Of All the Many Titles

Ashbringer. Flametongue. Blaze of Bal’Orn. Great Wind-Reaver.

Or, as this child called me, “Baggu.”

Over the years, I’d given myself many titles. While others might call that conceited, I believed—at the time—that everyone is tasked with forging their own legacy. I endeavored to ensure that mine would burn brightly.

On that day I was Balagar, The Wings of Sorrow, and I had been sulking under a dense canopy of vines and branches for most of the morning. Curled up in a clearing on the jungle floor, smoke billowed from my nostrils as I flared them in agitation. The child giggled as she slid down the polished scales of my tail, smiling wildly as she sailed into a large bush. As soon as she landed, she hopped to her feet, then bounded back up to slide again.

The sparse morning light peeking through the jungle canopy did little to assuage my exasperation. I was The Might of the Four Winds! The Sundering Maw! I had just burned the city of Aerdalen to the ground in an afternoon!

But that was, you see, why I was in that jungle to begin with.

A few days ago, some thieves had made off with a few items from my treasure hoard. Nothing sentimental, but I had noticed their absence nonetheless. To me, perception held equal weight to legacy, and I never gave anyone the opportunity to doubt my strength. I had trailed these thieves back to Aerdalen, then set the city ablaze with them inside.

The Council of the Red Dragonflight prohibited killing outside of self-defense and officially-sanctioned hunts. Mistakes were made from time to time, and the Council saw that the members of The Dragonflight were given fair—if not mild—judgments. Razing an entire city to the ground, however, was not an action I expected to be taken lightly.

This also wasn’t the first incident. I had a history of insubordination, and had been referred to by the Council as “unruly and reckless.” Most of my transgressions had been on the smaller side: startling a town by flying overhead late in the night, or the occasional roasting of a farmer’s livestock—but never anything of this magnitude.

As you might expect, I was surprised when the Council delayed my punishment. They instead scheduled a hearing in one week’s time. In the interim, they gave me two simple rules: first, no killing until I was brought again before the Council; second, that this child would suffer no harm from myself or anyone else.

At the time, I felt as though my wings had been clipped. My reputation was in jeopardy and my pride was on the line. And what is a dragon without his pride?

The Dragonflight had found the child playing alone in the jungle. No one had come to claim her in the days following, so it then became my charge to ensure her safety should someone come looking for her. She didn’t seem particularly special: I had never bothered trying to learn human languages, so her already incoherent babbling was impossible for me to understand. Additionally, she was easily distracted by anything remotely alluring.

The child paused in her revelry, staring up at me. For a moment, she seemed to peer into my soul, studying me like she had found something shiny within my large slit-pupil eyes.

She then blew a spit-bubble, and giggled as it popped.

“Heartfire engulf me,” I cursed between clenched jaws.

She giggled again as I spoke. Most humans found the draconic dialect to be harsh and grating, yet she seemed enamored by it. In fact, she had appeared entirely undisturbed since I had arrived, playing on and around me as though I were a toy castle her father had built for her to play with. Most children are enthralled by stories of dragons, but flee or faint at the sight of them. This child, however, showed no sign of fear in my presence.

She wandered off a bit, chasing a small bug as it buzzed around the clearing. It hovered just above her reach, almost taunting her as she tried to reach for it. She jumped over and over, her face contorting more into a pout with each leap.

“We don’t always get what we want, little one,” I whispered as she planted her fists on her hips in frustration. She seemed determined, eyes flaring with unyielding tenacity as she leaped again for the bug. It was almost admirable; I thought she would’ve made a good dragon, if only she had been born with scales instead of skin. She reminded me of someone from long ago; a memory I promptly ignored.

A loud rumble thundered through the jungle. The child froze, looking deep into the trees, as if something called her from within. She grabbed for something around her neck, clutching it tightly as a child might clutch a blanket or a small stuffed toy. She looked up at me, noticeably startled.

“Stay. Peace.” I said in her tongue, trying to calm her. I only knew a few human words at the time and had trouble pronouncing even those. Human dialects felt soft and slow, like trying to speak with a mouth full of meat.

I locked eyes with her, trying to keep her focused on me. Her eyes grew wide and her hands began to tremble, as though she’d suddenly remembered something urgent.

She turned and took off, bolting straight into the bushes.

I stood quickly, jaw hanging in shock. It took only a moment to lose her amidst the overgrowth. While still very young, she was apparently able to run quite fast. Realizing my predicament, I hurried on after her, the ground shaking as I ran.

It felt unnatural to run. Not because I was incapable; it’s just that every situation needing swift travel usually allowed me to take to the air, covering the distance in a fraction of the time. Unfortunately, the thick jungle around me offered no such allowances. It was difficult enough to keep sight of her; her small form allowed her to dart quickly through the underbrush. I could see some bushes rustle just up ahead, but she was quickly getting ahead of me.

I tried to keep up, vines and branches snapping across me as I ran. The more I pushed into the jungle, the thicker it became. My frustration began to rise. Why couldn’t she stay put? Why couldn’t she just listen?

I broke out into another small clearing. Looking ahead, I caught a glimpse of the girl as she slipped into the trees on the other side. I went to follow, but stopped short as an arrow whizzed by my head, lodging itself into a nearby tree.

