Based on characters from Fablehaven© by Brandon Mull. The original characters and plot details are my property. No copyright infringement intended.
Leander woke up warm, comfortable and feeling something was out of the ordinary. He was in a room, a real room, not a cave, barn or a stone keep. He lay in a bed, a real bed not a lumpy bed of treasure or dirt. It was a warm bed, heated by his body heat. He looked around, light filtering in through a window somewhere defined the space and he remembered he was in Seth's room.
He held his hands up, wiggled his fingers and stared at them. Amazed at their small perfection, he touched his face with both hands. It was human also, warm and soft. He was amazed at his strange new body but he was comfortable. As his hands rested on his face he felt his mouth and cheeks move to smile, he was happy. He was normal this wasn't a dream.
He sat up on the edge of the bed and watched Seth sleep for a few minutes. He impatiently waited and then his stomach grumbled hungrily.
He got up and stood over his friend. "Hey Seth, wake up," he said quietly, there was no response.
He reached down and shook his arm, "Seth?"
"Stop it, leave me alone," came the grumpy, sleepy reply and he rolled over.
"Oh, sorry," Leander apologized and sat down on his bed again.
"What? Oh!" Seth woke to the unfamiliar voice. He opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar face. He jumped up ready to fight before he realized it was Leander. "You startled me… again," he said smiling.
"I've gotta use the toilet, and I'm hungry," Leander whispered and his stomach growled to accentuate the point.
"Oh! Hmm. Uh, you disappear … follow me … I'll open and close doors," Seth rattled off as he slipped into the jeans he left on the floor overnight.
When they returned Seth rummaged through his dresser again and gave Leander a pair of boxers, some baggy jeans and a t-shirt to wear before heading down for breakfast.
Leander's stomach grumbled again.
"I'll bring something for you to eat," Seth said laughing. He picked up the plate and fork from the midnight snack before he left.
A gentle tap on the door caused Leander to disappear. Seth opened the door and Kendra walked in looking around expectantly.
"Good morning Kendra," Seth said sarcastically.
"Oh yeah, morning, Seth," she said offhandedly. "Leander?" she queried.
"He's hungry, lets go eat and bring him something too," Seth said quietly still holding the door open.
"Please!" Leander's quiet but pleading voice came from everwhere in the room. Kendra laughed and followed Seth out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Leander managed to get himself dressed though he did struggle with the unfamiliar zipper and snap on the jeans.
A half hour later Seth returned. He had easily smuggled two slices of toast and a hand full of bacon for Leander. He also brought a large glass of orange juice that he faked sipping all the way up the stairs.
"This is great!" Leander exclaimed when he took a bite of the bacon.
Kendra returned a few minutes later. She managed to smuggle a couple pancakes and the last of the strawberry jam in a jar she was supposed to clean and recycle.
"This is better," he said after he took a bite of the pancake smothered in the strawberry jam.
"It's all good," he said finally, smiling as he licked his fingers after he swallowed the last bite of toast and bacon smothered in jelly.
Knock. Knock.
Seth and Kendra quickly looked at the door and then back at Leander. The chair where he had been sitting was empty.
Kendra went to the door while Seth pulled open the books and papers they were supposed to be studying. The table was in proper disarray when Kendra opened the door.
Bracken stood there, his eyes were bright with excitement but something in the way he held himself told Kendra he was very tired. Marla stood beside him.
"I expect you to get all of your studying done," she said seriously with a lift of her eyebrow. She smiled at Bracken and walked away.
Bracken walked in and sat down wearily. Leander appeared next to him and he didn't even flinch.
"I've been up all night getting stories about dragons, Raxtus and his family. Thank you, Mother for all your shrines!" he said with pleasure.
"What did you find out?" Leander asked leaning over the table toward him.
Bracken thought for a moment, how to arrange his thoughts and get the information to Leander so he would understand it and not be overwhelmed by the consequences of the knowledge.
"What do you know about how individual dragons get their particular breath weapons and magical talent?" he asked Leander.
