I was teaching Haladoria to fly. I found it wasn’t easy. I had shown her how to move her wings and the various positions, but flying was a matter of feeling the way the wind caught them and being able to deflect it the way you wanted.

“Oh, I will never get this.” She protested.

“Yes you will. It will just take time. The trick is to feel the wind and respond. Since you never had wings before, it isn’t a natural thing for you.”

  Ah the joys of trying to be supportive. I made sure we took frequent breaks and did periodic lava soaks. Still, I knew it was trying her patience. All I could do was keep trying. It was later on after a good long soak that she managed to kite her wings and land. I sent a thank you to the gods as she needed this success. We practiced that for the next couple of days. Then it came time to learn how to turn. I could see her fine control starting to kick in. It was just a matter of time now.

  The next few weeks had her doing loops and dives. She was not completely at home in the sky, but she was getting there. I then started to teach her magic. That took less time by far than the flying lessons. She knew magic, this was just a different type. Augmenting her fire with spells seemed to be natural for her.

  Using her planar sight and porting was a challenge. I found I could track her no matter where she went though, so it wasn’t quite as scary as it could have been. Thank the gods that she caught on to it quickly. I wasn’t that comfortable taking her across planes yet. She didn’t have Arienach in her mind to coach her and I sure as hell didn’t want to lose her. We had time.

  Before too long we were flying all over Dragonhaven, our moves were almost perfectly in sync. Other dragons would join us and at times, we had a flight of a dozen dragons or more in the sky. The other dragons idolized her. We took a flying tour of all of the planets after that. I made her do the portals and we came out together after each one. She was becoming more and more confident. It wasn’t unusual for us to watch the sunset half way across the galaxy now.

  She started to help scout the planets that we would explore next. The wyvern followed her like puppies. We now had over a dozen more to go to and we didn’t have to second guess about anything there. I had taken the thirty two volunteers to the side and with a little help from Ta, tweaked them till they worked in perfect harmony with the wyvern.

  As for the wyvern, I will admit that I never quite figured them out. They were at their happiest mapping a planet, other than that they seemed to have very little drive, save for tagging along after us. They grew used to the other dragons from what I could tell, but they didn’t seem to understand the word friend. The other dragons just kind of accepted them and watched out for them, which seemed to confuse them to no end.

  We were laying in the caldera when I had a sudden thought. I let my sight travel up out of the atmosphere and into space. Mana didn’t dissipate. It took a while to scan the area around Dragonhaven's orbit, but I finally found a very faint and broken trail. It may not dissipate, but it could be moved and scattered. Following this faint trail out of the system, it became a little clearer as there was less out here to effect it. It was easy to follow now… until it stopped. The trail was no longer there. Which meant that it had just appeared at that point of space and drove into the planet. A portal?

“You realize that you haven’t been on this trail since Haladoria became your mate.”

“I know this.”

“Do you think this was on purpose?”

“Probably. In the end, they had to know it would only be temporary.” I said as I contemplated the cut off mana trail.

“I find I am growing as paranoid as you.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“If something were to happen to us, who do you think would now be the leader of the dragons.”

“No brainer there. I get a feeling that I might be close to an answer.”

“Let us hope that they don’t feel too threatened.”

“I never meant them harm in the first place. I don’t understand what they fear, but I see no reason it should be me.”

“Still, we should watch our backs.”

“Oh trust me, I am. Not that I could do much about it if they did try something.”

“My aren’t you the optimist.”

I laughed. “A pessimist is a realist with his eyes open.”

  It was a few years later that the wyvern came back with the news of a human settlement. The maps showed it on a small island about the size of Torgos. There wasn’t a high tech rating and there were no traces of them on the other continents. The first thing that came to my mind was marooned. The children cut off, the great destruction… It was all guess and supposition, but it fit.

  Haladoria and I decided to go out to meet them. We ported in over the water out to sea and flew in. They were living in primitive conditions. Reed huts with leaves for roofs, nothing better than dugouts. No obvious technology. I could sense very little magic. It wasn’t long before we were spotted and they ran and hid. Not to be unexpected as we were a pair of huge dragons overflying their island. We picked a spot well away from their settlement and landed.

“What should we do?” Haladoria asked.

“I am not sure. They have been here without outside contact. They may not even have a very developed language anymore.”

“Well, I am sure they won’t approach us in this form.”

“Probably not.”

“What should I know? I am new at this. What should I do if they attack?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“When you shift, you will still have your shield. They can’t touch you.”

“So we don’t have to worry about hurting them.”

“No. If they are too hostile to deal with, we will just leave.”

“No magic then.” She sighed with relief.

“Not offensive type. Your smallest dragon spell would wipe out half this island.”

Her eyes widened.

“I didn’t skimp on your defense, love. We don’t know if there are more dragons out here.”

  To my surprise, while we were talking, one of the villagers appeared. He walked into sight from the stand of trees. He stopped to look up at us, then put his spear down and stepped forward away from it. Then he just stood there. He was human, average height. Rather skinny, but not really malnourished.

