The Dragon Guard, Prolouge

“There you are”, a voice rumbled from the sky, hot breath on my skinny, squishy toddler shoulders. I turned around, wide eyed and scared. Its teeth were bigger than my whole body and sharp as pikes. Its head was large as the clearing and cast a shadow, thick and solid as the forest canopy.

I screamed and tried to run faster to no avail. Its claws came down on top of me and flattened me into the ground. My eyes blazed, I set my sights on the only thing in my reach. A rotten branch, twisted and black in the way the ancient trees grew. It was my only hope. I wrapped my tiny hand around it, just as scales scraped along my back and found purchase on my clothing.

I was lifted high into the air and the trees fell away below me. Blood roared in my ears. I was raised high, close to the clouds and level with a pair of eyes.

I held fast and stared into the campfire eyes, my life dangled from the stitching of my clothes. I held my stick and steadied my hand. The giant black trees with their emerald blue leaves turned into small, thick twigs that blanketed the valley. If this creature let go, I would surely die. I would not yield to the pathetic fear of height, and this creature, the master of height and the embodiment of everything to fear, would not best me.

With a battlecry I swung my weapon. It wizzed and whipped the air, goring and defeating. Each mighty swing had my full might behind it. The monster would fall.

The scales on the creature's brow drew into the sky with confusion. It didn’t feel any of my attacks, because I was not hitting it. My stick wasn’t coming close to any of its scales.

“Why are you attacking little one”, a grandiosant voice like a thousand mountain songs spoke to me.

I stopped my barrage, my breath was heavy.

“Because I HATE you”, I roared with all the fury that could be stored in a tiny child.

“Oh”.

We moved again, away from the clearing I was discovered in. The trees flew away beneath me as though I were the same size as the dragon.

The dragon on the other hand merely sat back onto her haunches and turned into a hill all her own. She seemed to have stretched all the way across the ancient forest as though reaching for a toy that had rolled too far away. Below her, on the ground, was a village. The people were gathered underneath the dragon, small as ants. They visited colorful tents, talked frabjously, and bounced to a flute intent on singing itself to death.

The dragon set me down on a flat surface, the palm of her other talon. I thought the great claws would come down and stab me like a cheese on a toothpick.

“Did you find her”? another similar voice asked, deeper unfamiliar. Beside this dragon was another.

The other dragon was fatter with sharp, triangular brown scales and a ridge of great ski shaped scales lining his neck. They clattered like great trees as he bent his neck to me. His eyes were the color of the sky and shimmered lake blue with hints of purple and yellow like sunshine that warred against with twilight. His face was thick and flat, his teeth round and large. I hated him too.

“Yes, but this was no accident”, my dragon said, “I am afraid she hates me”.

“Hmmmm”, the other dragon narrowed his eyes, not unkindly. Their soft parentlike voices made me feel bad about myself. I crossed my arms and stuck my tongue at them.

“Oh little human, could you tell me why you hate me”, the dragon asked.

“Because…” I snipped and decided how I could relay my feelings in a way that I wouldn’t look like the bad guy, “because you are going to go away”.

The two dragons blinked in monumental confusion.

“I am not going away”, the dragon chuckled. Her eyes were kind and truthful.

“Yes you are. You had that”, I pointed down towards her tail. In between her goldenrod scales sat a great white stone, long and narrow and large as a house. Her eyes were still tired from bringing it into the world.

“They said that it will be a new dragon soon and…” I hiccuped as tears began to come, “and that it will rule a new kingdom, just like you rule over us. But I don’t want a new dragon. I like you. I d-don’t want y-you to g-g-go”.

“OH ohohoho”, the dragon smiled. Her smile was the most beautiful thing in the world. Her round, smooth, sunshine colored scales quirked along her long graceful snout.

“Little human, the egg is not replacing Verain”, said the other dragon.

It confused me.

