Chapter 11: Hatchling
The baby dragon crawled forward, shaky on its new legs, and then pressed its head into his hand.
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The story so far in Chapters 1-10: Draven encounters mysterious Dawn Bringers who can walk unharmed in sunlight and learns that bonding with dragons is the key to unlocking ancient portals between distant regions of his world. Driven by grief and curiosity, he secretly works with his friend Kael to translate forbidden texts for lost knowledge while tensions rise in the hold. Draven risks his life to steal a dragon egg from a dragon’s (shadow-crawler) den. The mother crawler is furious and stalks their hold as he hatches the baby dragon.
On the seventh cycle of the span, the shell vibrated.
The sound was soft, almost a breath. Then the shell cracked, spidery lines running across the surface.
Draven kneeled beside it, hands shaking.
The shell cracked more, and then small bits of it steepled, pushing outward.
His breath caught as a small, purple snout emerged, pushing out shell fragments that fell. Its tongue flicked out, like a snake.
Like a shadow-crawler.
His heart hammered.
This was madness. What had he been thinking?
Another bit of shell fell, and a claw pressed out. Then the baby dragon pushed its tiny head out.
It had the distinctive shadow-crawler snout and glowing purple eyes, but none of the long mane tendrils yet.
It looked around with innocent eyes that glowed like bioluminescent amethysts.
Their gazes met, and something cracked within Draven a strange link to this little creature formed.
The hatchling unfolded itself slowly, damp and fragile, tiny claws scrabbling against the ice wall.
Its head was about the size of his palm, its scales smooth and luminous, pale pearl with shadowed violet.
It made a strange, guttural whimper, and crawled over the edge of the crate toward Draven.
He reached out his hand hesitantly. Pulled it back. Then reached out again.
The baby dragon crawled forward, shaky on its new legs, and then pressed its head into his hand.
The moment his palm touched its scales, light exploded behind his eyes and pearlescent lines streamed upward from his hand, marking his skin in branching trails of soft, glowing, purple lines that twisted and turned up his forearm, like a strange tribal tattoo.
The baby dragon arched, wings flaring.
Then the world shattered, and Draven collapsed as his mind was rent in two and the bond burned and settled deep into his mind and soul.
In the distance, the mother dragon at the hold doors roared.
Along the glowing line that attached his soul to the baby crawler’s, Draven’s memories surged forward. Light and shadow tore through him, and new memories flooded in that weren’t his.
Flight over endless forests.
Hunger so sharp as he tore into murkwilers.
The warmth of clutch mates.
Hatred for the creatures in the stone den that stole their eggs. This ache echoed his own loss of Myra which was transferred back.
His mind was both here and gone, flooding with memories of not only the baby crawler but its mother too, and the grandmother that was still alive.
Draven lay on the floor, dizzy and nauseous, curled into a ball of confusion.
Soon the flood became a trickle, and something like awareness came back to him as the blackness faded.
At first he forgot who he was, or where he was.
He was laying on the floor of his living unit, a baby shadow-crawler, a dragon, now curled into his arms.
Then he remembered.
He had no idea how long he’d been laying there, lost in the memories of… of… what?
It felt like the memories of the dragon lineage? Or, at least those in the lineage still alive? So, was he connected to them too, and not just this baby?
Was he connected to the same mother he’d stolen from and that now raged and tore at their doors for her baby?
He sat up and leaned against the wall, running a hand down his face.
The baby shadow-crawler shifted, then stretched, and yawned.
The hatchling peeped, a thin sound, and looked at him.
He ran a finger down its back, and it seemed to preen.
That was when he noticed once more the mark on his palm and forearm; the purple, iridescent spiraled tattoo that shimmered and glowed.
He turned his hand this way and that.
He remembered Solari’s strange tattoo then, those glowing golden spirals up her bare arm.
Warmth infused him at the memory, and he blushed.
Now he knew what the tattoo was from.
He again ran a finger down the little crawler’s tiny spine ridge.
“You’ll kill me someday,” Draven whispered, half laughing, half broken.
The love he felt for this little creature was beyond anything he could compare. Even his love for Myra now seemed somehow dimmed in comparison. They hadn’t had time for children before she’d been taken from him. Maybe this was what all parents felt.
But he wasn’t sure. Because this love was burned into his soul, on a depth he hadn’t even known existed.
