On the rocky coast of the Outlands, two sisters played amongst the rippling waves. Their names were Ceres and Asteria, and they came from a poor village close by the sea. Quickly losing track of time, the moon above drifted into view. Moonlight danced across the ocean. The two girls wished the moment would never end. Eventually they came to their senses as they realized their parents would be worried about them soon.

They were about to begin walking back home when Asteria spotted a shiny object drifting their way. She ran into the water and rummaged around the mesmerizing waves. A few seconds later, she hoisted a small black item high up above her head proudly, running back to her sister waiting on the sandy beach.

“Ceres, look! What do you think it is?“

In her sister’s hands was a large diamond-shaped scale, black as night and hard as iron.

“Asteria… that’s a dragon scale. Throw it away this instant,“ Ceres coldly ordered her sister. Her eyes showed anger, but her face was cloaked with fear. She grabbed the scale out from her sister’s hands and threw it as hard as she could back out to sea.

“Why!? Why, Ceres? Why do you have to throw away everything I like?“ Asteria screamed with tears forming in her eyes.

“You know why. It’s not like I don’t think it’s pretty, Asteria, because I do, but we could never take that into the village. If an elder saw it they might have a heart attack.“

Asteria wiped the warm tears and cold ocean spray from her face. She seemed to be the only one in her village that didn’t fear dragons in one way or another. She had been taught that, since the written record, dragons had burned their villages and killed their ancestors. But there hadn’t been an attack in ten years.

“Alright. I’m sorry.“ Ceres gave her a pitiful smile and a hug.

Asteria’s eyes glowed like starlight. Actually, compared to the stars above, they were even more beautiful. “Ceres, do you think that one day we could be friends with a dragon?“

Ceres doubted the notion immensely, but upon staring into her innocent little sister’s eyes once more, she was filled with a childlike hope. “Maybe someday. Maybe when you’re older.“

She gave her sister a kiss on the head, looked up at the moon, then turned to go home for the last time.

They climbed the wet rocks up from the coast and walked back across the grassy plains. The Outlands were calm and peaceful, but featured harsh terrain and even harsher climates throughout the seasons. Their village lived off of crops like wheat and potatoes for most of the year, but when times were desperate they were forced to hunt in the vast and unforgiving Greatwoods.

Back home, they ate supper and went to bed. Before her mind slipped into the warm blanket of sleep, flashes of that black scale appeared within Ceres’s mind. She dreamt of herself standing amidst a forest of pale trees in a white world. Everything from the ground she stood upon to the leaves rustling above were completely drained of their color. The only thing that broke this pattern was a great black dragon standing over her, looking deep into her soul. After what felt like an eternity, the dragon spoke.

“I will find you, Ceres. When the world has ended and all life has been drained from its abandoned corpse, I will find you.“

Her eyes jolted open and she leapt up from bed. A dull sunlight was pouring into her and her sister’s room from their small wooden window. Her mother hummed a tune in the other room. The birds chirped from the trees outside. Asteria was snoring. Her heart slowed its pace and she sat down on her bed. Everything was fine. All seemed to be right with the world. The sky was still blue, the leaves were still green, the trees were still brown, and she was still here. She was home.

“Ceres! I need you for a second. Are you up?“ Her father called just before entering her room, his eyes trained on his hands as he wiped his glasses with his shirt. “Ah, so you are awake,“ he said after looking up, “I need you and Asteria to fetch some water from the well. Crops seem to get drier and drier every damn day.“

Ceres nodded and woke up her sister. They both left the house, both with buckets in hand.

The well stood in the center of the village. Around it were kids playing with dogs, elders sitting and staring at the sky, and a landscape filled with wooden houses, grassland, and a sky bursting with light. Past the well on the horizon were the Greatwoods, a forest of trees the size of castle spires. They stood like verdant obelisks, ever watchful of the land that surrounded them.

“Curious about the Greatwoods, lass?“ An elder asked Ceres, peering up at her as she gathered water from the well.

“Yes, though I don’t know much about them. Have you ever been, sir?“

“Ah, yes. Long ago, when I wasn’t the bag of bones you see before you, I was this village’s greatest hunter-“

“Hahaha! Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, old man!“ A middle-aged man standing a good distance away retorted, a smug smile creeping over his face.

