Dragonborne

The fires burned through the bushes and the bales. Set ablaze were the hay that formed the rooves encircling the thick trucks of the trees. The eerie glow of bright orange over scarlet glistened in her velvet eyes whose pupils were three stars layered on one another. The hypnotic spectacle of the Heu-mauns running in fear as their small huts burned excited Vai as she hopped from one tree branch to another.

Without looking, she jumped in the air high above the tree line for a better look. Her long leather wings snapped open once she reached the vertex of her accent. Glistening in a vibrant translucent emerald over violet scales, her slender yet long body flowed through the air like a snake in water.

With an ariel view, she was able to see all the colors being made by the ghastly scene. She was not taking pleasure in the Heu-mauns suffering, no, in fact a part of her felt petty toward them. She was taking pleasure in the lights, for nothing attracted dragons more than something bright and shiny.

She groaned with delight as she saw an entire hut fall in on itself sending heated air into the blaze next to it causing the fire to ignite. The orange glow grew almost enough for Vai to touch it. Pleasure made her dance in the air. Then, suddenly, her groan turned into a growl as she saw a plume of smoke part with nothing more than a distortion in the air passing through it.

She sniffed the air searching for a distinct smell of rotten hide. Faint as it was, she cursed herself for allowing the smells of sulfur and burnt Heu-mauns to cover the pungent odor. Her fears were confirmed as her eyes darted around the chaos noticing more distortions in the air. She growled louder this time to make herself known and as her mouth began to spark from the sides of her clenching maw, one word rang out to the skies “Gřul!”

At the sound of their name, the Gřul distortions turned toward the dragon. Slowly the air around them began to shake and scatter with whisps of light flickering in and out as their massive bodies began to appear in the burning red heat of the fire. These boar-like creatures were covered in short quills with iridescent tips allowing them to warp the light around them making the Gřul invisible to everyone. Their hind legs were fat and low to the ground like a rat, from it’s spine protruded sharp boney segmented two-inch spikes. It’s front legs were narrowed, however, their elbows also had spikes protruding from them that were double the length. Their face bore a flat snout and narrow mouth with tusks rising out from its lower lips, curving out along the edge of its cheeks.

Vai charged the closest beast. Her joy over the fire long gone as her fangs stabbed at the flesh of the Gřul who planted its hind hooves into the ground, preventing Vai from tackling it onto the ground. The other Gřul were quick to enter the fray for Gřul and dragons are known enemies. As the second Gřul tried to attack Vai from behind, her tail curves in the air as she forced the tip to flail open resembling wing with razor shape edges, her tail whipped back to slice at the face of the Gřul. It’s tusk prevented most of the damage, however Vai’s tail did slice the left eye of the Gřul leaving it whimpering and running away with it’s life.

Distracted by the second Gřul left Vai vulnerable to the first Gřul who used the spikes on it’s elbow to dig into the dragon’s side. Her scales being stronger than most metals protected her from losing her life, but the force of the blow still made her lose her breath. The short reprieve from her attack allowed the Gřul to disengage from the monstrous heroin yet that did not stop her forward attack. Vai lunged again and caught a grip of the first Gřul’s throat by her clenched jaw, this time she was determined to not let go and attempted to force the beast to submission by yanking it to the ground.

The third of the Gřul tried to come to the aid of it’s fellow monster attempting to impale the dragon from below. Vai knew this Gřul was more experienced fighting her kind. It knew the underside of her belly was vulnerable to their spike attacks. How many of her kind has he tried this maneuver on before this moment she wondered as she used the hind talons to grab the creature between the spikes on its back and hold it down.

She knew her impulsive attacks might be the end of her this time as the fourth Gřul was about to enter the battle. As much as she disliked relying on her magic, she had no options left. Time around her began to slow to a crawl as her eyes began to close. She felt her spirit began to pull away from the world, light of all shades passed her as she touched the pool of universal essence left from the beginning of time. Her mind flooded with images and knowledge from her kind over the centuries. Even present dragons were feeding the pool with information that she was reluctant to give. Freedom, she thought to herself for a moment, is more important to me than my kind.

From that knowledge, from that power came the essence she needed. In her mind she recalled the sensation of that essence as the sparks began to flare again in her maw. From deep down in her lungs the essence took form beginning to erupt through her throat and out from her clenched fangs forcing its way through the Gřuls muscular neck, severing its head from its body.

