Dawn of the Last Dragon Rider - Chapter 006 - Training a Dragon

Hungry!  I’m hungry!

Kaen slowly opened his eyes and saw Pammon staring at his face.  He jerked back a second, glad it had not all been a dream.  When he had finally laid down for the night, he passed out immediately.

“Morning, Pammon!” Kaen groaned as he yawned.  He reached out and rubbed the ridge of Pammon’s head and was rewarded with a small trill.

Hungry! Pammon crooned and started to shriek a little.

“Give me a second!” Kaen exclaimed as he rolled out of bed and looked for his pants.  The pair he had worn yesterday was on the floor, but he could smell them from his bed.  He dug through the chest at the end of his bed until he found another pair of leather britches.  He pulled them up and, as he started to tie off the middle, noticed that Pammon was starting to act funny in the corner of his small room.

“Don’t you dare!” Kaen shouted as he saw his dragon start to hunch his backside.

Pammon turned and looked at him; for a moment, it looked like the dragon was glaring at him.

“Outside!” Kaen ordered as he ran over, grabbed Pammon’s neck, and pulled him toward the door.  Pammon fought for a minute, screeching at Kaen as the two of them wrestled in his tiny room.  Pammon finally gave in to Kaen’s tugging and let himself be pulled out the door and toward the back of the house.

Kaen never let go of the ridge he held onto Pammon’s neck with, glad the dragon had stopped fighting him.  He knew he could not have won that fight.

“Just a few more feet and you can go outside!”

Pammon let out some weird sound that sounded almost like a sigh, but Kaen was more focused on opening the back door than what Pammon was trying to tell him.

As the door swung open, Kaen realized the sun was barely up.  He had not slept that long, but he felt amazing.  Once the door was opened, Pammon darted past Kaen and found himself a spot about ten feet past the porch and proceeded to relieve himself.

Kaen stood there, amazed at what he was watching.  The fact that the dragon was real and he could hear it in his mind, combined with the fact it was REAL, was still overwhelming him.  He could feel where Pammon was.  Closing his eyes, he felt his dragon watching him.  His dragon. It was an eerie feeling.

Kaen suddenly felt the need to puke when the smell wafted over to where he was standing from what Pammon had just completed.

“Oh my gosh, that smells awful!” Kaen declared as he pinched his nose.  “We need to bury that!”

Pammon shrieked at Kaen and flicked his head around the yard.  He spotted a few chickens roaming the area and took off towards them.  With his wings tucked close to his body, the way he ran was amusing.  Almost, except for the fact a dragon was running after chickens in the country, not far from town.

Squaks and feathers erupted as the chickens darted and dodged to stay away from the snapping mouth of Pammon.  He shrieked and roared or attempted to roar as he chased after them.  When the chickens suddenly changed directions, Pammon tried to turn also and lost his balance, tumbling and fumbling on the ground till he regained his footing.

“Pammon, stop!” Kaen shouted as he ran after the dragon in his bare feet.

Had anyone been walking along this morning and seen the event unfolding on Hess’s farm, everyone in town would have believed them drunk as they described it.

Topless and barefoot, a teen boy chased a small bronze dragon who waddled more than he ran after a chicken trying to escape certain death.

After about a minute, Kaen caught up and grabbed Pammon’s tail and dug his feet into the ground, cursing at the rocks and sticks that were being thrust against his bare feet.

Kaen growled in frustration for a moment before he remembered what Hess had told him last night about dealing with his dragon.

“PAMMON STOP!” he ordered.  He fixed his whole mind on that command and was adamant that Pammon stop. Immediately, Pammon slid to a stop as fast as he could, causing Kaen to fall over him face-first.

Pammon huffed and glanced back at the chicken that was squawking and running off, claiming victory over a dragon, before turning his gaze back to Kaen.

Hungry! Need food! Pammon whined in a small screech.

Kaen let out a huge sigh and climbed up off the ground.  He looked at his pants and saw all the dirt and junk on them from the tumble he had taken.  Perhaps Hess had been right, a dragon was not going to be easy to train at all.

“I know you are hungry,” Kaen stated with a sigh.  “Let me get some clothes and shoes on, and I can help get you food.  It is too dangerous for you to be running around out here.  Now back inside the house!”

Kaen stood there, pointing at the back door.  Pammon glanced at the door and then back at the chicken, which was standing a bit away, eyeing the two of them.  The chicken let out a few squawks and bobbed its head, almost as if it was taunting Pammon.  Pammon let out a blast of air from his throat and started to waddle toward the house, dragging his tail along the ground.

“What did I get myself into?” Kaen muttered.

When they got near the house, Kaen saw Hess standing by the side of the house, watching them.

“How long have you been there?”

Hess came out from around the corner with tears running down his face.

“Oh, Kaen, you have no idea how funny that was,” Hess stated as he wiped away his tears.  “The great dragon chasing a chicken and a boy chasing a dragon.”

Kaen lifted his middle finger at Hess and scowled.

“You could have helped!”

Hess shook his head and pulled a bag out from the edge of the house.

“I did help,” Hess replied, tossing the bag at Kaen’s feet.  “Give these to your dragon, and then we need to get inside and talk.  This week is going to be a long one.”

As Hess walked past Pammon, the dragon sniffed his hand and trilled.  He then gazed at the bag that Hess had tossed near Kaen and started to whine.

Eat! Food!

Kaen picked up the bag and looked inside.  There were four rabbits inside.  When had Hess gone hunting?

