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Mini Durin adored stories.
It wasn’t something difficult to imagine, given his origins as a storybook character. Hence, when Hat Guy told him about the House of Daena—Akademiya’s very own library! The largest one in Teyvat!—Mini Durin couldn’t help but flap his wings and twirl around his friend in joy. He couldn’t believe his luck! His new home in Sumeru was filled with the stories he so admired and he couldn’t wait to discover the worlds hidden within the pages. What would the people of the forest write about? Thrilling adventures about exploring forgotten palaces under the sand? Heartwarming tales of verdant critters guiding kids to their secret village deep in the jungle? What kind of dragons would appear in them? During their journey towards the city, Mini Durin imagined them as big as the trees in the Apam Woods, tall as titans, or as small as the padisarahs found along the path, brittle yet magnificent.
Truth be told, Mini Durin couldn’t read by himself really well, but Hat Guy had been teaching him the basics during their travels, and when Mini Durin’s eyes grew tired and the words became blurry as they danced across the page, Hat Guy was kind enough to finish the chapter, reading it out loud for Mini Durin and the flowers to listen. It was his favourite way of ending the day, just him, his friend and a bedtime story around the fire. His dreams were always pleasant afterwards, a visage of colourful construction blocks and flying squirrels.
Needless to say, his spirit received quite the hit when, upon arriving at the place of his dreams, Mini Durin was not only ordered to hush up repeatedly but had the disappointment of his life (at least, of his post-Simulanka life) when he realised that all the books in the library were, without exception, for research.
All the tomes lined up on the uncountable shelves, as far as his vision could reach (and he could fly, so it was a lot), were theses or reports or data collections of one thing or another. Manuscript after manuscript composed of thick, analytical, technical, scientific talk that Mini Durin had no clue how to decipher.
But Mini Durin wasn’t one to give up. He was in the largest library in the whole continent. Surely, one of the many books inside its tall walls would contain at least one fairy tale to appease his wounded heart.
And so, the little dragon spent days searching the shelves from top to bottom, asking the staff and whoever was happy to welcome him as a distraction from their heavy, boring, nonsensical encyclopedias. Yet, his dejection only grew when the closest thing he found to a fairy tale was the retellings of an Amurta expedition into the desert. Mini Durin liked the prologue with drawings of scorpions and hopping foxes, but he quickly lost interest when the next ten pages were spent on diagrams describing the consistency, colour and porosity of the soil where they set camp for the first night.
By the time the second week rolled around, Mini Durin had grown too disillusioned. The Kshahrewar blueprints were pretty, but had way too many numbers. The vocabulary used in Haravatat texts was beyond his comprehension. Rtawahist only focused on tracing star charts, not if you could wish upon them. Amurta papers on biology were too alien to him, who had been born in a papier-mâché world, surrounded by origami animals and wooden toys. And even if Spantamad guidebooks about how to perform elemental experiments sounded fun, he didn’t have the necessary tools (such as thumbs) or could understand half of what was written in them. Historical records from Vahumana were no better either, the language too stiff and solemn, scared of displaying the littlest bit of subjectiveness, except when it came to describing desert dwellers.
At least Mini Durin could find some entertainment in them when Hat Guy was the one doing the reading. His friend would scoff, click his tongue, scowl at the passages and then write about the necessary corrections with a snarl on his face. It was the most emotion Mini Durin had witnessed him display and it made worth the long evenings spent snoozing next to him.
Curled up between ancient tomes and newly written complaints, drifting in and out of sleep to the lullaby of Hat Guy’s discontent, Mini Durin was reminded of his early days. There in his mother’s office, listening to her pen trace shapes in the paper, dreaming about worlds of ink and poetry.
Closing his heavy eyelids, cosy and safe in his friend’s lap, Mini Durin wondered if Hat Guy would also disappear one day.
Durin adored stories.
Admittedly, when Albedo told him about the library inside the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, Durin was a little wary. He had already been let down once and he wasn’t looking forward to his expectations shattering again.
Luckily for him, there was nothing to fear. The library under Lisa’s care was everything he had ever dreamed of. Reminiscent of his mother's elegant yet homely study, with its warm wood and tall windows, Durin had plenty of sunlit napping spots and no cats to scratch away at his face. Even better than that, the shelves lining up at the walls were brimming with fairy tales. Fantastic narrations taking place in faraway lands. Mystic creatures casting wondrous spells. Smart and cunning witches brewing potions in cauldrons as big as them. And, as it couldn’t be any other way, valiant heroes defeating monsters and overcoming obstacles in their legendary journey.
