The Endless Forest

Eri fell backwards as several things happened at once. First, a beautiful ember-colored dragon landed on her. Second, an unignorable itch formed, forcing her to delve deeper into her head to ‘scratch’ it.

However, the moment she found it her mind became flooded with foreign emotions. This must be the bond… It left her in awe.

Something nuzzled her face, bringing her back to reality. Blinking, she stared up into a dragon’s face. It let out an excited chirp, almost vibrating in her arms.

“Ky-rith…” Eri muttered, almost to herself. The dragon stopped its nuzzling and looked deep into her eyes, cocking its head in the process.

Gently, she sat up, carefully moving the dragon so as to get a better look at him.

Kyrith was smaller than Zira when she had hatched, but not by much. However, whereas Zira’s features were rounder and sleeker, his were more sharp and angular. His ember colored scales mixed with a little black gave him a smoldering appearance, as if he was perpetually burning.

Eri continued to stare at the dragon, now partly in her lap. Like a new mother, she was speechless and continued to watch in wonderment at her newborn child.

No one else dared to speak, this was a crucial moment. Even Zira stayed back, though it was clear she wanted to properly ‘inspect’ him as well.

Kyrith’s stomach growled.

And just like that, the spell was broken. Laughter filled the den, echoing slightly. The poor dragon whimpered, Eri could feel his embarrassment faintly leaking into her mind.

“Shh, it’s okay little one. Of course you’d be hungry, you only just hatched.” Eri reached down and began stroking his head gently. “We’ll get you some food.”

Kyrith purred, and she tried her best to send her own affection through their bond. It must have worked, for he soon returned the gesture in kind.

Smiling warmly, she turned her head to the rest of the group. “Can someone go and fetch some food for him?”

Aluin nodded. “I’ll go–”

Uzreg interrupted. “Uzreg go! Uzreg get Chef and make feast! New Master eat till burst!”

Everyone turned to look at the kobold, apparently they had all forgotten about him. Before anyone could stop him he was gone.

Felix sighed. “I managed to save some food from dinner. It’s cold, but it should hold him until this ‘feast’ arrives.”

“Oh, thank you.” Eri said, surprised Felix saved anything. The human had the hunger of a dragon, though from some of the things he told her, that might not be too far from the truth…

As they waited for him to return, Zira finally took the opportunity to cautiously approach. She got down low, so as to not seem threatening and stuck her snout out towards the smaller dragon.

Kyrith lifted his head towards her, curiosity in his eyes. The two dragons immediately began to sniff each other. A moment later, they started chirping.

It was a little strange to watch, but both seemed to be getting along. In fact, a moment later Zira curled up right next to Kyrith, and began her own purring.

Eri watched on as the smaller dragon nestled himself between her and Zira. So adorable… She thought, however she quickly noticed something else. Zira had grown, quite a bit actually. If she had to guess, the larger dragon was now closer to a hundred pounds.

She briefly wondered how quickly Kyrith would grow, but quickly squashed that thought. It didn’t, and wouldn’t, matter to her, she would care for him no matter what.

A few moments later, Felix returned and both Kyrith and Zira lifted their heads up. In the human’s hands was a tray filled with food.

Almost immediately, Kyrith tried to stand only to fall down clumsily. Eri felt frustration enter her mind, and carefully got up to help the newborn dragon who was now struggling to his feet.

Helping him up, she sent encouragement through their bond. The next moment, Kyrith took his first step… Then his second…

Zira stood up then and placed herself on his side, acting as a support for the younger dragon. Together, Eri and her helped Kyrith make his way over to Felix.

Seeing what was happening, the human had decided to lay the tray at his feet and stepped back.

“Thank you,” she said again to him, seeing a blush forming on the man’s face.

“It’s nothing. I just thought…” He trailed off, apparently too embarrassed to finish his sentence.

Kyrith made it over to the food and let out a triumphant chirp before digging into his meal. Seeing the dragon happily eating away, Eri brought her attention fully onto Felix.

“You had the foresight to save some food for him, that’s not nothing. So, thank you.” She watched him rub his neck awkwardly. Something stirred within her.

“You’re wel–”

Eri cut him off by coming up and hugging him, surprising them both. However, the moment ended as quickly as it began, Kyrith started chirping excitedly.

The two quickly separated and did their best to avoid eye contact with each other, instead they looked down at the dragons. Kyrith was nuzzling a slab of cooked meat over to Zira, letting out a string of happy noises in the process.

Zira, for her part, waited patiently for the younger dragon to finish, before bending down and eating the piece of meat in one bite. She too let out a happy little yelp as she licked her snout.

Felix cleared his throat. “I, uh… I need to speak with Aluin. Do you mind watching Zira?”

“Oh! S-sure. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.” She stammered, only now realizing the full extent of what she did. To make it worse, she had completely forgotten her Master was still there and probably watched it all happen.

