Dragon Flu

ryanthedragonminecraftau:

Prompt:
Sick Dragon Ryan

Dragons were hardy creatures, quick to heal, difficult to injure, and rarely sick. But rarely didn’t mean never, and one morning, despite Geoff’s summons, Ryan did not appear in the throne room. The king waited ten minutes, then twenty, then when an hour passed he rose from his throne and went to see why his dragon hadn’t come to the super important meeting.

“Ryan what is wrong with you?” Geoff muttered as he approached the room. “We need to figure out what to do with Kdin. She’s getting to be as big as a horse, and I’m running out of rotten fle-Ryan?”

When he opened the door he found himself faced with a dragon, curled up in the room as best as he could manage. Which wasn’t very well, seeing as the room wasn’t built with a large dragon in mind. Ryan’s head was pressed against the wall, and his tail was hanging out the window. The dragon groaned, and tried to shift, but failed miserably. Worst of all, the dragon’s eyes seemed to be crusted shut.

“Ryan!” Geoff said, rushing to the dragon’s side, only to recoil when face with how hot the dragon was. Getting near him was like getting near a roaring blaze. “What’s wrong?” Ryan groaned, shifted his head, and forced his eyes open. They were glazed and unfocused, though he tried to look at Geoff.

“Flu,” he said.

“Flu?!” Geoff asked, incredulous. “Dragons can’t get the flu!”

—

It turned out that, according to the books Jack had pulled from the castle library, that dragons could, in fact, get the flu. The symptoms were much the same as in humans, only happening in a dragon. Thankfully it was rarely fatal. Un-thankfully, the chicken soup required to keep a sick dragon happy required a lot of dead chickens. Geoff was sure the squawking would haunt him for the rest of his life.