He could tell, or feel, or sense the baby. Her. It was a her. And right now, he knew, deep within, that the hatchling wanted food.
He fed it the way the book instructed; chewing the raw meat until it was soft and partially digested, and then held it out.
The little hatchling gobbled it all up, and then went to sleep in his lap again.
The hold tower bells rang out.
Eight times.
It was mid cycle. So, at least he was not late for boundary duty.
“What should we call you?” he said.
Her head twisted from her nap, regarding him with her luminous purple eyes. Then her head tilted in that way the golden-crawler had when curious, or questioning.
“Duskglow?”
She snorted. He could sense along their new mental bond that she didn’t like it.
“Killer?”
Another emphatic no filled his mind. It was not the word “no.” It was the feeling of negation, or not wanting something.
Her pearly scales shimmered in the dim light of the ice wall. He touched them once more. “Something that means purple, I think. How about Vielle? It is the color of the glowbugs in the Ironwood forest, you know, that pretty glowing color. It also means peace.”
There was a pause, and a tickling sensation spread over his scalp, making the hairs on his neck stand up as she scanned his memories to understand what he meant, and then the little dragon flicked him with her tongue, and he sensed the positive affirmation from her mind.
“Vielle it is. But I shall call you Vi.” He caressed her again.
She flicked him with her tongue once more, seemingly satisfied, and then went back to sleeping.
Goddess of Light.
What in the ash was he going to do with a baby shadow-crawler?
He rang a bell for one of the hall monitors of the hold, and sent a letter to Tynan that he was sick. He was due for time off duty anyhow, so he requested a span off.
Tynan sent approval back.
He couldn’t leave a baby shadow-crawler alone in his room.
No matter how much he scrubbed his arm in the wash basin, his hand remained marked. It had a permanent pearlescent glowing tattoo that ran around his hand and up his forearm. He would have to wear gloves so that nobody saw it.
And the ashen baby grew with alarming speed.
By the end of four cycles, Vi’s wings had strength enough to twitch while sleeping, and she flapped them as she scurried around his apartment, climbing everything.
She slept curled against his arm, breathing against his skin, warm and real and alive, and cried when he got up and left her.
Her mental bond to him strengthened by each day too. She could force clearer feelings toward his mind now than the first cycle.
He knew when she was hungry, or tired, or wanting to play, or wanting cuddles.
He wondered how this bond would grow. What would they both become?
He’d been so lonely and depressed since Myra’s death, but now that he had this bonded dragon, he realized just how deeply that isolation had affected his mental well being.
Sometimes, when Vi was expressing a strong need, such as being hungry or frustrated, he would hear and feel the distant wailing of the mother crawler outside the hold.
It wasn’t just that he heard her. He sensed her now, and felt in his bones her absolute terror that her offspring was in the hands of her enemy. Sometimes it overwhelmed him until he nearly wanted to run out and return Vi.
Nearly.
It also meant the mother still hadn’t left their main doors.
And he knew why now.
She hadn’t left like the others in the past because she could feel that her hatchling was still alive.
In the past, they’d cracked the egg to make a meal for the chief. The mother must have sensed the death of their offspring and left.
But they hadn’t really left.
Those beasts had stalked and hunted Gloamers for an eternity.
And now he understood from his bones to his heart that it was their own fault, and that it was because the Gloamers had stolen the crawler babies.
He would’ve hunted Gloamers for that too.
It threw a horrible clarity and light on the death of Myra.
It hadn’t been fair that a shadow-crawler had torn her apart. She’d never hurt anyone. She was only out gathering nuts and berries for food.
And the anger and bitterness and rage still festered deep within him, but alongside it now was a grudging, a very grudging, understanding of why the beast had done it.
And in that moment, his mind split in two.
The old Draven.
And the new one.
With absolute clarity, he knew the Ancients hadn’t been sunsick, and neither had Solari.
They’d been brave.
There was no turning back. He’d bonded a dragon. And the Gloamers would never forgive him for it or accept him ever again once they knew.
And they would kill little Vi if they found her, kill her and roast her and eat her.
The mother wailed in the distance as she sensed his thoughts.
But where could he go? Surely the mother would kill him the second he left the hold. And the sun was death for them both.
What could he do but hide here for now?
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Author Notes:
Image made with Midjourney.
I have written about the world building of this story here.
This is also being published at Royal Road.