The Shadowfire

Prologue: The Dream

Volta (Italian for "Time" according to Google translate)

I woke up in my room in the temple, but it seemed different. It had a strange blue tint to it. I slowly got up and moved toward the door.

Before I continue I would like to introduce myself. My name is Volta and I am an orphan. I am 10 years old and I have lived at the temple ever since I can remember. The guardians say that they found my egg on their doorstep and they took care of me until I hatched and they raised me. I have started helping out with taking care of the temple and the eggs that are at the temple. I have no element as of yet even though because of the color of my scales the guardians think that I'm an ice dragon, but every time Cyril has tried to teach me how to use ice I am unable to even make a cool breeze come from my mouth. They keep trying to tell me that I'll get it eventually, but I can't help thinking that I don't even have an element.

I opened the door and my eyes expanded twice their normal size. Outside there was nothing but a bunch of floating platforms. Some of them were stationary while others were moving. I stepped out of my room and it de-materialized behind me. I gulped and looked back at the strange floating landscape.

"Welcome, Volta." I heard a voice say, but I can find where it came from.

"Who's there?" I ask with as much confidence as I could muster.

"You may call me the Chronicler. I am here to teach you." It says cryptically.

"Teach me what?" I ask him.

"If I am correct you have not learned your element yet?" He asks, but it seemed more of a statement to me.

"Yeah I can't use ice, but I don't understand why." I say forlornly with my head looking toward the ground.

"It is true that you can't use ice," he says. "But that is not your element."

"What do you mean?" I ask, puzzled.

"Your element is much rarer to come across for a normal dragon. Your element is something that no one has seen in generations. Your element is more different than the rest of the elements than you even know. Your element is Time." He says.

"Time?" I ask with so much confusion in my voice that that you would wonder if he had said something in a completely different language that I didn't understand.

"Yes, Time." He continues. "You are capable of stopping it, slowing it down, reversing it, advancing it, and going forward and backward in time. You have a very unique ability. This year there seems to be a little more energy in the cosmos than usual. I am here to teach you Time because only I am capable of teaching it."

"But why do I have the ability to control Time?" I ask wondering why an orphan like me would have the ability to manipulate, and possibly change time.

"Well most instances of dragons that can control Time are actually future Chroniclers. The only other instances of dragons being able to control Time are purple dragons, so I assume that you are the former. Since that is the case you are now going to be considered my apprentice."

"Hmm." I said considering it. "Sure why not? I need to learn some element in order to help fight Malefor's forces."

"Excellent!" He said. "Let's start now." And so the training commenced.

[Time Skip]

I was standing in my room looking out the window, unable to sleep. I was having a strange feeling that something bad was going to happen. My lessons with the Chronicler had been going on for a week now. I had been learning Time element at a pretty fast rate, and I so far he has told me many things about the world and how it works.

I saw on the horizon a strange dark shape appear and I strained my eyes to see what it was. It suddenly darted down a hill and started heading toward the temple. It went faster and faster, and I wasn't able to keep track of where it was. I caught a glimpse of it go into a window and it took me only a moment to realize that it was the window to the incubation room.

I ran out of my room and I sprinted down the hall to the incubation room and I started figuring out why that shadow was there. The Chronicler told me that Malefor might try corrupting one of the eggs so that he could possibly take down the temple from the inside if any of his other plans failed.

I opened the door and saw that there was a small black and red hatchling with its paw on the purple egg. I gasped in surprise that an egg hatched this early, but then I realized that this little dragon could have possibly been corrupted. I went over to him and picked him up. He gave a surprised squeak when I picked him up, but he soon got settled and curled up in my arms.

I saw out of the corner of my eye some movement and I looked into the corner to see the shadow that I saw sneak into the temple trying to crawl away. The little dragon lifted its head and looked at the shadow and gave a small his at it. He jumped out of my arms and stumbled over to it as he was too young to properly walk.

As he came over to it the shadow flinched away and I saw that the little dragon's shadow moved closer to the shadow after the dragon stopped. His dragon moved forward and I watched as the shadow slashed claws through it over and over again until the shadow was virtually no more, and then his shadow absorbed it. The shadow returned to his body and he walked back over to me.

I realized as I picked him up again that the guardians would never allow a dragon like him to stay here because of how he controlled his shadow even though he destroyed something that was trying to harm him that was sent by Malefor. The guardians would still consider him a threat to the eggs and they would most likely put him to death. Since he was a hatchling he would mostly die rather quickly, but still the seconds before he would pass onto oblivion he would feel terrible pain coursing through his body.

I looked down at him again and realized that I couldn't let that happen to him. He was too cute and I had the feeling that he would turn out to be a good dragon, so I had an idea. The only flaw with it was that he needed a name on order for it to work for him.

"I think that I'll name you Aterinus. Yeah that is a good name, now hold on kid we are going to go for a ride." I said to him before I started the incantation.

During one of my most recent visits to the Chronicler he taught me how to go forward and backward in time and the key to choose which way in time to go is to think of the past or the future, and have a thought tied to it. I started thinking of the past where many of the stories that the guardians told me about had peace, and so I started thinking of it with the hope that there will be someone there to accept him and take care of him, but then I remembered how most of the stories consisted of dragons overcoming darkness and that darkness was considered evil yet the hatchling that I had in my arms wasn't evil yet he had the power of darkness at his claws. I started thinking that it might be possible that dragons in the future accepted dragons that were good and could control darkness, so at the last second before I finished the incantation I thought of a better future for the hatchling and the world as a whole.

The next thing I knew I was in a blue tunnel shooting forward faster than the speed of thought.