Prologue

Thousands of years ago, the ancient city of Heliopolis was protected by nine powerful dragons—Eset, Nebthet, Asar, Sutekh, Su, Nuit, Gebeb, Tefnuit, and Atum. Together, these nine dragons were known as the Hieratic, or Hieroglyphic, Dragons, and they protected civilization from threats no one could have imagined, not even themselves. The Hieratic Dragons had not only been consorts of one another, but they also brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and they had genders! Wielding the power of their mysterious "Hieratic Seals", none had been able to challenge the power of the Hieratic Dragons. Using these seals and their untapped powers, they saved the entire world from threats on an apocalyptic level, and in the process, learned that sometimes the greatest dangers come from within…

Their story began in the earliest days of Egypt, during the old kingdom in the year 2345 BCE. The then nameless region where the dragon who would come to be known as Atum came from had been a chaotic one when it came for his time to flee the land he had been born and raised in. A few corrupt dragons had caused all dragons to turn on each other, and mankind. Atum and his spouse, a beautiful dragon called "Agathangelos", whose name meant "good angel" in their language, had been given no choice but to flee their homeland with their two eggs in tow, safely nestled away in a basket they had snatched from an abandoned village. It was either leave everything they had ever known behind or die just as everyone knew they had.

The village where they found the basket, stuffed with a soft white material, had already been decimated and burned out by the corrupted dragons who started it all in the name of the rumored "Chthonian Emperor Dragon". The Chthonian Emperor Dragon was said to have, as its name containing the term "Chthonian" suggested, risen from the underworld itself to wreak havoc on the world. Word of that dragon's "accomplishments" had turned their homeland and any region neighboring it to into hell. It was no longer even fit to live in, not even for the dragons who had destroyed everything in their path.

The pair of dragons, whose names were Alexandros ("savior of mankind") and Agathangelos, knew they needed to find a new place to live that was as far away from their homeland as possible, so those corrupt dragons could ever hope to track them down. But their situation was becoming a more desperate one with each passing minute they remained in the air. Alexandros had remarkably not been injured in all the chaos, but Agathangelos had been severely. The deep gash across the right side of the she-dragon's breast was testament to not only that, but also served as a reminder of those other dragon's ruthlessness. Alexandros and Agathangelos' families had been rounded up by those evil dragons and their followers because they had all refused to join their "case". They were literally ripped apart before Alexandros and Agathangelos' eyes, their killers thinking that would change their minds. If not, they would have killed them too. But still, they had refused, wanting no part of anything so heinous.

It was a miracle that Alexandros and Agathangelos had escaped with their lives, but Agathangelos did not know how much longer her wings would be able to support her body. Agathangelos had lost a lot of blood before her wound clotted off, and as a result, become weak quickly in the past few days since they fled their homeland. The dragon's muscles, especially those within her breast, felt as though they were on fire. Agathangelos had never felt this kind of pain before, and she did not understand why it felt as if her hide was on fire underneath her scales.

Agathangelos believed that, any time now, her wings were going to fail her, and she would plummet right out of the sky to her death. She feared there would be no avoiding that terrible fate, especially if they did not find a spot to land soon.

"Do you see any place we can rest yet?" Agathangelos asked her spouse. The agony in her voice could not be missed, except by someone who was deaf. Alexandros could not bear to see (and hear) his spouse in so much pain, and not being able to do anything to help her, on top of that. "I'm afraid…I cannot keep going like this for much longer."

Alexandros was afraid to answer his spouse' question, truthfully or not. She would not like the answer either way, he believed. But at the same time, he felt that not answering her might be worse than at least being honest. He did not want to make Agathangelos feel as though he was ignoring her, especially not in her time of great need. He did not know, either, how her wings had carried her all this way from their homeland with that gash in her breast, which went down to the bone underneath it.

