The warm glow of oversized candles illuminates a comparatively small leather bound book, a tremendous claw surrounded by azure scales delicately flips the page as though it were the most precious thing in the world. The great beast lets out a low rumble of appreciation and thinks to herself, "If only I had some more of that tea that caravan had some moons ago, it would be such a pleasant companion on this night. I was so lucky to have re-appropriated that caravan's goods. What did they scream about again? It was headed for that noble estate they kept shouting about. Sunsvegards I think it was? Focus, Zephyria."
She lets out a grand sigh and refocuses on her stolen book, within the pages is a simple story about a motley crew of young adventurers coming together to grow rich and defeat an evil beast. "I don't think I'll ever really understand the mortals, but by the void are their stories fun! I have such a hard time understanding their honor and culture. Why do they never use their heart-flames?" Zephyria flipped the page gently. "Perhaps I should go out and explore as my mother did when she was young. Immerse myself in their culture, burn a few cities down." She slowly and methodically flips the page again, being ever so careful to not rip the page. "I despise how delicate they make their books, fragile like the mortals that made them."
She pauses reading and glares at a pile of damaged books for a moment, each with large tears in their covers and pages from her claws. She growls at the pile and accidentally flexes her front paw, sinking her claws into the page and ruining the book. Zephyria snarls and roars out in frustration, "AGH DAMNIT! These void cursed books are so scorching fragile!" The dragon grabs the ruined book in her claws and flings it into the pile with the rest, panting for a moment and letting the anger fade. "Calm yourself Zephyria, it's just a book. You can steal another from the next caravan. Maybe even the same one so you can finish it. It's fine. I can get another. It's fine. I may not have a spare of this one, but I have others. I can keep reading. It's fine. It's fine." She stands there for a moment, hanging her head slightly in shame. "I must control my temper, it's as fierce as my mother's and twice as frustrating."
Zephyria pads towards her collection of intact books, passing by small piles of various other trinkets. Unlike most dragons Zephyria has very little silver and gold, instead piles of seemingly random junk. A leather coat here, a rusty sword there, a bright overly polished shield softly reflecting the candle light. She basks in the memories of each object as she passes by them, "I'll need an item to represent this book, too. Another short sword perhaps. I still need to find something for the last book I ruined. The hero in that story wielded a bow and performed alchemy with a focus on poison. Perhaps a bow or a bottle of poison? I'll find the right thing to represent this stories later, next caravan maybe."
As she lithely walks through her fairly small and humble hoard she starts to feel strange. A sense of wrongness she can't place, a subtle feeling of something being amiss. "Did I have a thief sneak in? No, everything seems to be accounted for." She grumbles in thought as she paces her hoard doing a more thorough check of it all. Not a single item out of place, not a single missing coin. "Must have been the book I ruined, I was truly enjoying that one. Perhaps the loss of it is affecting me more than I believed. Another story will sooth me, I'm sure." She reassures herself while moving back towards her books.
"I wonder how mother is doing, It's been too long since I visited her and I miss her dearly. She would know how to handle these books better, if only I wasn't so embarrassed about them. She has these massive piles of shiny coins and rare artifacts befitting of a great dragon like her, and I have old trinkets and fragile, easily rotten, books. Maybe she has an enchantment to make them tougher, or a wizard she can hire." She continues to pad slowly, thinking as she walks. "She's gotten so much more contact with the mortals over the centuries than I have." She pauses for a moment and begins to laugh at a memory of her mother telling her a story as a hatchling. "I wonder if that dragon cult still exists, what a hilarious mistake. Mother, of course, made the most of it. Doubling the size of her hoard in a week! I should visit her again sometime and ask. It's been many seasons since I made the flight over to her, may her scales shine and her hoard keep growing. Perhaps I will make the trip soon and finally just ask about the books, she has collected stranger things before."
Zephyria's pondering is interrupted as she reaches her loosely organized pile of unread books she's stolen over the last few decades. Her claws move as delicately through the pile as she can manage, skimming book titles and the first pages of some of them looking for an adventure that will catch her eye. Something fast and exciting to distract her from that strange anxiety. As she gently paws through her books once more, the sense of unease only grows. She tries hard to ignore the nagging burning anxiety but it's eating at her heart. She snarls and growls, turning around she moves to leave her cave. "This is so aggravating, something must be wrong but I can't tell what. I'll have a quick flight and scout around my territory, as meager as it is. Maybe I have an intruder? I hope not, I wanted to relax tonight."