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  We looked at each other and nodded. Shifting to our elf forms, hoping there were not racial prejudice here. He didn’t bat an eye as we approached him. He just stood there staring at us with a blank face.

“Greetings, I am Michael and this is Haladoria.”

He stared for a few more seconds. “So the gods return.” He paused then continued. “Sorry, I am Gabe.”

“It is good to meet you Gabe.”

“Why do you come here?”

“The gods are waking up and we are expanding their holds.”

“Makes sense. Can we go back now?”

That gave me pause. “Go back?”

“To the gods. We have been here for a long time. We wish to go home.”

“Things have changed a bit. The races all are part of the empire. There is no division.”

“How did you pull that one off?” He chuckled.

Haladoria looked at me, then said. “Well, there was this dragon…”

  It was a few hours later when she wound down. Gabe had been silent the whole time.

“So the eldest ancient made an empire and the gods profit from it. Now it expands. You are building their power for them.”

I stared at him for a moment. “Building their power?”

“The more they control, the more powerful they are. Didn’t you know this?”

I exchanged looks with Haladoria. “It makes sense. They have grown since we started this.”

“What did they give you?”

“What do you mean?”

“They gave you something to do this for them. They were probably desperate.”

The pieces fit. “Just immortality for the people, godhood for me and I got Haladoria back.”

He nodded. “Well, maybe they learned something this time.”

I thought about that for a few moments. “Do you know how they were brought low?”

“Not the details. Just that we were suddenly cut off.”

“I see. Tell me, are you immortal?”

“Thought you would have figured that out a lot sooner.” He laughed.

“How did you keep sane?”

“It wasn’t easy. There is no resources to build on this patch of land. We have lost about two thirds of our people. Immortal is not invincible. The others killed themselves.”

“What do you know of the gods?”

“Not much. A memory wipe is SOP when they are sending people out.”

“SOP?”

“Standard operating procedure.”

I sighed. “This sounds more like a military operation.”

“In a way. From what I remember, we never suffered under the gods. They were just less than… compassionate.”

  I thought about my interactions with them. He had a point. Strangely, they seemed to be changing. I wondered on that.

“Well, if you wish, I will open a portal back to Dragonhaven and you can rejoin us.”

“Thank you. We need to get the hell off this island.”

“Strange that you would wind up here. There are two other major continents on this world.”

  He just stared at me, then shook his head. He turned to walk back, then stopped to pick up his spear. He looked at it for a few minutes then tossed it off into the bushes. We were met by the other survivors and the basics of the story was given. Some cried, others just looked blankly at us. When I told them it was time to leave, a few glanced at their huts. None of them went back to pick anything up. They were leaving with just the clothes on their back.

  I opened a portal after some thought. I finally settled on a landing point just outside my house. To be honest, I wanted to see how the gods reacted when some of their wayward children came home. It didn’t take long for them to go through the portal when I opened it. There were only a hundred and sixty two left. I had Haladoria lead them and I stayed till the last one was gone. When we got there, they were huddled in a group, staring at the people that were gathering around them. Haladoria was in a rather frantic discussion with a drow and a dwarf who both took off together for the ring.

  They stared as the two got into a wagon and it took off down the main road. I think it was the fact there were no horses pulling the wagon. Between Haladoria and I, we finally got the people to step back a bit to give them room. The culture shock was going to be bad enough. All looked happy to see them, but they hadn’t been off that island in centuries. I finally took them to one of the staging barracks that wasn’t in use and had them settle in. It was like watching children as they found rooms and discovered that the crystals next to the door turned on the bigger crystal that lit the room. Running water, showers, beds…

  It was hours before they calmed down. I was standing outside talking with Gabe when Ta showed up.

  Gabe recognized her. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

She stared down at him for a few minutes, then back up at me. “We have done them all so much wrong.”

I was shocked. “What will you do now, Ta?”

“We put them under your wing. We still have much to learn from you.” She turned to Gabe. “We are sorry.”

  Gabe looked up at her, shock etched on his face. She smiled sadly and vanished. Then he looked at me.

“What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“She spoke. She said she was sorry.”

I sighed. “Maybe even the gods can learn.”

  Later on, I was thinking about the events of the day. Haladoria was still trying to get the group of humans settled in. So I turned to Arienach.

“I start to see a picture here.”

“Aye, and it isn’t pretty.”

“From what they said and the way things are now, I think we are guiding them down a new path.”

“So what should we do, oh great leader?”

“Smartass. That is my question. What should we do?”

“Michael, no one, including me, has a clue how you made this all work.”

“So, that makes all of us then.”

I heard a chuckle in my head. “They seemed to have mellowed somewhat. Ta saying they were sorry… well… I don’t know how to take that.”

“Nor I.” I sighed. “I still do not trust them.”

“But they do not interfere.”

“True”

“We keep on as we have been?”

“I suppose. I have no other ideas.”

  It was later on that night when Haladoria and I were settled down in the lava that she spoke.

“Michael, the gods are not what they were.”

“No.”

“What are we to do?”

“What we have been for the moment. I think I know what the gods were afraid of now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Their fear that they showed when I met them.” I sighed. “It is the same fear that Viennarinia had. Change.”