by Dreagen
“Sure sounds like it,” Rex added, gazing out. “Wish I could see it someday.”
“You’re here with us now,” she said, stepping close to him. “Who says you won’t?”
Rex smiled. “What about in the south?” he asked, still curious to know more.
“South? There are a lot of small villages going south, but the Northern Capital is the biggest city on the entire continent and is located down on the coast.”
“The Northern Continent,” Rex said, sounding almost disappointed. “That’s the best name they could think of?”
“I can see why you might think that, but there’s a reason for its simplicity.”
“Which is?”
“While there are many settlements through EeNara, there are four major capitals on the four major continents. South, West, East, and of course, North, each one named after their respective continent’s geographical location. Each one of them serves as the center of culture, art, and most importantly, science for that region of the world.”
“Does it work?” Rex asked, sounding skeptical.
“Does what work?”
“The concept behind these capital cities. I mean, we had similar setups on Earth, but no one ever seemed to get along. From what I could see, all they ever did was get together in a big room and argue over just about everything. When they weren’t doing that, they were off killing each other. So I was just wondering if this great idea was actually more than just that.”
“Aside for the age-old dance of predator and prey that continues to take place in the wild, no one is killing anyone else for any other reason that I know of. Do people really find it that difficult to get along on Earth?”
“Apparently,” he said dryly.
“I’m sorry if I’m going off on a tangent,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “I forget that all this must still be shocking and even a little frightening to you. I hope I didn’t overwhelm you.”
Rex just waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. Better I get a crash course in all things EeNara and be forced to adapt quickly, than to have it spoon-fed to me slowly forever.”
“You still need to take things slow, Rex. If you move too fast, or push yourself too hard, you’ll just end up doing yourself more harm than good.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
DiNiya shook her head and smiled. “I can see you’re going to be a handful.”
“Aren’t I already?”
DiNiya just rolled her eyes. “Come on, you. Let’s get back before someone thinks you went out to smack TyRoas around some more.”
Rex smiled thoughtfully as he turned to follow her, when suddenly he felt a lurch in his stomach.
“Are you all right?” she asked, looking concerned. “Rex, what’s wrong?”
Feeling his stomach heave, Rex vomited all over the ground in front of her.
“Oh, no, not again!” DiNiya cried as she quickly put his arm over her shoulder and led him back down to the house.
“Uhhhhh,” Rex groaned. “I don’t really…feel so great.”
“Umm…that’s probably my fault,” she replied sheepishly.
The day had been the most eye-opening one Rex could recall. His fight with TyRoas earlier and his communion with DiNiya had given him a tiny glimpse of who he was, to that which dwells within.
6
LOST IN THE DARK
Rex lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his stomach groaning after it had been forcefully emptied earlier. Apparently, the same thing had happened to DiNiya’s brother and father the last time they ate the tow she had prepared. Funny that they forgot to mention that to him, though he had fared better, for he remembered hearing BaRone happily say, “At least it’s only coming out of one end.” Rex groaned and rolled over onto his left side and looked at the window. As before, the moonlight showed through but seemed less bright tonight.
“This place,” he said to himself. “I can’t tell if it’s really real or all just a dream.” He rubbed the back of his head where he felt the now scabbed-over lump. “Then again, dreams aren’t supposed to hurt. Only life is. Guess that means I’m still awake.”
“Sleeping awake,” came the soft voice on a gust of wind that blew open the shutters.
Rex jumped up at the sound. He stared at the open window, half expecting someone to climb through. When no one did, he cursed at himself for being so easily startled. Climbing out of bed, he walked over to close the shutters.
The sky was still as usual, beautifully lit with thousands of shining, shimmering lights that made twilight look like a black canvas covered with luminous paint spilled across its endless expanse. Rex loved stargazing. He never got to do it much back on Earth because the city lights made it too hard to see most of them. How strange to think that a place like the town I grew up in exists when I am in a world like this one. Then again, he supposed it made sense that it was literally another world because it was too impossible to think that one as beautiful as this could exist within the other.
As he continued to admire EeNara’s display of celestial beauty, his attention was brought down to the ground. Increasing in power and decreasing in distance came a series of vibrations. He looked out in the distance but saw nothing, then over the crest of the bluff came an enormous dark mass. Rex strained his eyes to see what it was, and to his surprise, it came into clear focus, revealing itself to be the massive form of VayRonx. Rex watched as he stepped over the top of the hill and walked up to his window.
“Good evening, Rex,” he said in a deep voice, standing only a meter away.
Rex looked out of the window down to the ground. VayRonx was an impressive sight to behold. Rex surmised that his window must be at least over two stories high, and VayRonx easily looked him in the eye. “Evening,” he replied.
“Would you be up for a stroll?” the alpha asked, motioning with his head in the direction he had just come.
Rex looked down for a brief moment then replied, “Sure.”
VayRonx brought the top of his head level with the window, and Rex carefully climbed out on top of it. The DyVorian pulled away with Rex in tow and walked back down the bluff, into the valley.
