//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The Dragon Lands // Story: A Dragon's Wake // by Cold Spike //------------------------------// Darkness. It is the visible absence of light and, ironically, has the greatest potential for light. Without light, creatures are unable to distinguish colors from one another. Shapes become anything that your imagination can think of under the veil of darkness. Perceptions are ultimately blinded; with no visible light the perceptions of reality are limited to only what we hear, feel, taste and smell. It is in these moments, surrounded by darkness, that we refuse to trust our logic over instinct. Fear takes over and fear can be anything. The Dragon Lands: a small continent surrounded by caves, mountains, and dragon hoards. Very few expeditions have ever taken place there by ponykind, or any other race, for that matter. Those that dared venture in never stayed for long, dragons are territorial creatures. Most hoards are split up, with a few full-grown dragons in each one to watch over the younglings until they are deemed old enough to form their own hoard. Dragons do not need concepts such as parenting or love, they merely need to survive. It was in the darkness of a cold, moonless night that one of those dragons began to wake. The young dragon was lying on the earth, defenseless and utterly alone. His eyes opened to the sight of nothing, the darkness was too thick to pinpoint anything. For a moment, he was unable to move and was quite confused. “Why is it so dark?” It was then that he snapped his eyes open in shock. “And why is my voice so high?” His hand reached down to the ground and it was at that point, he noticed he was no longer in his bed, he was outside. He quickly stood up only to fall flat on his back. Everything, including his body, felt foreign to him. “Why can’t I get up?" He tried again, grunting, but nothing would work. "Why am I outside?” Unable to come up with any reason or answer, he decided to feel around to make sure nothing was wrong with his body. His first surprise came from his skin, it was rough and felt like a lizard he had once owned back at the home. His second surprise came from his fingers, not only was he missing one on each hand but his nails felt much sharper. His final surprise came from his tail. “WHY DO I HAVE A TAIL?!” The child screamed in surprise, it was starting to feel like too much for him. Tears were starting to form in his eyes but he quickly shook his head to stop them. “Okay, get a grip. I guess I’m some type of big lizard, but is this a dream?" He looked up at the massive expanse of stars. "Why is there no moon out if I can see the stars?” He shrugged and switched back to the problem at hand. For several minutes, he attempted to stand up, but every time he tried his tail wagged violently and he felt dizzy. After ten minutes of falling down, he decided to try a different tactic. He noticed each time that he moved his tail would move with him, but it would stay upright. He thought that perhaps he could use it for balance. So, slowly, he stood up while keeping his right arm firmly holding down his tail, it took some practice to hold it down. After another five minutes, he was standing and in full control of his tail. Walking still felt natural so, after a few more minutes, he was off. But then it dawned on him. He was completely lost. He walked around and noticed that he didn’t always need the tail down to balance. He reasoned that if he couldn't use his eyes then he might as well try his other senses. Smelling was the first one that came to mind; he smelled dirt everywhere, so that was no help. His next idea was to try and listen for other people or things, but the only thing he heard was the wind. The wind made him confused, it was cold out, but he didn't feel freezing, just cold. I guess I don't need clothes. After a while he decided to just slump down, sit, and wait for the sun to rise. He sure hoped he was dreaming because he had never seen a night’s sky without a moon unless clouds were blocking it. After an hour or so of exploring his new body and growing bored, he started to yawn. He did not feel like he was in danger outdoors, he just felt strange. So he did his best to get some sleep. Lying down on the ground was not his ideal place to sleep, but his new body did not seem all that bothered by it. After one more yawn he let his dreams take over, hoping that this one would end. The sun rose high up in the sky, washing over the Dragon Lands. The shining light bathed over the young creature causing him to stir from his sleep. His eyes sprang open and, to his relief, he could see, but to his utter horror he was still a lizard. All around he noticed a path he had been lying on and a small lake off in the distance surrounded by several mountains, but no trees. He ran up to the lake and looked at his reflection. To him, only one thought came to mind. Dinosaurs. His whole