A/N: Sorry for the longer than expected wait. I wanted to write more for it, but things didn't pan out as I liked. So, I finally decided to post it as is. I'm busy moving at the time of publishing this, so I won't be writing much for a couple weeks.

Enjoy the first chapter! Review if you feel like it!

The midday sun filtered through the green leaf canopy of the trees in the Vineriver Forest. A clearing opened in the middle of the forest, one of the few places in it's entirety that the treetops did not completely cover, where unadulterated sunlight shone down.

The sunlight glinted off black scales, shimmering with white as the light reflected off them. Ebony scales, while once a telltale sign of a servant of shadow, were now more commonly associated with dragons that simply wanted to move on from their dark pasts and reclaim their place in the light alongside the rest of their kin.

This particular dragon lay in the middle of the clearing, and seemed to be fast asleep. Sunlight continued to shine down upon him, the light drawn to the blackness of his scales even as they caused it to bounce back off. Unlike most dragons, this one did not appear to have any horns, giving his head a decidedly snake-like appearance, one not helped by his slender form. One might even mistake him for a female, something that happened often.

Regardless of his form, the dragon was not insusceptible to heat, and the constant bombardment by the sun's rays were starting to wear on him. That, coupled with the light reflecting off his scales and against his closed eyelids, caused him to eventually wake up.

His eyes slowly opened, first his outer lids came open and then the inner membrane slid away. The dragon immediately regretted that second action as sunlight now burned into his irises, unfiltered by that second layer of protection, and he clenched his eyes shut again. His front claws immediately came up and covered his eyes, further blocking out the sun.

"Aaaaarg..."

He growled out in pain, clenching his teeth together tightly. He couldn't help but wonder why, exactly, he had put himself in this situation to begin with. Even with the added pain to help him wake up, his mind was still slightly clouded from his sleep. He lay in this position for several moments as he fought to clear his mind and remember the events of the day before.

This introspection did not last long, however, as the sun still continued to beat down on him and, with his black scales, the heat was beginning to become unbearable. It seemed he would have to try and remember why he found himself in this damnable clearing later.

He reluctantly moved his claws away from his head and, keeping his eyes firmly shut this time, he picked himself up off the ground and scrambled forward. His position in the middle of the clearing was unfortunate and it took him a good several seconds longer than he would have liked to make it to the protective shade of the treeline.

Once there, he sat himself down and slowly opened his eyes, wincing in pain. He blinked several times, his vision marred by a blackish, vaguely circular shape that followed wherever he looked. After several seconds, his eyes finally adjusted, the spot slowly faded away and his vision became clear again.

He growled once again, though this time it sounded a bit more like a grumbling sigh than something angry.

"Black dragons are not built for sunlight..." He muttered aloud, shaking his head, "Take our place in the light my tail."

The dragon's voice, while growly, further added to his less-than-male appearance. It wasn't completely feminine, exactly, but it lacked a certain masculinity as well. The oddest thing was, it didn't sound like he was young, either. The dragon, it seemed, was simply quite androgynous.

He took a deep breath and then released it. Then, he stood up and began to take in his surroundings. As it was, he knew he was in a place with trees. Beyond that, he was still groggy enough to not know anything else from a simple glance around.

In an effort to wake himself up more, the dragon stretched out. This movement accentuated the snake-like qualities of his figure, which went beyond a slender figure and a hornless head. This dragon was long, oddly so, and he didn't really stand that tall either, especially for a dragon that was, ostensibly, male. His tail, too, was odd in that it almost matched his body length in size, giving the impression that if he sat with it wrapped around his paws like a cat, it would wrap around him not once, but twice. It ended with a wicked looking spike, too, which coupled with it's length gave it the overall appearance of a deadly precision weapon.

Finally, his wings stretched out as well, appearing almost magically from their place at his sides. They had blended in so well with his scales and held so closely to his body that they were virtually unnoticeable until put into use. The wings themselves weren't all too remarkable, especially when compared to the rest of his appearance. They were proportional to his form, which made them slightly longer than a normal dragon's, and they seemed to be as fragile as the rest of the dragon, but otherwise that was it.