His study sessions with Lisa were tiring at times, frustrating when his fingers refused to cooperate and his handwriting ended up resembling crazed doodles. But it allowed him to read all on his own and Durin made sure to do it to his heart’s content after returning from Nod Krai.
The list of reading materials Lisa elaborated for him was extensive and Durin couldn’t be more grateful. A Drunkard’s Tale was magical and tender, it reminded him of Nicole and the golden voice that would speak inside his head. The Fox in the Dandelion Sea had the whimsical mystery of a midnight dream, while its protagonist was described with a characterisation that felt human in the way Durin was yet to experience. And Hex & Hound was more a historical novel than a fairy tale, but it helped him understand Mondstadt culture as well as why Eula was on bad terms with so many citizens.
Then, it came Heart’s Desire, Heart of Clear Springs, The Legend of Vennessa, The Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies and, finally, The Mondstadt Tower. That last lecture made him pause. “The ravage of the dragon…” Durin pondered to himself. Which dragon was it? Dvalin or the Abyss creation contained within himself? The book was supposed to be accurate to the time period, however none of the dragons were present while the aristocrats governed, of that Durin was sure.
When she asked Lisa about it, her smile faltered before curving sweetly. “That was Ursa the Drake, quite the impolite fellow.” Then she added, as if wanting to abandon the matter as fast as possible. “Nothing like you here, little dragon. You have been so hardworking lately, that deserves a prize. No more reading for you today, your homework is to go out and enjoy the night with some friends.”
The next time Durin heard Ursa’s name, he was at the Angel’s Share, seated between Varka and Kaeya. The two knights were making good use of the fact that Diluc was absent to fill the tavern with childhood stories and more than one embarrassing anecdote. The counter was littered with their emptied glasses and the alcohol caused their narration to be slurred and non-linear, but the other patrons laughed along, patting them on the back or shoulder whenever they found one memory especially comical, another beer as a reward for their entertainment.
It was in the middle of one of those stories that had half their audience doubling over in laughter that Kaeya glanced at him and, for a moment, the fondness in his only eye made him look sober. “Sometimes I forget that you didn’t meet my father.”
“That old man.” Exclaimed Varka, stomping his heavy mug of beer on the counter. “I looked away for five seconds and there he went, living my dreams before me.”
“What was your dream, Master Varka?” Asked Durin, Kaeya’s hand protectively gripped his shoulder.
But by then, it was already late; another knight heard his question and he was quick to join in. “What could it be? Every knight’s biggest wish, of course! To kill a dragon!” The man lifted his mug and the tavern cheered along, everyone grabbing their own. The conversation diffused then, each table talking about their own quest to kill a draconic beast. Ursa the Drake, Durin learned, was slayed by no other than Kaeya’s father.
“Don’t take them too seriously,” said Kaeya as he turned Durin around to face him, instead of the others. “They are just old dusty tales, we have grown past them.”
There was something viscous and bitter swelling up inside his throat. An emotion he couldn’t quite name but felt older than himself. “Are there that many stories about killing dragons?” He asked and the lump grew.
“There are this many!” Suddenly, Varka’s hands were in front of his face, his fingers curling as he enumerated, with quite some trouble. “There is Vera’s Melancholy and… uh…”
“Ballads of the Squire!” Yelled someone.
“Ballads of the Squire!” Repeated Varka, with the same enthusiasm he showed to the other titles of the many, many, many stories and ballads and poems and legends and novels and fairy tales that had been told in Mondstadt for centuries about sinking a weapon into a dragon’s chest and watching its blood pour out of the wound until its dying breath.
“They are just old tales.” Reassured Kaeya.
But Durin was a tale too.
On his next visit to the library, Durin read Vera’s Melancholy.
Why, a lizard of your despicable breed should know better than to utter such foolish words!
Then, he read every mentioned book whose name he could remember.