"I do not see anything," Alexandros finally answered, after receiving a harsh glare from Agathangelos. Just as he had feared, Agathangelos had begun to feel as though her spouse was ignoring her. This was in part due to the pain caused by her injury greatly clouding her judgment. "There is nothing as far as my eyes can see. Just a vast and endless expanse of desert…"

"Then why do we not stop here?" the she-dragon groaned. "My wings will not carry me much further. I…am so weak, and with each flap of my wings, I get weaker." She paused to look down at the basket that she was carrying. They had been taking turns carrying it so neither of the pair would get too tired, but now, even taking turns carrying it had not been doing any good for Agathangelos. She was still losing her strength, even when Alexandros had taken his turn to carry the basket.

"Take it," Agathangelos whispered hoarsely. "The basket. I cannot carry it and support my own weight both, any longer." She did not want to lose their only hope for continuing their families, which except for them, had already been entirely wiped out in a single day. "My body is so worn out."

Alexandros obliged, and it was all Agathangelos could do to pass the basket from her feet to Atum's, while continuing to flap her wings as she did so. The grueling task seemed to sap what little energy had remained in Agathangelos' body. The she-dragon's wings began to shake almost unnaturally for a dragon in flight, and her flight speed decreased just as noticeably. She and Alexandros, both, were alarmed by this.

"Leave me," Agathangelos whispered. "I won't last much longer, and I have only been slowing you down since we left our homeland, anyway. You know as well as I do that…" She paused to catch what little breath she could manage to. "…you would be better off without a crippled dragon like me."

"I will never leave you," Alexandros said. "We just need to find a spot to rest. My heart tells me we are close."

"That may be, but you will not accomplish that goal better if I am with you…" Agathangelos started gasping uncontrollably. "…to slow you down."

Now it was Alexandros who gasped. "Agathangelos?" he said.

Agathangelos' wings stopped working all together, against her own will. The she-dragon began plummeting toward the sandy desert floor below, noticing that they were all large rocks they had not seen from higher up scattered all around in the sand. Maybe she would hit one of them just right, and be put out of her misery. Agathangelos did not want to leave Alexandros and their two eggs all alone in this unfamiliar location, but she did not want to suffer any longer, and knew she would only slow them down anyway.

Without speaking or even thinking, Alexandros dived through the air after his spouse, thinking maybe if he got a hold of her with his wings, she would be saved. But, much to Alexandros' dismay, his spouse seemed to be falling too quickly for him to get to her. Alexandros could not fly downward too quickly. He also had to consider their eggs safety within the basket he was carrying, since there was no place for him to set the basket down.

"Agathangelos!" Alexandros cried out.

Agathangelos, with a weak look on her face, gave one last glance up at her spouse, as if she wanted to tell him how sorry she was for leaving him alone out here with their eggs. Instead, she whispered, "I love you."

Alexandros heard his spouse's last words, and his eyes began to tear him. He ceased his downward flight, and only watched in dismay as Agathangelos disappeared into the darkness of the night below to never reappear. He heard the thud of her body landing on a rock, then everything was silent. There were no longer any painful groans, and Alexandros no longer heard Agathangelos' voice either. He knew she was gone, as much as he hated to accept such a reality, and nothing could bring his love back.

All he could do now was finish what they had come all this way for, and find somewhere safe for their eggs to hatch, where those murderous dragons who had now taken everything but his eggs from him. They were all he had left, and his only purpose for wanting to live. If Alexandros lost his and Agathangelos' eggs, he thought there would be no reason to go on live, and let himself fall just as Agathangelos had. As the male dragon turned to fly off, Alexandros knew he would always miss Agathangelos. He would never forget her. His mind would be filled with memories of all the better times they had together before other dragons they knew were overtaken with evil unlike any they had never seen before. Alexandros wished he could go back to that time, and do something to stop it from ever happening.

