It was the beginning… It all started going wrong from the very beginning…
Two dragons stood atop a mountainous peak, the entire landscape ravaged and permanently branded by their power. Collapsed at their feet was a roughly humanoid figure, or at least its upper half.
It matched their size, but it was not flesh. It was a corpse only in name, for the glow it exuded, the many unnatural phenomena it caused by merely existing marked this thing as little more than a vaguely willed disaster that mimics nature. A clump of chaotic mana turned living storm, before the dragons came.
And now it lays dead, ready to disperse into nothing. But that is not what the monsters wanted.
A moment of affection upon a dissolving carcass of mana, a desecration of the world’s will.
And life followed. A hundred eggs were laid upon it, as the dissipating entity was grabbed and molded by flaming hands into something new.
A hundred eggs, wrapped in a cocoon of tamed mana, once a cataclysm, now merely an incubator.
Mistakes were made, of course, for one’s first brood is the harshest. Some eggs broke the moment mana started flowing into them, others crystalized in a flash, yet that is the mistake of the mana. Only one was a mistake of the mother, not of her control or knowledge, but of her very body.
She scratched one, her second egg, one of the few with the highest chances of bearing life, causing its fluids to leak through the perfect cut, its shell turning weak and the mana around it flowing freely through the opening.
She mourned that one. They both did, but they understood that loss was inevitable.
This was her first brood and the storm they found was far more chaotic than they hoped for. Few would make it, but this one had a good chance and she alone is to blame for its death.
They carried the cocoon of dense mana away, to her very own abandoned temple, a crude thing made at an age where the cries and praises of ants swayed her grand self, yet now it lay as merely a reminder of her mistakes and her passing youth.
A crude passage was enough, just so they could pass through, sparsely decorated with some light for their young ones, when they will eventually come to be able and walk through.
Then he had to leave. Their young ones would need diversity in their riches and they each only had what they were most comfortable with, something that would hurt their children’s growth.
And so The Mistress of Tranquil Waters stayed guard of her clutch while The Outstretched Thunderous Scorching Hand left to pillage and plunder. He did return, first after only 10 days, second after a great moon, third after 3 great moons… then soon before the remaining eggs hatched.
By the end of the ordeal, once the cocoon itself was devoured by her children, The Mistress looked at only four eggs.
Half of the eggs were overtaken by the chaotic mana, turning into crystals of splattered colors that put rainbows to shame. Those she took away, far too dangerous to leave around her children as they grow up, but useful enough in creating worthy food for the future. The terrifying dems molded together far too easily and beautifully for her liking, but that was the nature of Chaos. It fit well with itself.
A quarter of her eggs simply died. Crushed by the weight of mana, exploding from gathering too much, or being rotten and stillborn as a result of their failed fertilization.
Then remained the rest, which remained whole, took in mana and lived, yet clearly failed at absorbing its will. They each had a half finished pattern of vibrant colors, denoting the grandiose tasks they would strive for had they managed to become true dragons.
But they didn’t.
So instead of finishing their marking, the rest of their eggs laid a plain gray.
She did not have the heart to squash the bugs and spare them their fate.
She did not inherit her own mother’s cruelty.
Instead those eggs were scattered by her mate on far away peaks to survive on their own, so that they may either die early by nature’s will, or grow and become beast-minded wyverns that will draw attention away from herself.
At least like that they would be useful.
Then remained her last four… tentatively four.
She had three perfect eggs. One bore markings of a ruler, one of a destroyer and one of an explorer. They were all beautiful, children both herself and her mate would be proud of. One like herself, one like him and one unlike either! Oh how great that was…
And then there was the last, or rather, the second. She did not expect it to survive, yet here it was. It did not turn to crystal, it did not remain stained by the monotone gray, yet it also bore no markings. Aside from a reminder of the slice she caused upon the shell, it was simply filled with colors with no rhyme or reason, shapes and no shapes, almost seeming to have a unity yet having none.
Chaos.
She kept it still, as an apology for her fault she gave it the chance to still exist. Even if it were to never live, she would keep it until it were to rot by itself. If she were to be honest, for a moment, with herself? That is the fate she expected. That is also not the fate she got to witness.
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It was dark and she was tired. The nest was ready, the softest and warmest furs being neatly placed over the small pile of various riches, all selected from hers and her mate’s hoards, as well as a result of her partner’s hunts. She will slowly grow the pile once they are born, so that they may adapt to mana’s strain slowly and not end up poisoned by its power.
