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Prago the Bard's avatar

This is great. Thank you.

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Josh Tatter's avatar

Thank YOU for reading 👏

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Braeden Schulze's avatar

Great short fiction, surprising ending! A perfect example of how the strength of the human spirit can defy the greatest of odds. And while I would really love to see the full thing, not showing the final battle between the squire and the dragon felt fitting for the impact of the twist, and was somewhat reminiscent of the ending of The Most Dangerous Game. Excellent work as always!

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Braeden Schulze's avatar

I get that, once I had to cut down the ending of a fantasy short story I did where the protagonist killed the monster by tackling it off a cliff and using its body to cushion the fall, but ended up having to alter it to getting ridiculously lucky that the sun came up before it could get to him and scared it away. One day I’ll revisit it, one day…

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Josh Tatter's avatar

Thanks very much, Mr. Braeden!

Normally, I would be all too happy to orchestrate the final battle, but I wrote this in response to a prompt from another Substacker, and I was SUPPOSED to keep it within 300 words (I failed: It's just over 400) 😩

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Ethan Slusarski's avatar

Smaug vibes

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