Ancient Myth (6)

It wasn't long before they needed a place to settle. The dragon chose to bring the group back to the foot of the mountain. It should be defensible enough and the land grew many plants that people could eat. They had been away long enough that Shu didn't recognize the land so the dragon never told her.

The girl loved the dragon like a father and asked him for a blessing on a marriage between her and the herbalist. The people looked to the couple for leadership few ever believing the children's tales of a dragon behind the throne.

And yet the dragon who stands outside of time failed to see how time repeats. The humans that followed the lord of the ocean town attacked the mountain. In that attack the dragon learned for the first time what feelings truly were. The power of love that humans had been able to feel while the dragons had not. The real power of God that the other powers had hidden. Yet as hundreds of humans over ran the town killing every man in their path the dragon seemed to have learned the lesson too late.

The dragon fought the humans trying to protect the family he had blessed but he couldn't change forms back to a dragon without risking his soul in the fight. In the yard enemy after enemy fell to his claws but it wasn't enough. Four children were all that remained of the village that had become the first home the purple dragon had known and he cried out in anguish like he had not since the four others killed so many of his creations.

The cry reached to heaven as the humans pinned the dragons' body. They were going to try and cut off his head now that the have him on his knees with his arms pinned behind his back. The cry got the attention of the four dragons that watched over the rock from the heavens. They saw the problem their brother was having but it didn't make any sense to them. They couldn't land on the rock without their brothers permission but the hairless monkeys wouldn't be a problem for him if he would just change form.

Well they couldn't land but their brother had not ordered them not to take things from the surface. Time seemed to freeze for the world as each dragon took one of the boys that the purple dragon had been trying to protect.

"Our brother seems to be in a bind, child. Do you understand me?"

"You are real!" The children had seen the dragon their whole lives and spent the last 8 to 12 years playing with him and learning from him but they still didn't believe that the other dragons were real as well.

"Would you like to protect him? We can grant you the power, but there will be a price."

The eldest brother knelt to the red dragon first, "Give me the power to protect them, please! Master Dragon!" The three other brothers took a knee in front of a different dragon, just a second behind their brother.

"Very well, children." The dragons used the power their brother had shown them so long ago and used it to edit traits in each of the boys. The eldest got the red eyes of the dragon, the power of command and to see at great distances. The second brother got the blue teeth of the dragon, the power to say what others want to hear to influence them, and breath ice or fire. The third brother got the yellow ears of a dragon, the power to hear the truth of all things and fly. The youngest brother got the body of the green dragon, the power to feel the world around him and hit with the force of an earthquake. "Save our brother."

The children blinked and were back in the courtyard with the purple dragon still held before the forgien soldiers. They had been too weak to fight before but with the power of the other four dragons they fought like demons. They freed the purple dragon first and then spread their control from there. The first four sons of Shu became the first four dragon warriors to save the divine dragon, their mother and father, and a handful of former enemy soldiers that surrendered under the influence of the dragon's power.

They took the fight all the way to the so called grandson of the god of war. The eldest killed him and they found a new problem. The lands that had been loosely united under him fell apart. The sons ended up caught in the fighting never able to be free again. They became leaders and spread over the world. Their children spratly developed the abilities of the brothers but it wasn't easy to predict and could lead to war more often then peace. Yet the blood of the dragons prevented them from truly fighting each other or the family that the purple dragon protected. Their family.

In the years following the purple dragon's close call he helped rebuild the hidden city. Shu was the first human to live over one hundred years. A great grandparent many times over. The purple dragon had been a major part of all the children's lives. He had learned the limitless power of love and the pain of loss giving him a new desire to learn of death. To avoid the pain of more loss.

The purple dragon followed the first empress into death, but not before promising. "I am not leaving my creation defenseless, should this world need me again, I will be reborn in the blessed line of Shu."

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"Can you read me the story again, father?"

An older man laughed at the young girl in his lap. She was maybe six and this was her favorite bedtime story.