Outside of reaching an inn that was famous among dragons for their hospitality known as the Golden Claw, nothing much happened that day, even while passing through Dawnbraught. The small town was nothing more than one long main road that passed through the main square, but instead of the usual necessities you’d expect to see in a farming community, it was lined with expensive shops, numerous high-quality inns and what would be an oddly high number of pubs for a community as small as it was with most of them closed. You would think it was a ghost town if it weren’t for their annual summer harvest of gorn root.
To dragons gorn root was a basic medicinal remedy for their fire sacks, which sometimes became irritated, causing them to spit up pure fire like an upset stomach. For humans it was the basis of many types of beer, wine and ale in this part of the country that could not be competed with and the best gorn root was grown and brewed in Dawnbraught. It was an odd, picky plant with orange, thistle-like flowers, stocks, and leaves but thick, bulbous roots that looked more like fruit than roots that grew during the cold winter months to be harvested late in the spring and dried through the summer.
It was during the summer that the previous years’ batches were uncorked and three months of festivities took place along with thousands of visitors. Very rich visitors. Originally this had caused a large upset in the small town, as the local merchants and farmers could not afford the goods that the summer populace, given the unaffectionate nickname “snowbirds”, provided for the wealthy summer travelers which initially forced the majority of them to either move or adapt, which lead to the massive summer festival and enormous fields of gorn root so they also could cater to the summer travelers and stock up on supplies for the other eight to nine months that they would be without a steady income. That was aside from the business that the dragons brought in during the colder, less favorable months for the humans who were of a weak and needlessly greedy constitution.
Quil explained all this to Jason as they passed through, giving Jason a special oil that the apothecaries here made specifically for hatchlings who were learning, or in Jason’s case, relearning to live among humans. For starters, hatchlings had a much stronger sense of smell than even dragons barely a hundred years old, toward humans in particular. Hatchlings were prone to curiosity, particularly when it came to hunting and what they wanted to hunt and for dragons, their sense of smell was a large part of knowing what they wanted to eat. It was said that before the first humans and the first dragons made peace that it was common for dragons to hunt down and eat humans, almost like a game. But when the earth cracked open, an endless darkness clouded the skies and a foul creature that seemed to be made created of man, dragon and fire itself started devouring the land, the great leaders known only as the Ancients helped dragons and men band together and ultimately defeat the creature.
After that the highest of the Ancients, Torvin Arklaun, bestowed on mankind his protection that recognized humans as allies and even friends. How the protection originally manifested was whenever a dragon attempted to attack a human, the human became the dragon and the dragon the human and the dragon was now the human’s mercy.
“So, humans used to be able to turn into dragons?” Jason asked, confused, a little irritated but was glad the lessons he had tried to skip weren’t as boring as he had thought they would be. He would never admit it to Quil, not now anyway, but they actually were entertaining.
“That part is actually very vague. We don’t know if they literally transformed or if it was figurative or even as profound as it sounds. The only thing that is clear is that this is no longer case. In the old kingdom there was a betrayal and the Torvin, for which Torvis is named, was murdered and war broke out across lands. It was claimed a human murdered him but that also is subjective to interpretation. With Torvis dead, his protection ended and many dragons freely attacked the humans. But before his death Torvin provided a small number of humans with the means to create Torvis armor and a way to deter and even prevent dragons from hunting them, gorn root.
“During the war, the root was dispersed throughout all of the human and dragon food and water supplies. In humans the root has a similar effect to garlic, producing a nasty pungent smell but only to dragons and in dragons, in large enough quantities, it prevented them from using their fire. It took several years but finally the root spread out far enough to cause, something akin to a stalemate and the remaining Ancients and human leaders worked out a truce which led to the abandonment of the Old Kingdom and to the creation of Torvis, which was once all of Avonous, but that is part of another lesson for later. Do you have any questions?” Quil asked Jason, noticing he was trying to not act intrigued.
Jason was quiet for a moment, taking in their current surroundings as the sun began to set and the skies color transformed from a calm hazy blue to a graceful gradient of pale orange and pink, “If people stink because of the gorn root and it also prevents dragons from using their fire, wouldn’t the people who don’t use it now not stink and why do you use it as medicine?”
“Well we can only guess but like the Torvis armor, it seems that Torvin had planned this out for the long run. I believe it was a trait unique to his fire, like Menus’s ability to turn things to stone, Torvin had some sort of long-lasting ability of protection. It’s assumed and widely agreed that he must have altered an existing plant, likely thistle, to create gorn root and its properties ended up sticking. As for us using it as medicine in dragons, its effects wear off and smaller doses of it are particularly helpful to us.”
“But why aren’t you affected by the smell? I mean, ugh! Did I smell like that?” Jason wrinkled his nose at the memory that was still far too recent.
Quil couldn’t help but laugh at his last inquiry but calmly answered all the same, “Yes you did, but most adults can’t smell as well as you hatchlings so it’s only somewhat bothersome without the oil we buy. As for the string of insults and speaking in Torvinous instead of Uni, our natural disposition to humans is that of contempt and the smell only hastens it, as is using our native tongue instead of the languages of men. In other words, we learn a great deal of self-control and to be very conscientious of how we behave. Otherwise, it is very easy to go along with our natural instincts, which has gained a great deal of popularity in recent years,” Quil added solemnly.
