Newborne

You may be surprised to learn, but the race of man is the oldest race, existing far before the Skylands were constructed. History has no complete answer for how the first Men transformed into either the Dragon or the Beast, but whatever action started it shaped the whole of the world forever. Before the schism between the Gods of Man and the Dragons, the two lived together in harmony, joined in their never-ending conflict with the Beastly Horde. Far into the conflict, Dragons, hoping to starve the Beasts of new assimilates, proposed to the Gods of Man an idea to use their natural magic to build them continents in the sky above where the Beasts could fly. The Gods of Man agreed to this and over the ensuing centuries the Skylands were formed. Once the Gods and race of man had settled, they betrayed the Dragons, striking down any who would come near and exiling those who objected. Those shunted from the Skylands hoped they could survive on the surface, but the beasts have much greater senses than humans, and while the few became dragons the many fell to become beasts.

This is the story of one of these newborne dragons, passed down to me from my father’s father, and his father before him.

Ytavus’ wings spread wide, allowing him to sail along the wind that rushed through the trees of his home forest. He was a dragon of the forest, his scales as green as the most verdant leaves, his feathers as white as the first snow, and his antlers long and branching like the trees he flitted between. Ducking, diving, tucking his wings and swirling into small holes in the canopy. Patrolling ever-vigilant for beasts that would attempt to drive him from his land. As he flew, he heard a strange sort of wailing. Wanting to investigate, he folded his wings, and clung to the side of a tree with his claws. He scanned the surrounding area, his pupils expanding and contracting, magnifying his eyesight.

Ytavus spotted a small creature, colored unlike the forest, sitting alone in a clearing. He leaped across the trees, knocking loose leaves and branches to fall to the ground. He landed in the clearing, the wind from his landing and great wings blew towards the small creature, pushing it a few feet away. Now that Ytavus was close, he recognized the creature as a young human, a manling. Understanding that dragons, like Ytavus, age very differently from humans, as time and age have no impact on the body of a dragon as it would a human. Ytavus had thought that this manling could be no older than a few hundred years, perhaps younger.

Just as the wind pushed the manling away, it had ceased its wailing. Water dripped from its eyes, and Ytavus spoke.

“Hmm, tears. Yes, I suppose you must cleanse your eyes from the dust that may have accumulated. Now what was that beast-rotted noise you were making, manling.” He said.

The manling stared at Ytavus with wide eyes, seeming to not understand a word that came from the dragon’s beak. And if the manling spoke, Ytavus now knew that he would not find meaning in the sound either. A thought crossed his mind, What if this manling is a trap set by the very beasts who would see my demise? Ytavus grew anxious, his scales flaring upwards and his wings growing stiff. But, he thought, If this is not a trap, then it is a golden opportunity for a new dragon to be born.

Ytavus coiled around the manling, the dragon's shadow blocking much of the filtered light from reaching the human. He reared his head and slowly exhaled an amber gas from his beak, as it drifted down onto the manling, it fell asleep. The amber gas formed a membrane around the manling, before the rest of it coagulated to become an amber egg. Ytavus looked within and could see the manling slowly breathing, and the amniotic fluid circulating within.

While the egg sat perfectly upright in the clearing, Ytavus gathered components for a ritual. This would determine where Ytavus would need to take the egg for the manling to develop into a proper dragon. He placed the components around the egg in a circle. The items were a flower with a closed bud, a pile of sticks, a leaf with a dew droplet in it, and a broken stone. As Ytavus concentrated while facing the egg, he spoke to the manling inside.

“Manling, now that you are enclosed in the amber of a dragon's egg, your elemental inclination should reveal itself if you but concentrate on the items that surround you.” He said.

“What? Who is that? I can’t see anything.” The child in the egg reached out and grasped, the membrane expanding with it.

“You needn’t see, only feel.”

“Are you the dragon who found me?” She asked.

“Indeed. I am known as Ytavus, a dragon of the Quiron Forest.” He paced around the egg, “Now enough questions, there will be time for that on the journey to your altar. Focus, concentrate on sensing the world around you.”

“But how can I understand you now?”

“Dragons speak a language beyond mere words, and once you become enclosed in a dragon egg your heart and mind open themselves to it as well. Now, only worry about what your body feels as my own magic passes through you and into the earth.” Ytavus placed his hand gently over top of the egg and let his magic pass through, this made the grass in the clearing grow at an accelerated rate, and in a local area the moss on the trees grew faster.

“It’s like a strange tingling, but through all of me, even my thoughts.”

“Yes, chase that feeling and take hold of it.”