She expected the eggs to hatch somewhere in the coming weeks, though even the next great moon was a possibility. She was ready to fall into sleep’s embrace when one of her eyes startled her awake. It was one of her smaller eyes, the one she sacrificed in order to be able and keep watch over her eggs even as she recovered in her lake. A rune lit up inside her eye and she looked through the many enchantments she placed in and around the nest.
An egg was hatching.
It was early! Too early! And she wasn’t there for it!
She heard it squeak and struggle, as its siblings were still in their eggs. They should all hatch soon one after the other… yet it stood alone in its nest after exploding with great speed from its egg.
She watched it collapse and awaken over and over, trying to test its surroundings yet not being able to do anything as it was still a newborn. It took her time to reach her cave, but when she did she noticed that it stilled. She walked, trying not to scare her child, which took more self control than she’d expect. Once she reached the nest, her eyes turned to her kid.
“A boy… a beautiful baby boy! You lived and became a beautiful baby boy!”
Before she could calm herself she craned her head over and gave her child an affectionate lick, relief hitting her like a waterfall.
Her child lived, despite her faults, and he stood as her firstborn despite being her second laid. She studies him with pride, then her dragonheart trembles. His tail has its tip split in two. Her eyes tear up, realizing that the harm she did remained still. He still lacks a mark for what he is to become,
I have no guidance for what path to lead him towards. He may still have a damaged dragonheart, or may even be unable to use magic at all depending how grievous the wound I dealt is.
Was the tip of his tail truly the only damage she caused? Or…
No, she needed to think in the present. She needed to think in the now. And in the now… Her boy was alive and well! And…
“You took the wound I gave you… and turned it into something unique.”
She then looked back at her own many tails and smiled to herself.
“You may yet take after me…”
However as she spoke, she realized that her child was in deep sleep, tired from being born so early. She made sure to move the eggs close together so they can all share warmth and scent, then left, fearing that she may hurt them by staying too long.
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The coming days confused her greatly. She was glad that the early birth served to signal her other children to come out, but then weirdness began. While all others did what they should, namely absorbing mana while their bodies were brought to the point of activity, her firstborn seemed to throw the whole concept down the well and instead started being active every moment he could, at detriment to his growth.
At first it was cute, when she found him sleeping with a chewed up coin, but it quickly became problematic. Instead of sitting still and piling up mana, he was spending it to move despite his body not being ready for it, leading to suddenly collapsing. Realizing this she decided to bring in a meal the next time he awoke.
She found him playing with a few coins and a water crystal, already fascinated by mana it seemed. That put her at ease at least, but the interaction that followed didn’t. He looked scared. She tries to soothe him, but it seems he does not fully respond to her words or feelings, the magic of speech washing off of the boy, its strength too great for a hatchling to be able and break down into information. Her other children however are squeaking for the flesh, hungry as they are finally awake for the first time since they hatched, so she let them enjoy it while she reached down to calm her firstborn.
It seemed a simple embrace was all he needed as he stops being so tense and afraid, instead focusing on the already stripped carcass. He eats it all and soon she puts all of her kids to sleep, taking the time to clean up the mess before leaving.
It then takes days for them to be awake again, but this time it is good for them to be so. They still need mostly rest but a bit of interaction with the world and with each other would help them grow wits quickly. She is surprised to see that while her children played together a bit, her firstborn is quickly bored of playfighting and instead starts organizing resources. He takes one of each type that he can find and makes a small hoard! Already? Hoarding should be happening after they learn to harness mana… How strange!
She observed and watched him with shock as he hit himself, then started inspecting the metals and crystals. She can’t help but laugh as he makes the mistake all kids do, taking in too much mana, too quickly. He’s overwhelmed by the feeling of it, yet he still does it with the next.
Then he reaches a death mana crystal.
She curses inwardly and is prepared to use all her mana if needed to separate the boy from it, but he seems to be smart enough to back away after a small whiff. She sighs, glad that he did not take a deep breath again. Death mana is needed to help them break down food, but it is still a hazard for a child.
She decides to stop peeking through when she sees her boy start spreading the crystals back where he got them from, apparently scared by the death mana. Interesting that he would know to spread them instead of keeping them clumped… how interesting…
Still she could relax…
For a bit.
It was the first day awake after his first meal and the boy walked out. That's moons away! The nest is supposed to keep them interested for entire grand moons, yet her boy was somehow already bored of all the various human objects she left to captivate their attention and stimulate their minds into not wandering off, yet here she was, watching through her enchantment as her child reached the main hall of her decayed temple.
Thankfully every important place warned her when something big enough moved through, so she was able to notice and take flight. She either way needed to bring in more food, might as well stop her wandering child too.
