She saw the corpse of the huge beast before she'd even touched down. Proud, even in death, her scales glinted in the failing sunlight. Stepping closer, she saw something that made her heart sink.

Egg shell, crushed underfoot.

Gingerly, she picked up a piece of the fragile shell and examined it. To her joy, itl was dry - no yolk, no sad corpses of unborn dragonets to be found.

Sadly, she closed the huge mother dragons' jewel-like eyes for the last time and left. They had to be around somewhere. A nagging voice reminded her that dragonets commanded a great price on the black market, but she chose to ignore it; she had to be sure.

Taking to the sky once more, she cursed the dragon slayers. They came for excitement and for glory, without realising the damage they did. She strained her eyes looking for tiny, iridescent bodies in the failing light, hoping against all hope that at least one had escaped.

Movement. Could it really be the flutter of tiny wings? With her heart in her mouth, she landed as quietly as she could. Slowly she crept towards the base of a gnarled, old tree. To her delight, three small bodies huddled together, their wings wrapped around each other in comfort. In her joy, she quickened her pace, starting two of the little dragonets into the branches of the tree, whilst one remained huddled at its base.

"Oh, little ones... little ones... I had dreaded the worst! Come here... there is nothing to fear... I am here to help you".

The dragonets regarder her owlishly as she extended her hands to them. She smelt... right. To her delight, the smallest fluttered down and regarded her warily. She crouched, allowing him to assess her on his own terms. He then cocked his head at her curiously and hopped onto her knee. Smiling, she looked above her head; his sister had decided to make use of the lowest branch, and was regarding her with interest. The only one who remained wary was, ironically, the largest of the three. She outstretched her hand to him, offering him a welcoming, encouraging smile. Still he cowered back from her, the events of the day still obviously fresh in his mind.

With a smile, she whispered.

"Do not worry, little one. You are safe now. I will not hurt you."


Blargh.

I screwed this one up. This has not turned out the way I wanted it to! I wish I had the time to paint it digitally, then I could fix the horrid anatomical errors and actually put some bloody detail into those poor dragonets. Such is the short comings of coloured pencil when you are limited to an A4 scanner...

Saying that, this took me longer than I thought it was going to - about 15 hours over 3 days.

Still.. those dragon slayers never think about the poor baby dragons left behind, do they? So this is what I like to think happens to them - that there is a dedicated race of people (who or what they are is kind of up to you...) who looks after them and makes sure they're okay. Either that, or she's some kind of dragon Angel... but that means the dragonets are dead, and that makes me sad! So I decided that she's a guardian.

Concept sketch [link]

Coloured pencils.

Please full view