Kin

by CooperLeigh

Companion story to Slayer. There have been whispers of Dragonkin for as long as the world has existed. But with Dragonkind so few it was written off as legend and eventually lost in time. But in truth Bard could not have been the first. This is the story of the only other remaining Kin. Stories of blood, fire, wings, curses, freedom, and loss.

Sansa feels it the moment another Kin is made. She feels it like she feels the fire every time she breathes. She wonders how long this one will survive. For there have never been many of the Kin. But as the Ages have faded and even more of the Kind have died the few that have existed trickling away leaving only her and Alek.

Only she and an old man are all that are left. All that is left of a race that should never has existed. But as they are made and not born she wonders some days if she was cursed by the Valar for something she did in a prior live. Was she always meant to be a freak of nature; an outcast and a monster to be hunted down? She killed another creature to become what she is. So does that mean she will be cursed for as long as she draws breath?

Hours after she feels the creation of the newest Kin Sansa begins the long trek from the South to the North where she knows she will find the Kin. She loves it in the South along the sea. It is warm and it is nothing where she was born as a human and then made as something completely different. She hates the north with its barren cold mountains that hold nothing but awful memories. But Sansa is curious about this newest member of her kind so she treks on.

When she comes across Orcs and other foul creatures she slays them easily and doesn't bother to wash off the blood. She simply treks on. But eventually she grows hungry and so she hunts killing a deer. Roasting it is nothing with her skin of fire. After partaking of the meal she comes across a rushing river and decides that here she will sleep and here she will clean herself.

Sansa avoids water as much as she can. For if there is anything that could put out the fire in her veins it is the blue liquid that runs at her feet. So she simply cups water in her hands and slowly but surely washes off the grime that coats her. and it is here on a river bank that she looks at her reflection that stares back at her.

With her pale skin and black hair from a distance Sansa could never be mistaken for anything more than a human. But one look in her eyes her nature is revealed. For her eyes are much like a dragons; large, slitted, and an amber molten as the gold that dragons seem to covet. She is dressed in a high collared tunic the color of dirt with black trousers that have seen better years with boots to match.

The only parts of her skin visible are her hands and face. Everything else is covered. And for good reason; for if her skin was bared one could see that with each beat of her heart her veins would crackle and burn. With every breath taken her veins light up like fireworks showing the fire that dwells in her breast and veins and blood and bones.

Sansa wonders if the new Kin will be like her. For none are alike. Sansa killed a hatching barely out of the egg. Alek with his wings and scales killed an ancient dragon that was apparently near death. She wonders what firedrake was killed to create a new Dragonkin. For every Kin is created due to the blood of Dragonkind. Once Sansa must thinks there must have been more of both Kin and Kind when the world was younger and when the Drakes flew across the skies.

After her slumber Sansa awakes and continues on her journey to the North. Once she passes the Shire and continues further Sansa knows where she is going. She knows who was destroyed. She goes to Erebor and where Smaug the Defiler is now dead. She knows of no other dragons that exist in the world. For Kin can sense Kin but not Kind.

Once Sansa hits a clearing where trolls stand frozen Alek find her. she could of course feel him for days but instead of making him chase her she stops and only rises when she sees the shadow of his wings land behind her. and so she turns and is created with the sight of her fellow Kin that she has not seen in a century or so.

Alek is tall and broad of shoulder with striking blue eyes and salt and pepper hair that brushes his shoulders. But those are the only human things about him. Patches of skin are marked by scales blackish in color and from his shoulders extend enormous wings fifteen feet in length black as night to match the smoke scales. Alek was a hunter who killed a dragon not long before the rise of the Rings. He went looking for trouble and found it when he found himself half eaten by a dragon that he killed with one of its own fangs.

Sansa herself swallowed blood and the blood itself blinded her. She thinks that is why her heart and veins glow. Alek grew scales and wings. She again wonders what this new Kin will be like. But they will find out soon enough.

And as she flies with Alek over the land towards the Lonely Mountain she does not know what to expect. But Sansa is excited for the first time in decades. And as the sun rises with the Lonely Mountain within sight she will look back in time and that is the moment everything changed. It is the moment where her solitary life ended and she entered the fray of a King Under the Mountain and the war he created.

AN: so this is part of the I See Fire series. This is mean to be a companion series to explain more about the Dragonkin and the individual stories of Sansa and Alek and it will end with their meeting of Bard which will occur in Chapter Five of Slayer.