A part of Alexandros' heart and soul was missing now, he thought as he flew what now seemed to be hopelessly west. He still saw nothing in this desert that renewed his hope that the two eggs he was now solely responsible for would be able to hatch in safety at. He could not just land on the ground. Alexandros knew nothing about this region, but he knew enough that a lone dragon with two eggs would be a target of all sorts of predators wanting to make them (the eggs, that is) a meal. They probably would not stop even if it got in their way, and would probably regret going after all that was left of his family.

Nonetheless, Alexandros refused to take the risk even if he could always fight most threats off if he really needed to. Dragons were, despite common belief that mankind had about them, actually a relatively peaceful kind, and did not like to take part in war unless it was absolutely necessary. If then, even. The only time a dragon who was pure of heart and soul wanted to fight was to defend themselves, and especially their families. Alexandros and Agathangelos were dragons who believed that their kind should only fight to defend themselves, and not for reasons such as war. What happened to Agathangelos and their families only reinforced Alexandros' belief that he would never fight for what he believed were the wrong reasons. War had cost them their entire families, and now it cost Agathangelos her life. All that had happened because of a single evil dragon made Alexandros feel hatred in his heart toward all of those dragons who had ruined his life by taking everything he had ever known from in such a short time. Only days ago, his and Agathangelos' lives had been perfect, but now everything was ruined.

Alexandros would not only never be able to return to his homeland (at least not any time soon), but now he had lost the only dragon in his life he had ever loved. He did not see how things could get any worse for him at this point. As far as Alexandros was concerned, he had already hit rock bottom, so things had to start looking up for him, should it not?

The dragon sighed sadly. He just did not know what to do anymore, after everything he had went through. In Alexandros' eyes, the future seemed bleak, and equally hopeless. But…

Alexandros thought he saw something in the distance, glowing slightly, but he was not sure if it was really there, or if it was just his eyes playing a trick on him. He had not slept well in the days since leaving his homeland with Agathangelos, so it had to be a trick his eyes were playing on him. After a while, though, the dragon began to doubt that, because the further west he flew, the brighter whatever it was he saw glowed. Now, Alexandros saw a golden glow that continued to brighten. He now knew it was not a trick his eyes were playing on him, or some sort of illusion. Whatever this was, it was real! He could not believe what he was seeing, even if it was, in fact, a real thing before him.

The dragon blinked his eyes once, and just as quickly as the monument before him had been glowing gold, it was now gray as the stone it must have been constructed from. Alexandros wondered to himself if it had not actually glowed golden as he had first thought, but some sort of vision beckoning him to this monument. Upon flying over it, Alexandros realized that it was not a monument, but a city! That meant humans, he thought. Maybe. He did not see any signs of life here, so Alexandros flew down to the city for a closer look.

Alexandros found his way into the seemingly abandoned city, flying between several pillars with writing that he did not recognize all over it and the walls of this chamber. Everywhere he looked, there were symbols in the shapes of animals, people, and even strange objects. Although he had not stopped grieving Agathangelos, the more Alexandros began to examine these symbols out of curiosity and nothing else, the more he began to feel as though he had seen these symbols before, and was able to read them. Of course, this confused the dragon because he had never been to this part of the world before, and he had most definitely never seen these symbols before, so how was he able to understand some of what this said?

"H-H…" Alexandros tried speaking some of the writing from this wall out loud. What he saw was a mash-up of what appeared to be symbols that represented ropes, plants, lions, and…two unrecognizable symbols written in a pattern. He struggled to read it at first, but eventually the words found their way out of the dragon's mouth. "Heliopolis," he whispered. "City of the Sun."

Now, the dragon was alarmed. "Heliopolis" was almost a word from where he came from—Alexandros had seen it written as "Ἡλιούπολις" by humans using some sort of material they crafted. He had also seen it written as "عين شمس " by travelers passing through the village near the cave where he had once lived with Agathangelos. But this writing, only symbols, was something that he had never seen before in his life, so he once again wondered how he had been able to read "Heliopolis—City of the Sun" from all the writing on this stone wall.

