Jay and Scorpio

>>> Jacob Matthews Swift was born in Daskron to parents Mike and Ruth Swift. He was born sick in the body, his tiny heart barely able to pump enough blood around his tiny body to keep him alive. Immediately after his first breath, he was rushed and locked in the infant ICU. It took him more than a month to come back out. Although he was then stronger, bigger, and ready to delve into the world, a large scar was left behind, both physically and mentally. His young eyes, upon seeing the light of the outside world for the first time in his short life, settled not on the sun, or on the face of his parents. The first sight he saw that was bathed in natural light was a large roundish shape, glowing with a brilliant blue shine underneath layers of dirt. That was when young Jacob's life truly changed. He reached his tiny hand out, grasping at the light, but it wasn't time yet. His time would come later.

>>> It was about six years before Jacob's eyes caught site of the brilliant colors again. He was a mere child, just truly beginning to understand the world around him, to grasp it with his light blue eyes and sculpt it into something his mind could grasp. It was a bright spring day, and his world was flecked with specks of mud resulting from the satisfying squelch of his sneakers in the fresh mud. Over and over again, he jogged around the small grassy area by the local park, currently empty of other children. He remembers that day being a very rare day- it was rare that his parents let him doing anything that could be described as strenuous. Although the doctors had warned his parents of the danger of too much activity on his weak heart, he always felt that they were taking it to the extreme, even when he was only six years old. He was compressed into their mold, forced to spend a life of caution instead of truly living. Jacob remembers eyeing the forest beyond the small part, wondering if he could run into it's dark warmth, and disappeared from his parent's constraining grip even for a short while. As he peered into the depths, he couldn't help but see something shining with a light like that of an exploding star. His eyes traced across the trees, until he could make out a form in the woods. It was brilliant, with scales like sapphire and eyes like pure ice. It was watching him, and Jacob couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, it was familiar to him. By the time he called his parents over, it was long since gone, filed away as nothing more than a childhood fantasy.

>>>He was thirteen when he finally saw the dragon once more. Many years had passed, and much about Jacob had changed as well. He was no longer the small quiet boy he had been at a young age, overshadowed by his parent's protective hands. Instead, he had grown into himself as a person and as an individual. No longer did he wait for mommy's a daddy's approval. If there was something he wanted to do, he did it. This change was accompanied by a more straight-forward identity change- Jacob, wishing to start a new life and attitude, started asking teachers and friends to call him Jay as opposed to his birth name, in an attempt to separate himself from his family. In school, he become less of a wallflower and more of a confident, if not cocky, teenager. He began to use humor and sarcasm as a mask, blocking himself from whatever bothered him. He spoke out more often, even to teachers and authority, and was known for getting in trouble. Though he was smart, he tended not to show it publicly. If anything, he was too confident in himself, to the point of near narcissism. This didn't stop one problem that he had experienced since he had began to meet and interact with his peers as a young child- the problem of bullying.

It began one particularly rough day as Jay walked home from the school he attended more or less daily. His backpack, heavy with books, hung over his shoulders and dug into his back, courtesy of a miss-placed textbook. He walked slowly, not very eager to reach his home, for fear of what was there. His parents had begun fighting again, he could hear the shouts from down the road. It took but a moment for their words to shatter any hope he had at a good day, and Jay lowered his head in defeat, a tear trickling down his cheek in a rare moment of weakness. Feet scraped the ground, so loudly that he didn't hear his attacker until the younger boy was on his back with a rude push to the shoulder. Jay wheeled around, wiping his cheek on his sleeve and standing upright. [b]"Did your parents kick you out again?" The larger boy asked Jay, not hiding the snobbery in his voice. "Did they realize what a failure you were? Or was it that ugly scar that finally made them give up on you?" He sneered, placing a hand on Jay's chest like the barrel of a loaded gun. It was true- Jay did have a long scar down his chest that poked just over a shirt collar, a constant reminder of his emergency as a baby. He looked up into the bully's eyes, then back at the ground again, unwilling to fight back. "Please, just leave me alone..." He begged, attempting a half step backwards. Seeing a moment of opportunity, the bully pressed his hand sharply against Jay's chest, and the boy slipped backwards onto his back, scraping up his hands as a attempted to catch himself. Face hot with embarrassment and hands stinging with blood, Jay watched his attacker walk away with no sense of regret in his step. It was then that Jay was able to meet his dragon personally.

