She gazed at her ocean and her dunes, her hills and her lakes, her trees and fields. Yes, this land was hers, and as she stared, her heart breaking, at her home, Jahrra finally understood that her destiny was more important than she had ever dreamed.
“I must save this land,” she whispered to her tree, to her home, to Oescienne. “I must save it because life isn’t worth living if I don’t.”
Jahrra smiled, tears streaming unashamedly down her cheeks, at the western edge of the Thorbet Mountains, white capped for the winter. She laughed softly as she recalled her short life in this place so far. It had meant so much to defeat Eydeth that day in the race. Now it didn’t seem that important. She gazed at the five lakes, where she could still recall some of her fondest and earliest memories of swimming and catching bullfrogs and fish. She laughed as she recalled the time she terrified half of her class with the lake monster she’d created with Gieaun and Scede.
She loved this land more than any one person should be allowed, but she couldn’t help it. It had shaped her, given her meaning; it had fed her imagination and given her comfort when she needed it most. Its people and its beauty had raised her, just as much as her parents and Hroombra had. It was always there, always changing with the seasons, but it was also constant.
Without her realizing it, Jaax had quietly joined her side, staring off into the distance as she did. He waited awhile before speaking softly.
“Jahrra, you must not lose heart. Things will change, that’s for sure, but you must hold on. Look at this tree here.”
Jahrra looked at her gnarled tree. It wasn’t the prettiest tree in Oescienne, but she loved it anyway. She gazed affectionately at its three trunks, one growing vertically, the other more at an angle, and the third, lying almost flat on the ground. It was this third trunk that Jahrra had always loved to sit on.
Jaax continued in a solemn, respectful tone, “This tree was uprooted and thrown down. It was burdened by the wind, but look at it now. You would have never guessed it was in peril at some point. It has survived, and not only survived, it has thrived. Who would have thought that such a strong tree was at one point fighting for its life? So you see, we all get blown down now and again, but we have to decide whether we want to survive or just lie there and let the elements take us.”
Jahrra couldn’t help but grin despite her sadness. Jaax saw that his analogy had comforted her, and he too gave a genuine smile.
“That sounds like something Master Hroombra would say,” Jahrra commented quietly.
Jaax replied, smiling wryly. “He was my mentor too, you know.”
The unlikely pair let the silence engulf them for just a while longer. The morning song of the winter birds making ready for the coming spring gradually broke the dawn silence and Jahrra knew that they had to get moving. With one last shudder of emotion, and with one last wearied, defeated sigh, Jahrra turned Phrym back towards the road. She tried to look at the bright side; tried to look upon this quest as an adventure, but she couldn’t do so at that moment. Jahrra once thought that she’d had a hard life when she was orphaned, when she was singled out at school, when she had no idea what her past was. Now, she realized, she had been blessed, and now she was regretful that she never truly appreciated it before. She was running headlong into the unknown, with someone she barely knew. True, Jaax had brought her here and checked on her every now and again, but he didn’t know her really, and she didn’t know him. She tried to take comfort in the fact that Hroombra had known him, that Hroombra had trusted him. Jahrra sat back in the saddle and set her mind on that fact. Master Hroombra trusted Jaax, therefore, so can I.
The girl led her semequin out onto the rain-washed road that trailed down the Sloping Hill. Behind them, Jaax followed silently, battling a flurry of his own thoughts. It won’t be easy, the dragon told himself, trying not to be troubled, but I’ll do my best Hroombra, I’ll do my best.
As Haelionn, the great sun god, showed his face on a new day, the dragon, girl and semequin sunk below the edge of the hill, leaving behind the Castle Guard Ruin, standing reverently in the broken morning light.
-Epilogue-
The Musings of a Stranger
Much time had passed since the old dragon arrived in the western part of Ethoes, even if it didn’t seem so. When a lifespan lasts for ages, one year can last only a moment. One decade sometimes feels like a day, and a century, well, that is merely a month.
This is how the strange creature hiding in the vast forest felt about the passage of those thousands of days. One year, one hundred years, same difference. Time was time, and it really didn’t matter if nothing important happened between the memorable events of history. That is how it was in the time between the arrival of the old Korli dragon in Oescienne and the winter’s morning when the child Jahrra arrived as an infant, carried from afar by a younger dragon; a descendant of the cursed race.
Time had been flying by, and the instant the mysterious child entered this realm, time stopped abruptly and suddenly started ticking away at a much slower pace. The creature, the tenant of the old forest, had recognized this and paid very close attention to every little detail since.
At the present moment this spy, well wrapped in a ragged cloak disguising both its face and its ancestry, sighed and shook its head as it recalled the past centuries. The spy hadn’t always watched the old dragon in this forgotten province of Oescienne. At one time the creature had been busy witnessing events in the east, terrifying events, dangerous events, long ago before the fall of the Tanaan. It was only after the revelation of the prophecy that this forest dweller paid any attention to the Korli dragon at all. It had always known that the old reptile would return to the castle of his king, but when that time would come, it couldn’t tell for sure.
The spy only knew that one day the fire-breather would return, but not anytime soon. It would be too hard for the dragon to come back to this place right away, right after the loss of his royal Tanaan pet, even if staying in the east meant risking the wrath of the Crimson King. But the old Korli dragon, not so old then, still had a part to play in that horrible war, five centuries ago. He was the one responsible for releasing the Tanaan from the grasp of the Tyrant. Not his beloved Tanaan humans, but the new Tanaan dragons.
Oh no, thought the cloaked being with a twisted smile, the old reptile would’ve been unwise to return to Oescienne then, and he was not unwise.
So with careful craftiness, the creature followed the dragon Hroombramantu for years across the vast world, always remaining far enough behind so as not to be detected, always fleeing and hiding from friend and foe alike. By the time the old fire-breather finally settled back in the western land near his beloved castle, over one hundred years had passed. The Crimson King had complete power in the east, and many of those loyal to Ethoes had disappeared, been captured, or fled to where they thought they would be safe.