When I opened my eyes again, I was in my new body. In this new life, I was born as a drake-kin; a descendant of dragons. My new body needed to be physically capable of holding the soul of a dragon, so the only option was one related to dragons. I was male again, but that was coincidence. The only true control over the reincarnation spell I had was when and where. I picked a time, as close to my death as possible, and a place where I could reach Ti easily. Just like her, I was now living in The Realm of Falling Leaves. A fairly peaceful land, with minimal wars, and a wide verity of sapient and non-sapient species.

Above me were several people. One woman was covered in sweat, and breathing heavily; my mother. At the moment, a maid was holding me, and wiping me down with a towel, then handed me back to her.

“A beautiful baby boy,” my mother said. “Look at those wonderful red scales! Truly he is blessed.”

“What should we name him?” The well-dressed man standing next to her, my father, asked. Casting a spell, I planted my old name, Agba, into her mind.

“What about… Agba?” Mother said. Several of the people in the room gasped, and turned towards her in what looked to be shock.

“You can’t be serious?” Father asked.

“Why not? I think it is a wonderful name.” Mother said. I was thinking the same thing as well.

“My lady… that’s blasphemy.” One of the maid chimed in, to my confusion.

“Well… yes I suppose. But…” Mother started to say, but I cast another spell, putting a new name in her mind instead. “What about Oba, then?”

“Well, I suppose that one is fine. It does have a certain strength to it.” My father placed a hand on my cheek softly. “Oba, welcome home.”

Five years have passed since I started my new life. My goal for it is simple enough, I want to spend Ti’s last days beside her. Because I spent countless eons alone in a void, learning the secrets of magic, I’ve missed most of my love, Ti’s, life. Missed my children’s lives. I should have reincarnated mere moments after my death, so Ti should be alive. Drake-kin live for around five-hundred years, meaning I will be able to go to spend her last days at her side. I’ll make the most of this new life, doing what I should have done before. However, that will not be an easy task. Ti is dying, and a dying dragon is a dangerous thing. We retain our minds, so I know she will remember me, but dragons get stronger with age. In our last years though, our control over that accumulated power wanes, which can be harmful to weaker beings around us. My goal for now must be to grow strong enough to stay by her side without dying again.

I’d originally planned to use magic to create a powerful shield around myself, and go to her straight away, but my new body isn’t as attuned to magic as my last one. It will take years to grow its strength, and even then, it may never reach the same level of power as I once had. Of course, my skill with spells is unrivaled, but channeling magic requires one to be able to hold it within themselves. Trying to hold too much would be like over filling a wineskin… very messy.

For those past five years, I have also learned everything I could about my new world, The Realm of Falling Leaves. Having spent my life in a void, adjusting to this many people proved difficult. As a child, I was rarely left alone, which left me with few opportunities to practice my magic without having to place someone into a trance first. But I did what I could to build myself up. Attuning my soul to my body took a full three days, but it was worth it. While doing that, I placed a spell over the maids that tended to me, making them think they were doing their job, when in reality they were caring for an empty crib.

Once fully attuned, my skin and the patches of scales on it all grew tougher, and the amount if magic I could hold within myself doubled. Now the scales that once were a dull red, shined like polished rubies, and my eyes slit themselves like a cat’s eyes. Both sure signs that the attunement was complete. One quick spell to hide it all from view, and I was ready to rejoin the world again. I quickly used magic to clean myself, and get back to my crib. That was shortly after I was born, and no one was ever the wiser.

“Oba, are you ready to go?” My father, Duke Gogol Von Farrell, called out to me, waiting by the carriage. I was upstairs, in my bedroom, using magic to clean, organize, and dress myself. A moment passed and I finished up, then walked to the window.

