Dragon Bonds

There weren't always dragons in the valley. The local human populations had seen to that. Mistrust of Dragons and the magic they bear had seen a massive culling of the population. No, Dragons were not always in the valley anymore… but it was hope enough for Azita to start there.

She knew she didn't have long left in this mortal realm. The wounds she'd sustained, especially the arrow protruding from her abdomen, were going to kill her. Her world had shrunk to the pinpricks of light she could make out in her fading vision and the precious child she carried. As hot blood fell in thick drops in the wake of her path, she stumbled into the forest within the Vale.

Underneath the canopy, the light darkened, almost causing her to think she had died midstep. Her body throbbed, beyond the shriek of pain, and she struggled to bring the world back into focus. Within the safety of her arms, the child chirruped, vague comfort and worry pressing against her mind.

"We're-we're ok." Azita choked out, tasting copper on her tongue. She fell forwards, catching herself in a halting step that pushed them deeper. The little Dragon child pressed their snout to her breast, chirruping again as Azita lifted an arm from them so she could steady herself on a tree.

The bark bit into her palm, but it was drowned out by the greater ache of her body. Numbness was spreading from her fingertips, and she felt so cold. She tried to take another step, but her legs gave out and all she could do was try to cushion the fall for her charge.

Consciousness fled momentarily only to return in force as agony ripped through her stomach. The arrow shaft had shattered and pulled, awakening her numbing body to fresh pain. The child threw out its one unbroken wing in alarm and screamed as well.

"Ugh-ah,ah,ah!" she swallowed her pained cries, blinking the tears away as she curled around the wound, reaching out with her bloodied palm to stroke the child's yellow scaled neck soothingly, "we-we're fine. Still fine."

The baby did not believe her lies, begging her to live, to get up. Azita tried, by all the gods she tried, but she fell back into the foliage with another grunt of pain. Vision swam again, her world blinking in and out of existence. More tears spilt, as hot as the blood pulsing through her fingers.

"N-not so fine." she joked breathlessly, looking into the amber eyes of the child, "go. L-leave me."

The child shook their head. They were so small, so vulnerable. Like a human toddler, they would not survive alone. Despite the budding horns and the claws upon all four paws, the child could no more hunt for itself then you could ask a two year old to farm a field.

"fear/concern. Pleading. Azita awaken, walk, help." the dragon spoke to her heart and mind. Dragon speech was emotion and imagery, larger than words and with the short communication she knew how much this baby needed her.

"I can't" the words were a whisper, her lips reddinging, "I'm dying."

The words struck a panic in the child. The dragon reared back on its hind legs and blasted a wordless cry.

"HELP ME/HER/US! ANYONE! HELP!"

She wanted to comfort the baby, but she couldn't. Her vision was tunnelling again and she could sense the coldness stealing through her body. Her hand rested in the leaf litter and twitched towards the child. She wanted to speak but her tongue was dead in her mouth. She could only look at the shimmering dragon child and think towards it.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you…"

Darkness swallowed her and she felt nothing.

The child nuzzled her rescuer's unmoving face. She keened for the human, for the woman who had saved her. The child smelt blood, could feel it between her yellowed scales and knew that life was fleeing from Azita as surely as when her own mother had been shot down before her.

"So little life lived and so much death witnessed." The words were human, but the Voice was anything but. The child whipped around, spreading out her unbroken wing and giving her best intimidating hiss to the figure before her. She broke off mid exhale as the scent hit her nostrils and the comfort reached her mind.

Ancient ancestor/elder loved/bonded/soultwined, grieves with/for child/loved/precious.

The man was human, with dark skin and slitted brown eyes that glowed under tight curled hair. His scent was Dragon, his body speckled with patches of golden scales and the pure cream tunic he wore caught the light tenfold, making him hard to look directly at. His presence was kindness personified and the child felt the deep ripping pain from the heart of this elder as they knelt beside her and the body of Azita.

His nails were as gold as his scales, and the child found herself drawn against his leg, feeling the ethereal nature of his existence. He was not there physically, but his strength of spirit was such that he had a form for her to press against.

"unnamed/unearned child/precious, do not grieve/sadden any longer." the man spoke to her with an empathetic smile upon his lips, "We shall heal/cure the pain/wounds of the body. Cannot cure heart/soul but can comfort/provide."

Magic flared, more powerful than the Child had ever witnessed, twisting her young body into the air as all her physical ailments were closed and her bones straightened. Her scales glistened, not the true gold of the man who healed her, but a bright yellow as if she had never been mistreated.

As she was set down her first thought was not of herself but her rescuer, "Azita heal/unbroken as well? saved/cared/rescued. Hurt/wounded for care/love." the child pleaded with this kind stranger that gave every sign of being impossibly ancient when all elder dragons were slain.

His form flickered even as the child asked and the light that made him seemed to be slightly dimmer as he reformed.

"Cannot/beyond us.'' The man stood up and gently took the woman into his arms as the Dragon child wound around his feet. The dirt and blood did not seem to take root on his skin, sliding off like water from a duck's back. He switched to human speech, almost murmuring to the young woman in his arms, "You are still pure human. I cannot heal that what does not belong to us."

The child's antics slowed as she heard him, dropping her wings and head in grief. There seemed to be no hope. However the man started to walk away and she needed to spring forward to catch up to him.

"Where go/take? leave/abandon child/unnamed?"

The man walked much faster than Azitas death journey had taken, and the child struggled with short bursts of flight to keep up with him. As they journeyed, the man spoke, "There are a clan of forest dragons that live within the thicket. I'm taking her to the Queens circle."

The child stopped in surprise, quickly running after him once she had caught herself. Queens within dragon society were the highest of authority. Her own mother had been striving for queendom before she'd been cruelly taken from the child. Only queens could make decisions that affect Dragons as a whole.

Queens did not speak to humans.

"Even if Queen's talk/grant audience, cannot heal/bring back dead." The child pointed out to her golden saviour. The man paused only long enough for the child to leap up onto his shoulder and peer down at Azita's face, drained of colour.

"She is not dead." the golden man assured the youngling, "Not completely. Only bonding will save her now."

The child fell silent at those words. Bonding between a human and a Dragon within the egg were a story told to her as a cautionary tale. No dragon egg was to be exposed to a human lest the human corrupt the hatchling before its birth. The creatures that came from such a thing were abominations of human dragons blended together at the soul.

The golden man grinned at the child. He knew the stories. He was the story.

And with a bit of luck, Azita would become like him.

Soul bonded.