After I grew to become a juvenile the hunters made places in the woods where they could stop for a day to venture further out. Plus these places offer a place for the kobolds to keep a few hunters on look out of any dangers. The clan has had a good few years under the leadership of Rok, expanding their territory and births of new clan members. Rok even had a few children to pass on his mantel once he dies. My mother always told me not to grow attached to short-lived begins, as we dragons will outlive most.
Even knowing that Rok will die in a few decades yet I will not even be considered an adult among my kind by that time, I still grew to love him as family. Since I've grown bigger, I've moved to the large entrance leading outside from the clan's residence. Clan members and Rok will come to visit at least once a day to see if I need anything. Though now I can provide for myself, hunting in the woods when I'm hungry or drinking in one of the many streams and rivers leading from inland to the ocean.
The humans seemed to have stopped showing up near our side, even though before it was extremely rare for them anyway. Either they all died or became busy dealing with something else since Rok says humans go to war a lot since it is their favorite pastime. As a new day started, I stretched before jumping from my cave and snapping my wings to look below me for my breakfast. After flying for a few minutes I spotted a creature that the hunters told us about living in the mountains.
This creature was slightly smaller than me, with no wings but resembled a dragon in appearance. Was covered in brownish-red scales, two small horns coming from its head, and what looks like fur coming from its chin. This creature looks to be able to breathe fire that is extremely weaker compared to mine but still can easily kill lesser creatures. It was in the middle of hunting it appeared, then I realized it was sneaking up on a group of my Kobolds.
Diving down, I landed on the back of the creature biting into its neck and tearing into its flesh. The creature let out a roar of pain, making the kobolds jump back in surprise and fear, but seeing me they all rushed over to help. Though by the time they came, I had already broken the neck of the beast and stood atop its carcass. Letting out another roar showing my dominance of this area, the kobolds join me letting out war cries.
"Golden Prince, thank you for saving us. This is the first one we've seen enter your domain," the leader of the group says to me as they all bow their heads to me respectfully.
"It is fine, your clan is under my protection and I intend to keep you all safe as best I can," I say to them and they all nod their heads happily at me as I grab the dead beast with my claws and fly back to my cave.
Once I land in the cave, I call down the tunnel for a kobold to come see me. As they have placed a few kobolds a way down the tunnel in case I need them. As I waited for the kobold to come to me, I tore open the dead beast's body. The organs I noticed were slightly similar to dragons from the knowledge we dragons have naturally about ourselves. As I was inspecting the beast's insides and tasting the flesh after cooking it slightly, it was very bland in flavor like I was eating dirt.
"Golden Prince, what did you need?" the kobold says to me watching me grunt in disgust after tasting the dead beast.
"I want you to bring others to come clean this beast out of my cave. The clan can have everything from this beast, it does not fit my taste," I say going back out to hunt another creature, like a goat or deer which have wonderful flavor.
"Are you sure?" the kobolds asks while looking at the beast with hungry eyes, since kobolds love to eat about anything and have little to no regard for flavor.
"Wouldn't have told you if I wasn't sure," I say and then jump out of my cave in search of new prey.
After a few hours of hunting and eating a dozen deer, I was full and decided to nap by the stream I just cleaned my teeth and claws in. My mother told me as golden dragons we have an image to show, and should always ensure we are clean. The nap was short-lived, as I heard voices speaking in draconic which at first I thought was kobolds. Then their smell hit me and I realized it was humans, I was surprised to hear humans speaking draconic. Since my mother said humans rarely speak draconic and the ones who do are usually magic users.
I stood up and hide deeper in the brush best I could, as I prepared to kill them at first sight. After a few tense minutes of waiting a small group of five humans came out of the woods and ran over to the stream drinking heavily from it. They were all dressed in what looked like rags and were extremely dirty. From what little I know about humans, I assumed none were good magic casters as they were dressed poorly. I was about to unleash a stream of fire killing them, but I was curious about them as well. So I held off killing them for now and instead decided to listen in on what they were saying as each spoke draconic.
"We need to keep moving! The slave hunters could be still on our trail!" one of the older-looking male humans said while the four others looked exhausted.
"We can't! We've been on the run for weeks! Plus they would not enter these cursed woods! This part of the land is where all the deadest beasts reside!" another man says while resting against a rock by the stream.