What she didn’t expect to find when she reached her boy was him feasting on a fresh kill.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He killed a mana-touched fruit beetle, one with affinity to earth which should make it a rather tough foe. No, her boy was smart and turned it over, devouring its underbelly as the creature was still alive… yes, good instincts and a good mind. She was so proud of him as she walked him back to the nest.
There her children feasted on the carnivorous deer, though she noticed that her smart boy took an interest in the beast’s fleshy core, devouring it whole. Truly it seemed her kid had an uncanny affinity with magic, even for a dragon!
That fact proved true each time she brought in a new meal. The boy behaved and no longer tried to escape, instead focusing on stealing all the cores from the food she brought, even bringing multiple carcasses didn’t make him focus on one!
It was no surprise then, that with each sleep he began changing more and more compared to her other kids.
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She was most surprised to see him take on a more lithe form instead of gaining bulk like basically all dragons do.
She will have to make sure he is not already being influenced by particular mana types… Air tended to make for frail and speedy dragons, her brother had been one before he was snuffed out for his weakness by lesser folk. She did not want her boy to end up having an air affinity. Flight was a tool, not a mode of life.
She shook her head. A moon and a bit passed since her kids were born, no way her boy already had an affinity. She should focus more on other things… like the fact that soon enough they’ll start using mana. Certainly it would take them another moon to refine their instinctual and impulsive breaths into something mighty and useable, like a flame, frost or whatever other breath might fit them most. She expected fire, if she was being honest. Water was always a touch harder to make use of compared to flame, and her mate had a strong enough affinity, to the point where her boys all had some splatter of red on them.
…
Why were they already using a proper fire breath?
She had barely come to personally check on them and see if she should start bringing anything special, but instead she sees all of her kids breathing out puffs of flame. Actual flame. She doesn’t get it.
How?
They are too young to form an affinity, even with the help from having a fire-attuned dragon as a father, they should at best be able to make sparks! That would make them geniuses! Instead here they are, breathing in the mana coming off of fire crystals and turning it into proper flames… no, imitations of a proper flame. They all have the same shape and color, as if they’re emulating something they saw, instead of refining their own sparks into actual fire. However nothing around here could even burn, so why?
Her question was answered soon after. When she eagerly looked at her eldest, expecting to see his flames too, she instead saw him take in a mix of mana. A mix! A deliberate mix! Fire, air, nature… air? She feared for a moment, was he actually getting an air affinity? No… that would be… she couldn’t let that happen but surely this wouldn’t be air that he uses, right?
It wasn’t air.
It was fire unlike his siblings’. They all were copying a single flame, using what they saw with their little eyes to nudge mana into becoming fire.
He was doing something different. The fire was different, in color, in shape, much more different in size, and most importantly, it lingered! Fire that lingered on stone. He used properties of mana to empower fire. Fire that is fueled by nature, with its shape and size controlled by air.
She embraced her little geniuses and took them away.
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Her lake, her place of rest, a place so seeped with her mana that she could not keep the children with her for too long. Thankfully she had already made it much deeper, the mana having a hard time escaping the water and as such being more harmless to her hatchlings.
Why bring them here? To do what her mother did when they had formed their first proper elemental breaths.
Firstly she let them burn some mana on play, as they had done such a good job learning so much sooner, then she turned her lake into an arena, bringing in a small group of mana-touched rabbits for them to hunt.
She remembers her own first hunt, having just started to breathe out puffs of steam. She and her siblings hunted down a mana-touched rodent, a rat of some kind? Possibly. No rats were around, however, so she made do with the next best rodent, and remembering that the first time she made a proper damaging breath she and her siblings took on a whole mouse hoard, she guessed that five of them would be a good starting point as these were bigger.
Her kids skipped steps so quickly! What took her and her own a few moons, took them barely one! She was so excited right up until her girl was kicked in the head.
How? She should be much faster than that. Much tougher too. Her other children fared little better and she began to panic inwardly. Were it not for the nature of her affinity, she might have let through her worries. Her children were getting damaged, and badly! They even had to use their scales’ last resort just to handle hits from rodents!
And her mightiest child wasn’t hunting! He had frozen stiff from the moment his siblings began stalking forward, looking split between backing off or plunging into the mass of fat, long-eared rats!
Why? What was happening? Her and her siblings only got hit, and even that could not barely even be called a hit, when they had their first hunt against the… one… weak… rat… oh.
Oh no.
She was so eager to help her children, so eager to bring them in line with her past experience, that she failed them. She had learned how to not overextend after fighting many times against a few weak enemies… she had learned when and how to attack, what killed the swiftest… after many failures.
