Dragonfall by L. R. Lam

Author:L. R. Lam [R., L. Lam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

PART 3: COHESION

Once upon a time, a child stumbled upon a clutch of dragon eggs. The nest was hidden in a cave in the Clouded Mountains, where the forests are bathed in mist. The dragon mother was nowhere to be found. The eggs were silver and warm to the touch.

The child had been sent to find herbs for a poultice, but instead stumbled upon unimagined potential riches. Bringing back just one egg would keep the child and their family in gold for the rest of their lives. The child tried to lift one, but it was too heavy. What if they dropped it?

As if the egg itself had heard, it trembled. And, as the child watched, it began to hatch.

The child crept closer and watched the crack widen. A small snout pushed its way through the membrane and the dragon took a first breath and gave her first cry. The child soon found themselves face to face with a dragon hatchling. She was a scrawny, ugly little thing, feathers damp and sticky.

The child was hypnotized by the swirling blue eyes. They reached out a hand, and the dragon nudged against it, like a cat marking her scent. They intertwined. Nall, the dragon; Crin, the human: two halves of a larger whole.

Crin stayed in the cloud forest. The parents, so poor they could barely feed the other three they still had, did not look very hard for their wayward child.

The dragon mother never returned. Dead, or gone, they did not know. The rest of the clutch hatched, though none of them bonded with the child. One human to one dragon—it had always been so. They took to the skies. Perhaps to find their own pairings. Perhaps not.

Time passed. The two fledglings, human and dragon, grew. Crin, now a youth, began to lose the way of their own kind. When the human and dragon shared their first kill, they grew even closer, until the bond eclipsed them.

Yet, in those days, those who were hidden could not remain so for long.

When the dragon was large enough to bear the youth’s weight, they took to the skies themselves. They eventually found the grand palace at the heart of the capital city, full of other dragons and riders. They struggled to fit into their roles. Still, there were comforts. And together, they flew and fought and beat back the danger that threatened the land. It was a good life. A solid life. They lived it well.

Yet they forever missed the cloud forest. One day, they were gone. And no one looked for them very hard.

—“NALL AND CRIN,” AN OLD TALE FROM THE PRIOR ERA, AUTHOR UNKNOWN

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