A Gift of Gold
Elsewhen Elsewhere
Once more you dream, a shadow bound to days long past, but this time it is as though you see the world through veils of grey cloying mist. You know the green lands beneath you, but you cannot remember their names. You know the roars of the great lizards which echo in your ears, but they too slip from your mind. There is only the wind beneath your wings, sleep coiled upon warms stone... the fire of battle... and her: rider, lord, master, these names you know her by, but also alone of all the world you can remember her name:
Jaenara.
Though you were not the swiftest nor to the strongest of your clutch, she had chosen you for being the boldest and most skillful flier. You still remember with a satisfaction as hot as the fire in your belly how you had tricked the eldest and strongest of your siblings to attack her protectors so that you might rescue her. Scar had died upon her guards' spear but you felt her eyes upon you, measuring. She had seemed almost afraid for you and made no sound to her minders.
A secret... Your head hurt with the understanding, and something within you rose up to lull it way like the sound of the wind and the touch of sunlight on scales. Then she gave you her blood...
...to Hells with old legends and priestly mumbles...
...you'll help me, won't you....
...we'll be strong together...
Strong, you like the thought of being strong, even more this new strength that means more than that of tooth, claw, and flame. From that day forth you took care not to seem too clever with anyone but her.
Thus the two of you flew farther every time, first to the singing place where Jaenara learns of the not-fire that can do more than burn, then over the sea carrying strange scale-chaffing things, last over the green rustling land.
Day after day you hunt and fly, rest in caves and hollows or under shadow of the great trees. Though the beasts are large, their scales tough, and their fangs long and jagged, they have no fire of their own fire, and so you roast the flesh from their bones if they would dare attack you or Her.
***
When the trees die and the sun turns brighter, you stretch out, satisfied at the change. No more rain or steam, no more green thickets for the beasts to hide in. She is excited about something... the not-caves up ahead. As you stare at them for lack of anything else to turn your eye to, a strange thought comes to you.
Stone upon stone fitting together... slowly you remember the caves the masters live in and realize they had made them...
Who had made these, then? Had they left anything worth taking behind... Old Instincts whisper at the back of your mind in a tongue you no longer remember, and all at once you are gripped by the notion of owning the sun... Idly you start scraping into the dirt.
"How did you know this was there?" she sounded pleased at the glittering thing you had found, but for the first time in all your years you did not want her to have something... you wanted something that was not meat or water but this shiny stone. You shield it with a clawed forelimb.
She makes the happy sound and coils some of the shinny stuff around your claw...
chain, the word floats up into your thoughts. Then before you can follow the strange thoughts any further, a great fiery roar shakes the dunes, the very stones you stand among. A wingless beast with fire in its gullet charges through a wall, the very sand fusing into glass beneath its feet.
Jaenara calls the not-fire...
magic... but the thing shakes it off with an angry roar. You breathe flame at it hotter than you ever hand before burning
white, but it is not enough. Your rider barely manages to roll out of the way. You smell her blood boiling off the burning sands. You try to rake the thing with your claws but there is no room to get a proper grip. If you break everything She will die. There has to be another way...
Pain unlike anything you could have imagine wracks you, like the weight of a mountain had suddenly been laid upon you, crushing you to nothingness. You want to fly to flee away from the pain, to hunt and kill and rest.
She will die.
A sound comes out of your mouth, a sound that is not a roar or a tumble of flame, but something different older, torn from the heart of the pain... or
beyond it.
Your rider is on her feet, eyes wide with some feeling you cannot name. She speaks a word of death, and you know it for what it is even as the fire beast falls to dust. You
remember.
Dim broken images as sundered chains still rattle through your mind, you remember what you might have been and you understand the
horror of what they had made you. Rage boils in your veins and for the first time matched by hatred black as tar. She had done this to you and yours, She and all her kin...
She was kin. Without her you would be alone.
You try to make more of the strange sounds...
speaking: "What do?"
Jaenara looks up at you in wonder and a little fear. Part of you liked seeing the fear, but you make no move to hurt her. "So I guess the priests were right after all. We can't go back now. They'd kill us both..."
"Why both?" you ask,
needing to know.
"Because that's how it goes with dragons and riders. You are mine and I am yours," she replies speaking slowly.
"Stay," you nod, keenly aware of the little golden chain. Raising that claw you proclaim. "Share..."
Jaenara makes the happy sound again...
laughter... for the longest time you have ever heard it.
***
Sixth Day of the Fifth Month 293 AC
You wake with a start, memories of magic fire and age old secrets swirling in your mind, and through them all a name is threatened, one the dream did not hold but you knew nonetheless from histories learned as a boy—
Terrax, dragon of Jaenara Belaerys who had vanished on her third expedition into the wilds of Sothoryos.
Not dead, but lost to the Freehold just the same it seems...
OOC: There was 85% chance that Terrax would eat his rider after awakening, but the dice fell in favor of the less likely outcome. On another note could someone help me out with updating Viserys' sheets. I seem to recall someone pointing out there was something wrong with the dragon forms.
