Dark Conversation

I am making a novel that will be highly illustrated in the style of anime/manga. This is one of the main characters in it. His name is Tomikai Ryu. If you wish to see more art of him, feel free to follow the links below.

<--previous<-- -->next-->

Felt it was high time for some Ryu Realism. Not much more to say about that, he's talking with a dragon... can't tell if the dragon is nice or not... but it looks like it has a mean eye. Anyway, I hope you all like it.

From near the end of In The Time of Dragons

It was dark, but he was sure this was where the note said to meet. All at once, he felt an ominous presence coming up from behind him. He didn’t need to turn to know what he would see. He tapped into his inner strength, just as Kojisai had explained and felt strength and a keenness of sight that was still new to him flow in. He needed his senses as sharp as possible if he was right. “What do you want?”

“To meet you and tell you the truth.” The voice was deep and graveling… but more importantly, it was immense, kept at a whisper, but still strong. Somewhat shocked, Ryu turned to face the voice, only to be overwhelmed by a great read eye. The dragon was much closer than he had been aware, and a chill ran through him. What’s more, from the eye color, he knew it was a black dragon, one whose heart had been enveloped by black magic. These were dangerous and never to be trusted.

“From you, why should I believe what you say?” He betrayed none of his fear in his voice, but he knew the dragon wasn’t fooled.

“You’re right. I’m evil, so why should you listen to me. No doubt, I’m trying to deceive you because I can only think and care for myself.” There was a sense of mockery in his voice. Ryu faltered in his certainty. The dragon continued. “It just shows how little you know about black magic. I dabbled in it for the sake of revenge, so that is the only thing that drives me now, and since I seek not to punish you… yet… you are safe, human.” This was followed by something that sounded rather like a threatening laugh mixed with the grinding of rocks.

“Revenge?” Ryu understood revenge and how it ate at someone, consuming them, whether they dealt in magic or not. He remembered how he had felt when Aiyasha was murdered, and how he would have traded anything to destroy those responsible. “But who…”

“My own kind, long ago, and even today. They are despicable. You think that they care about humans, but the truth is that they hate humans more than anything and everything they do is to bring about their destruction.” The dragon paused to see if he had Ryu’s interest yet.

“What about Miakai, she doesn’t hate…”

“She is a hatchling not long ago, and to her, you and the girl are her parents… when she grows that might change. She cares not for other humans, if it seems to be so, it is only an act. Why do you think she is so quick to join in on your battles, and why does she have no regrets when she acts with the cruelest of attacks?” This hit Ryu hard. It was true. She was rather ruthless… but… “You perhaps want proof. But this involves a story. This will take time, so leave now if you wish not to hear any of this lunacy.”

Ryu turned to leave, and started to walk, but he felt his feet pause. A frown came over his face as he realized that he needed to hear this out. Without turning, for he was too disgusted by the dragon’s nature to look at it, he sat down on a fallen log. “Then you’d better say it before I change my mind, dragon.”

He could sense a grin almost, than the dragon began. “We do not come from this world, you know. We come from another… our sister Earth… when the world was brand new, we were just ideas, but as it solidified, as the rocks took form, the fate stones came into being things changed. These stones were content for a time, but eventually, they got bored of being still and so they projected their energy out and became four creatures. The stones were still all there, but now they had a body they could project their consciousness into and see the world and universe. These four beings were elemental in nature, one of water, one of fire, one of earth and one of air. Sound familiar?” Ryu thought of the four basic dragons and remembered hearing of the original four elder dragons. Were these them? “Well as the Earth was barren at the time, they grew bored again. Living for an eternity leads to a great deal of this, you understand. Well they decided to spark life. It took a long time for life to come about, but they could wait, and even when they made it first, creating creatures somewhat like them… but stupid, they decided that was no good. They cleaned the Earth of that kind of life and started again, this time creating a great variety, and even beings that were capable of more than just survival, as all the other animals were.

“As I’m sure you’ve guessed, these were humans. At first, they were pitiful weak and to the dragons, cute… so they helped then and taught them… but humans grew in knowledge, power and ambition. Soon they decided to create their own gods and the dragons that were once deified, were turned into devils. That is when the war started. At first, it was just an occasional skirmish, but over time, it grew to monumental proportions, and it wrecked havoc on the land and animals they loved so dearly. It became clear at that point that humans and dragons could not live together in the same world. They decided to use the power of the fate stones… their deepest power, to destroy humans, and write them out of existence. That was the turning point, when dragons and humans truly became enemies… but not every dragon felt that way. They held a council, and tried to convince the two rogue dragons, who still had feelings for humans to hate them as well, for the fate stones would not work properly unless all the dragons agreed.”

“Couldn’t just one dragon use it?” Ryu asked, confused.

“No, there are laws. The more people who use it, the less likely that the recreated universe will be biased in one individuals favor to a level that is destructive to the fabric of existence.” He waited to see if Ryu understood, and the lack of response seemed to verify this, so he continued. “So when they found that they could not turn these human sympathizers, they came up with a new plan. They would leave the sister world and create a new one, at the same time, sealing magic away from the human world so they couldn’t destroy the world. This seemed to satisfy everyone.”

