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Aih'ohna.

That was the name she was known as in the history of her people.

But to her court, and all those whom laid eyes on her, she was the Queen of all dragons; The matriarch to a golden age for her children.

Her reign was one marked by a great and resounding peace. Dragon society experienced an enlightenment during her rule. Settlements thrived and were rebuilt. Many growing vast and becoming more populated than before. What once was a kingdom filled with skirmishes and avarice became one of knowledge and discovery.

And all dragons loved her.

The kobolds, however, loved her most. A point that would rarely be in contention, especially considering that questioning the depth of their adoration could result in riots and bloodshed.

All kobolds could trace their lineage to the first clutch, as all tribes could. Sadly, there was a time when kobolds were considered polluted, inferior, and lesser.

And they used to be food.

The deposed patriarch that controlled the realm viewed them as an affront to what it meant to be dragon. As such they endured countless atrocities and enslavement in vast numbers. Conscripted to serve as servants, gardeners, and cooks.

To be kobold in that era would be to live a life of horror, assuming you were unfortunate enough to live long.

Her rule changed that.

Under her rule all dragons were equals.

Kobolds were to no longer be considered food, and were instead to be given the respect and recognition due to all dragons.

As a show of gratitude, kobolds everywhere sought to serve the queen. To them, it was the highest honor they could offer to ensure she could maintain her rule and the continuation of the freedom they now enjoyed.

It was an enviable position to many kobolds, but every kobold that was fortunate enough to be in the queen's direct service would insist they not be praised for it. They knew all too well what resulted from an unrestrained ego. Their history, and the history of all dragons, was painted indelibly red as a result of egotism.

Any chance to show their love to the queen was welcomed many times over, and in the centuries following her coronation they helped advance many aspects of dragon culture to magnificence and splendor. Their skills as cooks, artists, musicians and singers were elevated to the highest degree and their capability to produce such beauty could make even the king of the first-ones weep.

And since the queen was old, her needs were many. She was older than every other dragon alive and her size was a testament to the many centuries spent in this world. Yet despite her advanced age she held herself regally and with grace. A quality that was evident even to me as I came up the stairs to the hall to see her sitting on the black basalt dais that served as her throne.

Seeing her sit there, bathed in the light of the setting sun, caused the scales on her body to shimmer like pearls, giving her the appearance of an aura.

The jade scutes that lined her underside were almost as rich with colour as her eyes, which were a vibrant green much like the leaves on the topiary in the garden outside. And as if to be a testament to her royalty, the gold-flecked plates along her brow which gave way to five jewel-tipped horns that swept back along her scalp gave her the appearance of wearing a crown.

When I stopped staring, I saw that she was talking to a dragon not much larger than Arh'eoban. Gathered around the two of them were a handful of kobolds with boards and quill-pens taking great care to note down every detail of their conversation.

I didn't hear what they were saying, but seeing that none of them had even a strained, tired smile showed me that the mood was light and festive.

She seemed to be watching the proceedings of the hall before her, but also I noticed that her eye darted to me when I was guided closer. Her movement was measured and calm, but the look in her eye flashed what I could only assume was restrained satisfaction.

Out of all the dragons that roamed the hall, the majority were from the kobold tribes. But there were representations of nearly every tribe I had come to know. However, considering that most of them were already occupied in some manner, I didn't feel their eyes staring at me despite being the only human in the room.

With Aes and Eis leading a few steps ahead, they ushered me towards the dais when the dragons around her dissipated.

They introduced me with a formal bow, and then departed to continue with their duties.

Standing in her presence this closely, I felt like an insect. Her size added to the chill that ran through me when I craned my neck up to meet her gaze. Immediately that chill grew icy when I realized that I would barely be a morsel for her should she choose to eat me.

With her wings folded up neatly and held close to her body, she looked down at me.

"Come, William. Sit with me." She said with a calm voice and reserved smile on her face.

I took a spot next to her on the dais she was laying on. With my feet dangling over the edge, I watched the bustle in the room before us. Sitting next to her I began to feel a bit more relaxed as she spoke to me.

"I know you have come far, William." Her voice was deep, but soft and feminine, like velvet on my ears. "You have come to enter into the joining ritual?"

I nodded. I wasn't sure if she would see my response but when I stole a glance upward, I saw that she was keeping an eye fixed on me.

"The one that called to you, Arh'eoban, is a tender soul." She continued. "He has faced much. More than what is typical for a greater dragon of his stature."

