Chapter Text
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When the world has forgotten the age of old
The hearts of stone will awaken
From beyond, to a world yet familiar
The hearts of old will awaken
The first is dark, with strength and power
Rise to the call, or fall to the heap
The second is light, pale and full of life
Tread in fear, or loose all that is held dear
Though suffering this world shall give
Through friends shall thee persevere
Through blood, loss, and tears
Stand, and face time standing tall
But lo, the world shall fear
Fear the ones who interfere
Fear the seeker of boundless life
Fear the reviled, the fire of dread
Fear the eye of piercing doom
Fear the slumber choked in death
Fear the lord, slumbering beyond time
Fear the dark, that eats unending
The time will soon be near
Change will come unending
Foreigners of world unknown
Open your hearts to welcome change
To Bring prosperity, or eternal ruin
- She who sees from beyond the veil
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Have you ever had one of those days where you wake up and just know it's going to be a terrible day? And it's also one of those days when you wake up with a headache? Take a drink and your throat is still dry and you know you're sick? Yeah. Think that, and all those mushy negative little feelings, and multiply them by ten. That about sums up how I feel right now. Why? Good question. Still figuring that out.
I let out a groan as I make an attempt to get up. Key word attempt. I flop to the ground with a loud thud, the stone floor no more comfortable than it was before. Stone floor? I definitely was in my bed last night, and nowhere near any kind of stone floor. I move my head around to try and see where I am, and what I see confuses me. I can tell it's dark, but I can see relatively well. I seem to be in some kind of cave, the cavern I’m in seems to be small, the walls are pretty close, and I could probably touch the ceiling.
I try to move again, only for my body to once again disagree with me. It’s like I'm trying to move something that isn’t there or is completely different. I look down as I try to push myself up again to notice a very important detail. Those aren’t my hands.
They looked like human hands, but they clearly weren’t. It looked like some kind of lizard monster claws, four fingers in total, far more dexterous than a normal animal would be due to it still having an opposable thumb. The scales were dark, probably black or a dark grey like stone, and it was accompanied by streaks and splotches of purple in random places. Some of the splotches looked a little like… crystals? They too shared the deep purple hue. I move my head around to look at the rest of me.
Dragon. That's. That's a dragon. AM I A DRAGON?!?
Four legs, a tail, wings, and scales all over? I’d say that's a dragon.
I make a subconscious attempt to move the wings, which works surprisingly well. I notice also slightly below the wings are a pair of dorsal fin looking appendages, decently long, reaching the base of where the tail starts. It's almost like two pairs of wings, but also not. I also can’t help but feel like I've seen these traits before. I just can’t place it… Something to think about later.
I shakily stand up, keeping in mind the extra limbs and change of stature, as I start to think about how exactly I ended up here.
Alright, so I know the last thing I did was go to bed… was there anything before that that could be a reason? Well before that I made sure Eric was asleep and not sneaking any of his books into bed with him. I helped Eric with his homework and made dinner before that- OH MY GOD, ERIC!
“ERIC!” I call out to him hoping and praying that maybe he’s here also. My voice fills the cavern I'm in and travels through a nearby tunnel I didn’t notice earlier. Silence fills the cave, until a voice responds back-
“MARK? IS THAT YOU?”
“YES, IT’S ME, STAY WHERE YOU ARE I’M COMING TO FIND YOU!”
I look down the dark tunnel for a moment before running down it as fast as I can. I stumble over myself a few times, but get better as I run down the tunnel, fueled purely by instinct. As I travel down the winding tunnel it starts to get brighter as I start to pass crystals dotting the walls. These crystals aren’t normal however, because they’re all glowing. Another thing I noticed is that they’re all blue, with stark white ones interspersed throughout. It doesn’t take long until I enter another cavern, this one bright as its chock full of the glowing crystals, along with some massive ones on the floor and hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the cavern, is a white dragon.
The white dragon is similar in shape to me, except much smaller and with small crystal looking growths across their back like a spine. The dragon also doesn’t have the extra dorsal appendages below the wings. The wings though… not traditionally what I would consider dragon wings. They looked like a weird cross between bird wings and insect wings, the feathers being replaced by translucent iridescent membranes that looked like insects. The head was also unique, because rather than horns like one would expect on a dragon, there were four fin-like appendages as well as two tendrils that flowed beside the neck. These appendages were all short, and it looked a lot like a certain dragon from a game series I played…
Seath…? We stare at each other with uncertainty, both tense until I speak, “Eric..?”
