The First Dragon Rider

Ezekiel didn't actually like being a dragon all that much. Sure, the epic wingspan, fire-breathing and riddle-weaving were grand up to a point. But have you ever tried to manage a 30ft wingspan in an enclosed space? Accidentally incinerate the help when you had a cold? Don't even start on the competitions for best hoard; it's simply not all it's cracked up to be in the stories. The mere effort required to find a decent cliff or field to have a good run up for take off these days is enough to dissuade the elder dragons from flying entirely. What with the humans burning and building and busy-bodying their way into every cave, nook and cranny, real estate has become an absolute nightmare.

Such were the idle, lonely musings of Ezekiel as he draped his long, burnished bronze neck out of his budget-sized cave one drizzly, dreary evening. Situated below an overhang of a cliff-face in a small forested valley, he shared the space with a human village at the northern end. Despite Ziek's (as he had once been known to them) shared history with the ancestors of the village, he was confined to the southern end of the valley. Far enough away to nab livestock that had wandered now and then, but too close for comfort for other self-respecting dragons. He shuffled into a more comfortable position on his back, lolling his large head upside down out of his cave - a most undragon-like posture. The drifting fog brought scents of woodsmoke, oil and sizzling fat to Ziek's nostrils as he inhaled with the sound of crashing waves, closed his eyes and let memory wash away the loneliness. He remembered garbled sounds that slowly became a language, felt the echo of hesitant hands on his scales that became confident belly rubs, saw in his mind's eye solemn, terrified faces soften into smiles and affection. The longing was so great it sat like a weight on Ziek's chest. Shunned by his own kind for his adoption by humans, unwelcome in the village because of the threat from Elder dragons, he belonged nowhere. With no one. Lethargically manoeuvring his back legs to the cave mouth, he prepared to roll out and scale down the cliff in search of food when -

Snap.

Ziek stopped, listening to the sounds of the forest below him, nostrils flaring, and again:

Snap.

Intrigued, he flopped out of the cave and down to the small clearing 60ft below, using well worn claw gouges like train tracks to slither down to the ground. Classy? No. But Ziek had always thought dragons were too consumed with image over ease in any case. It wasn't a point in his favour with the Elders. Ducking his head and tucking his wings in tightly, Ziek set off into his section of the forest, following the sounds of snapping wood right to his favourite back-scratching tree (no, that didn't gain him any favour with his Elders, either). Peering around its large trunk he found, against all lore and listening, a small human boy snapping branches with a concentrated expression. Ziek recognised his ice-blue eyes and auburn hair as being foreign, so how had he come to be here? He snaked his head further around the trunk and caught the boy's attention.

Eyes round as saucers stared up at him with a fearlessness unique to the very young. A small hand reached up to touch his snout, and suddenly Ziek smelled it: blood. Blood so pervasive it had sunk into the soil and scent of the earth. One glance was enough for him to know its source - a young woman with fiery red hair curled in the roots of the tree - would not be rising again. A tug on his lower jaw made him turn back to the child in surprise. No more than three years old, the small boy cocked his head to the side and did something that no dragon had experienced in a thousand years. He stared straight into Ziek's eyes and projected a word into his mind:

Play?

Ezekiel - a fully grown, honest-to-goddess dragon - belched a cloud of smoke over the child, reared backwards, tripped over the tree roots and fell flat on his back. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the soon-to-be most infamous dragon in the southern lands. Delighted laughter broke the silence of the forest as the boy flopped onto his back imitating the dragon, laughter dissolving into hiccups as he rocked back and forth. Ziek looked at the glimmer of sky beyond the trees above, took in a deep breath and enunciated very clearly to the forest at large:

"Crap."

* * *

A night of walking later, Ezekiel the castaway dragon paused at the seam where forest met irrigated fields and peered through the pre-dawn fog to the hazy lights of a village he hadn't looked upon in decades. One night of balancing the boy in the depression between his neck and shoulder had left Ziek with a crick in the neck and severe paranoia. He hadn't noticed that the child had fallen asleep and slipped off his back for a few strides because he was too busy thinking about how suicidal his actions were. His thoughts went something like this:

Bad, bad, bad the Elders are going to incinerate me why am I doing this bad, bad bad they'll incinerate me AND banish me forever what am I doing-

You get the idea.

Gripping the boy in his jaws was out for obvious, accidental flambéing reasons. Now, preparing to sneak across the water saturated fields, Ziek sent up a heartfelt apology to the dignity of his ancestors as he projected an image into the boy's mind, to which he eagerly complied. Had any of the villagers looked out at the fields on that particular morning, they would have witnesses the truly bizarre sight of a bronze dragon attempting to speed tip toe through vegetable fields with a small toddler gripping the curved horns behind his ears, little legs wrapped around a sinuous neck that frantically bobbed around trying to maintain balance through the soggy soil verges. Reaching the first storehouses of the village, he urged the child into a round bamboo basket by a door that Ziek remembered with painful fondness, even now. The blue-eyed boy touched his snout with a small, pale hand and closed his eyes as Ziek breathed out warm air to ward off the dawn chill. Then, with resigned slowness, he turned back to the forest. Had any of the villagers looked out at the fields that dawn, they would have beheld the bowed form of a bronze dragon, splashing through the field as the sun rose and caught the sheen off of his scales like a new penny, before he disappeared into the trees.

* * *

Years passed, Ezekiel hid in his cave, and nothing happened. He went back to the hoard tournaments, showed his snout long enough to be polite and short enough to not cause awkwardness. He even inconspicuously helped to hunt with the hatchlings, that was until a booming, black-bellied matriarch noticed and yelled:

"Get that dog-brained orphan away before he corrupts them all and brings back the goddess-damned age of dragon riders!"

12 years passed and Ziek stayed in his hole-in-the-cliff, living on memories, melancholy and mediocre game. Until one day, he detected a faint tremor in the rock. Pressing his neck against it he felt the vibrations again, too even and insistent to be random:

Tap tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap.

Grumbling he rolled out of the cliff, claws raking deeper gouges as he descended. Unfortunately one claw got stuck 20ft from the floor, causing Ziek to swing abruptly to one side as he lost purchase, scrabbled with his feet and finally, as the offending claw came free, crashed to the grassy floor with a thud that reverberated through the earth like...well, like a fully grown dragon had just landed butter-side down. Wheezing smoke and grass from his nostrils, Ziek rose into an incongruous sitting position (for a dragon): bottom down, back straight and hind legs stuck out in front like a baby. Sticking his head to the cliff-face he heard nothing. Just then, a pile of debris from his crash-landing started to thrash around until a human boy, no more than 15 years old, tumbled out pulling twigs and leaves from his auburn hair. Ziek lowered his snout to the back of the boy's head and snuffed out softly, ruffling his hair. He froze, and turned around very slowly. Piercing blue eyes met Ziek's molten gold orbs and, with a slight smile, he cocked his head and sent one thought into their twice-connected mindspace:

Play?

For the first time in over a decade, Ezekiel smiled.

For the first time in a century, a dragonpair was formed.

And this is our story.