“I am not abdicating the throne any time in your lifespan”, Verain, my kingdom’s dragon, explained, “This egg won’t hatch for another hundred years and when it does, it will have a lot of growing to do before we can put it in charge of humans. Even then I will still be alive and well”.

“If it's not to replace you then… then why have it in the first place”, I asked.

“Because we aren’t immortal,” the other dragon explained, “dragons are like you and the little birdies and the big trees. We change and sometimes we die”.

“But you are dragons. You live forever and ever, don’t you”? I asked, unbelieving. I didn’t know much about the world, but I knew Verain had been the queen all my life. Three years was a long time.

“No, we don’t live forever”, Verain informed,”We live a very long time, but not forever. And that’s a good thing. Someday, this egg will be a big, beautiful dragon like me and Oriaon. Someday Gorigsipher, the oldest dragon alive right now, will pass away. This egg will inherit his kingdom and run it how they wish. By then the egg will no doubt someday be a good ruler, but they will need help”.

“They will need help from brave humans. Humans who accept that the world is changing and are willing to grow with it”.

“But change is scary”, I pouted, “I don’t want things to change”.

“It is, it is very scary”, Verain chuckled, “But that’s why humans like you need to be brave. So when change does come, which it will, they can face it for what it is and find a way to live with it”.

“Like when mommy and daddy died”, I realized, “And Stephen took care of me instead”.

The two dragons’ eyebrows furrowed. Verain lowered her neck and her palm towards the ground. The people below became larger and the festival music became louder. Soon I was inches from a pile of hay where I slid off Verain’s palm and climbed my way to the shoe smooshed grass.

“Stephen”! I cried and ran towards my brother.

His ever worried brows relaxed and he breathed a smile at the sight of me. He crumpled his lanky body down to my height and scooped me up into a hug.

“Jin, don’t DO THAT again”, he sobbed, “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? You could have been eaten by monsters or fallen in a ditch or drowned in a stream or eaten by a tree”.

“Trees don’t eat people”, I told him.

“DANGEROUS THINGS”, he cried, his voice broke into a screechy whine as he held me in the air and shook me, “you disturbed the dragons, just after they had their egg. How selfish you are. Selfish you hear me”!

“Whoawoahwoah”, I giggled as he tried to shake the weight of his worry into me. It didn’t work.

“Thank you SO much for helping find my little sister. I am SO sorry she ran away. I will keep a better eye on her I promise”, Stephen pleaded with the golden snout of Verain and pinned me to the ground in his kowtow.

“Rise young Stephen, it is alright”, Verain soothed.

My brother rose, his mouth agape and his voice in his throat. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he held me. He, like me had brownish freckly skin, more so than mine because he managed the farm that sustained us. His hair was shorter, but the same thick black color.

“It is to my understanding that you are raising her on your own, correct”, Verain asked.

“Yes”, he bowed, “-But I’m doing a good job. She’s well fed and happy and-”.

“I am not going to take your sister from you”, Verain interjected.

Stephen closed his mouth and held me closer. The tense muscle, that fought something unseeable in his neck, relaxed.

“Thank you”, he squeaked with a choke in his voice. He was crying.

“However it is not appropriate that such a young boy to spend his youth raising another youth”, Verain said, “You don’t have the life experience for that yet. As proven today, your inexperienced left this child with questions she felt she had to act out to answer”.

“Yes, Queen Verain”, he nodded sadly.

“It is not your fault”, she soothed, “You are doing your best and I can tell you are doing an excellent job, but we have the orphan system for a reason. It is not in place to take you from your sister or steal you away from your home. Please, do the paperwork”.

A Realm Guard, heavily armored with plates like scales all along his chest and legs brought a stack of papers. He handed them to Stephen who furrowed his brow. It had a lot of small words all over it that I couldn’t read yet. Even attempting to focus on a string made me dizzy.

“There’s so much of it”, he complained and sifted through it.

