Chapter 27 27- Astoria
RANDOM FACTS: Dragons who survive long enough often develop the ability to shift into smaller forms to conserve energy and hide from threats.
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I was born as most ravens are— a dragon.
I came out of my shell a few days after my Mother laid on me, but when I had come, I found out that I was abandoned in an extremely large cage, hundreds of worms placed far too close to my nest… and three other broken egg shells.
I did not know if my mother waited for me to hatch or got too tired and flew away with my siblings. I never knew. But that was alright, because Dragons naturally were solitary creatures so my lessons only started early.
Too early. But early regardless.
My survival was important. I did not know why at the time, but I knew that I must. The nest I was abandoned in stayed far up in the mountains so I had to learn flight quickly.
It took a long while but I did it.
It took years after for other dragons to find the mountains I stayed in. It had been abandoned by them once but they returned in droves. I did not associate with them but I heard the rumours.
Beings called ‘humans’ moved through the world now and brought harm to nature and its creatures as they saw fit.
But in my thoughts, it concerned me not. All I knew was the caves. I knew every hidden route, every way to eat and save for winter. They spoke of me then, I am certain.
The solitary one. The cave-dweller who never joined the great flights or the territorial squabbles.
They called me many things, I'm sure, but none of them ever approached my home to say them to my face. That was the way of things. That was my way.
But one day, I returned from a hunt, and there she was.
The most beautiful dragon I’d ever seen in my life.
She had the lightest scales that shimmered even under the moonlight, and she was cradled right on the same spot where I’d be naturally, curled up and clearly comfortable.
I’d gone hunting so perhaps, I’d taken too much time and she’d flown this high so she was perhaps too exhausted to stay awake and wait for my permission.
But she must have smelled my scent. She knew I was here. There was no possibility in which she didn’t know.
So my irritation worsened, my disgust at her inability for common courtesy joined in— but when her eyes fluttered open, revealing a violet glimmer in them, whatever thoughts I had disappeared.
She didn’t speak to me— Indra didn’t have to. She stared at the goat I’d come with, her eyes sauntering on it like she was supposed to care… Then she returned back to sleep, curling herself into a ball tighter.
Indra was not a talker. Just like me.
The goat lasted three days.
I had killed it for myself, but Indra woke on that first morning and looked at it with those violet eyes, and something in my chest shifted.
I pushed the carcass toward her with my snout. She ate without thanks, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I let her stay. She stayed.
Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, and still she remained in my cave, curled in my nest, sleeping through the hunts I now conducted for two. She spoke rarely— dragons barely did, I realized —but mostly we existed as two solitary creatures who had somehow found themselves sharing the same space without tearing each other's throats out.
The other dragons noticed, of course but I did not care.
There was something to look forward to everyday now. And I did not have to lose as much as I believed I would if I ever let someone in.
Indra grew round.
At first I thought it was simply the extra food, the comfort of the nest, the laziness of a dragon who had found someone else to hunt for her.
But then I noticed the careful way she positioned herself, the protective curl of her tail even in deepest sleep, the way she snapped at me— actually snapped— when I came too close to her belly.
Eggs.
She was carrying eggs.
I did not ask whose. I did not need to. There were no other dragons in this mountain. There was only me, and there was only her, and there had been one night months ago when the northern lights had painted the sky green and she had pressed herself against me in a way that was not entirely about warmth.
The knowledge settled into my chest like a stone. I was going to be a father.
I had never known a father. I had never known a mother, not really, not beyond the empty shells and the too-close worms and the cage I had clawed my way out of.
I did not know what fathers did, what they were supposed to be, whether dragon fathers even were anything beyond distant figures who deposited their seed and disappeared.
But Indra stayed. And so did I.
Still, Indra’s gaze was no longer as cold. She no longer saw me as a being that she had to be with as a means of survival. She considered me as more than that. She considered me as…
Mate.
She became clingier during that time, waiting for me when I went hunting. When I returned, she would look pleased. She ate only when I ate. Slept close to me like she could not bear to be too far away.
I had seen the scars on her scales then. Marks I had never seen left by a claw… but I believed those were not questions I was allowed to ask. Plus, they were all from her past.
I was going to be her future.
One day, when I was sure that she would be birthing them soon, I flew far away. I knew that it might have taken a while but I believed she deserved the best— she always did. So I… I left.
But when I returned…
Fire.
Smoke.
Screaming.
The mountain— my mountain— was burning.
I dropped the prize I had carried in my claws, a young elk from the furthest valleys, the finest meat I could find.
The people who came were humans.
I saw them as I descended through the smoke. Dozens of them, small and soft and wrong, climbing the lower slopes with torches and metal claws that hooked into rock. They had ropes and cages and weapons that glinted in the firelight— long sticks that spat fire and thunder, the same ones the rumours had warned about.
They were not here for territory.
They were here for us.
For our scales. Our hides.
I landed at the cave entrance, ignoring the heat that seared my claws, ignoring the smoke that burned my lungs.
My Indra was not in our cave.
I searched for her while my brethren fought the humans to protect what was hours but all I found of her after flying everywhere in hopes of saving her and our children… was a village selling some of her scales.
I razed it down.
But it was not enough. It was never enough.
It took me years— even while the humans hunted me down to find each and every scale of hers. 152 years, I searched. And when I found the last one, I used my last breath, gathering all of her scales into a pile, and burned it to ash.
“I remembered a few memories.” My Master, Kael’s voice is the same way it’s always been. Soothing. Calming. It gives the same effect it’s always given. But I cannot focus because of the… pup in his arms. “This method… works.”
My chest twists like a knife digs itself inside. I feel like I’m losing my breath. “We already had this discussion, Master. The omega… Riven Draken and the Hunger… the possibility of you losing control and feeding far too much—”
“Astoria.”
“You and I know the prophecy. The truth might be every time you feed from it, it will backfire—”
"Astoria."
His voice cuts through my panic like a blade through fog, and I fall silent, bowing my head. He doesn’t reach out for me as he always does. Instead, he says, “We shall speak soon. Keep finding out what you can about Elowyn.”
Will you not tell me what you remembered, Master?
Those are words I think but do not say because the moment I look up, my Master is gone. And I am all alone.
And it feels like for that moment, I die all over again.