The dragon reaches the edge of her cave and with a running jump takes flight, the wind affinity mana catching beneath her wings pushing her up above the tree tops. She soars around the surrounding forest and sees nothing, smells nothing, and hears nothing. Nothing but the sound of the night life of a forest and the occasional overly brave deer getting a bit too close to a dragon's den. The wind whistling past her scales as she soars brings back memories of her first flights as a hatchling. "I'm thinking about mother and my youth a lot tonight. It's strange."
Finding nothing except a small amount of reprieve from the anxiety, she turns back towards her cave and spots something unusual. A tent with a barely smoldering campfire and a mortal sitting nearby. She silently glides down and lands a short ways away to avoid alerting the intruder. With a grace that only handling fragile books with razor sharp claws can provide, she slinks towards the mortals silently with serpentine ease. She wiggles her rear for just a moment before pouncing on the person, flipping them over and slamming them to the ground with a paw as wide as their chest.
The mortal lets out a pathetic weak scream, "Oh void no! No! No! No! Please. No. Please don't eat me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't wanna die, by the old gods please don't. Plea-" Zephyria silences the man's pathetic babbling with a snarl and presses her paw harder into his chest. Looking at the man in the moonlight she sees it is indeed a human man in commoner's clothes, slightly torn and made of some brown cloth. "Who are you, what are you doing in my territory, and what did you do?" Zephyria snarls out.
The pathetic man sobs for a moment causing Zephyria to dig her claws into his chest slightly. "Wait! Wait. Please. Wait. I'll speak! I'll tell you anything and everything please I didn't know. I didn't know!" He shudders and pants for a moment struggling to breath from under the weight of a dragon. Zephyria pulls her claws back and lifts off his chest slightly giving him some room to breath. After a moment he speaks again, "I'm David! No last name. Just David. I'm a hunter, I was tracking a deer when it got too dark to keep the hunt going. I was just resting for the night!" He rants out in a single impressive breath, panting for a moment again he regains his composure and says "Uhm, lets see. What I did? What did I do? I... I caught a rabbit earlier, you can find it in a wrapping of salt in my bag. And... And my camp! I set up a camp. I didn't do anything else I promise! Please don't hurt me I didn't know. I didn't know."
Zephyria silences him with a snarl. "Quiet. I will inspect your camp and if everything is as you say I'll leave and you can continue to hunt your deer. Be grateful for my mercy, mortal." His skin regains some color in relief, "Thank you great dragon! You'll find nothing unusual in my belongings, just normal hunter gear and that salted rabbit."
Zephyria goes through David the hunter's belongings, sniffing his bags and gently looking inside his tent while growing more and more visibly agitated. She lets out small growls and annoyed huffs with each things she inspects much to the man's growing fear. Beginning to pace she contemplates what she's learned, "This is the worst option. I hate this. He's telling the truth! He's utterly boring and mundane. It would have been better if he was a dragon slayer, then I could have simply killed him and gone back to reading! May the void grant me patience, I still have no idea what's wrong!" Pausing she looks back at the utterly boring man currently shivering in fear a few feet away from her. "You. David the hunter." Without pausing to see if he acknowledges her she continues "You are free to remain here and hunt as you see fit, I will not hinder one on the hunt for prey." The dragon points with her snout to her left, "I saw a deer that way a short while's walk from here. Rest for the night and may your hunt be fruitful."
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Without waiting for a response she gets a small running start and fly's off from the small clearing, taking out few branches in the process. She soars around looking for anything else wrong but finds nothing. Circling back she sees that the man hasn't packed up his camp, although he looks like he might not get any sleep anytime soon. Leaving him in relative peace Zephyria flies back to her cave. She swoops down for an aggressive and agitated landing.