The white dragon loses all tension before jumping slightly excitedly “Mark!” in the blink of an eye he’s over to me giving me a hug… well as best he can with the wings getting in the way. I do my best to return the hug. We sit there for a moment before Eric takes a step back looking up at me. Wow, I’m noticeably larger than him.
“Mark, do you have any idea how this is happening?”
I shake my head, “I’m just as lost as you are.” I let out a sigh “I’m just glad you're all right.”
We settle in silence for a moment before Eric speaks up, “I saw another tunnel before you got here. I think it might be connected to the cave entrance.” I nod slowly before he gets up and motions for me to follow. He’s moving a lot more fluidly than I am… As long as he's okay it doesn't really matter. Before long we travelled down the tunnel and found ourselves at the cave entrance. Looking around beyond the cave I’m met with a small open area around the entrance that quickly becomes a heavily densely wooded area, with trees far taller than I would expect. I thought dragons were bigger than trees? They’re enormous!
Beyond that, it’s currently night time. Looking up past the trees the sky above reveals an uncountable number of stars. It’s… honestly quite beautiful. But something else catches my attention, that causes the wonder to sink a little bit. There are three moons. Earth definitely doesn’t have three moons. Where are we?
“Well. We aren’t in Kansas anymore, that's for sure…” I look to my left towards Eric to break the news, but he’s looking at the three moons with what seems to be excitement. “Uh… Eric? Is everything okay there?”
“Three moons! Three moons! Three moons!” He turns to me “Mark, I know where we are!”
“What?”
“This is so cool! I can’t believe I’m- no- We’re here! This is going to be so cool!”
“Wait, wait, you know where we are?” Eric pauses for a moment
“Alright you might want sit down for a second”
I’m going to be here for a while, aren’t I?
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I rub my hands… claws… paws? Uh ill just say hands for now- across my head.
Eric has been explaining this book series he loves- Wings of Fire- because apparently it is this very book series- or at least the place it takes place in- that we currently find ourselves. And from what he’s telling me three moons is the least weird thing about this place. A world ruled by dragons, where humans are pretty much insignificant. A busted magic system that seems to be more of a bad deal the more I hear about it- oh. And then there's the teensy little detail that depending on when we are in the series we could be in the middle of a war, the return of an insane tyrant, a whole other continent with brain parasites, and who knows what else.
How exactly is this a good thing?
“That's about all you need to know. I think. If you want I can-”
“No. Stop. I’d rather you don’t talk my ears off. I think I understand what you’ve told me. I’m not entirely sure what exactly we should do. You know this world, at least generally. For all we know we could be blindsided and you won’t know what to do.” I look up towards the night sky, “For now we should get some sleep. We’ll have better luck finding someone when theirs lights out.” I make a move back towards the cave but Eric stops me.
“Wait! We need to come up with fake names!”
I pause, “Why?”
“I don’t really know what kind of dragons we are, but I know that dragons don’t have names like humans. It’ll help us blend in more, I promise!” He really wanted to do this…
“Alright, what exactly should we be trying to name ourselves?”
Eric pauses to think, looking me over as well as his talons.
“Well… you’re a darker color, kinda like a Nightwing, except you got all that purple all over you… you can go by Morian.”
I sigh. “And what will you be going by?”
He hums in thought looking over himself closely.
A smile crosses his face as he puffs his chest out sitting upright on his back legs to point at himself with his talon, “I’ll be Elestian!”
I sigh. “Alright, Elestian, anything else I need to be aware of before we get some sleep?”
“Nope! At least not until I can figure out when in the series we are.”
I nod as I walk back into the cave. I settle down close to the entrance but away from it so you wouldn’t be able to see me unless you walked in. Eric settles down next to me and I subconsciously move my wing to cover him. It does so effortlessly, with my wing covering most of him.
Hopefully when I wake up, I’ll be in my bed and this whole situation will have ended up being a dream…
…
…
…
…
…
It was in fact, not a dream.
I open my eyes to morning light spilling into the cave from the entrance. I glance to my side to still find Elestian sleeping there. I nudge my wing into him as I get up, waking him from sleep. He releases a yawn, but quickly shakes himself awake once he sees we’re still in the cave. He rushes outside, eager to explore. I follow after him, shaking my extra limbs awake. I don’t know if i’ll get used to that feeling… I walk out to find him examining his wings, unfurling them and checking them, flexing them.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out how to fly.”
Ah. I glance towards my back. That is a thing we can do… isn’t it?