“Indeed there is. You are not meant to do all of it. These are all the resources we can offer you and anyone else in your family. This one can help you keep your home and this one can liquidate it into funds for whatever you chose to do. And these ones can acquire you a tutor or a full time caretaker”, Verain explained.

“Then… we don’t have to leave our home. We don’t have move to the capital”, he asked. He gazed at the papers with more reverence than before.

“Yes and if you are having trouble, you can come to me anytime”, Verain smiled that wonderful smile of hers.

“Thank you, Thank you, thankyou, Queen Verain”, Stephen cried and wiped his tears away with his free sleeve. He stumbled back and turned around as soon as he was a respectful distance from Verain and her egg.

“Thank you, Queen Verain and visiting dragon”, I called over Stephen’s shoulders.

Queen Verain gave me a wave with her magnificent talons. Oriaon snorted in surprise at being referred to as “visiting dragon” and shook his head.

They watched me leave with a loving gleam in their eyes. I had never met my parents, but I knew they would make good ones.

“That’s a lucky egg”, I said.

“Hmm. Yes it is”, Stephen answered.

I glanced back at Verain and Oriaon. They had lost us in the crowd and were now talking amongst themselves. Verain was smiling when the sky went dark.

SHRRRRREBAAAANG. A moment before her face was beautiful and perfect, the next she had no face. Blood spit from her violently twisting neck and rained down on the festival. Oriaon let out a roar like a storm cloud. His wings flared, dark blue splattered black and red. Blood framed the giant hole where his chest was before. He stumbled back, blood burst from his mouth onto the trees below which were promptly crushed by his talons.

They fell over in unison, landed on the ancient forest, crushed the trees under the weight of their bodies. They brought earthquakes and leaf filled winds which tore up the sides of the mountains where rocks and snow tumbled down. All of it happened in under a minute and right in front of my eyes...

…And to this day no one knows what killed our dragons. The egg disappeared overnight and their corpses, too big to move, are slowly rotting away in my village at the end of this kingdom. And THAT is why we have a human king now”, I finished.

My travel partner stared at me with horror, his mouth agape. The child across from me, a little older than I was back then, stared at me in shock. His mother had her arms around him and pulled him to her chest. The entire train car remained silent, wide eyed passengers stared at me, horrified. The only sound that remained was the click of the train track and someone breathed heavily behind me.

“...What” I asked with an embarrassed chuckle.

“Are you insane”, My travel partner hissed in a whisper I had failed to produce telling that story. He set his askew glasses back onto his pale peach colored nose.

“Its the truth isn’t it”, I said, “I have a unique perspective that not many people have. I saw our dragons die”.

Everyone in the car flinched when I said “dragons”. They had done so throughout the entire story.

“Doesn’t matter! What if a Realm Guard heard you tell that story. All of us will be in deep SHIT”, the mother snapped and inched her rear end half off her seat. The people on the other seat wouldn’t let her over.

I shrugged and placed my arms over the hilt of my sword. I gazed at its name, “StarStrike”, etched into the pummel.

“Don’t you worry, A Realm Guard did hear the whole story”, the voice behind me spoke up. I looked up at a man with a solid bronze face mask and an officers cap atop his head. His eyes gazed at me with black ferocity.

“Oh did you now”? I asked.

Without warning, I drew Starstrike from its sheath and before his eyes could even widen with surprise, I lodged it under his mask and twisted the blade.

Clank clatter clatter The mask bounced onto the wooden floor and disappeared underneath one of the seats. What remained was a face, or what might have been a face at some point.

Half melted, half torn off, the realm guard’s face was a mess of scarring. His nose was twisted in a moon shape and his cheek drooped onto his shoulder. His eyes, one beautiful and pristine with long lashes, the other round and unlidded with pink veins remaining to keep the eye in place. His cheek was cut up, a slash marred what was left of his eyebrows. His beard only grew on half his face.

The woman screamed and hid her child. Her son began to cry.

“Wow, it's true the closer you get to the capital, the uglier the Realm Guards are”, I told him.