Curling his wings back against his body and standing up straight again, the dragon once more shook his head. His mind was still slightly foggy, and he still had a hard time remembering how and why he was here, but he could now think a bit straighter. Enough so that he finally was able to get his bearings.

He knew this forest, knew it was Vineriver. In fact, he knew this exact location as well. This was one of many areas he had scouted out after the war with Malefor ended, working with the people of the then newly established settlement of Verona to root out any leftover followers of the dark master. Since then he had found himself coming back to this forest for various reasons, such as camping with friends or investigating mysterious occurrences that occasionally were reported in the area. But he could not recall any of those reasons being the one for why he was here.

With a final growling sigh and shake of his head, the dragon decided it was a mystery he wasn't going to solve on his own and that he should make his way back home. He knew that this particular clearing was not all that far away from an offshoot of the Scaleshine River that flowed through the forest and led back to Verona, which was built on it's banks in the area that was formerly known as the Crowward Grasslands.

He knew the river was north of the clearing and that he would have to follow it west to get out of the forest. The main problem he had was that Verona was on the northern banks, whereas he was on the southern ones and the river was wider and more dangerous at this time of year because of the snow melt from the Dragonridge Mountains. He would either need to cross at one of the dilapidated bridges that dotted it's path in the forest, or he would need to deal with the public crossing in the grasslands, which meant dealing with guards and a toll. He didn't have money on him and no desire to get into an argument, but he also didn't want to try his luck with one of the potentially dangerous, old bridges.

All that went through his head before the tired dragon realized he had been forgetting one key thing. He could fly. That realization struck him like a slap across the face and he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before. He was a dragon, not a mole, or a cheetah, or some other grounded being. He had wings and he could use them and it was embarrassing that he had forgotten it. He was beginning to think maybe he had been drugged, or at the very least very drunk, the night before.

The only thing that soothed his self-bruised ego was that it was currently daytime and he didn't like flying in the sun. But he'd have to make an exception for today if he wanted to get back to Verona before the sun set again and avoid all the trouble crossing the river could cause him.

So, the dragon reluctantly trotted back out into the clearing. Now that he was awake and ready for it, he wasn't as bothered by the sun and it's light. He spread his wings, and with a mighty push from his back legs he launched himself into the air and began to flap, buffeting the grass below him and rising slowly.

As he rose up, the trees began to shrink below him and he could start to get a good view of his surroundings.

Below him was the clearing in which he had awakened, and all around it a canopy of leaves and branches stretched out, occasionally dotted with other small clearings. He saw the Scaleshine river to the north, cutting through the forest in a swathe of furiously running water, an area where no leafy canopy covered.

Out to the west he could see the grasslands, or what remained of them. Where before there had been nothing but rolling green grasslands cut into thirds by the river that flowed through it, there was now farmland. The grasslands had been turned into miles of cultivated crops of all kinds, interspersed with various species of domesticated animals. So much had changed in twenty years.

As the dragon began to fly northwest, in the distance he could see the small city of Verona, rising up in the middle of the farmland, the only break in the monotony of crops and small houses. The city was built in the curve of the Scaleshine river where the stream from the Dragonridge Mountains diverged into two, one leading south to the Gillcrest Gulf and the other leading east through the forest that the dragon now flew over.

From a distance the only thing that really set Verona out was it's walls. The walls stood tall around the circular city, thick and imposing. Four large gates, one at each of the cardinal directions, were the only entrance into the city. The only way into or out of the city was through these gates, unless special permission to fly was granted by Verona's ruler, Prince.

Apart from these walls and the gates, the city itself was quite quaint. Only one building rose up above the walls of the city, the Temple, which was modeled after the one in Warfang. The Temple was the centerpiece of the entire city and acted both as city hall and Prince's residence.

From this distance, that was all the dragon could see, and he would not have a chance to see more, because as soon as he had cleared the forest and the river, he had to land. Flying over the area was expressly prohibited in order to preserve the safety of the city and farms.

With a sigh, the dragon began his descent, his wings ceasing their rhythmic beating and extending out to glide him down. He landed on the edge of the forest, just past the river, where he alighted in the middle of a crop of what looked to be tomatoes.

He would have to walk home from here, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with the river crossing anymore.