Oops(but words eyyy)

Birdy couldn’t cook for shit. He had four dragons and all four of them preferred home cooked meals rather than yucky raw food. Birdy was pretty sure that his dragons' old dead ancestors would be absolutely ashamed that these dragons would not eat as their ancestors did. Basking in the glory and feeling of hunting down your prey and eating it while it squirmed and squealed in their grasp. Birdy shuddered at the thought, that was kinda gross to think about. Natural for some dragons but not to Birdy or his dragons. Perhaps this was his fault to begin with, maybe he spoiled his dragons too much as babies? But that was when he would go out and buy food from towns and villages. Back when he had smaller mouths to feed. In some cases the mouths he feeds now are relatively small but then there was Azure. Birdy loved Azure, don’t get him wrong but he was such a large dragon compared to the others, meaning he ate more than the others. Some may say Azure was eating Birdy out of house and home. So Birdy was determined to learn how to cook. First step was getting an oven, second step was procuring the ingredients of what he was going to cook. So he had sent all four of his dragons out in search of something they would like to eat or just something edible period. He would remain home and figure out how to work the oven in the meantime.

Ram seemed to be the most reluctant to go, not feeling comfortable leaving his rider alone. After all it was his primary objective to keep Birdy socialized with other riders and what not instead of just his own dragons. “Go Ram. I’ll be fine.” The medium mad creature still didn’t look convinced but he left anyway. The second most reluctant was Doe. Doe wasn’t worried about leaving Birdy alone for a long period of time. No. Doe was worried about her napping spot going cold in the cave where she was currently laying. “Doe...” She curled in tighter, lifting one of her wings and stretching it out over her head in an attempt to pretend her feline rider wasn’t there. “Doe.” The pale cat's voice was sharper this time and with a large obnoxious sigh she moved her wing, opened her eyes and peered at her rider. “Yes?”

“It’s time. Go out and see what you can find to eat and I will cook it.” Birdy was sure Doe would have rolled her eyes if she wasn’t so tired. Why she was tired after sleeping all morning Birdy would never know. “Why do I have to go though? Can’t you just buy things from the town and we can eat that?” The medium bat faced creature yawned largely, showing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. “No. It’s too expensive to keep doing that now that you’re all fully grown.” Birdy saw that his dragon had half the mind to curl back up and go back to sleep and perhaps ignore him, so he quickly spoke again. “I suppose if you really don’t want to, you don’t have to.” Doe perked up, VICTORY! “You’ll just have to starve, I guess.” Ah…Not victory. The grey brown dragon jerked her head to look directly at him as if he had just hit her square in the face, “You. You wouldn’t do that…” Even though she tried to sound tough her voice sounded uncertain. “If you can’t contribute, why should I help you?”

With a grumble Doe stood from her warm spot on the cave floor and stretched. First she stretched into a downward dog like position, her wings unfolding and then shifted forward into what some might refer to as a cobra pose, and then finished with arching her back so strongly that an odd squeal-like sound came from her. The sign of a real good stretch Birdy supposed. She then shook herself out almost aggressively and with what might have been annoyance she padded from the cave muttering something unintelligible and quickly took off into the sky. Doe wasn’t usually like this, only when Birdy roused her from a rather nice sleep or dream or comfy spot. Usually she was quite pleasant, but today seemed to just be a bad day he supposed. Buck quickly walked over to a basket that sat near the entrance of the cave, moved it further out of the cave and pushed off into the sky, basket held firmly in his talons. He followed after his sister, as quick as he could considering the size difference between them. Azure was the last to leave, not because he didn’t want to but to make sure the smaller dragons went without too much fuss. He eyed his small handler carefully and Birdy reassured him that he would be absolutely FINE but Azure had to go as well and bring home something big to cook because Azure could not survive off of what small prey or amount of food the other smaller dragons may bring home. Azure left with little complaint. Azure never really complained and Birdy appreciated that. He set to work examining his new oven as he waited for the return of his dragons.

Buck caught up to his sister as she soared lazily in the sky. “What should we bring back? Meat? Plants?” Buck wasn’t picky, he’d eat anything if it tasted good, unless he had to fight for it, then it wasn’t worth it. “You can go pick plants or vegetables or something, I’ll find meat.” Buck nodded happily, splitting off from his sister so that she could hunt in peace. He was rather good at finding things and find things he did. When he met back up with his sister his basket was full of peppers, berries and herbs of some kind, Doe couldn’t quite place it. She on the other hand wasn’t as successful as she wanted to be. Clutched in her hands was a single regular sized rabbit, Buck assured her that it was a GREAT catch and she had rolled her eyes unable to talk with her mouth full of rabbit. They returned to the cave, basket of plant stuff and a single rabbit. Hopefully Ram or Azure were having better luck getting protein.

In Ram’s opinion his catch was fantastic! A rabbit, a bit bigger than Doe’s and to Ram that was amazing. Catching anything at all specifically was amazing. He quickly returned to the cave to show off his contribution. Last was Azure and to no surprise when he returned, he returned with an entire deer, a buck to be specific with impressive antlers. Birdy was a bit shocked. He shouldn’t have been, knowing the size of Azure meant he would have to return with big prey. By the time everyone was back Birdy had figured out how to work the oven. Probably. He pulled out a book of recipes he had bought recently and found a recipe for rabbit stew. He would start with breaking down all the animals brought to him and then he would start small by making rabbit stew and work his way up to cooking the deer and boy did he make the right choice, starting with the small prey.

He got his pots and pans out, organized the ingredients on well washed plates and began to read the recipe book. He was following the recipe relatively well, he thought. Browning the meat, adding water and herbs and all the other good things required. Then he stirred it well, put on a lid and put it carefully into the oven and then there was fire. Lots and LOTS of fire. He jumped back as the flames jolted out of the oven, all the fur on his body fluffed up in fear and quickly he turned his head and watched Buck flapping in fear, the little bat-like creature was flapping frantically and the fire was growing larger. Ram jumped back as well, wings up and ready to flee if it was truly necessary. Doe jolted upright into a sitting position, eyes wide with what might have been fright and Azure turned his head from where he was laying, eyes wide with shock. Birdy was having a hard time speaking as smoke began to flood the cave. So he thought about it quickly. “BUCK YOU NEED TO LAND AND STOP FLAPPING.” Through the panic Birdy could feel in Buck’s mind he felt the dragon hear him and then the bat-like dragon was landing worriedly and the fire stopped enlarging but it was still filling the cave with too much smoke. “EVERYONE OUT.” The dragons did NOT hesitate to listen and Birdy and all four of his dragons scrambled out of the cave.

What had he done wrong? He followed the instructions exactly, or so he thought. He looked concerned at the cave. Azure approached nudging his rider gently with his muzzle. “Practice makes perfect.” His tone was calm and Birdy felt himself relax a bit. Now they just had to figure out how to put the fire out so they could clear the cave of the smoke.