Fire in the Sky - ​Prologue: The Birth of the Riders

Author's note: This is in need of some serious critics.

Anything constructive, not just nit-picks, will be appreciated. Specifically, the last few paragraphs.

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In the beginning, when the planet was still very young, man and dragon were sworn enemies.

Since he was born, it has always been man’s nature conquer anything he could, to take whatever he desired, no matter what the consequences were. Man’s civilization started out small and insignificant, they were at the bottom of the food chain, but one day something shifted and man soon spread across the land like an uncontrollable wild fire. Massive cities and kingdoms were erect seemingly overnight. They wanted to make their presence known. Nothing was safe from them, nothing was there to step in and stop them, not even their own kind; they would wage war against each other just so that they could expand on their kingdom.

Usually peaceful unless bothered, dragons were not usually creatures of conflict. They were considered of higher intelligence than most of the creatures that roamed the lands. Their natural instinct was to live and let live. But the humans soon learned how quickly the dragons, when threatened or pushed, would push right back.

Refusing to allow a creature much smaller, much weaker than they were try to take them down, the dragons, to whom the world was rightfully theirs having been around longer than man, began slaughtering as many humans as they could. The bloody war waged between human and dragon lasted for centuries. The dragons would destroy villages, pose as humans and kill from within, leaving behind a path of bloodshed, torture, and destruction.

Eventually, the humans were slowly forced back to the place they belonged. They had messed with the wrong enemy and the price they paid was not worth it. Because of their crusade, a crusade which all began out of greed and lust for power, much of the land was destroyed. Plants and animals lay dead, and the world began to decay. To this day, there are parts of the world still remains uninhabitable because of the darkness looming over it like a thick and impenetrable blanket of despair.

One day, a man named Valiar, bravest knight of all the land, dared to challenge the king of dragons, Urvail.

It was going to be a fight to end all fights, the battle that would determine who would truly be victorious. The battle was said to have lasted for days, moving into weeks.

When everything was calm, something amazing had happened.

Valiar had emerged riding upon Urvail’s back proving that he had managed to bond with such a beast. It was not out of conquer or force, but from the heart. The sight was something to behold, and the people he looked upon stared back at him with eyes filled with both fear and awe. They did not know what to make of this. Some thought of him to be some kind of God, others wanted him dead, called him a traitor. The idea of humans and dragons bonding was ridiculous, impossible, for dragons had been seen as horrible creatures for a long time. Peace was a thought that had been completely wiped out of the minds of man.

Determined to change man’s view on dragons, Valiar founded the Dragon Riders. A statue was even created in his honor, as a symbol.

The Dragon Riders serves as the kingdom of Ma’aekhiol’s first line of defense in its military, whose sole purpose was to mend the bond between human and dragon.

Dragons are wild creatures and as such were hard to bond with. They could not be tamed, or forcefully broken, for, as humans had learned over the years, they were very strong-willed. A dragon chooses its own rider and not the other way around. So Valiar had a system put in place, to determine whether or not someone was indeed able to become a dragon rider.

Thus the Bonding Ritual was established. After completing an intense seven months of training, new recruits are to challenge a dragon in a fight in order to prove themselves as a rider. Failure results in death. Those who survive, on the other hand, are greatly rewarded. When the bond is formed, human and dragon are one with each other. They share powerful emotions, such a pain, sorrow, anger, joy, happiness, etc, and are able to sense where the other is at all times. As a result of this bond, a human is also able to tap into their dragon’s power and unleash powerful magic.

Many have lost their lives, but those who have survived became powerful warriors. They are the bravest of the brave, quickly embraced by the people of Ma’aekhiol as heroes. Other kingdoms were still skeptical, however. Fortunately that was also quickly expelled. The riders had devoted their lives to continuing Valiar’s cause.

This tale begins five-hundred years later, where everything is peaceful yet remnants of the war between man and dragon remain.

Kingdoms are falling one by one, and now it’s up to a brave group of riders to head out to Neyr, a kingdom that has become polluted by an evil poison out of the blue, seemingly overnight. The man who came to the current of Ma’aekhiol, Darius Arvellion IV, was said to have reeked of death.

What awaits our dear riders?