“But humans are still here, on this world. How did that…”

“Unfortunately, one dragon still longed to human contact. This caused the fate stones to recreate humans, on this world now. But after a time without humans. This of course led to that dragon’s exile when it was discovered what happened. Seeing that they could neither kill nor abandon the humans as things were, they set about finding as many ways as possible to control humans, slowly twisting fate and destiny using simpler magic to create a future that will eventually lead to the extinction of humans. They created a prophecy about this too. You should be quite familiar with this… something about an old world dying and a new one being born again, heralded by the wings of a welven which burn like a phoenix.” Ryu’s heart skipped a beat and he turned abruptly, to see that the dragon had come into the moonlight slightly and a look, not evil or angry, filled his massive face. “Yes, little one, you are an instrument, conceived by the dragons long ago to ensure the destruction of the human race.” Ryu’s head started to spin, and he felt weak all of a sudden. Powerless; that is what it was… absolute powerlessness. “The wars that recently took place were part of the plan, and now everything is set up for the final blow.”

“Why tell me this…” He didn’t mean for his voice to crack and falter… but it scarcely even sounded like his own voice. It was as if someone else was speaking through his body, he was miles away now, thinking of all the lives lost in the wars, and now he was to believe that dragons were responsible for this? Before the dragon could answer, he exploded inside and exclaimed, “That is impossible! Humans started the wars themselves because of their greed!”

“Oh? And what were they trying to hoard, these people who started the war?”

“Dragon Tear Stones…” He stopped. Dragons made dragon tears… so perhaps…

“Yes. I’m telling you this because if you know what they have planned for you, you can alter your destiny.” A weight fell on Ryu’s shoulders. If what he was being told was true, then dragons were his enemies? How could he alter his destiny? “I’ve helped out a bit you know. I can affect things too, and I divined the existence of someone who could help you fight the dragons.” Ryu didn’t have to ask who, somehow, from the way the dragon said it, he know… Kiala… she had always been his strength, it had to be her. He suddenly felt foolish for leaving her when he did, and wanted nothing more than to be in her arms; safe. “Quite a girl she turned out to be too, I’m rather proud of that accomplishment.” The dragon had a smug look on his face.

Ryu was silent for a time… when abruptly, his senses came back to him. He was talking to a black dragon… they were full of deceit and trickery, what reason did he have to believe any of this? For all he knew, this dragon was trying to trick him into dooming humanity all together. “If what you say is true, then I need to stick with Kiala, because she will save us all, that sounds believable to me… but still, I have no reason to believe some nameless black dragon.” This was bold, and for a moment he felt his life flash before him. At this range, the creature could easily tear him apart, and as the dragon reared up in reproach, he feared he had gone too far.

“I AM NOT NAMELESS! HEAR ME TWO-LEGGED ONE. I AM FRARRNASH!” suddenly, it all came together. He vaguely remembered a fairytale Ikatchi had told him when he was little; it was a story of an Earth Dragon named Frarrnash. As the story went, being an Earth Dragon, he had the power of transformation, and so he took the form of a human to learn about them better. While doing so, he met and fell in love with a human woman. They married and had two children. The children looked human but they possessed all the powers of a dragon. This was a sin to the dragons and they had his family killed and banished Frarrnash, who swore after that to avenge his family. He became a black dragon and fought the elder dragons, but he died.

“You’re dead.” Ryu said stupidly.

“Those beasts would like you to think so.”

“They killed your family.”

“All but my third daughter, who I had hidden away and kept secret, they feared human dragon Halflings for fear that they would side with humans but possess all the powers of a dragon. Too dangerous to keep alive. But my daughter, she lived for a long time, in secret, and she had a child and so on… today, I still have one great great great grandchild in the human world, and ironically, she adopted a dragon. But still, she can save you all, and in so doing, I will have my revenge, for if humans live, dragons must die.” Frarrnash was now preening his wings, something that Ryu had seen Miakai doing when she was particularly smug about something. It was something she did often after she had gotten away with stealing a snack.

“I still don’t”

“Oh, you know what I say is true.” He was practically purring now. Ryu knew it was true; it had to be… he just didn’t want it to be. Then, rather suddenly, Frarrnash hissed, “Enemy.” And he swooshed away as suddenly as darkness vanishes when a light comes on. Miakai came flying up to greet Ryu, a look of curiosity in her green eyes.

“Miakai…” He said.

The thoughts of the cat-dragon filled his head like a comforting blanket. Frarrnash is both right and wrong. The dragons hated humans… once. The prophecy only foretells that something old will die; it doesn’t have to mean the human race. She started to purr at this point and Ryu took her in his arms.

“How in the world did you find me?”

Miakai purred even harder and even let out a catty laugh. I could smell Frarrnash. I’m so little he didn’t even see me listening in. Ryu grinned, proud of her… but a doubt still lingered in the back of his mind. If what Frarrnash said is true, then Miakai would try to trick him… could he trust her?