Vulkanos

His life should have been a typical one—and indeed, it seemed at first that it would be. He was born to a lair of metalworkers, typical for a Fire clan. Even his name, for a Fire-born dragon, was not unusual: Vulkanos, after the many volcanoes of his home.

Initially, he seemed to be a typical hatchling, too. His scales were hot to the touch, but that was only to be expected, since Fire eggs were incubated in boiling lava. But even days after his eggshell had crumbled to dust, his hide remained unpleasantly hot, as though he were feverish.

Some of his earliest memories were of being examined by healers, their claws pressing gently into his skin. Young as he was, he couldn’t grasp what was going on—only that he was uncomfortable, and he didn’t like it. Thus for most of his childhood, he was distrustful and bad-tempered.

With age came understanding—that other dragons were trying to help him—but it was difficult to appreciate their efforts. By then, Vulkanos was some years old, and his “condition”, as his clan uneasily called it, hadn’t abated one bit. Fellow hatchlings kept away from him, complaining about the heat radiating from his scales. Adults were more tactful, but Vulkanos noticed that even they didn’t approach him unless they absolutely had to.

“The other kids don’t want to play right now.” The hatchling caretaker smiled as she said it, but the young Imperial could see the wariness in her eyes. And more importantly, he could see that the other hatchlings were playing...without him.

When he pointed this out, the caretaker’s face hardened. “No,” she said, and now there was steel beneath that word. “Not now, Vulkanos. Find something else to do.”

As bad-tempered as he was, Vulkanos knew better than to protest. So he trudged off, leaving a trail of scorch marks behind.

The scorch marks had started appearing some weeks ago: faint, dark footprints. Though they hadn’t done any damage, they only further emphasized how strange he was.

He’d heard the whispers: “At least with those odd footprints, we’ll always know where he is.” He didn’t like how his clan was always staring at him, muttering suspiciously about him.

“Don’t wanna play those stupid games with them, anyway,” he thought sullenly as he lumbered back into his den. He had some toys of his own—though he’d already broken many of them in fits of rage; and after being turned away by the hatchling caretaker, he didn’t really want to play.

Instead, he pulled a storybook off a shelf. He wasn’t much of a reader, but stories were better than boredom. And he could escape into another world for a while, even if it was only imaginary.

But escape didn’t last long. After a couple of minutes, the cloying stench of burning leather reached his nostrils.

“Fire!” The shout came from just outside. He heard the door slam open—but he didn’t see. He could only stare, dumbfounded, as his storybook crumbled to ashes upon the floor...and lava oozed, like brilliant blood, from beneath the scales of his forepaw.

~ ~ ~
Over time, more of those fissures opened up among Vulkanos’ scales, always aglow with bright, hot lava. He was taken to more healers, and he quickly grew tired of how they always asked the same questions: Did it hurt? Was there magic involved? What had he been doing at the time?

That last question, invariably, roused flames of red-hot anger within him: “As if I want my life to be like this! As if it’s always myfault!”

The fissures didn’t hurt much—they ached dully, like bruises. Of greater concern was the lava itself. Fire dragons were largely safe from it, but dragons from other elements needed to be wary.

After plenty of examinations, the clan came up with a solution: Vulkanos had to wear special equipment that directed the lava—most of it, anyway—to receptacles upon his shoulders and wings. The idea was that these receptacles could then be removed, the lava safely dumped out someplace.

But the lava still oozed out at other points upon his body. He didn’t really mind; keeping the lava locked inside made the ache worse. It was always a relief when it flowed out, like an abscess being lanced. But of course, his clan didn’t see it that way. They were too concerned about the stuff incinerating their precious belongings.

Vulkanos was eventually sent down to work in the forges. He was an adolescent by then, and the clan had decided that it would be safer if he worked somewhere that was largely fire-proof.

The wyrmling grumbled at first, but he did learn to enjoy working with different tools and materials. Often there was no need for him to use the smelters; his lava was hot enough to melt all but the toughest metals. For the first time, Vulkanos began to consider that his condition might be an asset rather than a liability.

The other metallurgists remained cautious, however. “Don’t play with that stuff,” they chided him. “It’s not a toy. You ought to observe proper safety protocols...”

