She hated their scent, their aura... their mere presence. It was as if her very blood rejected them in their entirety.
These white-haired men and women were not like those who bonded with her bloodline many generations ago. They were not supposed to be in her home.
Yet she was powerless to stop them as they invaded the home built by men and women who bonded with her bloodline. They had five large dragons, and she was only one and that too small. Many of them tried to bond with her, but She burned every last one of those who approached.
She feasted upon the eggs and the young of their dragons, burned any of their family who tried to claim her, and ran should any of their larger dragons try to hunt her down. Of the five that came, one was her age, her size, but even that one grew to outsize her eventually. No, She couldn't do anything but watch, feast, burn, and run.
Eventually, they stopped trying to claim her and she stopped burning them. She still feasted, but that was for her survival now than for why she started doing it. She didn't want to eliminate and eradicate these dragons, she had given up trying to. They numbered in many while she still remained alone.
But it would seem her old wishes would come true anyway.
These foolish Dragonriders had grown too arrogant and too hungry for power. They cannibalized themselves and lost their dragons. Finally, She was the only one again, no longer surrounded by her kind who repulsed her so. Yet she knew she could not stay here, not when those white-haired fools would try to claim her again. Or even kill her for their failure to do so. So she flew from the place she was born, the only home she'd ever known.
East she could feel another of her kind, one that once shared the Island she called home.
South there was another that lived on the same mountain that she had lived in.
She did not want to come across either of them. She went North, as far as she could.
The lands here were hard and rough but abundant with trees and game for her to hunt. It would remind her of the home were it not for how cold it was. But that could be dealt with, this cold could be dealt with. She could wake the flames that laid dormant in the bowels of the mountain, and carve her own den.
She burned the grove that had grown in the mouth of the dormant flaming mountain, burned and devoured the wood creatures that lived in it. The only thing that seemed almost immune to her flames was the tree in the center. Its leaves burned its bark singed, yet it stood tall and imposing. An odd thing… there was something about this tree… something that made her blood rush. No matter, once the mountain comes alive, it will vanish too.
Humans eventually came up and were horrified to see her curled around the tree. A natural reaction to seeing her kind. She burned them all and flew out to hunt down the villages and burn them as well. Humans were always a nuisance, they always found some way to make her life hell. She would be better off without them.
But these humans proved to be tougher than the ones from where she came. They were harder people, who would rather stand their ground than run at the sight of her.
She respected them for it.
She didn't know how long their struggle continued. The humans would pour in day after day to try and finish her. None succeeded, but the continuous attacks were chipping away at her. Or perhaps it was the cold, or the strangeness from the tree, or whatever daunting magic from further North repelled her, or even perhaps… she was simply old now. Even with the ability to lay clutches of eggs as she had, she was no young dragon and she knew. Perhaps her time had come.
By the time the final wave of humans had come, she had turned the once grove in the mouth of the mountain into a large den with just a single leafless tree in the middle for her to curl in. Her home, one she made by her own fire.
The last of the humans she would deal with came with weapons forged to kill her, made from the stone of the very mountain she called home. She did not fight them this time, simply laid her head down and stared down the woman who led them. The woman met her gaze and then swung her giant axe.
Perhaps if things had been different… she would have chosen the woman to be her first rider.
She knew it would not end in a single blow, knew whatever these humans concocted could not shatter her scales. The humans went for her skull, the part of up upper body not covered in scales. She cried out in pain but did not fight death, she knew it was time for her to move on.
Except, she felt more trapped. She had never died before, but she knew for certain that death should not feel like this, so congested. She stopped feeling, yet her vision remained. She watched the humans harvest every part of her but left her eggs alone. She was grateful for that. The human woman would return time and again until she was old and gray. She remained with her and died beside her.
Time passed, and humans moved into her den, carved houses in the walls. She would applaud them if she could. Human ingenuity was something to behold. Her remains had become something they used as a memorial of sorts, for the ancestors she killed. She heard their prayers as loud as a dragon's roar. The tree they worshipped, her they used as a reminder of what their people had overcome.
And then he came.
She scented her the moment he stepped foot on the island. For the first time in years, she felt restless. One of those humans who had taken over where she was born!
But when he came forward, all she saw was a man like the ones that lived in her den, nothing like those of his ancestors.
The male stepped forward and she felt a growl in the back of her throat, or would have if she had a throat that could hold a growl anymore. Not like she could growl, to begin with. The male reached out and touched her skull.
Suddenly she was flying. She was free after so many years… She looked down to see the boy touching her skull.
And right in front of him stood a man with white hair.