Alexandros looked to the right at some other symbols not far away from those he had just read aloud. From left to right, he saw symbols representing each of these: a vulture, half a circle, a quail, and an owl scrunched together on a rectangle with rounded corners at each end. The dragon assumed it was a name, as he tried sounding this word out, too. He still did not understand how he could understand what these symbols said, though.

"A-A-A," he tried sounding this out for the third time before succeeding. "Atum," he finally whispered. "Atum," the dragon repeated. After saying it two more times following this, it began to sound like a name to Alexandros, and that thought gave him an idea. He wanted to forget everything else from where he came—there were no good memories to have of his homeland. And what better way, the dragon thought to himself, to start forgetting all of the terrible things he had gone through to than forget his old name by giving himself a new one?

As far as Alexandros was concerned, "Atum" would be the perfect name for him. Other than liking the sound of it and feeling an odd connection to that word—it seemed oddly familiar, the more he spoke it—if he was going to call this region home, he may as well have a name that anyone who lived here he may or may not ever meet can pronounce. Alexandros, now Atum, cast a sad glance over to the straw basket containing the two unhatched eggs, all that he had left as a reminder of Agathangelos. Through them, he would never truly forget all they had been through (only the good times, he wanted to forget the bad times as much as he wanted to forget their reasoning for flying all this way), but now was still a time for him to mourn.

Some other grouped symbols—first, left to right: a half circle, a plant, slug, water, bird, plant, and a half second; second, from left to right: an unrecognizable symbol and a bird—stuck out to Atum. Having gotten accustomed to reading these symbols, although he still wondered how this was possible as he did so, he read these with relative ease in comparison to the first two attempts he had made.

"Tefnuit," he said, then paused for a minute to wonder if he was really pronouncing these words correctly, and once again, ponder how he could decipher a language that he had not seen before as far as he knew. "And…Su."

Atum knew why these two names, if they even were names, stuck out to him. Once the two eggs that were warm and safe in the basket hatched, that was what he would name his children, assuming one of them was a daughter and the other a son. To Atum, "Tefnuit" sounded like a name meant for daughters, and "Su" a name meant for sons. If the eggs did not hatch into one son and one daughter, then Atum would scan the wall for other names he would find fitting to name the second hatchling.

Atum thought about Agathangelos again, and the brief emotional boost he had gotten from thinking about the two eggs hatching was gone. The dragon felt sadness in his heart again, as he went over to where he had sat the basket many minutes ago to examine the writing all over this room's walls. Atum lay down by the basket, then rested his head on the ground.

Little did the lonely dragon now, he had just opened up a new chapter of his life that would change his views of everything about the world in the future. It would start with an upcoming miracle after all the tragedies he had recently been forced to death with.


Author's note: So this is my second attempt at starting a fanfiction about the Hieratic Dragons (look them up on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Wiki, for those who have somehow not heard of the series of cards) since I've always been interested in Ancient Egypt since I was a kid. Of course, I had to do a lot of research about Ancient Egypt and even Ancient Greece (when I first began planning this story some time ago) to an extent so any history that might be used as plot elements in this story will be historically accurate as possible, even though this story will be about dragons, in vein of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole novels and the movie they inspired.

I've been meaning to write this for a while now, so it might be my main focus as far as what stories I work on goes. I won't be updating anything else (for those who had been reading my other current fanfic) only for that reason. This story's long overdue because I have written the prologue three times now because I was not satisfied with how it had gone the first two times I write it (the story's prologue). This time, I am content with the results of the prologue, so I'll be writing this story to the end this time now that it's (in my opinion) finally off to a good start.

The title, "The Hieratic Dragons—Protectors of the City of the Sun" (originally, it was "The Hieratic Dragons—Protectors of Heliopolis"), might only be temporary though. I like it for how accurately it tells what the story will be about, but I may or may not try to think of something a little better.