Prologue
The Fae princess ran as fast as she could, dodging sneaking vines, snaking tree roots, and gnarled branches that tug and pull at her golden, waterfall-like lockes. Stumbling over a particularly hidden root, she stops with a pained gasp as a sharp stabbing throb strikes her abdomen.
Not now. Please not now. Let me get to the midwife. She is my only chance. And yours.
Taking a deep breath, she continued on, pushing past the pain. Soon, she saw the tell-tale glow of the cottage the midwife lived at and sighed with relief. Summoning her strength, she yelled and pounded at the door.
“Please! Myrna open up! It is time! And her patience is running thin with waiting. The time draws sooner than we had thought.”
The door suddenly swung open and a concerned but stoic wrinkled face took in the princess nearly prostrate on her doorstep. Tutting her tongue, she quickly swept the lithe Fae up as if she weighed no more than a sack of flour, swiftly setting her down on a bed already made up in a room to her right.
“You should not have run all the way here. You should have sent for me in secret, Lunaria. The risk you took!” She shot Lunaria a glare, but it lost its effect when she clucked and softened her voice.
“Let me go get everything ready. You get comfortable Luna. I fear this will be a very long night. The little one has decided she wants to see the world early!”
Lunaria settled into the pillows that propped herself up, closing her eyes and weeping silently. Her child was already lost to her in a sense. Doomed to be forsworn from the elves as an outcast because of who her father was. Doomed to be feared from the humans because of her otherworldly looks and unnatural strength sure to burden her.
She has doomed her child. A burden she can hardly bear. Especially since she will grow up believing she is an orphan, when in truth one parent is dead and the other shackled by duty to her tribe. Her kingdom. Lunaria blinks away her tears and awaits her baby girl’s arrival with equal measures of fear and anticipation mixed with a bitter simmering of joy.
Cries break through the early morning hours, just as the sun peeks above the horizon. Inside the midwife’s cottage an exhausted mother gazes lovingly at her red-faced baby who is nestled in her arms. Myrna sighed tiredly and sat down heavily in a chair beside the bed where mother and daughter reside.
“Whew. Took her long enough but she is a beauty Lunaria. So healthy and-”, here she gives a hearty chuckle, “-has a very healthy set of lungs. She will be a strong warrior one day no doubt. Her lineage declares it.” She gazes with sky blue, aging eyes at the pair in the bed, meeting the Fae’s eyes that look so fondly at her child. Sadness flits across her face but just as quickly it disappears and her face becomes a blank mask. “Myrna please take her and put her away. I cannot afford to become attached. It will only make what comes next harder.” Myrna stands and gravely takes the babe, cooing softly to her and carrying her to a modest crib in the corner. Turning to the princess who has forced her eyes away, she smiles.
“Nothing could lessen the pain of letting your child go. ’Tis something that will forever haunt your dreams. If I could switch places with you, I would, dear.” Lunaria smiles sadly at the old woman and looks as if she is about to speak when suddenly a thump sounds from upstairs. Both women pause, and share a concerned yet frightened glance. Had the princess been followed?
Whispering for Lunaria to hide the child, Myrna slips a dagger out from her sleeve and slowly proceeds towards the stairs. Just as she reaches the bottom stair however, something tumbles down from the top step with a great conundrum, seemingly hindered by a blanket, and rolls to a stop at her feet. Cautiously, Myrna uses her slippered foot to flip the blanket and its entrapped prisoner over, where the unknown creature makes itself seen. The old woman gasps in shock at what she beholds.
A scaled head, the size of a cat’s, peeks out at her from the folds. Golden reptilian eyes gaze at her with the wisdom of a thousand years as is custom of its race, while small wings unfurl themselves from its back, sparkling a dewy blue in the dim firelight.
Lunaria emerges from the corner of the room, clutching her newborn child to her chest protectively. “What is it Myrna? What are you looking at?”
As she comes to stand at the Midwife's side she too lets out a loud gasp of shock and disbelief. For there, plain as the eye can see, and as real as the babe she now holds, is the impossible. For surely everyone has thought for centuries that the creature that stands before them now is indeed a thing of legends and myths. A thing of impossibilities and imagination beyond comprehension.
The dragon, (yes dear Reader, a Dragon), arches her neck, gives both women a disapproving look of great judgment and silently shakes away the blanket that hinders her movements. The thus silent babe until now content in her mother’s arms, suddenly lets loose a wail that shatters the glass wall of silent awe and confusion that both women have been exuding. Frantically, Lunaria shushes and hums to the girl, but to no avail. The dragonet pauses her steady gazing at the two adult females and turns her attention instead to the source of the abrupt crying, the golden eyes seeming to crinkle and shine with affection as small stumpy legs waddle their way over to the Fae princess, nosing against her leg persistently.
Lunaria glances with bewilderment at Myrna before carefully lowering her arms so the dragon and her babe are face to face, eye to eye. The child miraculously stops her wailing as the two gaze endlessly into each other’s face, a sudden stilling and electric crackling of the air causing the mid-wife to gasp. A moment later Lunaria emitted a soft shriek of alarm as both child and dragon started to glow a soft silver hue, skin and scales alike glittering in the dim candlelight. A moment more and the sensation was gone, both newborn and newly hatchling back to their normal colors. “Myrna what was that?” The mother stared down at her child and then at the dragon before glancing up at the mid-wife. “And where did that thing come from?” The stout older woman hesitates before slowly approaching the trio, cautiously bowing to the dragonnet in reverence before answering. “That was a Bonding. The Dragon has chosen her Rider. Her Soulmate. If the babe’s future was already not hard enough, now she must face a destiny I would wish on no-one, not even my greatest enemy. The dragonet came from an egg I had been sold a millennia ago by an old gnome Healer when he was in need of my witch magic to bring back the health of his ailing son. I never expected it to hatch, indeed I thought it was actually perhaps an empty shell. But I see it was waiting, she was waiting, biding her time until one of her own heart and mind was brought forth into the world. They are now entwined, soul to soul, heart to heart, magic to magic, bonded until death.” The mid-wife shook her head in stunned silence, eyeing the two young ones with awe. “I cannot believe that now....now the prophecy resurfaces.” Seeing the princess’s confused gaze, she closes her eyes, attempting to resurface the words of old.
“One of elf and human shall arrive in time as an egg of a doomed race hatches into the night. Both shall bond and both shall fight a war of the ages and Hell when it arrives. Alone they stand and alone they fight, for they alone hold the key for what’s right. One will fall and one will rise. Doomed from the start they will stand. Together forever, Rider and Dragon until The End.”
“That is to be your child’s fate my girl. And there is absolutely nothing any one of us can do to stop it.” Lunaria stared at her now quietly asleep newborn that lay within her arms, stricken to her core before closing her brilliant green eyes with hardened resolve, standing to hand the cooing child to the witch disguised as a midwife. “Then I must go. Now, while the moon is high. My father will be furious to learn of my deceit. But even more so to learn that my heir, his grandchild, is the child of the prophecy. It is best she grows without knowing who I am Myrna. I shan’t visit nor send gifts. You will raise her as an orphan and that need be all she knows. The world is a dangerous place for heirs…let alone one destined for a duty greater than ever known before.” A steady look alights upon the princess’s delicate features, her brilliant turquoise eyes alight with sadness and determination. “My only gift to her will be her name. Liota, the one who is beautiful of heart and brave of face. A name fit for the child of a High Fae.”