body was colored purple which reminded him of a certain character from a video game that he liked. His scales were red and his chest was a light yellow. The random color combination did nothing to faze his young logic. “I look like a T–Rex, I have got to be dreaming.” He looked all over his body and noticed his scales and the spikes on his back. “But I don’t remember a T-Rex that had spikes on his back. Am I a stegosaurus?” He stood up and looked around, he was still quite lost with nobody around to help. He sighed and took a seat near the lake to try and figure things out. Before he could start thinking, however, his nose began to twitch. He tried to hold in his breath to hold back the inevitable, but it was useless. A split second later, his mouth erupted in one large sneeze followed by a fire trail, to his astonishment. “THAT WAS FIRE! DINOSAURS DON’T BREATHE FIRE!” He was panting heavily, and then it dawned on him. “I’M A DRAGON!” He was about to panic again, but then something else dawned on him. Dragons are awesome. “Okay, so I’m lost and I’m a dragon. Cool. But where are my wings?” It was simple logic, all dragons had wings, but after looking all over, he found none. “Grrr, Spyro had wings, so why can't I? If this is a dream it’s a pretty lousy one!” The child dragon stomped his feet in frustration. “Also, why am I so short? It’s like I’m five again! But I’m supposed to be ten years old!” He stomped on the ground, his short temper wearing thin. He took a few deep breaths to calm down; he remembered at the home some of the other adults teaching him this trick when he got angry. It worked. “Okay, I guess I need to start looking for people, or is it dragons?” In that instant, a wave of confusion overloaded his brain, but after a minute it was over, leaving him dazed. “What was that about? Oh well, I better go find some other dragons.” He stood up and slowly walked back to the path from before and chose to follow it in a random direction. After twenty minutes of not running into a single dragon, he came across a large sign. This way to the dragons’ hoard. Ponies BEWARE. “Ponies? And what’s a hoard? Well it did mention dragons so I guess I’m going the right way.” His walk was again uneventful, but he did spot more signs pointing toward the hoard and warnings to ponies to stay away. He even saw a sign that told gryphons to stay out. After thirty minutes of walking, he was exhausted, thirsty, and hungry, but he heard a noise up ahead and ran towards it. He spotted a rocky surface that he would need to climb in order to reach the noise. He got to the top and slowly looked over the surface, spotting dozens of dragons in a crater of some type with crystals all over the place. All the dragons were split up into different groups. In the middle was one of the biggest dragons he had ever seen (not that he had seen many before). He was a brown dragon and looked quite intimidating with spikes and scales fully grown all over his body and, to the kid’s annoyance, he had a set of fully grown wings. “At least he gets wings,” the child explained to nobody. He looked around and saw that the groups of dragons were separated by size, so he assumed also by age. What was bothering him was the appearance they had compared to him. So far, he had not spotted any dragons that were as small as him or without wings. In the smallest group stood several dragons twice his size so he assumed that he would fit in the best there, but again, every one of them could fly. He gulped and climbed up to the top and began a slow descent. He noticed plenty of dragons taking crystals from the large pile in front of the biggest one and, to his confusion, eating them. “I guess I’m supposed to eat crystals.” At first this made no sense to him, but then he remembered that in the game Spyro he used and collected them. He now assumed that the character consumed them. He slowly made his way up to the youngest group; even in their small size they looked tough to him. Slowly, he inched closer to the dragons until they finally noticed him. All eyes fell on his tiny dragon form; they looked annoyed rather than angry. “Yeah?” a taller, red dragon asked. The question was so simple that it caught him off guard. “Uhhh,” he had nothing to say to the other dragons so he just stood there, dumbstruck, while the others sighed in frustration. “HA! You don’t even have your wings. Why don’t you run off to the baby dragon hoard,” the same red dragon said, waving his hand dismissively but not pointing to anywhere in particular. “Hey! I’m not a baby dragon, and you’re the youngest dragons I could find!” He instantly regretted saying this; the other dragons from their young group gathered around him. “Let me see here, you have no wings, you are half our size and you look like a scared hatchling. Last time I checked, that was a baby,” the same red dragon said, laughing at his own comment. The others followed suit. While it was true