I tried acknowledging, but my throat was still dry. I couldn't escape the sense that I was being scrutinized. It left me feeling raw.

"I need to know your heart, William." She continued. Her voice drifting down to me clearly. "I need to know whether your heart beats as one with his. The bond you are about to enter into with him is one that should not be taken lightly. So, I must see what resides inside you before I can bless your joining."

She was being protective. As such, her tone held a sternness to it, and was as solid as the platform we were sitting on.

"I..." I tried to begin but I didn't know what to say. So I simply nodded. When I eventually found the words to speak, they started to flow. What began as a trickle quickly became a torrent.

"I want to say that I feel something." I choked out. "And I think I might. We've only known each other for a short time but it feels like we've known each other for ages." I didn't know how else to express what I felt. "I just can't help but wonder if I've done the right thing... It seems crazy. Like I've lost my mind."

"Do you have doubts about joining with him?" She asked with eyes narrowed and a voice that barely hid her rigidity... It was a dreadfully familiar tone.

"I..." There was no way I could answer her question without stumbling on the words unless it was what I felt to be true. "I don't know."

Silence. Only for a moment, but every heart-beat contained within that brief moment was excruciating as the queen held me in her scrutiny.

"Honesty." She spoke simply, breaking me from my stupor as she turned her attention back to the hall.

I wanted to continue but I couldn't. The doubts I had and the anxieties they carried with them began to swirl inside my head. Their grip on my voice was stronger than I anticipated. I was afraid. I was scared of her. She was large and powerful. While every word from her mouth seemed to affirm the wisdom that only age could impart, she could have viewed me as a contemptible worm and gobbled me up in one bite and there wouldn't have been anything I could have done to stop her.

But above all that I worried I didn't deserve this. That I had somehow been brought to this world by mistake and I would be rejected as unworthy.

"I should be grateful that you have been honest with me, William." She continued. Her head moved down to look long and deep into my eyes. She paused for a moment, seeming to choose the correct words. "But it seems you have not fully understood what I meant when I said I want to know what your heart has to say."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood upright. Was this it? Was I going to be swallowed up by her?

"Look at me, William." Her eyes flashed like green fire and suddenly...

Nothing.

I was unable to see nor feel anything. Even the dais under me disappeared and I was now floating senselessly in a void. The darkness that enveloped me was so thick it clung to my senses like viscous gobs.

The only sound I could hear was the beating of my heart.

Panic started to gather around me. The familiar stinging bite at the edge of my thoughts coming to the forefront of my mind.

But with every beat of my heart, a very faint pulse of light rippled out. I didn't notice it at first but as my heart pounded, the pulses grew and built on to one another until, slowly, there was something for me to see.

And what I saw was... more nothingness. The only feature I could discern was a mirror-smooth body of water below me. Concentric rings rippling out with every beat of my heard to go off into the unseen distance.

The strangest thing was that this mirror of water I stood on didn't show my reflection, but clouds. Roiling and churning to match the thoughts running amok, causing whatever peace this new sight could give me to be shrouded in their chaos.

But I didn't have much time to reflect on what I was seeing because off in the distance a glow started to radiate. The light that sprung from this pin-prick in the distance warmed my skin like sunlight, penetrating me with feather-light fingers.

It was the soft glow of fire. A low, smoldering fire of magenta flames licking at the edges of an indiscernible form small in the distance, but growing increasingly larger the more I stared at it.

It grew to the size of a person but didn't stop there. It continued growing, and growing out to resemble the shape of a small dragon.

But it kept growing. Now it was larger than any dragon I'd seen. This fire that pulsated in the core of this bright flame eventually took the shape of the queen herself, complete with horns, tail and wings.

After it hung in the air for a brief moment, the fire then tumbled down her fiery body, licking at itself along the edges as it condensed, coming into the shape of a tall woman.

The flames continued cascading down her body to take on the shape of a gown made of silken light that grasped at her body like a lover. And at the end, when it had finally fallen down, the fire murmured low and glowed like embers along the hem.

A mane of silver curls erupted from a burst of light at her crown to tumble down her back, coming to a rest just above her waist. The horns on her head morphed into the appearance of a crown of gold and silver.

Her face had become clearer and more defined as the fire pulled away to reveal it. Her skin took on the luster of alabaster and she held herself regally. The very picture of beauty made real; elegant, proud, and dignified, but marked with the lines of a life that had seen many wonders and terrors.

