Well, I finally got around to actually finishing a story again! Hopefully more to come soon. I'm finally getting an idea of how I want to upload these stories. But here is my first properly plot relevant story involving one of my favorite OCs: Caesar the Drolf and showing his first experiences in the world!

As always, I love critiques, so let me know what you think and how I could improve! Feel free to follow so you can see my next post (hopefully not too far along in the future) where I might continue with Caesar or move along to one of my other characters. Haven't quite decided yet.

Anyway, enough rambling. Enjoy!

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A King is Born
There was naught but darkness. Darkness and some faint sound that he failed to understand. No. Not just one. Two? Maybe three. He felt weightless in the darkness as if truly surrounded by just a void, but something seemed so strange about it. Each moment, the sound was louder and the darkness faded. He focused on the voices as best he could, but nothing made sense.
"--ized...mal...soon...nutes..." Was all he got from the first voice. It was certainly loud enough.
"--ert when...ere to se..."
Another set of sounds from the first voice and then silence. The darkness remained as prominent as ever and yet... He took a deep breath of air. Why was there air here? That being said, what even was air? He held the breath with an iron grip in his lungs. Lungs? It started to burn. The air steadily slipped from his mouth in a sort of groan. But he had a mouth? Of course he had a mouth. Who doesn't have a mouth? It's by the nose, underneath the-- A pause. Eyes?
Slowly he opened his eyes only to shut them again as light flooded into them. He winced and raised an arm up to block the incoming light. "Master Cornelius! He's awake!" His ears flicked in annoyance. That first voice was too loud for its own good. He heard the fast steps of somebody approaching. Once more he opened his eyes. His arm blocked a good amount of the light. It was at least enough to allow him to keep them open for at least a little bit longer.
He blinked. Then blinked again. And again and again until the world around him began to form. Straight ahead was a top-wall. Top-wall? Ceiling. That one. What is a ceiling? What the hell is air? He looked to one side to see a blurred figure quickly scratching away at something in its hand. His eyes darted to the other side to see another figure looming over him with an excitedly twisted smile that stood out far too much for him to be comfortable.
More blinks and the blurriness subsided. Ahead was a stone ceiling. To the first side was somebody... rather average looking if he was being honest. Scent said male for this one and the other. Pen on paper on board to write. Watching him. Other one. He looked over to the smile-man. Gray hair. Wrinkled face. Experienced eyes of ambition. Joy. Excitement. Yet, he still felt somehow connected to the Smile-man. Paper-guy scribbled away on his paper.
"Hello, young one," Smile-man said slowly. "Can you hear me? Can you understand me?" No response beyond an absent-minded blink that made the smile fade a bit. "You're sure he was showing the right signs?"
"Y-Yes! A-Absolutely, sir! I would never mistake such a thing." Ear flick. Loud. "It may have only been recent, but he gave a stronger signal than any other--" Paper-guy was silenced by the subject's hand going over his mouth. The grip was tight, but not unbearable. It was enough to make Smile-man take a step back.
"Too loud." The subject said, returning his gaze to Paper-guy. "Quieter."
Paper-guy gave a hesitant and terrified nod of understanding and the hand released from his mouth. He continued upon Smile-man motioning for him to do so, but only in a comparative whisper, "He gave a stronger signal than any of his siblings. Nearly everything was off the charts. Anything that wasn't was still beyond any of our expectations. If you wanted your top dog, you got him with this one."
The subject's ears folded back and a low, rumbling growl came from his throat. "Wolf. Not dog."
Paper-guy whimpered and stepped away, but Smile-man smiled even more and laid a gentle hand on the subject's shoulder. "Drolf, actually, my boy. Dragonwolf technically, but who has time to say that?" His voice was soft and smooth, yet held a power that the subject couldn't fully comprehend. "You will be my alpha. You will be strong and lead your brothers and sisters under my guidance. To you... I give the name Caesar. How does that sound, my boy?"
The drolf stared up at Smile-man before nodding at the name. "Caesar. I like it."
"Excellent! Absolutely excellent! I'm sure you have so many questions running through your head. I'm more than happy to explain--"
"What is air?" Caesar asked abruptly, staring up at Smile-man with an all-too-serious expression. Smile-man stared in stunned silence, so Caesar asked once more, "What. Is. Air?"
"Well... Air is something that is all around us. It is a sort of invisible substance that we breathe in order to prolong our lives." Smile-man explained. Caesar pondered the information for a moment and decided he was satisfied enough with the answer for now, so he nodded for Smile-man to continue. "As I was saying... I'll be more than happy to answer any and all questions you have as I'm sure you have plenty more than just about air. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should at least introduce myself. My name is Cornelius. I am your father, Caesar."