that he lacked wings, he didn't feel that much smaller than them. But the crowd of older dragons and the hurtful words of the red one made him feel uneasy. It was an instinct he had not felt for a few years, but he suddenly had the urge to suck his thumb, which now was a claw. Before he could comply with his overwhelming urge to comfort himself, his mind blanked. Out of nowhere some of his senses felt overpowering, particularly his sense of smell. He smelled a… well he wasn’t quite sure, but he soon followed it and walked past the other rude dragons. The other dragon looked at him but soon decided to shrug him off, glad to be rid of him. The child soon stopped, having arrived at his destination where, before him, lay hundreds upon hundreds of gemstones all guarded by one very large dragon. He looked up at the dragon, unsure of himself and why he had done something so crazy, but, to his amazement, he noticed the dragon was not looking down at him, or any other dragon for that matter. He wanted to turn around and leave, but fear was keeping him rooted to the spot. His sense of smell and his hunger were also keeping him from moving. He looked at the gemstones as hunger started to overpower logic. Without thinking, he grabbed a red one and stared at it. Upon looking up, he noticed the large dragon did nothing in response. He slowly brought the gem to his mouth and, with a loud crunch, half of it was gone. This unfortunately brought his presence to the attention of the older dragon. The large one stared down at him for what felt like hours, the younger dragon rooted to the spot. The large dragon narrowed his eyes and took one last look at the younger one before huffing out some smoke and continuing to gaze off into the distance. Okay, I guess that means I can stay here, he thought while he ate the rest of the gem. Unsure of what to do next, he grabbed a few more gems and sat down next to the bigger dragon and waited. He ate his gems in silence and noticed other dragons throughout the day had come up to grab some before quickly returning to their groups. They all seemed afraid of the largest dragon, but the smallest one, ironically, felt calm with him. He decided to just sit there with the biggest dragon and wait for something to happen, it wasn’t like the other groups were giving him a chance. When the sun started to set, it became apparent that the moon was going to come up that night. It all seemed so weird to the young dragon. Almost instantaneously, the sun went down and the moon came up. But instead of thinking that this was still a dream, he simply accepted it as a fact, like it had always been that way. Out of nowhere the oldest dragon let out an ear-shattering roar, streams of fire shooting out of his mouth. It was the scariest thing the young child had ever seen or heard before. The ground shook which caused him to fall and land on his tail, which hurt, but he didn’t dare say anything. After a while, some of the other groups were gathering around in a half-circle, forming around the bigger dragon and him. He gulped and joined the other groups in the front and sat down, feeling more confused than ever. “Gather around young dragons and hear my tale,” the biggest one said with the voice of someone wise and old, “hear my tale of ponykind and their evil ways.” Ponies again, I don’t get it. It would seem that gathering around for a story was a nightly event for this hoard. The youngest dragon listened with interest, feeling relieved that his boredom was gone and something was happening. “In the time before the wicked princesses of the sun and moon, there was a dragon by the name we all know as… DISCORD!” The entire crowd behind the young dragon roared in cheers at the mention of the name. “Discord was the mightiest of all dragons; he was able to bend the other nations to his will. Ponies bowed before him, gryphons cowered before him,” the eldest dragon explained, his voice keeping the same volume the entire time. “A dragon was in control of this world for centuries. He controlled the moon, he controlled the sun, and he ruled above all!” The crowd’s interest was growing, other dragons continuing to cheer, while the youngest one just stared at him like he was crazy. “His reign was ended by the evil sisters of the sun and moon.” The large dragon paused to hear the other big dragons hiss at the mention of them. “The pony sisters and their kind believe themselves to be above us dragons!” This time, he yelled in anger causing the others to do the same. “The wretched ponies live in peace and harmony,“ the large dragon said with disgust as the others followed. “They believe our way of life is unsettling!” Again, more boos from the crowd at the mention of ponies. “There is nothing wrong with chaos and greed, it is the nature of our race!” More cheers erupted. “But the ponies accept love as their nature.” More boos as he continued. “They live their useless existence to try