“You should bow before me,” I telepathically reprimanded them as we hovered hundreds of feet above the ground. They didn’t so much as lower their eyes and that fascinated me. All dragons who came to our realm lowered their heads and spoke to my uncle and father with the reverence they deserved. I didn’t want these three to know that I secretly admired the brilliant colors of their dragon forms. Or how they appeared so carefree. Each had a striking brilliance that intrigued me. Bastian, the blazing red dragon, blew extremely dark smoke from his nostrils, which captivated me too. My smoke was a light gray in color and not nearly as thick.
He easily huffed another cloud of the dark mist. “You’re just a child. I’m sure your mother bows when she changes your underpants.”
All three laughed and my fascination and admiration came to an abrupt halt. No one insults a royal silver dragon. I charged. Hitting Bastian was like slamming into solid rock. We both plummeted toward the ground in a tangle of wings and talons. Sarn used his claws and grasped where my wings met my body to stop us from crashing. Bastian twisted away and skyrocketed high into the clouds with a plume of smoke drifting behind him.
Sarn made a disgusted sound in his throat. “Don’t listen to Bastian and ignore the smoke. He can’t make fire, but he loves to show off that he’s getting close.” He released me and flew down to the ground to land in a large meadow. Laryn followed and my biting curiosity made me join them. Bastian flew down a minute later and the three of them stood watching me intently.
“You got a problem, kid?” Bastian taunted while his large tail made tight sweeps behind him.
I didn’t like him. “I’m not a kid. I’ll reach maturity in forty years.”
Laryn, the brilliant blue dragon spoke for the first time. “We’ve got twenty years on you, so to us, you’re a kid.” He added a giant blue eye roll to accent his derision.
I was so pompous back then and knew nothing but obedience when I spoke to beings who were lesser than me. “The three of you should bow in my presence and kiss my feet if I demand it.”
Sarn, the glorious purple dragon laughed the loudest. “I’ll tell you what. If you can defeat us, we’ll bow and I’ll even kiss your dirty, smelly feet.” His tail made a grand sweep and Laryn’s mammoth head lowered to avoid it.
“Yeah make us,” Bastian mocked. Fire showed in his blue gaze as he challenged me.
They were larger than I was and there were three of them. It didn’t matter that I had no chance of beating them. I was young and prepared to conquer the world. I was smart though and knew there was only one way I had a shot of coming out of this with little damage. I shifted to human. “Do I take you one at a time or all together?” I said with the bravado of youth refusing to let them see how scared I truly was.
They all shifted and even in human form they were bigger than I was. Bastian came forward first. “If you can stand up after we each have a go at you, I won’t bow, but I will give you my respect.”
I charged as soon as the word “respect” left his lips. We fell to the ground with me throwing ungainly punches that did little damage. With Bastian’s larger size he easily rolled so I was beneath him. He toyed with me and none of his strikes was enough to truly hurt. It was his laughter that made me angrier, though. I refused to give in and managed to land a good punch to his nose. It made a loud crunch. The pain brought brighter fire into the dark inner irises of Bastian’s eyes. He got serious and I took a major beating for the punch to his nose. When I could no longer defend myself, Sarn and Laryn pulled Bastian off.
“You had enough?” Laryn asked.
My head spun as I breathed hard and blood ran from my mouth. I shakily got to my hands and knees and then my feet. This time, I charged Laryn. He twisted away and placed his foot out to trip me. I landed with a hard thud. I was winded, but Laryn was close enough so I kicked out. His legs buckled and he fell beside me. I grabbed him and we began rolling. A solid fist to the side of my head made me see stars. Laryn stood up and wiped the blood from his face.
“He’s scrappy,” he said to the other two dragons.
I was slower to get up this time, but finally managed to gain my feet. “You next,” I nodded to Sarn.
“Hell no,” he said. “I don’t look good in red; that’s Bastian’s color.” He gave me an ear to ear grin and stepped forward with his hand out. “I’m Sarn. What’s your name?”