"Nothing, I don't have much of Raxtus' private memories. He and I are very different. We share only memories like good friends, bad enemies, the layout of sanctuaries and other generalizations but not his personal thoughts," he said with an awkward shrug. "That might fall in the category of general information so I don't think he knew anything either."
Bracken leaned back in the chair, crossed his arms over his chest and took a deep breath. He looked at Leander's open naive face and with a slight grin he began speaking.
"Dragons' offspring are different that humans, they are not totally dependent on a genetic link to their parents. There is a certain amount of that but there is dragon magic at work too. Each dragon has the capability of many different powers some are common and some are quite rare.
"In the egg, the dragonet is sentient by the end of its first year and capable of complex reasoning. It takes many years for a dragon egg to hatch. In the last year the young dragon is learning from a unique and direct psychic link with an adult dragon guide, sometimes a parent, most times not. They learn but can also direct what elements it is interested in and capable of manipulating.
"The link only happens during a certain portion of the unhatched dragon's formation and once training is completed the unhatched dragon severs the link before leaving its egg. Dragons do not have psychic powers so don't think any of them can read your mind."
Something about that statement bothered Leander, it didn't ring quite true but it wasn't wrong either. Raxtus would know, oh well, it didn't bother him that much. He shook it off and listened to what Bracken was saying.
"Magic is also at work so when the dragon hatches they are a mixture of their parents, their ancestors, their own choices and dragon magic. The combination can lead to a powerful but common fire dragon or a less common lightening dragon from the same clutch. Frost dragons are the rarest and the most powerful.
"The chance of a rare Frost dragon having Frost dragon offspring is much higher than the random chance of one happening on its own.
"I found out that Raxtus' mother was one of those rare powerful Frost dragons," Bracken said wearily as if he were talking about someone other than Leander. Bracken closed his eyes and yawned but continued to speak.
"Dragon lore is that if a female dragon waits until she is at least five hundred years old to mate the first time then her offspring will have exceptional powers because the power of the mother is so strong.
"Raxtus' clutch was her first. She had waited until she was five hundred years old to mate with his father. According to my source, she wanted her offspring to have the most from her that they could get. She knew her strengths and her ability to pass on her 'rarity'. She wanted Celebrant's offspring to be powerful like him, and to have every advantage she could give them."
Captivated by the story Bracken was telling Leander listened intently. He had never heard anything about his mother or his parent's relationship before he was born.
"Dragons may not love like we do but they are proud creatures and are proud of their offspring. She was very proud that Celebrant chose her to mate with, but she made him wait. He waited too."
Bracken opened his eyes and stared intently at Leander. This would be major information to pass on and wanted to see how he would take it.
"Throughout history the strongest most formidable dragons were Frost dragons and the rarest most outstandingly intelligent and powerful wizards were male Frost dragon avatars," he said the significant implication of their jointly acknowledged breeding effort apparent in his final words.
Kendra, standing next to Bracken, watched as Leander's face went through a myriad of excited, happy and sometimes confused emotions as he listened to Bracken's story of his mother and father. His face finally settled into the sad melancholy expression she had seen on his face when she first saw him in Warren's cabin.
"No wonder he was so disappointed in me, I was supposed to be one of a quartet of powerful heirs. We were to be a great and powerful family," Leander groaned, put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.
"Oh man," Seth sympathized with him.
Kendra moved to sit in a chair next to him and patted his arm. She couldn't help herself, seeing the look on his face, tears started to fill her eyes.
Bracken yawned and closed his eyes again and continued speaking.
"The last frost dragon wizard died about 1000 years ago. He was the main architect of Zzyzx, the eldest wizard at the time and one of the most intelligent and powerful ever. He conceived and created the powerful sword Vasilis. He tried to avoid death by becoming one of the undead but he lost his humanity and it drove him insane.
"Seth met him; he was called Morisant the Magnificent. Instead of being a force for good as he had always been he became a force for evil. To stop his insane excesses a group of less powerful wizards managed to trap him and the sword behind the Totem Wall," Bracken stopped speaking and yawned again.