As it’s body fell to the ground, Vai once again accessed the pool of essence and held the new sensation in her mind. As she called forth the power, she released the Gřuls from her talons spinning around in the air and wrapped her wings around her leathery body.

Once, twice, thrice she spun and on the last rotation her veinous wings took on the look of sapphire cloth with lightning blue design. A spear tip resembling the dragons’ talons, stabbed down from the bottom of the cloth right into the Gřuls side. The violent screeching that came from the bloody Gřul could be heard for miles, but was there anyone alive to hear it?

Her rotation continued digging the spear into the Gřuls body. With her spins, the cloth began to unfurl unveiling a lengthy Heu-maun body that replaced that of the dragon. The cloth that used to be her wings was now a split cape, sapphire on the outside with a midnight blue inner lining. Her skin was light brown with a silvery glow clothed with sapphire scaled leather shorts and shirt with short sleeves in the shape of a dragon’s jaw with the fangs resting on her arms.

As she pulled the spear out of the hid of the Gřul, the musculature of the creature was ripped out causing it to collapse never to get up again. With no time to further react, the final Gřul rammed into Vai’s side. With no shortage of luck, and the quick change into her Heu-maun form, the great tusks of the monster missed its mark. The impact however, Vai was not so lucky. Both the warrior and the beast bashed through a wall of a hut and into a tree trunk set in the middle of the hut. On impact came a sickening crunch and snap sound coming from both combatants.

Injured from her fall and forced back into her dragon form, Vai rolled over to find the now dead Gřul lying beside her. Pain from her shoulder told her she would be unable to fly for a while. Crawling on the floor, Vai did not notice the trail of blood she was leaving in her wake. The feeling of tingling cold was creeping up her tail.

Without thinking, Vai whipped her tail around to heat it up but ended up knocking over one of the Heu-mauns little hay basket. From the basket rolled out a little bundle. Vai crawled over to the bundle that revealed a small Heu-maun face.

The child’s rosy cheeks soothe the dragon in the chaos of the inferno. There was no cry coming from the infant. The sizzle and crackle from the flames and fall should have woken the child but not even her eyes would open. Vai listened for her heartbeat which was faint and fading.

Vai cooed to the baby hoping it would help. No movement came. Sadness ingulfed the female dragon as she watched the life force of the child begin to extinguish. Before the last flicker of life was gone, the infant gave a slight twitch of a smile. That smile, such a small emotion, yet more than enough to capture the dragon’s heart.

Quickly, time slowed to a crawl as Vai accessed the pool again. This time she pushed her intention into the pool. Images and emotions spread to other dragons. Thou we cannot fully understand the visual and emotional language of these ancient creatures, the closest thing our language could understand is “Find her, she will need you.” So, few as there used to be, the dragons answered back with concern, sadness, and reassurance.

Still attached, Vai pulled from the essence more than she ever had before. Sprinkles of what appeared to be glowing velvet dust poured out of her chest toward the child. A small gasp came out of the baby followed by a cry so loud there was no mistaking the child was alive.

Her eyes opened to meet that of Vai. As they did, Vai’s star eyes began to spin as the velvet dust flowed from her eyes into the infant’s. As if the years passed from one to the other, the baby began to grow older yet different than other Heu-mauns. Sections of her skin was replaced by scales, her ears flattened and poked out with three fin shaped flaps. When her body matured to around five years old, her back created two slits where bone and leather formed into wings with sharp talons at the joints and tips. Her hair grew out only in the middle line fanning up then falling to the side with a variety of bright colors. Her eyes were a haunting midnight blue with the same three stars as Vai’s pupils.

Those illustrious dragon eyes given to the newborn child, yet the first thing she saw was the shining light of her saviors’ eyes fading as the spinning stars come to a stop. The years of experiences, so few that was able to pass before the end, matured the self-proclaimed Zarra to an age of self-discovery and self-reliance. Sadly, there was too little was her knowledge of the essence. Vai’s sudden passing gave her knowledge of other dragons but no means to find them. Even knowledge of how to access magics enough to transform her to neither Heu-maun nor dragon was lost.

Sadness overcame her and Vai’s body dropped lifeless in a pool of its own blood. Zarra understood that this had to be, it was how dragons survived, but it was not right for the time she would have had with Vai was stolen from her by the Gřul. Never would she let them survive.

Alone and born of blood and fire, Zarra leaves her village behind. Wrapping herself with her wings as one would a robe, Zarra walks down the dark and dirty road, hoping to one day find her new kin.