Bezhar

Bezhar stood and looked out over the Lake of Lament. Dragons often came to wail and mourn at its banks. It was a stupid name for a body of water in his opinion, gave it too much grandeur and meaning when it was simply a body of water. That's how he had always viewed the world. Things were what they were, an ant was an ant, a fey was a fey, water was water, and the sky was the sky. There was no need to go attaching so much meaning onto every little thing. When he'd been younger he'd had those kinds of romantic notions, but then his King had been killed, then his world had been ripped apart.

He'd learned harshly that having a grand fate didn't always mean it was a sparkling one. His late liege was proof of that. A glittering gold dragon, the only dragon born to rule but yet he had been killed. What was the point of being born so golden? What was the point of assigning so much meaning to a bloodline, to prophecy, to fate? It was said that the line of the Golden Dragons would never be broken, but he'd seen it snap and break before his eyes. Even the offspring of his friend were nothing but petrified stone, not a golden dragon to replace the former.

He'd viewed the humans this way as well. What was the point in getting caught up in why they had come, how they had come? They were a nuisance, especially the one called Tate. That young male was a skilled human, no doubt about it. He'd actually surprised Bezhar with what he had been able to accomplish but why bother having him accomplish anything here at all? He'd asked the Elder this, why she was insisting on these charades when she could at least call in that powerful mage everyone talked of and at least see if he could return the wayward creatures.

When he'd confronted her about this she'd smiled mysteriously and just said that she had her reasons and good ones at that. He hated it when she said that. He'd known her since he was a hatchling, she'd been a very good friend of his late mothers and she had seen him grow up and had a hand in appointing him as her son's guardian. He trusted her implicitly but she frustrated him often.

Something had begun to change lately though. As he'd watched that human male practice and struggle he'd begun to feel just a tiny bit attached. At first, it had been a huge inconvenience to be assigned to watch over the weak and ignorant creature. He'd been forced to gather the rest of the Royal Guard which had also inconvenienced their regular units. They'd all commiserated over the ways it was messing up their daily lives.

Dragons often forgot in a way that humans were in fact, intelligent sentient beings. The humans may not know this but dragonlings are generally taught that humans were just a step above the beasts, if they were taught about them at all. Humans had no secondary form, and their only form was considered so base, that it was the main secondary form for most other creatures. The reason for this had been researched over the many centuries and the prevailing opinion on why this was, was because a human form was versatile and took the least amount of mana to maintain, it was in other words, basic. As dragons with vast wells of mana compared to other sentient beings, this meant that they could hold a human form almost indefinitely if they so wished. For other creatures, the time they could hold onto the form varied but it was definitely seen as an unspoken measure of superiority among all creatures of the world. The Epsi were the proof of this statute of society, they were often looked down upon and treated poorly by others because it was difficult for them to maintain a human form for even an hour at a time.

He'd fully expected the human to fold under the pressure and obvious superiority of the dragons immediately. They'd given him a dangerous task and put him up against their own kind in sparring matches where their natural strength could shatter his bones if he made a wrong move, even if it was a "sparring match." The human had seemed well aware of all of this after the first day but he'd never once fliched away from it or backed down.

Then it had been those markings that had kept Bezhar from admitting any good points to the human. Oh, he'd heard the explanation, as had any dragon who had any chance of coming close to him. Still, it had been shocking to see up close for the first time. The poor human reeked at all times and after a workout smelled even worse. He'd even noticed the younger human's occasional discomfort at the sight and smell even though he was careful not to let Tate see it. Bezhar could tell after observing them that the little human respected the older male a lot.

As for said human, it had come to the point where Bezhar was pretty sure that he forgot the marking's existence most of the time. At some point, they had stopped burning him or others when they were touched accidentally. He supposed at this point that to the human they were much like any other part of the body, just there unless it was thrown in your face.

For his part, Bezhar and the others had become desensitized to it and had long since stopped reacting as had many others who worked in the nest. Maybe he'd even stopped seeing them too, for a time, until today.

The sparring partner change had infuriated him. They'd worked so hard to prepare the human for the promised opponent that when Equ was substituted in at Groget's insistence it had made Bezhar nash his teeth. Who was that punny male to interfere in his unit's hard work? They were bound to the human like it or not until these tasks were over and done with. A part of him didn't want to care about the outcome, after all, Tate's failure would ensure their early release but he just couldn't stomach the thought of feeling like they'd failed. If the human fell it would not be for lack of support or effort from him then no one, least of all himself, could look down on his efforts and call anything into question.