She slowly turned and eyed Aluin, and indeed, he had a rather amused smile on his face. Eri gulped.

“Hmm? You wish to speak with me? And here I thought I should probably give you two lovebirds some space.” Her Master said, clearly teasing her and Felix. It worked, causing her entire body to flush with her ears burning almost painfully.

For his part, Felix froze, apparently also forgetting the other elf had been there. “Well… I-I, uh… I mean, I, you… We should talk about the future!” he struggled to get out after quickly whipping around to face Aluin.

“Hmm? I see… Indeed, that would be wise.” Aluin's smile slowly faded and turned thoughtful. “Then let’s discuss this privately, I’m sure Eri wishes to spend more time with Kyrith.”

Felix nodded before practically running out of the den, leaving her Master to shake his head and chuckle. “You know,” he said, waiting a few moments for the human to be out of earshot. “He likes you. Do with that what you will.”

Before Eri could process what her Master just said, the other elf turned and followed after Felix. All she could do was stand there, frozen, while the two dragons devoured the tray of food at her feet…

Felix chose to sit down on one of the mats that laid outside the den, otherwise he felt he would not be able to control his emotions. Between Zira’s scolding, hatching the egg, and the sudden hug from Eri; he was a nervous, but excited, wreck.

Luckily, things were calming down and while it was definitely late– Or early, depending on how you looked at it –This was the perfect time to discuss his and Zira’s future plans. No one was going to be sleeping anytime soon, that was for sure…

Aluin appeared out of the den, wearing what could only be described as a devilish smile, and proceeded to come and join Felix on a separate mat.

“So, the future?” Aluin asked, sitting down across from him.

“The future…” Felix repeated, still fighting his emotions.

“You want to find more elves who are compatible, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah… But not just elves, dwarves too and whoever else might be here.”

The elf leaned back in thought for a few moments before speaking again. “Well, I would suggest starting with elves only. The other races aren’t going to be nearly as receptive towards you.”

“Oh…” He frowned, forgetting that humans were hated here.

“But I did have a question of my own, how many eggs are you planning to hatch?”

“I…haven’t thought that part through all the way. How many eggs did you say were here? Four hundred to five hundred?”

“Something like that, yes.” Aluin confirmed.

Felix had to look around, in total there were only about twenty dens. Even if we take in consideration that most of them hold more than one egg, that doesn’t add up. So–

“–Where are all the eggs? No way are there that many here.”

Aluin shrugged. “Honestly, I am not sure. But I counted at least that many being brought here.”

His eyes flitted to the portal off in the distance. “Could they be in some kind of storage? Like the ones out here are the ones that were the closest to hatching, and the others put up somewhere?”

“That’s entirely possible, perhaps that is where the portal leads to.” The elf said, obviously noticing where he was looking.

“I’m starting to wonder about that… But where could it actually lead to? Somewhere else in the Endless Forest? Or maybe, it leads deep underground?”

“Hmm… It is possible that it leads to some sort of outpost. In the early days, The Queen, Fea, had talked about setting up several of those. Though, to my knowledge at least, that never came to pass.”

“So…? Perhaps underground then? Like a secret basement to this place, maybe?” Felix attempted.

“Have you tried just opening it and seeing where it goes?” Aluin asked sarcastically, sounding a little annoyed.

He shrank a little at that. It is the most obvious way to find out, and it was built by Fea so it shouldn’t be dangerous… Right? In truth he was apprehensive about it, but why, he really didn’t know.

Heh, maybe because every time I stick my nose into something it ends poorly… He had to shake the thought away, it wasn’t exactly wrong but it wasn’t helpful either.

“I…find it a little unnerving to be honest with you.” Felix said.

Aluin cocked an eyebrow at that. “You find that unnerving? Honestly, just when I thought I was understanding you, you throw, as the dwarves like to say, a wrench into it.”

The elf took a deep breath and exhaled. “Okay, let’s just set that aside for now and get back on topic. How many eggs do you want to hatch?”

Felix had to think on that again. It might be best to try and hatch all the ones here presently… But maybe not all in one go, maybe a half-dozen or so at a time?

“I think I want to hatch them in batches, I was thinking six at a time. I’ll need to do a proper count of how many are actually here, of course, but I think that would be manageable.”

“And how long of a wait between these ‘batches,’” Aluin asked.

“That…I’m not sure. A few months, a few years? I just don’t know. What do you think?” Felix looked directly at the elf.

“The wise part of me says to take this very slowly, but I somehow doubt you would agree. So my suggestion would be to wait until they can fly, perhaps with their companion.”

Felix didn’t like that idea. That would still take a long time, decades to hatch them all. Especially when you realize most of the eggs can fit in one hand… He didn’t want to rush it, but he wasn’t sure if he could wait that long.

