“I, I –”

Just as panic began to be overtaken by fear, the elder dragon restrained his aura and relaxed his smile, his eyes revealing a gleam that was hard to ignore. Amusement.

“Oh, you can relax, boy, I’m not going to eat you. I simply needed a laugh after all that serious business.”

I felt like I was experiencing whiplash from how quickly the elder’s attitude did a complete reversal. Was this normal for elders, or was there something about this one specifically?

“And you may address me as Elder Dusk, though I feel you are more suited to colloquialisms than formalities.”

“And…if I may be so bold – “

“You may,” Elder Dusk interrupted, his grimacing smile still plastered on his face. If our roles were reversed, he would probably call me cheeky for doing something like that. I wondered if all dragons had the potential for irritating me, or if maybe I was just easily riled up.

“May I ask why such treatment was necessary? I can’t think of anything I might have done to warrant such…attention.”

The Elder’s eyebrow ridge raised. “You felt that gaze upon you, did you not? Not the brief one, that was just me. The one that made you feel like a grain of sand standing up to the might of the sun.” I nodded. “That is our first line of defense and one of our greatest secrets, but suffice it to say that the barrier can detect malice from any outsiders seeking entry, and alerts those within to their presence. I was simply curious to see how badly my descendant performed as a mentor to engender such feelings within such a short time. Now, come along, young human. I’m sure you have questions, and as someone bearing some responsibility for your situation, I will provide any answers that I’m able to. Reela, with me.”

“Yes, Elder.” Reela’s voice, both expected and unexpected, sounded out through the connection, lending merit to the beacon theory.

The invisible air barrier dispersed, allowing me to exit the cave and follow behind Elder Dusk just as Reela did, though I was careful not to step on his tail which he had unwound and dragged along the floor.

“Are you capable of flight, boy?” the Elder asked, as we walked along a large earthen tunnel, the small entrance area where we were teleported to on the far right.

“No, Elder Dusk.”

“Sigh, yet another task to take care of. Very well then, the boring way it is. Reela, attend to whatever chores your father asks of you for the next two days.”

“...Yes, Elder.” The meekness Reela had displayed was overshadowed by something I had never heard from her before: respect. This had to be that natural, instinctive hierarchy thing she had mentioned before, unable to rebel against someone above her. Thankfully, I had no such shackles. My problems were completely external and not baked into my DNA. Well, that I knew of. Who knew how far the Seed in my soul had expanded its roots?

There are some questions I’m probably better off not knowing the answers to.

We had reached the end of the tunnel, where the ground ended in a cliff a few feet away before revealing an impossible vista of epic proportions. The sun and moon were about to intersect in the sky, on the verge of an eclipse. But the land below was what truly amazed me. A giant continent stretched out, as if I was standing among the clouds and peering down at a geographical map. I could see unique biomes such as deserts and tundras, as well as rivers and mountain ranges that spread over great distances.

And most of all, I saw dragons. Dragons of every color imaginable flew in the sky. The largest, and I surmised the eldest, were usually accompanying numerous smaller dragons. When one of the smallest dragons faltered or actually failed to fly properly, the larger dragons would smack them with a tail or wing.

Atop the backs of a few dragons were dragonkin, more humanoid in size and shape, though all of them bore some marks of their draconic lineage. They were too fast and distant for me to make out clearly, but I could have sworn I saw a pure human riding atop a smaller dragon, their whoops and roars clearly audible even through the humdrum of the ‘air traffic’ around them.

Perhaps my interest was too obvious, as the Elder spoke. “Flying lessons will have to wait for you, young human. For now…” As he gestured, he drew my attention to something I had experienced but never seen so distinctly.

A portal.

It differed from teleportation formations, or the teleport spell Reela used for me often, or even the instant shifting of space I had experienced. This was clearly a rip in space, with a large garden visible on the other side, along with a natural lake and some draconic looking beasts ambling around.

Barely realizing what was happening, I stepped through the portal, that tingly feeling of familiarity I had associated with spatial travel passing through me, and was instantly surrounded by draconic beasts of all sizes, some of whom decided to start licking me like a dog. What’s more, I was barraged with a multitude of voices in my head at the same time.

“A new friend!”

“What’s this? It smells funny!”

“Where are your wings, or your scales? You don’t have a tail, too!”

“It’s a human! The Elder talked about them before!”

“It’s not a human, it’s an alien from the stars!”

