[Gift] The 11th Hour | Bees

The mesa rose from the desert like the broken remains of some ancient giant, its steep sandstone walls glowing deep red beneath the afternoon sun. Layers of rock stacked upon one another in bands of rust and orange, each line marking centuries carved slowly by wind and rain. From a distance, the flat summit looked calm and almost smooth, but closer inspection revealed jagged cliffs, cracked ledges, and narrow paths worn into the stone by time, lots of time. The air was dry enough to sting the throat. Loose pebbles shifted underfoot with sharp crunches, while gusts of wind swept grains of sand across the stone in whispering trails. Sparse vegetation clung stubbornly to life around the mesa’s base.

She was going to kill him. They’d ask ‘Where’s Grimsby?’ and there would be no answer because he would be buried 1000 feet deep in the hard red dirt she currently trod upon. Her entire body seemed to twitch at the other dragon’s approach. Grimsby glided low over the dry, hard land, his bright green-and-blue wings humming loudly. “Bzzzzzzzz.” Was that growling? No… Buzzing?

Sera’s tail twitched sharply as she marched through the red clay clearing below him. The stocky brown dragoness already looked irritated, although to be fair she usually looked irritated, always angry and Grimsby was making it worse. Grimsby always made it worse. Sera was unsure why her rider bothered hanging out with the pale dragon’s rider. If she was her rider and the rider she was hanging out with had a dragon that bothered her own dragon, this much, she'd avoid that rider. “BZZZZZZZZZZ.”

“For the love of-, STOP THAT!” Sera snapped, her poison barbed tail curled up in a rather threatening position. Grimsby landed beside her with a crooked grin, or what Sera assumed was a grin, his mechanical joints clicking softly. He spoke no words but even silent, it was clear he was still getting on the ceratopsian dragon’s nerves. “You sound like a hive trapped in a barrel.”

“Yes.” he said proudly before buzzing louder directly beside her head. It was even worse the closer he was to her. Sera growled low in her throat. Her stinger adorned tail curling and uncurling, just one bad decision away from striking the stupid dragon next to her. “One more buzz and I’m throwing you into the river.” Grimsby, perhaps not taking her seriously, or perhaps not caring, continued on. “Bzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz!” A visible vein near Sera’s eye twitched and Grimsby spotted it, he had to have.

In an instant her tail struck, perhaps she had meant to perhaps she hadn’t but she moved quicker than most could keep up with but she struck open air. Grimsby had taken to the air, moments before she struck. Lucky him. He buzzed loudly again, hovering in the air above her and she sighed, the already crumbly ground beneath her feet seemed to crumble further, as if sensing her bubbling anger. Before she could retaliate again, the pale dragon flew higher yet again, and again, until he was but a tiny dot in the sky. A smart choice for once, she supposed.