“Coming father.” I called back. I’d spent the last five years practicing magic every day, but even now I am still only at one-hundredth of my former power. However daily practice has allowed me to quadruple the maximum amount of magical power I can hold in my body. At my current rate, it will take another twenty years of daily practice before I can even go within a mile of Ti’s body. So, I have been searching for ways to cut that time down. Since my birth, my personal training had been in secret. Mostly so that the country’s rulers did not discover me before I was ready and bother me with requests to conquer other lands or fight their wars. Turning down those requests would quickly get tiresome. But I did practice magic with my father and a private tutor he’d hired, though their lessons were simplistic at best compared to my abilities; they even still needed to chant and use arcane mediums like wands and crystals to cast spells.

Exiting the house, I made my way to my father’s side, and climbed into the carriage. “What were you doing up there?” He asked.

“Just cleaning up, and practicing magic.” I told him.

“Studying on your own? Good boy. Keep that up and you’ll be the strongest sorcerer in the kingdom.”

“I hope so.” We lived in my father’s territory, the Farrell Dukedom, close to the royal capital. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“To our family’s temple. It’s time you learn how our family maintains our Dukedom, and why we are trusted by the royal family to act as their right hand.” He said, vaguely. But that was nothing new for him. I think he just enjoyed sounding mysterious.

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The ride took an hour, but we could see the temple long before we got close. It was a grand building, as large as the piece of land I’d lived on in Oba. Once we got closer, I found myself hanging out of the carriage to get a better look. The stone walls surrounding the temple were so large they could be seen for miles, but only close up did I notice that the gates were adorned with images of many different kinds of dragons. After the carriage stopped, father and I got out, and the guards, who were dressed in monk’s clothes but carried now weapons, opened the gates.

“Brother Gogol, welcome back. How are you?” One of the monks said as we walked in.

“Brother Villo, thank you. I am doing well.” Father replied, with a humble bow; something I had never seen him do before. “Is the Abbot available?”

“For you? Anytime. Who is this?” The monk asked.

“This is my son, Oba. He is here for initiation, and to meet the Abbot.”

“AH! Welcome then, young man. If you are able to accomplish even half of what your father did, you would be well on your way to being one of the best.” The monk laughed. “Please, please, enter. The Abbot is in the main hall meditating right now. It is Rikthra after all.”

“Thank you. I hope we see each other again for the feast tonight.”

“And I you, brother.” The monk said, bowing to father, then turning to me, before bowing again. “And you as well, little brother.”

With that, we left the gates, and entered a large open area. On every side were old buildings, gardens, or animals. Following a dirt path, we came to the largest of the buildings. Outside, elderly monks were tending to various tasks.

“Oba, when we enter, stay by my side, and be respectful to everyone. Do you understand?” My father said. I nodded that I did, and we entered the temple. Inside, the room was dark, and sparsely lit with candles arranged in a circle. At the circle’s center, sat five men in robes, all meditating. They were facing towards a large golden statue of me… or rather, of my previous body. Of course, it looked nothing like me. The only reason I knew it was me was because my name, Agba, was engraved at the bottom. Which, as one might imagine, caught me off guard. The statue looked bigger than I really was; fatter might be a better word. And it made my wings look more jagged too.

A haze of earthy incense filled the room, and my nose. One of the men, who wore white robes while the others wore orange or brown, sat in the middle, chanting in another language than the one spoken by the kingdom’s people. The was no spell, and no magical power that I could feel, but still he chanted.

Father placed a hand on my shoulder, and loudly called out, “Kikentai no ichi!” Suddenly, their chanting stopped, but no one turned to face us.

“Mae.” The white robed monk said. Father took me by the hand, and walked around the circle of candles, and sat us between the monks and the statue.

“Rei.” My father said, and bowed before the monks. He gestured to me that I should follow his lead, so I bowed as well. Really, I was elated during all of this; it was such a fascinating experience. I had a thousand questions, but hadn’t yet found a good time to ask them unfortunately. After a moment, we raised our heads.

The white robed monk smiled, and bowed slightly while holding his hands together. “It is good to see you again Ichi.”

“And you, Abbot.”

“Have you come here for the feast of Rikthra?”

“I have, but also to initiate my youngest, my son. Oba.” My father said, proudly.

