Under the light of a full moon, a lone figure strolled along the pitch black sand of the beach. The Onyx grains crunched under his boots as he passed along the lapping of the ocean. He wore a full length robe and the hood was thrown over, hiding his face; at his waist he carried a number of small bags.
Though full moons were especially useful for varying spells and rituals, it was uncommon to find a person wandering the beaches of the small, lonely isle. But tonight was a night of meteor showers, and the two occurrences were powerful omens. Besides, the island had the attribute of receiving a goodly number of valuable pieces of the meteors, and the man had already begun to fill his hip bag with fragments.
Stooping, he snatched an iron-grey bit from the sand and held it in front of his cowled face, inspecting it. He placed it in the pouch, and continued on. He stopped and looked out at the calm sea; with eyes altered with the varied sorceries of his kind, he searched for the tell tale signs of falling stars. Turning his head back to the beach, he saw an odd shape laying in the sand several hundred yards away, faintly outlined in the silver moonlight.
It took some time for him to cross the distance, but as he drew nearer, his vision of the object became clearer.
Initially he had thought it a large block of onyx, for it was just a few shades lighter black than the sand, but discounted it. He then considered it a mass of seaweed on account of the curved shape, but it was much too large and was obviously solid. Finally coming within twenty feet of it, he determined the identity as that of a large, scaly carcass that had probably washed ashore during the night.
Curiosity already piqued, he came nearer. As he was nearly upon it, his nose filled with the tang of freshly spilled blood, and the odour of life, so not a corpse. The creature was alive, but barely; and it certainly wasn't conscious.
He stepped around the thing, trying to determine its identity. It was long and slender."A shark? No, a reptile; giant eel? " The light shifted, and with a jump he realized the creature was a Dragon, what was more, a Night Fury! Extremely rare, most of the surviving specimens inhabited the northern isles.
He began to inspect the bulk of the creature, searching for the cause of its injury. Squatting down, he felt along the dragon's belly. His hand became slick with the beast's blood, and he felt a hard, wooden rod, embedded in the dragon. He raised his hand and muttered an incantation; with a crackle, a heatless flame sparked into existence, illuminating the wound.
A wooden javelin had speared into the black flesh; it was several inches thick, and banded with iron studs, definitely the make of the northern tribes. From its appearance, he would guess the missile had been several feet long and fired from a ballista. The dragon was fortunate to be still drawing breath, as the bolt had penetrated inches from its heart. While the creatures were damn fast, and vicious to boot, their armor lacked the stoutness of its relatives.
He settled back on his haunches, wondering what he should do. Night Furies were terribly rare, and this one's death would have far reaching consequences for its race. The natural order told him that he should leave it and let it pass into oblivion and allow whatever plans that were intended for it to pass; then again, he considered; what if his coming across the wounded animal was the intent of fate? He gnawed at his lip, thinking. His eyes traveled to the dragon's back, he then noticed that the creature bore a saddle, well worn. A tamed Night Fury, he though, and stood back up. No, he could not let this one's soul flee, not yet. He could feel the power of the twin omens suffusing the creature, and he knew that it was not simple coincidence that had led him to this spot.
There wasn't much time; already he could sense the fading of the beast's spirit. Walking a few feet from the body, he began digging in the black sand, shoveling out the particles with his hands until he had a depression seven inches deep and the length of an infant. When the pit had been dug, he used his hand to carve out a wide circle around the depression, inside the circle he scratched a smaller square, and within that, he drew a perfectly equal triangle. At each of the three points he scraped the arcane runes for matter, energy, and the divine respectively.
From one of his pouches, he withdrew a small handful of spongy, blue flesh; he kneaded the mass into a marble of blue and placed it at the center of the depression. He hopped to his feet and returned to the dying Night Fury.
He withdrew a flask from his robes and pressed it against the seeping wound on the dragon's belly. Under his magical flame the blood glinted as it flowed into the container. Once it was filled to the brim he returned to the pit. Chanting words of Za'arite sorcery, he poured the entire flask into the hole.
The marble of blue pulsated rapidly as the blood pooled around it, and as he watched, it began to expand.