"Fa...ther?" He asked slowly. "Father... But then what about a mother?"
Cornelius pursed his lips and took in a deep breath before exhaling a long sigh. "That's a difficult question to answer. I guess the easiest way to say it is that you don't have a mother, Caesar. Only a father."
Caesar's ears folded back against his head and for a moment he seemed almost sad, but then returned to his stoic appearance. "Where am I?"
"Ah, that one is simple, actually. You are in my castle. In one of the lower medical wards, but we'll get you out soon. I'll be providing you with a guide to keep you company until you're more properly acquainted with the castle. Otherwise, you could get lost and it could be dangerous for you."
Caesar stared at Cornelius with a slightly tilted head, seeming confused by the excess of information, but in the end simply replying with, "Okay."
The room held an awkward silence then. Cornelius and Paper-guy both looked back and forth between each other and Caesar. "Would you like to sit up? Maybe stand and walk around?" Cornelius finally asked to break the silence.
A moment of silence. "Yes." With that, the drolf lifted himself up and the cover on top of him fell down to his waist to reveal a toned, muscular body covered in pitch black fur. Two wings unfurled from his back and stretched out to their full span to reveal crimson membranes upon them. He looked over each of them and gave them a few test flaps that forced Paper-guy and Cornelius to step back. Caesar folded them back against his back again, then threw the covers off of him and climbed off of his bed.
Cornelius took a moment to stare at Caesar in stunned silence before facepalming and looking to Paper-guy. "Markus, please get him something to wear..."
The red-faced Markus gave a slow nod before scurrying off and out of the room. Caesar in the meantime was walking through the otherwise empty room, silently examining anything and everything with intense curiosity. Cornelius allowed him to explore the room, leaning back onto the bed as he observed the drolf.
"He's speaking, reacting to the world, interacting with objects. General knowledge of at least some basic things. Air, mother and father relations... What other knowledge might he have already?" He quieted down to muttering and soon Markus hurried back into the room and handed Caesar a basic set of clothes. The drolf took them and stared at them blankly before lifting up a shirt and letting the pants fall to the ground. He reached a hand into the shirt through the head hold and stuck it out through one of the sleeves. "Has no idea how to put on clothes..." He held up his hands and a pen and paper appeared in them and Cornelius began scribbling notes onto it while Markus helped Caesar put his clothes on.
Upon Caesar managing to get his clothes on, Cornelius led him and Markus out of the medical room Caesar had woken in so Cornelius could show him the area. The castle itself was ancient, but to look at it one would assume that it had been built within the last century or so. The walls, ceilings, and floors were all well kept and tidy if only a bit dusty here and there. Any damages that had been done to it from any sort of weather or accident were cleaned up and fixed almost immediately. The stone itself seemed to have a sort of unique brightness to it that caught Caesar's eye. When he asked about it, Cornelius explained that the stones were enchanted to automatically repair themselves from any sort of small scratch or mark that would be put on them. Caesar also noted, though didn't comment, that Markus was quick to make a few more extra notes when Caesar asked.
Moving on from the hallways, they traveled up a circling staircase and into an entrance hall. Light poured in through the stain-glass windows with lit torches underneath that lined the walls leading from the large, arching steel door all the way to a wooden door that was notably smaller, but still quite large. He was uncertain what it was, but could hear a large commotion from behind the door as well as some sort of savory scent that wafted from it. He absentmindedly put a hand to his stomach, quickly moving it away once he heard Markus scribbling on his paper once more.
Continuing forward, Cornelius led him another set of stairs and into a smaller hallway with a window at the end of it. Doors lined the walls with sconces placed every few gaps between the doors. Caesar followed his father down the hallway to a certain door in particular and led him inside. Another window, this one with curtains pulled to the side, was found inside. Light filled the room showing it was a much smaller, cozier looking room than the previous few. A bed laid up against the right wall of the room in an elegantly fashioned wooden frame. Two soft pillows were properly fluffed at the head of the bed with a red blanket neatly placed over the bedding itself. At the foot of the bed was a chest with a keyhole on it and on the opposite side of the room was a dresser for clothes. In the far corner with the dresser stood a large wardrobe.
Cornelius turned and smiled proudly at Caesar. "This is where you will be sleeping, my boy! I've had it all made for you for when you finally woke. Everything should be perfectly comfortable and you get it all to yourself. What do you think?"