I looked from his hand to the grin on his face. I took his offered hand and we shook. “I’m Tahr, of the royal silver dynasty.”
He squeezed a little too hard, but I managed to hold back a grimace. I looked to the other two boys and they were grinning too. Sarn assisted me up and we all shook hands.
Laryn spoke after introductions were concluded. “So what’s this bowing shit you keep speaking of? We’re all dragons; we bow to no one.”
I realized he had no idea who I was. “The royal silver dragons are the mightiest dragons in all the realms.”
Sarn laughed and spoke next. “Nothing personal, but besides a little shine, you have no color. What makes you think silver is the mightiest?”
How did I answer that? “It just is,” I replied stubbornly. I don’t think my uncle ever explained why we were mighty; I just accepted it because he said it was so.
Laryn leapt into the sky shifting to his blue dragon. “You are not prettier than this. Blue is the color of the sky and ocean. Blue is the color that should be bowed to.”
“Hah,” Bastian said as he launched himself. “Blue is a sissy color, red is better.”
I stood with Sarn as we watched them streak around, charge each other, and then miss by mere inches in an astonishing display of dexterity.
“I suppose it was your father who put the silver-is-better crap into your head,” Sarn said beside me.
“It was actually my Uncle Drakon,” I replied.
“I’ve heard of him. My father doesn’t like him much.”
My father didn’t like his brother much either, but I wasn’t going to tell Sarn that. “Drakon is a mighty warrior.”
Sarn only grunted. “Do you want to fly?”
As much as I wanted to breathe. “Yes.”
“Then let’s join them. Do you breathe smoke yet?”
“Yes.”
“Well at least you have that going for you. Bastian thinks he’s hot shit because he can do it better than me and Laryn. Let’s see what you got.”
We took off and when I was higher, I pushed out more smoke than I had previously had luck with.
“Not bad,” called Bastian from above me. “I think you’re better at it than these two wannabe dragons.”
“Yeah right,” shouted Laryn as a thin trail wafted from his nostrils.
I was more than satisfied that it wasn’t as thick as mine. Sarn gave it a shot with the same results as Laryn. Only Bastian’s was more than mine and I was the youngest. Silver was really better.
That was how our friendship began and thousands of years have passed since. I miss those innocent times of youth. The time before the curse and what directly preceded it. I snuck away often to visit my friends. The times spent with them were the best memories I had of my childhood. We got into trouble, boasted about our prowess at just about everything, and challenged each other incessantly. Our friendship was built on trust and respect.
That was before everything changed.
It began the day my father and Uncle Drakon got in a huge fight. They argued often, but this was different. My uncle was out of control threatening my mother and even me. I thought my father would finally challenge him, but it didn’t happen. My uncle planned to mate the daughter of a Goddess. Smoke floated from his nostrils at my father’s objections. Drakon had seen the woman and decided she was his for the taking. My father told him to stay away from her and that Goddesses were not meant for dragons. Drakon refused to listen and flew away yelling curse words at us all. He was often unpredictable and my parents hid me from most of his rages. I was older then and understood our situation a lit
tle more. My father should be our king, but by the fact of his later birth, our realm suffered at the hands of my cruel uncle.
Drakon returned a few months later and for the first time, I saw true fear from my parents. Drakon, with insanity raging in his eyes, said he killed the woman he mated and her mother would seek vengeance. My uncle left after grabbing bags of gold. I never saw him again. A few hours later, the sky darkened and we could no longer see the sun. It stayed that way as night took over. My mother put me to bed and gave me a long comforting hug telling me she loved me and everything would be okay. I believed her.
My parents’ screams woke me. I ran into their room and found them writhing on the floor with deep lacerations afflicting their skin. It was as if an invisible force took a sharp knife to their flesh again and again. I didn’t know what to do. Blood covered the room and it seemed their suffering went on forever. My father pushed me away when I tried to approach my mother. He covered her body with his own and no matter his pain, he whispered soothing words as she screamed and bucked against him.
