Shiya, you fly after him, I'm going to use my tunnels," Boko started digging, furiously shoveling dirt out of the way. "Whoever this jerk is, he's not getting away with our cow!"

"Boko, leave him alone."

Mithor approached the two, staring serenely down at them as they both paused and looked up at him with their big, wide eyes.

"That dragon is one that has been raiding our stores of food for a long, long time now. Usually he's not so blatant about it, but there's no fathoming his mind. He is what we would call...malthalatch. Insane. Sad, as he's almost as old as Naybrin was... A loss of grand intelligence."

Boko glared up at Mithor, frowning. "No." He said, then continued digging. "I won't leave him alone. He's been stealing from us, I'll steal it right back. That's my cow, I caught it for mommy. I'm not going to let him get away with mommy's food!" Just as stubborn as ever, he kept digging even faster. "Insane or not, I won't let him!"

"You'll get killed yourself, nestling!" Mithor growled, trying to grab Boko's tail in order to pull him back out. "It's better to let him have it and simply catch another." But of course, Boko wouldn't listen and he was too far into the hole for Mithor to grab him, so Boko got away.

Shiya snuck off before Mithor could see her, wanting to make sure that Boko would be okay.

Boko's tunnels had been well expanded. A lot of the old tunnels had been widened to fit his larger form, as well. He had a lot of entrances, and he could access his tunnels from almost anywhere around the Sacred Plains now. He didn't exactly know where the great big stupidhead had gone, but Boko was determined to find him. After he got away from Mithor, he dug his way out and looked around, spotting the large dragon landing in some caves nestled in a mountain not too far off from the plains. He'd have to dig through a bit of fresh dirt to get to him, but Boko didn't mind. Just another tunnel to memorize.

When Boko finally got close, he easily heard the old dragon limping heavily into the far recesses of the cave. Deeper and deeper inside he went, wheezing painfully the entire while. When he finally stopped in one of the farthest-down caves, he set the dead cow down and spent a long moment simply heaving for breath. Then he tore ravenously into the large cow, eating as if he hadn't eaten in years.

Up close, numerous scars and marks could be seen along his ruddy red-black flanks. His square-ish, blunted head was massive and blanketed in scars and he appeared to be blind in his right eye.

And as he ravenously gulped down the meat, he seemed to try hard to eat the parts Shiya had spiced first...

He didn't expect to be full-out tackled by what could have been an overgrown worm to his huge muzzle. Boko screeched as he attacked, wrapping himself around his huge foe's muzzle to keep him from eating anymore. "No! No, no, no, no! That is my cow, you stole my cow!" He hissed furiously, wings flapping as he tried to keep himself stable. "MINE!"

The huge dragon hardly seemed to notice Boko at first. Finally, he lifted his gigantic head and released a full-throated bellow that shook the entire cave itself, setting to shaking his head back and forth in effort to get Boko off. The sensation for the little drakeling was equal to that of being on the world's loopiest, fastest roller-coaster. He was jerked all about, his grab rapidly loosening.

Boko wouldn't stand for that. He dug his claws into the great dragon's scales, scrabbling for a hold with his teeth. He snarled and screeched and wailed and made as much noise as possible. "That. Is. My. Cow!" He insisted, before he managed to clamp his teeth around on of the larger dragon's horns, securing his grip with his coils.

The huge beast roared angrily, throwing his head from side to side and hauling his bulk up from his laying-down position in order to rampage around the large cave, slamming into stalagmites and the cave walls in his effort to get the small white worm (to him, Boko was a severely over-grown cave-worm) off of him.

Boko let out a cry of pain, falling off of the larger beast. His back was still still sensitive due to the breaks he had obtained a few months before. He was shaky as he stood, but he seemed to be okay enough. But there was a problem now; he could be attacked freely now. The huge dragon's jaws and claws could all too easily tear him open. Boko started to back away, just now realizing how bad of an idea this was. The cave was solid rock, he wouldn't be able to break through it quickly enough to make a getaway...

But the dragon now ignored Boko completely, turning back to the dead cow. As he walked, Boko saw that he limped very, very badly. His left hind leg seemed almost locked in its position, unable to move unless the dragon wanted severe pain. He nosed at the cow, but it appeared that he had already eaten the parts Shiya had put spices into. After that, he left what was left alone for the time being, slowly lumbering to a pool of clear water in the back of the cave. He slurped thirstily for a long moment, then quietly laid down by the water, eyes closed, breathing heavily.

Boko looked down at the cow. It was horrible, he couldn't feed this to mommy, it had bitemarks in it and half of it was eaten. This made Boko mad. He stormed over to the snoozing dragon, prodding him in the side. "Hey! You have to catch me a new one!" He demanded. When he got no response, he used his claws to carry water, which he threw in the bigger dragon's face. "HEY!"

The large dragon growled and swiped at Boko with his claws, wincing as he moved. He growled angrily, resting his head on his paws again.

"Please, don't hurt him. Leave him alone."

A soft, wispy voice floated into the air as the water the dragon had drank from rippled. From out of the depths of the pool rose a perfectly-white, ghostly figure that looked like a human until she gently pulled herself up onto the rock, revealing the fact that she was a mermaid. Her dull, nearly-sightless gray eyes flicked to Boko before she pulled herself towards the old dragon, setting to gently stroking his scales.

Boko blinked in surprise, not sure if the mermaid-thing was telling him not to hurt the big one, or vice-versa. He assumed it was the former, and uttered, "I'm not hurting him, I want him to catch me a new cow! He stole mine." Ever brash and hardheaded, he pouted indignantly. He was the victim here, after all. It had been his cow, caught and spiced special for his mother.