Ytavus retracted his hand from the egg and observed the items begin to vibrate at the same frequency as the egg. The items rose into the air, but one by one they fell away, and the pile of sticks lit ablaze. Ytavus had hoped to see the crackle of electricity in the air, he hadn't seen a sky dragon after the skylands were created.

“I can see! I see fire a-and something that looks like fire but flows like heavy water.”

“You will become a dragon of flame, a dragon of volcanoes. Holding in your heart the power of both destruction and creation. Try to see more, let your mind travel from what you see and find the way back to your body.” He pulled the egg closer to himself, and pressed it into an opening on his abdomen. The wide scales on his underside parted to allow the egg to enter into a pouch of sorts that dragons can only open when in the presence of one of their eggs.

The child saw the eruption of a volcano, and let their mind wander. As they saw, they flew into the sky and saw a grand island of black stone, and the magma that trailed down into the water. She saw the environment move and drift past her, her vision lying along the water, a grand serpent rising from the waves to stare directly at her. It said something, but her focus was somewhere else. Moving onwards the environment flew past her and as she tried to catch any vision of her semblance, she reluctantly returned to her body in the egg.

While Ytavus didn’t know exactly where to go, his connection with the manling gave him an orientation of which direction to travel in. Knowing that the egg was in his pouch he couldn’t travel through the canopy as quickly as he normally would, for he would need to care greatly about the egg nestled under him.

“Something is coming, I can feel their unnatural energy.” The manling said.

Ytavus sniffed the air, before growling softly, “Members of the beast horde, your human scent must have brought them here.” He bent his legs, assuming a position ready to fight at a moment's notice. His tail flicked back and forth, his pupils contracted, and his scales flared upwards.

Two snarling creatures leaped through the foliage. They rivaled the dragon in size, but in intelligence, well, not quite. Beasts have little to no foresight, they are driven solely by instinct. One of the two resembled a wolf, but had tusks like a great boar growing from its cheeks and lower jaw. The proportions were also uncommon, the forearms too long, the wrong number of toes on a paw, and eyes that seemed to have multiple pupils. The second appeared to have mostly bird-like features: feathers, wings, and taloned feet. Yet its neck was several feet longer than it should’ve been, allowing it to twist and curve in an unnatural fashion. And upon closer inspection, one could notice that its tail, while covered in feathers, also ended in a stinger.

The wolf-beast’s lip curled back, baring its teeth as it snarled, “Where is human, dragon? I smell them here, stink of man leads to you.”

“Long gone, beast. You will find no new fledgling monsters here.” Ytavus copied the movements of the beasts, and paced around the edge of the clearing.

“Egg? Is there an egg then?” The bird-beast’s head bobbed up and down. “Look at his bulge, he’s carrying an egg. Take the egg.”

“No new dragon this day. Horde will pursue death of dragon for all time.” The wolf-beast said.

Ytavus’ eyes darted back and forth between the two beasts, searching their body language for the first movement of aggression. Prepared to retaliate, Ytavus heard the manling speak.

“I’m scared, Ytavus.”

“You needn’t be, I will protect you with all of my strength and to my own last breath.”

The bird-beast let out a piercing screech and both beasts charged at Ytavus. The wolf-beast was faster, and Ytavus rose to his hind legs and grabbed the wolf-beasts tusks and threw it to the side. As the bird-beast closed in, Ytavus let loose a powerful swipe with his tail, catching the beast in the neck. The bird-beasts fell to the ground, screeching and thrashing about. It looked as though the bird-beasts neck was broken partially, and it couldnt raise itself from the forest floor. Ytavus scrambled up one of the trees, leaping from it to land on the bird-beast, but getting caught by the wolf-beast. Its tusks pierced Ytavus’ chest, avoiding his heart. The dragon let loose a pained cry as the blood ran down his scales.

“Ytavus!” the child yelled, the sound ringing in the dragon's ears.

“I’m enjoy eating your heart, dragon!” The wolf-beast howled.

Ytavus grasped the beast and dug his claws deep. The wolf-beast may have thought it had control of the fight, but it had given it to Ytavus. The dragon’s longer neck allowed him to reach down and grasp a beakful of the beast's neck. The beast yelped and tried to wrest itself free from the dragon, to no avail. The dragon pulled his head back, tearing the flesh from the wolf-beast, and pushing the tusks out of his body. He spit the chunk of flesh out to the side. The wolf-beast whined and limped away, tail between its legs. Ytavus was not content to allow any uncertainty in battle, he rushed forward and knocked the beast on its side and tore into its neck again. He bit down several times until he felt the body stop twitching in his hands. The wolf-beast lay dead.

