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Mothirella was born in a clutch of four eggs, and her tenacity made itself apparent from the very beginning – despite being born at the same time, she was the first to hatch, and spent two days on her lonesome until her siblings were finally able to free themselves from their eggs. She always had a hunger for knowledge, a drive to learn everything she could about anything at all. The first two weeks of her life, she spent in the nest, as many dragons do. It was the longest two weeks she ever endured. She studied each twig, each cotton tuft of fur lining the nest to keep her and her siblings warm. She studied until there was nothing more to find, she had each line in each speck of sand memorized. Unable to take the unbearable boredom any longer, she emerged from the nest, starving for knowledge and hungry to experience life.

Curious, then, that she’d become one of the eternally youthful. She started life as an old soul, that of an ancient dragon with all the stories that could ever be told. Wanting to dig up every last morsel of information from the soil beneath her feet, she ran headfirst into life with a head start on everyone. Her parents couldn’t keep up, even, despite their many more years on Sorneith. And so, they brought her to the place where she could get all of her questions answered and then some, the library. If only they knew, that would set her on a path to be young forever.

***

Wish was my greatest and truest friend, and he taught me so much more than I could’ve imagined, but it still wasn’t enough. Information sustained me, it was like a life force that I needed more than food. If I’d needed food the way that I needed knowledge, the world would’ve run out of just about everything edible. Thankfully, there was so much knowledge to be had, so many books with hundreds of pages of magical words that would tell you everything you ever wanted to know. I don’t know how anyone could go more than a day without diving into those tomes, I would lose my mind.

Thankfully, Wish took me under his wing, and I could spend my days among the pages that told me the stories of the dragons that came before me, that taught me all the things they learned in their lives. If I wasn’t reading, I would spend my time walking up and down the aisles of shelves in the library, putting books back in their place and dusting off the ones that didn’t get as much love as the others. I loved everything about that place – the smell of the paper, the pages aged and yellowing, the texture of the leather bindings beneath my claws, the low, calming light made by sweet smelling candles. It was the perfect place, and I never wanted to leave it.

Except, when Wish proposed that we go on an adventure he read about in one of his books – the only better way to learn than reading, is experience. The bookish are often discounted for real-life adventures – we get our thrills in paper and ink. However, we were the most equipped for this adventure, we’d read each detail in our tomes, and knew exactly what to expect. We were prepared for every twist and turn that could’ve happened.

Or so we thought.

The night started out so hopeful, with such excitement. We put on our figurative (and literal) explorer hats, and set off towards the mountains at dawn one day. We carried maps, and the book that started it all – this ancient book bound in carved leather and shining metal. It could’ve been on display in a museum, rather than in the claws of a group of dragons.

Matching descriptions from the book to the paths scrawled on the map, we made our way through rocky forests and up the side of a mountain, until the air was so thin that our lungs burned with each breath, begging for more oxygen with each wheeze. Wish stopped, and I nearly fell over him before I saw what had brought him to a halt. The large opening of a cave stood before us, dark and uninviting. I felt a fear in the pit of my stomach, and it ate away at me from the inside out. Wish’s eyes were wide, and his gaze unmoving, as if he’d been captured under a spell.

“Wish? Are you all right?” I asked

He blinked quickly, raising a claw to his face and rubbing his head, “Yeah, I… I don’t know what came over me. Let’s keep moving.”

Something anchored my feet to the ground, and suddenly I was the one that couldn’t move. Wish and the others carried on, not realizing I was left behind at the mouth of the cave. I tried to fight it, pulling my feet forward until eventually the grasp of whatever invisible entity broke and I fell onto my chest. At that point, the torch they carried was barely a flicker.

I ran after them, my feet trying to make up for lost time. The cave pitched downward, as if we were descending the entire mountain that we’d spent all day climbing. After some twists and turns in the walls I realized that the light was no longer flickering like a torch would be – I was following something else.

It wasn’t long before I saw what had drawn me in – a beautiful gilded statue of a fertility dragon. I was so entranced by it that I didn’t even realize that my entire crew was nowhere to be seen, that I’d been led to a part of the cave that should never have been found. The statue glowed brighter, so bright that I had to squint in order to not lose my vision, and then I could feel myself changing. I was little more than a fledgling at the time, but I could feel myself going backwards, things around me growing larger until shadows overtook my vision and the darkness overtook me.

