The One Who Could Be King

Dorudar flew low above the treetops. He was attempting to sniff out his next meal. There had been plenty of wildlife in this new land so far to feed on and he had no need yet to venture to the distant farms for livestock and make the humans aware of his presence. He wanted the humans to remain unaware of himself for as long as possible, so Dorudar lived in one the caves, and only the creatures of the mountains and woodlands knew of him, for now.

The elves did not treat with mankind and had no care or concern for the dragon as they thought mankind and dragonkind beneath their mighty magic. Little did they know how ancient Dorudar was and how much power he could truly wield. The fairies and goblins were inconsequential and far too afraid of the elves and this new dragon to ever really show themselves, although Dorudar knew of their existence, for the fairy folk left him offerings and he could smell the goblins. It seemed that humans were too afraid of the other magical creatures to venture into the woods and the mountains.

At the moment, all he thought about was finding another deer. The ones he had here so far had been fat and delicious, not like the scrawny things he had been used to in his homeland far to the north.

As Dorudar flew over a small clearing in the trees, he stopped. He smelled one, a human. As he looked, he spotted a sleeping child, wrapped in a blanket, lying amongst the wildflowers. As alone and vulnerable as the child was, Dorudar would have considered eating them, except for the glimmer of magic he saw surrounding the child. It was dragon magic. He was sure of it. Yet how was that possible? No dragon had ever flown so far from the homeland before. He had been the first, or so he had thought. He would have felt the presence of another dragon in these new lands, yet there was none. Dorudar was alone. So how could this child be glowing with the magic of his kind? Even if Dorudar had decided he wanted to still eat the child, he wouldn’t have been able to. The magic was protecting them.

Unbeknownst to the dragon, that same magic had protected the child on his journey to the meadow. He had been kidnapped from his home, from his beloved father, by one of the fairy folk. The fairy had been watching the small farm where the boy and his father lived and because of a desire to feed its vanity it wanted the small boy for themself - to be looked at with the same innocent adoration that this boy showed his father. On their journey home, the fairy had been careless and was slain by a greedy goblin. The goblin then took the boy and meant to eat him, but it had also been slain when it was found trespassing with the boy in the territory of the elves. The elves, who were no friends of mankind, would not kill the defenseless child but they would not care for him either. They simply took him beyond their borders and left him in the meadow to be discovered, or not.

Upon discovering the disappearance of his son, the farmer spent hours in the woods trying to find him. He had lost his wife when she was giving birth to him and he could not bear the thought of losing his son too. Ikarus was one of the last remaining memories of his dearest wife that he had left. Evarius eventually stopped his search of the woods and went to round up some of the townsfolk to help him find his son. Some of them had dogs that could hopefully track Ikarus better than he could.

At the same moment that Evarius was heading back into the woods, Dorudar sat puzzling over this boy. What should he do with him? Dorudar thought that he needed to learn more about this strange child, but what if there were other humans searching for him and they discovered him? What if they accused him of stealing the boy and tried to kill him?

As Dorudar sat and stared, the child started to move and rustle in his blanket. He blinked his eyes, trying to get used to the bright sunlight. As the boy became more aware of his surroundings, he became more confused and frightened. This wasn’t his home. Where was his papa? And he started to cry.

An agitated huff from Dorudar ruffled the child’s hair and caused him to cry harder. The child’s screaming would attract all sorts of attention. Surprisingly, he hadn’t seen very many children before in his long life and didn’t realize that humans made such obnoxious sounds like the noises this child was making. Hatchlings certainly never made such noise.

Dorudar stood and delicately wrapped one of his claws around the child. He spread his wings and rose gently into the air, deciding to take the child back to his new home for further study. He wanted to understand the intricacies of the spells protecting the boy and maybe it could help him identify the dragon that placed this magic on him in the first place.

The sky was starting to turn dark. The three men that had joined Evarius for the search decided that Ikarus was a lost cause and implored him to come back to town, but he would not abandon his son. They left behind two of the hounds so the farmer could continue his search. Not long after the other three men had left, Evarius discovered the dead fairy and with it a torn piece of Ikarus’s blanket. He found the goblin’s tracks by the body of the fairy folk and followed them for as long as he could, but eventually lost sight of them. Luckily the hounds had the scent of the disgusting creature and they eventually found the corpse of the slain goblin too. Evarius was hopeful that they would still find Ikarus alive, but he was nervous about wondering into the elven territory. He decided to wait out the night and resume his search at daybreak, making silent vows to his late wife Valia that he would find their boy.

