89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK8WY431eb4
When Elias awoke, he was cold. Different. Wrong in a way he could not place.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXP4eKIN9gH
For a while Elias laid there with his eyes shut, listening to the slow drip of water nearby and the far hush of air moving through the cavern. His whole body felt strange. Too light. Too small. He opened his eyes.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqc7aX8Qnzc
The cavern was quieter now and the great shape at the far end was gone. In it's place lay a scatter of pale ash drifting over black stone and, near where Kheledryn’s chest had been, sat a single scale the size of a dinner plate. It was as blue as deep water and glowing faintly from within.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvIQwT7Qely
Elias pushed himself up. His shirt slid off his shoulder. He blinked and then looked down. His clothes were on him, technically, but only in the sense that blankets were on furniture.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkCIMsyngyK
His old trousers had collapsed around his legs. While his tunic hung off him like borrowed cloth from a giant, his armor pieces lay twisted and scattered nearby on the ground. A slow, unpleasant understanding crawled up his spine.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjvHf2G1DHs
“No,” Elias said as his voice cracked higher than it should have.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqZ1yM7dBGs
He froze. Then, very carefully, Elias raised both hands and looked at them. Small. Not merely thin. Small. The hands of a child. He stared for one long second noticing how soft they were. Then another noticing his previous scars had disappeared.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbtLpl5pAfj
“This,” he said to the empty cavern in a voice that absolutely did not belong to a grown man, “is unacceptable!”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq2WHOtHxRg
He got unsteadily to his feet and nearly tripped over the pooled fabric around his ankles. The old shirt dropped entirely off one shoulder. He snatched it up and wrapped it around himself as best he could.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe8v0oyf6yZ
Elias snatched up the glowing dragon scale from the ash and nearly dropped it when warmth ran through his arm at the touch. It pulsed once, brightening.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRtB8SEi4YA
Then Kheledryn’s voice spoke from it, faint now, distant as if from very deep water, “You live.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOxupEdMi0s
Elias clutched the scale in both hands and stared at it, “What did you do?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1fDeG3GaOt
“I gave what remained of my strength.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfk6liZvR2h
“You made me small.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMD38ZJNdIX
There was a pause, “I did not foresee the exact shape.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhC0i9CzCmh
Elias let out a sharp sound halfway between a laugh and a complaint, “That is not reassuring.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfr0oKqvfla
The scale glowed again, softer, “Your body could not have taken it otherwise,” Kheledryn explained, “You were remade to endure what was given.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJHcyabVrZn
Remade?
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIo7c5kAc4
Elias stood there in the dragon’s cavern wrapped in his own oversized shirt like a disgraced sheet ghost and tried not to lose what little dignity he still owned. He looked toward the pool. There was no point delaying it.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ211G067OR8
He walked there on bare feet, the stone cold under him, and looked down into still reflective water. A child looked back. A boy of perhaps ten years, maybe a little older in the face if not the body. Lean where Elias had once been average. Hair dark as navy cloth soaked in rain, no longer black like before. His eyes were wrong too, yellow-tinted and bright in a way his old blues never were. The face was his only in a technical sense, as if some higher force had skimmed a description of Elias.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAiRQ3qi9N0
He stared, “That is not me.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPARJvqWlRa
“It is now,” came Kheledryn’s fading voice.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLZ0Dc9yXf
Elias bared his teeth at the reflection, “I did not look like this when I was ten.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfO5TGrkbat
“No,” said Kheledryn, “I imagine you did not.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTHiDPwkHR0
Elias stood there in silence another moment thinking about his past self while looking at the stranger in the water. Not chubby. Not black-haired. Not blue-eyed. Not the child he had been. Some draconic nonsense.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDVDqKiqjd7
He hated how quickly the practical part of his mind pushed past shock. Small body. No fitting clothes. Armor useless. Sword likely too heavy. Low coin. Dragon dead. What is the rational thing to do?
