While Natalia was preparing to return to the palace, further south, Alvor brought wood for his fire in the main cave.

He watched as embers and small flames rose to the hole in the ceiling of the cave.

He said another prayer to the keeper of time to thank her.

He pulled out a map on a parchment, an ancient map, and on it were symbols including arrows showing the direction to an arch. But the area was as big as a state and there was a hole.

But Alvor knew the way, well the area to search.

What was difficult was that it was impossible to find, but it was the arch that had to find it... If the arch was hosting it was even harder. And it was only active every 50 years... it was going to activate in 4 years... well, a little less... Just before the "Ceremony"

His granddaughter had to find the primordial dragon and awaken its powers somehow or she would be lost and at best, she would have to run away and live like the wild dragons.

Maybe that was also the only solution, the only way...

For him, life was more precious than a kingdom and these hard and difficult times could not last forever... but with the nobility and the Salic system... it had been going on for 4000 years...

"If we could get rid of these Wyvern Lords once and for all!!!! we could finally live in peace!"...

Then, turning back to the entrance of his cave, he saw that night had fallen, that Natalia had returned to the palace but he saw that the stars were shining abnormally.

"If my cry for help had finally been heard... By someone or something....If only if.."

Then he sighed and fell asleep around the fire...

He remembered his youth when he was still a young wild dragon....

He had made himself... living in a deep dungeon, adorned with machines collapsed centuries ago...

I was still a young beast and followed my instincts like any wild animal. But I was equipped with great intelligence and spent my time observing and hunting. I had the desire to learn but I stole the fishermen's traps and after being chased several times with sticks, I was still very small, the size of a small wolf.

My favorite place was a crevice between fallen rocks and at night I would enter a labyrinth, to keep me safe from predators and wild wyverns that could get me in a piece. I was a wyvern myself but I didn't realize it... I thought I was a human and I was trying to imitate them. At least for hunting and traps. I came across human children several times and sometimes played with them. They would throw sticks at me and I would bring them back or we would race sometimes but when an adult came along I would run away and I was wary that the adults would use the children to capture me.

And one day an expedition came after me and I took refuge in the labyrinth.

I was afraid... very afraid... and I fled even deeper, because they were after me. Then there was a room with a huge crystal but in fact the room was glass but I didn't know that at the time.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Everything was spotless.

I didn't know that but I learned later that it was a laboratory protected by chronoparticles and that any degradation due to time was cancelled out and anything that was broken would return to its previous state, as if it was going back in time.

You could kill someone and their wounds would instantly close and go back every time.

It was a strange place, but I didn't know that... yet.

I could hear voices and a team consisting of a hunter, a mage and a "locksmith", well, "One".

I was far away in the labyrinth, probably pursued...

I passed other corridors, each one as dark as the other, and then I saw tubes, tubes and tubes ad infinitum. In one of these tubes, I saw skeletons of humans and half-dragon humans... Poor things...

But there was like a little red dot that blinked and allowed me to see a little in this darkness, my night vision being impacted by the lack of light.

Then, all of a sudden, the light intensified and sounds like a siren but I didn't know what it was and voices in an old language I didn't know either and all of a sudden a machine came out of a closet with red glowing eyes and hollow arms with wires and pieces of iron grabbed me as fast as it took to say it.

(Actually: INTRUSION....ALERT! ALERT! DEFENSE SYSTEM ENGAGED)

THREAT CAPTURED!

ANALYZE!

I was struggling and squealing. I screamed, I hissed and I managed to say in common "Please!" that I had learned from the children I sometimes played with (distrusting as much as possible... no trust in adult humans)

The machine stopped and like a blade of light came to sweep me...

I was scared to death.

Machine: "ANALYSIS COMPLETED. HEALTHY SUBJECT IN GOOD HEALTH

GENOME COMPATIBLE EVOLUTION POSSIBLE

TRANSFER CRYSTAL!"

I was dragged into a half tube and iron ropes tied me up and I was pulled apart.

A bevelled spike pierced my chest and I screamed in pain. It was unheard of.

And something was pushed near my heart. A stone...

Then I started to cry and I fainted from pain.

Then I was tied with ropes as if on a cross and some humans approached me. They saw that I was tied up and that I had a lot of blood on me.

I started to moan and beg.

"Please... please... don't hurt me... I'm not a bad dragon... I wanted to play with the children at the ball..."

The humans looked at each other and the "locksmith" looked at me..

"Oh... how sweet he is... besides he talks....like the nobles..."

Vanta: "Dragonet? Do you understand us? Do you speak?"

I didn't know that I could speak human. It was... It was because of the rock!!! That must have been it!!!!

"IIIIII IIIIII I'm scared... I am in pain ..... pity...Mercy"

Vanta: "I will free you... You don't bite me... Ok?"

"Noooo I'll do anything you want but I don't want to die. the machine!!! the machine is evil....It stung me It cut me!"

And I burst into tears and Vanta finished cutting the ties and she held me like a crying 4 year old and I had my neck in her back and I was crying like a human child.

She stroked my back and said, "LAaa.. laaa. We won't hurt you..."

The others were amazed.

"He would be a noble orphan? Probably left to his own devices."

Then, continuing to explore the maze, they saw a completely melted area with lava flows hardened for centuries and an abyss separating another part in two. The place did not look stable and the hum of the machines was not reassuring.

There was a desk and the mage managed to decipher the name: "Maltezer".

And in the next room there was an impeccable laboratory, but cut in two by an impassable crevasse. It would take wings to get to the other side. Probably an earthquake or a collapse in time.

And I felt like something alive...

"Vanta... I feel something in the cocoon...."

Vanta motioned for the others to be quiet and put his ear to the broken glass tube connected by a kind of caterpillar cocoon but soft as leather.

"There's a heartbeat... "

The hunter then took a short sword and tore the cocoon and... inside... there was a child wyvern like me but asleep.

The mage took the wyvern in her arms and we went back outside.

I clung to Vanta...

"Not the cage! Not the cage... "I will obey... I will be a good dragon!..."

Vanta broke down and embraced me like a child.

"You... you are a charmer!"

The mage and the hunter left with the wyvern and I never heard from her again except that she had been sold for payment and Vanta kept me with her.

I became her apprentice. It was either that or the orphanage for noble dragons. But I was a savage... I would never fit in and they were humans in dragon skin.

I grew up and soon became vanta's mount, accomplice and partner.

We were so close that we even made love.

We were happy and had many adventures, but I was considered a submissive, low-class dragon.

One day the tragedy happened and our team was killed. I was too big to enter the dungeons and wandered along the paths.

In a last effort, I was able to transform into a human to enter the villages and simply keep my freedom and Natalia's grandmother, a noble dragoness took me in, probably under my wild wyrm charm.