The child let out some squealing giggles as Dorudar gently poked his belly with one of his claws. The spells in place to protect the child did not prevent Dorudar from using magic to placate him with his own magic. Some of the fairy folk had been secretly leaving offerings to Dorudar and while he had no interest in fruits, he was able to feed some of them to this human child, which stopped his crying. Once his little belly was full, he sent the boy drifting to sleep so he could sleep himself. He had not eaten that day and wanted energy to hunt tomorrow.

Dorudar kept the child sleeping while he went out the next day to find more deer. After chasing a doe and filling his belly, he was flying back to the cave when he smelled another human. As he started to look for the second human, he thought to himself that he should have left the boy alone. He had brought more humans to his secluded mountain sanctuary.

Dorudar spotted a man in the trees heading towards the same meadow as where he found the boy. He also saw two dogs with him. They must be following the boy’s scent. Seeing as it was just one man, he flew ahead of him and landed in the meadow and waited for him to emerge from the trees.

Evarius saw a clearing through the trees, when the hounds suddenly went wild, barking and yapping and they would go no further. He managed to calm them down and left them where they cowered as he approached the clearing, afraid of what he would find.

The sight of the dragon took his breath away. It had been years since he had seen a dragon. It was sitting back on its haunches and was still at least twice the height of Evarius himself, with glorious shimmering green and gold scales. The dragon merely watched, but made no movements toward Evarius, so he stepped closer.

Dorudar was impressed that the man had enough bravado after first seeing him to come closer, rather than run away.

Evarius came closer still to the dragon and bowed. “Oh, mighty dragon, my name is Evarius, I am a farmer in the towns below these mountains. I am looking for my son. My hounds have followed his scent here, do you know what has become of my boy?”

Dorudar lowered his head slowly to get a better look at this man, almost as strange as his son, for a faint glimmer of dragon magic hovered around him as well. He was not the first dragon that this man had encountered.

His voice shook as he raised his hands imploringly, “Please, oh glorious one. Can you tell me about my son?”

Slowly, Dorudar raised his head and stood, stretching out one of his claws.

Evarius hesitated a moment and turned back to the woods letting out four short whistles to let the hounds know to return home. Hopefully they would find their way unharmed. He then turned back to the dragon and grabbed hold of his leg as the dragon’s dagger sharp claws gently wrapped around him and they lifted into the air.

Eventually, they landed outside of the cave and Dorudar lowered the man gently to the ground. A faint glow was emulating from inside and Evarius ran into the cave looking for his son. He saw him wrapped in his blanket lying in a stony outcrop next to a small fire, and his heart dropped when he saw that he was lying completely still.

Evarius gathered his son’s limp body into his arms as Dorudar entered the cave and saw the look of mounting horror on the man’s face. He lowered his head nearer the boy and opened his mouth, causing the man to flinch, but he merely let out a warm breath over the boy’s body. He started to blink and yawn and Evarius let out a sigh of relief. He started whispering in his ear and kissing his rosy cheeks, “Ikarus, my boy, I thought I’d lost you.” He was too focused on his son to notice the slight whip of the dragon’s tail when he said his son’s name. Ikarus meanwhile was elated to see his father again and was murmuring ‘papa’ and other unintelligible exaltations.

When Ikarus had finally settled down and was content to just be held in his father’s arms, Evarius turned back to the dragon, and gave him a long look before speaking. “Why did you bring us here?”

Dorudar was settling down for a long conversation, the first he would have in decades, and wrapped his tail around his body. He sent out a small breath of fire, causing the dying flame to come back to life. Evarius did not flinch at this showing of the dragon’s powers. Dorudar's voice came out in a slow, deep grumble. “I… am not the first dragon... you have seen...”

Evarius gave a slight shake of his head as he spoke “A dragon lived here many years ago. She was gentle and protected the town from goblins and fairy folk.”

Dorudar was surprised but said nothing. He continued to stare and contemplate the two oddities before him. “What happened… to her…?”

“We do not know.” Evarius stroked the dark hair on his son’s head as he spoke. “She disappeared many years ago and we haven’t seen her since.” Dorudar continued to stare, prompting him to say more, “It was fifteen harvests ago. Even after she had gone, we had no trouble from the fairy folk or goblins until these last two or three harvests… Not long after Ikarus here was born.”

“Tell… me… about the dragon…”

Dorudar listened with mounting intrigue as the man told him about this most generous and powerful dragon. Goblins were attacking his father’s farm and attempting to steal their sheep when she first appeared. She came down from the sky and terrified the goblins and they pleaded with her for mercy. She had none and killed them and spared Evarius’s family and farm.

Word started to spread through the town of this dragon saving people and farms from the treachery of the goblins and fairy folk. It was Evarius, barely a young man at the time, who discovered her sleeping down by the river where he liked to fish. She was quite a slender dragon compared to Dorudar with brilliant purple, red and blue glinting scales and Evarius marveled at her beauty. He decided to leave her with several fish that day and went back every few days to leave her with more offerings - every time she was asleep.

