The Dragons' Homeland
"...It's still strange, somehow."
Lakia murmured as she looked over the countless buildings raised within the gorge.
When she had first come here, the gorge had been no place for anyone to live. The cliffs had been too high, the wind too fierce, the nights too deep, and even in daylight the shadows had been cold. But after the empire fell and the years rolled on, the dragons had succeeded in making it a home.
The children growing up had a lot to do with it. It also helped that the ones she had thought were adults had turned out to be little more than adolescents. Naturally, they had needed more space.
At first the caves simply multiplied. Alduin had rammed the mountainside to open vast entrances, Masor had carved the rough stone walls within with invisible blades, and Gargantua had opened paths for the wind to draw out moisture and smoke. Some dragons clawed stairways into the rock; others pushed stone with their own bodies to make plazas. Those skilled with fire melted frozen bedrock; those who called water carved spring-paths between the cliffs.
At first it had been closer to dens than houses. A few paths where Lakia could walk without falling. A few chambers where she could shelter from the rain. Spots the dragons had widened so they wouldn't step on one another. That was about it.
But as time passed, the gorge changed.
Lakia walked slowly along the central path of the gorge, her black robe draped over her shoulders. The path beneath her feet was level. Once, jutting stones and deep ruts had forced her to watch every step for her ankles; now a stone road Masor had refined many times stretched long between the cliffs. The stone was smooth but not slippery. Somewhere, shallow grain had been left on the surface so that hatchling dragons racing along wouldn't hurt themselves badly if they fell.
Lakia looked at that grain and sighed.
"Masor left this on purpose, didn't he."
A soft rustle. The air beside her shivered very faintly. An answer.
Lakia spoke without turning her head.
"Well done."
Rustle.
This answer seemed a little pleased. Of course the sound itself was the same. Lakia could hear the difference by now.
Along both sides of the path, cave mouths large and small stood in rows. To human eyes some entrances were as grand as palace gates; others were modest holes just big enough for smaller dragons to duck into. Each cave had a marker. Some had names scratched with claws; some had scale fragments hung; some had wooden boards where Lakia herself had written the letters.
Alduin's dwelling was the easiest to recognize. Because the entrance was half melted.
"Slept leaning against the entrance again, didn't you."
Lakia muttered. From far off a low rumble returned.
Krr...
An excuse.
"You know by now you get hot in your sleep."
Krrrng.
"Don't play the victim. Last time we put a new door on and you melted that too."
This time there was no answer. Lakia snorted a laugh.
At the center of the gorge lay a vast plaza. They called it a plaza, but by human city standards it was large enough to swallow a small fortress with room to spare. Originally it had been the place where Gargantua had sat long ago — a broad plain pressed flat by a body the size of a mountain range. Now facilities the dragons had built stood in rows upon it.
On one side was a huge pool of water. Calling it a pool was understatement; it was nearly a lake. Water flowed down from the cliff in several streams and gathered clear, and broad stone slabs lined the edges so hatchlings wouldn't slip. In the water three small blue-scaled dragons spun in circles trying to catch one another's tails.
As Lakia passed, one of them poked only its head above the surface.
"Don't fight first thing in the morning."
Blub. Water droplets splashed.
"And don't try to get away with calling it play."
Blurr...
The little dragon gave a plaintive cry and submerged again.
On another side ran a path of heat. Because using Alduin's breath directly made everything excessive, Lakia had long ago reduced the work of entrusting fire to him. Instead a few fire-attribute dragons buried heat beneath the underground bedrock, and Gargantua regulated wind-paths to send warmth through the gorge. Thanks to that, even on cold nights the hatchlings no longer slept plastered against Lakia, and her own room was less freezing than before.
When that facility was first completed, Lakia had been genuinely moved.
"You've finally understood heating."
Krr.
Rustle.
Urrrng.
That day the dragons had been proud in their own ways. The problem was that on the first day the heat had been so strong Lakia had woken drenched in sweat. After that she had to give the heating dragons a very long lesson.
Hot and warm are different. Warming a room and boiling it are different. People are not eggs.
That lesson was still famous in the gorge.
Above the plaza, stepped storage vaults followed the cliff. The ones with massive stone doors were meat stores; the slightly smaller ones held dried fruit and grain, spices, cloth, and tools. Most of the things obtained from outside piled up there. More precisely, not obtained so much as scavenged.
The dragons sometimes brought things humans had left behind. When Lakia asked whether they had truly been abandoned, the answers sometimes came late. At those times Lakia would narrow her eyes.
"You picked it up?"
Krr.
"Picked it up, or took it?"
Krrr...
"Just because the owner ran away doesn't mean it has no owner."
After that, whenever the dragons brought something they showed it to Lakia first. Thanks to that, one corner of the gorge held quite a few objects of unknowable use. A broken cannon. An imperial statue's head. A strangely shaped crown. An iron bathtub. A golden candlestick.
Once Masor had even brought an entire great front door from some noble manor. The reason was that he liked the shape of the doorknob. Lakia had fallen silent for a long time that day too. And in the end she had him remove only the doorknob and send the door back. Masor had answered with a rustle. After that the door returned to the front of the manor where it had been. But because it hadn't been set precisely in its original place, for a while a ghost story circulated in that region that a noble manor's door had shifted three paces sideways overnight.