and spread and force that nature on other races.” The young dragon listened to the entire story about the pony race being evil and the nature of the dragons being good despite the irony of mentioning greed. The more the dragon talked, the more disconnected he felt with the other dragons; to him, they seemed nuts. The only good things he had gotten out of this so far were the tasty gems and the ability to breathe fire. Which, in all honestly, made up for it, but the dragons still seemed crazy. After the dragon finished his tale, the entire crowd cheered for the dragon race until everyone went silent. Before they could leave, he decided to speak up. “I don’t get it,” the young dragon said speaking as loud as he could. All eyes fell upon him, including the largest one. The rest of the crowd looked at him like he was crazy, but the largest one eyed him with curiosity. “What do you not understand, young dragon?” the elder dragon said. “Well it’s just that you said that greed was good and love was bad. How can that be?” he questioned, ignoring the protests behind him. But the dragon said nothing so he kept questioning. “And what’s so bad about peace?” The elder dragon’s large head moved down closer to him but slowly so as not to intimidate him. “Also, what’s so bad about ponies? I never really liked them that much, but why be afraid of them? I mean we are dragons, right?” When he finished speaking, he realized that the crowd was silent but all standing and staring at him and, to his horror, the elder dragons head was mere feet away from his. “What is your name?” Name? Uh, oh, hmm... Spyro sounds cool, so I’ll go with that! “Spyro,” he casually replied hoping it sounded like a dragon’s name. Behind him, he heard others laughing at the name, which did nothing to ease his nerves. He even started to feel embarrassed and when that happened he would usually start to… HICCUP!Spyro let out one great big fire breath on accident after his loud hiccup; it was puny in comparison to other dragons’ so they just laughed even more. “Spyro, you dare question the wisdom of our race?” HICCUP! Another embarrassing burst of flames caused more snickers and giggles. “And you dare question me?” HICCUP! He cleared his throat. “Um, yes?” He quivered in fear, looking up at the dragon who might as well be king for all he knew. HICCUP! The dragon let out a final roar. “Then you are banished from the hoard! Leave now!” He pointed off into the distance, but Spyro just stood there, unable to move out of fear. “I. SAID. LEAVE!” He let out an even bigger roar than before and used his claws to point in the direction of the path from before. Without thinking, Spyro stood up and ran as fast as his small body could carry him, hiccupping along the way. Spyro ran for ten minutes straight, trying to keep himself under control. But his exhaustion won out in the end and he sat down and cried. He wasn’t sure why, but he either figured this was a nightmare now or that he was in big trouble. His crying was loud enough to be heard from all directions, but no dragon came to his aid, there was no one there, or so he thought. “Hey, you!” Spyro perked up at the sound of the voice. It was similar to his. At least, it was high and squeaky just like his was. “Huh?” He looked around and saw no other dragons or any creature. “Up here!” The voice said, obviously annoyed. Spyro looked up and saw another dragon just as young as him with no wings. He could not clearly see much more than the other dragon’s general shape as he was mostly hidden behind leaves. Only his green eyes were clearly visible. “Oh, hi.” Spyro sniffled and took a deep breath. The young dragon moved closer to Spyro. “Hey, my name’s Claws.” He reached out his claw for Spyro to shake and Spyro did so after fumbling around in the dark. “My name is Spyro.” “So why were ya crying?” “Oh, cause I was banished from the hoard.” “Oh really? Me too,” he said in defeat, but he didn't seem very sad. “How come?” “I was too… nice,” he said after some thought. “How about you?” “I questioned the biggest dragon.” “Ooh, not a good idea.” He took a seat next to Spyro. “So what happens now?” Spyro asked. “I don’t know. Unless you have a boat so we can get off this island, we’re kind of stuck.” “I guess this is an island,” Spyro said quietly to himself. “Yeah, it is. You don’t have a boat do you?” “No,” Spyro said plainly. Claws slumped down next to Spyro in defeat. “Have you ever seen boats come to the island?” “Well sure, every once in a while some stupid ponies show up, but they don’t stay for long.” “How often?” Claws tilted his head to the side. “I dunno. Why?” “I was just thinking, if one did show up we could sneak on board maybe?” Spyro really wasn't sure how much sense that made, but he didn’t feel like giving up and dying on an island. “Yeah right! All those ponies are, like, four times our size. Unless you have a plan…” “Well, no, not yet. But if we can go find one of