Reconquista

The sunlight refracts off the stained glass in the crystal spire, twisting into a kaleidoscope of colors at Deimos’s feet. This world was a place he could get used to, having not turned to human form for over a month, it was as if his body became more his own. His human form had always felt at least a bit alien, but in the dimension of the humans he had to spend at least 60% of his time as a human for convenience. In a world meant to be ruled by dragons there was none such inconvenience. The great sun king stirs, his mile long golden form shimmering the dazzling colors of light reflected off the gleaming scales. Eyes like crackling sunlight focusing on the young lordling before him.

“Lord Deimos, how goes adjusting to the new keep?”

Deimos pauses, words ceasing to form. How was he supposed to exactly explain this?

“Um. Well. If I may speak freely?” He asks, glancing at the noble dragons around him, green ladies turning an ear-fin to try and stir up some court gossip later. King Helios perks, the frills at his jaws twitching with interest as he raises his head into a much more perched position upon a massive pedestal.

“The room please.” The booming voice of the king rolls from the ceiling like grumbling thunder as none dared defy his request. Within minutes the throne room was cleared of dragon and servant alike. “What troubles you, son?”

With a heavy sigh of defeat Deimos snakes his jaw back toward the leather strapped pocket about his hind leg, digging a large scroll of parchment from his bag. “It seems my regent has decided my holdings are now his.” Setting the scroll upon the marble floors he nudged it with his nose causing the paper to unroll, draconic script sprawling vertically in large print. There is a moment of silence as Helios takes a second to read.

“Lord Angos is very eloquent in his ability to come up with insults that even I have never heard before.” The king gives a light chuckle as he scans the document over further before his eyes lift to Deimos. “So what do you plan to do about it?”

Sitting upon his haunches, shoulders slouching as if he was in the presence of his father rather than of the great Tyr of Elysium, head hanging low. “What would you have me do?”

“That was not the question asked of you. What do you do when your vassals do not respect your rule?”

A confused silence passed Deimos as he had to sit and think. In the human realm there was an order to things. If people did not abide by agreements made, there was some third party arbiter to make things just. However, here there seemed to be a much more acceptable option to either lay down their own law or to air their grievance to someone who could. The latter of which he supposed he was currently doing. Then a thought crossed Deimos’s mind.

“Wait, wasn’t the decree to relinquish the Night lands your decree? So he isn’t respecting your rule then either.”

Helios’s tail curls up like a suddenly interested cat. “I do suppose he is defying my rule, isn’t he.”

“So what would you do?”

“Oh, I would turn him into nothing but a tiny blip in the history of this world. Perhaps then his hatchlings would learn their places.” Helios shifts, his front hand curling up to rest against his check. “But I am doing you a grand favor in my inaction, Deimos. As this is the first lord to refuse to recognize you as their lord paramount, but this will not be the last. This is just the only one so bold as to deny me as well. And for that he will pay.”

“... So I should kill him.” Deimos begins running through ideas. He didn’t know much else of Angos other than he was noted as a ferocious dragon when he was younger. He did know he was older than him and by his math had ought to be at least four times his size. “I may care to point out, I will probably lose this fight.”

“Not exactly. Lord Angos was a fierce fighter 50 years ago when he was about your age. However since holding the nightlands he has grown portly and atrophied. I have a theory that we only grow when we need to, as every dragon I have seen that allowed themselves to get fat and to grow moss like a stone has severely stunted themselves. Angos is only double your size, and he may appear imposing, but he does well to fly from the mines to the Eclipse keep, but that is all the flying he does in a day.”

A thick moment of deliberation falls over the empty throne room. “So he flies that route every day?”