Lakia walked the gorge past those objects. The old gorge had been empty — only stone and wind and mist. The gorge now held living. A hatchling was being scolded by a larger dragon after fleeing with a strip of dried meat in its jaws. Two dragons raising stone pillars for a bridge scratched their heads at each other when the heights didn't match. One small white-scaled dragon had wrapped itself in cloth Lakia had hung out to dry and fallen asleep as if it were a blanket.
Lakia stopped in front of it.
"That's laundry."
The hatchling, eyes still closed, gave a tiny cry.
Peep.
"You think looking cute will get you off?"
Pee...
Lakia looked down for a moment, then sighed.
"Sleep a little, then put it back."
The hatchling immediately hugged the cloth tighter.
Rustle. Beside her Masor made a very small sound. Lakia turned her head.
"What. You think I'm soft?"
Rustle.
"You're not wrong, but when you do it too it's a bit much."
Masor didn't answer. But the air shivered just a little more softly. As if laughing.
Lakia kept walking. Toward the deepest part of the gorge stood a vast round building. Calling it a building was generous; it was closer to a cavern carved from the mountain. Outside, stone pillars stood in a circle, and the top was covered with transparent crystal plates so the sky-light could enter. It was a meeting hall and dining hall and, sometimes, a playground for the hatchlings.
At first Lakia hadn't wanted such a space. The dragons were so large that gathering was dangerous. They stepped on one another's tails, wings collided, and laughing they bit chunks out of the ceiling far too often. But as time passed it became necessary. The children increased. The problems that came looking for them increased. Things the dragons needed to decide among themselves arose. Above all, there were times when Lakia needed to gather everyone in one place and scold them. That reason was the biggest.
At the entrance of the meeting hall, enormous letters were carved. Letters Lakia herself had written, which Masor had cut into the stone.
No fighting. No breath. No tail-wagging. Alduin especially forbidden.
Beneath that someone had added small letters with a claw.
Alduin is wronged.
Every time Lakia saw it she debated whether to laugh or erase it. Today again she stopped a moment looking at those letters.
"Still haven't erased this."
From far off Alduin's cry was heard.
Krrrng.
"Don't be proud of it."
Life in the gorge rolled on like this. Too big, too loud, sometimes dangerous, yet strangely peaceful. Lakia liked that peace.
She had lived through war. She had seen the imperial capital burn. She had seen the way people turned people into numbers. A very long time had passed since then. The world had changed a great deal. Kings had changed, borders of nations had shifted, new forests had grown over the empire's ruins, and humans had made new flags again.
But the gorge was the gorge. The dragons had grown, facilities had multiplied, caves had become homes, and the paths stretched like the streets of a village. Walking between them, Lakia thought the same thing every day.
Still, here is all right.
Even on days when the whole world becomes disgusting, here at least is still all right.
Of course the outside had not left this place alone. The Dragons' Gorge. Highest danger zone. Mapmakers marked it with red lines, adventurer guilds posted no-approach commissions, and kingdoms occasionally calculated whether it might have military value.
There were always people who tried to come. Mad adventurers. Knights hungry for renown. Merchants eyeing rare scales. Scholars who believed in the dead empire's legacy. Strange cultists who climbed the mountain saying they would worship dragons as gods.
They all stopped outside the gorge. More precisely, they had to stop. Because of Gargantua's storm.
Around the outer rim of the gorge the wind always turned. Clouds that descended from the sky rolled down to the ground, mist that climbed the cliffs fell again as thunder, and the path before one's eyes changed every three steps. Rain and lightning and ice grains mixed in the wind. It was easy to lose direction. Horses went mad, carriage wheels broke, magic compasses spun and cracked.
The strong could enter a little farther. But after entering a little farther they lost the path they had come by. They turned back. Those who could not turn back, Gargantua himself pushed out with wind. He did not enjoy killing. But neither did he permit approach.
Gargantua was the gate of the gorge. The gate of storms. Almost no outsiders had crossed that gate.
Almost.
That morning Lakia stopped on the small stone bridge beside the meeting hall. Because the wind had changed.
The wind inside the gorge was gentle — wind Gargantua had regulated. Wind refined so hatchlings practicing wing-spreading wouldn't be shoved too hard, so Lakia's robe wouldn't plaster to her face as she walked, so dried fruit wouldn't blow away. But now the sound of the outer storm was deepening.
Woooooooom.
The entire gorge rumbled low. Lakia raised her head. Gargantua was moving.
On a distant cliff, a vast shadow like a mountain range slowly lifted its head. Six pairs of wings held the wind. He had not beaten his wings. He had only changed his breath. Even so the clouds outside the gorge overturned. Black clouds rode down the mountains, lightning spread like roots.
Hatchlings all at once looked at the sky. Alduin also raised his head from far off. Masor's presence drew closer to Lakia's side.
Rustle.
Lakia said low,
"Someone's come?"
Rustle.
Masor couldn't answer. Even an invisible dragon couldn't easily see beyond the outer storm.
Then Gargantua's voice rolled into the gorge. A low, ancient voice. A sound as if cliff and wind spoke together.
"Mother."
Lakia looked that way.
"What is it?"
"Someone is passing through the storm."
Lakia's eyes narrowed.
"A human?"
Gargantua was silent a moment. That silence alone said the answer was not ordinary.
"...It is an orc."