When the human had stepped into the square today he'd been reminded of all his misgivings about the creature. Many of the dragons present had not seen him up close but once and a few not at all. It was not an exaggeration to say those repulsive marks had gotten a lot worse. Everyone either glared at the human or wrinkled their nose in disgust. He'd felt affronted for the human, which was his first clue that he was in trouble. The human was more than those marks they all rightfully hated, but that was all that could be seen in that moment even by him.

It had not lasted long, that human male, Tate, had a way of diverting your attention and he didn't even know it. Bezhar didn't know how to put it into words, he endlessly searched for an organized way to speak it in his mind much less with his mouth.

Tate, the human, was somehow dazzling.

He'd seen it take effect quickly. Koda had been the first to be taken in. He'd quickly been at ease with the human. He'd been friendly and open with him and the human had responded in kind for the most part. At first not only had this been odd because Koda was actually known for being quite arrogant and prickly, but he could not understand why Koda would act in such an out-of-character way. Slowly he'd seen it take over the other's in the Royal Guard even though they were much better at hiding it. They come to respect the human in no small measure, how could you help but respect a creature who put in so much effort and risk to achieve a goal?

What's more, when he fought, which had not been as often since it was quickly known this was not an area he needed help in, it was like watching the water move over rocks. One moment it was smooth and flowing, the next it broke over you in a powerful roaring torrent that broke you into pieces. It was in short, magnificent. Even though he'd technically won the only time he'd fought him personally, Bezhar could not deny the fight had been exciting.

As for the course they'd set up, Tate had struggled with it from day one. They were basically asking a frail creature to make up for the regrettable fact that he was flightless. The way they did this? By making him risk his life in a fall over and over and over again while he learned a new skill that was not so dazzling to watch as his work with a talon.

When he'd seen him fight today, he'd not seen those markings, he'd not seen a frail human, he'd just been able to see the effort and the skill. He'd learned from the few conversations with the little human and with Tate himself that the human had been through more than most dragons did in a hundred years, and he was only a hatchling in dragon terms. For them, it was mind-blowing that such a young being had been sent to war, and had been put in situations where he had blood on his claws when he should have still been in the protection of a "nest" learning his profession. They'd quickly discovered, just as the humans had, that humans and dragons aged and viewed age very differently. However, he'd also gathered from these brief talks that even for humans being sent away to fight at such a young age was not normal either.

He couldn't help but think of and grieve for the dragon they mentioned. Even though it was out of character for him to think of someone he didn't know and feel for their plight, he felt for that young dragon who'd died so early. She could have lived a millennium but instead had died at just twelve years hatched, it was nothing short of tragic. She'd only been fully grown for ten of those years. A dragon at ten years post ascension would still be coddled in the nest, safe in their mother's own nest until they were at least fifty.

Yes, this human had a history that made him stop and think about humans for the first time in his life. These creatures that had seemed so dull and stupid so far away and insignificant were proving to be something else entirely.

Maybe, just maybe he understood "the cultists" in a small way. He hated to admit that and was disgusted with himself for that thought, but it was just the truth. The two humans he now knew were brimming with something that Dragons in all their superiority just didn't have in the same way.

Life.

They vibrated with it, it was infectious and warm. How else could he explain being so repulsed by the markings on that one's body yet wanting to stay close to him? Tate in particular was dazzling.

In that sense, he could understand why that horrible female may have taken a perverse interest in him. He'd not gotten a straight answer out of the elder after that night but this was the only explanation that made sense to him. That female had always been too obsessed with "life" in general, even in ways that were darkness itself instead of the positive force "life" was thought to be. Maybe she wanted Tate to be brought to her just to feel the "life" of him.

He shook his head before his mind could travel too deeply down that path. It was pointless to speculate because, at the end of the day, he could be completely wrong.

The point of all this thinking and pondering at the oh so grandiose "Lake of Lament" was simply to understand one thing.

Why, when, and how had it gotten to the point that when Equ lunged at the humans back that all of Bezhar's own thoughts, actions, and loyalty had unquestionlingly been bestowed upon that human.

Tate.