Fury twisted all the ugly scars on his face and he promptly arrested us.

“I am NOT with this-this-MANIAC. SHE KIDNAPPED ME. I am innocent. My name is Gil. I’m a scholar”, Gil, my travel partner, wailed and sobbed. His body landed beside me in the car seat, padded with leather that stank of blood.

“Yes he is, he’s my brother Stephen. It says so on his ID there”, I informed the realm guard.

The Realm Guard checked our identification cards, the ones made of a strange new material called plastic. On the plastic was my face smiling in black at white. Next was Stephen, same last name, similar information. Except instead of my brother’s shining brown eyes, wide sparkling smile and budding beard, it was a picture of ol Gil who looked less than thrilled to be on the card.

“attemting to give an officer a false identity is also a crime, boy”, the man snarled, he set his mask back into place.

Gil gulped and stared at me, pale as the moon.

“That’s not my ID. You are giving me a false identity”, he squeaked, “OOOOOOH this is SO BAD”.

“Relax”, I said, “Its the capital, what’s the worst that can happen”?

He glanced out the window, past the people leaving the train to a set of steel pikes, dripping with blood, two people and a dog dangled on them. Each one had a flag beneath them. Red and pink, dark green and grey, orange and gold.

The car started with a growl, putted off and drove away down the dark and busy streets, shadowed by Verain’s old castle.

“Why me. What did I ever do to deserve this”, Gil sobbed and raised his cuffed hands towards the ceiling as though praying to the kings ass high above us.

People hung from the stone wall behind us, licked their chapped lips and wriggled their starved, bony torsos. Their moans created a miserable ambiance over any talking the prisoners were doing.

The small room was packed with people who ate their mush and green things on plastic platters. Long tables sat in the middle of the room, far from the shackle studded walls. At these tables criminals of all ways of wash growled, grunted, whined, cooed and laughed about. Their plastic jugs of putrid water clanked heavily against the stained wood, metal spoons met teeth, voices filtered out of food which splattered forth on anyone nearest. Despite limitations and shackles, several fights had broken out down the line.

“I say it is your fault, bringing me here, telling horrible stories about dying dragons. You honestly think people wanted to hear about that”, Gil sniffled and reached for the center of the table where a cup was filled with two kinds of utensils.

“DON’T touch that”, I hissed and snatched his hand away from the shining round device with four sharp prongs.

“Why not. It's a Ong, I need it to eat”, Gil flung his hands out at the selection.

“Right. Titaeena people don’t use those. It's so guards can catch the fact you are from Parylis. We are in here because I assaulted a guard and said the ‘D’ word. Not a single crime more or we are dead”.

“What ‘D’ word. Dragons”?

“Shhhhhhh”, I hissed and glanced at the guards. There were only two on the opposite side of the room, faces both hidden behind masks. The scars that ran down one’s neck into their collar suggested the same image as the other man.

“It is illegal to speak of them. You remember the six year war”?

“Remember it… no. Parylis still has our dragon. But I have heard of it. I thought it was only three years”, Gil answered.

“Three years of arguing and hostilities, three years of fighting. Six years. Anyway it was because each kingdom accused each other of murdering the… old rulers…. We don’t speak of them just to keep the peace”, I explained.

“You call this peace”? Gil snorted and motioned around to the entire room.

“In fact we do. Look at how happy these people are”, I smirked and motioned to a woman smacking a boulder of a man over the head with her tray. Some of her food landed in my hair, I pretended not to notice.

Gil gazed at me with offended horror.

“You are truly insane. I never should have left my college to venture into this pit with you”, he scoffed and returned to his meal.

Because at least most of these people aren’t starving. Even the ones on the wall are healthier than the ones during wartimes. I thought. Memories of bone thin people lining the sides of bombed out shops floated to the surface. The horror of seeing them firsthand swirled in my gut, a mere wisp of what it was in that moment.

