The Hatchling Tale....
The Avatar was no more. For many of the two legs this was no issue at all. For dragon kind, the matter was of both mystic and practical importance. As a matter of reality, drakes did not age, bore no young and could only transition between chapters of life through complex magic, rite and ritual. The rite of passage to adult is well known, to those that care to know. The rite of passage to Ancient is a mystery. Yet, drakes do not age. Drakes do not have gender, athough in many there is a spirit which may be called male or female from attitude, nature or inclination. Yet if this is so, whence come the hatchlings? There is a story Sephiranoth heard in the hatchling places on most all of the many times he was young. Adults do not speak of it often, and hatchlings only by two or three, in secret places. This is not a matter of law, and it is not forbidden, but the voices which speak do so in whispers.
The Hatchling Tale: [/i][/b] Ancients live long. They have worked hard for the power they wield and the wisdom they bear. They share not either with those younger, save grudgingly or by necessity. Yet time is still their master, and after a time and a time and an age, the Ancient knows. [/i] [/i] It is The Time of Shadow. For the true drake, the Time of Broken Shadow. For others? but of the Single Shadow it is ill to speak.[/i] [/i] Most Ancients live apart, but then does the Ancient take them yet further apart. Deep into the mountains they fly, far and long. Often the place they seek is one they selected long ago, while still an adult. A cave, a crag, a ledge, a pool of fire. And there do they sit. Long they must craft, and strange the rock and ritual they must complete. These are not matters of power, but those of precision and focus. And at the end?Statues. Just as they made when seeking their wings, they must craft an image, not once but many. But, and fear those who fear the Broken Shadow and fail the test, not an image of their form, or single in nature but an image of drake. No features, but suggestion. No form, but the form of the ideal, the spirit which is our kind. Not truly in this place does the image sit, but twists and turns into other realms and even times.[/i] [/i] Then, when the forms are true ( and often many times must the images be made before they are true), the ancient flies one last time. High it soars, and higher still, the images tight in claw. It is said that the flight of such a drake is the most glorious that may be seen, but that none have ever seen it for if another watches then the ritual is naught. And when they have reached the sky and the air itself passes into death and even in day the sun?s very fire pales to nothing at what they do, at the doorway to the stars they dance. On wing, the statues gripped in claws, amidst the blood of the Lights of the North they dance, that the forms may be charged with power.Mid way through the dance, they swallow whole the images they have made. Then ony they dan,ce, to twist and turn through the path their life has taken, living each second once more in that final moment, storing each trial and gift of war or craft, each journey and new-found secret to a knot of power deep inside their flesh. And when the dance is done? they fall.[/i] [/i] Down and down they fall, driving that fall with the power of wing, the power of the primal.Some say the stars that flare and die across the night, not all but some may be but echoes of Shadow Times. To the land they fall, gift of the air. But not to the rock. Deep in the mountains lie the secret pools, where the life blood of fire flows with primal energy. At the end, to fire they return themselves and plunge below, never to be seen again.[/i] [/i] But then a thing happens. A strange thing. For on a day they know, when the wind whispers an Ancient name, the clutch mothers take themselves away to the mountains. Long are they gone, for the way is always hard and they must walk. But when they return, they come with new ones, the hatchlings. Weak and lacking in learning are hatchlings, but be careful to say so around the clutch mothers. For they will become stern and silent, angered and knowing. And often and often will a clutch mother be seen with a hatchling, silent and still, gazing deep in to the hatchling eyes. And never will they tell why they do this. But it is said, and only a story mind, that they seek the Shadow Reborn. For when the dawn light catches a hatchling?s eye, then if one knows how to see, an older eye, a fragment of history, a gift to tomorrow, may be seen deep beyond the edge of sight for just a splinter of a heartbeat. And this is good. And the hatchling who hears for the first time will walk away, cheered that some part of a noble spirit may lie in their past and their future glory.[/i] [/i] But if a hatchling stay, if a hatchling is bold, then they will hear the other. For each light bears a darkness, and this one also.[/i] [/i] Sometimes, the story goes, a hatchling may be seen no more. One the clutch mothers have looked at long and long may be no longer with the clan. And none shall speak of it, adult or hatchling. For there is the Single Shadow. And it will try to hide in the eyes of a hatchling, for the older eye is whole and the spirit is whole and the knowledge is whole and the fear which made it so is a fear which will destroy and burn and lay waste to all that it may stay whole. But the clutch mothers watch long, and most they find. And those are taken and are lost and are not spoken of. Most they find. Most?[/i] [/i] But it is a story. No more. And only the hatchlings tell of it, and what may a hatchling know? A hatchling fresh from the mountains?[/i]