Caesar looked around the room silently to take in the sight. He moved to the dresser. Dressers had clothes. Clothes are complicated, but everybody else has them, so they must be worthwhile. He opened each of the drawers and frowned. "They're empty?"
"Ah, yes. Well, I wasn't exactly sure what to get you to wear. Truth be told, I wasn't certain what your measurements were. But, that being said, now that you're here, Markus can get all of that once we're finished with the tour. Then we'll get you a good few sets of clothes, even some dress clothes for the more special events. You'll have them by tomorrow afternoon."
Caesar felt a smile appear on his face and his tail swayed back and forth slowly. Another few scribbles, but that was okay for now. "Then I really like this place. Can we get food though? I haven't eaten in..." He paused a moment. "Ever."
The old man held back a laugh and nodded. "Yes, yes. We'll get you some food." He looked out the window. "Should probably be our next stop anyway. It is around lunchtime right now. So let us get to the Dining Hall."
With that, the trio left the room and went back down the same stairs they had gone up and back to the main hall. This time, however, they went to the large wooden door and pushed it open. Caesar stumbled back almost immediately as the sound of the hall bombarded his ears. Three long tables stretched out to a distant wall. Each table had rows of seats on either side of it to sit the multitudes of people that currently filled the hall. Each person had plates in front of them with varying amounts of food on them.
The food itself was in a large variety ranging from various meats, loaves of types of bread, desserts, fruits, vegetables... Just about anything that could be eaten was there. Caesar noted that when some platters of food were emptied or near enough to empty, whatever was left on the plate would reform and regrow back into whatever had been on the plate before. Various scents filled the air that made it confusing to figure out what they were. The only thing that registered was food that made his mouth water and his stomach growl loudly to be filled.
Cornelius pulled Caesar along by the wrist to an open spot and sat him down. Cornelius sat down next to him and Markus across from him. Markus wasted no time in grabbing some various meats and fruits and started eating with Cornelius doing the same. Caesar watched the pair and promptly followed suit. First he grabbed a turkey leg, then some bread and an apple.
He looked down over his plate that was still pretty empty in comparison to what most other people had. Should he grab more? Would that be bad now that he's waited so long? What even was this? Apple is a fruit. Fruit is... can be good. Are apples even good? Bread is something. Plant, but not vegetable. Grain. Good for you. Meat. A kind of meat. Bird. Bird is prey. Prey will be devoured first.
Taking of bite of the meat, he felt a sudden pounding in his chest. His eyes went wide as the meaty flavor hit his tongue and he felt his most basic of primal instincts kick in. With a strength unknown even to him, he clamped his jaws tight around the turkey leg making a loud cr-r-rack! that rang throughout the dining hall, silencing it entirely. He pulled his jaws away, tearing away any flesh that remained connected. He opened his mouth, shifted the food, c-r-runch! He swallowed it in a swift motion and immediately tore back into the turkey leg before even taking a breath.
Cornelius stared with a concerned curiosity while Markus watched in utter horror as every part of the turkey leg was devoured mercilessly. Caesar reached out for another leg but then felt his entire body tense up. His rational thoughts kicked in and he very suddenly relaxed. He pulled his hand back from the turkey leg and looked over at Cornelius, oblivious to the splatter of skin and meat that covered his muzzle, "What... just happened?"
"I was hoping you would tell us, Caesar. I didn't expect you to be so hungry." Cornelius mused before taking a bite of bread. "You're made up off dragon and wolf. Both have their feral instincts to work with. Only dragons have the normal capacity for sentient thought. Wolves tend to be far more feral minded. Granted, the wolf you come from was a special case..." He took another bite of bread as his mind trailed off now.
Caesar watched Cornelius, ears flicking at the sound of scribbling on paper. "What was special about him? What wolf did I come from? And what dragon? Are they around still?" The scribbling stopped leaving the only sound the light conversation that had picked up around the hall again.
Cornelius snapped suddenly back to reality to stare at Caesar before standing up and walking towards the doors out of the room, motioning for the drolf to follow. Caesar quickly stood up, grabbed the bread, and hurried after his father with Markus following on the opposite side of the table.
The elder mage led the pair through another set of doors off to the side, going down a long hallway that split off to other paths and even a couple courtyards here and there. Eventually, they found themselves passing through two more doors that led into a large, multistory library. Caesar had barely any time to take in the view before getting pulled along by Markus after Cornelius who was already disappearing into a side room.