“Safety, safety,” Vulkanos scoffed back. The metallurgists meant well; many of them had seen accidents, some of them fatal, caused by incautious apprentices. Vulkanos had by then earned a reputation for being bad-tempered; they saw him only as a sullen, overconfident youth who always needed to be reined in. It didn’t occur to them that his arrogance was his way of assuring himself that there was still something good about him, despite what everybody else said.

And Vulkanos saw the metallurgists as just another group of dragons trying to stamp him down. He retreated, scowling all the while, to the workroom that had been assigned to him.

He was largely left alone— “They probably think I’m too stupid to follow instructions,” he growled inwardly as he slumped down at his workbench. Still, the situation suited him just fine. He’d been using his tools to modify the lava receptacles—mostly carving out sections so that the lava could ooze through more easily.

He was always very careful while working on his armor. His supervisor, Brigid, had caught him a few times already, and while he hadn’t been officially reprimanded yet, he suspected it was only a matter of time. His suspicion grew as the days passed. With the anger that sprang from long years of being excluded, he deduced, “She’s just waiting for me to get into even more trouble!”

And eventually, he did: Vulkanos’ modifications had caused the armor fastenings to weaken, and one day, one of the pauldrons fell off. He quickly slung it back on, but it was too late—lava gushed out, and the nearby workers flapped back with startled screams.

The forge workers were thoroughly trained; it didn’t take them long to deal with the lava. It was all over in a few minutes, but Vulkanos felt himself shrinking anew beneath the angry, accusing stares of his clanmates.

Brigid approached, her face as impassive as ever. “Let me see that pauldron.”

“I’m fine.”

“You were told not to tamper with it, boy. If you had asked—”

“You were just waiting for me to slip up, weren’t you?!” The accusation exploded out of him. Brigid’s impassive mask slipped; she was actually shocked by his words.

The Ridgeback growled, “You have excellent facility with tools; I thought it would be reasonable to let you work with them on your own. Still, you should have—”

Vulkanos shut her out. He’d grown so used to hearing criticism; he didn’t consider that the old Ridgeback might actually have been, in a roundabout way, commending him. As he stormed out, another metallurgist shouted after him. Brigid’s rough voice interrupted, saying, “He’ll be back.”

“No, I won’t,” he decided, as defiant as ever. “I’m done with this place.”

~ ~ ~
Vulkanos stormed out of the lair that day. His clanmates, who were used to his outbursts of temper, let him go. Like Brigid, they assumed he’d eventually return, and by the time they realized he wouldn’t, he was already far away.

Although he’d never left the lair for an extensive amount of time before, being free from others’ judging stares and whispers felt liberating. And so he pushed on through the Ashfall Waste, eventually crossing into the Windswept Plateau.

Things were more difficult here. The foliage of the Plateau burned too easily, and while the Wind Flight was largely welcoming, they didn’t want to see their homes incinerated by this unfriendly stranger, either. Vulkanos was treated politely and even given supplies, but also informed, gently but firmly, that he couldn’t stay with them.

By then, he had been traveling for several weeks, and he now realized that the nomadic lifestyle was not for him. But could he find a clan that would accept him?

Well-meaning dragons directed him to a traveling circus. Vulkanos snorted at the implication that he wanted to join a group of freaks—but anywhere was better than the lair he’d left. Upon reaching the circus camp, though, he was surprised by their comments about him being “another one”. Was there someone else with a “condition” like his?

There was: another young Imperial, this one hailing from the Shifting Expanse. But he didn’t overflow with Lightning—Vulkanos instead found himself dumbfounded by the crags of ice that’d sprouted upon the grass. The other Imperial, Frost, was barely visible in the center, curled up in sleep.

He awoke after some minutes of Vulkanos yelling at him. By then, the lava had melted most of the ice, and he woke up in a freezing-cold puddle. Vulkanos, belatedly realizing it probably wasn’t a good idea to antagonize a dragon who could freeze him to death, readied himself for an argument.

To his surprise, the other dragon was soft-spoken and calm. He answered Vulkanos’ questions quietly, explaining how he, too, had struggled to control the ice exuding from his body. “The mages wanted to train me,” he sighed, “but...it was so difficult.”

Vulkanos nodded. For once, he didn’t have an acerbic retort ready, nor did he want to give one. The parallels between himself and Frost were so clear—he felt a strange kinship, even a protectiveness, towards the other dragon.