She put them face to face with enemies capable of killing them, in their first hunt.
And she couldn’t even interfere! She remembers being saved by her mother once in one such hunt, when she made a grave mistake, and even now that moment still haunts her. It would ruin them to have their very first hunt become a failure.
So she watches.
Her eldest, having seen the plight of his siblings, showcased a true dragon roar and took the greatest threat away to fight alone. He took great wounds, but he did not use his protection. No, he took the hurt and still killed the beast by using a sound breath attack! No… Air! Air and light combined to blind and deafen an enemy.. such a complex attack! Her boy needed entire minutes to make a water breath, yet made a combination of unrelated elements at a moment’s notice.
As he kills the animal, she inspects her child’s body and notices something bad. He damaged his breath-shaper, the organ having strained so badly that the muscles within tore themselves to form the complex shape required for this feat. That and his many fractures, including to the bone in his front leg…
She looked over at the situation and noticed that it wasn’t good, her other children yet lived, but they would die without help…
My daughter is going to die. I see her, helpless, about to have her throat ripped by a rodent, but I can’t interfere. I can’t have her life be plagued by this… death is better than spending centuries doing anything to atone for a failure such as this… The Great Lords know I suffered to be able and stand here after that moment… No… even so… I can’t just have my girl die..
She almost uses her mana to crush the beast, but doesn’t get to.
Something much greater happens.
Her boy uses a breath attack, despite his ruined organ, that makes her tremble. It’s Chaos mana. The beast melts and freezes and burns and it is destroyed so thoroughly that the very ground it stands on will need to be purified.
Chaos mana… a little bit of everything that does not neutralize itself, for instead of fire touching water and extinguishing itself, both fire and water are wrapped in a thin layer of all that is painful and intangible, a layer of regret, of pain, of fear and worry, of anger and desperation.
Dragons are born of it, as are the mana-touched abominations that most lessers call “monsters”, and many other beings that are seen as dangerous. That thin layer of all the emotions that hurt is what makes even fearful grazers into great killers.
Her child used it. Well, using a bit of chaos magic is expected of dragons. The outburst of magic that saved the life of her young ones is the one form of chaos magic that all dragons know, but to be able and shape chaos into something useful is a feat few can boast. It had a will of its own and it would do things without rhyme or reason. Frozen flames, shattered water, anything was possible when chaos truly reigned, and one needed a strong will, great knowledge and the right emotions to make it obey… or an affinity.
Yet here he was, a boy little older than a grand moon, already using a chaos attack molded by a damaged breath-shaper. By all accounts he lacked all requirements… unless the fact that he was directly exposed to the unfiltered chaos mana of the dead storm caused him to form an affinity for it…
He ruined his throat doing it, but he still managed the unthinkable. And despite being supposed to collapse from the absolute lack of mana in his body, her child just ate a rabbit’s core and got up to the last enemy, killing it despite being half-dead himself.
She quickly healed her children, hating herself for causing this because of her eagerness.
She was glad her children did not hold it against her, and entrusted her enough for a second hunt.
From here on she makes sure to ignore her childhood, making the hunts gradually more difficult despite her children breezing through them. She will let them make their mistakes now, or not make any mistakes and take the easy meal, it doesn’t matter. She won’t risk them dying on her.
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And that stayed true until she realized it was time to give them a chance to start working towards an affinity of their liking. Her eldest kept hoarding the cores, which led to his explosive growth, yet they still reached the point where their magic needed to catch up with their bodies. He was still the only one to use diverse breath attacks, meaning she needed to nudge the others into listening to mana’s whispers.
That’s why she gathered those improvised witches from her towns, hoping the diverse options would give her kids a chance to catch up with the eldest, and that one of them might resonate with him enough to not let him become solely a chaos dragon, for any being attuned only to chaos ended up mad.
Imagine her surprise when the boy that so far has been a living construct of magical innovation and beastly murder decides to skip up on the easy elemental meal, and even forces his siblings into stopping.
He defies me.
For the first time ever, he stands against me and claims them as a hoard, not as a meal.
And I have no choice but to comply.
Maybe he was fascinated for a moment and would soon grow bored and eat them, it wasn’t great that he would get all of them, certainly wasn’t her plan, but he looked ready to fight for the right to own them, and she didn’t have the heart to do so.
She did have the heart to teach him why he should just eat them, however. But that came only after seeing him get attacked by one of the humans, yet still work to bring them food and even water. The fact that he managed to make water move, for a moment, without even using a rune or speech is what nailed in the fact that her children could handle the lesson.