“Whatever it is, it’s my friend from now on!”

“Why is it your friend? Everyone can take turns playing with him!”

“But I’m the oldest! And the Elder said the oldest is in charge!”

“Yeah, but I’m the strongest!”

“Enough.”

Finally, the two-pronged assault of licking and mental shouts died down as the beasts formed up into a straight line ten feet away from me, standing silently as the Elder stepped through the portal and closed it behind him.

“This is my descendant’s disciple, and you are correct Tavia, he is human.”

“I told you so! I was right!” the boisterous shout declared, just as a drake, resembling a large komodo dragon with scales the palest of pinks, lashed her tail at one of the wyrms, an albino anaconda that had spindly limbs that could only generously be called legs after they grew for a few more years.

“I’m still older than you!” a childlike voice retorted as the wyrm began to wrap itself around her legs, threatening her balance.

“Enough.”

The elder’s voice was whiplike, ending their spat before it could go further, as the two returned to their positions, standing upright at attention and without speaking.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Since both of you seem to like talking so much, you can study languages for the next four days.” While the two troublemakers looked like they wanted to protest, they held themselves back, an unexpected show of restraint from what seemed like the dragon equivalent of children.

“Yes, Elder.” They helplessly intoned in unison.

“Now, as I was saying, this is…oh, you never told me your name, did you?” The elder turned to me.

“Forgive me, Elder Dusk. My name is Rhaaj.”

“Just so,” the elder said, slightly inclining his head to me before turning back around to his charges. “Rhaaj will be joining all of you for lessons from now on. Though keep in mind he is much weaker than all of you, so be mindful around him.”

“Yes, Elder,” the draconic beasts chanted, their attention slowly turning from the elder towards me.

“Now, all of you can play for the rest of today while I attend to some business, except for you, Orgrim,Tavia. Fly over to the language caves and tell the instructor I sent you there. Rhaaj, do your best to make friends with the others. I will return shortly.”

“Yes, Elder.” While the two beasts that were singled out were despondent, the others were relieved that they had escaped punishment.

“Rhaaj, you may eat and drink anything the others do, everything here is safe for consumption. If you truly need something, ask your mentor for help. We will speak more once I return.”

“Alright.”

The dragon snorted, apparently amused at my cheek, before he changed forms, shifting into a massive black dragon, with a wingspan of at least two hundred feet and standing at least thirty feet tall. Elder Dusk unfurled his wings before billowing dust and a tiny windstorm assaulted those below him, as he shot into the air and soon became nothing more than a dot on the horizon, flying off to parts unknown…leaving me with a small pack of young and curious beasts whose inhibitions seemed to disappear along with the elder.

“Little human, I’ll be your first friend, okay?” The pale pink drake said as she gingerly wrapped her tail around my arm, taking the elder’s advice to heart. “I’m Tavia, don’t forget me. I’ll be back as soon as I can!” She licked me before running off. Her partner in crime, Orgrim, turned to me and said, “Hmph, well she might be your first friend, but I’m his first male friend! That means I win, so take that! Oh, you are a male, right?”

“Yes, I’m a male,” I replied, already exhausted at this level of conversation.

“Oh good! Then I’ll see you in a few days, friend human!” Orgrim said before crawling entirely too fast for someone with a body like his with such stumpy legs.

With the two seemingly loudest ‘kids’ gone, the rest of the pack seemed more amenable to interacting with me.

“Hi everyone, I’m Rhaaj.” I introduced myself again, as being called human, or little human, or friend would quickly get annoying. I’d gotten enough of that while on the beastfolk continent. If the elves referred to me as anything other than my name if and when I made my way to the elven continent, well. It would be a good test for my newly discovered self-control.

“I’m Dorro.”

“Hi, you can call me Zabil.”

“Squinia.”

They all introduced themselves to me before approaching me much more cautiously this time, though in the end, they all somehow naturally formed a semicircle around me. Now that I wasn’t barraged by all of their limbs and voices simultaneously, I could see that there were only eight of them. I guess the confusion of the sudden mosh pit of limbs and colors that jumped me before rendered me stupid for a moment.

“Do you want anything, Rhaaj?” Dorro asked.

“Actually, I do want some water, now that you mention it, and some food would be nice, too,” I mentioned, before they all perked up and exchanged glances before Dorro took the lead.