Rex could not believe he was riding on top of a creature he had spent his entire life staring at in books and gazing up in wonder at in museums. From this new vantage, he felt he could reach up and touch the stars that filled the night sky. He could also see some of the herds clustered together while they slept.
“Excuse me, Alpha, sir,” Rex said.
“‘VayRonx’ will do just fine,” the DyVorian replied calmly.
“Sorry. VayRonx, how do you carnivores live peacefully here with the herbivores?”
“We have a mutual respect for one another.”
“Yes, but don’t they take it personally when you eat them?” Rex countered.
VayRonx laughed. “I suppose you could say we have worked out a code of conduct with the herds of KaNar. When a member of the herd grows too old or gets deathly ill, they willingly offer themselves up as sustenance so they can return to the food chain and continue the cycle of death and renewal.”
“What about the ones that aren’t part of a herd?”
“The ones who live in the wilds? They are fair game,” VayRonx explained. “They choose to live as all our ancestors once did, and thus are subject to all the risks that come with that way of life. They awake every morning not knowing if the previous day’s sunset was their last. It is a noble yet dangerous life. The same goes for the predators who choose this life as well, for in nature, even the predator can become a victim of another.”
“That makes sense for someone like you, but I just figured the SaVarians would be vegetarians or something.”
“What is that?” VayRonx asked, glancing up.
“Someone who doesn’t eat meat by choice,” Rex explained.
“Hmm, curious. I suppose that is something that SaVarians have the luxury of doing by being omnivorous, but I do not see the point in it personally.”
“It means they aren’t killing anyone. Isn’t that the point?”
“Killing just to do so is pointless,” explained the alpha as he continued on through the fields. “However, killing to eat is a vital process of the natural order. Implying that not eating the flesh of another simply because your biology allows for the choice means that it is the morally superior one, and thus those of us who biologically cannot make that choice are morally inferior by nature.”
“Wait, that’s not what I said,” protested Rex.
“Ah, but it is, for when listening to redirect, you must look past the words themselves and focus on the logic behind them. Nature is a system of balance, not some code of morality that suits an individual’s delicate sensibilities. The logic of your words is telling me, a carnivore, that for a world to be perfect or at least good, no one would have to eat anyone, meaning this world is in a state of disarray because people like me exist. How, exactly, am I supposed to take that?”
“Not well,” said Rex, rubbing his face and feeling like a fool. “Hey, can we just pretend I didn’t make myself sound like a complete idiot?”
“There is no shame in not being perfect, for it allows us to learn and grow as individuals,” VayRonx explained stoically. “But if DiNiya asks, I will tell her that we engaged in an intellectually stimulating conversation on the finer points of nature versus nurture.”
Rex leaned down and whispered, “Appreciate it.”
“I know,” VayRonx replied, looking up.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“What do they call you here in this world?”
“Your memory must indeed be damaged if you can’t even remember my name.”
“No, I mean your species. It’s just that you look a lot like my favorite DyVorian from Earth’s past.”
“I see. I am a TarBoranx.”
“Sorry, that was probably a strange thing for me to ask,” Rex said, feeling even more foolish now.
“Not at all. The basis for any and all acquisition of knowledge starts with a question. Besides, it is nice to have a fan.”
Rex could not help but smile. Several minutes passed, and he felt an anxious pull in his stomach when he noticed they were heading for the tree line of the forest.
“So, where are we going?” he asked, trying to hide his anxiety.
“You will see.”
“Listen, I almost got killed the last time I went in there,” he pressed.
“Relax,” said VayRonx. “I am the apex predator in all of KaNar as well as the lowlands. No one would dare attack you while with me.”
“Oh. Good to know.”
They proceeded into the forest, where Rex found himself laying almost flat on the DyVorian’s head to avoid branches. Even in the dead of night, the forest was alive with the sounds of all manner of seen and unseen creatures. To his left he saw two small feathered DyVorians that looked like microraptors perched on a branch and staring at what he figured was probably a bit of an odd sight: a teenage SaVarian riding atop the largest carnivore in all of the Northern Continent.
The forests seemed to glow with dancing light as its inhabitants moved quickly to and throughout, the canopy illuminated by their flames. Indeed, the forest seemed to take on a whole new life at night, one that he could more fully appreciate now that he was not in fear for his. They continued to walk in silence until they reached a large lake covered in a dense mist. Rex was about to ask if they were going in when VayRonx waded forward. Despite the water level rising up to the alpha’s hip, he still was able to walk along the bottom.
Rex leaned down over VayRonx’s left eye and asked, “This is probably a stupid question, but you can swim, right?”
VayRonx did not respond, instead pushing off with his legs and causing Rex to grip tightly to one of the bony ridges above his eyes. Looking behind, he saw that VayRonx’s body was now completely horizontal in the water with his tail moving side to side like a giant crocodile, propelling them forward at a leisurely pace. Rex looked back down at the eye, which looked up at him. “Stupid question,” he said with a grin.
