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One and the Same

Prologue

~ Veneris, September 20th, Year 1355 of the Human Calendar

Kurai has been avoiding me for the past four days, understandably I suppose; my curiosity did almost get him killed... twice. But, I was hoping that he would come around sooner than this.

The last couple days I have been trying to get an idea of how to make this better; I could apologize, but really, would a fiftieth apology change anything? I have tried to give him all the information I have on the guild that has, for lack of a better metaphor, declared war on him; that just got a narrowed glare from the little drake. The only other thing I could think of was to just give him space, which makes me feel even worse but what else can be done?

Since Brother Leuthar went back to the Hands, I have been thinking long and hard about why this could all be happening. Ixontros; did he by any chance go to the hatchery himself, or was he the one who stole the item to begin with? Why would he try to stop Kurai, he was only trying to get back what belonged to him. I couldn't shake the feeling this was somehow connected to the intruder of my dreams, was he one of the Hands?

Tonight I will try to capture him, not entirely sure how, but I have to find a way. I wonder if there is a sort of trap I can place in my mind for such unwelcome visits...

• Dyyor

Chapter 2

Sleeping While Awake

~ Solis, July 28th, Year 1355 of the Human Calendar

~

Humans have fascinated me for decades, one in particular, whom I am proud to call my friend is Ixontros. He is an old alchemist and researcher I met about thirty-five years ago when I was sight-seeing in Colgrad, a lonely and cold little province of Athelon. I had heard tale Athelon developed its own unique type of magic that involved the written word; naturally I had to see this magic for myself.

They call it "Scribing", the use of written and spoken words to alter and augment reality itself. While it was indeed impressive, it gave me a sick feeling along with a sensation I was not entirely sure of. It was at a Scribe College that I first met Ixontros; he insisted I stay with him during my visit so he could examine and get to know me. His home was quite large and accommodating, definitely not what I expected; who builds a house with a dragon visit in mind?

~

Night, the starry sky sparkled endlessly with light shed by long dead suns and distant worlds. I lay on my back watching their glow, collecting my thoughts from the day; attempting to condense them into a smaller chunk of information. This was my go-to strategy when sleep did not show itself; rest on the bank of Lake Lunsheer and try to count the millions of lights in the sky. My record was five billion, seven-hundred thirty-two million, four-hundred thousand and forty-two, the only reason I stopped was because the forty-third was the sun itself.

There was more than one reason I could not sleep tonight, one of which was my Dreamstrider, I didn't like his intrusions and I certainly didn't want to deal with him at the moment. Another reason was my worry; Kurai has been cooped up in his cave since his fight with Leuthar, I have never been good at the 'giving space' thing. And the last reason: Golems, steam-powered, mechanical beasts made by humans for general labor and the odd mercenary job. The past few nights several have passed through the forest, breaking branches, stomping around, and overall making a racket. I didn't know who they belonged to, or what they could do, so keeping my distance and staying alert seemed best.

Suddenly something seemed off; one of the constellations was in the completely wrong region of the heavens... and upside down. The air tensed and became cold, just as I lifted my head the lake water to my right began turning and bubbling violently, a torrent blasting into the sky. Completely on my feet and alert, I watched in worried caution as the pillar of water burst apart, revealing the Dreamstrider. As the water fell like the first rain of Spring I glared daggers at the man, he just stood calmly as ever on the water's surface.

"Visiting me in my daydreams as well," I growled, "is there no limit to your persistence?" The human just stood there in his usual stance; with his left arm extended and the right hand hovering over what, I now remembered, was an Etch scar. This invader was a Scribe and a nasty one at that, I had no idea Scribing could be used like this, Goddess knew what else he had on his skin. "I told you I was not for sale, so tell your employer to take a hint!"

The man just chuckled arrogantly, "Sadly, Dragon, I was not hired to acquire your services," he raised his left arm, "Tell me, what does my Etch say?" the moonlight struck the deep scar so the word could be read, Madness. My eyes widened, it all made sense now; his specialty was to break the mind! But then I recalled a single word wasn't enough to harm anything, much less a dragon; it needed a catalyst Etch. I continued glaring as the order escaped my lips, "Show me your right hand."

His smile faded, disappointment replacing glee, "So he wasn't lying," begrudgingly he turned his hand to my view, "No matter, you lack the skills and knowledge to combat me." The scar read Revolving, I frowned in confusion and my expression changed to pain as something dug into my skull. The feeling intensified as I slumped to the ground, my vision blurring to black as I struggled to keep focus on the man slowly approaching me.

I lost consciousness as he spoke, "How many times am I going to have to break you until you realize?"

~

Blood, the warm and cooling liquid slowly trickled down my neck, spilling from my nostrils and the taste of iron and nickel filled my mouth. Crimson was what greeted my sight as I carefully opened my eyes, the color I often saw when using my strongest spells. The morning light was harsh and proceeded stabbing me with thousands of needles, but the stings quickly vanished with repeated blinks. It was morning... I was by the lake... standing in my sleep; these were the least worrisome things on my mind right now: What spell had I used? What was my target? Why would I use such strong magic for said target? Those questions seared through my head as painfully as that attack in my dream, they needed answers and fast.

I shook my head gently to clear my vision, sending droplets of blood flying into the water and surrounding plant life. Ignoring my wounds, I hunted for clues, any sign that whatever I had done hadn't caused harm. There were craters surrounding where I had stood, the banks of the lake were shredded and several trees had been sliced down. None of this damage looked familiar and the magical resonance was alien to me, had I really done all this? As I stepped forward a sharp pain ran through my left hind leg, turning back I discovered the cause of the pain was a piece of steel.