Their stay with the circus was brief. Neither really wanted to be there, and the circus dragons weren’t equipped or inclined to give them the support they needed. Something Frost had said intrigued Vulkanos, and after they’d left the caravan, he said, “You mentioned something about training...”

“I’ve thought about it, too. But where would we find someone to teach us?” Frost’s eyes were fixed on the departing caravan. Vulkanos resisted the urge to scoff and instead moved in front of him, blocking his view. “Not in that clan of clowns—or anywhere in this crummy place. Everyone keeps telling me to get off their lawn.”

Frost’s eyes narrowed. “Well, you need to stop running your mouth” —and as he spoke, jagged shards of ice rose upon his neck, wreathing him with a razor-sharp mane. Vulkanos hissed back, lava bubbling beneath his scales. He could feel it raring to surge out and swamp the other dragon...

A great cloud of steam rose as ice and lava met. The sound snapped Frost back to reality. He gave a mighty shudder, sheets of ice cascading off his flanks.

“Look—I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But you did,” Vulkanos thought—but he didn’t say it, either. After all, hadn’t he also said a lot of things that were hurtful and unnecessary?

And so he just nodded, grunted something about adjusting his armor, and turned away. He fiddled with it for a few seconds, and then he growled, “OK, fine. Where to next?”

They drifted around the Windswept Plateau for a while. It might have surprised others to see them traveling together, and in fact, it was some time before they began thinking of each other as friends. Their personalities were too different, reflecting their abilities: Vulkanos was caustic and short-tempered; Frost was quiet and non-confrontational. It was a trial for them to deal with each other at first. But their shared experiences gave them insights about each other’s abilities—which proved to be valuable in some cases.

“Cool it...uh, I mean, calm down, Frost. It’s not so bad.”

“It” referred to the mound of ice that now encased their supplies, which they’d painstakingly foraged over the past week. Frost had been twitching in his sleep—a nightmare, perhaps—and a wave of ice had suddenly blasted from him. Vulkanos had jerked awake amid a cloud of steam, the ground rapidly turning to mud beneath him.

His first instinct was to start yelling, but he forced that back when he saw the stricken look on Frost’s face, the ice shards still springing up around him. The icy Imperial groaned, “But...our food! I didn’t mean to...Maybe I should just go—”

“Yeah, and how is that gonna help us?” Vulkanos growled. Fire flickered across his shoulders, mirroring Frost’s consternation....Again, he forced it back down.

His workshop training kicked in. “Stay calm,” he droned. “Assess the situation. Look, are we in immediate danger?”

“No...” The ice, too, was withering away. Frost took in a deep gulp of air.

“OK, great. Now assess the damage.”

Frost winced, but he said, “There’s still ice around our packs...but it’ll melt soon.”

“Well, I can make it melt sooner! C’mon, let’s salvage what we can.”

Frost seemed surprised by that idea, but he joined Vulkanos in focusing on the ice. It slowly melted away, the water flowing back over his scales. Vulkanos, meanwhile, was considering things more carefully. There was a strange, light glow within him—other dragons would have recognized it as pride.

“We can actually salvage situations....We’re not complete messes!”

Perhaps there was hope for them after all.

When they reached the edge of the Windswept Plateau some days later, they elected to keep going. Their travels together had given them more confidence in themselves—though they still wanted to find a place that would support them and their strange powers.

“D’you know much about the Scarred Wasteland, Frost?”

The other Imperial shook his head. “I’ve read about it a little. Plague dragons are great survivors. They respect strength and versatility...”

“Sounds like us,” Vulkanos said with a rare grin. “We got this far, didn’t we? And if these guys are survivors, they shouldn’t be worried about a bit of fire and ice!”

“I suppose you’re right,” Frost said. To most dragons, it might have sounded profoundly unenthusiastic, but Vulkanos by then knew his friend well enough to recognize his wholehearted agreement.

And so the two of them continued onward. The Scarred Wasteland loomed ahead, full of mystery and promise...

High on a promontory, another Imperial, as yet unseen, watched the newcomers picking their way across the earth. He paused for a moment, obviously thinking things over...and then began descending, moving towards the pair.

~ written by Disillusionist (254672)
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