How could a dragon-proof toy work?
So I was outlining the part of the story where Gyvaris, a dragon, almost gets killed, when I realized I glanced over something. You see, Gyv had a human friend before and they used to play games to pass time.
Gyvaris' mother taught him the basics of close-quarters combat through various games. She'd often throw various items towards him, telling the young dragon to catch them with his mouth. If Gyv was too slow or overextended, he couldn't reach the next one in time.
Though Gyv had learned how to strike at blinding-fast speeds, he also tends to damage whatever he catches. I mean, he has the jaw-strength of a Nile crocodile. This is fine when fighting dragonslayers or catching the chunks of meat that his mother tossed into the air, but kind of ruins a casual game of catch.
Plus there's Gyvaris' battery-acid-breath weapon. It's life-threatening when inhaled, can cause chemical burns on the skin and blindness when it gets into the eye. Gyv doesn't drool often, but the residual acid in his mouth can still cause toys to deteriorate.
Dragons are pretty big, at around 6-10 metres in length (ridiculously long tail included) and two metres at the wing's shoulders.
So, if the dragon is regularly playing games of catch with a human, how could the human make a toy for the dragon that can last for a while? It doesn't have to be fancy, just safe, durable and usable.
Tech-level is medieval.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/174766. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1 answer
I'm going to post this anyway, even though it overlaps with M.Winkens' answer, because a) I thought of it first (note comments on the question), and b) I think the other answer is missing a few points.
The obvious answer, as anyone that has read The Flight of Dragons should already know, is:
Gold
You don't just want to use metal. As I noted elsewhere, hard objects introduce the risk of Gyvaris damaging his teeth. Gold is conveniently not only very soft (as metals go), but also resistant to many acids.
You also don't want to make it solid, which is fortunate because gold is rare and expensive. You want it to be able to deform easily if Gyv chomps down on it (see previous point). This does mean that you may need to reshape the toy frequently, but as long as you don't lose chunks of it, that shouldn't be the end of the world. As another bonus, gold is non-toxic (some humans actually eat gold).
Now... what shape should you make it? Well, from a safety standpoint, a foil ball (like a giant version of certain cat toys) would be ideal (at least in terms of 'things you could make out of metal'), but probably won't hold up very well. However... you might try making a flying disk out of it. It may be necessary to repair this frequently, but it also shouldn't be overly difficult to repair, and they have much more interesting flight characteristics than just about anything else you could chuck.
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