His wings thudded out a steady drone in the air, disrupting the occasional low-flying wisp of cloud. Just above him was the 'floor' of the thunderheads, flying just below the cloud cover so he could see, and still go unnoticed. No one focused on a storm, and certainly not a bit of white in a cloud. It gave him camouflage to watch his lands, with. He could smell the rain that was coming.
Eliesmier was waiting for his next sacrifice, circling above the ailing city that called itself Dragonswatch. They were at the foot of his mountain, in the middle of the closest field, numbering to be well over ten thousand in population. It was a sprawling city that sat in the middle of a dozen trade routes- all linking up at the base of his mountain. The city was prosperous, and it usually produced an extravagant amount of grain and game. Except, they hadn't sacrificed anyone in the past hundred years.
And Eliesmier needed those sacrifices.
So he shifted the ley lines. Normally, the ley lines that met at his mountain sat unusually close to the surface, which was why Dragonswatch was so prosperous in its surrounding area. People were so much healthier and everything grew so much better. Now, they were deep underground, too deep for the once-thriving land to keep its luster.
But now, there was someone running. To be specific, someone was moving on the small, open road towards his mountain- the road that sacrifices normally went down.
The process of accepting a sacrifice was surprisingly easy, given that no dragon ever found out about it. Should his flame take the life of someone willingly letting it, willingly giving their life to him with such an intent, regardless of reason, he will absorb the lifeforce and grow in strength. This usually required a face-to-face meeting, beforehand, for him to at least calm whoever it was that was being sacrificed, so that their lifeforce would give him even more strength- a panicked soul could be a defensive one, after all.
He nearly folded his wings all the way, and abruptly dove.
The rush of the wind, of the lightning cracking behind and around him, of the thunder shuddering the very air, it was an exhilarating thrill that he reveled in every time he flew during a storm. He momentarily forgot about his quarry, closing his eyes and the air streamed around him. Just as abruptly as his dive, however, he remembered his purpose and snapped his wings open.
Suddenly yanked back from his streaking descent, he steadied his wings and shook off the dull throbbing that now tore into his wing joints, from his sudden deceleration. Either way, he was low enough to make out the person riding on a horse, towards his mountain. He suspected that the little hominid might hear him, being only two tree-lengths above the ground, but it didn't matter; the figure was too far away from any substantial cover for them to decide otherwise.
Flapping a couple times to correct his course, he aligned himself parallel with the road and the rider's path, and then began gliding down towards them, gently closing in. As he closed the distance to only a single tree-length above the ground, maybe three tree-lengths away from his sacrifice, he beat his wings, accelerating, speeding up his pace a little.
In seconds, he closed the distance with the galloping horse, and his foreleg claws reached down, closing around the rider and tearing them from the top of their horse. He took care, though- tight enough of a grip to be inescapable, but gentle enough to not pop the little hominid like a stepped-on watermelon.
Nearly simultaneously, he reached out with his back legs and grabbed ahold of the horse, expecting to maybe roast it for dinner. Either way, Eliesmier would be having both a sacrifice and dinner delivery- oh how thoughtful, hominids were! At least he didn't have to burn down their clock towers or some thing like that to encourage them.
With his two new prizes, he beat his wings even faster, refusing to let the weight of the horse drag him down. He was a strong dragon; a mere horse wouldn't defy his strength!
Some minutes pass, as he gained in altitude and flew towards his lair, just barely in sight by those in Dragonwatch on a sunny day. Lightning and thunder shook the world, the mighty cry of another of Water and Air's battles shaking the Earth. He was not too far away; the flight was relatively hard to his normal ones, but still nonetheless easy. He dropped both screaming/flailing horse and little hominid at the same time, though on second thought, half a tree-length might have been a little to high up...
The horse landed on its back- it had fallen, smacked into the ground, and immediately fell silently, presumably with a broken back.
The hominid, however, surprised Eliesmier.
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