Dragon Stealers

[Seanzah Angel]

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Two seemingly normal children escape their orphanage and embark on a dangerous journey after stealing two dragon eggs...

 

[Seanzah Angel]

Austin

​

As soon as Austin heard the familiar sound of a rum bottle clashing against the stone floor in the room next door, he threw back his bed sheets and slipped on his shoes. Every night after midnight the orphanage caretaker would drink himself to sleep, leaving an open window of time large enough for the whole orphanage to escape if they wanted to. However instead of the couple hundred kids, it was just going to be two of them. Austin already had a game plan and a partner to execute it with – luck wasn’t even needed. It would be easy.


As a last minute thought he grabbed the leather rucksack under his bed and snuck his way past all of the other boys in the room. His bed was at the end of the hall, the furthest from the door. He was put there because he got into the most trouble, while the boys’ prefect was the closest end. The prefect who, like most of the other boys, hated Austin with a burning passion. Which was fine with him – he was leaving very soon anyway.


He memorized each and every creaky board, and memorized all of the boys’ sleeping patterns. He knew what they would do if they were about to wake up – yawn and scratch their eyes, twist their toes and shove their feet outside of their blanket, grumble like bridge trolls, or suck the slobber back into their mouth after realizing they were drooling the whole time. At each of these signs he would stop until he decided they were fast asleep once more. The challenge was the prefect because he was the lightest sleeper. Even the softest of sounds or the gentlest of movements would wake him up.


The last few boards were also the loudest, but there were boards next to them that were dead silent. He stepped on those – until he lost his balance.


His foot glided past his other and knocked his ankle which forced him to twist around and throw out his arms to regain his footing. His knee knocked against the prefect’s bed post. The prefect shot up in his bed to look out in the room, blinking several times as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Austin was already on the floor, using the end of the bed to hide himself.


The prefect scrambled out of his bed and all but stumbled to the other side of his bed to find nothing – Austin crawled to the long end opposite the rest of the room so he was jammed in between the wall and the bed, then slid underneath as quietly as possible.


He wasn’t seen.


And the prefect went back to bed, grumbling incoherently about naughty children and a leather whip.


After what seemed to be about half an hour, Austin crawled slowly and silently out from under his bed, making sure he didn’t touch anything other than the floor. Once free, he made a mad dash for the door, opening it quickly and shutting it just as fast. The door didn’t make any noise, but it wouldn’t matter if it did. He would be to the girls’ wing before the prefect could even get up from his bed again.


The young boy sprinted for the girls’ dorm and threw open the door, not worrying about the girls’ prefect. She was more or less in on the plan. She just didn’t know it was happening tonight. The girl jumped up from her bed in fright then pulled the bedsheets up closer to her as a reflex after seeing a boy in their hall.


However, Austin wasn’t interested in seeing what was underneath the blanket. He was just worried about getting his friend and making sure they got out within the next few minutes. She was in the middle of their room, sleeping soundly. Not for long.


He shook her violently by the shoulders as he leaned over her. His face was just inches from her so that when she awoke he could whisper, “Winnie! Let’s go! It’s time to get the hell out of here!”

 

[CloudyBlueDay]

Winnie was probably one of the deepest sleepers in the orphanage. Yes, even more then the big boys who were almost old enough to be kicked out. But deep sleep wasn't always the greatest thing. It got her a lot of punishments, that was for sure. Lots of hair pulling by the headmaster, yelling, no dinner, no lunch, no breakfast.. okay. Maybe it wasn't just the sleep that was getting her in trouble.


Sorry to tell you that Winnie wanted to have fun, sheesh. Not her fault the banister was so fun to slide down on. Not her fault she snuck outside at night just to roll around in the grass and climb trees and then possibly maybe trek dirt and mud and leaves inside. Not her fault she tried to hang on the chandelier. Just one time, okay? She still had the scar.


Sigh. This place was such a bore.


Winnie could only imagine what it would be like to have a family again, to have freedom, not stupid punishments every second for just making the grey world around them a little brighter. Everyday she dreamed of being free. Austin was one step closer to getting there. She finally had someone to confide in, someone who shared the same interests, someone who would listen and someone who would break the rules with her. With a little convincing, of course.


