Dragon Song

Xander landed hard, his leather boots hitting the ground with such force he had to crouch to maintain his balance. A sharp inhale before he looked up to face the ground. They were all gawking at him, hundreds of people, anyone who hadn’t left the village at sunrise for work that morning. He had expected as much. Fear him though they may, people were fascinated by the unknown. The dragon king was the epitome of the unknown.

He didn’t speak a word, he didn’t need to. He knew exactly where he would find his new fledgling. He walked through the crowd, heading straight to the sanctuary, as if it hadn’t been decades since he had last set foot there. The crowd parted around him like water, reforming once he had passed. All wanted to see, but none were willing to come close enough to chance a touch. After all, being an outcast might be contagious.

Xander snarled. He hated walking into the ignorance of the village. Had he really been like them once? So afraid of the unknown that he was unwilling to accept it? Probably. He hadn’t always been a dragon, after all. At some point, centuries ago, he had hated and feared the species as much as anyone else. Now, however, he reveled in the freedom that anonymity gave him. He owed these people nothing.

He stalked up the alter steps, hating the feeling of leather between his feet and the smooth stone. Shoes were an unnatural thing. He eagerly awaited the time when he could cast them aside. He felt the heavy oak of the wooden door beneath his palm and hesitated for just a moment. He wasn’t sure what to expect. This was not a Spawning Year. That meant that his new fledgling was chosen for a reason. He could only guess at what that reason was. Bravery? Strength? Intelligence? He could not be certain, but he knew that this would not be an ordinary fledgling. He needed to prepare himself for what was ahead.

He inhaled deeply once more to gather his strength, and pushed the door open. His boots made soft noises against the marble as he entered the darkened chamber.

“Lenora!” Eckarrion on screamed. She had heard the door open, she knew that one of them was coming. He could be there any moment to take her away. “Lenora! Help me!” Her closest friend since birth would not even look at her. She turned pleading eyes to Joren, he refused to meet them. He flinched back as if he had been burned.

“Nothing can be done, fledgling. You are one of them now,” she did not know who spoke, the room was far too crowded to distinguish a source, but she felt her face fall at his words. These had been her people, this had been her home for her entire life, and now, in the course of just a few short minutes they were casting her out. She was no longer one of them. But she was also not a dragon. She couldn’t be. Could she?

The hall went eerily silent, and Eckarrion knew, without looking up, that he was there. The dragon king had come for his prize. She could not look up. Would not. Maybe if she shut her eyes tight enough, he would disappear. When she reopened them she would still be lying on that stone table, waiting for her sentence. One of the four that were actual possibilities. This was all just some cruel nightmare caused from her anxiety over the ceremony. It had to be. Nothing else made sense.

A warm hand gripped he face, more gentle than she had expected it to be possible. Slowly it forced her chin up. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into a pair of eerily red ones that gazed at her with an intensity she had never seen before. It was like he was studying her, trying to learn all of her secrets before she could so much as speak to him.

She took this moment to remove her eyes from his, and instead studied the man as a whole. He towered over her by several inches and his skin was unnaturally pale. It was as if he never saw the sunlight. His hair fell past his shoulders in tangled curls of living fire that he had haphazardly brushed back into a low tail at the nape of his neck. She could see muscles bulging from underneath his shirt. If she could just ignore the bloody color of his eyes, he could be a normal man from her village. She might almost would’ve found him to be quite handsome. But those eyes…

She realized that those eyes had left her face as well, and was studying her as well. His eyes were clearly tracing her new tattoo with interest, as if he could not quite convince himself to believe that she was his new recruit. She agreed whole-heartedly, and was about to share with him that there had clearly been some mistake when it registered with her that in order for him to see her new marking, she would have to be undressed. In horror she recalled that the robe had never been re-tied after it had be settled across her shoulders. She flushed furiously and went to properly clothe herself.

In her haste to shield what little modesty she had left, the silken garment slid from her fingers and slithered to the floor, leaving her completely bare. She could feel her face heat up as she covered herself that best that she could with only her arms. The dragon king raised one eye brow at her, an oddly normal gesture for a man so shrouded in mystery. He slowly leaned down, never taking his eyes from her face, and retrieved the garment. He held up for a moment, feeling its texture before dropping it down onto the ground again with a huff.

Xander studied the terrified child before him as she clutched at her breast. She was supposed to be his new protégé? This girl could hardly stand to be in the same room as him without fainting and now she was expected to become a hunter, a killer? The poor thing deserved to never have to leave the village, to never know what was truly out there. But the elders had spoken, he had no choice but to bow to their whim and steal the innocence from this timid creature.

