He grew up on tales as miserably dusty and senile as the elders who told them.
They excused themselves with cries of no longer having Melbu Framha's power - what of it? Were they not Winglies? Didn't they have their own power?
The humans didn't let the absence of Dragoons hold them back. They were miserable, fragile, magic-less barbarians, but still they bothered to build cities and try to have a culture. The Winglies, the greatest of all Soa's creations, clung to their ancient refuges and wept.
It was horrifying. It was pathetic. It was disgusting.
So he left. But, no matter where he went, the rot was the same.
Where were the valiant creatures who had dared to break Wingly chains and earned the allegiance of dragons? There were strong humans, but, struggle as they might, it seemed they could not overcome folly and apathy. Ten thousand years after the fall of the great empire, the humans had not even unified the continent, much less created a worthy civilization. Even channeling energy was the stuff of crude weaponry, rather than the world-altering power the Winglies of old had made of it. True, the humans lacked almost anything in the way of innate power, but - ten thousand years? Honestly?
The other races were no better. More precisely: humans were the only survivors worth speaking of. The others had rotted away to nothingness, spiritually extinct if one of the handful not literally extinct.
He could not fathom why. What mysterious force rejoiced in the world's desolation? How could Soa have created this world, and yet abandoned it to a grotesque and miserable death by wasting?
If the hideaway that had been his birthplace had praised his strength, his intellect, and his skill, then - what was his purpose, in a world in which all excellence faded away as though it had never been?
Then, one day, a man introduced himself to him as the Emperor Diaz. The Emperor Diaz.
And everything changed.