Tame the Thunderbird | chapter (1)

The clouds are parted by the wind and a beautiful view is opened for a sight to behold. From the height of the tallest mountain The Canyon of Thousand Dragons can be seen, a long deep thread of rocks and caves with dragons and their owners. Soon I'm gonna be home after a long journey, but now I should enjoy the view.

Suddenly magical thunder exploded somewhere not very far away, and so my dragon yelled while diving for the ground... Unfortunately, I can't fully control such a beast - I am still a young mage beast-tamer - so I have to adapt. Now I have to do something to preserve my luggage and life, after all the pressure of air as well as speed are high. Ultimately, I decided to talk with a dragon since I am not powerful enough to trick him or to force him into submission.

Talking...Communication...Negotiation...relatively ambiguous yet important things when we talk about humans. Fortunately, I am not one of the humans which populate most of the world - I am skif. My kind is similar to both humans and dragons so we have developed not only languages and politics like humans, but also have developed a biological way to feel the dragons by creating a "bridge" between our neurons thus allowing two of us to feel each other without words, sounds, and any ambiguity.

I touched the skin of the dragon with my right hand, tuned my life energy to that of the dragon, and using external magical force I started to build the "bridge". This process is not instantaneous yet very fast since I have affinity toward lightning; however, the last step in this situation is very difficult, because my connection in this instant should be perfect - no anxiety, no fear, no anger - I need to exchange encrypted keys which prevent external interference - quite demanding condition to satisfy while I am falling and thus about to die...

Yet, the thought about death calmed me... after all I have been living my life so as not to have regrets and the prospect of learning the mysteries of death is quite intriguing, isn't it? Moreover, the dragon, it seems, decided to dive because of the unusual disturbance in the magical fields thus it was outside of my control. Yet I could have lived a happy life, damn magic!

... - Thud - ... I finally connected to the dragon and in an instant we came to an agreement because we felt each other. After a second dragon started to glide steadily, and so, once again, I could see my homeland. Of course, this enormous pigeon wanted some meat and a day off after landing, greedy bird.

Anyway this reminded me about the bliss my kind has - peace. Because we feel dragons, we are at peace with dragons; because dragons are very powerful, our kind was united since the dawn of time to protect each other. History taught us to protect the peace at any cost and thus allowed the land of dragons to be a center of trade, learning, and independence. For these reasons, peace of mind and community are above anything else in The Land of Dragons and in skifs' hearts.

At the same time humans, even though more frequent in this world, are scattered and reside in many different countries fighting among each other and with demons. As a result the land of dragons has not been conquered by humans during great wars and now many countries negotiate with the Land of Dragons about the auxiliary services skifs offer.

These services include mercenary, training, audit, construction, manufacturing and tourism (in other words espionage). I am a member of a training and mercenary middle class family; however, my brunch is different because of a strange for skifs magical affinity toward the lightning instead of fire. For this reason, my branch is specifically focused on manufacturing and espionage services (mainly to ensure that the whole family gets up-to-date and good quality equipment; yet, even though we are vital for our family, my branch is treated, lets say, "differently" because of our "difference").

Anyway, the dragon notified me that the landing would soon commence so I had to destroy the "bridge" and prepare to see familiar places... after a long year I finally about to came back. Yet something seems off - there are no paladins and their dragons - nobody protects common landing port - there is very little movement around. At closer distance I also see that everything is kinda burned a little and magic is depleted at some places. Finally, I noticed that two big warehouses are covered by illusion or some other kind of advanced deceptional magic...It seems this place was raided and these warehouses are probably destroyed. A terrible sight.

I hope that the warehouse which belongs to my family is safe - after all the reason I landed here is to take a bunch of stuff which I stored there (our house is pretty far away from the populated area because of the family's experiments). I am especially worried about the raven which I left there - I have been training him for a long time - his skill to deceive enemies is quite impressive. Anyway, unless I get there I won't know for sure - so better get going.

On my way I saw a couple of ruins and injured poor people who were, probably, caught in the fight without the ability to run - unfortunate souls. Everything looked kinda dark - nobody was trying to sell the staff while I was going... One person was even walking without a left arm and with the right one covered in blood. Even though no action was happening while I was walking I could hear the sound of fire somewhere nearby and smell the smoke of magical deception attacks. It looked like a lava flood disaster, yet this place is far from the rivers of lava...

Finally, I knocked on our warehouse's door and waited with anxiety for an answer - I am already sick thanks to the sight I saw while walking here and if my family was affected, it would be my last straw - or something like this (I still struggle with human languages). Somebody is coming. Our family's worker with my raven on his shoulder opened the door and greeted me. He seemed to be covered in ashes... It was a startling sight - especially after he said that half of the family's equipment for other branches in this warehouse was destroyed.

This was terrible news because the blame will fall on our small branch of lightning mages. Other branches will try to use us to affirm their superiority above "weird lightning" brunch. I would not be surprised if these "family members" paid the attackers so they would take a small detour to destroy our warehouse in addition to their main objectives. Anyway, this news means trouble for my pride and peace of my brunch

From the words of a worker, I deduced that the rivalry between some mercenary clans achieved such a degree that the police, which is basically used to protect citizens from each other, was unable to prevent the collision of two clans. So a couple of hours ago the clan of Fire-rivers attacked the Woodland clan in order to acquire a couple of very powerful artifacts. These fighters forgot about peace - they used magic to wreak havoc which was, apparently, strong enough to cause magical disturbances in the air...

Suddenly, a couple of big explosions shook the ground so hard that everyone should have felt it, but I did not - I was not there - I thought about peace and my family. The peace have never been destroyed in my sight before - all skirmishes between skifs's clans were far away from me and most of them were diplomatic debates - so I always thought that the Land of Dragons is the land of peace without violence. However, I recall that even in my family branches spy on each other. Everyone tries to assure superiority by any means necessary and the main such instrument is magic - without magic such violence would not be possible...

The worker woke me up and asked for orders. I was thinking slowly while beholding the sight of destruction but I was moving quickly - so I was already on my dragon when I replied in frustration that we should get airborne so we could access the situation.

The dragon roared while standing on its back feet and then charged through the smoke.

Will my brunch ever be treated with dignity in a world with magic?

Will these clans stop causing so much trouble in a world with magic?

Will I ever find The Peace in this world for my restless soul?

I hope so... otherwise I should change it... I will do it...

To be continued...