Last of a Legacy

Last of a Legacy is the writings of Tsarkhar.

[Published by the IPCS on the 12th of Fellnight on the year 631]

My name is Tsarkhar, or rather, that’s the spelling of the sound my name makes in man’s mouth. A shame, really, for my name was a beautiful sound, like the whisper of bold sharp things reverberating off of cave walls, and I likely will never hear it sung from the throats of me or my kin ever again.

I am Drakhin, or what men call a dragon, trapped in the weak body of an ageless human. I’d like to say I may be the last of my kind, but I don’t even have that pleasure; What I once was is gone and all that remains is this cruel perverted joke. At least I can write, laugh sardonically, and weep about it.

When I was very young and unknowing of things, I saw man spreading like a wildfire across the lands. I saw them hunting, procreating like rabbits, taking from the land to build their homes, and killing all creatures that dared cross their path. I saw them kill my kin. They killed my broodmother as she fought to protect us. She was old, wise, strong, and fierce like frigid winds coming down a sheer mountain of ice and snow. Her name was Shaitaal, lest it be forgotten.

I saw this, through the years as I grew older, and I thought to myself that man must be the greatest, strongest, and most frightening of all beasts. They spread like a plague through the land, made ships and infected other lands, driving my remaining kin farther away into hiding. But not I, no, I was stupid enough to be curious… And jealous. I tried to befriend man, at first, and there were some nicer ones who tried to understand me as I tried to understand them, but most came after me to see me dead without question. They called me a monster, they feared me, they hated me, and eventually drove me away.

That didn’t stop my jealousy or my own fears. I wished, oh how I wished, to be a man. If I were a man, I could be as fierce. I could learn how they do it. I could be at the top of the whole chain as they are and I would never have to fear them ever again. I would never have to fear anything.

Years and more years passed and I was driven farther and farther away, and I watched man kill more and more of my kin. I watched man destroy the land to build fantastic castles and villages, sprawling cities and farms. They took all they wanted unapologetically and made it theirs. They built terrible tools: Weapons for killing Drakhin better… and for killing each other more efficiently.

I grew bitter, but still jealous, and I decided, in my young mid years, that if I cannot reason with man and live in harmony, it would be best to destroy them all. Oh how I tried! I slaughtered them by the thousands. I tried to chase them from our feeding and breeding grounds. I tried to become the fiercest of all beasts and terrify them, becoming the monster they said I was. I gathered more of my likeminded kin to help me in my endeavors, but, in the end, man outbred my vengeance and my kin fell one by one. What a fool I was and how I let my kin down in such a way. I hope I can be forgiven for these young, headstrong, misdeeds which led to their deaths.

If Drakhin could weep, I surely would have. I found myself on a small island with hardly enough food, laying down to die a pitiful death. Still bitter. Still jealous. I roared to the sky in anger and frustration nearly every day as I lay weak and starving, all alone.

One day, my mournful cries were heard. I wish, how I wish, I could say my prayers were answered, and I did then, but now I am much older and wiser and I can easily say this curse was simply disguised as a blessing, given to me in a time of desperation. Or, perhaps, I am being punished for wickedness. A fitting punishment, if I do say so.

I thought I would be happy, at first. I could eat one fish and be full. I could mimic human speech in my mouth and throat. My thoughts worked differently and I felt smarter in a strange way. I learned, on my own, to use my hands and amazing opposable thumbs in order to craft a small raft to take me to a bigger island with all the people. It wasn’t as simple as flying, a thing I miss greatly, but I felt a nearly overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment when I completed my tasks. I was excited, back then, to be able to, perhaps, speak with man and reason with them. Perhaps I could tell them all about my kind and how we should not be feared. I could plead with man to stop destroying our habitat, food sources, and murdering my kin -- What remained of them.

This is where I learned about the cruelty of this joke. Men laughed at me and called me crazy or stupid, if they even listened at all. Being in their cities, I got to see, firsthand, man’s inhumanity to man. I did see some good things, however. I learned the secrets of how they’re so powerful. How they work together and share knowledge. How they thirst for that knowledge and innovation. Their hunger for more knowledge, survival, and convenience blinds most of them from being wise, however. But gaining knowledge and figuring things out, building structures and objects and working to always do ‘more’, is the most addictive drug that exists above and below.

I learned, however, that not all men are this way. They, apparently, come in many different races and cultures. Humans from cities and High Elves, in general, are the worst and, unfortunately, they’re the ones breeding like rabbits and infesting lands like rats from a shipwreck. Wood Elves aren’t so bad, they understand balance and living with nature in small families. Orcs… Not too bad but they’re a whole other type of problem. Drow are persecuted much like we were and there aren’t too many of them around - we’re like a strange type of kindred spirit. Dwarves are pretty great because they live, mostly, underground in small clans and prefer not to mess with the land above. I had the most luck speaking with Dwarves, if I could ever find any.

And so, for many years, I became a scholar. I tried to learn all I could and worked my way around to speak to the people in charge. They didn’t listen to me either. Either they were too busy trying to figure out ways to fight each other and grow their massive cities, or they didn’t care to put in any effort to entertain my ideas of how we could all live in harmony. Why work hard to appease a beast when you can just kill them all instead much more easily?

Over the years I lost any happiness I once had. Again, bitter hatred found me and, thus, I decided to go live alone in the mountains for the remainder of my time. Here’s where the joke gets even better - I retained my Drakhin lifespan. Perhaps even longer, I do not know. If I were myself, I would be considered very old by now. I have witnessed the rise of man and the systematic slaughter of my kin by their hands. If all were as usual, I would have fathered about thirty of my own offspring and watched them grow into adulthood. I would have taught them to hunt, how to fly, how to breathe fire-- I digress.

As with all things, the time of Drakhin is over. I am unsure if there are any of us left hiding somewhere in the four corners, but if there are, it is surely not enough to propagate our species. We are done. All I ask is that, when I finish penning this book and go out one last time, that I can find a way to reverse this nightmare set upon me so that I may fly one last time and die as I was born - Drakhin.