The elder’s jaw dropped for a second and he furrowed his brow. “Listen, little lady. That is the voice of the jealous. Why become a great warrior when you can make fun of the elderly ones? What a tool. I’ll have you know, I was a great hunter in my time. I saved this village countless times by hunting monsters in those Greatwoods!“

The smug man chortled. “Right, if by monsters you mean squirrels and frogs. There ain’t nothing like that in the woods. A hunter friend of mine said the only things of note in that forest are the huge trees.“

The old man swatted away his words as if they were a buzzing fly around his ear. “Hunters nowadays don’t go in deep enough. Of course you don’t find anything interesting when you don’t put in the real effort, like we did back then.“

Ceres and Asteria laughed and started walking back home, small droplets of water falling from the edge of their oaken buckets. They reached their home and watered each crop little by little until they had watered them all. Finally finished with their morning tasks, the two girls stretched their arms and left the buckets by the fence.

“Hey sis… now that we’re all done, do you wanna-“

But Asteria would never finish that thought, because as she peered ahead from her sister’s back to the center of town, her eyes caught the sight of blood. Crimson streaks painted the well and the ground around it. The old man, now cold and lifeless, was being devoured by a creature of pure shadow. Dark wolves had invaded their village. Screams rang out as men, women, and children alike were hunted down left and right. The wolves lunged at them one after another, tearing them limb from limb. The girls only stood watching in horror, the blood continuing to paint their previously peaceful village in a dark red hue.

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Ceres finally snapped out of it, shakenly looking down at her sister beside her. “Asteria, take my hand. We’re going to run into the house at the count of three, okay?“

“Okay…“ Asteria whispered tepidly.

“Alright… one, two, three!“ The sisters bolted from their garden to their house and slammed the door shut. A few of the shadowy wolves turned their heads and began running toward their home.

In the house, Ceres called out to her parents to no avail. They were alone, slowly becoming surrounded by the vicious shadows outside the walls. She ran to her father’s study and opened the bottom drawer, revealing a metal dagger. Grabbing it, she ran back to Asteria, putting herself in front of her.

The wolves had already begun breaking down the door. A second later, one leapt and burst through the window in their bedroom, invading their home with the stench of blood and dark magic. The wolf bit at Ceres’s legs, not enough to tear the flesh entirely, but enough to draw a large amount of blood from the wound. She quickly stepped forward and thrust the dagger downward straight into the wolf’s head. Wisps of shadow and crackling energy stung her hand as she ripped the blade back out of the beast, blood erupting from its lethal wound.

“You need to run and get help Asteria! I’ll be right behind you. Don’t look back, just run with everything you have!“

Ceres kicked the door open and pushed Asteria forward with all her might. Just as soon as she had mustered up her courage, her hope faded in a blink of an eye as she came face to face with a beast four times larger than the others. It opened its wicked maw and clamped down on Asteria’s body, picking her up. The other wolves let out an ear-piercing howl and they all ran off, Asteria screaming for her dear sister to help her.

Ceres gripped the dagger in her hand as hard as she possibly could and ran as hard as she ever had before. If she couldn’t even save the most important thing in her life, her sister, then what else could she save? She feared for her parents, imaginary visions of their bloodied bodies being torn apart by the wolves clouded her mind, but she shook them off and kept up her speed. Miraculously, she was keeping up with them. The wound in her leg pulsed and ached with every desperate footstep. The pain was driving her mad. She finally looked up and saw where they were running to: the Greatwoods.

It wasn’t far into the woods when both Ceres and the smaller wolves had lost the last of their stamina. She tried her best to fight them off, but only managed to injure one as she took one more step and fell hard into the dirt. She raised her head just enough to hear Asteria’s distant cries and see the huge wolf disappear behind the towering trees deeper into the forest.

The smaller wolves did not follow. They tore at her arms and legs, and when she tried to resist with the very last of her strength, her left eye was clawed out of its socket.

She closed her only eye and wished for the pain to stop, wished for some divine punishment to befall her enemies, but she came to a realization. Why would the gods help her? Weren’t they the ones who doomed her to such a fate? Why her? Why her sister?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the shaking of the ground. Through the blood dripping down her face she saw the wolves running away. Had they given up? Ceres closed her eye once more and began losing consciousness. A deep and evocative voice bellowed from above, bringing her back to reality.

“Little girl, do you wish for life or death?“ the voice asked.

Tears flowed down Ceres’s cheeks and into the massive pool of blood that was slowly eking out of her mauled body. Her mind wavered across hundreds of responses, but she intoned only one. “Life…“

“I see,“ the voice responded sadly, then went silent for a few seconds.

