46. Pierre the Protector
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(Continued from our last post…)
Over the next year, life for the Hauteur brothers changed drastically. Arguments between their parents happened more frequently and increased in intensity each time. Mrs. Hauteur remained faithful to her husband and her sons.
To Pierre Jr., his parents were everything he aspired to be. His father embodied the strength of a fierce warrior dragon. Towering above most of the residents in Scalesville, Pierre Sr.’s presence demanded respect through intimidation. Although not the most attractive dragon, on rare occasions his deep gray and black iridescent scales reflected the spectrum of light and transformed his usual rough, callous exterior. When this happened, a rainbow glow illuminatedfrom his body and if it weren’t for the contemptuous scowl that rested on his face, you'd swear there could be something beautiful inside him. Nevertheless, he wasn't a dragon to concern himself with the frills of beauty. His black-and-white appearance matched his personality.
Mrs. Hauteur, or Rose as her PTO friends called her, was a rather large female dragon herself. Her strong and vibrant personality matched the intensity of her husband's rigidity, balancing his intensity with feminine poise, kindness, and grace. Her body was covered with satiny, sandy-brown scales. Her sandy-brown scales shimmered across her back, tail, arms, and legs. Her wings glowed with a sunlit golden translucence. Her caramel-colored mane flowed like silk down the length of her slender neck. Only her family was allowed to witness her hair in this relaxed state, as she kept it tightly fixed in a bun between her horns while she was in town. Pierre favored his mother in appearance.
Pierre's parents were once a power couple and the pride of Scalesville, but once it became public knowledge that Hauteur Print and Label Co. had shut its doors for good, gossip spread like wildfire through the West End, and with it came humiliation.
Pierre found his mother smiling more than usual, but unlike before, he could sense a darkness behind her eyes. On nights after they argued and once his brothers drifted to sleep, Pierre would sneak downstairs to find his mother softly combing her mane and crying quiet tears. Sometimes, he noticed a bruise, a cut, or the faint scorch of a burn she tried to hide beneath her scales.
He didn’t understand why things had turned this way, only that it hadn’t been like this when his father had the business.
At school, he was ridiculed mercilessly by other reptiles who would once do anything to sit in his lunch group. They called him a loser and his dad a psycho, and blamed his family for their own parents’ job losses. Life was not the same. Pierre was stuck between a boulder and a hard place.
He defended his parents to his peers and kept a watchful eye on his mother while he worried about his father, who would sporadically fall into deep spells of long hibernation without reason. He felt ashamed to admit that their home was more peaceful during these times.
Pierre missed the luxuries he once took for granted. He missed the feeling of belonging. He’d always believed that his family was unbreakable. Now, that world was unraveling around him, leaving the young dragon realigning himself and clinging tightly to the remnants of the strings that held them together.
To be continued… New dragon story installments each Friday. Subscribe below to follow the dragons. Read the beginning of it all at Blog 1: New Adventure Awaits.
