Lysander: History
The dragon and I finish setting up camp and gather around our humble fire. Cutlass looks happy and at ease, and I’m glad he feels that way. I decide to tell them about me a bit. “That all happened so fast, I don’t think I have given a full, proper introduction.”
Cutlass nods. “Sounds good! I’ll tell you about me, too! But I’ll let you go first.”
“I’m part of a native tribe in the Southern State called the Mountain Hoof Tribe. To put it bluntly, we don’t have many rights. We can either live in our own land in these small, limiting clearings in the outskirts or try to gain enough capital to live comfortably in the cities.”
The dragon tilts their head. “That doesn’t sound right,” they sign, “Why are you treated so differently?”
“In the past,” I sign back, “the land used to be a place where we could live. However, through colonization, our kind were kicked out of the land rather… violently. We were seen as these unruly monsters who couldn’t even communicate.”
“That’s horrible!” Cutlass looks in shock. Is this the first time they’ve heard of this? The dragon countries themselves were built up on similar grounds...
“It’s… common in a few societies. I think you can find things similar if you look into your own country’s history. I know birds were native to the land.” I try to put it in a kind way, as I don’t really want to lose this friend I made.
“That’s right…” They give it some thought, “I didn’t hear a lot about that history, but I should probably look into it…”
“Anyway,” I continue, “society is pretty inaccessible to us, so I wanted to see if I could use elemental magic to grant a wish to change that.”
Cutlass nods. “That sounds like a good thing. As for me, I grew up in an orphanage. I don’t know anything about my parents. It was kind of depressing, as people would come and go. It was hard to make friends…”
I nod. I don’t have the experience to know how hard that must have been to grow up in an environment like that, but I at least know what loneliness feels, so I can sympathize on that regard.
“When I was eighteen I wasn’t allowed to stay at the orphanage anymore and had to leave. On my way back, I met this really nice guy, and he wanted to adopt me. Now I have parents. Actually, five parents!”
I blink. How does that even work? I decide to ask in the most respectful way I can think of. “How do you have so many parents?”
They chuckle a little. “One of them has these… these different worlds you can go into and stuff? It’s hard to explain. It’s where the portal takes you.” They lift the orb up from earlier. “They give mages and people who are outcast from society a place to live. They sort of work as a group. When I told them my story, they wanted to fill the void of having no parents and so now I have five parents. Four fathers and one… one Deneb. They’re gender neutral, so I just call them by their first name.”
How interesting! Cutlass sounds like they’re in good hands. “Were you talking to them earlier in that ball?”
Before Cutlass can answer, a figure emerges from the ball, dressed in extraordinary clothing and equipped with several other portals.