One day, she had waited for him to arrive and spoke to him. She thanked him for his kindness but she did not need food for she could feed herself. Instead she asked him for music. She missed it terribly and asked Evarius to sing to her. Evarius was not the greatest singer, but she enjoyed his company anyways and the next time he visited, he brought a lute.

He could play the lute much better than he could sing, and for several years he visited her and played her music. During those years the town thrived and praised the dragon.

Then one day, she was gone. When Evarius went down to the river, instead of finding the dragon, he found a young woman sleeping amongst the grass on the shore. He brought her back to the town and eventually she became his wife.

He would often visit the river to see if the dragon had returned, but he never saw her again. His wife Valia loved his music as much as the dragon had and he adored her and cherished her and was devastated when she died giving birth to Ikarus.

It’s not possible… Dorudar thought this to himself, for the answer was very obvious to him as to what had become of the dragon, but he had never heard of such a thing.

Somehow this dragon had turned herself into a human. Dorudar couldn’t fathom why a dragon would even consider such a thing, but the answer was sitting right in front of him. She had turned herself human because she had fallen in love with this man who played her music. He almost let out a noise of disgust at the very thought of it.

She had put magic on this man to protect him and the boy was practically glowing with magic because he was part dragon? Or was he? Ikarus…

“What… was the dragon’s… name…?”

Evarius had been feeding some berries to Ikarus who was starting to grow restless, and he looked up in surprise. “She never told us… What is your name?”

“I am… Dorudar…” and then he hesitated. There must have been a reason that she never shared her name, perhaps she thought it would protect them. But if other dragons came here, they would recognize the dragon magic within these two humans, just as he had done. If they heard the farmer’s tale and knew what Dorudar knew, they would fear the boy and do everything they could to kill him. “I will now share… a tale… with you…”

For centuries men of the northern realms attempted to fight and kill the dragons. They envied the dragon’s power and strength and craved it for themselves. They developed terrible weapons of war and killed many dragons before the dragons retaliated. They swept through the northern lands and burned these kingdoms to the ground. None survived. Some dragons were mortified at these attacks, but they could not disobey their king.

One dragon in particular was more outspoken then most - she was defiant. She thought that humans could be reasoned with and that there was goodness within them. She was the only one that could defy the king, because she was his daughter. One day, she was supposed to rule dragonkind, but she died. Her father had sent her to destroy a human settlement and when she never returned, he thought she had been killed.

She had inherited the brilliant purple, red and blue scales of her father and all of dragonkind mourned her deeply for she had been very kind, generous and wise.

However, it seems that she did not die that day. She feigned her death and instead fled the north and came here. Perhaps to prove to herself that humanity could be as kind and generous as she had hoped and learn if humans and dragons could live harmoniously together.

It was here that Dorudar hesitated in his tale. But he went on.

The people of Evarius’s town and Evarius himself had apparently been so kind that she started to love one of these humans. So much so, that she pushed the boundaries of what any dragon thought dragon magic was capable of, and turned herself human - from Ikaria daughter of Ikarox, king of the dragons and future queen of the dragons, to Valia the farmer’s wife.

Evarius was standing now, shaking in disbelief.

Dorudar explained to him the dragon magic that he could see surrounding him and his son and how it protected them. He did not know however, if Ikarus himself was a dragon or merely imbued with dragon magic. He was entirely new and Dorudar could not even begin to understand this odd child.

Ikarus was waddling around the cave and he stopped to pat Dorudar’s tail, oblivious to his father’s distress at what he had just heard. He denied it at first, but his wife had appeared in their town so mysteriously. He had never asked her too many questions, no one in town had, was that some of her magic? The townsfolk came to her for healing and charms and remedies. He had never heard the songs before that she had sung to Ikarus while he grew inside her belly. She had been so insistent on his name and more than once he had heard her call him ‘her little king.’ She had been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and his heart ached to remember her.

His head had been resting in his hands while he sat and tried to understand his wife. When he looked up again at Dorudar, he asked, “What now? What happens now? How am I supposed to raise my son? What should I tell him?”

Dorudar, who had been watching Ikarus, pondering some of these same questions, had decided that they would have to wait. They would have to wait until the boy became older to see how he would manifest his dragon magic. Dorudar would stay close by in the mountains and could teach the boy about dragon magic and history. In the meanwhile, father and son could continue to live their simple happy lives on their farm. Until one day, when Ikarus would have to decide if he wanted to live a farmer’s life or become the future king of the dragons.