A toothy grin spreads across the sun king’s face as a bubble of laughter rolls forward. “Now you’re thinking like a dragon, my boy.”
XXXXXX

Deimos had been waiting in the foothills of the silver mountain for easily an hour and a half, just admiring the beauty of his lands. To the east, mountains that kissed the skies, topped with icy caps and loaded to the brim with all the silver used to print the currency of Elysium. In every other direction were rolling hills of grasses, blowing in the wind like soft ocean waves. Every so often a farm would speckle the hills, sometimes a band of sheep herders would wander by. As day turned to dusk and the sky bleeds colors into the now brilliantly jeweled sky. The silver moon hangs massive and ever present the moment the light of day faded. Power pulsed through the moon dragon as he urged the moon into its place, the sun retreating below the mountaintops.

Just as the sun’s last light peeks through the teeth of the world, a massive set of cobalt blue wings beat in the distance. Lord Angos in all his hideous glory. His body boasted thickened flesh around the base of his neck and his ribs, even the space where his tail met his haunches bore pockets of extra flesh. The flattened musculature of his wings struggled under the strain to keep such a creature in the air. His jaws were wide and his horns like two curved nubs upwards, barely enough to surpass the sails that spanned down his spine. His deep blue skin had scores across where his shoulders met his ribs and his hind legs as he’d gained so much weight so quickly, his scales hadn’t caught up, leaving areas where the scales were misaligned due to the stretching. Never had Deimos imagined what a fat dragon would look like, and he never hoped to see another.

Deimos takes to the sky, Wingspan silencing each wingbeat and climbing in altitude by the second. The lordling's blood boils in anticipation. This was the abominable creature denying him his birthright. An urge to end such a man bubbling up in a rage never felt before. A splitting roar screeching itself from the moon dragon’s throat in defiant challenge as the cosmos quake. Stars begin to fall from the sky, streaking like shimmering needles. Startled, Angos turns to face his challenger before anger washes over the older dragon.

“What’s the matter, whelp?” Angos’s gravelly voice taunts. The old blue bastard bellows smoke from his nostrils as Deimos only continues his rapid approach.

Angos rights himself, giving a heavy flap of his wings as Deimos seems to be about to crash face first into him, only to twist suddenly to the side, passing him by mere feet upside down. As Angos’ wings went up to catch his weight, a talon on a hind leg scraped past the scales on his belly, wrenching them free of the skin and causing steaming blood to well to the surface in gouges from shoulder to flank. The blue dragon swipes out with front claws only to realize his target was gone.

Angos twists to the best of his ability, his back curling up to turn completely around only to catch a torrent of dragonfire into his face, forcing him to close his eyes and fly blind. Deimos’s excitement is only dampened by the logic to not get caught. Angos was big but he was slow. Deimos on the other hand was lighter, faster and built with a second set of wings to maneuver tightly. This plan depended entirely upon not letting Angos grab him.

The torrent of fire began to wane as it was soon taken over by a beam of deadly light. Deimos had only seconds to suddenly hoist himself upward as Angos had pushed his way through and was now reaching out with both front claws, finding nothing but air and presenting an open opportunity for Deimos’s teeth to latch themselves down on either side of the space where his skull me his neck.

Deimos tears at the back of Angos’ neck, rear facing teeth shredding through dragon scale and fat, his front talons ripping into the muscle further down his neck. Angos turned himself around and delivered a forceful swat to the side of Deimos’s neck, jarring his jaws open and forcing the lordling to separate from Angos’ back as the ground was swiftly approaching. Deimos hauls himself back into the skies as quickly as both sets of wings could carry him, straightening out to let his star-swirled camouflage conceal him. The old blue bastard just barely saves himself from the clutches of gravity, wings hauling himself up in a much slower acceleration.

The old dragon pants as he climbs into the skies, searching for his foe. Panic much more obvious and a crowd below gathers. Angos’s sons, daughters and mate beheld the fury of the Cosmos siren’s son. The common folk cheered as the moon rose into the skies for the first time in two decades and the lower nobility looked amongst themselves for any idea of what to do about this.

Before a decision could be made, Deimos had dipped below the clouds, the rage taking over his mind as he made another pass head on. Angos roars, thundering across the mountaintops as Deimos twists again to score the other side of his opponent’s flanks. As talons drag against scales, Angos’ hind leg lurches out to grab Deimos’ left hind foot.