The flailing bird-beast managed to stand itself up, though its neck lay lame and limp like a reimally. Ytavus moved low and quick, moving through the bird-beast’s massive blind spot and rearing up to claw it wildly. As the beast lost its balance and fell to the ground again, Ytavus’ arms stood on the body of the beast. Suddenly, Ytavus felt a sharp pain in his chest. He looked to the side and the beast’s stinger was moving in again to strike the dragon. Ytavus was stabbed again by the stinger, but was able to take hold of it in his beak the next time it tried to strike. The dragon bit down and with his beak severed the beast’s tail, the stringer falling to the floor, the remainder of the tail with it flexing up and down, the muscles still thinking they were connected. The bird-beast screeched loudly, the pain still shooting through its body. The bird-beast squirmed under the weight of the dragon, who took hold of the stinger and plunged it into the chest of the bird-beast.

Ytavus let out a great roar that shook the trees. His chest heaved, breath shallow but heavy.

"I…must," He paused, the words moved through the pair without sound but they still were caught between the pain of his wounds. "Rest. But not here, more beasts cannot be far behind."

"But Ytavus, you're gravely injured. You couldn't go very far anyway."

"While within my habitat, the natural magic inherent within dragons will heal me, but only if I can be --" He grunted, and began walking, using one of his arms to hold pressure on the right side of his chest.

Ytavus walked for hours, slowly bleeding, every so often using his magic to cause the soil to open and swallow his blood trail. Soon the sun peaked below the horizon and the sky turned orange, save for the lights that forever shine from the Skylands. The protestations of the manling had finally taken hold in Ytavus’ mind. That, or his body gave out finally, as he fell to his stomach near a small pond. He rolled onto his side, so that he wouldn’t crush the egg, and unfurled his wings to rest over his front side, hopefully to dissuade any would-be attackers to worry about the dragon, and not the egg.

The orange faded and was replaced with the deep dark blue canvas splotched with the light coming from the skylands, the twin moons and dotted with the stars behind them. As the dragon slept, a small group of humans emerged from the brush. They wore masks shaped like the face of a bird, and a hooded tunic with no sleeves. Leather and cloth bracers accented with precious metal adorned their wrists and ankles. To say nothing of the metals embedded in their skin.

They approached the dragon, and the group skirted around him for some time, searching for something they did not find. Communicating with hand gestures instead of speech, they stayed quiet seeking not to wake the dragon before them. One of the humans, a woman whose mask seemed more ornate than the others, being made of a darker hued wood and more intricately designed, plucked a feather from the green dragon. Ytavus let out a groan, but did not wake.

A different human brought a bowl of water to the leader, who placed the feather on the surface. She reached down into the dirt and took a handful. Another human used their hands to make symbols in the air around the leader's hand and spoke a dragonic incantation in hushed tones. After which the leader sprinkled the dirt into the water. As the particulates fell they sparkled bright as if shining jewels, and upon hitting the water they dissipated and inked the water iridescent. After a short time, the shaft of the feather spun to point at Ytavus. The leader walked around the dragon for a short moment, keeping her eyes affixed on the feather, making sure that it continued to point in the right direction before gesturing to her troop. The group of humans quickly faded back into the brush and foliage of the forest.

As the night grew older the manling, who neither heard nor sensed the humans nearby, drifted into a strange weightless slumber as well. They dreamt of their life and nights with family, but the faces seemed to blur and the dream was oft interrupted by the eruptions of volcanoes and a dragon crashing down into the cities of the skylands, laying waste to the surroundings with the flame of dragonbreath. This startled the manling awake, wanting to struggle but the sensations of her body leaving her and becoming foreign. Just the same she could sense her memories and sense of self fading away, her days as human were soon to be over.

Ytavus awoke before the sun returned to the sky fully, the pink horizon greeting him and his newly healed wounds. He thought he caught the scent of humans, but figured that it was just the manling in his pouch still. He drank from the small pond next to him before using the water to clean and scrape the dried blood from his beak and scales.

“Ytavus…do you remember who you were when you were human?” The manling asked.

The dragon paused and looked to the sky. “No. Dragons do not remember their humanity. Just as the plants grow to cover the soil, so too does the dragon grow to erase the human.”

“Do you ever wish to remember? I think I will, I don’t want to forget who I am.” She continues to attempt to recall the faces of her family, but to no avail.

“I do not. For even if I did, the humans that I would long for have since passed. I am hundreds of years old, manling. Dragons do not age, but humans may die from age.” Ytavus turned away from the pond and continued on the journey. “To always bear the reminder that you are ageless and have watched those you care for die, time and time again? Perhaps it is the way of the world that us dragons do not form attachments save for our territory, for it would be an anguished existence otherwise.”