They continued to glide through the water silently, and Rex found himself awestruck once again when he looked down into the water and saw more of the dancing lights. It appeared that even the fish in this world could harness the power of their flame much in the same way deep-sea creatures of Earth used bioluminescence. It was a beautiful sight, and Rex found himself lazily watching them gliding silently beneath the surface.
He noticed a dark mass appearing out of the mist and gloom ahead. “What is that?” he asked as he strained his eyes to see.
“Relic Island,” VayRonx answered. “We’re going into the heart of it.”
The island itself was only several hundred yards across, but what made it stand out was a large stone pyramid built in its center. VayRonx rose out of the water and walked onto the beach. They moved through the underbrush of low-hanging vines until they reached the clearing in the center, giving Rex a clear look at the enormous stone structure that reached fifty meters into the sky. “Impressive,” he said, craning his neck.
“Wait until you see the top,” VayRonx said as he began climbing the enormous stone steps.
“What is this place?”
“We call it the House of Relics. It predates any civilization we know of on EeNara.”
“How old is it?” Rex asked, admiring the beauty of the structure.
“No one knows for certain. However, it is estimated to be well over eight thousand years old and believed to have been built by the ancestors of the SaVarians.”
“So they, I mean we, aren’t originally from this world?”
“You sound surprised,” VayRonx said, lowering his head slightly. “You have just come from a world full of a race that no doubt resembles the SaVarians, did you not?”
“No, you’re right, but…well, I guess it’s just strange to think of a world where humans have evolved into something else, something…better.”
“We have long since known that your kind originated elsewhere, for we find no evidence of your ancestry in the fossil record.”
“But then how did your kind, the DyVorians, get here? We have plenty of fossil evidence of your race existing on Earth millions of years ago—and some of your descendants still live there.”
“That I cannot answer,” VayRonx said. “We have unearthed remains of DyVorians that date back to two hundred millions years, so we can be certain that we are from this world. As to how we came to have evolved on any other…well, that is indeed a mystery. One that, given the fact that it has now been brought to light, will be investigated.”
“Do you think others will care or even believe it’s true?”
“Why would they not? If it comes from a credible source, there is no reason to think it false.”
“But you’ve all been brought up to believe one thing,” Rex insisted. “How will you all just give up on everything you have been taught?”
“Simple,” VayRonx replied calmly. “Because we now know it is wrong.”
Rex looked at him, somewhat surprised by how easily the alpha was able to dismiss generations of teachings in favor of new information brought to light. It was not that he felt it wrong, for he had always put his trust in the pursuit of knowledge rather than believing in something simply because it felt better. “How did they get here?” he asked. “The SaVarians.”
“The same way you did, I suspect. In times past, there have been stories of people emerging from the sea.”
Rex immediately remembered the smell of the water on him when he awoke, and the accusation from TyRoas that he was the mystery killer they had been hunting because, like him, the killer seemed to carry the same smell.
“Through archeological research and the stories passed down through the generations,” VayRonx went on, “we have been able to surmise that a small number of DyVorian tribes banded together and took pity on those wayward creatures and eventually in
tegrated them into this world. Not much else is known about those times; just that for some time, these beings from another world continued to find their way into EeNara. Eventually, whatever doorway that led here closed, for no more came. Over thousands of years, they spread across the globe, evolving as a culture and a species, until they were no longer the lost creatures they had once been, but a new race—the SaVarians.”
“They obviously didn’t see them the way I did,” Rex said somberly.
“What do you mean?” VayRonx asked, crouching down next to him.
“SaVarians may be an intelligent, peaceful species, but that couldn’t be further from the truth for humans. They’re a hateful, violent race that looks for any reason to kill the person standing next to them. When they can’t find a perfectly legitimate reason, they just make one up and kill them anyway.”
“That sounds terrible,” VayRonx concurred. “Hardly what the stories describe the first of these…humans to be like.”
“Well, I cannot speak for the ones that came here, but those I saw back there were butchering each other by the thousands for every insane reason you can imagine. When they weren’t doing that, they were enslaving themselves to silly and petty superstitions, which would have been laughable if they weren’t killing each other in the name of those too.”
VayRonx fixed him with a serious gaze. “I see.”
“Believe me, I could go on.”
“There is no need,” the alpha replied as he rose back up to his full height and stared up at the night sky. “For we too have experienced a species bent on the death of others simply because they do not fit some ideological image of what they believed.” Rex looked at him with surprised curiosity. Seeing this, VayRonx sighed and continued. “Long ago, about ten thousand years from what we have been able to deduce, there was a terrible war waged right here in EeNara, pitting DyVorians and SaVarians against another race from a world unknown to us.”
“Really? Who were they?”
“No one knows for certain. No one still alive, anyway. Initially, they were known by several names: Drakes, DraKon. However, over time they have become more commonly known as DraGons.”