Raising dragons in Hollywood - Chapter 1

Dear Sammy, my good friend:

How are you doing?

I haven’t contacted you for a long time (my father was reluctant to pay the electricity bill so my internet was down and I couldn’t contact you). I miss you very much.

But to tell you the truth, I’ve been having a hard time. After my father brought his new lover home, he tried to kick me out. Did you know, Sammy? I’ll soon be without a home or money. It may sound exaggerated, but it’s true.

My dad took all of my savings, even what my mom left behind and what I’ve saved myself over the years. Everything! It’s all gone! I was really desperate, so I tried to get it back, but my father beat me up pretty good and I even lost two teeth. Even though it will heal soon, it still really hurts. Argh! I need to grow up more before I can beat him.

I have nowhere to go right now. So, can you let me live at your house for a while? I am very easy to raise. I don’t need meat, vegetarian food is enough. I don’t want to become a vagrant. I’m not an adult yet and I can’t fend for myself.

When my mother was still alive, she told me it was really dangerous outside and people would kill me if I went around casually. I don’t want to get killed. I want to be able to beat my dad up. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I’ll loot the hell out of him!

You’re gonna keep me, right? Please don’t say no. I couldn’t find anyone else to depend on… You’re my last hope!

Looking forward to your reply,

Your loyal friend Michael

When Sammy read the email, he was really confused. He had to rack his brain for a long time to find any kind of memory about Michael until he finally remembered he was a guy he had met online five years ago.

Five years ago… that meant five years without contact. For most people, five years was a really long time. Even if you had a good memory, remembering people you knew five years ago was strange.

Who would respond to a request from an internet friend from five years ago? Especially with an email as ridiculous as this.

Well, Sammy would. He had been a magnanimous person since he was a kid and was very generous and considerate to his friends.

Let’s put it this way: if one day he had only two potato chips and his friends were around, then no matter how hungry he was, he’d share one with his friends.

So, after receiving an email so ridiculous that anyone would delete it…Without even thinking about it, selfless Sammy replied: No problem, bro! Come over. My address and number are XXXXX.

What a sucker! When Sammy’s two elder brothers heard about it, they both responded:

“Sammy! Is your brain ok?”

“Are you sure this isn’t a scam?”

“Maybe it’s a practical joke.”

“I don’t approve of you meeting and bringing home some unknown friend you met on the internet. It sounds stupid.”

“Sammy, I don’t want to see your name in the news because you got conned or murdered.”

“My stupid little brother!

But, Sammy completely ignored their words. Even if there was a ninety-nine percent probability of being cheated, if the remaining one percent was true, then he should extend his hand. That’s what it means to be a friend!

Sammy had made up his mind. And as stubborn as he was, he wouldn’t change it. His eldest brother Duke and second eldest brother Dunbar silently looked at each other, completely helpless.

“Little Sammy is too quick to believe others,” Duke sighed.

“For a guy who’s twenty years old and still believes that dragons are real, our ancestors were dragon slayers and that he’s the ‘next dragon slayer chosen by God’, what can we expect from him?” Dunbar complained deadpan.

“You mean those bedtime stories our grandparents told us? We didn’t believed them, so why does Sammy?”

“Maybe because he’s a pure little angel?”

“Don’t kid yourself, he’s really not!”

“So what’s he like to you?”

“A golden retriever who likes to wag his tail at bad guys?”

Sammy’s two older brothers agonized over Sammy…

But after getting a positive response from Sammy, Michael was overjoyed. He was afraid the other side would back out, so he rushed to book a ticket and sent the flight number to Sammy to nail this thing down completely.

Then…

“Yes! Yes! I’m going abroad!! “Michael couldn’t help cheering. As he grinned, a hot flame and the scent of sulfur shot out of his nose, almost destroying the cave that was his temporary shelter.

That’s right, Michael wasn’t human!

He was a beautiful juvenile fire dragon with light red and gold scales. And because dragons liked shiny things and Michael had a particularly gorgeous appearance, he had been a baby beloved by the other dragons.

Unfortunately, his mother had passed away recently. And in the dragon clan, the father wasn’t responsible for raising the children, so Michael lost his protector. In a clan where the law of the jungle reigned supreme, his situation took a turn for the worse.

At the same time, the adoration he received changed drastically. When he had his mom to protect him, the other dragons would say: “Dear Michael, please let me touch your beautiful scales, okay?” Without his mom to protect him the other dragons now said things like:”Michael, you have so many scales, why don’t you pull out a few dozen, and don’t be stingy. They’ll grow out again, anyways!”

Dragons were not friendly with each other. In front of a weak, juvenile dragon without protection, the other dragons no longer admired him from afar. Instead, they coveted his scales, waiting for a chance to pluck some for their collections.

He didn’t want the other dragons to rip off all his scales, his body becoming nothing more than a collector’s item. Thus Michael decided to leave and look for another home.

That’s why he wrote an email asking Sammy for help.

The human world wasn’t a good choice, but he wouldn’t be able to find a dragon that could shelter him and not covet his beautiful scales.

Let’s just ignore what he wrote in the mail: ‘Dear Sammy, my good friend’. In fact, he had no confidence at all that he would succeed. So it surprised him when Sammy agreed so quickly. This led Michael to wonder: Is this ‘friend’ up to something? Did he have some bad intentions? Even a juvenile dragon was wary of ‘gold coins falling from the sky’.

But those uneasy thoughts only lasted for a moment.

Just after he had spread his wings and had flown to the water for a drink and caught sight of his reflection, all of his uneasiness washed away like the tides and his self-confidence exploded again. “Look at my long, powerful tail! My wings that block the sun! My beautiful shiny scales and sharp horns! Even my white fangs are shining!”

Enraptured, dragon Michael lifted his two of his front paws to hold his head, faced the water and posed to the left, to the right and to the front. He accidentally knocked over a nearby tree, but he didn’t even notice. “Look how nice you are! How nice you look! Michael, you’re the most beautiful in the world! What a beautiful dragon! Who couldn’t love you? Everyone will love you!”

And so all his doubts cleared. “Sammy has probably had a crush on me all this time!” Michael relaxed once more and bit his thick lower lip, ready to boast about his boundless charm.