In them, dragons were compared to demons; they were called monsters. The narrators described them as gnarly and brutish, simple, brainless creatures with nothing in their hearts but hatred. In those stories dragons were villains who kidnapped princesses, burnt down fields and assaulted the travelling merchants. Their breath was poisonous, their eyes wicked and their mere presence was an omen of calamity. Ominous shadows above the clouds ready to pounce on innocent bystanders. Those dragons didn’t speak; they jeered and shrieked and growled. They didn’t dance, they didn’t sing. The dragons in those tales were murderers with red-tainted fangs and dagger-sharp claws.
The knights who defeated them were proclaimed heroes. They filled goblets with the still-running blood from the open wounds and cheered in victory, gulping it down in one go. They skinned the dragon’s corpse and used its scales to forge armours. They plundered its treasure, sawed up its horns and cut off its head to present as a trophy to their king in exchange for the princess’ hand in marriage.
Those dragons had no friends or family to mourn them. They weren’t brothers or sisters or sons or daughters; they were obstacles in a quest, a prize to bring home at the end. Proof of their strength. Prey.
Durin stared at their empty gaze in the illustrations, pages dedicated in their entirety to depict the assassination of his kin. Their bodies were always contorted, coiled like snakes, maws open mid-yell. Sometimes in aggression. Sometimes in pain with a lance already piercing its ribs. All of them died screaming. All of them lived in pain.
Looking at the drawings before his eyes, Durin followed the lines of their horns and the spread of their wingspans; he noted the curve of their snouts and the shape of their scales and the length of their tails. They look like me, he thought and the realisation made the world a somber place, an unsafe home.
Durin didn’t do much reading after that.
It isn’t that he was unaware of the trope (he himself was the story of two evil dragons), but rather that he was surprised at how it was used. In his mother’s stories the dragons were evil only in name; a mask, a misunderstanding. Something the heroes needed to crack to know the truth underneath: that the dragon was scared, that it was hurt, that it was lonely. The adventure focused on helping the dragon learn it was loved, that the world wouldn’t reject its presence. In those fairy tales he so adored, the happy ever after had the dragon ploughing through the sky with all its new friends on its back, observing the land that accepted it and the people that called its name with a warm smile and a friendly wave.
Dragons in his mother’s tales didn’t get impaled, they didn’t get skinned, defanged and tortured. They weren’t ugly, drooling beasts with protruding eyes and crooked fangs so big and pointed their mouths couldn’t close. With the magic of her pen, dragons were made to be beautiful, elegant creatures. Scales like pearls in the shallow tide. Eyes full of starshine. Horns as magnificent as the most sumptuous crown.
Like Dvalin.
How could authors from a nation with a dragon as lovely as Dvalin think of describing them as anything but beings of peerless beauty?
Durin had the feeling it was his fault. The original Durin, the one whose corpse still laid on the snow-white mountain, was a dragon who tormented Mondstadt. He withered their crops, destroyed their houses and slaughtered their people. No wonder knights wanted to kill dragons; desire for revenge had been festering in their population for half a millennium. No wonder they saw them as putrid, horrid abominations.
Something coiled inside his chest, dark and twisted like the Abyss, it’s a heavy burden.
Some days later, Klee presented him with a gift. It was a book titled The Best Dragon Big Brother in the Whole Wide World!!! and had a cover adorned with dodocos and sparkles and, in the centre of it, a cartoonish portrait of him.
“Big brother Albedo and Kaeya helped me write it,” explained Klee, proudly passing the pages, “but I did the drawings all by myself.”
The calligraphy was neat and loopy—truly like an old-fashioned fairy tale—and the drawings were made with crayons. Explosions of red and blue under the passage of their first fish-blasting outing. Straight brown lines to define the walls of their solitary confinement. Green clover rings for good luck. Yellow for the shooting stars.
“I don’t like the books in the library either.” She confessed and Durin’s breath hitched. “We should make our own and ask Lisa to put them there instead.”
In the end, it was as easy as that, wasn’t it? Durin almost wanted to laugh. Write the stories you want to read. Be the change you want to see in the world. Mondstadt might have spent the last five hundred years narrating the slaying of dragons, but that didn’t mean it had to continue doing so. It didn’t mean Durin wasn’t welcome.
With hope in his heart, Durin asked, “Will you draw the pictures in my book too?” and the answer he got was Klee’s excited gasp and her running form as she went to grab her crayon box.
Because Durin adored stories and he was going to change Monstadt’s opinion on dragons, one chapter at a time.