He returned to the dragon and from his belt he pulled an ornate and exquisitely sharp knife with a blade forged with star metal. Chanting rhythmically, he lowered the knife, and with one slash, cut out a strip of flesh with the onyx black skin still attached, new blood pooled from the wound.
Carrying the strip back to the pool, he quartered it with his knife. Changing his voice to a quick, sharp chant, he began invocating the gods of his craft.
"Yun Ne-shel, O modeler, imbue my mortal hands with your power, to shape this life!" He murmured as he dropped the first chunk into the pool. As it hit, the blood hissed and bubbled lightly.
"Akau-Nar, supplier of form, lend me thy wisdom, to gift this creature with body and mind!" He dropped the second piece, the frothing intensified and the liquid began to turn jet.
"Althabsahr, guardian of the stars, clear this place of evil, so that this soul may pass unharmed!" As he dropped the third piece, the liquid turned to a full boil, the once powder blue marble of tissue as black as night.
He withheld the final piece and returned to the dragon. Kneeling down, he took the creature's foot in his hand and grasped the largest toe. Brandishing the knife, he sliced of the appendage. Then using the knife like a peeler, he whittled the flesh from the toe, leaving a clean, white bone.
He returned to the pool; repeating a mumbled invection. Holding the bone aloft towards the moon, he held the position and dropped the bone into the pit. It landed without splash, and the bubbling liquid turned glossy. But the dragon's body was lost, and to heal or create a new pure dragon body was not possible. A hybrid shell must be built.
Upturning his right palm, he poked the tip of his knife into the palm at three places. Holding the hand above the pool, three drops of his blood fell simultaneously into the dragon blood. The onyx black was streaked with scarlet, and the flesh marble began to twist and elongate as it expanded.
Sucking in a breath, he lifted his left hand, and with one strike, severed the smallest finger. The digit fell with a plop into the mix. Trying to swallow his cry of pain, he staunched the wound and the pain with a small spell.
He reached into his pouches and withdrew several items; a white snail shell, which he crushed in his palm and sprinkled into the pool; a shark's tooth, which he added; a capful of sand from the beach that he threw in; and finally, the fourth piece of dragonflesh.
Chanting in a voice that rose and fell in pitch, he returned to the dragon. He frowned; its spirit was becoming very faint. Moving quickly, he dipped his fingers in the pooled blood by its belly and moved to the triangular mark surrounding the pool. Never stopping in his chants, he crouched and let a single drop of blood fall on each of the runes: One for Energy, another for Matter, and the last for the Divine.
As if in acceptance of the offering, each rune began to glow lightly, and the wet splotches began to sizzle. As though caught in the thrall of a whirlpool, the light of the full moon collected into a column of silver, and spiraled down from the heavens into the pool. The pit was illuminated brightly for a moment, and then was dark again. The blood and ingredients had turned the pure silver color of polished coins and had ceased its violent bubbling. Calm and serene, the elixir waited for its last ingredient: The heart and soul of a dragon.
He swallowed, this was the most crucial and dangerous stage. Unlike many other life forms, dragon souls were bonded to the heart, and as long as the heart lived, the soul remained in earthly form. Once a body was grown, the soul would not inhabit it unless it had the heart, or part of a heart, of a dragon. Unless properly contained, once the heart was removed, the dragon's soul would pass into oblivion.
He reached into his last bag, full of the meteor fragments he had been harvesting. Selecting the largest, he smiled as he gazed at its silver-grey luster, as it happened, meteors of this species made especially effective, if only temporary, soul binders. Fate had truly intended him tonight.
Coming up to the hulk of dragon, he brandished the knife. Flesh tore, and blood spurted as he cut his way through hide and muscle.
And there, before his eyes, large and fleshy, pulsing weakly, was the Night Fury's heart. Delicately reaching into the cavity of its chest, he cut the five heartstrings, leaving one attachment left. He leveled the stone splinter at the heart, and began chattering ancient incantations of extraction and binding. The stone began to glow in the semi-darkness of the night and magical fire.
