Ash 1867
"Do you think they're happy with the change?" I look at my father as we watch the town.
He scoffs at the question as if it's the stupidest thing I could've said.
"Who cares?" He sneers. "It's not our business. whoever they mark down as the owners of these lands, it will always be ours."
He meant his.
My father was Nerva, dragon lord of the north and right hand to king Shakka the first and only.
I wanted to believe my father, but I couldn't.
For whatever reason, he hated humans and saw them as food or animals to work as his needs required.
Nerva saw them as weak, pathetic, and helpless, but I didn't.
"Come, we've stayed long enough." My father motions for me to follow him, but I watch for a little longer. "Ashari!"
Turning away from the town, I would come back to when my father left. I follow the older dragon back up the mountain.
Our territory spanned further south, but I'd never been to the mainland. All my life, I'd stayed right here in Alaska. The place I was born, and if my father had his way, I'd die here.
"Father? Doesn't that mean we're Americans too?" I risk asking him. "Shouldn't we make sure we have what's necessary?"
"Did you not hear me, boy?" My father looks over his shoulder. "We are dragons, not human. In a hundred years, they'll change hands again, and this land will say it belongs to someone else."
Funny, for a dragon who hated humans, he seemed keenly interested in their affairs.
By the dragon gods, we were nothing alike.
I didn't share his hatred. On the contrary, I was fascinated with the creatures.
Since I was old enough to wander off by myself, I've sought out human company. I tried my first whiskey in a human town, food that made raw meat taste bland and uninteresting, and where I bedded down with someone for the first time.
A beautiful woman who assumed I was more experienced than I was. She mistook my eagerness to indulge in her body as a sign I knew what I was doing.
Well, when I came home several days later, I did.
I was seventeen when I met her. I was fifty now. She was my first, but not my last.
Humans intrigued me. They had no natural defenses or weapons, and somehow they survived better than dragons could.
They were inventive dreamers, and that always piqued my interest.
We never discussed it, but humans affected the course of history in a way none of us could. Shakka cast them aside, and they still survived without us, without magic.
Maybe that was the reason my father hated them because they could do what he could not.
The winds were changing again. If my father didn't get over his hatred, he'd get pushed aside too.
"Father?" I move faster to catch up to him.
"What is it?" He growls in annoyance. Father hated when I asked questions.
"I was hoping we could go to the town this time," I carefully mutter the words.
It didn't shock me when his hand slapped me across the face. I was expecting him to do that. It wasn't the first time I'd asked for something my father thought was unforgivable.
What was the point of crying like a hatchling about it?
"What have I told you about that?" He demands angrily. "You are a dragon, Ashari. The son of the lord of the north! You have no time for pests."
"Yes, sir," I lower my head to show him respect.
"You will not associate yourself with lower beings. I won't allow my youngest son to embarrass our family in such a way."
"Yes, father," I mutter feeling irritated by his tone.
All I wanted was to go to the town with my father. Show him that humans weren't the insects he believed, but as always, he would not budge.
"Focus less on human affairs and their low-class lives, and concern yourself with your studies," He growls. "Your teachers tell me you spend your time daydreaming and in the training arena."
"I finish all my work, father," I protest. "I'm not a hatchling anymore. I don't see the problem with training."
"You're a babe," He sneers at me. "You're fifty years old."
"I'm an adult," I declare, keeping up with his long strides.
Barking out a laugh, my father quickens his step. As if he could outrun me.
"Such petulant attitudes," He keeps laughing. "From your mother, no doubt. Ashari, when you're five hundred. Then you'll be a man. Until then, you are a child and my son."
He was wrong. I wasn't a babe father could order around anymore.
"How do you expect to hold a position with the king? With your mind scattering like the leaves on the wind?" He continues, and my entire body tenses up.
Oh, no.
I'd dreaded this since I was old enough to understand.
"You mean eventually," I carefully test the waters.
"No, I've already settled it with Lord Shakka. We've found a position that will allow you to stay here, and your mate will move once you're both of age."
My mate?
"Father, I wanted to talk to you about all that," My voice becomes more insistent. "I don't-."
Father turns quickly, glaring at me.
"If this has anything to do with becoming a soldier, I'll stop you right there," He warns me. "You will do your three years of service to the royal army, but no more."
"But...." I start, but then I shut up. The way my father's eyes narrow warns me not to push my luck.
"Listen to me well, Ashari. It is the last time I'm explaining this to you," He gets in my face. "Your duty is to the horde. Not your fantasy of becoming some war hero. The king has graciously accepted you into a position that will solidify our standing. I will not have you ruin it to chase some tunnel dream."
I clench my jaw and hold back the venom I'd like to spit at him.
It wasn't a tunnel dream.
I was a warrior. I felt it in my blood. The last thing I wanted was a job I had to hold until the day I died and be with someone who wasn't meant to be mine.
Father wanted me to be satisfied with a dragon I could never love in the same way as my destined soulmate?
That was alright for him, but not for me.
Of fifteen hatchlings, I was the youngest male. Only two of my siblings had found their soulmates. The rest forced into arranged couplings, and their misery showed.
It wasn't right to think that was enough. We had the fortune of knowing our soulmate was real. How could we disgrace that honor by accepting someone else? And, taking that being from their destined mate?
My father didn't know me at all.
I wasn't a scholar or a politician.
Whenever I thought of my future, there was only one thing I imagined myself doing, being a warrior.
I'd always been more comfortable with a sword instead of a pen. The feeling of a gun in my hands felt like second nature.
We walk the rest of the way home in silence. As far as father was concerned, the conversation was over.
No, I wouldn't let things stand like this.
When we reach the fortress gates, I strip my clothes off and shift. Unlike werewolves, dragons don't feel the change in the same way. Instead, we pull energy around us to transform from one aspect to another.
A blue dragon with blue and white hair stands where my human form did.
Before my father can shift, I shake my wings and hair out and take to the skies.
Let him catch me up here. I'd like to see him try.