“Then we can go to the lake! There’s lots of water and berries there, and if you want to hunt anything else, you can!”

And just like that, we were on our way to the lake, heading south judging by the position of the sun, though I distinctly remembered there being an eclipse a few minutes ago, which was conspicuously not the case now. The mystery sang to me for a moment, like a siren’s song seductively whispering in my ear, before I simply ignored it and thought to ask the elder about it upon his return.

The kids were energetic and curious, asking me all kinds of questions, only some of which I had an answer to. I mean, no matter how they whined or pleaded, I wasn’t going to tell them how humans reproduced. Let their parents have that talk with them, not some stranger from a different species. That aside, though, they were just as ignorant and rambunctious as any human child would be, save for the fact that they were capable of combat….with small animals, at least. Those who had wings flew, while the rest either slithered, crawled, or walked. Sometimes, the fliers would take on a passenger or two, but not for long. When I asked why not, they responded that the elders didn’t want them to get used to having someone by their side all the time. In battle, anything could happen, and their most reliable ally was themselves. I briefly wondered at just what kind of education these baby beasts were receiving, before deciding it was none of my business and continuing along the path.

The garden where we departed from seemed to be just one section of this…place we were in. The garden was an area that, while beautiful, was obviously curated and well-attended to. The path we were taking, on the other hand, was far more wild. Flora and fauna of all types were abundant, creating an atmosphere of untouched nature in the near-jungle that we trekked through. There were no carnivores or truly dangerous beings around, though we did chance upon a plant that resembled a venus flytrap. It was as if someone intentionally created an environment to reflect the outside world, as I had read that the elven continent had the most woodlands and jungles of the main continents.

After a few hours, the jungle slowly thinned out into a wide open plain, with a shimmering lake in sight and various animals drinking from it in peace. The plain was identical to those of the beastfolk continent, down to the sporadic groves of trees and the wandering herds of animals.

“Rhaaj, Rhaaj! The lake’s over there!” One of the kids, a young sea-blue wyvern named Eurig shouted.

“We can catch the fishes!” Another one joined in.

“Fishes are boring, we should look for the shocky ones! Those are funny looking!”

“Nuh uh, the flat fishies are the weirdest ones! Their faces are all mushed together!”

The banter lasted until we got to the lake, at which point I sat on the edge of the lake and dunked my legs into the water, lying down on the soft grass and closing my eyes, simply taking the peaceful environment….for about two seconds, before the voice in my head started up again.

“Hey Rhaaj! Look at this!”

“Hey! This is a new fish! I’ve never seen it before!”

“Rhaaj, look what I can do with my tail in the water!”

“Wow, that’s so cool, Baxen!” I said, having gotten up to see what was going on in the lake. The kids were messing around in the water, swimming and splashing each other with their various limbs. Occasionally, one or two would dive down and retrieve something for me or others to look at. There were corals, jades, clam shells, and blobfishes. Yeah, that last one was hard to fake smile at, but I endured the sliminess and did it anyway, prompting more underwater dives.

I had picked a few berries from the jungles, not trusting the texture of anything else without cooking it, to sate my hunger, and found the taste tart yet sweet. The water had a slight sweetness to it as well, but it was crisp, for lack of a better word. Like the water was just…more.

Eventually, I jumped into the lake, relieving some of the tension that had been weighing on me for…a while, and just played with the dragon kids. We had a belly flop contest, played freeze tag, and tried out Marco Polo, which was a massive flop as they all had good senses due to their lineage, but overall it was just a nice little break that I got to enjoy.

Sadly, the fun times had to end at some point, as we made our way out of the lake and started the journey back to the garden, only for Elder Dusk to intercept us halfway through, the familiar sensation of a portal closing behind him.

“Alright, whelps, back to your parents. Rhaaj and I have some business to discuss,” Elder Dusk stated. I swear I would have heard the phrase ‘aw man’ and ‘dang it’ if this were Earth, but I was content to receive a chorus of groans and ‘really” from the kids. After assurances that we would see each other again, the kids left, leaving me and Elder Dusk in the middle of the jungle, the tension ratcheting back up as I felt I would finally, finally, get some answers.

“Let’s have this conversation somewhere quieter, shall we?” And with a flick of his wrist the scenery changed, as the lush jungle was replaced by a cave glimmering with precious metals, gemstones, and all manner of treasure, both natural and created.

“Now. What do you wish to know first?”