"Hello, William." Her lips never moved. But despite their stillness, her voice came through clearly, running through me like water.

I tried to speak.

Nothing.

No words. No breath. Not even the sensation of moving my lips to try and form the words I wanted to say.

The nervousness already deep inside me renewed its vigor when I saw the reason for my paralysis; I didn't have a body. All that I was in this void was a dim light that hung in the air, quietly pulsating with every beat of my heart.

This was the queen's mind-magic on display.

"I brought you here because you need to know the gravity of what you're about to enter into." She paused, concentrating.

When she finished speaking, the darkness surrounding us gave way to threads of light that warped and wove around us, building a picture of a rough and jagged landscape, inhospitable and imposing with boulders jutting up like broken teeth.

Then an enormous mountain grew tall, piercing the sky and splitting it as it rose higher and higher.

The surrounding terrain grew more horrifying as details began to take form; bodies littered the ground all long past rotted and barren, sprouting from the land like pestilent blooms. Their barren smiles of tooth and fang all around, calling out to us with their skeletal grins. Everywhere around us these hollowed out bodies lay bare, emptied of their life, and cast down to the ground to be shattered and broken in their eternally silent penitence.

The sky was darkened, heavy with clouds red like clotted blood, and lightning slicing through the heavens, bringing their brilliant destruction down to gouge craters in the endless graves surrounding us. And in the sky, though visible only as silhouettes at first, eventually bloomed to show two greater dragons locked in battle; one with light scales, the other with dark scales.

Then sound began seeping in from the edge of our periphery; roars of terror, screams of anger, and the leathery flapping of wings beyond the grisly plains.

They flew apart, turned, and crashed together over and over. Fire clinging to their mouths as they took terrible bites out of their opponent's skin.

Everywhere around me was carnage and terror, on the ground, and in the sky.

"Long ago" she spoke, her voice coming through clearly despite the din. "There was a dragon whose name was Ieh'vohs."

As wings flapped and claws slashed, the two fighting dragons continued to tear into each other. Gouts of fire both sickly green and brilliant magenta poured forth as they crashed into one another again and again.

"We were keo'vah." When she said that, I saw that the lighter dragon had five horns. That must have been her. Seeing the way her dragon head whipped around to bite and tear at the darker dragon's body didn't feel like it fit with the calm grace that she had shown me thus far.

"He was our king." She continued and when she said that, his form became clearer. The deep green of his scales twinkled dully in the macabre twilight that coated the sky.

"His rule was terrifying." Her voice was soft, but her her calm demeanor couldn't conceal the savagery of the memories playing out before us.

"He was boastful and proud... But it was a fearful pride. A pride borne from envy and greed." As she spoke, his face became clearer. He appeared to be shouting words but they were drowned out by the noise of their battle.

"It wasn't always like this." Her voice became softer, more tender. "He was once kind and sincere. A true king. Despite the chaos of our world he worked tirelessly to keep our world from falling into the disarray of constant bloodshed.

"But he had been deeply hurt." The wordless shouting of the two colliding dragons invaded my ears with their shrieks and hisses.

"His heart grew cold and distant." The battle continued raging on as they slammed into one another, their crashes shaking the air with explosive tremors.

"A just and noble king struck low from the darkness robbing him of his clarity." More blows were exchanged between the two behemoths. Lightning shredded the air around them and illuminated the backdrop of the mountain they battled against.

"It was my fault." She said as her voice felt softer. "I felt his heart break. He was my keo'vah, but I had ignored his growing darkness.

"I knew he was losing himself to his pain. I could sense it. We were connected in many ways, not just through bond and body." I looked over to see her and saw that her eyes were wet. "Pride clouded my judgment. And the price paid for my hubris..." She stopped speaking, and looked down below the raging battle.

When I looked at where her eyes had fallen to, I saw six sparks of light appear. Their light was bright and shimmered like the sun, but they were small and could barely push out the darkness around them.

"We fought for years. A stalemate that tore at the very soul of the world; The very ground we called our domain." More fighting. The collisions causing the ground to rumble fearfully.

"He eventually fell... as his rule also fell." The dragons fell from the sky to land with a trembling crash.

"He refused to allow his anger to subside. Refused to let go of his pain." His body was battered and broken, now laying ruined on the ground. The one that cast him out standing over his body.

"I had no other choice." I did not see what happened, but the blood-curdling scream that tore through the air told me all I needed to know. "I needed to end his misery in the only way left to me."

