# 1 Stranded
’In the storm we ride,
Our enemies can hide.
Dragon whisperers we are, we are [...]
Swords clash, fires burn,
the Darkness comes, and yet we prevail.
Hail to the dragon riders [...]
/excerpt from an untitled dragon rider battle song, author unknown, 1002 A.W.
Drakenborg island
Seowyn covered her eyes with hand at the blazing morning sun and not a cloud around. The waves were playfully hitting the small pebbles around the shore of the island. She smiled. Perfect day for shell-gathering. She carried the crocheted basket on her shoulder steadily down to the beach, her boots sinking in the sand but she balanced with her wings and her tail. Seowyn was a half-dragon, half-human. She had short wine-colored hair with small horns on the sides of her head and same-color eyes. Her wings were dark-red and so was her tail. She wore a white summer frilly top and a reddish skirt. Halves like her had also half what the dragon had like the ability to fly and use magic.
She went down the small wooden bridge that she and her sisters had built for various purposes and settled the basket down and looked into the clean water. Her reflection rippled as a few fish passed by underwater. She heard the familiar roar of the dragons that were living on the uninhabited smaller islands around. She and her sisters were living at peace with the free dragons on this side of the nine realms. She liked talking with the blue dragon especially. He was like a little brother to her, sometimes bringing them big fish or some unknown animal from another island and he insisted they shared their meal with him every time. Unlike the other dragons, which were more reserved towards Seowyn and her sisters, the blue one came occasionally, spreading his friendly attitude.
She saw him flying towards her from his own island, which was around fifteen kilometers away, which distance he covered in under five minutes with his super speed. He circled quickly around the island but by that hurried manner, Seowyn realized something was wrong. The dragon landed with throwing sand and started making growling sounds at Seowyn and his sapphire eyes looked shocked.
’De’th ’ann?’ she asked, approaching him. ’Tell me, friend. What happened?’
The dragon looked up at the sky and jumped a few times around her, almost knocking her down with his tail and growled again. She also looked up. In the distance where the dragon was trying to show her something, she saw a black dot. Her enhanced vision locked in on a bird, she thought at first, but as she enhanced some more, it wasn’t just a bird.
’A Vile,’ she exclaimed ’what is it doing here so close to the islands?’
The dragon started explaining something in a series of small growls.
’Something that it carries?’ Seowyn focused on its claws and definitely saw something. Like a blue rag. It was going away and she was losing focus but in the last few seconds before the giant Vile bird to probably disappear completely out of their view, Seowyn saw a pair of legs and an arm hanging from the clothing. ’It’s a person!’
The blue dragon roared, scaring off the few birds in the sky, which quickly flew away and stormed into the air.
’Wait, my friend! I’m coming with you!’ Seowyn called after him, left her basket, ran to the edge of the bridge and jumped, opened her wings and flew up, catching up with the dragon in an instant and the two of them chased after the Vile bird.
The blue dragon quickly accelerated, arrowed up into the air and rocketed down at the Vile’s back without it to realize it had been torn to pieces by the dragon’s claws. It shrieked as it disintegrated into the air and the person in the blue clothing started falling down. Seowyn made a sharp turn and caught him under the arms but he was quite heavy and her wings couldn’t hold his weight. Her hands started slipping from his arms and clothing as she struggled to keep him from falling.
’Help me, my friend.’
The blue dragon locked his claws quite carefully around the person’s body and he and Seowyn returned to the island, slowly as they went. The dragon left the person on the sand and stepped away when Seowyn fell on knees next to him. She looked at his face. It was a young man with brown hair, eye-patch over his right eye and a vertical scar over his right lip. His long dark-blue uniform jacket was bloodied and torn. He had injuries in his right shoulder, his stomach’s left side and the area above his knees. His face was pale and a there was a bluish-purple bruise on the left of his neck.
’Darkness curse,’ Seowyn whispered.
The dragon curiously sniffed him and then his eyes looked up at her. To witness her decision. But Seowyn had already decided. She put finger to her temple and called ’Ena, come to the main shore. Hurry!’
Kirisaka had the darkest nightmare ever. He was falling. He was endlessly falling through a bottomless tunnel, neither dead or alive. Some abominations were laughing left and right, up and down from him. He didn’t know where he was and where he was going. All he knew was that he was falling. Endlessly. The black tentacles were reaching out for him from above and then from below. As he saw the end of the tunnel, he only saw the laughing fanged mouth of
it
.
He woke up with a startle. Something he hadn’t felt for a long time. His eye got accustomed to the light in the room coming from an opened window on his right. His blind spot. And yet he could see the window and the sight beyond it. Jumbled hieroglyphs in blue and various numbers popped wherever he tried to look. He raised his left hand and put it over his right eye to cover it. His eye-patch was missing. His shoulder hurt and his body overall hurt. Kirisaka tried to move. Nothing. His head hurt. Headache. It was hot. He hated the hot climate. He was sweating but he noticed the weather outside was to be blamed partially.
He forced his body to move and at least sit up. Still nothing. He almost groaned, feeling the sharp pain in his stomach. His eye rolled around the room. It was spacious and neat and clean, smelled of flowers, herbs and fresh air. His bed was by the window, which was half-curtained but he saw no glass to cover it. There was a carpet on the floor, a small wooden desk with papers and scrolls and books over it with a chair at it, also covered in books, a few flower pots by one of the walls, a big cushion sewn from various colorful cloth pieces by a tree trunk that was growing as if from the wooden floor and its crown was somewhere on the roof. There was a frame but with no door just across the bed and Kirisaka could see a small platform and stairs going down. He assumed he was on some second floor of a house. But a house where? He looked out of the window, seeing a tropical forest and a mountain in the distance.
No-man’s-land. Kirisaka tried to ascertain his own situation. His right arm and shoulder were bandaged with great care. He tucked the blanket, seeing more wrapped bandages over his stomach and the area above his knees was also taken care of. He was shirtless and his clothes didn’t seem to be anywhere in the room. He saw his boots though, lined by the entrance. He closed his right eye to stop seeing the jumbles and sighed.
He heard child’s laughter and talk in an unknown language somewhere below. His head hurt a lot and the hot weather outside that he hated so much added to his irritation. The fever overwhelmed him and he closed his other eye, trying to sleep.