After a while, otherworldly chimes resonated within Ceres’s ears. Sounds she hadn’t heard for years, a decade even. It was the sound of magic, but not just any magic. She knew this was a powerful spell, one that could only be conjured by a being of immense might.

Instantaneously, her once excruciating pain subsided, and her vision was restored. Brilliant flowing light swirled around her, serpentining into her, creating for her a new eye, arm, and leg. They did not resemble those of a human, however. They were draconic in nature. Her new eye's pupil was a dark slit in a mesmerizing green cornea, and her new arm and leg were slightly jagged and covered in onyx scales. She wanted to peer up at her apparent savior, but as she raised her head her vision went black.

A crackling sound roused Ceres’s consciousness back to her. She heard nothing but the quiet of darkness and felt a warmth radiating against her skin. She slowly opened her eyes to a peculiar sight indeed.

A massive dragon as dark as the night sky above them lay sleeping across from her, a brilliantly burning campfire between them.

Ceres could only stare in shock. Her body would not move, her voice would not come out. She could only sit and stare at the large creature, racked with endless questions.

The dragon’s body began to move ever so slightly, and it raised its head to meet Ceres’s petrified gaze.

“Good morning,“ the dragon said, yawning lazily. “Ah, that’s right. You can’t speak. One moment.“

The beast closed its fearsome dark blue eyes and began channeling a spell. It was a smaller one this time, and so it only emanated one invocative chime. A brilliant light enveloped the dragon briefly, then faded all the same.

“You should be able to speak now, little girl.“

Ceres's expression had not changed in the slightest, but she tried her best to calm herself before she replied, “What the hell is happening!? Where is my sister!?“

The dragon sighed deeply. “Unfortunately, I could not find your sister. She was the one taken by those pesky wolves, yes?“

“Yes, but…“ Ceres began to speak, but she suddenly realized she was talking to a dragon, the same species that had been the bane of their village for decades. “You were part of it, weren’t you? Why? Why did you take my sister? Why do you keep terrorizing our village?“

The dragon sighed even deeper than the last. “All I can ask of you is to believe me, I had nothing to do with it. There is no glory in slaughtering such a pitiful town. I do, however, have an idea as to how we’d be able to find her. I assume you want to save her?“

Ceres's eyes saddened as her vision lowered to the burning flames. The fiery glow was reflected in her different colored eyes. “Of course I do. I just don’t understand how it happened. How did everything go wrong in an instant? There was nothing I could do…“ Ceres’s voice trailed off as she put her face in her hands.

“What is your name, little one?“ The dragon inquired.

“Ceres,“ she replied, peering back up at the dragon’s warm face.

“A grand name. Even grander is mine, Nakir! I am a dragon of high renown, and have lived since the beginning of time.“

Ceres scoffed. “You’ve lived for hundreds of years, yet you can’t find one little girl?“

Nakir, who had assumed a prideful stance, shrunk back down to the forest floor. “Well, to tell you the truth, the me that I am has only lived for a short time. I have been reborn countless times anew, but never with my old memories.“

Ceres’s sad smile turned back into a frown. She never thought she could ever have a conversation with a dragon, let alone feel sorry for one.

“Now, to the task at hand. Deeper within the Greatwoods is a powerful creature that may be able to point us toward our goal, but I have heard he is quite the tricky fellow.“

“Hold on,“ Ceres objected. “Why are you even helping me? Aren’t I just a pitiful human in your eyes?“

Nakir pondered this question for several seconds, and seemed to have lost himself in his thoughts completely when he gave up and gave Ceres a winged shrug. “There is one memory I have retained from long ago, before I was the me I am. I remember a small child helped me in some way, and so when I saw you laying there, I believed that was my only chance to return the favor.“

Ceres moved the blanket that was draped over her body to reveal her newly draconic limbs. She too sighed sadly, for she had hoped that part had been all but a dream.

“I am quite sorry to say that was the only way I could save you. It is an ancient magic passed down through my reincarnations known by your kind as dracomancy. It is the art of sacrificing part of my soul to heal the deepest of wounds.“

Ceres made her scaled hand into a fist and moved her onyx foot. “So, how much farther into the woods?“

Nakir turned his head and peered deep into the darkness behind them. The closest trees were illuminated by the flame, but each one after was wreathed in pitch black shadow. “Depends on how cooperative our ‘friend’ there really is.“