This one might be one of my favorites! Maybe one day it’ll turn into something longer.
Kai tugged on her jeans and scooped her crumpled hoodie up off the floor.
The house was still asleep as she made her way down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front door.
The morning air washed over her face. Her black rubber boots leaned against the step and she slipped her feet into them, pulling her hoodie over her head as she stared hungrily at the view from the front steps.
These mountains—they still held her like a magic spell. Every time.
She took a deep breath and inhaled the cool mountain air, tipping her head back to look at the wide-open morning blue of the sky.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked off to her left.
Nathan. David and Darlene’s son. He hadn’t seemed thrilled when she’d first showed up, but he seemed a tiny bit less annoyed now that she’d stuck around for a month.
“Just taking in the view.”
“You’re always taking in the view.” He fell in step with her. “It’s like if you stop staring at it, it’ll go away.”
Kai shrugged. “They might. I didn’t have anything like this back home.”
“What really? No dragons back home?”
He was actually teasing her.
Read more: Denim & DragonsKai laughed, pulling herself up to the top railing and stared out onto the open prairie full of deep red, ebony, emerald green, bright sunshine yellow, gold, sapphire blue… dragons.
Kai had studied dragons in school and read every single book about them that she could get her hands on outside of her classes, but… There were so many more than even the books knew about.
She’d stumbled upon the very tiny blurb about the DND ranch needing help— “Email for more info” was all it had said. It was just one of those tiny signs. She loved the role-playing game, so it made sense to inquire when a ranch had the same letters. (It actually stood for David ’n Darlene.)
They had spent weeks emailing back and forth, asking about her, about her family, her hobbies, how old she was, her immediate aspirations (“just be outside and be around animals”) and her long-term ones (“See previous answer?” she’d asked with a nervous laugh). Finally, what felt like months later, David and Darelene’s faces crowded into the screen of her phone and told her what was really on their ranch.
Her mouth had dropped open. “Dragons!”
“I know…” Darlene had said, wringing her hands. “But we really like you. You seem like a good fit. And you studied them in school.”
“We’d pay for the trip out here,” David had said. “Come out for a weekend. See what you think.”
“It’s the best of both worlds! When can I come?”
And here she was, a permanent fixture.
Kai breathed in the smell of them. She had always loved barn smell and livestock smell. She hadn’t known dragons had their own smell.
“Or mountains. At least…none I feel like I could reach out and touch at any moment.”
“Wait until you see them from dragonback,” he said, joining her on the top railing.
Her eyes wide again. “Really?”
Nathan rolled his eyes but he was kinda smiling. “Not by yourself at first. The chores are helping with that—getting them used to you. But you’ll learn to ride ’em eventually.”
This story was written as part of the #flashfictionmagic story community on Instagram instigated by author Emily Barnett. You can follow the hashtag here for more stories.
You can find more flash fiction I’ve written over here in the Story Corner 🙂
Happy reading!
Mrs. Writer 
Loved it.. good start to a story. I, too, loved the smell of the mountains. Our’s had a smell I have never smelled since bring up there. (We called the aromatic plant, tar weed.) And, no dragons.. but loved being around the horses and their smell. Even th
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