9. The Opportunity
The flight from the academy to the Grand Ziggurat was mercifully short. Arxet’s stomach was doing back-flips the whole way, but he managed not to lose his composure the entire flight. Rubis was also a much gentler flyer than her mother. Regardless of the reasoning for why he didn’t feel half dead on his landing he still felt like his soul was going to leave his body as he set foot on the top of the Grand Ziggurat.
Every fiber of his being told him there was something deeply wrong about a thief and urchin like him standing atop the most sacred and heavily guarded structure in the world and not being here to steal something. No guards were going to chase him off, he wasn’t going to be executed for trespassing on a holy site, that much he was sure of at least after Emren’s promise to him in the courtyard.
He could see the entire city from here along with the shores of the island. A trio of stairways trailed up the face of the monolith below him, one anthronoid sized, and the other two for dragons of various sized to easily ascend without having to navigate the puny footholds afforded to mortals. The top was primarily bare stone etched with multiple millennia worth of dragon claw marks from various landings and launches. A magical lantern hung at each corner to illuminate the edges, a fact he was thankful for in the dark like this. In the center a small stone pavilion stood out from its barren surroundings. Beneath its roof an altar showed signs of recent use: an ancient looking tea kettle, empty cups, and a few dishes presenting various finger foods such as dates, nuts, and small cakes. Wasn’t it blasphemy for priests to use the altar for some sort of party?
“She’s inside.” Emren’s voice yanked his attention from the curious sight. She was standing at the top of a staircase into the depths of the structure. “The last room on the right side of the hall.” She waited for him to follow before showing him down to the room anyway.
The ziggurat, as Arxet was now learning, was bigger on the inside. Rather than a cramped stone room as he had expected he was greeted with a cavernous room filled with plant-life. Amjazel sat soaking in a pond in the center, waiting for his arrival with an expression he recognized as giddy from his dragonology classes. “Welcome, Arxet. You cannot understand my joy at having you see me here tonight.” He wasn’t quite ready for her to make mental contact. None of his practice in his magic classes had prepared him for actually speaking with a dragon, it was on a completely different scale of intensity from making contact with another anthronoid’s mind. It was like having a heavy plush blanket thrown over his entire metaphysical being: comforting, but also stifling. She radiated warmth and safety and care in a way that made him deeply unsettled for reasons he couldn’t quite place.
“Yeah. I’m hoping we can finally quit with all the cloak and dagger and tell me why I’m actually here. I don’t like having secrets kept from me.” He averted his eyes from her stunning purple scales. They just made him feel worse for some reason.
“There’s no need to feel jealous, dear.” She hit the nail on the head for what he was feeling when he looked at her. He couldn’t identify it before, but she had seen his inner workings better than he could. He was jealous of how beautiful she was, a mountain of muscle and gemlike scales like her should make anyone jealous. “If you insist on skipping pleasantries we can move on to the big surprise. You have until morning to decide if you will accept it or not.” She extended her neck out to him and nuzzled him. At her size she was really just rubbing her jaw against his entire body. “Do you know how dragons reproduce?”
“Are you propositioning me?” He knew the answer was no, but his nerves were so frayed he couldn’t help but joke.
Amjazel laughed, it was only a polite chuckle, but it sent the waves of the pond crashing and spraying droplets in his face. “I’ll take that as a no, though the question was more rhetorical. Some dragons do choose to reproduce what you might consider the old fashioned way, but it’s a difficult and time consuming process. Finding a mate can be an ordeal when most dragons already know each other, not to mention the length of pregnancy. Forming a dragon egg can take a year, and incubating it another three. Not many of us have that sort of time.” She sighed with mild annoyance at the very idea. “Rather than spend three or more years to make another dragon, many of us choose to make dragons out of mortals, the same way that Tiamat did the first dragons five thousand years ago.”
“Dragons from… mortals…” His mind was beginning to connect the dots. “You mean-”
“Yes, my darling.” Amjazel craned her head down to look him directly in the eye. “I am offering you a chance to become a dragon, to join our family as an immortal. You didn’t join the rider’s school to be a rider, you joined to become a dragon and choose your own rider, should you so wish.”
Arxet’s breath hitched. Him? A dragon? A pathetic street rat like him didn’t-
“Stop it.” Amjazel cut off the train of thought with a terrifying yet empathetic finality. “You are not pathetic. You are a survivor, an opportunist. I chose you because I recognized in you what most other dragons tend to lack: craftiness.”
“But-”
“No. You are just as worthy as anyone else, and I don’t want to hear otherwise.”
“Emren said you like to take charity cases.” He averted his eyes from hers again.
“A self depricating oversimplification.” She huffed, sending hot air across his entire body and nearly knocking him over before angling the side of his head back into her vision. “I merely observed someone worthy of and deserving of love that the rest of the world was too blind and deluded to recognize for who they were. I… may have peeked into your mind some, the mind of everyone in that courtyard really. I saw you, and I don’t mean with my eyes. I witnessed someone who had persevered through every challenge that an unfair world had thrown at them since their childhood through spit and gristle and spite, and I was impressed. You put many other dragons I’ve known to shame in terms of pure determination. You take difficult situations and find a way for you to benefit yourself rather than giving up and cutting your losses. You wouldn’t be lucky to be a dragon, we would be lucky to have you join our family as one.”
He clenched his fist and glared into her colossal amber eye. Somewhere in her speech his eyes had started to sting as tears forced their way out. “You’re-” He choked on the words. This dragon, a daughter of Tiamat of all people, had seen the true him beneath the veneer. Where others saw a slimy untrustworthy bastard she saw a fighter who could only use the limited tools at his disposal. “You’re god. Damned. Right.”