The moment her claws touch the stone of her cave the mysterious anxiety spikes worse than ever before. She snarls and growls in response, her claws digging small grooves into the rock. "Something is deeply wrong, and whatever it is it isn't here. This awful feeling must be magical in nature, I'm being guided somehow. Nothing else makes sense. I'm going to make that trip to my mothers sooner than I intended, she'll know how to find the source of whatever this is. I don't know anyone else better with mana." She lifts her long neck basking in the light of the moon. "It's just before midnight, if I leave now and fly hard I should get there just before dawn." Getting a running start she takes off quickly, flying towards her mother's cave. Soaring high in the sky her scales glint in the moonlight and her leathery wings catch mana driven updrafts to fly her faster than she's flown since she was a reckless youth.
Not even the joy of flying like this can sooth this panic that's growing in her heart. The scenery flies past in the moonlight, her thoughts blending with the ground beneath her into a sense of urgency and confusion. Hours pass as she flies harder and for longer than she's ever flown. Heavy deep huffs and puffs casting a bit of steam into the chill night air.
Early twilight started to break in the horizon. The world was still cast in shadows and darkness with only the furthest reach glowing slightly orange. In the shifting light Zephyria's fatigue and foreign stress started to mess with her sight. She started to jump at shifting shadows, looking for an enemy in the darkness. And yet nothing was there. Her wings kept flapping, and her mana kept her flying. She would get there soon. "Mother will know. She has to know. She has to know what's wrong. She has to. This cannot continue." Zephyria tried to reassure herself, her mind cast in the same shadows of the early twilight around her.
Just after the start of twilight Zephyria finally found the entrance to her mother's cave. She didn't know how much time had passed, only that her wings were killing her and she was tired, hungry, thirsty, and like her scales were going to fall off. "I'll sleep for a century once this is solved. I just need to talk to mother. She'll know." Not paying attention to her surroundings the addled dragon she entered the mouth of her mother's cave. "She-" Zephyria sniffed the air repeatedly, "She- Blood? Why do I smell blood? Did she hunt just before me showing up? No, she wouldn't dirty her hoard with a kill. She's far too cleanly for that." Her unease reaching heights she couldn't imagine, she slinks further into her mother's cave. Her serpentine grace and azure scales hiding her perfectly in the odd hours before the sun comes up.
Zephyria winds through the tunnel leading to her mothers hoard feeling small in comparison to the space her mother's bulk requires, "I always feel like a hatchling returning here. I'll get to her size eventually." Zephyria plodded on, "It- It smells so strongly of blood. Where are the fires? Mother always keeps fires lit, even when she is out. Always!" She stops for a moment, the smell of blood overwhelming her sense of smell so she just listens for a moment. Absolute stillness broken by the occasional small wet drop.
"M- Mother? Are you here?" Silence calls back to her, beckoning her deeper into the hoard. She obliges and starts to fumble around in the absolute darkness for one of her mothers many decorative Braziers. Zephyria sloppily fumbles around the dark hoard, her grace lost in the darkness and fear. After a bit of tense and pathetic clawing she finally bumps into one. Confirming there is indeed wood in the brazier she sticks her head into it and shoots a small bolt of lightning from her maw. Failing to catch she has to blast it three more times before the wood finally catches alight. "I always wished I inherited Mother's flames. Lightning is great and all, but-" Zephyria stops in her tracks as she can finally see, however dimly.
Her mother's massive body pressed into the far edge of her hoard, curled into herself defensively. She might have even been mistaken for nesting if it weren't for the bloody gashes across her belly, and a massive patch along her flank skinned and peeled of its scales raw muscle showing beneath. Getting a little closer Zephyria noticed that there were deep piercing wounds that appeared to be left by something incredibly hot, the flesh was cauterized One such wound had gone straight through her chest and into her heart. "Something with fire strong enough to resist even my mother's natural resistance hunted her." Zephyria looked back into the hoard and saw much of it was destroyed, melted in such a way that indicated dragon flames had swept the piles of gold melting them into oversized lumps. Other loot was destroyed by much weaker magics, but still flames. "The monster that killed her. It peeled her. Humiliated her. Disgraced her. The monster didn't even have the decency to eat any of her." Zephyria padded closer, ignoring the sticky blood beneath her paws. "Her hoard has been ruined but not stolen from, and not even her heart is missing. Why? Why would you leave behind a dragon's heart-flame to rot? What monster would disgrace their kill like this? Something that only wished to kill for the sake of killing came here." She snarled and raged, she let out a mighty roar deep within the cave and panted in fury. Too tired to maintain a rage befitting of a wronged dragon, she hung her head down, let her tail drop, and mourned for a moment.