“What about the beasts, do you think they remember?”

“Not at all. Beasts arise from the death of men, rather than rebirth. I would not wish them to remember, even as they are my sworn enemy. The Beasts are driven by hunger, rage, and instinct. A memory that does not serve those purposes are unimportant to them. They may remember an escaped adversary or the scent of man. Love, community, joy, none of that matters to the brain of a beast. Only the next kill, only the next meal.”

As Ytavus neared closer and closer to the edge of the forest, he felt the essence of nature seem to leave his body. Even as much as he desired to return to his territory, he knew that his task was more important. As the day drifted onwards, he soon found himself upon a beach. The manling searched her memories again for the path to follow, and Ytavus sensed that he would need to fly a great distance across the ocean.

As he was about to take flight a group of armored humans surrounded the dragon, pointing what looked like strange machines formed from rods, housing a suspended stone that glowed a faint blue. They shouted to each other in a strange language. Ytavus’ body dropped low and he raised his wings and his scales flared upwards. He roared and a few of the humans covered their ears. And one without a weapon, and with more ornate armor stepped towards Ytavus.

“Where is she?” The human asked.

“You speak the language of dragons, no human has spoken that since you betrayed us and retreated to the Skylands. What are you doing on the surface, the beasts will take you.”

“Not all Skylands are equal, some must venture to the surface for fertile soil and livestock. And yes, we have never stopped teaching the language of dragons, our god-kings made sure that we could find aid against the beasts on the surface.”

“Aid? We entreated you for aid, and our repayment was the death of legions of our kind --”

“Not important, we can have a philosophical speech later. Where is she, where is my child? Return her to me, dragon, otherwise you may not see the next sunrise.”

She gestured to one of the other human soldiers, who fired a magical blast near Ytavus. The discharge from the focused crystal impacted the sand and caused it to harden into an odd shape, leaving a small crater.

“Safe,” Ytavus craned his head forward and exhaled out of his nostrils to the human leader. “With me.”

“You've already turned her haven’t you? Dragons must be desperate if you haven't wasted a second since you found her, having wandered away from the scouting party she needed to learn about. I can tell you now that you will not convert any of us”

“If you would stay away from the surface so that the Beasts would not add to their ranks, then we would not be desperate to end this eternal conflict on the side that does not seek only destruction.”

“I will give you one final warning, dragon, for you do not scare me,” She grabbed the end of his beak. “Return her to me, or you will see firsthand the creations that brought down the sky dragons.”

“A new dragon will be born.” Ytavus headbutted the leader, sending her flying backwards, and slammed his tail into the sand sending a large cloud of dust into the air, blocking the vision of several soldiers. He moved to take flight and was suddenly hit with a sensation of lightning coursing through his body, stiffening his muscles. Ytavus tried to brute force his body to move, but he couldn’t. The soldiers kept firing at Ytavus, his muscles contracted and kept stiff, then his pouch pushed the egg out from its hidden spot.

One human shouted something Ytavus didn’t understand. A few of them stopped shooting and grabbed the egg and retreated into the forest.

“No! What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” The manling shouted. The sound grew fainter in Ytavus’ head.

Even as the lighting shots impacted him, he caught the eye of one soldier. His lightning-gun seemed to malfunction as the crystal’s glow dimmed. Ytavus swiped at him with his claws, destroying the gun in his hands then knocking him into the water with his wing. The other soldiers continued firing, and Ytavus grew accustomed to the shocked feeling in his body. He swiped his tail and caught one human, but the other ducked and rolled away. The remaining two soldiers followed the rest of their group back into the forest.

Ytavus roared again and leaped into the trees. He narrowed his eyes, zooming in on the group carrying the egg. He looked ahead of them to see a skyboat. Ytavus bounded through the treetops, crashing through branches thick and thin. The foliage whipping past his face did not stop his advance. The dragon blended with the green, and the soldiers following behind saw nothing but the flash of white feathers and green scales as they lost consciousness.

He sped ahead of them and crashed in front of the skyboat, just as the leader and the soldiers carrying the egg came through the brush and face to face with an angry dragon.

“Why!? Why are you allowed to steal my child and I just have to accept it!?” The leader shouted.

“I am not your enemy! Even as you have struck me with lightning and stolen that newborne, I still wish no harm upon you.” Ytavus replied. “Point those beast-rotted sticks somewhere else, or I will become wrathful.”

“You will take me with you. I will not be gone from my child, I will not allow her to become a lonely being like all of you dragons!”

