DragonBorn
adapted from a fan-fiction I wrote, so it's actually more universal and not cringe
You'll need this
I was here now. The cavern stretched out in front of me, lit eerily by strange, blue lanterns. They dimmed and brightened in unison, casting blue reflections in the meltwater on the ground. And that was the other thing; the lamps, although looking cold, actually threw out a surprising amount of heat, leaving the cave an acceptable temperature, rather than the negative temperatures outside, and the snow at the mouth of the grotto was melted, and that water collected on the floor. I was about to dump my backpack on the ground, but then remembered that I would rather not have all my stuff soaked. All my stuff... I had a house, once. But that was before... The Incident. And now here I am, reduced to wandering and searching. But not for long! Hopefully, hopefully I can find something here, at The Walls. Please, please let there be something. Anything.
I sat on the foot of one of the pillars, where there was a raised cube around the column's bottom. I tucked my knees up to my chin, resting my feet on the pillar foot, out of the water. I took my rucksack off my back, and placed it beside me on the slab. I cried into my hands for a few minutes, and finally opened my bag, and took out a battered leather journal. It was my searching book. I opened it on a random page, and a piece of paper tumbled out. I grabbed it quickly, not wanting it to be ruined by the water. I held it up to the light, trying to see what was on it. I gasped; I had forgotten that I had this. Suddenly, my flame of motivation for my search was rekidled into a bonfire. But I was puzzled. I had a frame for this, and I kept it in it all the time; how had it gotten into my journal?
I shook my head, and rooted around my bag until I found the old wooden frame. Sure enough, it was empty. I carefully placed the charcoal sketch back in it, and placed it back in my bag. I was grateful that it wasn't a huge bag. The only. All I had in my bag was a leather flask with water (for drinking), and a few personal belongings.
I opened the journal at the front, where the calendar was. I found today's date, and crossed off the box. My eyes strayed over the opposite page. It was completely crossed out. I flicked back, and flicked back more. The pages of crosses never seemed to end. When I finally got to the start of the book, where I had started to cross off the dates. I glanced at the date and almost fell off the slab in surprise and fright. It had been a year. A whole year. Of my life, gone. Forever. How had the time gone by so quickly? It seemed only last week... That... That I left my home, yes. That was it. That's what'd happened. So, when had my birthday been? I almost fainted to see that it had been two months ago. Is that what I had come to? Not even remembering that I had a birthday? And what age did that make me now? I was... 16? 17? 16. Yes, that was it.
But I felt more than ever now that my journey here was not in vain. I closed the journal, stuffed it into my bag, and closed it up again. I got up, and continued towards the back of the cavern. There were 16 walls, each documenting a period in the land's history. I had a lot of reading to do, thank goodness I wasn't sleepy. I started with the first wall, the oldest and most faded paragraph. It mentioned the formation of the kingdoms. No mention of dragons. The second wall described the evolution of the land's species. No dragons. A day went past, the runes decrypting themselves in my head. Most people got a headache when faced with the Time Runes, but for me they just seemed to unravel and translate themselves subconsciously. I supposed it was just something that I... That we could do. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th walls contained only information about ancient kingdoms and their pathetic squabbling and wars. The 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th walls contained the events of the sky wars and the formation of the ship knights. The airships came into the scene. Before I knew it, I had spent 4 days in that cave. But I finally found what I was looking for on the 10th wall.
After the formation of the ship knights, the land was scoured for threats, and then they were eliminated. Many strange beasts were driven outof hiding. One of these are a strange creation know only as "dragonborn". They appear to be normal people, forgiving the scaley wings, and in some cases, tail. All of these beasts have the strange ability to transform into large dragons. Dragonborn cannot die unless slain be man or deadly disease...
I stopped reading. My world was in turmoil. Forever? I read it again. And again. I rustled my wings, shocked. I flicked my tail in annoyance, and smirked at the noise it made. It was my noise. And I could turn, it was true. It was the part I loved most, if I soared high enough, people only thought I was a bird, and I could live in peace for a while. I could be myself... for once. I kept reading:
The tale of this strange species falls to guesswork and rumors, unfortunately. It was extremely difficult to establish the existence of the species atall. We cannotfor sure say that there was actually ever more than one dragonborn, although the sheer number of supposed witnesses cannotbe ignored. All tales recount there never being more than two of the species together atone place, so we can partially assume thatthere was only ever two of the species, a male and a female.
I took a deep breath. Was I only one of two? Was there, at least, someone else out there, like me? But that... doesn't make sense. There were at least six in the charcoal sketch. Surly I was missing something... I fell back to reading.
Butsome reports - and again, there were a multitude of same or similar reports - some reports mentioned the existence of a litter. They put forth the idea that the two individuals had bred, and had littered a nest of dragonborn. Almost all accounts mention that there had been four whelps born from the two parents, but existence of such a litter has never been proven. The only reason we mention this at all is because it would be almost impossible to recount the brief tale of the dragonborn without mentioning the story of the rumor, although it would be highly likely that the two partners would have bred, it being the nature of all living things. We can only assume that there are six dragonborn outthere somewhere.
I stood back, speechless. So, there were others like me! The charcoal proved it! I wasn't alone! I had to find them... I had to! I was elated, floating in ecstasy. I pulled out the charcoal sketch of my family, hugged it for a few moments, and stuffed it back in my bag, grinning widely. I tied the bag to my waist, making sure that the rope could expand when it needed to, but not sooner. I laughed for the first time in a year, and set off running down the long corridor of the cavern, gaining speed as the entrance neared. I jumped. I sailed out through the archway, my wings barely touching the edges. I barrel-rolled in the air, and the bag stayed tied on, as I knew it would; I had had plenty of practice. I breathed a huge pillar of fire in joy, and, still laughing, I set off across the snow fields, travelling faster than the wind that carried me. At this moment, I was loving life, and now that the foreboding barrier of age had been banished, it made it all the better, so much better. My heart filled with the warm, fuzzy feeling of joy mixed with love.
All I had to do was find my family.