Bonded Bloodlines

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Writers of the Eastern Mountains claim they originated from the sea, growing bored of the cold fish. While the orators in the Western Mountains will tell how dragons lived on the clouds until they grew too heavy, and sprouted wings to carry them safely to the ground below.

The truth is a bit more grandiose, indeed.

This sun-rich Valley had been a haven from the winter. It was a place where the opposing clans of the East and West Mountains were forced to migrate and dwell as one, once the annual frost grew unforgiving.

The East prided themselves on the artful subjects of debate, portraiture, and medicine; while the West was boastful of their farming and superior craftsmanship.

Largely maintained by the salaciousness of youths and the exuberant trade economy, the two mountain clans displayed tolerance during their summers together. They could be described as amicable at best. That is, until a boy named William Yastros united them.

Before the summer that young Yastros turned eight, sightings of dragons were considered as fablesque omens. But during an annual journey down to the Valley, William Yastros imprinted an orphaned dragon as she hatched.

The bond forged between the boy and dragon mingled their beings beyond just body and soul, a magic beyond the comprehension of mundanes.

After decades together, Will and his companion, whom he named Rhen, formally unified the region. He became the first King of the Alvadian Valley. None could compare to the soul-bound king and his dragon.

William had married and produced many offspring with his two wives, one woman of each Eastern and Western descent. During the time of his weddings, Rhen took long flights, and returned impregnated by a wild male of her species. She was the first dragon in history to reside alongside man, until her own hatchlings arrived.

Rhen’s eggs hatched to imprint with the children of William, once they ended toddlerhood.

Before the death of William the First, the Great Competition was established as a means of deciding which Yastros child deserved to become heir to their father. A series of tests in wit, strength, and leadership were held every generation to test those among the Yastros bloodline who have bonded souls.

The Great Competition gave way for the dragons to hold their Great Migration, the time when all the bonded dragons leave our lands in order to breed.

These tests gave forth many of our great Kings. Under King Telemen, Western agriculture was made precedent, and none have felt hunger since.

It was through the Woman King, Savoi, that equality bloomed; for she showed us that all persons may possess talents beneficial to the Valley.

And, we cannot forget the way King Julin, and his Soul-Steed Mai, single handedly defended our shore from invaders.

These first few generations held great peace.The Yastros who failed the Great Competition governed the minor lorddoms of the East, West, and Southern Sea; all devoted to the central Alvadian Valley; a recognition of the citizen’s cultural divides under their one King.

Thus was the beginnings of the great Yastros line to the Alvadian Valley Throne. And it is under the heirs of William and Rhen that our country stood proud.

But, alas, this story is not meant to tell of the thriving of humans and dragons.

This is about the extermination thereafter.

It is just after one child of the Yastros line, Geolin, was born and bonded to an heir of Rhen called Tigron, that our story takes place.

The East and West Mountains of the four lorddoms nearly divided once more over the truth of what killed the mighty Tigron in his eleventh year.

The East claimed that an indomitable weapon of Western forge pierced Tigron’s breast in his sleep. While the West points to poisonous plants harvested only from the opposing mountain.

While common folk fought to identify the guilty under the name of justice, the Yastros themselves were subjected to the madness of grief that young Geolin could not bear. None prior to the boy had ever faced a day without their bonded dragon; as all Yastros have died in the sleep of old age alongside their Soul-Steed.

Death was a tandem just as life had been.

Geolin took to the sea some months later, seeking his own final sunrise away from the company of dragons that were not his own. In the absence of Geolin, the inquisition of justice over Tigron’s death waned among the clans of East and West.

The tragedy of Tigron was mentioned for the last time when the ship of Geolin crossed over the horizon. Years had passed; Tigron was truly forgotten.

There had been some truth to the old claim that dragons had been sea dwelling creatures, just as there was truth of their homes above the clouds.

The next fifteen years were not spent idly by Geolin, in whom the devastation only festered. On the fifteenth year to the day of Tigron’s death, a ship pierced the southern coast of the Alvadian Valley.

The ship was pulled by dragons of the sea - a sight never before seen. Overhead, swarms of airborne dragons circled over the great ship as it broached the sandy shore.

A man with features similar to those of the boy who left so long ago, stepped from the great empty ship. He walked toward the city, flanked on one side by the glistening dragons who dripped trails of salt water as they walked from the water; on the other by dragons whose great wings covered their reflective scales as they folded tightly against their backs.

—--

There weren't always dragons in the Valley, but it was to the Valley they flocked.

Five years after the rise of King Geolin, a great change befell the Valley as two new bloodlines were soul-bonded. Just as William was the first of his line, so shall these children be.

It was my task to protect the children and hatchlings from the Fractured King, and I managed to keep their existence a secret for almost ten years.

This is the story of what happened after the Day of Discovery.