…
…
…
…
…
Well this is going surprisingly well. Both Elestian and I have managed to make it off the ground and stay in the air for extended periods of time somewhat consistently. We’ll be attempting a longer flight shortly. It’s strange really. This feels like something that should have taken far longer than it actually did. Elestian is brushing it off as beginner's luck and instinct. I can't help but feel there's something else going on…
Regardless, we may as well get to flying.
With a single beat of my wings, I launch into the air making height before stopping to hover waiting for Elestian to catch up. “No fair! Why are your wings so much bigger than mine? You could be mistaken for a Skywing! If you looked like one anyway…” He lets out a huff hovering across from me. I look around us, noticing mountains on all sides. “Well, you’re the expert. Any idea where we are and where we can go?” I look toward Elestian expectantly.
He looks around also, “Well… seeing we’re surrounded by mountains… I’m pretty sure we’re in the sky kingdom right now… I guess we can fly in a random direction and see what we find?”
I nod, and gesture with my talon for him to lead the way.
We travel in silence for a while, so I decide to spice things up a bit by playing everyone's favorite travel game: I spy.
It uh, didn’t go as great as I was hoping.
I guess it does get a little bland when you’ve spied on a tree for the 13th time, and argued about whether or not you saw a mountain goat that was definitely there. We bickered back and forth, laughing as we went until it was eventually Elestian’s turn.
“Alright, so do we agree to disagree on whether or not I saw a mountain goat earlier- which I totally did -and continue with your turn?”
Elestian shakes his head as he laughs at my obvious jab “Finally- Yes! Alright, my turn…” he looks ahead of him for something to call out, “I spy with my little eye-”
“Smoke!”
“Wha-? Elestian you’re not supposed to call out what you're looking at.”
“No look- theirs smoke!” he points ahead as he starts to buzz with excitement.
Looking ahead there was in fact smoke- a pillar of it to be exact. Was there a bonfire or something nearby? Before I can think too hard on it, Elestian dives down towards the ground, heading towards the pillar of smoke. I let out a frustrated sigh before diving after him.
“Elestian, wait- we don’t know what it is!”
As I descend the source of the smoke becomes more and more apparent. It looks to be coming from some hole partway down the slope of a mountain. It wasn’t very obvious, save for the smoke, because it was slightly covered and hidden by a mass of branches and bushes, preventing anyone from really landing next to it. There was a nearby empty patch of rocky ground that Elestian and I ended up landing. Elestian seemed particularly excited. He darted over to a nearby ravine and looked down over the ledge he stopped at.
“This is so cool! Morian, look over here!”
I walked over taking a look down the ravine to see a small stream with gravel and what looked like mud. That wasn’t what caught my eye though. That would probably be the brown and blue dragons down though, seemingly searching for something. I notice Elestian starting to make a move to fly down there, but I rest my talon on him before he can spread his wings. “Maybe we should take a second to think about this situation before we go flying off?”
I take my talon off him to look back towards the dragons in the ravine. “First off, we don't know how they’ll react to seeing us. If what you said yesterday is true and you don’t know what kind of dragons we are, I doubt they will either, which could cause problems.” I look towards Elestian to see him drooping in disappointment. “And based on your reaction they’re important to the story you told me about too. For our safety, I think it's best we stay away.” I start walking away from the ravine looking back towards Elestian, “Come on, lets get back in the air. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Elestian nods slowly, letting out a sigh before turning to join me. When he looks towards me he stops suddenly before crying out to me, “Look out!”
A mass crashes into my side from above, forcing a cry of surprise from me as I and whatever crashed into me roll off to the side. The rolling came to a stop, and in a matter of seconds I was pinned down as I felt multiple talons grab hold of me and keep me down. I can feel what seems to be chains as they are wrapped around my wings. When the shock wears off, I finally take a look around me to see multiple dragons in varying shades of red and orange. Looking towards where Elestian was I saw three dragons, two of them on either side, holding chains. The third was different, covered in gold and jewels, slightly smaller than the rest, grabbing ahold of Elestian’s wings examining them.
“My my, what splendorous wings! So unique… I know just what to do with you!”
She walked away from Elestian and towards me. “And you… You look like you could put up a thrilling fight in the arena!” she chuckles to herself before turning away towards the Ravine. “Take them away. I’ll get a closer look at them later. I have some silly little dragonets to take care of.” She unfurls her wings and jumps down, a group of the other dragons following after her. The dragons around me and Elestian start to drag us away.
I don’t know anything about these dragons, and based on the look Elestian was giving me, it wasn’t good. That gold covered dragon mentioned something about an arena…
What have we gotten ourselves into?