Back to deep sleep. Winnie snored more often then not, but it was a rare night and she was in fact sleeping quietly for a change. Her face was buried in the pillow, feet sticking out of the blankets that were much too small and much too thin. Her long, blonde hair, sprawled across the bed. Not a sleeping beauty.


"Winnie! Let’s go! It’s time to get the hell out of here!”


Winnie stirred, slowly sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "Mmf. Five more minutes," She said, half joking, half serious, as she pulled the covers off and climbed out of bed. Her backpack had been hidden under her bed. Winnie had already shoved the little clothing she had into it, the only step left was to get downstairs and raid the cupboards. She was still too asleep to really be excited or nervous for what they were going to do tonight, and she wobbled as she walked, nearly falling onto Austin. "Oof. Sorry. It's late." She whined. Austin knew Winnie was excited. It just took her a long time to wake up.

 

[Seanzah Angel]

Austin

​

In the heat of the moment, Austin nearly believed Winnie was being serious when she told him to wait for five more minutes. His face grew hot with temporary anger, but quickly subsided when he realized she was joking. “Come on,” he hissed impatiently, trying to be as quiet as possible but not really caring. “We don’t have time to lose!” He saw her stumble, and saw her catch her balance, but he wasn’t too worried about it at the moment. He waved at her to follow him, then ran out the way he came.

Austin raced down the next hall to the right of the boys’ rooms, which is where the caretaker was. He peered inside just to make sure he was still asleep. He was, but he was stirring. The copious amounts of alcohol he drank only put him to sleep for a couple hours, and they had already used up most of that time getting their things together. They had perhaps another half hour before the caretaker awoke completely and checked the rooms to make sure everyone was still in bed. If he found that there were children missing, he would sound the alarm and would start a search party.

That was definitely not wanted.

Austin glanced back to make sure Winnie was still following him before making a mad dash to the kitchens. They needed food. Good food that would last some time, but wouldn’t make them sick to their stomach. That meant they would have to grab the raw materials – none of the already mixed and cooked things. The cooks didn’t care what was thrown together, as long as it looked seemingly edible and didn’t smell entirely of refuse.

Bread, fruit, vegetables, and even some cooked meat would do. They would only be able to take as much as they could easily carry. Any more and they would be weighed down and easier to catch, which was also not very good.​

 

[CloudyBlueDay]

Winnie frowned, realizing how upset Austin was getting over this. "Alright, alright, sheesh." She muttered, brows furrowed as she slipped her shoes on, letting out a great big yawn before following Austin out of the girl's dormitories. Before she completely exited the place, Winnie took one, long look back. This was where she had spent the past three years of her life. So sorry if she wasn't prepared to fly out the door.


Letting out a sigh, she rushed up to him, looking around them. Winnie liked to take in everything. Sometimes she could be useful, with that big brain of hers, but often it seemed like it was put to waste. Believe it or not, Winnie was pretty smart. She liked numbers and maps and things like that. So while Austin hurriedly made his way to the kitchen, Winnie calculated.


"Around thirty minutes 'till headmaster wakes up. If we stay here three to two more minutes, we'll have 27 minutes to run in any direction away from here. We can go into the forest, deepest into town, although that's probably a bad idea, and since the every human jogs about 6 miles per hour, and we have half an hour, we could get maybe 3 miles out of here if we sprint. But I doubt we can sprint for that long." It almost sounded like a rant. She spoke quietly, but still at Winnie-level. Most of the info had come out of a book. She wasn't totally useless.


As he shoved ingredients from the fridge into his own backpack, Winnie did the same with the cupboards. The can-opener was the first thing she found, in one of the drawers, and she figured canned food would last them quite some time. She hummed to herself as she filled her backpack as much as it could carry.

 

[Seanzah Angel]

Perhaps Austin was being a little over dramatic about escaping. Maybe he was blowing it a little out of proportion, but he had been in the orphanage a long time. He was still learning how to speak properly when he was shoved through the front doors. He could barely read when the caretaker took him by the collar and shoved his greasy, alcohol drenched face in Austin’s to say, “you’re gonna love it here, m’boy. You’re gonna love it…” then proceeded to shove him on the floor before retreating back into his own quarters to down another bottle of rum.


