The air felt as if it was sucked out of his lungs in fright. There were always rumors of how large a matriarch could be, but he never imagined they’d be as big as the one in front of him. She very well could be the largest ever seen. He had no frame of reference to compare her to. All he knew was he was minuscule compared to her.

The fact that she even bothered to give him any attention was a miracle itself. There was not one fang in her mouth that was even his height. He was like a fly to her. There was nothing he could ever do to even harm the creature.

Her eyes glared at him. He was a foreigner in her domain. It wasn’t like he wanted to come there. All he did was save what he assumed was her child. All of the creatures there must have been her children. He wondered how small dragon eggs were if she was the mother. The sizes were so wildly different.

He didn’t dare move a muscle, not wanting to incur the wrath of the giant mother. His skin felt balmy, terror crawled its way up his spine. If he made any wrong move, his life would be forfeited in a quick, terrifying moment.

A cold sensation covered his entire being, ice wrapping around his mind. He dropped to his knees as the frozen pressure pushed into his being. It was magic. These creatures were fond of doing that to him.

Unlike before, the comforting warmth that washed over him, this was icy and cold, painful and burning at the same time, while making his body go numb. He knew that it was magic. It was the only thing it could be.

Images started flickering across his eyes. The matriarch was searching his memories. It felt as if she was looking into his soul. The evening’s events replayed in his mind for them both. She was in his mind, in his soul, and everything he had ever done was being laid bare for her to judge.

All the pain, all the cold numbing sensation, was gone in an instant. She let out a warm huff of mist that swallowed and enveloped him. He covered his eyes, trying to block them from the onslaught. It was just warm though, not scalding as he assumed it would be.

She had decided not to kill him in that instance after that invasion of his thoughts.

His eyes peeked open to get another look at her. She let out a deep rumble that he could feel in his chest, down into his bones. His whole body reverberated. It caused him to shiver. Looking back up at her, the eyes were kinder, no longer glaring.

There was an awkward silence that fell between them as she just stared at him, waiting for him to do something. What does a person do for a matriarch? This was all incredibly foreign to him.

He had never been to one of the temples, seen none of the games. Never even had the slightest thought about ever meeting a dragon face to face, much less a matriarch. He never took the time to ever learn more than the very basics about dragons.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

Looking down at his feet, he said, “Thank you for letting me into your… Home?”

She gave out a similar rumble of what he could swear was a laugh. The dragons seemed to be highly amused by him. Either they found humans in general funny or it could be just him. He wasn’t entirely sure.

He felt the ground shake as she lowered herself back into the water. Was she going to leave him alone? Watching as her head dipped into the dark water below, everything suddenly illuminated.

She was the one glowing now.

The whole cavern exploded in light. He hadn’t known dragons could glow. No one had ever told him about the glowing, so he wasn’t entirely sure they knew about it either. It was coming from their chest, something deep inside them as they let out what sounded like a cat’s purr.

The cavern was indeed massive, more massive than the opening he had entered through. There had been more dragons lurking about. The bright glow of the matriarch shimmered off their scales. He had had an audience the entire time. He looked at them, trying to count, but it was hard. Did they need the glowing to move around in the underwater caves?

The matriarch continued to circle the island around him. Her size made her slow, or at least it seemed as if she was taking her time. He wondered if she was waiting for him to do something.

He heard a roar above him. Another sounded off on the other side of the cavern, too far for him to see. Several more joined them, a cacophony of sounds that assaulted his ears. Cupping his hands around his head, he had to drop to the ground, grabbing at his ears to protect them.

The noises were echoing off the water and the walls and reverberating in his mind. He couldn’t handle the noise. He felt like his head was going to pop. A scream escaped his lips, and he heard the matriarch let out a snapping noise. The roars were silenced in an instant.

Everything was quiet once more.

The matriarch stopped swimming around and perched her back where she had greeted him before. He could feel her eyes on him as he picked himself back up. Giving her a sheepish look, he met her incredibly enormous eyes.

She laughed at him again.

Oh, how funny it was that the puny human couldn’t function with all the dragon noises. Sure was an amusing sight for them. Straightening his back, he tried to look as presentable as he could to the dragon.

She was more like a dragon deity than a matriarch. Her size was like nothing he could ever have imagined. There was almost a heat he could feel emanating off of her. It had to have been power, magic. He was experiencing more magic in the last few hours than he ever thought he would in his entire life.

Slowly, her eyes closed. The dragons made a vibrating noise above him. They sounded like they were a bunch of cicadas yelling in the summer air. It was the strangest experience of his life and it just kept getting weirder.

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A wave of warm mist billowed down around him, floating to the waters below. Every dragon was pushing it out. The large cavern was getting misty, his vision blurring from the fog. Soon, he couldn’t even see the matriarch in front of him.

This was a shock, seeing as she took up most of his field of vision.

A tingle in his chest spread throughout, his heart pushing the vibrations through his body. He felt the magic, felt it coursing through his veins. Every dragon, every one of them, was pushing their magic down upon him. Magic that wasn’t trying to harm him. He wasn’t sure what it was trying to do.

An image flashed in his mind. He was atop an azure dragon, but he didn’t look quite like himself. He looked older, facial hair and all. They were flying through a storm.

Another image replaced it. He saw himself leading an entire flight of dragons, various sizes and colors, following him through the storm. They weren’t just the azure dragons that were invading his mind now. He saw emerald, scarlet, and even golden dragons following him. Lighting crashed and illuminated other figures around him, also perched atop the dragons.

The image changed again. A babbling brook spoke to him as he noticed himself relaxing in the quiet air, the azure dragon snoozing next to him.

