The lights flickered in the water as he desperately tried to stay afloat. His sister always lectured him about not visiting the lakes enough to become a better swimmer; told him he’d need the skill one day. He always scoffed at her and ignored her.

He should have listened.

Waves smashed into him as he watched several dragons, their chests glowing with light, swim back and forth around him, curious about his arrival. They were circling around him, below him, and even flying above him. This wasn’t a place for humans, he was an invader. Surely they were planning on eating him. Maybe they liked to drown their prey before they consumed them.

His head dipped below the surface. He did not have the energy to keep afloat. Water invaded his mouth. Kicking wildly, he burst through the surface again. Deep coughs echoed off the water as he spat the liquid out. He wasn’t going to make it long in the lake. He was going to drown when hundreds of dragons swam around him.

Pain radiated through his legs, sore from the constant kicking of survival. Sore from digging and clawing a giant dirt hole mere hours before. Still, the creatures circled around him, never closing in. He couldn’t do it anymore, his legs couldn’t kick anymore. He took a deep breath before he let himself sink. Further and further down into the water he went, his body pulling him further into the dark abyss.

The surrounding lights swam faster and faster, spinning quicker than he could keep track of. His chest was on fire, as his body craved air. He looked above, looked at all the lights spinning around. Watching as they circled him, giving him a brilliant send off. He closed his eyes. This was his end.

A mass below him pushed him back up toward the surface. The water ballooned over them as he once more saw air. Taking a big gasp of it in, he let the fresh air fill his lungs while coughing half of it out from having held it as long as he had. His legs straddled a dragon, the glowing of its chest illuminating the water below him.

He saw the same lightning wounds decorating the creature’s body. It was the dragon that he had saved. This time, it saved him. Although it was also the one that dropped him into the lake in the first place.

It started moving forward and he scrambled to grab onto its spines, hoping he it would be enough to keep him from sliding off. His hands were radiating a painful heat from where he was burned by the barrier, similar lightning shapes decorating them as well. They both showed evidence of their fateful meeting.

As they moved through the water, the glowing of the others followed them. He looked to his left and noticed three extremely small dragons following right along. They were babies. He never even considered what a baby dragon looked like and here they were, glowing and swimming next to him. Their scales were extremely bright blue in color, their glows making the color stand out more than it would have otherwise.

On the other side, there was a dragon far larger than the one he was on top of. Its scales were darker than his, but you could still see the brilliant blue. These were for sure azure water dragons. This must be a nest. The dragon brought him to a dragon nest.

Even the temples didn’t know where the nests were. No one knew where the nests were. At least, that’s what he had always been told. He remembered when he was a child himself, when he asked his parents where dragons came from, they told him they supposedly have nests. Explaining that no one has ever seen them and that dragons only come to humanity when they’re far older and larger than a house.

The dragon he sat atop was nowhere close to the size of a house. It was still an adolescent itself. He saved a teenager. As a teenager himself, he felt a little relieved to know that even with the dragons, they still sent their youth out, just like he had done for his family. He didn’t know how the dragon social hierarchies worked, but he was sure that him being brought to the nest probably wasn’t going to go well for the dragon he rode atop.

In the distance, he could see wet stone. He only knew it was stone because of the glowing light reverberating off it from all the dragons that stood atop, watching them. The morning light still hadn’t quite peeked in high enough to illuminate the lake. Soon they were further into the darkness, the opening no longer granting him the small amount of light there was.

The dragon below him weaved back and forth in the water rhythmically. The splashing of water against all the scales and the low hum of what was not quite growls coming from every dragon set a tone he hadn’t known could exist. It was calming, extremely calming.

His grip loosened as he listened to the ambient noises of the cave. Panic consumed him as he started to slide off the creature. He frantically grabbed the spines once more, determined not to fall back into the abyss.

Heading towards stone may give him a chance to survive the watery abyss he found himself in. He had to trust the creature to get him to some type of land. As they approached the stones, a dragon above them let out a heavy mist of warm air.

The mist hit the algae around them and it too started to glow. More and more dragons let out mist and the lake in front of them illuminated with a dull blue and yellow light from the algae that covered everything. He slowly looked around to see there were more dragons there than he had even thought was possible.

Many were watching them that weren’t glowing, just staring with piercing eyes at the two of them. He felt uneasy. He didn’t even know there were this many dragons, much less this many azure dragons. Their eyes followed him as the dragon beneath him took him toward a cave opening.

This looked like an underwater river they were about to pass into. He watched as small dragons scattered and climbed along the top of the cave, blowing mist and lighting their way. He looked behind him to see that the glowing algae was already fading. The open lake fading behind him, leaving only darkness.

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His mind was jumbled. He didn’t know what to think about the situation. He had never even considered ever meeting a dragon, much less be in the presence of all of them. There was nothing he could do but stare, mouth agape, at everything he was witnessing.

The dragon took him into the cave, following the river. He was going deeper into the earth. His family would never know what happened to his body now. Not a single soul would ever be able to find him this far down.

He watched as the small dragons continued to light their way. From his distance, the way they scurried across the top of the cave, they looked like small glowing lizards running from danger. They weren’t though; they were the danger.

Leaning over, he hugged the dragon he was atop of in freight. His mind was telling him things he didn’t want to hear about what was going to happen to him. The dragon below him was the only slightly familiar creature, so he was going to cling to it like his life depended on it. As far as he knew, it did.