The shard of metal was embedded deep in my thigh; pulling it out may cause uncontrollable bleeding, but I couldn't just stand there and wait for help. Working quickly, I clamped my jaws onto the shrapnel and yanked it out, a torrent of blood followed in its' absence. My mouth began to glow increasingly bright as I built up my fire breath; the flames burst forth and engulfed my wound in searing pain. My legs buckled from the pain and the light faded from my vision, the wound closed just before I felt faint. It took several moments before I was stable enough to get back on my feet and continued examining the scene.

Suddenly the sound of rattling drew my attention to the ground; I looked towards the piece of metal that had once been stuck in my leg. To my surprise the fragment was scooting across the grass towards a tree, my line of sight following it as it crept towards a human leaning casually against the tree. My alert rose and I forced myself to jump up, quickly regretting it as the world spun and I fell on my side. To my chagrin the human laughed at the sight of a 'drunken dragon', "Cher a clumsy 'un when yer not restin' upright, ain't 'cha?"

I didn't recognize his accent, his annunciations were like gravel and glass to my ears and the desire to fly far away from him was increasing with each word. "What did you do to me?" I demanded, which in retrospect looked rather pathetic with my snout in the dirt. He just continued laughing at me, raising a peculiar weapon up to his eye level; the shard of metal floated up and then reattached itself to a gauge in the blade. "Oooh, ain't we a rude 'un, 'tinkin' I did sumtin' to yer," he spun the weapon around a couple times before stabbing the ground and leaning on it, "Te name be Brot'er Jakob by the by, pleasure t'meetcha, drag-ey."

My eye twitched at the pet name, "My name is Dyyor!" I snarled, finally mustering up the strength to stand again. So he was a member of the Hands, which meant he likely had Etches on his skin ready to use at any time. "So, 'Brot'er Jakob'," I asked in a mocking tone, "If you did nothing to me, then why was your weapon's blade embedded in my leg?"

"Aaaah, fine q'estion, Deeeee-or, ya sleep wit te unrest o' the dead, maybe ya roll'd ontu it?" I was growing very impatient with this man, it was abundantly clear he had attacked me in some form or another. "Very funny, but I am serious, what is your business?" I was in no condition to fight, if that was his goal, but I wasn't going to let him catch me off-guard.

Jakob leaned further forward onto his odd weapon, almost in a comical way, "I jus' come t'deliv'r ah message'er two: from Mast'r Ixontros, und from Brot'er Leuthar." My eyes widened at the mention of Leuthar, I tried to back away quickly but carefully. "Ah, come now," Jakob began to stride towards me, "T'ain't gonna 'urt 'at much."

He raised the weapon high in the air, the hook of the blade pointed towards me, then swung down. To my shock, the blade shattered into dozens of pieces of metal without actually having hit anything, a weapon weak enough the air breaks it? No, that can't be right; he had just been leaning on it. While my mind was trying to make sense of this fact, I hadn't realized the shards had maintained the momentum from the swing and were flying towards me.

Several stinging sensations erupted along my right arm and chest plates, I snarled in pain as my hind legs gave way to allow me to fall on my side again. I quickly tried to assess the damage, only to discover this weapon was made of a special metal, able to pierce my scaly hide. Jakob's laughter rang loudly through the trees as he sauntered over to me; as if his speech wasn't annoying enough, but his laugh was like strangling a cat hanging next to a chalkboard. He raised the handle of the weapon, with bits of the blade still attached, and I could feel a pulling sensation in my wounds. I was painfully reminded this weapon could call back its pieces as, one by one, the tiny bits of metal shot out of me with the same force as they had arrived.

The wounds left by the metals shards trickled steadily with my blood, weakening me even further as Jakob stood mere inches from my face. "Nay a 'big un' tough drag-ey now, are ya?"

"Then try out this dragon!" Kurai leapt from the trees and landed a few feet from us, he only stood still long enough for Jakob to be surprised and lunged with incredible speed at my attacker. All poor Jakob could do was turn and try to shield his face as Kurai clamped his jaws down on his shoulder, then clawed at his legs. Jakob screamed, dropping his weapon, and began twisting and turning, trying to pry the considerably stronger drake off. In his struggle he had no chance of noticing Kurai's tail creeping up from behind, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Jakob as he became another victim of Kurai's 'trump card'.

A long, blue barb extended from the tip of his tail and pointed at Jakob's neck, in a fraction of a second the tail pulled back and stabbed Jakob in the spine. Kurai's latest victim tensed up at the moment of impact then slowly slumped down to his knees, after a long pause Kurai pulled the barb out with a violent flick. He released Jakob's body from his jaws and let it fall limply to the ground; we stood in silence for a time after that. He then looked at me and casually asked, "Will you be alright?"

I nodded, quickly regretting it as I felt my vision fade to black and back again, "I think so, how did you know I needed help?" not the best of times to be worrying about such a thing, but I couldn't help it. My friend just turned his back to me and replied, "Because I am your friend, I always know when you are in trouble," he then looked back at me with a slightly pained look, "Even if I am mad at you."

My eye twitched and I couldn't help but cringe, "Th-thank you..." I wanted to say more, but before the words could even form, Kurai quickly ran up and hugged my neck. I froze for several moments as we stood there in silence and eventually I returned his hug, wincing at my still bleeding wounds. "I'm sorry," he whispered, I felt the guilt rising in my throat again and I hugged him tighter.

"Me too."