Static roared through a small, tin box attached to the wall. The voice inside was indecipherable. It spit and hissed blatant displeasure to the whole hall. At once everyone obeyed, rose to their feet and took their trays with them.

“What did they say”? Gil asked me.

“I don’t know, I guess they are saying dinner is over”, I told him and rose from my seat.

“I cannot stress this enough, your kingdom’s speaker systems are garbage”, he sniffed and raised his tray elegantly in front of him. A burly woman shoved him sideways back into his seat.

We tapped our way down the hall among the sound of hundreds of other feet.

“Whoah, watch out”, Gil shouted to a pair of stone pale little children bounced under his feet. Inmates slipped out of line into cells blasted into the walls.

“Damn brats”, a man beside him growled and aimed a kick at the children. They dodged with practiced skill and disappeared into the mess of legs.

“Don’t kick-”, Gil snapped back until he saw the burning hatred in the man’s piggy eyes. He winced and trotted over to me. I ducked out of the line down a passage.

“Jin where are you going? Our cells are that way”, He told me.

“We aren’t going to our cells. I have someone I need you to meet”.

I dragged Gil farther down the tunnels, lived in, furnished cells and spooky guards. The farther we went the fancier the furnishings became. Glittering Moegendy silk over the iron bars, carpets that coated the whole floors of cells, grand wooden beds that boggled the mind as to how they got in there. Some even had no cell bars to hold the occupants in.

“Fancy. What can I do to get in a cell like this”? Gil pointed to one filled with glittering tomes and scrolls packed into a cell with no bars.

“You can have this, just be rich and have family on the outside”, I smiled.

I guided him down another side channel and stopped outside a familiar set of wood doors. I knocked the brass knocker.

“Yeah, what is- OOH! JIN, its been SUCH a long time, come in, come in”, a young man infested with hair called gleefully and beckoned us inside. He eyed Gil with golden eyes like a hungry cat. He purred as he closed the door.

“It has only been a couple weeks, Bernard”, I chuckled and took in his room.

“A couple weeks? Jin, you were here a COUPLE WEEKS ago? Why I ever…”, Gil gasped.

It was no wonder he had a great big door instead of curtains or bars. Inside his cell were hundreds upon hundreds of dragon artifacts. Scaly knight armor, paintings of dragons, old books with dragons ran up the spines, unusable vases and stiff old embroidery with dragons flying upon them. This cell was a museum of dragons, but not just any dragons. Verain. The paintings were mostly of Verain, her resting on mountains, her spreading her wings wide, her in the center of a grand courtroom, kindly looking upon a criminal with gentleness in her eyes. They weren’t perfect, some bore the slightest resemblance to her, in how the winged yellow weasel was green and yellow. Others were highly stylized, but at least she didn’t look like a great toothy rodent. One thing that could be said about everything in Bernard's room was…

“These are ancient”, Gil breathed, his fingers gently brushed over the tomes. He gently removed one with professional care, under the gaze of Bernard, “Truely ancient, this is… oh… OH MY. Great Dragons what is this FILTH”.

He shut the book with an unceremonious slam and released a stench that probably wasn’t only old book.

Bernard laughed and slapped the arm of his velvet and mahogany chair.

“Yes, indeed. You see WHY that’s down here. A lot of this stuff here is the stuff Verain didn’t think was fit to be displayed in the castle above. Those books, these paintings, whatever that thing is, they are all historical items that were banned, inaccurate and too delicate for the public eye, and too important to destroy”, Bernard explained, “Unless you are the king and his family that is”.

“Wait, WHAT? The king DESTROYED ANCIENT ARTIFACTS. All of them? W-What about the-”, Gil cried.

“The Cevea’da’clariou, yup. Broken up into little bits and put in tacky necklaces, just like all the other famous dragon cut gemstones in Verain’s collection”, Bernard sighed.

Gil let out a sound like a balloon deflating, which might have been his legs since they fell out from under him, onto the dusty, rat dropping strewn floor.

