Overview
Drakes are the smaller, less magically-gifted kin of the true Dragons. Where a dragon is a philosopher with a body, a drake is a predator with a grudge. They are the dragon you can actually fight — the first serious aerial threat in a young hero's life, and the prey that reminds true dragons what it means to be small.
Habitat
Drakes keep their quarrels in The Scale Pits, a pit of black scale and broken wing where the small, sharp word is the only law. They need three things: a height that no spear can reach, a hoard that is worth the guarding, and a grudge that is worth the keeping. They are solitary or in loose nesting roosts of two to a dozen; a drake who shares a roost shares the sky, and the sky is the only law.
Appearance
The drake silhouette is the coiled, low, sharp shape — long-bodied, broad-shouldered, with the head sitting low on a thick neck and the wings folded tight, like a knife that is waiting for a hand. Males run 7.62 m to 12.19 m nose-to-tail, heavier through the shoulder and jaw, with a wider crest and a deeper breath; females run 4.57 m to 7.62 m, leaner and quicker, with a thinner crest and a longer memory. The base scale is a deep, dull bronze-green, the color of old copper that has given up, darkening to a true umber along the spine and wing-edges; the belly scales are a paler bone-yellow, and the wing-membrane carries a faint pattern of darker green veins, like a map of roads the drake has flown and never forgiven. The eyes are a hard, flat amber with a slit pupil, built for seeing the hoard from the height. The head is the mark: a long, narrow skull with a short, stiff crest of dark bronze spines running from the snout to the nape, and a jaw that closes with a sound like a door. Males carry the line in the shoulder and the crest; females in the neck and the wing. Elders are marked by a crest gone pale ash-grey and a scale pattern that has worn to a mottled, honest map of every grudge — an old drake flies slower and holds the grudge longer. Everyday wear: none — the scale is the skin and the hoard is the home.
Behavior
Disposition: solitary, territorial, aggressive. In peace, a drake is a creature of hoarding and grudging — it does not trade, it does not talk, and it does not forget. In war it fights as the dive: one breath, one strike, and if the hoard holds, a withdrawal to the height. Strangers below are either food, theft, or a grudge, and the grudge is the one that lasts. The social unit is the individual or the nesting roost — there is no leader, only the oldest and the meanest. Two signature quirks: a drake that is insulted will not answer — it will simply remember the insult and spend the next decade making it true. And a drake that has lost its hoard will rebuild it, claw by claw, and the rebuilding is a form of patience that mortal races find terrifying.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
Natural weapons: the breath — a single elemental burst, fire most often, water next, and only when the anger holds, because a drake's breath is not a spell but a wound that is spent; the talon-strike from the height, which lands the way a roof lands; and the jaw, which closes on the size of a horse and holds. Defenses: the scale, which turns an arrow the way a wall turns a river; the height, which is a defense no army has ever reached; and the grudge, which is a defense no negotiation has ever reached.
Magic Alignment
Innate only — no school; a drake does not learn the word, it is the word. Named inborns: One-Breath — a drake breathes once per day at full strength; the element is the one the drake was born with, and it does not change. Height-Sight — a drake sees the hoard, the threat, and the road between them from a height no human can hold. Grudge-Hold — a drake remembers every insult, every theft, and every broken road for its whole life of ~300 years, and the remembering is the point. Signature power: the Dive — a drake can take the whole of its weight, its speed, and its one breath into a single, controlled fall, and let the fall land across a valley, and the landing will keep the drake's faith. Limitation: a drake's magic is one breath deep — it cannot weave, it cannot charm, and it cannot pretend; it is a predator with a grudge, and the grudge is the whole of its art.
Society
The drake keeps no society — a drake is an individual, and the individual is the whole of the line, because the roost measures a drake in the grudge, not in the company, and a drake who has not kept a grudge in a season is called "the one who forgot the pit," and the forgetting is the only kind the scale remembers. The nesting roost is the only kin the pit counts — two to a dozen, ranked by the oldest and the meanest, not by the strongest, and the ranking is the whole of the law, because a drake does not measure a drake in the talon, it measures it in the keeping, and a drake who has kept a grudge the roost forgot is the one the pit calls the oldest. A drake who has not kept a full descent in the dark is not given a perch of its own. The one fact the surface keeps wrong: the pit does not hoard the hoard — it keeps the grudge, and the keeping is the whole of the fire, and a mortal who is counted is a mortal who is owed, and the owing is the only kind the pit keeps.
Culture & Lore
The drake's only art is the rebuilding — a drake that has lost its hoard will rebuild it, claw by claw, and the rebuilding is a form of patience that mortal races find terrifying. The rebuilding is not a rite, it is a fact: a drake that has rebuilt a hoard is not the same drake that lost it, and the not-same is the whole of the grudge, because the drake measures itself in the rebuilding, not in the losing. The drake's only word is the one it does not speak — a drake that is insulted will not answer; it will simply remember the insult and spend the next decade making it true, and the not-answering is the whole of the culture, because the pit keeps its word, and the word is the grudge, and the grudge is the only kind the drake keeps. A drake's only monument is the perch — the oldest drakes are not the largest, they are the ones whose crest has gone pale ash-grey and whose scale pattern has worn to a mottled, honest map of every grudge, and the map is the whole of the record, because the pit does not write, it keeps, and the keeping is the whole of the lore.
Home
They keep their quarrels in The Scale Pits, a pit of black scale and broken wing, where the small, sharp word is the only law.
Relations
Drakes are the smaller, less magically-gifted kin of the true Dragons, and the kinship is the whole of the distance — the true dragon of The Elemental Roost regards the drake the way a philosopher regards a knife: the knife is not the philosopher, but the knife is the only thing the philosopher keeps sharpening, and the sharpening is the whole of the kin. The drake is the prey that reminds the true dragons what it means to be small, and the reminding is the whole of the law, because the dragon measures the drake in the grudge, not in the breath, and a drake who has kept a grudge the dragon forgot is the one the roost calls the oldest. The Golems and the mortal races of the surface regard the drake the way the ground regards the sky — with distance, and with the understanding that the distance is the whole of the warning. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten are the banished the pit takes in, and the taking in is the whole of the grudge, because the forgotten are the ones the drake keeps counting for, and the counting is the whole of the promise.
In the Story
In the current story, the drakes are the grudge below the camp — the pit Uaellaen writes about when the small, sharp word is worth more than the sky. The Forgotten keep their distance at the scale-line, and the distance has held for two seasons. This season a drake came up the pit with a breath that was not in the element — a breath that is not in the grudge, and the not-listing is the whole of the warning, because the pit keeps its word, and the word has started to move. The oldest drake of the roost is keeping the breath, and the keeping is the page the camp has not been shown.
I am no dragon. I am what a dragon is when it stops being interesting. — a drake, smugly