Kaen pulled out one of the rabbits and held it out toward Pammon.

The dragon started to wag its whole body from excitement and opened its mouth, letting out a trill.

Eat!  Eat!

“I know, I know,” muttered Kaen.  “Now sit still, and I will give you one but not until you sit.”

Pammon groaned and whined.  After a few more seconds of waddling back and forth between its back two feet, he sat down on his haunches and stared at Kaen.

“Good job, Pammon,” Kaen praised his dragon and tossed the rabbit toward him.

Pammon leaped forward, caught the rabbit mid-air, and swallowed it whole.

Kaen repeated the process three more times.  Each time he made Pammon sit before feeding him.

After Pammon had eaten, Kaen returned to the back door of Hess’s house and led Pammon inside.  Without waiting for instructions, Pammon moved to a spot in front of the fire. Hess had gotten started and laid down on the wooden floor.

Hess appeared from the small area he kept food stored in and put a few slices of dried meat on the table and a few over-ripe pieces of fruit.

“I’d offer bread, but I have none, and I doubt those chickens are going to lay any eggs for a few days also.”

Kaen sat down with a thud on his chair and let out a sigh.

“You warned me last night, but I was unprepared for that.”

Hess laughed and went back once more into the food closet.  He came out a minute later and put a small pack on the table.

“That is dinner for tonight.  I expect you to cook it and have it ready when I get home.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

Hess sat in his chair and motioned to the dragon dozing on the floor behind him.

“You are going to have to train him.  If you let him sleep all day, he will be up all night.  You need to hunt, so you must go while he is sleeping.  You will only have a few hours to make sure he does not wake up and tear this place apart.”

Hess leaned forward, tapped the table with his massive finger, and then pointed at Kaen.

“You best make sure he does not use this house as a crapper.  If he does, you will find yourself and that dragon sleeping outside for a long time to come.”

Kaen gulped and nodded.  He could not imagine that ball of crap Pammon had dropped in the yard being deposited in here.  It smelled horrible outside.

“Remember, you need to force your will on him.  Just like you did when you made him stop chasing that chicken. If it helps, remember all those times you knew I was serious about the instructions I had given you.  You do not want the consequences for not obeying.”

“How long will we be stuck in the house?”

Hess rubbed his chin for a moment as he thought.

“If things go well, it will be a week.”

“A week!” exclaimed Kaen. “How will I stay away from work and my friends for a week?!”

Hess waved off that question and picked up a piece of meat.  His fat fingers deftly rolled it into a tube, and he took a bite from it.

“I’ll tell them you are sick, and then in a few days, you have a rash, so they need to stay away in case it is contagious,” Hess replied between bites.  “I’ll tell them I have seen something like this before in my travels, and you just need a week to recover.  They won’t bother you, and most will stay clear after I embellish the story a little bit.”

Kaen chuckled, took a piece of meat, and started rolling it up too.

“I will work on everything you told me to last night.  Any other tips?”

Hess smiled and finished the piece he had in his hand before grabbing the over-ripe apple from the table.

“Do not give in to his cries.  He will try to get you to relent and let him do what he wants.  You cannot do that.  If you give in now, it will be a fight for years to come.”

Kaen nodded he understood.  Last night Hess had spent quite some time explaining the few things he knew about dragons.  He could still not believe his dad and Hess had met a dragon rider while working for the adventurers guild.

Hess stood up and entered his room to prepare for the day.

“Tell your dragon to go sleep in your room.  Then let him know you will go hunting, and he must stay in your room!” Hess shouted across the house.  “Your wasting time sitting at that table!”

Kaen knew Hess was right and quickly grabbed the last slice of meat on the table and wolfed it down.

“Come on, Pammon, it is time to move to our room.”

Pammon lifted an eyelid, then closed it, and turned his face away from Kaen with a grunt.

Kaen bent down and scratched Pammon’s skull, soliciting a soft trill from him.

“If you don’t move to the room now, I will not scratch you the rest of the day,” Kaen announced and stopped scratching Pammon.

Pammon groaned when Kaen stopped.

Kaen stood up and pointed to the room.

“Move now, or I will drag you by your tail.”

Pammon sighed like a child that was not happy and slowly stood up on all four paws.  He snorted at Kaen and waddled into the room he and Kaen were now sharing.  When he got just inside the doorway, he plopped down and curled up.

Kaen walked over, bent down, and scratched the top of Pammon’s head with one hand and his spine with his other.

Pammon trilled loudly as Kaen praised him for moving to their room.

“Ok.  Stay here.  I need to go hunt so you can eat later.  Do you understand?”

Pammon said nothing but just glanced up at Kaen.

“Pammon, tell me you understand.  Stay here,” Kaen ordered as he pointed to where Pammon was lying.

I stay.  I tired.

Kaen laughed and nodded.

He hoped that Pammon would obey, but he knew Hess was right.  He needed to hurry up and finish getting dressed so he could go find Pammon some more food.

As Kaen was about to leave the house, Hess called out for Kaen to stop.

“We need to talk about one more thing before you go.”

Kaen turned and looked at Hess as he finished attaching the quiver to his hip.

“What is it?”

Hess sighed, pulled his shirt down, and tapped the spot where his life stone had been inserted.

“I need you to check and tell me all of your stats.”

Kaen’s eyes went wide.  No one was ever to ask someone for that kind of information.  It was too private.

“Why would you ask that?”

Hess pointed to the side of the house where Pammon was sleeping.

“He is going to change yours completely.”