“No, you must leave us Tahr,” he said with a strangled whisper. I couldn’t leave them and I had no idea what to do. Then the humans who served us began screaming. Their anguished cries echoed off the walls for hours. When my parents were nothing but a whimpering bloody mess, I wrapped bedding around them to try to stop the flow of blood. Finally, everything went silent and that was almost worse. My parents died with their faces twisted in unbelievable pain and their bodies torn apart. This was the first time I breathed fire. I walked to the edge of the tower and screamed into the dark sky as the flames shot into the air and burning cinders of rage danced until they hit the ground far below.
It was two days before I buried them. The humans were all dead in the same horrible manner. I placed the bodies of men, women, and children in a pile and burned them with my newly acquired dragon fire. By this time, I thought I was the only soul left alive. The shroud of darkness remained and I sat for hours watching the sunless and then moonless sky wondering what to do. My grief finally won and the anguish of the last two days took me to my knees. I remained that way as all feeling faded and I became numb to the pain. A ripple of awareness caused by another dragon entering the silver realm made me look up. I expected to see my uncle and rage replaced desolation.
When I could finally make out purple dragon’s wings, my fury gave way to relief. Sarn, with his comforting purple sparkle landed with a heavy thud beside me and he shifted. “You’re not dead,” he said with a trembling voice.
The look in his eyes told me his realm suffered the same fate as mine. Keeping my tears at bay was very hard. Not because of what I’d lost, but because I wasn’t alone in the world. “What of Bastian and Laryn?” I was terrified of his answer.
“I’m not sure. I came to check on you first.” I pretended not to notice as he wiped tears from his face.
I was friends with Bastian and Laryn, but Sarn and I had a closer connection. It began that first day. “We need to see if they’ve survived,” I said with a heavy heart.
Sarn stared at me and I saw the same look of dread on his face that I felt. “Do you know what happened?” he finally asked.
I had to tell him the truth. Sarn deserved to know that the mightiest of silver dragons, my uncle, caused all of our heartache. “It was Drakon. He killed the daughter of a Goddess.” I wouldn’t have been surprised if Sarn deserted me at this revelation.
“I hope he isn’t dead so I can kill him myself,” he responded with clenched teeth and long plumes of smoke drifting from his nostrils along with several sparks of flame. He’d been breathing fire for years and had good control. The sparks showed how upset he was.
I understood his rage. I felt the same way. “I don’t know if he’s alive, but if he is, we’ll kill him together.” I placed my hand over Sarn’s fist and our pact was solidified.
We flew to Laryn’s realm next. His screams could be heard as soon as his castle was in sight. He only stopped when we landed beside him. He stood over the decaying body of his baby brother. Seeing him like this caused my own torment to swell again and this time my tears flowed over. The three of us held each other and cried.
An hour later, we helped Laryn bury his parents and little brother. We removed the human bodies from the castle and burned them like I had with those at my father’s lair. We dreaded the trip to Bastian’s realm, but hoped he, like us, had been spared.
Bastian stood at the top of one of his castle towers, silently staring up toward the moons that were still not visible. He didn’t acknowledge us at first and we stood for a long time waiting for him to speak. “Do you know what happened?” he finally asked in a low, deadly voice.
I stepped forward and told him the story of my uncle. He stared at me for a long time then wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me in close. The compassion of my friends overwhelmed me. None of my brother dragons held me responsible for what happened. We all lost those we loved and as far as we knew, we were the last of our kind. The Goddess’s wrath had to have killed my uncle. There was no way he could have escaped. And though I knew this, I couldn’t help a niggling sense of dread that this was not over.
We stayed in Bastian’s castle that night having no idea what to do next. None of us slept. We quietly spoke of our families. “It isn’t over,” Bastian whispered early in the morning—echoing my deepest fears.
We were right.