He snarled at the scrap that was supposed to be the girl’s ceremonial garment. It was parchment thin in his hands and would not do to protect the girl from the elements. They had a long trip home. He could see her flinch as he trampled the discarded clothing with his heel. She didn’t trust him, and although he could not blame her, that hurt him more than he had expected. Perhaps it was because all initiates during Spawning Years had entertained the thought that they might potentially be dragon fledglings their entire lives, but they generally accepted their sentences rather quickly. That did not seem to be the case with this one.

“Here,” he stated, barely above a whisper, though it still carried in the nearly silent room. “You’ll need something much warmer,” he pulled off his own shirt, and held it out to her. Tentatively, she accepted, though he could feel her eyes, not quite red yet, on his tattoo. She had probably never seen one other than her own, as young as she was. He turned slightly to the side, to let her see it more clearly. He had been marked for considerably longer than he had ever lived without it, and he had also seen every living dragon for the last several hundred years. These tattoos were common to him, but he could remember a time when they weren’t, and was more than willing to let her grow accustomed to their presence at her own pace.

“Thank you, sir,” she awkwardly pulled the soft linen over herself. It hung off of one shoulder, and tumbled down past her knees, but it was the best that could be done.

He nodded slightly, acknowledgment of her thanks. “Are you ready?” His voice rumbled louder than he had intended, and he saw her flinch back. She would fear him for quite some time, he could tell. He tried to stifle a sigh. Terrifying fledglings was not something he enjoyed.

She looked up at him, violet eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I have to go now? I cannot say good-bye?” She was not arguing, he understood by looking that she would do as asked, she was merely asking permission. It nearly broke his resolve, but he knew what he had to say.

“We must go now. You need not say good-bye, these are no longer your people. You owe them nothing.” He turned swiftly and exited back out the way he had come in. He did not have to look to know that she would follow. She had no other choice. Harsh as it had seemed, his words were truth. He had almost hoped that he had been wrong, that someone would step forward and tell her that they still loved her, that she would always be welcome there. No one did. In this society their fear and hatred of his race was stronger than any affection they might once have had for the girl. The sooner they left the better it would be for all. Even if she did not understand now, she one day would.

He emerged back into the outside world, squinting in the noonday sun. He used the excuse of growing accustomed to the sudden brightness to glance behind him at the girl. She did not seem bothered by the light, instead she seemed to draw strength from it, basking in its glow. That would end soon.

“Come here, child,” he called out to her, turning his head back to the world in front of him. Most of the villagers had gone back to their daily tasks, though any who were still nearby stole as many glances as were possible. The girl stepped forward obediently, if not somewhat hesitantly.

“My lord,” she responded softly, coming up beside him. He looked down at her, watching the way her ebony hair caught in the wind, obscuring her face from time to time. She would not quite meet his gaze, her fear was still too strong.

“Lord?” He laughed, loudly, drawing even more attention to himself. She flinched back from the unexpected sound. “No, child. None of that. I don’t much care for titles. You may simply call me Xander.”

“Xander,” he heard her whisper softly, as if tasting the word on her tongue.

Xander? She could not believe it. She knew who this man was. The name felt odd to her. He was often called the Dragon King, should she not show him more respect than just his first name? Still, she did not dare to object. If he wanted her to just call him Xander, she would just call him Xander.

“I need you to come closer to me, child,” his voice was low and rich, like honey. It was not something she had expected to come from the mouth of a monster. She inched forward, just a few steps. Though she couldn’t be sure, she thought she heard a laugh low in his throat. In two quick steps he closed the distance between them. They were face to face, nearly touching. Eckarrion’s face began to heat again. She was at eye level to his chest, his bare chest. She felt that it was inappropriate to stare there yet she still could not bring herself to meet his eyes. They were too red, eerie pools of blood where irises should be. It was unsettling.

He moved slowly, clearly giving her a chance to protest anything he did, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She tensed immediately, not knowing what to anticipate. “What are you doing?” She breathed.

“Finding the way to carry you that is most comfortable to us both. We have a long way to go,” he muttered, not really interested in conversing with her as his arms moved to a different position. She realized that he was trying to find a way to support her without being inappropriate to her near nakedness. Eckarrion was certain that her face was as scarlet as the tattoo on her flesh.

“C-carry me?” She stuttered unsteadily. “Would it not be easier to travel by foot, or horse?”

He openly laughed at that one, chancing to glance down at her for a second. “I’m afraid not. The journey by foot could take weeks, horse days. I can get us there within the hour. I know this makes you uncomfortable, and you have no reason to, but I need you to trust me.”

He began to grow, and the smoothness of his skin fell away to a sensation like scales. Before she could even register what she was doing, Eckarrion found herself clinging to the reptilian creature as the ground vanished beneath her. Wind flowed through her hair, making it even more of a mess than it already was as Eckarrion began her first ever flight.