The dragon let out a rumble that vibrated his being and sent a wave of calm down his spine. He knew this was magic. Wrapping its tendrils around his spine, he could feel it. He knew what he was feeling was an unnatural calm, but he embraced it. It was the only thing he could do. He let the cool, soft feelings wash over him and crawl inside.

He felt his body slacken as he let it take hold of him. If he was going to be taken to his end, he at least was going to go in without being terrified.

Above him, he watched as the small dragons crawled away, out of sight. Soon, the river they were on opened up once more to an enormous cavern. His eyes were adjusting to the lower light with only the glowing algae to guide them. Eventually, the ceiling faded away into darkness, higher than he could make out.

This time around, no dragons were around to glow for him. He felt the dragon below him slow down to a stop before it gave a violent shake, unexpectedly throwing him off into the water below. His arms flailed as he flew through the air. It was just moving him somewhere else to drown.

Sinking down, his butt made contact with stone. The water only went up to his chest in a sitting position. The dragon gave a rumble which, again, seemed like it was laughing at him. Wrinkling his nose in frustration, he let out a huff before he pulled himself up to stand.

The rock beneath him was at the edge of an island. He didn’t need anyone to tell him to walk up it. He made his way toward the solid ground where he wouldn’t have to worry about ingesting massive amounts of water. Every step he took was on top of algae. Each footfall left behind a faint glow before fading away. He looked back and watched as his footsteps disappeared into the darkness.

Shaking off the water and drenching him once more with it, the dragon walked past him and up the island. So far the creature had saved him from wolves, carried him to a dragon nest, dropped him into a lake where he almost drowned to only then save him again. His only option at this point was just to go along for the ride. He hadn’t died yet.

They reached the top where there was an ornate platform carved into the rock itself. Similar runes to the ones that he had seen just hours before were carved into it, decorating it with written magic. The dragon nudged its head toward the platform.

“You want me up there?”

It huffed mist toward him, causing his wet hair to flap and smack him in the eye.

He shrugged and said, “let’s hope these aren’t the same type of runes as the last ones we saw.”

The algae stopped right before the stone, not touching the platform. It was clean and pristine. And he was about to muddy it with his boots. Whoever made the platform would not be happy he dirtied it. He hesitated for a moment, looking back toward the dragon that watched him. It looked at him with kind eyes.

Or what he assumed were kind eyes. He honestly had no idea what was normal for dragons. This day was a whole lot of firsts for him.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and took the first steps onto the platform. He climbed the few steps there were to the flat top. Turning around, he looked back toward the dragon behind him.

There was nothing. No one. No dragon behind him.

He twisted around to see if he could catch where the dragon had gone, but it was nowhere to be seen. The darkness felt like it was pressing in around him. He once had some light from his companion, but that was now gone and everything was cold, wet, and dark. A shiver ran down his spine.

He couldn’t reason why he was still standing on the platform, but it was the only thing he could do. Swimming out of there wasn’t an option. Not with the energy he had left. He would be dead if he did that. So he just stayed there, waiting.

A rush of hot air came from below him as all the runes illuminated, piercing through the darkness. They shimmered different colors as he felt energy coming out from them. This wasn’t like the painful runes they just dealt with. These were full of a healing energy. He looked down at his hands and watched as the burns softened and healed, leaving only a faint silver lightning scar.

Motion caught his attention, and he saw the dragon wrapping itself around the platform, humming and glowing. He watched as the colorful magic did the same for it as it had for him. Its wounds were healing, leaving only the same silver lightning scars. He felt the magic tingling the air as they were both wrapped in the light.

Softly, the light faded and the magic dissipated. He felt renewed. Every muscle that was sore, every cut, every bruise was healed. The dragon healed itself and him by using some strange runes on some strange platform.

He wasn’t sure what had just happened or why it had, but he was thankful. He leaned down, touching the dragon that was still wrapped around the platform. With a firm hand, he pressed against the creature and sent his thoughts towards it. He didn’t know if it could hear them, but he felt compelled to do so.

A feeling of thankfulness and appreciation is what he tried to push. The dragon shook and huffed as if it got his thoughts. He let out a little laugh at the situation before shaking his head. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

The entire night had been insane. No one would believe him that this had happened. At that point, he didn’t think he would even tell anyone. They wouldn’t believe him anyway, so why would he?

If the trapped dragon was any indication, no one else needed to know about the place, either. A place where water dragons bred and nested, one where a human could be healed? This wasn’t a place for anyone else to know of.

He felt like they had let him peek into a sacred world. One where only a few had ever been granted access to. He would take the knowledge of this place to his grave. The stories had been right; they needed to be revered.

The ground shook, and he lost his balance, falling to the platform at his feet. It was a rumble, a loud noise causing everything around him to shake. Several stalactites crashed around him that fell from the ceiling above. Something was coming.

He watched as his dragon friend skittered away. There was nowhere for him to go, no place to hide. The rumble came in louder from behind him. Slowly, he turned, ready to embrace whatever was making the noise.

His jaw dropped.

Its head was absolutely massive. One fang was the size of a large tree and it had a whole mouth full of them. It was so incredibly large; he wondered how big the cavern he was in actually was, how deep did the waters go.

It was a matriarch, and it was glaring at him.