A few hours later, thunder and lightning filled the sky. I’d never seen anything like the angry display of fierce weather. Then as suddenly as it began, all went quiet. A woman’s harsh voice swelled within our heads until the pain was so great we fell to our knees. My eyes were tightly shut with my hands covering my ears. A female voice rang bitterly through my mind until I thought my head would explode.
The Goddess cursed us and we could do nothing. One-hundred-thousand years for the sins of my uncle. Each word of the curse was more painful than the last. When her voice stopped, the sun shown for the first time since the death of our parents. We didn’t fully understand the depth of the Goddess’s hatred. After vomiting our guts up, we tried to appear brave by joking about her wrath. Love for some human bride was the least of our worries. It seemed minor after everything we’d lost.
Days later we all became violently ill again. The Goddess had told us to choose the first to claim a bride. We thought it ridiculous. Finally, Bastian spoke after another round of puking. “I will go first and leave tomorrow to find a bride.” Our illness vanished as suddenly as it appeared and we knew we had no choice but to follow the Goddess’s dictates.
There were no more jokes.
We flew with Bastian to a village in a realm that bordered the dragon realms. The villagers fought us with everything they had and many of them died. The four of us had had enough of death. Killing these humans was not what we wanted. Bastian flew off with a young, terrified female.
The first bride threw herself from the tower two days later. Bastian hadn’t touched her. We were all virgins and had no idea what to do with a terrified girl. We knew that our fathers had each stolen a virgin and mated them. It required a female human virgin to transcend to dragon and produce offspring.
At our fathers’ knees we were told what would one day be expected of us. First, our fathers shifted to human form and wooed our mothers to form a bond. The women had no idea that they would mate dragon shifters. There was no going back after our fathers felt the mating call with a particular female. The young women were eventually stolen away from all that they knew and brought to the dragon’s realm.
Our mothers appeared happy and I never doubted that my mother loved my father. Dragons produce only male offspring, so the stealing of virgins was as old as time. I think if we were able to form a bond with the terrified brides before stealing them away, we may have had a chance. This wasn’t the Goddess’s plan for us.
We hated the curse. Bastian was devastated that his bride killed herself. It was twenty-five years before Laryn’s
turn. This time we decided who was next with a game of poker. Loser had to take the next claiming. We hadn’t been back to the village in twenty-five years. Terror, death, and an ultimate bride were again the outcome. The screams of the burning humans stayed with us. It was Sarn who decided he would bargain with the villagers before his claiming.
Laryn’s bride was kept locked away so she couldn’t harm herself. Her endless crying drove us crazy. We all stayed together in Bastian’s realm because we needed each other to keep the horror of our situation from eating away at us. We had no idea that the curse would eventually divide us and make us solitary beings.
When it was Sarn’s turn, we flew to the village weeks early without Laryn. Even with how upset his bride became at the sight of him, Laryn wouldn’t leave her.
It took weeks of diving over their homes and breathing fire before the human were willing to listen. During that time, we took care to harm no one. They knew we could and that made all the difference. One shaky old man finally emerged to find out what we wanted. Sarn spoke telepathically and we remained in our dragon forms. Our terms were virgins only, choice of the bride, help for the village in lean years, and no killing of humans unless they breached the contract.
They had little choice but to accept; we made sure of that. A young female was sacrificed and we flew away lighter of heart.
During the next twenty-five years, it was hard to hide our jealousy after Laryn and his first bride fell in love. The urge to steal her began sneaking into my and Bastian’s thoughts. Sarn’s bride went crazy and was subdued at all times for her own safety. It didn’t stop Sarn from caring for her even when it would have been better to let her jump from a tower like Bastian’s bride.
Bastian and I spoke of our longing away from the other two hating that we wanted what our brothers had. A woman, a bride, a companion. We finally decided to go on a treasure hunt and leave Laryn’s bride alone. Earth was not yet civilized, but it had great treasures.
Dragons Live Forever Page 5