So close to the top… only a while longer and I’ll be beyond all of their reaches.
He was the lanky, long limbed and sun gilded youngest son of the warlord who ruled over most of the Ehshen region, the only region where humans lived in the vast world.
Ehshen… Great Valley of Life was what it meant in the oldest human tongue remembered. And, in truth, it was a vast valley, thousands of miles through the very center of it. A circular shape, it was edged with white water filled rivers and cliff faces miles high, cliff faces that were virtually unclimbable.
He was wanted now, though, and wanted men didn’t survive long in Ehshen, better to take his chances on the supposedly unclimbable cliff face than face his father’s justice.
Justice, hrmph, that is exactly why I defied him. Who ever heard of getting your eyes burned out just for supposedly looking at my ‘supreme and godly’ father wrong? And my brothers and sisters all agreed with him!
Physically, he had silvery green eyes and pale, white gold hair, accented with sharply pointed ears and fine, delicate features. He was a child in his teens, maybe only 14 or 15 years of age, but his bearing was one of knowledge beyond his years.
Agilely he hung from a tiny rock ledge and lunged upwards, grabbing onto another ledge and placing his foot where his hand had been just a second before. No cliff could conquer him, no matter what the odds.
“Rock climbing? Why would you want to learn that?! The only rocks that require lessons to climb are the cliffs around Ehshen, and there’s nothing beyond them except desolation and destruction, you know your lessons!”
He had asked once, long ago, to learn the art of rock climbing, for he had always dreamed of the lands beyond Ehshen, and when he dreamed, he saw creatures of myth and legend, great magical forests, witches and warlocks, not barren, desolate lands empty of all life like the histories said. The words of his father still echoed in his mind, even after several years had passed, but still they did not call him back from his dreams of magic and myth.
Eventually he had learned how, but only by sneaking away to the house of a man who was outlawed from ever entering any town again for some stupid reason.
His name, according to his father, was Traveth, but the man had given him another name, one that he responded to even quicker than Traveth, and that name was Lavanjay, a word that, in the oldest known human language, meant “Little Golden Eagle”.
Climbing requires all of one’s attention, but unfortunately, Lavanjay was remembering more the horror he had seen when his father had ordered a poor man to be blinded slowly with hot pokers.
And so it was, that his next lunge was mistimed, and the ledge he had grabbed had crumbled under his weight, sending him out into the fiercely blowing wind, with death a sure thing as the river seethed and crashed more than a mile below him.
Blindly he tried to catch something, anything to stop his fall, but nothing met his fingers. The wind rushed past his body, disorienting and making him light headed until, with a thump, he landed…
Right in the large, clawed palms of something rather large.
It’s ok, little one. You’re safe. A rather calm and comforting male voice said in his head, causing him to look around.
As far as he could tell, he was being carried in the palms of some bright red, flying beast. Looking up through the claws he gasped as the mighty head of a red dragon came into his vision.
He kept staring as they spiraled up into the air, covering in minutes what he had climbed in hours. With a slight jolt, the dragon landed and placed him gently on the lush grass that grew at the top of the cliff, proving that the histories had been wrong.
Lavanjay got another start as, gracefully, a black, winged being leaped off the dragon’s back and approached him, wings folded tightly against his back.
“So, who has Kazirel rescued this time?” the being asked, his voice flowing softly over Lavanjay’s ears.
“Kazirel?” he asked.
The being chuckled softly, pointing at his dragon, “That’s Kazirel, a red dragon from Cy Dragonstake.”
“Oh…” was all he said. Cy Dragonstake? That wasn’t any place he had heard of.
“Well, what’s your name?”
“Lavanjay, and I’m a human, what are you?”
The being threw back his head, laughing, “Child, you’re about as human as I am.”
Lavanjay bristled at that comment, “I am too human! Why else would I be in that stupid valley if I wasn’t?!”
“Oh I dunno, you could’ve been lost over this very cliff and managed to survive the fall, and got saved from the river by some human who then claimed you as his.”
“If I’m not human,” he growled, “then what am I?”
“That’s easy enough, an Elf.”
That stopped him dead, his eyes widening as he realized what the being had said, “A… an Elf? B… but they… they don’t exist!”
“Well then some stupid human has been leading you on, kid, because Elves can and do exist, and you’re one of them.”
Shian, I think he might do good somewhere like Ryslen.
“Ryslen? Not Cy? Need I remind you that Cy has its own clutch on the sands as well?”
Ryslen has so many… there’s more of a chance of his dragon being there than at Cy.
Shian shrugged, looking over at Lavanjay, “Well? Ryslen or Cy?”
He just stared blankly at Shian, neither of those names meant anything to him.
“Looks like you get your wish, you great red lump. Come on, Lavanjay, let’s get you situated at Ryslen.”
“But…”
“Got another place to be?” Shian asked.
“Well… not really, but…”
“So then, we’ll get you a dragon bond and you can come back whenever you feel like it.”
With that, Shian leaped astride his dragon and reached down to pull Lavanjay up behind him.
“Hey, I’ve got a question. If you don’t believe that Elves exist, then why aren’t you freaking out because of my wings?”
He stared at Shian, “Surely you must be kidding, freak out over wings when all the humans I know have small wings?”
What? Lavanjay… humans don’t have wings.
“Huh?”
Shian shook his head then gave a mental command to fly, saying, “I don’t know what twisted truths they’ve been feeding themselves and you, but I’ll have to show you a real human when we get to Ryslen, and trust me, real humans don’t have wings.”
Lavanjay just stared blankly down at the ground as Kazirel hovered in the air for a second, then winked between, coming out over the massive Ryslen Weyr when the sun was about midday, a far cry from the close to dusk that it had been when Lavanjay had been picked up.
Kazirel spiraled down to the ground after trumpeting a hello to the watch dragon who called out a welcome to him. He landed smoothly and Shian dismounted then helped Lavanjay to slide down.
As they entered Ryslen, Lavanjay looked around as Shian pointed out real humans.
“I can’t… why don’t they have like… wings and horns and scales?”
“Did all of these ‘humans’ of yours have wings, horns, and scales?”
“Well… no, some just had wings, some didn’t even have that, but most had at least small scales.”
Sounds like dragon/human crossbreeds to me.
Shian nodded, “That it does. Well, come on, let’s get you settled in.”
With that, Shian guided Lavanjay through the corridors and towards the candidate barracks.
“Will you… be at the… hatching?” Lavanjay asked, looking up at Shian worriedly.
“Sure thing, kid. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Impression
Weyrling
Adult