Chapter 1: A Knight's Last Stand
The problem with having a destiny, Sir Parker Thornwood decided as his armored knees threatened to buckle under him, was the sheer logistical hassle of fulfilling it.His lungs screamed like boiling kettles. His vision swam with spots that danced in time with the pounding of his heart against his breastplate. The glorious, ruby-stitched cape his squire had spent three hours pressing this morning was now a sad, smoldering rag, and a distinct, unpleasant smell of cooked ham was wafting up from his left pauldron.
And the dragon, the enormous, scale-encrusted, fire-breathing reason for his current predicament, wasn’t even looking at him.
“Unhand that egg, foul wyrm!” he bellowed, hefting his lance with a grunt. It felt as heavy as a mature oak.
Vexaria the Emberclaw, ancient as the mountains and roughly the same size, turned one enormous, dinner-plate-sized eye towards him. A low rumble vibrated through the cavern, sending a shower of pebbles from the ceiling. It wasn’t a growl of menace.It sounded suspiciously like a sigh.
“Oh,” the dragon boomed, her voice a rockslide of affectionate bemusement. “You’re still here.”
Her massive head, which had been curved protectively around a single, opalescent egg the size of a peasant’s hovel, lifted slightly. The heat radiating from her scarlet scales made the air above her shimmer. “I thought the little cough of fire would have… encouraged you to leave.”
“A knight of Altaria does not flee!” Parker proclaimed, striking a pose that was considerably less impressive with his wobbly legs. He focused past the mountain of dragon, past the terrifying cavern of jagged obsidian and the scattering of very old, very large bones, on his true target: the egg. It was the last of her clutch, the source of her power. Destroy it, and the kingdom would be safe for another century. It was, as the bards would surely sing later, the perfect plan.
“He’s focusing on the egg again,” Vexaria murmured, more to herself than to him.“Adorable. The tiny metal squirrel has a plan.”
“I am Sir Parker Thornwood, Slayer of—“
“Yes, yes, we covered the titles,” Vexaria interrupted, a tendril of smoke curling from her nostril. “You shouted them all on the way in.It was very thorough.Now, you’re upsetting the hatchling. The heartbeat is getting frantic. I can feel it.” She nudged the egg gently with her snout, and a warm, deep thump echoed through the stone floor.Parker saw his opening. Her head was turned, her great eye focused on her precious egg. With a final, heroically ignored whimper from his thighs, he lowered his lance, dug his boots into the loose scree, and charged.It was three steps.Exactly three.
One: A lunge forward, his battle cry echoing magnificently off the cavern walls.Two: A desperate, grinding push, muscles burning.
Three: The world tilting violently as something long, red, and impossibly fast flicked out from the dragon’s side.It wasn’t a claw. It was the tip of her tail, a seemingly casual gesture, like swatting a gnat. It connected with Parker’s chest plate with a sound like the world’s largest bell being struck by a drunkard.
The air left his body in a comical oof.He didn’t feel pain, not immediately. Just profound surprise.His lance flew from his grasp, clattering harmlessly against a wall of bones. The sky—or rather, the cavern ceiling streaked with glowing fungus—spun above him.
And then he was falling.Not to the ground.Into darkness.
Vexaria’s massive maw yawned open below him, a pit lined with teeth like polished ivory spears. There was no heat, no blast of fire. Just a shocking, damp humidity and the scent of old charcoal and something oddly metallic.He didn’t even have time to scream a final, poetic curse. The world closed in, smooth and muscular and wet, and then there was only pressure, movement, and the sudden, absolute end of Sir Parker Thornwood’s legendary destiny.Darkness.
Not the noble, respectful darkness of a tomb or a deep forest night. This was thick, warm, and utterly silent.A nothingness that pressed on him from all sides.Had he… died? This was a profoundly underwhelming afterlife.No choir of angels, no welcoming committee of fallen brethren. No fire-and-brimstone, either, which, given his recent company, was a small relief. Just… this.And then, a sound.
Thump… thump… thump…
It was deep, resonant, a rhythmic vibration that passed through the thick liquid surrounding him. It felt… close.Intimate. It was the only thing in this new universe, a steady, comforting drumbeat against the void.Time became meaningless.He floated, suspended, a thought without a body. The drumbeat was his world.A new sensation pricked at his consciousness.A tightness. A constriction that wasn't painful, but insistent. The fluid around him seemed to be… less?He felt a pressure against his back, his side.Something was giving way.
He had an urge.A deep, primal, non-negotiable urge.To push.
Sir Parker Thornwood, late of Altaria, did not push.He commanded.He charged. He vanquished.He did not… squirm.Yet he squirmed. A desperate, wriggling motion that felt both alien and instinctive.The pressure built. The drumbeat sped up, becoming a frantic, encouraging rhythm that vibrated through his very core.Crack.
It was the loudest sound he had ever heard, a sharp, clean report that shattered the silent eternity.A sliver of light, blinding and white, stabbed into his darkness.
Panic, raw and undignified, seized him.He pushed harder, fighting against the confining shell. More cracks, a spiderweb of fault lines spreading. The light grew, and with it came a rush of sensations—cool air on skin he didn’t remember having, a smell of damp stone and ozone, a cacophony of distant, rumbling sounds.
With a final, sticky, undignified heave, he tumbled forward into brilliance.Cool, rough stone met him. He gasped, and the air that filled his lungs was shockingly sharp, scented with smoke and minerals. He blinked, his eyes struggling to focus against the overwhelming light.The first thing he saw was scale. Vast, scarlet, and gleaming, rising before him like a wall of polished gemstones. He followed the impossible curve of it upwards, and upwards, until he met the gaze of a single, enormous eye.
Vexaria’s eye. It was the size of a wagon wheel, a complex orb of molten gold and vertical slit. It stared down at him, and in its depths, he saw not wrath, not predatory hunger, but a profound, overwhelming tenderness that made his soul shrink back.
“There you are,” the dragon rumbled, her voice softer now, a vibration he felt in the stone beneath him.It wasn't the battlefield boom.This was a whisper meant for only him. “My little fighter.I knew you’d break through first. Always so impatient.”
Parker tried to shout, to demand answers, to draw his sword. All that emerged from his throat was a high, reedy squeak. He looked down, away from the terrifying affection in that giant eye, to see what manner of prison or platform he found himself on.He saw two small, clawed feet. Pale gold, still slick with viscous fluid.Attached to his… body.
A body that was not human.A tiny, winged, ridged, and scaled body. A mirror, in miniature, of the mountain of scales before him.
The rumbling voice above him cooed, “Welcome to the world, my precious hatchling.”
Parker stared at his own reflection, distorted in the obsidian floor. The tiny dragon staring back let out another confused, pitiful squeak.