Draco Slythinix

“Bastard,” muttered the figure walking toward him. Spitting the figure crossed the street and hurried on. Draco ducked his head, and continued home. In the empire of Ixa-Tash, blood was everything. So looking different was a terrible crime, and Draco was the greatest offender. Born a breassha, Draco lacked the striped mottled scales and short stumpy tail that marked his class. Rather he had been cursed with solid bronze scales and the powerful figure and jaws of the ruling class. If Draco had the brightly colored frill of the Rajanyash, he could have easily been mistake for one of them.

As he headed to the small hovel he shared with his mother at the end of the village, Draco thanked the scale gods that no one important had taken notice of his bastard heritage. He wouldn’t be alive if they had.

That night, as he lay in bed, Draco heard a pounding at the door. A feeling of dread filled him. He heard his mother’s voice as she answered. A scream split the night followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor. Draco jumped out of bed and fumbled his way to the bedroom door. A figure yanked the door open and Draco stubbled back blinded by the torch light. His eyes adjusted in time to see the club that knocked him senseless.

A dull pounding was Draco’s first sensation as he slowly regained conciseness. He tried to grown and realized that his jaws were tied shut. Blinking his eyes Draco tried to move his hand only to realize he had been tied to a chair. Then he heard it. A faint sobbing coming from the other side of the closed door. “No, no please I’m telling the truth. His father was a berassha,” the voice sobbed. “Liar!!” “No! Please! Aaahhh!” It was his mother. Draco jurked and flailed against his bonds. His screams caught in his throat unable to get through his tightly bound jaws. Tears spilled down his face. “Who was his father?!” The voice roared through the screams. “Gresh, a common Berassha,” came the weak response. There was a final scream and then a deafening silence.

Footsteps came to the door and two priests entered. “Her death doesn’t matter, the blood ritual will tell us what we want to know,” one of the priests was saying. The other priest nodded as he pulled a ceremonial knife from his belt and approached Draco clutching a bowl in the other hand. Draco felt the sting of the knife as it slit his wrist. After collecting some blood, the priests went over to a alter at the side of the room to where a glass orb filled with smoke stood. Draco hadn’t notice it before.

The priests began chanting. As they chanted they poured the blood over the orb. As soon as the blood touched the orb, the smoke turned a bronze color and began to take shape. Draco felt a searing pain as if his blood was on fire. The tremendous grief he experienced was forged into a blinding rage, and that rage into an unconquerable strength. He gave a might heave at his bonds and the arms of the chair snapped. Draco grabbed the remains of the chair and rushed at the priests. Having there backs to him, the priests were to absorbed in their chanting to notice. They didn’t stand a chance. In two quick strokes Draco painted the alter with their brains. Draco looked into the glass ball as his rage drained from him. He was in time to see the shape of a bronze elder dragon before the smoke in the ball dissipated becoming a formless mass of swirling blackness. The dragons scales were the same color as Draco's.

Draco knew he had to escape. He would flee, flee to the far north. To the ancient home of the father dragons in hopes of discovering the meaning of the image, and escape Ixa’Tash and the priests who had tortured and killed his mother.