Tolstae

Tolstae

“I’m not sure I want to do this. I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry. We have officers stationed at every entrance to the cavern. At the first sign of danger, we’ll come in and snatch him. You’re safe.”

The young Tundra nodded, more to reassure himself than to answer the officer speaking into his earpiece. After making sure that the microphone was fully hidden beneath his scarf, he knocked on the door.

There was a moment of silence before the door creaked open slowly, and suddenly the Imperial stood before him. The Tundra’s mouth fell open silently as his mind went completely blank.

“Hello, little hatchling,” the Imperial grinned.

Despite being faced by several rows of sharp teeth, the Tundr felt some indignation rising above his fear. “I’m five days old,” he informed the Imperial, trying to suppress the twitching of his tail.

There was a horrible moment where the younger dragon feared receiving a swipe from those sharp claws, but the Imperial simply nodded. “Of course, you’re almost an adult. You’re so mature. Would you like to come in?”

NO! screamed the Tundra’s mind. Every cell in his body wanted him to turn tail and flee. But he had a duty to fulfill, and his hidden camera couldn’t get photos of the sub-cavern from out here. “Yes, please.”

The Imperial led the Tundra inside and offered him some juice, which the Tundra declined. The older and much larger dragon asked several of the questions that adult dragons usually asked hatchlings, such as how he was liking school, which subject he liked the most, and what he liked to do in his free time. The Tundra answered the questions warily, secretly wondering why the Imperial was stalling. There were three other suspects linked to the disappearing hatchlings, but the terrifying aura this dragon exuded made the Tundra almost certain that he was the culprit.

“Do you want to look around?” the Imperial finally asked after about half an hour, and the Tundra accepted, feeling his heart jolt with fear. Despite the officers’ reassurances, the Tundra was afraid that they wouldn’t make it inside in time and that he would become another disappearance. However, if he didn’t do this, he wouldn’t have this step to help him up later in police academy. With this in mind, the hatchling swallowed his fear and followed the Imperial around his cavern.

The cavern seemed enormous to the Tundra, though to the Imperial it must have felt quite small. There was a lovely rug on the floor, made from several animal hides, and the table and chairs that the pair had been sitting at moments before seemed to be made from all sorts of things: bones, metal, hair— everything except wood, which was usually avoided in Plague clans like this.

“This is my secret cavern,” the Imperial announced, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

The Tundra nodded, and his earpiece murmured, “The mic and cameras are working fine. Go ahead.”

With a sinister grin, the Imperial opened the door.

The Tundra gasped, and he could hear several similar sounds of confusion through his earpiece.

“Do you like it?” asked the Imperial, flouncing into the room with pride and picking up one of the several model trains from the table. “I’ve spent hours working on this. Come on in!”

Still cautious, the Tundra padded into the room and approached the table. It was so large that at least four hatchlings of his size could sleep comfortably on it— that is, if there wasn’t an entire planet on the darn thing. There was a forest, a desert, an ocean, a tundra, and several other biomes. Everything in the ecosystems was real, from the treetops to the desert sands, except for the snow, which seemed to be made from wool or cotton. Many small bugs crawled around the table, stopped only by the slippery six-inch glass shield that bordered the small world.

And then there were the trains. Tracks wove through the sand and dirt, and upon them sat many different trains of different colors and shapes. Bugs crawled in and out of the cars, picking up small food pellets and carrying them away or eating them right there in the train.

“Can… can they move?” the Tundra finally asked.

“Some of the older trains have little engines in them,” the Imperial replied, sounding genuinely thrilled that the younger dragon was taking an interest in his hobby. “I used to let them run all the time, but then Carl’s shell was chipped by a train’s cattle guard, so I just don’t run them anymore. I don’t want my buddies to get hurt.

“Who’s Carl?”

The Imperial was already hovering his claws over the table, searching for “Carl.” After a moment, he let out a single “Aha!” and reached into the forest, pulling out a small hermit crab. “He was hiding in the trees,” the Imperial laughed as the creature scuttled across his claw. “He’s had two or three new shells since then accident, but…”

The Imperial’s voice trailed off as he gently set the hermit crab next to the pond in the forest. He then turned to a table against the back wall of the cavern, upon which lay tools, blocks of clay, and three trains in various states of construction, and a row of shells displayed in order from smallest to largest. “Here it is,” he announced, picking up a shell and turning it so that the Tundra could see the small spot of damage. “He didn’t really get hurt, but it scared me, so I don’t let the trains run anymore.”

“I understand,” the Tundra replied. “It seems like you really care about your buddies here. Did you paint those shells yourself?”

“I did,” the Imperial replied bashfully. “I usually paint two of each size and let Carl pick which one he wants to wear.”

“They’re really pretty,” the Tundra murmured as he peered at the shells lined up on the table.

The Imperial grinned, and the hatchling suddenly realized that his smile had never been sinister. He was just a bit scary if you didn’t know him.

From @Ivery
Lore/Layout by @Bibbit