A Dog Father Cannot Beget a Dragon Son

[Interlude] (7)

[Interlude: World 7]

The first and only words his mother has ever said to him were, "Your name is Brixon." He knows this for certain because draconics, even half-draconics, were conscious and remembering since inside the egg. And he could never forget the warmth of that voice, the physical comfort of as a scalding hot breath of air curled around him, and the terrible chill that took their places when his mother collapsed on herself and started snoring. 

She waited for as long as she possibly could for him to hatch. But then, just as he did, her natural biology took over and force her to hibernate and recuperate her expended energy. 

And just like that, she was gone for all that she was still there. 

** ****

The first three years, Brixon sustained himself on the foods that his mother had collected prior to her hibernation. He craved, more than the sustenance itself, that tiny sliver of warmth that came with imagining his mother, in her pureblood draconic glory, fumbling about everberry bushes to pick those small little fruits for him. It was the same warmth that came when he crawled over to the small space under his mother's scaly leg, the wonderful heat that radiated off of her. Cradling the fruits in his small, halfblood and decidedly human-like fingers, Brixon looked at his slumbering mother and wished, just a little, that it was her with him and not these berries. 

Then he stuffed them in his mouth and told himself to stop being so ungrateful. 

** ****

Brixon ventured out of his mother's cave eventually, and ran into one of their neighbors. 

"A brat!" A dragon with glasses shouted in alarm, dropping to the ground and snorting steam. Brixon nearly retreated right back into the cave."

Whose treasure are you?" boomed the copper dragon, squinting at him over copper lenses. The dragon lifted up and sniffed the air. He looked down at Brixon, parts amazed and disgusted. "You're Malkar's child? What are you, a halfblood? I never thought she'd actually do it with a human, that crazy woman." 

He turned to bellow into the cave, "YO, MALKAR! LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!"T

hat was when he caught sight of Brixon's slumbering mother, and then there was nothing on his face but pity. 

Brixon didn't need it. He didn't. 

**

 "Ahhh! Who are you?" 

"Hoo are yuu?" Brixon said right back, yellow eyes slitting, before giving up on the endeavor and snarling the question in draconian. This was his cave. 

The girl puffed up. "I'm princess Lulubelle, of the Moonlight Kingdom," she said. "I was taken from my palace by Sir Ignaeus." Her hair spun like gold and her ruby lips shone like a precious stone. Brixon feels a sudden urge to hoard. "Now who are you?"

"Bricks-ton" said Brixon, angry at her impudence. "This my cave. Leeve!" 

** ****

She left alright, gasping when he bared his fangs at her. 

Then she came back the next day, and suddenly Brixon didn't know how to deal with that. 

A person who came back....wow. 

** ****

"Bricks-ton," the princess says one day, eyes narrowed in concentration (it's a very attractive look on her), "would you like to learn how to read and write?" 

What use have draconics for the thinking of tiny humans? "Yesssssh," he says anyway, trying his hand at the human tongue. He would never care for nor need human speech, but he was sorely lacking in friendship and for his first little friend (okay, fine, she was the same size as him) he reckoned he would do almost anything. 

** ****

He should have stayed away. 

He should have known better than to make himself need someone he couldn't keep. 

"Why did you let her go?!" he roared at Ignaeus, burning with rage. He bet if he'd tried right now to breath fire, he could do it. "Why did you let that stupid prince take her?!" 

Ignaeus didn't so much as crack an eye at him. "This was the deal I made with her father, dracoling," he yawned, an earthshaking rumble. "And if you value your life, get the hell out of my cave." 

Brixon returns to his cave and quietly presses his face against the steady warmth of his mother's body. "I have something to do, Malkar. I'll come back when you wake." 

****** 

He sees a flash of steel armor and lets himself transform, wings sprouting and nails elongating. "THIEF. SHE IS MINE," he snarls a guttural sound, and attacks the man who fancies himself a prince and a bigshot, the man who steals other people's treasures. 

The prince meets him blow for blow and Brixon finds himself stunned by the strength behind the sword. "No, she is mine! She is to be my wife!" declares the prince, and Brixon feels an even stronger urge to get the princess away from this dunce.

"No, Prince Lucar! You mustn't!" yells the princess, worry clear in her voice. In this moment, Brixon feels his face go slack. The next sentence brings with it a pang of deep betrayal, as the princess says, "He's a halfblood dragon!" 

The prince shakes his head. "For as long as you are behind me, princess, I would face down any enemy." 

When the blade falls on his neck, Brixon doesn't even feel it. 

****** 

(Fei Chuan wakes up in a sea of darkness, disoriented by his decades long nap. He's in the Prelude. 

The plot is over.)