It was then Zephyria noticed that unnatural fear she had been feeling all night had vanished. All that was left was a cold, barely simmering anger. She understood now why she had felt what she felt. Some string of mana, fate, or coincidence told her to come here, to witness this disgrace. "I'm sorry for what this monster did to you mother. I will honor you, and then I will avenge you as draconic honor demands for such a humiliation." Zephyria got closer to her mothers wounded chest, and began to dig with her claws, driving for her mother's heart. Occasionally taking bites of flesh she pushed deeper, past her monstrous ribs until her heart was exposed to the air. It was then she paused for a moment to say a small prayer. "I'm sorry I didn't get here in time to help you mother. You were disgraced. Your heart-flame left to smolder and turn to ash alone. May your soul join the gods of old as your heart flame burns through me." She let out a small shuddering breath, allowing herself to grieve for a moment. She used her mana senses to feel for her own heart-flame, it was weak and sputtering. She wasn't sure she could even fly in this state, much less defend herself if whatever monster took her mother came back. Taking one last breath she locked her serpentine eyes on her mothers heart. And ate it. With each tearing, ripping, snarling bite she felt mana course through her heart-flame fueling it to burn ever brighter. With each snap of her bloodied teeth she felt her heart-flame push the mana through her veins empowering her body. Strength. Endurance. Toughness. She was growing greater than she had ever been. Deep down she knew it still wouldn't be enough, so much mana had been lost to time and it takes more than even a single powerful hunt to grow into true strength. But that wasn't the point, not now, not yet. This was honor. Respect. The Dragon Way.
Having granted her mother the gruesome funeral rights of dragon kind she gets up and assesses the hoard once more. The light of dawn is starting to drift down the passage into the hoard giving it a bit more light, but it's still so dim. "I.. I need more light. It's too dark. The monster might have taken something, or left marks to track them by." Zephyria pads over with bloodied paws to the other braziers throughout the oval shaped cave. At the first one she goes to light it again with her lightning breath, but jumps as she detonates the piece of wood instead of burning it. Shards of smoking and flaming wood blast out and she closed her eyes in reflex while jerking back. Her heart-flame surged with newfound strength, stronger than ever but wild and uncontrolled.
Moving onto the next brazier she strikes the wood with only a little bit of her lightning, this time there's an audible crack as the piece of wood fractures but it catches fire this time and is mostly in one piece. With each brazier that she lights she wrestles her newfound power into a semblance of control. Lighting four more, she only detonates two of them. With some of the braziers lit the cave now has a warm but dim glow. Taking some time to survey the state of her mother's hoard she thinks to herself, "I can't tell if anything specific is gone. Too much has changed in the last couple decades since I was here." Pacing around she continues. "So much has been ruined or damaged. Mother must have been desperate to bathe her own hoard in flames. Some of this damage was the intruder, there are spots that were melted by a far more narrow flame. There's grooves in the ground as well, claws or a blade perhaps? Couldn't be another dragon the way she was dishonored. A mindless monster wouldn't take such specific valuable things such as dragon scale and not even eat her like someone should." She growled in realization. "No, not a beast. Mortals came through here. It most likely a group, no mortal could have taken my mother alone like this. Mortals dishonored my mother. But why would they not take anything? Mortals are greedy to a fault, even melted together coins still hold some value right? There must be a clue to where they went."
With nothing obvious leading her to her mother's killers, she backtracks down the tunnel into the hoard. This time more aware and alert she notices faint bloody footprints tracking out. Subtle, barely there. But still enough for a dragon to track. She also notices so many more signs of battle, melted stone on the walls, grooves cut into the stone. Moving carefully and quietly once more into the early dawn light a feint orange glow covers the world. Still dark and full of shadows, perfect for stealth and an ambush. For a quiet dragon like Zephyria? This was the perfect time to hunt.