Another scene flashed across his eyes. A bustling inn with warm lights and warmer food. Figures surrounded him, laughing and enjoying their time, their faces a blur.

Looking down, the lights changed, and he saw a body laid at his feet, blood seeping out of it and staining the sand below. A crimson decorated sword gripped in his hands. He tried to look away.

Walls shone bright and white. Everything was unnatural and uneasy. A group of people, their faces blurred, stood above him, doling out a judgment.

The white walls faded into a scene with a setting sun. A decorated figure stood with its back toward him. Its hand gripping the hair of a severed head. The blood formed a trail between the two of them.

The person faded away in the mist. Darkness enveloped him once more before his family came into view. They all looked at him with pride, happy that he was there. Darkness crept in twisted tendrils. It reminded him of the wolves who almost consumed him. He watched as they reached for his family.

He reached out his hand and tried to shout out a warning. His voice held no sound, his hand made no movement. The tendrils wrapped around his sister’s legs, pulling her toward the darkness. It was his family. He had to protect them. He tried to will himself to act, to move, to do anything.

A spark illuminated the darkness, filling it was a blue light. The tendrils peeled away from his family, crawling back into the depths where they had come. The scene faded away as the mist came back into view.

His vision adjusted once more to the light from a few glowing dragons. The matriarch’s eyes were watching him. His breaths were labored as he tried to compose himself in front of her. He could hear his pulse pounding away in his head.

She had shown him visions. Of what, he didn’t know. Was it what he could become? A life he was set to have? They scared and excited him.

A deep voice that sounded everywhere and nowhere entered his mind, “You are worthy.”

The Matriarch opened her mouth, and that familiar spark floated out. It danced and swayed in the air as it moved its way toward him. He looked up to see it coming his direction.

The spark looked to be dripping, magic falling off of it before fading away into the darkness. A drip made contact with his forehead, bringing a comforting warmth to his body and soul. The spark floated to his head, merging into his mind.

He felt a surge of energy. Electricity crawled over his skin. His hands glowed like the dragons were. A sense of wonder, compassion, and a will to protect the sanctity of life was all that he could think of.

The lights faded from his hands as he stared at them. The matriarch let out another hum before sinking into the water, leaving him to wonder what she had done to him.

Had he just been blessed?

The lights above him faded away, the mist dissipated. He was left standing on the platform, alone. There was a warmth inside him now that hadn’t been there before. He had made a deep connection, not just with the matriarch but with every dragon that had been present.

He could feel them even though he could see them no longer. They were all now a part of him. He wondered if they had all factored into his blessing.

“Wait,” he looked down at his hands again. “I’m blessed.”

Squinting his eyes, he let out a frustrated groan. He was going to have to be paraded in public, representing his nation at the grand court.

Looking around, he thought he ought to find a way out of there. Stepping down off the platform, he searched around the island to see if there was any other direction he could go. After that display of wondrous magic, he felt at that moment, he could actually swim out of there on his own.

He felt something watching him, a presence not far from him. Leaning over the edge, he saw two eyes peeking at him from under the water. He immediately noticed the silver lightning scars. It was the dragon he met earlier.

Shaking his head, he smiled and let out a small laugh before reaching down to scratch the creature’s head. It popped up quickly, causing him to lose his balance in surprise. He fell right back into the water, his butt making contact as the water once more came up to his chest.

The dragon shook another laugh at him. Turning around, it wiggled its body toward him, beckoning him to climb back atop. Or at least, that’s what he felt it meant. He couldn’t explain how he could gather the feelings of the creature now.

He wondered now if, when he pushed his thoughts toward it before, if it did indeed feel him and understood what he meant. A feeling of kinship had filled him when he interacted with the creature. A piece of them was now part of his soul. He knew it.

Once atop the dragon’s back once again, it made its way back toward the river, back toward the previous cavern.

This time, he wasn’t worried about falling into the water. He knew now they wouldn’t hurt him. The azure clan had welcomed him as one of their own. He reached out as far as he could to try to touch the algae on the walls. Every stroke he made caused the algae to illuminate, sparking to life. Whatever they had done to him, let him at least let algae bloom.

They made it toward the lake, the sun fully above now, letting light shine inside. His eyes squinted at the change. He had been getting used to the darkness.

Looking above them he said, “well how are we going to get out of the water and up there?”

His hands had been wrapped around the dragon’s neck as he felt a cold chill pulse between his fingers. The dragon let out a blast of frozen air, freezing the water in front of them.

In an awkward move, it jumped atop the frozen slab. It was trying to keep him from sliding off. Blowing a more cold air, the water in front of them froze, giving them more space.

It lunged forward, blowing cold air and running down the newly iced runway. Rushing forward, the dragon got a running start, and they lifted off into the air. Its wings beat with a powerful force he had yet to witness.

When they had come in, it had been weakened by the runes and carrying him with its claws. Tightly, he clung as the dragon climbed through the air and out the opening, once more seeing trees and greenery above.

It wasn’t anything like the terrifying entry. Sitting atop the dragon was an entirely different experience. He felt like he was on top of the world, part of the skies.

The vision flashed in front of his eyes again, an older version of himself atop a larger dragon in a lightning storm. Rain could be felt stinging his cheeks. The thunder that rolled through the skies felt real as it rumbled in his chest.

He tried to shake it away, focus on where he was. His grip had slipped. The dragon was still trying to climb up into the sky at an angle. He couldn’t hold on.

His body slid away from the dragon. Panic and fear took over as he felt weightless dropping from the sky.