“I wanted to see it”, he squeaked.

“Lets move on to nicer stories, How was Parylis”? Bernard asked and batted his long black lashes at me and set his chin on his folded hands.

“Pain in the ass, pollution run cars are not allowed there so you have to walk or have a wagon. No train lines either, super slow going. It has lots of libraries, full of lots of books. Nerds EVERYWHERE. This guy is practically buff in the country of scholars”, I chortled.

“What”? Gil looked up from a silk tapestry depicting Verain and a larger white dragon I didn’t know.

“I noticed”, Bernard purred and winked at Gil. Gil’s mouth slid into a line and he looked anywhere, but at Bernard.

“And the buildings were cool. I guess. Lots of weird yellow trees…”

“Quaking aspens”, Gil corrected.

“Quaking aspens… everyone is super nice and happy and fat and not worried about anything except for late assignments”.

“Hmm. Meet any wizards”? Bernard asked.

Gil flinched.

“Don’t know, they all looked like book sniffers to me”, I shrugged. I stared at the decaying kite hanging from the ceiling.

“Some of those ‘book sniffers’ probably were wizards”, Gil snipped, “They are not just randos who wear long starry cloaks and carry around sticks you know. Magic is taught by hard study and determination”.

“Indeed. This one has a good head on him. Is that why you brought him all the way down here. Otherwise, I can’t imagine why you don’t have the scroll I asked for on you”, Bernard’s tone turned sour.

I curled my nose.

“What scroll”? Gil asked and then his eyes widened before Bernard answered.

“The scroll that tells you how to cast Void Pockets”.

“Right, Gil it's time for your end of the bargain, I take you safely into Titaneea and you show us the spell”.

“R-right”, Gil said nervously.

Bernard’s breath hitched as Gil stripped off his prison shirt. He turned around and bore his back for all to see. A magic circle, inscribed with ancient runes and a strange shape stood out in a sea of freckles. The circle itself was made of freckles, all perfectly set together in a solid line.

“OH. That makes ALL the sense now. No wonder information on it is so recondite”, Bernard held his hand to his lips and inched towards Gil.

“It's genetic”, Gil turned, his face bright red, “I’m sorry, but drawing the circle and saying the right incantation won’t cast the spell”.

“Its quite alright”, Bernard sighed, “It would be an honor simply to be a witness to it”.

“What do you want with the spell anyway”, Gil asked. He put his clothes back on and adjusted his glasses.

“I need to be rid of all these artifacts”. Bernard waved to his whole room, “They have been in here since I was a boy. I have other interests now and I have little room to accomplish said interests. They also endanger my life. If a guard were to accidentally glimpse my collection and inform the king, I would no longer be a guest, but a real criminal. Moving them is dangerous and tricky. My best bet is this spell”.

“That- I can do that”, Gil smiled gleefully.

“Excellent. Let me just get your side of the bargain Jin”, Bernard clapped and set about strolling over to a shelf covered in ancient scrolls.

“For a while, I thought you were nuts”, Gil giggled, “But now I see. You were trying to save these ancient, valuable artifacts. Here I thought you were going to do something shady”.

I shrugged and waited as Bernard picked a tiny blackened scroll from the back of the shelf. It was hidden in some sort of secret compartment I would have never known about.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to steal it, I thought triumphantly to myself. After all these years. A flutter rose in my chest, like a child jumping up and down eagerly. After losing the game over and over and over again, she would finally win a game she has been playing since forever. Finally getting good after so long. I high fived that little girl, shut in her cage and locked away so we could stay alive. The day would come when I could let her out and be her again.

“And here it is”, Bernard said and spread the ancient parchment out over the table.

Gil’s brown eyes scanned over the page, he frowned, studied the lines and drawings. Then his eyes grew wide and he flinched back.

“I-It can’t be. Is this… NO. I was right. You truely are INSANE. There is no way you are…”

“Yes, Gilbert. I am going to find the Dark Dragon”.