Bound To The Earth (Open Novella Contest 2020)

Free at last

I stood on a cliff, the gentle salty air playing with my hair and rustling my clothes. The sun rose on the horizon, lighting the world with its untainted light. Like the new day, this was a new world for the race of dragons.

Since the Awakened and High Dragons had the same visions for the rest of our race, the peace talks didn't take long. It wasn't even close to as heated as I had expected it to be, but was rather calm. Within three days the factions, the Awakened and High Dragons, had been dismantled, and in their place was a single, united, group; the Dragons of Acirema.

"Hey Alena." I turned my head, looking to Regdloth as he approached. I brushed my hair out of my face as he stepped up beside me, looking at the rising sun.

"It looks different now, doesn't it Reg," I said, turning back to the sun.

"Yeah, it does." His hand slipped into mine. The dragon within him was happy, I could see that.

So much had changed in the last three days, and every bit of it was wonderful and exciting. The curse had been lifted as soon as peace had been achieved between the two fractions, Volkun had stopped being rude to Regdloth, and I had finally found out what happened to my mother. Kalartizar had told me that she had died in the beginning of the war, like Volkun had read from the rune. Apparently Kalartizar had been there as she had died. She had given him a message to give to me, should he ever find me.

"She wanted you to stay safe, and keep on fighting in what you believed in," Kalartizar had said. As soon as he learned my name and knew I was Plamora's daughter, he had told me everything. My mother had joined the High Dragon's side because of him, they had been very close friends since a young age and due to that, she always believed in him and his cause. She had hoped that if the High Dragons had snuffed out the Awakened quick enough that it wouldn't lead to a war. My mother had never wanted to drag my father or me into the fight, rather she was hoping to keep us safe. She left suddenly in hope that her absence would do just that.

Another important discovery that we had made with the help of the former High Dragons was why I couldn't sense others. We had originally thought that I couldn't sense them, but had just learned that my ability was so weak that it was virtually nonexistent. With trial and error, we had discovered that I could sense others possessing very high magic only at extremely close range, that range strictly being physical contact. I don't know why, but when we found this out, some sort of invisible weight was lifted off my shoulders, one that I didn't even know was there.

"You ready?" Regdloth asked me. All I did was smile at him. With that, he let go of my hand and we both ran, our feet leaving the cliff. No longer attached to the earth, we began free falling towards the sea.

The wind greeted me like an old friend, whistling past my ears with a playfulness that was all too familiar. Closing my eyes, I let myself be thrown back to when I was the master of this domain. I knew every trick there was, every path that I could take. All the feeling and sensations that had been snatched from me for so long all rushed back. Just like that, I was back where I was supposed to be.

Unfurling my wings, I was thrown up into the sky with a joy that overflowed. The curse had been broken, breaking the chains that held me to the earth. My wings were mine once again. The freedom that I had craved all those long centuries that I had been forced to walk the earth had been granted back to me. And just like that, the one piece of my soul that was gone had returned; I felt completely whole once again. This was what I was meant to do, where I was meant to be.

I may not be in the right time, but I couldn't go back and live in that era. It was gone, and with it, the age of the dragons. There was one rule now, one rule only; no dragon can ever be seen by any humans. After all, we were only written in the pages of myths, and legends.