Her and her siblings did this only after 8 moons, after becoming sloppy from having such easy fights. Her children were still not making glaring mistakes, but this is a good lesson nonetheless.
Or so she thought. Multiple times she thought about going in to help, but felt it would dilute the teaching if she did. She watched her eldest carry his weakened sibling, handle the wolves, he even brought them all the way to the river… They were actually going to make it home in a couple days if they kept up pace, but then the strongest mana-touched beast in the normal forest came and was prepared to slay them. At least it had the common sense to flee when she interfered.
What she did not expect was the absolute rage and fear the eldest had. He attacked her with what little energy he still had.
He understands… The others are happy that I am here to protect them, but he is angry that I left them here in the first place. He understands that I am the cause, a connection his siblings will only make years later.
Magically gifted enough to already be using multiple different breath attacks and even to use proper spells, without words of power. Strong enough to protect his siblings and smart enough to understand what I did.
It was then that she realized her child was a terrifying sort of genius, the kind that redefines magic, the kind that could make an empire by himself… the kind that could one day become a Great Lord. Yet here he was, a child, dependent on her, protective of his siblings and the few lessers she brought, lashing out at her out of fear and desperation that no child should be even able to feel.
She cried for a few days after, unable to even face him, though she kept an eye on him regardless, seeing things she had not expected.
He spent hours manually taking in mana. Of course, that’s how he used magic, he moved the mana itself to mimic what he saw, using only mind to create magic. And even after filling himself with mixed mana, he still wanted to learn more. He observed the humans, then trained by himself, first using the simplest form of light and reaching all the limits possible. Intensity, color, distance, he did it all. Then tried to make a whole new rune from nothing! Just guesses, and thankfully he failed.
The Mistress doubted her heart could handle her child inventing magic just by listening to mana’s whispers when he was little over two moons old.
Of course, her heart did not handle it when she saw him do exactly that a while later.
A rune formed. She watched as the rune formed and sang a song he had no reason knowing.
And that lead to him discovering conversion runes, and a rune that exclusively made sounds.
He made so many sounds she could hardly imagine the limits of his talent. He even made sounds that she only heard from instruments, and sounds she never heard before. He mimicked words using a rune he built instinctively… He was an enigma. So talented, so smart, so affectionate… But also strangely stupid in an amusing way.
He almost gave himself mana poisoning multiple times, he endangered himself to protect his siblings, he even ended up collapsing and bleeding from studying her communication spell using his fledgeling manasight…
He needed guidance to become the great being he has the potential to be.
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A grand moon. That’s all it took for him to baffle her again.
Taking it from the more understandable beginning, she has come to learn that he has absurd strengths and strange weaknesses. He quickly picked up moving earth, water, ice, even plants. He did not, however, pick up conjuring. Even now he is unable to create a visible pebble even if he uses all the mana he has, which she doesn’t really understand.
At least it seemed like he did not pick up on the fact that his siblings have managed to form rocks with their mana once she taught them how, mostly because he was busy learning how to control earth like it was air, and air like it was earth. She still doesn’t understand all of the things he managed to do with barely any teaching, but she is glad she did all of this.
Plus, he even stayed mostly away from chaos magic, only using that strange spell that invents songs.
Or at least he did until that damned human child got sick. This was a great opportunity, in a way. Maybe the inevitable death of the boy would teach her son that lessers are frail, short lived things that are really not worth his tears. She did not even need to betray her son, she couldn’t heal him.
She knew what the problem was, of course. This was a sickness caused by those tiny semi-living things that infest weak lessers. Just like that young hag, her own magic would do nothing but make things worse, as it would heal the cause while healing the sick, accelerating the process.
The normal way to deal with those is to give them mana poisoning and kill them, it’s why dragons don’t ever need to worry about them, but if she tried to be the one to do it, the boy would die anyways.
She was ready to be there and help her son understand the death of his pet, when she suddenly watched the resigned hatchling try something. The tears of that eastern beast girl, the very one that helped him create that chaos spell! Her tears moved him and now he dashed all over, even seemed about ready to rush out at night for reasons unknown. The human kid would die in a few days at the latest, what could he possibly think to try and heal him?
Chaos, of course. Chaos was undoubtedly her son’s affinity. Something he gained because of her blunder. Something that he just used to make a miracle.
He killed the cause of the sickness, using poison that harmed only the half-living things. The old woman’s healing now worked, no longer helping the disease…
That boy would live.
Her son would be enamored with these lessers a while longer, sadly… Ah, how is she going to explain this to her mate…