It took me a long time to realize, through years of scrupulous research, that dragons do not have skeletons in the same way mammals do. A dragon is somewhat closer to a crustacean, though such a comparison belittles my race to an insulting degree. However, I would not be a realist if I did not admit that all dragons have a carapace. This was to be the first item on my list of parts. It seemed to me to be the most integral part, the centrepiece from which my new body would be crafted.

Back then my progress was slow. I waited years, saving up the funds, learning who my allies were and who were my enemies, until I was able to make the first moves; the first purchases. Sure enough, my Mother wasn’t awfully encouraging of my interest in dragons—in my vision—so I had to wait until she was aging and frail. After that I took up sole leadership of our noble house and flew dragon banners from the walls of our maison, and made the servants address me as ‘Arch Dragon.’ They would have to get used to it, sooner rather than later, for unlike my Father I knew that time was against me, that my mortal body could only endure so much before it was soiled by the rot of time.

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I found part of a carapace in the Northern Reaches. This was my most excellent discovery. I organised an expedition to the ruins of the old Kingdoms and there - beneath the rubble, we found the remains of a long dead dragon. Had it been trapped in ice perhaps I’d have been able to salvage more of it, but the worms had done fine work and only half of the carapace remained. I had it brought back via steam-train to the family estate.

The second half proved more difficult. I arranged a hundred meetings, chased a thousand breadcrumbs before I finally found that an affluent collector at the very bottom of the Fathoms had a piece in his collection. The top half of a carapace, though it was cracked and weathered. Still, it was the part I needed, and I spent almost a quarter of my Family’s long hoarded fortune to have it sent back to me, from the desert to the lowlands. It came in a crate dusted with sand.

I felt no remorse in spending such a great deal of money. Father would understand. Father would be proud of me—for I am a dragon, as was he.