their boats I can think of something. I mean… why give up?” “But why go to the land of the ponies?” Claws asked, dumbstruck. “Why not? We are banned from this place and if we don’t try something we’re going to die anyway. Plus, they sound nicer than these other dragons, so… why not?” Claws had to think about this. Sure he was considered nicer than other dragons, and some of the things the ponies did sounded better than this life. It was true that they were both stuck and out of ideas so he concluded that Spyro was right. “You know what? You’re right! In the morning let’s go look for a pony boat and hitch a ride!” Claws sounded like someone out of a movie that Spyro had seen before. He sounded friendly enough. “COOL! But what do we do tonight? It’s gonna be really cold.” “We’ll make a fire, duh!” And with that, he started to sniff around on the ground in random directions. “Um, what are you doing?” “Sniffing for sticks and tinder, duh!” “Uh, right.” Before long, Claws had gathered up a bundle of sticks and wood and placed them in a pile. He then put some rocks around it and waited, staring at Spyro. “Well? Go on. Light it!” “Me? Why not you?” Spyro pointed at what he assumed was Claws in the darkness. “Because I gathered the sticks, now light it!” Spyro sighed; it was true that Claws did half the work so he should do the other half. He tried to breath out some fire by taking in deep breaths and letting them go, but nothing came out, only air. He tried again by breathing out harder, but all that came out was spit. “Fine! I’ll do it!” Claws said in anger. Within a few seconds, fire came out of his mouth and lit the wood. Claws was a red dragon with a red belly and blue spikes; he looked pretty similar to Spyro. “How do you control your fire?” Claws looked back at Spyro curiously and after a few seconds he noticed that Spyro wasn’t laughing. “You’re serious?” “Yeah, how do you control fire?” “Didn't any dragon ever teach you?” Spyro simply shook his head. “Okay, I guess I can teach ya.” He sighed and stood up. It was then that Spyro noticed that Claws was slightly taller, and probably older, than him. “Okay, first you need to get down on all fours.” He waited for Spyro to comply and continued. “You don’t need to take in any breathes like you were doing, you just need to visualize the fire coming out and cough it out.” “Cough?” “Yes, just visualize the fire you’re trying to make and try to cough at the same time and it should come out.” He sighed and tried it the way Claws had instructed. After a few coughs, a loud burst of flame came out causing both dragons to jump. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Nice going!” Spyro smirked. “Thanks!” After a few minutes of excitement, they both sighed and sat down near the fire. It warmed them up just fine, but they still felt glum. The odds of a pony ship randomly showing up just seemed improbable. “Hey, Claws, what if we can’t get off the island?” He laughed nervously. “Then we’d better get really good at stealing and hiding!” With two sighs they decided to call it a night and slept on opposite sides of the fire. It wasn’t long before darkness crept up on both, leaving them fast asleep. The sun came up just as quickly as the mood did the previous night; it shined on everything in sight. The fire had long gone out, but the two dragons were not in the same position as the previous night. Spyro was lying on top of Claws, huddled into him for warmth. Claws was the first to wake up. “Hey! Get off me!” Claws instantly shoved Spyro off, rudely awakening him. “Hey! I was just cold, okay?!” Spyro said in his defense. “Well, ask next time!” Spyro felt like yelling some more, but thought better of it. “Okay, next time we sleep can I—” “NO!” “Fine, sheesh.” Claws looked back at Spyro and gave him a curious look but then shrugged. I’m in a strange land, I’m a dragon, and I’m standing next to another one, but I don’t care? I mean my house wasn't fun but still… I wonder why I don’t care. Spyro shrugged and figured he would think about it later. “Okay, weirdness aside, now what?” Claws asked him. “We find a ship, duh!” Spyro exclaimed, feeling completely satisfied at being able to throw a ‘duh’ back at Claws. “Heh, okay. Which direction do we go?” Claws stood, staring in one direction as Spyro was turned around, looking in the other. It felt like they were close to the beaches on the island, but they weren't sure. “Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a tiger by its toe—” “What are you doing?” Claws asked, he brought out his claw and stopped Spyro’s hand from moving. “You said we needed a direction to go, so I’m choosing randomly.” “That sounded stupid. What you were saying?” “It’s not stupid! Now let me finish!” Spyro stamped his foot on the ground, he looked like a child throwing a tantrum and it caused Claws to giggle. “Okay, go ahead,” Claws motioned his hands up and down and he encouraged his new friend to