From somewhere behind him, a brilliant blue shape leaped over Jay's head and landed smoothly and silently with it's back turned towards him, facing the bully who was walking off with a skip in his step. The creature, before Jay's wide and shocked eyes, gave the bully a sharp shove with it's muzzle and a roar like a jet engine. Jay swore he could see a trail of smoke, the bully moved so fast but never looked back. It was then that the creature turned back to Jay, who finally could see it's brilliant features. Brilliant blue scales accented a thin and shapely face with sharp accents. Long horned curved from it's head, over a sloping neck that head to a body tight with muscle but slim. Between the long neck and ever longer tail were two wings, wide as a house and as large as the sails of ships. In some ways, it was love that first sight- Jay saw in those ice cold eyes a look of caring and devotion unmatched by anything he had ever encountered before. The creature dipped it's head low with caution to Jay's lever and gave a small whine that that of a dog, and reached out with a long tongue to lick at Jay's hands, as if by doing so it could close the wounds that accented his soft skin. Jay looked into it's eyes, and it looked into his. And the two became best of friends, just like that.

>>>Though the dragon, who came to be known as Scorpio, had reached her full size, Jay still had a lot of growing left to do. For the next few years, Scorpio lived in the large valley a few miles from Jay's home where she could come and go to visit him on the evenings. They were truly best friends, constantly talking telepathically and taking walks or flights in the evenings. It was a simple life, but they were happy. Jay finished the his middle school and high school career, and moved out the second he turned eighteen. He moved across the country, away from his clean home in Pennsylvania for a small country house with horse stables and a single bedroom. There, he worked with horses by day and with his dragon by night. He took a job giving riding lessons and training new horses, though that was far from his favorite and main pass time. Whenever there was a problem in the town- a person who needed rescuing, or a fire in a nearby village, Jay and Scorpio were always close enough to help. Even if there was not much he could do, Jay made a point to attempt to lend a helping hand, whether it be help keeping a fire at bay by having his dragon flap her enormous wings, or leading a rescue team to a lost person by use of a small fire that could act as a search fire, there was always something they could do and keep out a of the way of authorities. They lived a happy life, keeping the brilliant dragons a secret from all, and conversed often. That all changed one day when Jay was awoken by his dragon, pacing excitedly and otherwise making a huge ruckus.

>>>It took Jay less than a minute to throw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie and walk out into the brisk morning air. "Is everything okay?" He asked, looking up at the large dragon swinging her tail back and forth as she paced like an angry cat. Jay knew better than to ignore his dragon's insticts, she had a habit of knowing what was going on long before he ever did. It appeared to him like this would be another 'mission morning' as he like the call them, the kind where Scorpio would find some baby cow to lead back to the herd and Jay would have to scrounge for breakfast at the local McDonald's.

Scorpio paused in her pacing, head perfectly still as if she was listening for some barely perceivable sound in the distance. Her voice came in Jay's mind, in the gentle yet firm voice he had come to associate with the brilliant blue creauture. "There is something happening down south of here. I don't know what, but I do know-" Her voice broke, in an unusual sign of weakness. "Something is happening."

The flight was a short one on Scorpio's spacey back. She was lean and aerodynamic, built for speed while flying. She touched down lightly, so gracefully it was like she had been training her entire life to make the perfect entrance to whatever she happened to be going to. Jay slipped off her back, his feet hitting the ground with a slightly less satisfying thud. "Be careful." Scorpio's voice spoke in his head. "Something is close. I can sense it." Nodding as an answer, Jay picked his way through the brush and to a lakeside, his dragon a small length behind. He could see it clearly now, a shape a quarter of the way around the water, the only living being he had seen that had even compared to Scorpio in terms of size. Pointing to the shape, flanked closely by another figure, Jay couldn't help but wonder out loud. "What," he asked, "is that?"