A Day In Life (Short Story of Jet Doyle)

A Day In Life: Short story about Jet Doyle and his dragon Arson, living the world in their perspective of everyday life. I made this within a day and is among my proudest work so far. Hope you people enjoy.

It’s the middle of the longest day for businesses. Crowds of people walk in and out of a local bar in a large Swedish town just along the shorelines of the barbaric seas. In a round table in the corner of the store rests four men holding up cards. In the middle of the table lies a pile of four bags loaded with gold coins. The middle aged man, Erik, on the right snorts his large nostrils over his fuzzy beard and it wrinkled his bagged eyes. He grabs a card out of the stack. He groaned when he gazed at his card.

Jet: A younger, skinnier man – youngest of the four – sitting next to a window had his elbow at the surface of the table. His cards are faced down on the table and he leans to his hand and rested his head on his palm. The man on the left, Aaron, looks out to the doorway and noticed several people that had left the bar. “It’ll finally be quieter,” he murmured, constantly rubbing his square, fuzzy chin. Jet took a brief look at the doorway. A mug broke by the doorway, and Erik turned around on his chair to take a look.

Three of the four men watched the outburst of a woman dropping her beer on the floor, speaking Swedish alike most the people in the bar. Jet was the first to look back at the man across him. “Whose turn is it?” asked Aaron. Jet answered, “Ulfrik.” He refers to the man sitting across from him, larger with red braided hair over the back of his head pulled the card out of his deck, and then he puts them down on the table where everyone can see them.

All four of his cards are aces. Ulfrik mutters, “All ace.” The other three men drop their cards on the table in the shame of losing. Jet calmly turns his cards facing upward. Four out of five of them were matching tens, and the fifth was a two. “Lucky win,” he complimented.

“To your face, Jet,” Ulfrik grumbled while sliding the bags of loot to him to carry. “I told you I never lose.” Ulfrik picks up the gold before he turns his buff body around. Aaron slaps his palms on the table, then he gets up and leaves the table heading straight to the door. Erik does the same, but he mutters a cuss word in Swedish.

Just as Ulfrik turns around, Jet narrows his eyes at an ace card on the back of his pocket. Jet rests his eyelids where they hang just half open. “You cheated,” Jet muttered. Ulfrik turned when he heard the word ‘cheat’. Jet doesn't look at Ulfrik, but stares at the table's surface while resting his hand on it. Jet says with confidence, “You heard me. Give me my gold.” He does neither a scowl nor a smile. Instead he does a dead expression on his cards on the table, and Ulfrik’s aces.

“Game’s over,” growled Ulfrik. “You fight me and take my gold, I call the guards on you, skinny.” The man touched the handle to the small blade handing on his belt. Jet’s lips began to curve upward just barely when he responded, “Just when did I say I want bloodshed. It’s just a few grand, right? And by the way,” Jet raises his hand slowly and positions his thumb to his pointer finger. In the meantime, something dark colored moved from just outside the window. Spikes move to the edges of the frames that caught Ulfrik’s attention. Jet continued, thus finishes, “I’m already criminal.”

Jet snapped his fingers. The sound of the snap, even as he wears gloves echoed from in the bar. There was a few large stomping sounds just after the snap, and the head of a monstrous nightmare peers inside and roars at the face of Ulfrik. The dragon’s mouth glowed bright orange, and bursts of flames spewed from the dragon’s body as if it had no control of its fireburst. The motion of the flame only lifted Jet’s black hair a little, but no expression was changed on the skinny man when the dominate look in his green eyes stared into Ulfrik’s.

The sight of the dragon had every man and woman’s attention, screaming in fear and scattering around the shop. Some even ran out the door to call the guards, but others stayed, hiding behind tables that are now tipped over, away from the dragon. It snarls, and flares its nostrils at Ulfrik who is not hesitating to draw out his steel blade.

“Have you met my dragon Arson?” Jet asked rhetorically. “He hates it when things are not fair. I’ll call him off if you hand me my gold.”

“You,” grumbled Ulfrik. “You’ve brought a dragon in our city!? Scoundrel! You know that’s illegal.”
“No,” Jet mumbled. “I’m a traveler.”

“Then I deserve this gold,” claimed Ulfrik. “Both your heads shall hang on a pike!” Ulfrik points his sword at Arson, and he looks down at the sharp point, then back at the man. Next, Jet tells him, “You know why I named him Arson? Because he likes to light things on fire.” Jet snapped his fingers again and Arson inhaled while the glowing cracks on his underbelly glows brighter before he shoots fire. It was a small blast of flame that had enough impact to knock the buff man over. His face was covered in burns; and a portion of his armor is penetrated and darkened by the smoke of the dragon’s flame.

There was fire around Ulfrik and it spreads to the nearby tables of the bar. The rest of the people start running out once the dragon fired its first shot. Meanwhile, Jet approached Ulfrik, walking through the flames. Jet placed his foot on Ulfrik’s shoulders and takes each bag from him. “I’m a fair man, Ulfrik,” Jet said to him. “Maybe simple. But I don’t take cheaters lightly.” Jet hooks the bags on Arson’s saddle and jumps out the window.

The dragon backs up out of the window and Jet clings onto the dragon’s right thy just as the guards arrive at the scene. Arson narrowly escaped a sword swing of the first guard and he takes airborne. Jet waits until Arson flies nearly vertical into the sky and hopes no arrows fly after them. Jet then climbs up on the dragon’s back and positions himself on the saddle. Arson flies high over the docks and over the ocean to make their quick getaway.

“Another city where I’m famous,” Jet mumbles to Arson, just when the docks became viewable near the horizon. Arson looked confidently ahead at his trails whereas Jet points out, “This may have been our calmest day.”