As far as anyone could tell, it was a calm night in the village – a simple and peaceful night. There had been no raids; the hunt carried on as usual, early in the morning; the Healers carried on with their duties; and the Keepers of Scrolls did not leave their library from sunrise to sunset.
It was an uneventful night and not memorable at all – save for the story my mother told me right before my eyes went to rest for the night.
Mother stood at the edge of our tent’s entrance, looking up to the stars. Tonight she hummed a lullaby to herself and rested the palm of her right hand over her heart. She made a graceful turn toward me while I rested in my cot.
“Delly,” she spoke softly. “Have you ever wondered about your birthmark? Why should I be so unmoved by its strange nature?”
This took me off guard. “Mother, are you feeling alright?”
She looked at me with a smile. “I am unmoved by your birthmark because I have the same one. My father did before me, and so on until as far back as no one can specify.”
Mother pulled the collar of her loose, night blouse down, just to the point where I could see the top edge of her birthmark. It resembled mine – a blazing snowflake just above the heart.
I could not make sense of the feelings I had. Somehow I thought I should be afraid that we shared the same mark, but suddenly I felt more at peace, less like an outcast. As I had been getting older, this now being my ninth year of breath, it was obvious that I did not fully belong to Elf culture. Yes, I was growing up in the rites and rituals of Elves, but something about me seemed too human to the clan. The sharpest Elf feature about me was that I had the very same eyes as my father. And yet the older I became, the more like my mother it seemed I would become.
Touching the spot on my own chest, and filling with curiosity and anxiety, I asked, “Mother, what does it mean?”
She took in a deep breath, and sighed. She pulled a chair from our dining area and set it next to my cot.
In a low voice, she said, “Deldorn, as you know, my father and I did not get along. I am an exile in my father’s eyes. And I remain a Dundragon to the Elves, whether or not they acknowledge it with their mouths. I fear the traditionalism of the Elves is drowning out my human nature, and I also fear the pride of the Dundragons swelling deep within me, ready to burst. The harder I try to push that pride away, the more it longs to claw its way out.”
Her eyes watered at the corners.
“This morning I received word by Messenger that – ” Here she drew in a quick breath. In timelessness, everything seemed to go still, and suddenly when my mother spoke again, the world spun on its axis like it had since the beginning of time.
“Deldorn, your grandfather is dead.” She let a tear fall to the ground. I had nothing to say, no words of comfort. I had not known my grandfather; family, to me, was my mother and father. I had never seen such humanity since my first day of breath.
“Mother, will you be alright?”
“Son, I have the High Truth with me wherever I go, in any situation, at all times. I will carry on. We will carry on.” She found her footing again. “It has been almost ten years since I last spoke to my father, and I have missed him dearly. But I made my choice when I followed my whims to love Sarberos. I do not regret that, Delly. I do not.”
She breathed deep. “I only regret that I tried to suppress Father’s memory, that I allowed my bitterness to tarnish all the good times we shared. So, may I tell you a story? A story about the Silver Dragon; it’s one that my father always told me – every year on my day of breath he would spout out new, mystical details.”
“If that would make you happy, then I would love to hear the story of the Silver Dragon.”
She smiled, relishing in Dundragon pride.
“It all starts with the mark of the Silver Dragon. The blazing snowflake signifies a magic promise, promised to every generation of Dundragon blood, that the Dragon’s final heir would become a great adventurer, an adventurer who would cross the wildest seas, trek the driest lands, slaying beast after beast until total annihilation overtook the whole earth. Creating heap after heap of dead waste in his trail, the Silver Dragon’s heir was promised to be as pure as Death itself, never knowing love but only losing it and ripping it from everyone else’s grasp.”
Something childish grew within my mother and burst forth. Death? Annihiliation? Dragons? This does not sound like Mother, I thought.
She continued, “The heir of the Silver Dragon will be as cold as ice, even colder, freezing to the point that he burns everything in his wake. He will be all-consuming, but that’s where it ends. I want to tell you where it all began. Where did this mark come from?
“As you know, we Dundragons are Tethyrian. But if you know anything about Tethyr, you know that it’s home to a wide variety of people groups. Dundragon is a Chondathan name of origin, and it is all but forgotten. Few records remain. We have been farmers for such a long time, that no one dares to notice us; to others we are but lowly servants, hidden in the open fields. Hardly any Dundragons remain, but at one time we were mighty warriors, masters of daggers and swords, skilled in navigation and insight.
“Once long ago there was a Chondathan warrior by the name of Este Dundragon. She hiked the harsh lands of the barren Wealdath. After exhaustion from battle with an ancient beast, she came to rest in the shadow of what seemed to be a molten cavern. Exhausted she searched the land for fresh water, and after hours of search she found nothing. Scoping the land for several more hours, she gave up, headed back to where she had been, and found an opening in the molten cavern. She climbed in.
“In her state of delirium, she heard the tale-tell drip of water. She crept ever further into the darkness, still groping for hydration. Unbeknownst to her, this opening in the side of the molten cavern was home to the very beast with whom she had fought hours previously. And the beast was the Silver Dragon.
I felt my heart pitter-patter with excitement and childish dread.
“Son, one thing you must know about dragons: they are tricksters. The Silver Dragon had damaged her biologically, battering her with all the power he could muster. By driving her to thirst and depriving her of hydration in a barren land, he damaged her psychologically. He had taken everyone from her and slaughtered them, including her fiancé, giving her no hope of a family.
“Now, the Silver Dragon stood outside his molten cavern while she crept further toward the drip-drip-drip. Just outside the entryway, the trickster glowed an ethereal blue light. It overpowered his shimmering scales, and then it condensed his form, morphing him into another shape entirely – a human shape. After the light faded into the wind, there stood the Silver Dragon in the form of a man. But his eyes betrayed him. He calmly walked closer toward Este, whispering her name, calling to her that she would walk out of the darkness and meet him in the low-fading light of day.
“She walked toward him, hand clasped around her dagger, but once she made eye contact with him, she was under his control. He had impressed her with his beauty – a powerful and tempting beauty, an ethereal gift of the dragons. He worked his way into her mind, stealing every positive emotion from her very soul that he could manage to find. And he broke her spirit. In a second, the Silver Dragon was everything to Este Dundragon.
“She worshipped him on the spot. She fell in love with him. And right there in the cave, the Silver Dragon had his way with Este. The love she felt for him was impure; it was wrong. Under the power of his cruel, cold temptation, everything of Este Dundragon was burned away. She became pregnant after the encounter, and he left, never to be seen again. The Silver Dragon had an heir in their son, and Este was left to the shadows, writhing in agony from a broken heart.
“From her broken heart emerged the mark – the blazing snowflake above her heart. And now the same blood flows through our veins, carrying the mark with it.”
Deldorn Dundragon 