dragons r us

If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be? Describe the pet and how you would take care of it.

I’d like to have a dragon. It would be an iridescent shimmering green shot through with purples, yellows, reds and oranges. Every Time the dragon moved the colors of his scales would change and vibrate. The dragon would be a he and I would name him Reagor because that sounds like a kingly dragony sort of name.

I would get Reagor as an egg and hatch him myself by keeping the egg in a basket wrapped in cashmere blankets to keep the egg soft and warm. I would carry the basket with me wherever I went keeping it safe and allowing him to bond with me before he hatched.

Then one day, Reagor would start cracking the shell of his egg. It would take several hours for him to get out of his egg and I would have to spend the whole time with him, cooing at him to encourage him to keep going because no baby really wants to leave its womb and he’s not very strong yet. But Reagor follows the sound of my voice and comes out into the light. I have to be careful to keep him out of the sunshine yet because he is born with his eyes open and the light would hurt his delicate eyes.

He would have little bits of damp feathers on his skin which will fall off as he grows older and his scales come in. While he is young, he will stay in my backyard where he can climb trees (he can’t fly yet) and chase squirrels through the tree branches and mice through the underbrush of the bamboo stalks. I will fed him rare meats like whole chickens and fresh caught fish that friends who go fishing will bring me and hunks of beef roasts. Reagor doesn’t each vegetables but he does like the occasional fruit like whole pineapples and watermelons.

I live down the street from a big river and a county park so as Reagor gets older he will go hunting over the water and get his own fish and he can go in the park hunting for geese and groundhogs. Not skunks, though. They would give him indigestion and bad breath.

He would learn to fly by jumping from branch to branch hunting squirrels. He would stretch his wings and glide to the next tree. Then he would spot the birds around him and find them more challenging than the squirrels and would he to copy their flight trying to catch the birds. Before you know it, he would be soaring in the air flapping great leathery wings. Once he is grown which would take about eight months he would be two stories tall when sitting on his back legs. His tail would be nine feet long. At this point, I would have to drain the pool so Reagor could curl into it and sleep with his chin resting on the grass verge along the pool edge. Reagor is normally very quiet except when he thinks I am in danger. Then he roars in warning. If not heeded he gobbles up anyone who threatens me.

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