“What?”

“Ytavus, is that my mother?” The manling asked faintly.

The leader spoke something in the human language, and the two soldiers carrying the egg placed it on the ground in front of Ytavus. Ytavus took it back into his pouch, and relaxed his body. He folded his wings, and his scales returned to lay against his body. The leader curled against his pouch and removed and dropped her mask on the ground. She said something in the human language again, which the dragon did not understand, but the other soldiers moved back into the forest to gather their others.

Ytavus lowered his wing to the ground like a walkway, and the human woman climbed onto his back. She took hold of his scales and leaned tightly against the dragon. As the two returned to the beach, Ytavus watched as the humans gathered themselves, leaving the guns on the ground, and nursing their dragon-given wounds. He took flight, starting to sail across the ocean waves. The sun dipped low and the shine across the water was ethereal to even the dragon, for he had not seen anything like this, deep in his forest.

“What is your time like, forest dragon?” The woman asked, her hair, brown and tinged with yellow streaks, flowing in the wind and ocean spray.

“I…I suppose I have no concept of it. My time is spent leisurely patrolling my territory, filling my days taking care of the local creatures and bidding the forest good health. The few and far between blazes, or attacks from beasts break up the…monotony.”

“That sounds lonely. Are all dragons like that? Humans live together, we play together, organize and work with and for each other. I can’t imagine being alone like you are.”

“Solitude does not bite at me the way it does humans. It must be something in the way your gods created you. To reach out and find each other in the dark. Knowing that you are not alone gives you strength. It is why you are able to stand in front of a regal creature like myself unafraid, because you are many and I am one.”

“Then you understand why I must follow you, to see this newborne through.”

“Yes. But you must also know, and understand, that this child once they become a dragon, will not remember you and will outlive you.”

“I know. But I can’t leave her alone.”

Ytavus flew through the night, attempting to keep his body straight so that the woman would not fall off of his back. As he flew he looked below, seeing the water break to reveal the serpentine body of an ocean dragon lifting itself above the waves. Ytavus stared at it, and the light from the moons reflected in its eyes. Ytavus knew it was staring back at him. They shared a knowing look before they returned to their separate duties.

As day broke Ytavus saw the sun form over an island formed from black rock and glowing orange veins running down into the water.

“This is it Ytavus, the island I saw.” The child said.

Ytavus descended onto the island, towards the top of the volcano. The caldera was mostly a thin and hot volcanic glass, not true magma. Ytavus landed and folded his wings up to cover the woman. He walked closer to the center of the caldera, and noticed a small outcropping of rock. He removed the egg from his pouch and placed it on the rock.

“Now, manling. Focus on your surroundings, feel the force of heat move through you. Transform.” Ytavus said, before flying back above the island.

As the child focused on the sensations she felt during the resonance ritual, the magma underneath the caldera began to bubble up above the volcanic glass. The lava reacted to the air and the cooled rock swirled within the lava as they whirled around the egg. The child and the rock rose into the air and she could feel her body changing. Her fingers shaped into wings and claws, her skin grew scales and her spine elongated to create a tail.

If Ytavus could smile, he would’ve. He watched from afar as the volcano erupted and magma burst forth high into the sky.

“No!” The woman screamed.

Ytavus laughed, “Fret not, human. For this is the birth of a volcanic dragon!”

The fountain of magma began to lose steam, and a dark shape burst through the center and rose into the air. A powerful screeching roar sounded through the air. Ytavus flew down to the island and let the woman get off of his back. A newborne dragon crashed down onto the dark sand in front of them. She stood up as the dust cleared. A deep red color, the volcanic dragon had a more reptilian face and a parietal crest. Rather than the four wings like Ytavus, the red dragon only had two wings, which she also used to stand, her two claws at the peak of her wings. Shorter and more powerful legs, and a tail that ended in an arrow shape.

“I am Ytavus, a forest dragon. I brought you here to be reborn. What is your name, newborne?” Ytavus asked.

“I…am Estraz” She said. “Estraz, a volcanic dragon. Who is the human with you?”

“I know he said you wouldn’t recognize me, but it still hurts.” The woman wiped tears from her eyes. “I am your mother, or…I was when you were still human. I am called Selkanta.”

“Selkanta. Mother.” As Estraz spoke she closed her eyes and brought her head low towards the human woman.

Selkanta ran her hands along Estraz’s head. She laughed and cried, just wanting to hold her daughter.

Ytavus watched the two of them for a short time, before taking flight and returning to his forest. He knew that this alliance between a mother and daughter had the chance to alter the future.