"Achoo!" Soren sneezed loudly from the dust that floated around him after he accidentally knocked over... something.
"Ugh..." he groaned as he looked around the room he was in.
It had been a few weeks since his father, Viren, had died (or so they assumed since they hadn't found his body) and his sister Claudia had ran away and Soren had decided to start getting rid of some stuff. Mostly his dad's stuff. He stored Claudia's things out of sight and kept everything in a spare room in their home just in case she ever came back. Even if the chances to that were pretty much non-existance after she saw him stab what he had thought to be their father.
He felt himself grow sad again and shook his head from his thoughts and decided to go back to work.
He picked up another random box from the room he was clearing out that Viren had used as a another storage-closet.
He opened it to see what was inside, expecting another book on dark magic or something creepy and gross like a dried liver of some animal but instead his eyes widened.
In side was a stuffed dragon. His stuffed dragon that he always used to play with when he was little.
"Puff?" he asked, reaching in and pulling the toy out to study it.
It felt just as soft as he remembered.
It looked tha same too, still bright red and orange with green buttons for eyes and fake flames coming from it's mouth.
He'd had gotten it for his third birthday and for years he loved to play with it, cuddle it and sleep with it.
Then, when Soren was seven, Viren decided it was time to teach him the "truth" about dragons.
He had told him how dragons were giant monsters, heartless and cruel and who did nothing other than kill humans.
Little Soren had been horrified at hearing such things as he clung to his favorite toy.
He didn't want to believe his father but back then he, like every little kid, was convinced parents were always right and knew everything.
It was that moment he had decided and proudly declared that he was gonna grow big and strong enough to bring down a real dragon.
He didn't dress Puff up in silly costumes or took it with him to make sandcastles anymore.
Instead he spend his days hitting it over and over again with a wooden sword, pretending to slay a real dragon.
As he grew up Soren at some point decided he both didn't want to play with stuffed toys anymore but especially not with dragons anymore so Puff went into the box he was in.
Actually, not too long ago Soren had done what he had always wanted to back then.
He, with help of Claudia, brought down a dragon.
At that moment he had felt like he was on top of the world, being one of the heroes who brought down a monster of which he had heard and seen multiple horrors.
Now he realized how stupid he had really been back then.
Pyrrah, as he learned the dragon's name was, had just been curious about humans and while she shouldn't have been where she had been, she hadn't wanted to harm anyone.
She only started attacking the village because Soren had urged the soldiers to attack first.
His desire and ego had made him act rash and caused many innocent lives.
He was had actually been glad that Callum and the others had freed her.
He wasn't even too upset that she had gotten him paralized, since it gave him time to think.
Later, to his amazement, they met up again and instead of killing him like he expected her, she took him to Callum to help him.
As his father and sister appeared with their army or dark magic monsters, Soren had been filled with fear, yet he felt relieved when the dragons showed up to help.
He was happy so see so many of the creatures he grew up hating.
Creatures he never should have hated.
Pyrrah was a bit hot-tempered and went where she shouldn't always be, but she was also noble and loyal to those she considered her friends.
Zym, the little dragon Soren had been supposed to deliver to his dad so he could do who-knows-what with him was literally just a baby. A tiny, zappy and admitedly adorable little baby dragon loved to play and give kisses to everyone.
The dragon queen who had send assassins to kill the king and Ezran had only done so because humans killed her mate and though they killed Zym and as soon as she found Zym alive, had been just fine with the few humans being there.
Dragons were large, covered in scales, wings on their backs and had huge teeth and claws but they weren't really different.
They had their flaws but they had more than enough things to make up for those flaws.
Soren could say for sure that he'd met dragons who were way better than lots of humans he'd met.
And well, if he wasn't gonna hate dragons anymore, why would he hate a stuffed dragon?
"You know, I've gotten a much bigger bed since the last time we saw each other. Wanna come and join me tonight, Puff?" he asked the toy.
Moments later Puff was comfortably resting next to a pillow, waiting for nightfall and to finally get cuddled again.