Seth nodded and took up part of the story.
"He bragged that they almost couldn't do it but then he said he was sorry for all the terrible things he did. He was glad he didn't get to do more bad stuff," Seth said slowly shaking his head at the memory. He had already told them of his encounter with the trapped and undead Morisant. They knew he had put an end to the insane undead wizard and emerged from behind the wall with the sword.
"I found out something interesting and appalling," Bracken continued. "Since the killing of your siblings all young Frost dragons, male and female have died in accidents. But they are so rare that there have only been three in the last six hundred years. There are no living Frost dragons on this planet that we know of."
"Somebody seriously doesn't want any Frost dragons around," Seth said, shaking his head.
"Your mother, Axezeles, was a huge dragon almost as big as your father. Her scales were ice blue, like the color of your eyes, Leander. Celebrant and she made a beautiful couple. I actually saw them together once though at the time I had no clue that they were a couple."
Bracken was relentless with his story but he was also tired and wanted to get the information out before he fell asleep.
"Raxtus probably would have grown to exactly your father's size, if things had gone normally. Only the blue on Raxtus' spikes would have been the difference between him and his father. Your siblings would have been magnificent too."
Leander groaned lowering his head to the table. This tale was getting more humiliating every minute. He was torn because he wanted to hear it and yet he didn't want to know how far short he had fallen from his potential and his father's expectations.
Kendra patted his arm again knowing there was nothing else she could do for her friend.
"There may have been a faction within the few remaining wizards to prevent her from having offspring. They may have been fearful of another Morisant," Bracken said conjecturing.
"Your mother just disappeared, she is assumed dead though her body was never found. Your well hidden clutch shouldn't have been vulnerable no matter if it had a guard or not. The cockatrice may have been set loose on purpose to destroy the eggs or prevent them from hatching. Someone or something wanted your entire clutch destroyed along with your mother to prevent her from trying again," he concluded.
Leander lifted his head from the table and looked up at Bracken astonished at his supposition.
"I always accepted what I was told was the truth. That she got herself killed somehow – foolishly. That she left us unprotected. I never thought that someone might have wanted us dead," Leander said sadly, tears welling in his eyes. Shiara and the fairies saved him from being murdered like the rest.
"That tale of your mother being killed somehow foolishly is mostly idle fairy babble," Bracken sighed. "Dragons check on their eggs occasionally but they hide them very well. They don't guard their eggs. Shiara says your mother hid your eggs extremely well. Someone searched deliberately for your clutch and sent the cockatrice in with the intention of destroying all the eggs."
Silence filled the room as they all thought about the murder of Raxtus siblings and his mother.
Kendra's tears started flowing down her face. she felt so bad for Leander, finding all this out now when he was so emotionally vulnerable.
Leander put his head back down on the table as if the information was too much for his mind to hold. He really didn't know how to handle his human emotions yet. He stopped thinking and let the thoughts rattle around in his mind without trying to focus on anything Bracken had just told him.
Bracken started to nod off to sleep when suddenly Leander raised his head and stared at Bracken with a strange expression on his face.
"Oh, whoa, wait a minute. Are you telling me that I could possibly be a Frost dragon?" Leander asked in disbelief.
"We don't know what you are – do we?" Bracken startled awake said seriously. "You were corrupted by fairy magic and your dragon magic never developed properly. Who knows how long it will take for you to find out – develop your magic. You are like a young dragon again, inexperienced. Almost like an unhatched dragonet.
"Do you have any memory of your guide and what you wanted to be back then?" he asked.
"Are you joking? I can't remember that far back, anyway that would be Raxtus' memory," Leander shook his head. "But I think I was actually pulled from the egg before I got my guide."
Leander's mind was spinning. He was unsure of what Bracken was saying. Could he be a rare and powerful Frost dragon?