Reluctantly, the spirit of the dragon obeyed the pull of the fragment. Leaking from the heart like viscous honey, the telltale shimmer of dragon essence dripped through the air and bled into the stone. Threadlike sections being sucked into the arcane tool.
As the last morsel of the soul had been absorbed, the fragment was a good deal heavier, and the pitted surface glowed with light. The heart hung slack, dangling from its last anchor. With a deft swipe, he cut the heart out.
Returning to the pool, he knelt and halved the heart. Laying one half in the sand beside him, he took the other in hand. Muttering the old magic's, he placed the fragment in the cavity within the heart and held it aloft.
"Za'arrus Talxod, master of secrets, gifter of knowledge, hierophant of the Ancient Magic and tales of the ancients; hear your humble servant! You're blood calls for your assistance; work your power through my hands, so that I may reforge this soul anew, and grow from the sacred biodargma a body, so that this soul may continue to serve the gods in gloried rebirth!" this he cried in a high, supreme voice, invoking the word of the highest of Za'arite gods.
His hands tingled, and he felt the power of the divine flowing through him. Chanting the ritualistic verses, he lowered the halved heart onto the now pitch black slab of flesh that sat in the middle of the pool and had flattened out.
Tendrils of black flesh spidered out from the chunk, crawling up the flesh of the heart, webbing it and then cocooning it in rough, dark skin; under the sound of his chanting, the heart began to beat.
Rolling up his sleeves, the man began to weave his hands above the flesh; it responded to his movements, following his direction as the flesh grew and snaked around the throbbing heart.
Around the center, more flesh grew out of the silver liquid in the pool. Jet black tissue knitted together, forming skin, muscles, and organs. The fragments of bone sprouted under his guidance, blossoming into thighbones, ribs, fingers, and a skull. By the power of his sorcery, he was growing a body, complete with transfused soul.
He was in his element, as a master of shaping, he was like an artist; and his sweeping arms plied at a work of macabre beauty.
Sometime later, his arms fell, and he looked upon the fruit of his labour. Though he could not recreate the Night Fury's original body, he had created a hybrid. Brooded by a fusion of his blood and it's, he had built what was in most shape humanoid, but with the soul and power of its dragon heritage; and if his calculations were correct, still capable of breeding.
The naked form lay sprawled in the sand. Gently, he crossed its arms across its torso, and from his pack he pulled a blanket that he laid on the thing's body.
He stepped away from the sleeping creature and looked out to sea. As he expected, he saw a multitude of Northern Tribe ships gliding in the water offshore. With an understanding of fate's plan, he knew he must alert the Vikings to the location of the one they sought.
He doused the ritual fires with sand, and kicked the careful markings into disarray. He filled the pit, drained of blood or bone, with sand. Stepping over to the now cold and lifeless corpse, he prepared to set it alight with flame that would destroy it to the last trace.
As he raised his hand and his lips began forming the incantation, he stopped. Under the full moon, he saw that the dragon was missing half of its tail, and that the absent parts had been replaced with metal and leather. He smiled and patted his own leg, feeling the metal alloy limb that he had implanted after it was ritually amputated at the end of his childhood.
He raised his hand and signed a blessing on the body. "Vastao Getar Utalbast." He said and dropped his hand.
The corpse burst into raging flames, illuminating the beach and suffusing him with warmth. He smiled again as he saw the Viking ships turn towards his direction. Turning tail, he set off the way he had come, the lapping waves of the beach erasing his footsteps as he went.
Alright, so you may be having questions like "what's a Za'arite" or "what did he do?" Well, such questions would take a lot of space to answer, so I'll come up with a place for that later.
But in essence, what inspired this is the huzaka-load of "humanoid toothless" things I've seen around. Now I don't have a problem with that, except that most of these people don't really give an explanation of HOW it happens. So, being the guy I am, this is how it would happen in my personal universe: Toothless gets speared by rival tribe, falls on beach, sorcerer guy finds him, to save toothless' soul, sorcerer guy grows hybrid body for tooth with his magic. Comprende muchachos?
Oh yeah, "Vastao Getar Utalbast" is mymadeup language for "Rest now brother of circumstance." Which I might explain later; so review and I'll be encouraged to write more.