The pair followed to find themselves in a personal study clearly meant for Cornelius's personal use. Two large windows with maroon drapes pulled off to either side of them stood on the wall reaching nearly to the top of the ceiling where a large chandelier hung. Each side wall had two bookcases to it, each practically overflowing with books of all kinds in various languages, some of which Caesar found he could barely make out before Cornelius called his attention over. The mage was sitting at a large wooden desk that shined brightly with a fresh polish.
"I was hoping to wait for a while on answering these questions for you, Caesar. But I'm not going to hide this. You want to know about the two you properly come from. I have enough information on each." With a wave of his hand, two books floated off the top shelves of the nearest bookshelf on Cornelius's right and down onto the desk. "Each of these are my writings on what I know of each of them. Truth be told, they were both here for a short while before leaving. They are what inspired me to make you, Caesar. You and your siblings."
Caesar stepped forward to look over the two books but found himself confused by the strange symbols that marked them. His tail curled around to the front of his legs as he picked each of them up and looked them over, stopping only when Cornelius mentioned Caesar being "made" by him. "What exactly do you mean by "make" me? I was born... Yes, that's how things work. Creatures are born. I was born."
The old wizard sighed softly, leaning his head into his hands to rub his temples. "I suppose it's not wrong to say that. You were born from the existence of both of them. I used pieces of them together to make you and your siblings. You were born, but you weren't conceived." Caesar stared coldly at Cornelius but made no sign to speak or move. "As I said, I don't want to hide the truth from you. You have a special purpose that I want you to fulfill."
"So I'm a tool to you? Just something for you to use?" The pain in Caesar's voice was evident with a sudden crack in his voice. He felt his body shaking with a mixture of emotions that he couldn't comprehend. "Was I even meant to exist?"
Cornelius quickly rose to his feet, "You aren't a tool, Caesar. You will never be a tool in my eyes. To me, you are a son that I wish I could have had. All of you are. And should fate have said you would not exist, you would not be here now. You were meant to be, Caesar. Truly, I'd call you a blessing from the gods above all others." He stepped around his desk and wrapped his arms around Caesar in a tight hug. "You are my son. And you always will be. Yes, I have a purpose for having made you. And I hope you'll understand when you read those books. But even when that purpose is fulfilled, you will never stop being my child. Do you understand, Caesar?" The hug tightened further. "I love you, my son."
The drolf stood perfectly still, simply staring down at the floor over Cornelius's shoulder. His heart pounded in his chest so hard he felt it would burst out at any moment. He gave no response to the hug or words until the final moment where he finally returned the hug. Tears streamed from his eyes and he suddenly felt so weak in the arms of his father. He took in a shuddering breath and the room was silent. No sound could be heard save for the few birds outside; even the chronic scribbling didn't make an appearance.
The two held their embrace for a long while before Caesar finally let go of his father and wiped his tears away. "I-I think I need to sleep. I feel..." He took a moment to search for the word, "...Exhausted? And I don't know what these symbols are on these books you showed me."
Cornelius let out a small, friendly laugh and wrapped his arm around Caesar's shoulders. "It makes sense you wouldn't quite know how to read. Markus can teach you that in time. But for now, is there anything you are able to understand?" He asked curiously, motioning to the vast number of books written out in various languages.
Caesar looked over the books again, homing in on a couple that he had found before. He went to them and pulled them out to show his father. "I can read these ones. But that's all."
Markus immediately began writing on his paper again causing Caesar to flick his ears a couple times. Cornelius looked them over and nodded slowly. "Draconic. I suppose it makes some sense. You would have gotten it from him." He pointed to one of the books that Caesar could only assume was named after his dragon parent. There was a bitterness to his tone that made Caesar flinch internally. "I'll have these both transcribed into Draconic then for you and have them to you soon. We'll have Markus still teach you to read the common tongue. In the meantime, you really do look like you could use some rest. Go sleep and tomorrow we'll get you further along in your home."
Caesar would nod slowly and return the books to the shelves, but then stop and look to his father again. "You mentioned before that I have siblings. Are they around?"
Cornelius shook his head slowly. "No, I'm afraid not yet. They're off on an expedition at the moment, but they should return within the week. When they do, I will gladly introduce you all. You'll have a very special place among them." He gave the drolf a warm smile and offered his arm. "Come. I'll lead you back to your room."
Caesar felt a sudden burst of joy that became evident by his sudden tail wag of sorts. He moved over to his father and together with Markus in tow, they traversed back to Caesar's room where the drolf climbed onto the bed, then off of the bed, then properly under the covers where he would rest until the next morning's sunrise.