"Okay, let me get straight…you are saying now that I have my dragon magic and a human avatar I might be a powerful dragon or a mighty wizard?" Leander said trying to figure it all out. "That kind of thing would never happen, least of all to me. Besides that, I wouldn't know how to act. I've never been very good at being a dragon," he laughed scornfully. "From the lowest joke to the best there is – get real." He rolled his eyes and shook his head. He couldn't be a powerful dragon if he was still a dwarf, no one would take him seriously even if he did have great dragon powers.
Could he truly become the son that Celebrant deserved? He wondered. No…was his answer and Leander snorted in self-derision.
But even if it were true then the only way he could claim his truly unique power without ridicule would be to become a wizard and give up his dragon form. Dragons really hated wizards though. His father couldn't have wanted that for his offspring.
He didn't know what kind of dragon he was and he had no clue how it worked. Maybe the only way to find out his nature was to discover what his 'first' breath weapon might be but….
Did he want to know? He shook his head.
Did he have to know? He shook his head.
He had no way of finding out either unless he stayed a dragon and listened for his guide. Would that work? He wasn't an unhatched dragon.
No, no and no.
He could just stay human and no one would ask him to do anything. True it was kind of cowardly but he had been a coward almost his entire life. He might think of this in another way if he was in dragon form but he wasn't. He was human and those were the emotions and intelligence he was using. This didn't sound like a good situation to him and knowing what a coward Raxtus was he probably wouldn't like it either.
Did he want to become whomever these crazy people were willing to kill?
NO! Who would?
Becoming either a powerful dragon or wizard was not something he wanted to develop. Raxtus had only wanted to be a normal dragon but that was impossible since he was so small and always would be.
Now Leander only wanted to be a normal human. He had been ignored most of his life and he kind of liked it. Now that he was a normal looking human maybe he could really be ignored by dragonkind and disappear without being invisible.
He looked up from the table into friendly faces. They were looking at him with wonder and concern as he sat there. He had been staring through the tabletop silently shaking his head at the strange and frightening thoughts going through his mind.
"This is difficult. I've generally been a coward my entire life so I don't want to do this. I'm glad no one else knows who or where I am," Leander confessed suddenly feeling very paranoid. "You aren't going to make me do anything about this are you?" he addressed Bracken.
"I can't make you do anything and don't want to," Bracken said slouching deeper into the chair. "I'm giving you information you probably should have had long ago but no one would talk about. The sources I talked to told me that once Celebrant found out how small you were and that you hatched contaminated with fairy magic, he dismissed you as a viable heir.
"Any enemies you had probably left you alone because of the fairy magic. Then when you never showed your avatar many dragons thought you couldn't invoke one. They must have thought if that were true you couldn't become a wizard," Bracken told him.
"But now I'm no longer contaminated with fairy magic and I am human. If 'they' find out they might come after me," Leander concluded glumly. "Will they try to kill me if they find out I'm human just on the chance that I might be a Frost dragon?
"What am I to do? Can I prove to them that I'm not? Then what if it turns out that I am? I wouldn't have enough power to protect myself, and they could kill me at will," Leander rambled on thinking out loud.
"I don't want this!" he said too loudly and Kendra shushed him even though his words wouldn't escape Bracken's shield.
"I don't want to know. Can't I just stay human? Kendra was told it's the perfect disguise no one can penetrate it especially if I don't do magic. I can fool anyone," Leander said quietly but still in a panicked rush of words. He hadn't felt the ability to do magic yet, maybe without his fairy magic he didn't have any. Bracken had told him he might not have an avatar at all; maybe instead he just lost all his magic. Right now he could live happily with that possibility.
"That means you can never use your dragon form again, do you want to do that?" Kendra asked terrified for her friend but she couldn't imagine never again seeing the small platinum dragon or flying with him again.
"Well it's better than staying invisible for the rest of my life," Leander said with passion.
"True, I wouldn't like that possibility," Kendra said.
"No I guess it wouldn't be a good idea," Seth added.
"So what am I going to do?" he asked looking from one face to the next.
No one had an answer for him.