continue. “Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a tiger by its toe, if it hollers let it go, eenie meenie miney mo!” Every time Spyro said one word he would spin around back and forth and on the last word he pointed in the opposite direction of the dragon hoard. “So we go this way!” Spyro said excitedly. “You’re crazy, but let’s go.” Claws walked forward with both his claws behind his head. Spyro chose to copy him. For a while, they walked in a silence, but Claws kept looking back at him. He looked like he wanted to ask him something but thought better of it until curiosity got the better of him. “Spyro, what’s a tiger?” “…What?” “You said ‘tiger’ in your… in whatever that thing you said was. You mentioned a tiger, so what is it?” Claws asked. “You’ve never seen a tiger before?” “Nope, can’t say that I have.” “They’re large cat-like animals; they have stripes all over them and they use these large paws with claws on them to hunt other animals.” “Oh, that’s weird.” “Ooooookay.” They continued in silence for a while, but Spyro’s stomach interrupted them. “I’m hungry,” Spyro said while looking down at his stomach. “Yeah, me too. But we don’t have any gems or anything. Sorry.” “I’m guessing there aren't any shops around here where we can buy food?” Spyro asked while they both stopped. “Okay, stop saying weird things. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and dragons don’t usually use money. If we want food we either need to hunt for it or get lucky.” Spyro was about to protest, but he stopped and sighed and they continued on in silence. They walked for what felt like hours until eventually they found the beach. To their astonishment, docked on it was the largest ship they had ever seen, and in front of it were ponies all over the place. “We did it! We found a ship!” Spyro jumped in the air for joy before being tackled to the ground by Claws who covered his mouth to silence him. “Are you crazy? We need to stay hidden. We were lucky enough to find a pony ship, but we can’t get caught.” Spyro simply nodded and let Claws take his hand off his face. “Okay, sorry I’ll keep quiet.” “Right, so we found the ship, now what?” Claws asked as he looked over at Spyro. Both were on the ground looking over the beach, hoping to remain hidden. They both looked around the beach, ponies were all over the place, but they followed a certain order. Like the dragon hoards, they remained in groups which could be easier to sneak around. Spyro noticed that there were crates all over the place and some seemed to be filled with gemstones while others were empty, but they were all being loaded onto the ship. “You see those crates?” Spyro pointed to some empty ones. “Yeah?” “If we can sneak into a big one and close the top maybe they will bring us on board without noticing us.” “But there are ponies all over the place; there is no way they won’t notice two dragons running to the middle of the beach.” “Maybe. But look at them closely, they look bored and most of them are barely paying any attention at all.” “Well, I guess we can try.” They both nodded and slowly inched their way to the largest crate they could find. There were two piles of crates. On one side were the closed ones filled to the brim with gemstones, and on the other side, empty ones waited to be filled. Spyro figured if the ponies saw a crate that was closed then they would assume it was filled and his plan would work. After five minutes of crawling in the sand, they made their way to one of the crates. They looked around and, sure enough, none of the bored-looking ponies had noticed them. With a shrug from both, they each slowly climbed into one of the crates and quickly brought up the top. With quiet thuds, the crates were sealed, leaving them in darkness. “Now what, Spyro?” “We wait. If they bring us on the ship then we should be fine as long as we keep quiet.” “Spyro?” “Yeah?” “You’re one crazy little dragon,” Claws said with a giggle. Spyro just smiled and took a seat. They waited for twenty minutes. All around them, they could hear other ponies lifting up gem-filled creates, but so far none had lifted theirs. After another twenty minutes they heard a noise outside the crates. “Hey is this one filled?” They heard a foreign voice ask. “What? Of course it is, haul it on board!” A soft, violet glow enveloped the box as it was lifted into the air with the two dragons riding along. Spyro felt weightless in that moment. It was surreal. “What’s going on, Claws? What’s that glow?” “They must be using unicorn magic to lift it,” Claws explained while keeping his voice as low as possible. “Oh,” Spyro paused and had to process what he was just told. “I didn’t know they could use magic.” Spyro did a double take, but Claws could not see him. “Duh! You really don’t know a lot, huh?” Spyro just made an annoyed groan back at him and sighed; he figured it would be best to just stay silent until the crate stopped moving.