Maybe I don’t have to though… His thoughts turned towards Zira, who was currently napping with Kyrith. She has already made friends with him, and was even helping him learn how to walk…

“What if,” He spoke up, “we use the first batch to help with the second batch? Then the second batch to help the third, and so on? We could even double the size of each batch, not to mention they would all have a companion who would be overall responsible for them.”

Aluin put a hand up to his chin in thought. “I can see the merit of that… I do worry if we could find enough people who could hatch all the eggs though.”

“How many elves live in the Endless Forest?”

Aluin’s face darkened. “Tens of thousands, if that… The dwarves are about the same, and the gnomes are even worse off. Things are not going well.” There was a somber tone to the elf’s voice as he spoke.

Felix looked down, shocked. “Oh… I didn’t–”

“It’s fine, of course you wouldn’t know. I never told you. However, depending on the exact traits that Zira would look for, we might not be that bad off. Perhaps we’ll need to do some extensive interviews and screening to ensure we only get the best, but I can’t say if we’ll end up with enough people in the end.”

Felix nodded, still processing what Aluin had just told him. “We could be more selective in the beginning, and then less so afterwards.” He finally said.

“That is true, but it’s more about, can we train people to have the traits or is it something more profound and inherent to the individual?”

“What do you mean?” He asked, looking back up at the elf.

“I mean, all we have to go off on is Zira’s definition of ‘safe,’ that would be hard to figure out without her. I know she ‘tastes’ the mana she eats, but there is so much that goes into a person’s mana that it would be hard to know the specific traits she’s looking for.

“Some of those traits can be taught and learned, but others come from the very essences of a person’s soul. That’s what has me worried. If we are looking for something more on that line, then we might not find more than a handful of people in the entire forest…”

Felix had to lay down after hearing that, his head nearly bursting with information he barely understood. It didn’t help that he and Zira both needed more training, and there was only one real option for that…

Eri and Kyrith are one thing, but six random people and six hatched dragons? And we’ve got to be the confident ones here. There is still much we have to learn ourselves. He rolled over on his side, looking up towards Aluin.

“Do you think we can do this, me and Zira?” He asked, now starting to heavily doubt himself.

“Felix, only you could do this. You and Zira will need more training, but comparatively, the people out in the forest are worse off. After your fight with the dire wolves, I am no longer concerned about whether you can do this or not.”

That definitely made him feel better, but now he was wondering just how bad things were out there. Aluin seemed to pick up on this, somehow.

“The forest is mostly safe, thanks to the dragon spirits. But there are still areas that are extremely dangerous. Unfortunately, there is little cohesion between the elven tribes–”

“Tribes?” Felix interrupted with.

“Yes, after we were all moved here, people began to split into smaller groups. Those groups eventually became tribes. The other races did similar things as well. It just became much easier to manage, especially when resources were spread so far apart.”

“Do they not trade with each other?”

Aluin nodded. “They do, but it's easier to just pick up and move once an area has run out of whatever resource they need. We elves have become rather nomadic over time, for better and for worse. Though news still spreads quickly throughout the tribes, meaning everyone already knows about you.”

“I see…” Felix said, closing his eyes. His headache was returning in full force, and it was due to mana overuse this time. “I’d like to see some of those tribes.”

“Get some sleep, we can talk more later.” Aluin said. There was some rustling as the elf got up. “I’m going to go check on Eri…”

Ithea took a deep breath, feeling the cool air rushing past her. It was late in the night, but she really needed to stretch her wings. Her first encounter with Felix had been…interesting to say the least.

Her plan for testing the human had been a major success, at least in her mind. Though the dire wolves and kobold hadn’t exactly been what she was looking for… It still went much better than she could’ve hoped for.

And all it cost me was to spend the last few days with those damn kobolds… She let out a grumble. If it were up to me, he wouldn’t have spent his time sleeping. He needs to train, Zira needs to train. They are not ready.

The truth was, the world was a very scary and dangerous place. And even though she loathed Felix, even she could see the usefulness of having him around. But only if he gets stronger!

She let out a frustrated roar.

The war is not over, why can’t that stupid little ‘Sage’ not understand that? Does he not realize its because of me and the others that keep this fucking island safe?

How many more humans must I slay? How many more dragons must be put to rest? Even the other races have suffered enough. Let us finally end this!

She opened her massive jaws and spewed forth her void magic, completely erasing a large section of empty forest below her.

She transformed into her humanoid form and began falling to the ground. She did not care, it wouldn’t even leave a scratch, let alone hurt her.

Ithea crashed into the center of the crater she made, staring up into the night sky. Tears formed as old memories flooded back into her mind.

All I have left is my daughter, and even she doesn’t see me as her mother…

Just let me die.

A single spirit hung over her, just out of reach. She tried anyway.

Please, take me with you…