MISCELLANEOUS WRITING A dinosaur story snippet, by Red Thunder

Red Thunder

A Warrior in a Garden
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per week
  2. One post per week
  3. Slow As Molasses
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
  3. Prestige
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
  3. Primarily Prefer Male
Genres
Fantasy, SciFi, Modern, Magical
Someone had shared a bunch of drawings with this aesthetic on Facebook, and I got inspired. It's nothing more than that. Enjoy!

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They called them dragons, once, long time ago. They were the stuff of legends: supernatural creatures that leveled villages and kidnapped princesses. Their footsteps shook the earth, leaving gaping pits of hellfire to spring up and scorch the land. Talons like steel picks tore castle stone, carving it like butter, til the golden guts of the king's hoard was free for the taking. It was a feat of rare, extraordinary skill to kill one in combat, and those that did- well, their countrymen revered them as God's own saints.

Such an accomplishment was this seen, that entire companies of men, and even sometimes armies, would ride out to find a dragon, and to meet it in battle. To kill it and win glory. Myth says they did it, too, and history's full of legendary knights and their companies who bravely destroyed those menaces to their societies. Hell, modern examination holds that up: you won't find a single creature bigger than a deer living in the old country.

But you will find them in the West.

America got fortunate, by way of its late exploration. The natives had more or less lived in balance with the local dragons, and when the white man arrived, he was smart enough to not completely disregard the old ways of the red man. That's not say that the European migration was peaceful or bloodless; many of the immigrants carried with them the traditions of their kin, and that included dragon hunting. And hunting them what protected them. But in time, the white man settled the North American continent and began pushing west, toward the vast plains, rolling hills, arid deserts, and towering forests in which these dragons made their homes. Course, in today's lingo, the naturalists have gotten involved, and they've put a scientific name to them as they have all things. Now, we call them dinosaurs, and they are so tightly bound to our westward expansion that it could damn well be said that it'd never have happened without them.

The European dinosaurs of long ago were hunted to death. Now we in the American West seek to right that wrong through their care and husbandry, taming them as we tame the west.