Deimos’s wings fly out as the weight drags him back, threatening to damn near dislocate his hip as he was abruptly bathed in fire as Angos curls his neck upward and torrents him. Shaken, Deimos rocks his head back, slamming the sharp edge of his horn against Angos’s hip. Deimos brings up his right foot to rake across Angos’ chest, spilling even more blood. As the blue lord brings his foot up to rake at Deimos to return suit he pulls himself closer to Angos, feeling the claws scrape against his scaled hip rather than his belly. The black dragon gives a wild screech as he digs teeth into where Angos’ thigh meets his belly, ripping flesh away with each kick. Deimos gives a hard beat of his wings, quickly finding surprisingly the old dragon was not winning the tugging match. Despite the size difference, Deimos was winning in raw strength alone. Their positions rocked as he began to drag the larger dragon with forceful beats of his wings. The pair tumbles as the stone ground seems to rise up to them. Deimos suddenly gives a hard yank, forcing the positions to turn. Ango’s back to the ground and Deimos clenching both his hind legs to the point of bloodying his claw as the blue dragon attempts to free himself and catch his fall.

Deimos only yanks harder with another brutal wing beat, finding the ground less than twenty feet away before finally allowing Angos to separate from him. The star dragon hoists himself aloft as the earth breaks Angos under his own weight. Deimos huffs, bleeding from the scores in his hip as his wings beat in place for a moment. As if possessed by a full blooded dragon Deimos lands, glaring upon Angos’ bloody and gurgling form as he attempts to lift his head. The blue dragon’s broken jaw held slack as he attempted to get up, finding his limbs completely useless and shattered.


“Yield.” The rightful lord of the Night lands snarls.

“N-Ne-ver.” The dying usurper groans. Attempting to stand once more.

“Yield or your sons will witness your death.” Deimos reiterated before staring up at his mate, who’d put herself between the fight and the three young blue dragonlings, only one of which even had his wings.

Angos glares indignantly. “Nev-er.” He gurgles again as the smell of fuel fills his breath. He couldn’t even ignite his fire anymore. And with that Deimos was upon him, hooked teeth catching the underside of his throat and hauling back with a vengeance. Bones crack and flesh tears as Angos’s massive head is pulled from his body and thrown aside.

“Yield the Night lands.” Deimos’s eyes trail to Angos’ green widow. She stands tall, tail swishing behind her to shield her sons, but the oldest fledgling pushes past her to snarl at the lord who threatened his mother. Deimos steps forward, ready to fight both the fledgling and his mother before she suddenly dips her head and bows.

“It is yours just leave me my boys.” She yelps.

The lordling looked over her with suspicion, she was green so likely of lower noble descent, but her scales were dark and she wasn’t too much larger than himself. So young and yet already burdened with three hatchlings. “Was it your idea to spit in the king’s face, or his?” Deimos huffs, continuing his cold glare.

“Angos swore you wouldn’t be capable of taking it back. That half humans were weak and stuck living as mortals. He said if we just held onto it, no one would seize it. I tried to warn him.” She breathes, pulling her son back with his brothers. It was like she could feel the judgment as her golden eyes searched the faces of her bannermen. Each noble instead of defending her, now dipping their own heads in surrender.

“He was apparently wrong. Where is your original holding?”

“Goros Mountain.”

“Return home. But he stays with me.” Deimos nods toward the still snarling dragonling. “I am taking your heir as my ward. You will return home and deliver to me twenty percent of Angos’ personal horde and ten percent of all mining revenue your house makes will go directly into my coffers for the next ten years. And let me be clear, absolutely none of this revenue is to come from the pockets of your smallfolk. “ The new lord of the nightlands dictates, watching her shocked expression all back into bitter defeat as she has no room to negotiate lest her head be torn from her body as well.

Deimos shakes his head, glaring back at his newly acquired bannermen before ascending the steps of the Eclipse keep.