So while he shoved things into his bag, he was thinking of all the freedom he would finally have after breaking out of the orphanage. He could finally do virtually anything he wanted without having a sloppy slobber-face in his own.


He could hear Winnie behind him, rambling on about their plan. He knew just how smart she could be – there was a lot of time in the orphanage to get to really know the people around you. Plus, he and Winnie were basically the best of friends. They were always around each other. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be devising a plan to escape together.


When finally his bag became full after placing a small bag of strawberries into his larger leather bag, he swiveled around to face his partner in crime. “Alright, we need to head out, now. We can just use the front entrance, as long as we make sure to close the door. Grease face is still out cold so I’m guessing only a really loud noise will wake him up. Are you ready?” He asked, moving to the door of the kitchen, positioning himself to begin running as soon as Winnie said.

 

[CloudyBlueDay]

"I'm ready~" Winnie chirped. "Don't worry, I'll close the door." Her eyes were big and sparkling; she was excited. Yes, Winnie might be easily excitable. But she was genuinely excited about getting the heck out of this place. Winnie's bag was filled so much, she had to yank on the latch to keep it closed. But that meant they'd be good on supplies, Winnie thought to herself as she tried to shove the contents of her bag deeper in. "Oh c'mon, close you darn thing." She muttered.


With a small nod to Austin, they made their way to the door. Austin went first, scouting ahead, and Winnie was in charge of closing the door behind her. But as easy of a job that was, she had to screw it up. A single can of beans fell out of her bag and onto the creaky floorboard in front of the door. A pale, panicked look appeared on Winnie's face. She quickly shut the door behind them. "Go!" She squeaked.


The can had made a lot of noise - just enough to have them lose a lot of time. They needed someplace to hide - some place where no one would ever look. They ran into town, frantically glancing around for a place to hide. "Austin," She tugged on his jacket sleeve. "What if we hide.." She glanced at the big scary building, fenced in with wire fence. The dragon slaughterhouse. Poachers would find dragon and dragon eggs if there were any, they'd be taken there. More often then not they were allowed to hatch into young adult dragons so they could be harvested for their fireproof leather, teeth, and horns.


"No one will look in there for us.." She was quiet, unsure. Almost scared.

 

[Seanzah Angel]

Austin waited impatiently for Winnie to hurry up and close the door. It was getting to be so close to the time the Warden would wake up to do rounds that just thinking about the time made his heart beat quicken and his breathing become short and labored. She had closed the door, but before she did a can of beans fell out of her overloaded bag, causing a very alarming noise.


He could almost feel the warden jumping up from his chair, shaking his head to rid the after effects of his alcohol induced slumber. His feelings were confirmed when he heard a door slam and saw a light flicker on through one of the windows. The door was closed so it might have taken him some time to figure out that two of them had already left but there was no point in wasting time seeing how long it would take him to figure it out.


As they ran into town, Winnie brought up the idea of hiding. While they might have been fine just inside the protective walls of the town, it definitely didn't hurt to hide for a while. His friend pointed at the Dragon slaughter house and his heart jumped into his throat. He gulped it down and looked at her, fear plainly lit up in his eyes. But she was right. No one would look for them in there. He nodded his head quickly and made for the large, ominous building protected by a perimeter of wired fencing and dark stories about the things that go on inside of the slaughter house.


The gate to the fence wasn't even latched. It was cracked open, almost inviting them in a sinister way to come in... probably to their deaths. But even death was better than going back to that orphanage - especially with the amount of trouble they would be in for attempting to escape.


When they were both inside of the fenced off area, he closed the gate and latched it before making way towards the actual building. He opened it slowly, the door creaking and wailing loudly in protest. He cringed at the sound but went inside anyway, motioning for Winnie to follow. When the two of them were finally enshrouded by the safety of the shadows and the terrifying atmosphere that the Dragon slaughter house gave off, he relaxed a little. "We should probably go to a place with no windows." He offered, looking around to find a small room with a wooden door ajar. "In there." He pointed to the room and began to walk for it, knowing it would provide a higher level of safety than being out in the open.