“Oba? What a unique name. Where did you think of it?”

“It was my wife’s suggestion, but she does not remember where it is from.”

“I see… How much has Ichi, you father, told you of this initiation, little one?” The Abbot asked.

“Nothing. I did not even know there was anything out here other than farmlands and bandits.”

“Ha! I see he has not changed. He always had too much flare for the dramatic. But there are plenty of those thing out here as well.” The Abbot laughed. His robed belly jiggled, and only stopped moving a few seconds after he did. “Well then, are you nervous?”

“No, Abbot.” I answered.

“I thought perhaps not. Most children your age might be frightened, or even wonder what was going to happen at the very least. You however seem… excited. Restless even.”

“My son has little in the way of fear. Once, he went missing for a full day. We found him that night, sleeping in a bear’s den… on top of the bear. He was two.” My father said.

“Already he is more at peace with nature than you ever were.” The Abbot laughed again. “Well then Ichi. You know what to do.”

“Yes, Abbot.” My father said, and stood up. He stopped me as I was about to as well. “No, Oba. You stay here for a while. Do as the Abbot says, understand?”

“Yes, father.” I answered, and he left out the way we came. Behind him followed all four of the other monks who had been sitting quietly. Leaving myself and the Abbot alone.

“Tell me, Oba. Have you ever fought before?” The Abbot asked. I nodded my head. “And who did you fight? A bully from school? A sibling?”

Thinking back to my time in Oba, when the kings of those kingdoms would come to me, I answered, “Kids.”

“Other children. I see. And why did you fight them?”

“Because they wanted to.”

“Did you hate them?”

“No, they were just silly and scared.”

“Oh? Did you make them scared of you?”

“Yes, but only on accident.”

“What did you do that made them so scared of you?”

“I can’t really remember. It was a long time ago.” I said.

“Alright. Oba, do you know what a Budo is?” Abbot asked.

“It means ‘way of combat’ in the dragon’s tongue.”

“Uh… yes. It does.” The Abbot said, surprised. “Do you speak the dragon’s language?”

“Bits and pieces.” I lied. In truth, it was ingrained into every dragon’s soul. We are born knowing how to speak it. In our eggs, siblings talk to one another in dragon’s tongue before they hatch.

“I doubt your father taught you that.” Abbot said. I shook my head. “Then who?”

“My sister.” I lied, well, partially. In this life, I did have an older sister named Selina who was off training at school. And she did try to teach me some dragon’s tongue before I left, but I made her stop. I pretended that it was too hard, but in truth, her accent was just sooooo atrocious. Selina was born about ten years before I was, but she was pretty good at it as far as I could tell. She cared for me as a child alongside the maids, and happily so.

“Shi? Well, that is not much of a surprise. She speaks it so beautifully.” The Abbot said. “Anyway, I want you to relax, and remain calm. Please do as I do, and repeat after me.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. I followed suit. “Ayumi-ashi… Aiuchi.”

“Ayumi-ashi… Aiuchi.” I repeated. It was dragon’s tongue. His accent was almost as bad as Selina’s, but I ignored it and said the words correctly.

“Hara.”

“Hara.”

“Hiki.”

“Hiki.”

“Hiraki-ashi.”

“Hiraki-ashi.”

“Himo.”

“Himo.” With that final word, I felt something enter my mind, and wrap itself around my soul. It was like an ethereal cord, and someone else’s presence. For a moment, I considered removing both, but instead I decided to let it continue… mostly out of curiosity and amusement.

“Hmmm… how odd.” The Abbot said, confused. “Such an old soul. The soul of… A DRAGON?” Without warning, I decided to pull myself into his mind. The light from the candles disappeared, and darkness surrounded us. The only thing I could see clearly was the Abbot. However, he had changed. No longer was he a large, elderly man, but a spry and fit young monk. Looking down, I saw I had changed too. I wasn’t in my new body anymore, but I was back in my old one; the dragon body of Agba of Oba.