One thing Jason had noticed was time seemed to go by a different standard to dragons than it had humans. Even for him the rate at which things passed by had become increasingly, slower, or was it faster, he was having trouble telling which. That and he was growing tired of being called a hatchling, so he asked, “What do you mean by ‘in recent years’? And you keep calling me a hatchling like I’m some sort of toddler,” he added making the irritation he felt known.
“With respect, that is exactly what you are to the rest of us, a hatchling or toddler as you put it,” Quil countered.
“You know I am, or was, a member of the King’s Guard. I have done and lived much more outside of all of…this…dragon stuff,” Jason butted back.
“Yes a whole twenty years or so of life. By that account you practically an egg given I’m at least seven hundred, your mother is around four hundred and most of us can expect to live a thousand year or more,” Quil said with a smile of pride on his face.
“That’s…not reassuring,” Jason replied with a lump of anxiety welling up in his stomach. He had always thought of his life in a much smaller span of time like all humans who were lucky if they lived long enough to have a whole head of gray hair. So imagining filling up a thousand years when he barely understood how twenty-five had gone by was too much to process.
Quil noticed and tried to comfort him, “Don’t worry about it now. Just know that things like ‘recently’ to a dragon are closer to being fifty or sixty years to a human. All hatchlings have trouble understanding this. Time and its events are something you experience with your whole being, it’s not something that you can learn through words and books. You can empathize and understand logically to a degree, but until you’ve actually reached that point or place in time, it won’t fully dawn on you. And from what I understand it is similar with humans too.”
Jason nodded, “Yeah, it kind of is. I mean a few, human, years ago I can remember being constantly annoyed with my dad. I always thought when he said ‘You’ll understand when you’re older,’ was just his way of ignoring what I had to say or ask just because I was younger than him. But when I joined the King’s Guard, I kind of started realizing he just meant that there were some things I could only learn by living and doing them and you can’t make a time go faster or slower like a horse,” Jason paused for a moment and Quil waited, seeing a look of frustration form in his eyes as Jason reflected back on his memories, “But that doesn’t excuse the way some of the other older people I met acted.”
For Quil, he had mostly talked with other dragons throughout his life and it wasn’t often he spoke with humans, which he admitted was lacking in some areas and he was eager to find out if some of the things he had speculated in human society were as he saw them. It was his job as an advisor, and important that Jason knew he could trust him, “How so?”
“Well, unlike my dad, some of the older people in Torvis and in the Capital just used their age as an excuse to be rude, bully and talk down to anyone younger than them and always act like they deserved some sort of special treatment or favors they never actually earned. Not all of them, but enough to annoy the daylights out of my dad, the knights, pretty much anyone. They had no concept of what respect was but every time something inconvenienced them or there really wasn’t anything I could do or when I was in the King’s Guard it just wasn’t our place, they would say, ‘show some respect’, ‘when I was your age’ or ‘I’m too old for this or to do that’. Just ageist, immature, entitled rotten manure like that. As I got older it got a little better and becoming a knight instead of staying with my dad as a blacksmith helped a ton, but now that I look like a fifteen-year-old again and as a dragon I’m practically a baby, I’m not looking forward to going through all that again, let alone a couple hundred years.”
Quil felt a pang of guilt in his chest, as he sometimes was guilty of dismissing younger dragon advisors ideas and theories because of their age rather than whether or not what they said had merit. Mostly it was when he was tired and some of the more enthusiastic ones were quite vexing on his mind and nerves, always brimming with what he thought were too many thoughts coming at him all at once from one mind at that. Recently he thought some of them had become calmer, more mature but looking back at their conversations, the words diminished and discouraged colored the memories more appropriately, regretfully.
And with what Jason faced ahead, as their future leader none the less, the last two things he needed to be were diminished or discouraged.
Originally Quil had planned a rather rigorous set of lessons, lectures, papers, and tests for the trip but he could see that no amount of knowledge thrown at him would prepare Jason for what was to come. He would still need to know things that were best learned through the traditional teaching methods, such as their history, but as a leader he would need to know how to do much more than regurgitating facts and figures. And like time, there were more than a few things that he would learn best through experience. So Quil finally responded, “Then I will do my best in our lessons to avoid treating you as only a hatchling. You, after all, will become our leader one day and it would be unwise of me as an advisor and your teacher to stunt any talents or gifts that would aid you to that end.”
Jason looked up at Quil, noticing a youthfulness added to his normally serious demeanor, “Really?”
“Yes, but I will expect that in return you will act with the same maturity and show you are worthy of respect. Not just to me but to everyone. I teach rulers, not tyrants,” Quil added sternly.
Jason finally grinned, feeling a bit hopeful for the first time, even since before he had become a dragon, “Can you start with not calling me a hatchling?”
“That I can do, Jason. Your mother and her family you have yet to meet will be another matter, however.”
“Uh, what do you mean by that?” Jason asked, nervous for a whole different reason.
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