It was the beginning of a transformation that would change my life forever.

They say the swamp witch is something to be feared, something made of rage and hatred that festers in the stagnant waters, creating a stench so foul that no dragon dare go near the place. The rumor is that she was so wicked that she was chased to the outskirts of society by those looking for peace. She’d brought a scourge down on society, and they wanted to cleanse it. They chased her out with what they thought were blessings, sage and salt. It burned her skin, and they saw it as vindication, with their fears about her validated in the sting of the salt burning into her scales.

They had no idea what they were doing.

Caster is a healing witch, the kind you hope to keep around should someone fall ill or be injured. Not the kind you want to chase out, and least of all fall into poor standing. She’s the type of witch that could save your life, or end it just as quickly. To scorn a healing witch is to curse yourself for life, which is bound to be very short. Hatred doesn’t run in their veins, typically, but if pushed far enough, the repercussions can be devastating.

Caster, being a particularly kind healing witch, accepted her life of solitude. However, her trust in others was broken beyond repair, and she built her new home in the silence and loneliness of the swamp – the only sound for miles around being the croaking of frogs and singing of crickets. Should someone invade that space, though, the consequences are like no other. All the pain she felt being chased out is unleashed on the intruder, until they turn and flee back from where they had come.

***

I like being on my own. It’s safer that way. I step across the creaking, water damaged wood of my self-made home, a little hut on the edge of the swamp. The boards are uneven, and the smell is earthy and stagnant, water dripping below me back into the marsh. I’d done all right for a dragon that had never built anything on my own, this place had managed to stay standing for years. Long enough for me to decorate it in the style of a true bog witch. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling, small jars of questionable liquids lined shelves and ledges on the walls. It was my own tiny paradise of solitude, where no one could hurt me. No one could burn me with salt, rebuke me in the name of some religion I didn’t understand. I never understood how they claimed that I was the violent one. I never laid a hand on anyone.

I never used my magic against them, either. I just ran.

I ran, and ran, and ran, until I was knee deep in murky water and the townspeople were satisfied with where they’d left me. They carried their torches and pitchforks back with them, ready to give chase again should I ever return. I sat there, in that tepid, slimy water for a good while, slowly regaining my breath while trying to process what had just happened. It had come on out of nowhere, a sudden uprising that the townspeople banded together, deciding that I was dangerous after I’d healed their dragons for years. It was a new-age, “rebuke the mystical” movement, and they stripped the town of all its magical ties.

Including me.

And so, I built myself a home in this place, fully embracing the evil swamp witch stereotype. If they’re going to make me out to be a monster, I may as well fulfill the role. Now, I chase out every dragon that sets foot in the swamp, threats of harm and sometimes even actions abount.

But it comes at a cost. Healing magic is good for the soul – it takes a piece of your soul and uses its energy to create healing, repairing broken skin, mending broken bones. The soul piece it takes is then returned to you, stronger than it was before.

As you can imagine, harming magic has the opposite effect. You break bones, you break your soul piece. Shatter scales, and you have to pick up the pieces and attempt to put them back together. The soul piece never fits back in the same way – it’s jagged, fractured. Your soul becomes this sharp amalgamation of broken glass, spikes sticking out and dangerous to touch. Something ugly, something that hurts. And it hurts me too. Imagine living with a ball of thorns in your chest instead of a heart. It hurts when you swallow, you feel it press against your organs when you breathe, a stabbing in your lungs.

I do what I can to heal it. I mend broken bones of animals who have fallen into traps, I heal the sick, rabid creatures that lurk at the edge of the swamp. I grow flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Each thing gives me back a smooth piece of my soul, and I feel some relief. But then, an intruder comes along, and I must destroy all my hard work to chase them out. I start with things that don’t hurt. Shout for them to leave, make loud, scary noises, throw my shadow so it’s bigger than life and more intimidating. Simple parlor tricks that I learned when I was nothing but a hatchling.

But as the years go by, young dragons become more and more determined to find me, to capture me. And so I must bring out the harming magic, and harm myself in the process. It’s the town’s dragons that chased me out, and now they force me to hurt myself to keep them away. It’s a paradoxical dilemma, one that would only be solved by changing the minds of the town’s dragons. That, is not a task that I am capable of. Not with my most powerful magic, not with the most eloquent words. So I live in hatred and pain. I hate this. I hate them.