I followed the arrow’s path with my eyes to the top of a rocky ledge overlooking the clearing. There, a tall man was already knocking another arrow. He wore a rugged hunter’s outfit with a green cloak, the hood up over his head. I had actively avoided diplomatic visits with nearby cities up to this point, but I recognized the color from the flags of Stillguard, a city to the southern edge of the jungle. While the city wasn’t too far away, this hunter was easily a day’s hike from home.

He loosed another arrow, this time grazing the scales on my back. I let out a roar and widened my jaw, feeling the flames well up in my throat. Just before I began to unleash a torrent of flame, intending to incinerate both the man and the ledge he stood upon, I remembered:

No killing.

I shut my mouth and turned, snarling in frustration as flames jetted out between the gaps in my teeth. As I headed for the tree line, I found myself baffled by the hunter. Why would he attempt to take on a dragon by himself? What was he thinking?

A half dozen more arrows flew by, slamming into tree trunks and branches with loud thuds. Multiple shouts came from behind the hunter as more men in green cloaks appeared on the ledge.

“Oh, sear me in heartflame,” I cursed.

I used the trees for cover as I fled, narrowly dodging another volley of arrows. Most of them would simply bounce off my scales, but it would only take one stray arrow to puncture an eye or tear a wing. Wings took a long time to heal, and eyes almost never healed at all.

I could hear them shouting as I ran. As I said before, I couldn’t fully understand them, but I had picked out the words child and rescue, so I had a good idea as to what they thought was happening. I couldn’t really blame them, either: a dragon chasing a child through the jungle would seem pretty suspicious, no matter which way you looked at it.

I quickened my pace as best I could, but the jungle floor began to climb upward, the terrain growing more and more challenging to traverse. I could no longer see the girl; the hunters had distracted me long enough to completely lose sight of her. However, I managed to find a pair of small, faint footprints in the mud. A painful memory crept to the surface of my mind. I cut it short, pushing it down, and instead focused on the girl’s trail.

I was starting to worry. What if she got lost? What if she got hurt? At this point, I was worried less about the consequences I would suffer. I couldn’t help but imagine her stuck in a hole or staring down one of the jungle’s many predators. I knew I needed to find her fast.

Having evaded the archers, I slowed down as a third clearing opened up before me. I had found the source of the loud rumble from before: an enormous tree, brittle with age, had fallen into the clearing. Branches and rotting vines were scattered across the grass. Small, shallow footprints stopped at the tree, then circled around it as if investigating before continuing off into the distance.

I began to follow, but froze as I noticed something sticking out from underneath a heavy branch. I shoved the branch aside, then scooped the object up gently. It was a small oval-shaped boulder, cracked along its length like a broken shell. The inside was covered with scintillating gemstones, a mixture of bright whites, deep reds, and purples.

It looked just like an egg.

His egg.

The thought I had pushed down earlier erupted, flooding my mind with memories I had tried so hard to ignore. I remembered the earthquake. The rockslide. I remembered my hatchling whimpering, alone in the rubble as I desperately tried to find him.

I remembered a little life cut short.

Agony pierced me, a violent storm shifting between rage and despair. I remembered vowing that day to never let anything be taken from me again. Not my treasure, not my pride.

I was not going to lose this little girl.

Looking up, I saw the clearing connected to an open cliffside. Toward its edge sat the girl, her small form silhouetted against the setting sun. I stumbled around the tree, then lumbered across the rocky plateau toward its edge. Her hair was a mess of leaves and twigs, her clothing in tatters. She was crying, a soft whimper I could hardly hear.

Relieved, I moved up next to her, whispering softly. “Please don’t run off like that, little one,” I said. “I promised to keep you safe, remember?”

She turned to me, tears streaming down her face. Then she looked away, eyes fixed on something in the distance. I followed her gaze, then froze.

The high cliffside gave a perfect view of Aerdalen, black smoke rising slowly from the ruins of the city. Buildings and fields were charred in long lines where I’d scorched them from the air.

The girl looked down at something in her hands. In them she held a small pendant, made of painted wood and attached to a metal chain. The chain was broken at the clasp, assumedly from running through the jungle. The pendant itself was marred, scratched, and covered in mud, but the inscription on its face was unmistakable. It depicted a dove, held gracefully between two gentle hands. It was the symbol of the House of Aféleia, the ruling family in the city of Aerdalen.

I had saved her family’s palace—the largest in the city—for last. She had been playing in the jungle without a care in the world while I destroyed everything she had ever loved.

A teardrop splashed across the face of the pendant as she looked down at it. She looked up at me, then reached for my ankle as she began to sob. The pendant flipped over as it dangled on its chain from her little fist, and I saw a word—no, a name—etched across the other side. Surprisingly, it was in draconic.

Karis.

In her tongue, this name means “Hope.”

Through her tears, all Karis could get out was one word:

“Baggu?”

I had broken both rules before I even set foot in that jungle. I was the cause of all her anguish. I had killed her bright, fearless spirit. In that moment, I knew why the Council had chosen to delay my hearing. In that moment, I knew why they had charged me with her care.

As Karis sobbed against me, I realized that I only needed one title.

I’d given myself many names over the years. On that day—and every day since—I have claimed only one:

Balagar, The Breaker of Hope.

Of all the many titles I’d claimed for myself, it was the only one I truly deserved.

Now you know why I’ve watched over this girl all these years. Now you know why I guard her fiercely.

Someday she’ll know the truth. When she does, I expect she’ll want to kill me; that is how I’ve raised her, after all. Until then, I strive each day to make sure she survives long enough to make that decision for herself.

After all I’ve taken away from her, that choice is all I have left to give.