"Even more reason for us to keep moving! If we remain out in the open, who knows what beast will kill us!" the man who first spoke says back.
".....Everyone… don't move. There is a huge creature right over there," one of the smaller humans says while pointing in my direction with a shaking hand. All the humans fall quiet and look over at me.
I stood still hoping they don't see me, but upon realizing that my cover is blown I stepped out into the open. As I wanted to converse with the humans before killing them, I wanted to learn more about them. They all started to shake at my sight and one even pissed himself making me scrunch up my nose in disgust. Though that seemed to make them all that much more nervous and right before they ran as they all seemed ready to run, I spoke up.
"Before you all run, I want to ask a few questions. Plus if you run, I will have to kill you now," I say to them hoping to reason with them. They all froze up hearing me and looked beyond surprised.
"The dragon just talked!" the one who saw me said snapping the others from their surprise.
"Of course, I can talk! What dragon can not speak?" I say to them giving them a bewildered look like they are the crazy ones.
"No dragon can talk! Not even the ones the nobles use!" the same human says to me as the other humans shoot him a look of annoyance. He immediately shuts his mouth in fear.
"There are other dragons? And they allow humans to… use them?" I say more to myself trying to imagine a dragon willing to listen to a human. Even my kind the golden ones most known for their kindness would rather die than let a human order them around.
"What he means oh lordly dragon, is the ones in charge of the city are dragon riders. They have bonds with dragons letting them ride the dragon and battle alongside them," the older-looking human says while bowing his head to me with the smell of fear heavily coming off of him.
'Githyanki? Is that who reigns over the city? No wonder the humans are treated the way they look. Maybe I should leave them in peace, they seem to be no threat to me… then again they could lead others here,' I think to myself wondering what these humans mean. As they all look at me in silence afraid to speak.
"Dragon riders? Are the ones in charge of your city called Githyanki? What color dragons are the ones they ride?" I ask them while looking down at them with scrutinizing glaze.
"I've no idea what a Githyanki is, but yes they ride dragons or all colors. Though none that look as amazing as you do, their scales are nowhere near as shiny and you are the first dragon we have seen that is golden and can talk," the older human says while keeping his head bowed but looking at me in awe now. Hearing his praise of me I instinctually puff my chest out in pride.
"I see… then I must apologize to you all. As it could lead to the death of many of my clan members, but you all must die. I will ensure it is quick," I say to them and before they register what I said, I swiped my claws killing three instantly as the other two run away screaming in fear.
Though with a single leap, I covered the little distance they ran and sliced them in half with my claws. I looked down in sorrow for killing these humans as they were innocent in my eyes, but the life of my clan comes first and these humans threatened it. I picked up the bodies of the humans and flew them to the beach so I could burn them without destroying the forest. After burning the bodies I cleaned myself from their blood in the ocean.
Flying back to my cave I found it to be mostly cleaned with only blood stains remaining from the dead dragon-like beast I killed earlier. I used my fire to burn away the blood stains and curled up for a nap, trying not to think about the screams of the innocent humans I killed. As golden dragons, we are usually kind to humans and other races passing down our wisdom to them. But I'm not strong enough yet to fight dragon riders and especially since it sounds like there are many dragon riders.
Life seemed to go on and for a dragon, a century is like a blink of an eye, especially since we can take prolonged periods of sleep. Resting for decades or centuries at a time, the average true dragon can live 5000 to 6500 years. The next few decades went by with Rok eventually passing on and his son taking over as the next clan head. I was deeply saddened by Rok's death and this time did not grow attached to Rok's son as I did with Rok. I now understood the pain that came with getting attached to short-lived beings.
As the decades went by I was a few years short of reaching the adult stage of a dragon. With it, my size grew drastically, as I was basically an adult now and was just slightly smaller than my mother now even though she was an ancient gold dragon. Like my mother said I'm much larger than your average gold dragon, making me curious about my father and what type of dragon he was. Shaking off my sleepiness from the night before, I stepped out to the entrance of my cave and yawned. Though that sleepiness left me quickly as I heard a few roars in the distance. Roars that sounded like a dragon, but still not exactly like one, different in a weird way.
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AN: I made an auxiliary chapter labeled "MC Info" that has the age range, sizes of MC, and abilities, along with the current spells he can use.