When she, the dragon in the distance, stood up, I could see her muzzle dripping with blood and tatters of his flesh hanging from her teeth.

When I looked back to her, standing as we were and far removed from the carnage on display, I felt the agony in her posture, and her face. The dignified queen of all dragons was dealt a blow that reduced her to a shadow of her now lost pride.

"I wanted to join him." She said with a cracked voice as tears fell from her face. "I wanted nothing more than to join them."

From the outer edges of the horizon appeared many more glowing forms. More and more winking into view to fill the horizon. So many lights appeared that the remaining darkness was forced out as their light filled ever angle I could turn my eyes to.

"But they needed me." She gently sobbed. "My children were lost and confused. They needed guidance. They needed me to show them a better way." The landscape began to grow verdant and lush as fronds and grasses sprouted up to cover the horror of bones before us.

"So I stayed. I helped establish the laws and guided the tribes to what we have today." Cities started to pop up. Towers and temples growing from the ground like trees and spreading over the landscape like a blanket.

"But I never lost the memory of what I lost. A remembrance of the past. A reminder to strive to prevent the past's horrors from repeating." Turning to me now, she looked deep into me. "William." She said, reaching a hand out to touch my arm. "When a dragon loses all hope they face a choice; Two paths. One path leads to darkness. A place where their anguish and fury is unleashed on the world to exact its terrible vengeance. They become incarnations of destruction and terror itself.

"The other leads them back home. Back to us. To family." She nodded towards me. "Arh'eoban has endured much. A heart soft as his has brought much warmth and joy to the world. But when he came to me he was at just such a junction.

"He needed to find his way home to us." Her gaze now fixed on me as the scene around us melted away. "I did not have the answer he needed, but the gods above and below did. Through me their magic spoke to him."

"I had no knowledge of where the path they set him on would lead." She smiled, but only for a moment. "When my children are in pain, I feel it. And I must do what I can to ease it."

Then her emerald gaze pierced me as the seriousness of what she was about to say.

"That is why I need you to know this, William. It is why I need to know that your heart resonates with his because if it does not, then we may truly lose him."

"The gods have called to you to bear the greatest responsibility one could be entrusted with." She came closer, a smile growing on her lips. "The responsibility of love."

When she talked of him, of love, and loving him, the weak glow coming from me started to grow, giving my body form. Though when I looked at my hands, they appeared different; rougher, and clawed.

"How do I know if I'm the right one?" I didn't know how I was able to speak now, but when she heard me, her eyes focused on me.

"You know the answer to that already." She smiled with eyes warm and full. "But it may take time to truly discover what song resides in your heart."

She then lifted my chin with her hand... and where her fingers touched me, it felt like fire passed between us.

"You have much to learn. Much to understand." She turned to look to where the scene before had just faded. Though as much as I couldn't see anything, she seemed to, and the look that she held was a pensive one.

"You also harbor shadows inside of you." She said, then turned back to face me. "But I know your heart now, William."

She pulled me into an embrace, holding my head to her bosom tenderly. "You are dragon. Maybe not in body, but in spirit."

She released me. I felt solid now. Looking around, the light that was growing turned the air the colour of ivory.

"You did not need my blessing to receive his love. I guide my children, but I do not control them." She said. "And it would be foolish of me to speak on behalf of the gods above and below. But if you wish for my blessing to join with him, you surely have it now."

When she finished speaking those words, the mind-scape we were in started to dissolve, giving way to the hall before us. And when I looked at her, she was once again a dragon.

But something felt different. In her eyes the stoic and stern gaze she met me with was nowhere to be found. In it's place was a tenderness, like a mother gazing at her newborn child.

"You have brought him joy." She smiled. "And I believe he will bring joy to you. Such is the bond you share. You are keo'vah."

Hearing that word spoken about Arh and I pushed what few remnants of the queen's mind-magic that remained out of my vision. Now sober and clear-headed, the room looked far more vibrant and clear than when I first entered.

We turned to watch the rest of the activities. The tables that were being set now had cloths draped over them, waiting for whatever was to be placed on them. And along the outskirts of the hall, all the dragons that were engaged in their previous entertainment were waiting for the evening's celebration to begin while the sky outside had grown purple as the sun was slipping below the horizon to make way for the night.

And here we were, the two of us. A tiny human and an enormous dragon, sitting together, and basking in the serenity that resulted from our shared moment.

I wanted nothing more than to hold on to that feeling.