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xWvlPpHoO
Elias held and looked at the scale in his hands, big but light and apparently the last living piece of the dragon, “What exactly did you give me?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrS54zLhKke
“Opportunity,” Kheledryn said simply.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4CycPUvmB1
“That is a suspicious answer.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7koVZFRT4Q
“Remember. A better future.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvEMOMWUSxQ
Elias opened his mouth to demand something more useful than that, but the light in the scale dimmed, “Kheledryn?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG1BpiEEOd7
No answer as the glow faded further.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnS6aamdhZY
“Kheledryn!”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZF0C1A5cED
A long silence spread through the cavern. Then even the last trace of warmth inside the scale disappeared. Elias was alone.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxZrIodIGHv
After a while he wrapped the shirt tighter around himself and breathed out through his nose. “Fine,” he muttered, “Wonderful. Excellent. I have been murdered into childhood by a philosophical dragon.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3krtVItSYe
He tucked the scale under the folds of the shirt and went to gather what little he still could.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCOxANKOVqH
The coin purse survived. Light, but not empty. His pack was now half his size and not worth the trouble. The armor he did not even try with beyond one disgusted look. The sword he picked up with both hands, managed a clumsy lift, and immediately understood this was no longer a weapon he could use like before.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡujgDmRPDqd
“Right,” he said, dropping it with a clang, “Humiliating.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfWRIDDlAvq
Elias kept the coin purse and left the rest. He made his way back through the mountain the way he had come.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH8gp77p6Nl
The path seemed longer now. Bigger. The climb steeper. He hated that too. By the time he reached the broken crack where he had fallen through, Elias knew his legs would be aching, but it seemed that he was perfectly fine. Not even tired, and at least the new body was light and small enough to squeeze into gaps his adult self could never have fit. He climbed upwards and wriggled through a smaller break in the stone under the hole he fell through. He shortly found himself back out onto the mountain slope under a late afternoon sky.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ3RHKI2xhU
The cold hit Elias immediately, but not as bad as he would have thought. He clutched the oversized shirt tighter around his thin frame and looked around. There was no sign of the others, but also no sign of the dead skulks either.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkC8tac7ykf
The mountain seemed too quiet as Elias started down the slope carefully, one hand braced to the stone. He had gone no more than fifty paces when he heard the scrape of claws.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwE0GORcM2C
“Of course,” Elias sighed.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡicaLMypx9k
The surviving mountain skulk emerged from behind a jut of rock ahead with it's white eyes fixed on him. Black blood still clung to one side of its jaw from the earlier fight. It crouched low, confused for only an instant by what it smelled compared to what it saw. Ultimately, it decided a small child was easy prey.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡceie4m3oyj
Elias, wide eyed and frozen, stared as the skulk lunged. He had no sword, or way of outrunning it. Then something in him moved. Not thought nor a planned decision, but some new instinct.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrmAdkzAQRG
The world sharpened in a way he had never known before. Elias felt a rush under his skin, bright and violent, like cold water turned to fire in his veins. The air in front of him bent. Blue light flashed from nowhere and gathered on his raised arm with a sound like glass cracking under ice.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUIJdxRu6cY
The creature slammed into a wall of pale force and recoiled with a shriek, claws skidding uselessly over light. Elias stared at the barrier. The skulk came again with a shriek, maddened. On this lunge, a broad axe split its skull open from the side.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQM7PDAbxDL
Black blood sprayed across stone, and the creature dropped in a heap at Elias’s feet. He looked up.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPa2LmCIDP9
The scarred axeman from the adventurer's group stood there breathing hard, weapon buried deep in the monster’s head. Behind him the spearwoman and two of the others came scrambling over the rise.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcuHpZEJJhn
Then the younger man pointed at Elias, “There’s a kid.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNLOgm2rpjr
“Yes,” Elias said dryly, “Thank you for the field report.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1YiDnAKSMG
The axeman yanked his weapon free of the corpse and frowned down at him, “Where the hell did you come from?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpSYYcFpx87
Elias looked past them toward the higher slope, “I fell.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDR1eElv1Ms
“We noticed that part,” the spearwoman said. Her eyes swept over him, his bare legs under the wrapped shirt, his dirt-smeared face, the blood on one sleeve too large for him, “Are you alone out here?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIgjihpUbwj
That was an interesting question. Elias glanced once toward the mountain behind him. Thinking of the dragon, but saw only stone. He looked back at them, “Seems that way.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDyGnRZzRsl
The younger man rubbed the back of his neck, “What about that other guy?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbbbnUgTYWT
“What other guy?” Elias asked.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuoJ0yXc2ce
“There was an adventurer who got separated from us. Scruffy. Miserable-looking and acting… if I'm being honest.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrTsviV0UXp
Elias said nothing as the axeman grunted, “We found blood and broken rock. Figure the idiot slipped and broke his neck somewhere lower down.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuePcH51mKO
“Probably,” Elias said,.”Either way, I never saw anyone else.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRgHaBV3vcz
The axeman planted the butt of the axe down, “Mission’s done. We’re not chasing dragon rumors after this mess. Not with missing bodies and monsters stirred up all over the slope. We need to take the kid back. Priority.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyJk6pz1ahS
The younger man nodded, “If he’s from Draemharrow, someone’ll know him.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqkIFkaURtw
Elias nearly laughed at that. Nobody knew him in Draemharrow. Still, it beat freezing to death wrapped in a shirt on a mountainside. So he let them guide him back down.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2EH15CO9PO
The walk back to town was slower. Not because of danger. Because every few minutes one of them looked at Elias as if still trying to work out where he had come from and why he sounded irritated instead of frightened.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo5fgCYL6q5
He learned their names by being too tired not to hear them now. The axeman was Brann. The spearwoman, Tessa. The younger fool with the too-easy grin, Colm. There had been two others with them at dawn. One had gone back early with a twisted ankle. The other, a bowman, had died to the skulks before Elias fell, but nobody spoke much about him.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiuod41IZEF
The walls of Draemharrow came into view under the reddening evening sky, and the others got him through the gate without issue. While the guards asked a few questions, Brann answered most of them. Tessa did the rest. Colm bought Elias a skewer from a street stand without asking, then seemed deeply offended when Elias took it with a muttered thanks and immediately started eating like a starved animal.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxt5XePzeKz
“What?” Colm said in disbelief.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8a9lkJ2ZR0
“I was hungry,” Elias replied around the second bite.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmZKru70zMF
“Alright. Well, don't choke kid.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk8OOgdgBx5
They got him a set of cheap clothes from a lower market stall after that. Simple shirt. Trousers. Small boots that pinched a little. Children’s clothing was, as Elias learned with fresh bitterness, insultingly inexpensive compared to adult gear. Tessa paid for it with barely a complaint. Brann added in a wool cloak as well. Nobody asked for repayment. That almost annoyed Elias more.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS35f8iV5i2
They were not friends. They were not kind in any lofty way. They were just decent enough not to leave a strange child in rags at the gate after watching one adventurer die and another vanish in the same day. It was irritating for Elias to think about, but why?
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcDASLcAjCu
When they finally left him near the lower square, Brann clapped one rough hand on his shoulder and said, “Try not to wander off into monster country again.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6PvErlNRla
“I’ll do my worst,” Elias retorted as Brann snorted once and walked off with the others.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTboUKDxzdb
Elias stood there alone as evening settled over Draemharrow. Lanterns lit along the black stone streets, their glow reflecting off damp patches and old frost. The town was as grim as he remembered. Hard-edged buildings. Smoke from chimneys. Smith noise from the lower forge rows. Adventurers moving in clusters. Merchants shutting doors before the night winds got worse.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFMHMK9uKoF
He reached into the cloak and checked the coin purse. Pathetic. He felt the dragon scale tucked under the new clothes, hidden and cool against him.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuhf2SVwq7m
A dragon scale! He was carrying a dragon scale. That should have solved at least one problem. Elias lifted his head and looked toward the merchant lane.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwAd2vC72Pk
“Right,” he muttered, “Let's get some money.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoLQCr4dEA1
The appraiser’s stall near the guild quarter was still open, half because men like him loved late business and half because adventurers had poor hours. Elias went there first, climbed onto a crate because the counter was suddenly rude in ways it had never been before, and unwrapped the scale from under his shirt.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0QNd1Ag0A1
The merchant looked up from his ledger from the noise. Then down. Down further. His mouth twitched as Elias presented his trophy.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9pr6hFnLZv
“And what,” the merchant spoke unimpressed, “is this supposed to be?”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAL77wa56mI
Elias set the scale on the counter. It took up most of the space. Even dimmed, it held a depth of blue no ordinary material quite matched. “A scale,” Elias said, “From a dragon.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Okk7WifmR
The merchant stared at him and then laughed. Not even politely. Not even uncertainly. Just laughed outright, but Elias waited.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSZ7JeKR4Il
When the man finally caught enough breath to speak, he wiped at one eye and said, “Kid, if you’re going to lie to me, at least wash first. You look like you lost a fight in a horse stable.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCjhvBdp35S
Elias’s expression flattened, because at least he had actual clothes now, “That is an unrelated problem. I need money to be able to stay somewhere to clean myself.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnp2y97RhDU
The merchant nudged the scale with two fingers, still grinning, “Blue drake lizard, maybe. Or polished horn if someone got artsy. Dragon? Right. And I’m emperor of Orlienne.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKT6Ce6enys
“It is a dragon scale.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI69lxjKpI5
“Then I’m sure the dragon misses it terribly.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR80wwf38Kp
Elias stared at him in disdain for a long moment. Realizing nothing was going to happen, he gathered the scale back up, dropping back down. Grumbling as he walked away.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOJ4bvnJX34
The square outside the guild was busy even at this hour. Light spilled through the big front windows, warm and loud with voices, tankards, boots, and the usual energy of tired people pretending exhaustion was social. Elias stood at the edge of it for a moment, one hand on his nearly empty coin purse.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxzQPTNU0Vg
He had a little money, but not enough, a dragon scale nobody would believe in, and no real plan. He looked up at the guild sign, walking toward the doors. If he could not sell the scale, then he needed work.
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwLTnuAfRg2
Elias started toward the entrance, muttering under his breath, “Fine. One step at a time.”
89Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX5BwhoQGEY
and then Add to home screen.