While the Titans rose in stillness, carving spires into the sky and naming laws into stone, something older stirred in the churning breath of the elements.
Not older in age.
Older in truth.
For before balance came fire, before structure came storm.
And where Aion's hand had shaped the foundations of order, Velkarion's fire had waited—wild, hungry, unbound.
He watched the Titans from his volcanic realm, the Wyrmheart Crucible, with curiosity and pride… and a gnawing, primal ache.
"They build walls," he murmured. "I will birth those who soar beyond them."
The Call of the Crucible
High above the scorched skies of the Crucible, storms howled not as weather but as song.
Flame did not flicker. It roared.
Stone did not lie in silence. It quaked, restless beneath the heat of creation.
Velkarion stood at the heart of it, scaled and crowned, wings folded like collapsing constellations. The Draconic Throne was no seat—it was a molten arch of fire and obsidian, floating above a pit where flame met sky.
Here, he gathered the six elemental cores—pure manifestations of Flame, Stone, Wind, Sea, Storm, and Frost—each one stolen or shaped from his first breath.
He crushed them in his hands, and their essence bled into the sky.
He roared, and the world trembled.
"Come forth, my children—not from reason, but from instinct!"
Lightning struck upward.
The winds inverted.
And from the skyfire and storm-soul, the first dragons were born.
The First Brood
They did not crawl from wombs.
They erupted.
Coiling through the air like gods undone, they emerged in pairs and solos, each bound to an elemental core, each shaped by Velkarion's will—but not bound to it.
Pyrrak, red-scaled and broad-winged, bore the Flame Core. His breath could melt mountains.
Zephyrae, silver-winged and long-bodied, was born of Wind and stormlight.
Kaeryn, emerald-eyed, scaled in sapphire, was born of the Sea Core—silent, powerful, unknowable.
Thrumgar, massive and plated, bore the Stone Core and moved like tectonics made flesh.
Skelvra, dark as midnight frost, born of ice and spite, cold even to her own kin.
Volmerion, tempest-winged, bore both lightning and laughter—born of the Storm Core, untamed and proud.
And many others followed.
They were not clones.
They were force given flesh.
No Order, Only Pact
Where the Titans had lines of authority, councils, rituals of naming and law, the dragons had none.
Velkarion did not command them.
He challenged them.
Each dragon had to fight their way from the Crucible.
Not to kill—none were slain—but to earn flight.
Pyrrak emerged first, beating back lava-wyrms summoned from the inner pit.
Zephyrae sliced open a thundercloud and used the current to ascend.
Volmerion raced lightning bolts and laughed as one hit him square in the chest.
Each dragon's awakening was a trial, a test not of obedience but of will to rise.
Only when they soared above the storm-womb did Velkarion name them.
"You are mine," he roared, "not by leash—but by blood."
"Your breath is your own. Your wings are your covenant."
"Fly. Burn. Rage. Sleep. Return only when the skies call for you."
The First Skyflight
The skies above the Crucible split.
A chorus of roars echoed across creation.
Dragons flew—not in formation, but in chaos, a thousand streaks of color, flame, and cry, ripping through the firmament like the tearing of veils.
The Titans in Solakreon paused to watch.
Even Solak, the First Flameborn, stood in awe.
Torrak grunted. "They do not build."
Oris, ever questioning, smiled. "But they are alive."
A Visit from Luke
Luke descended into the Crucible in a spiral of soulflame.
Velkarion met him atop the molten throne, his scales glowing like a wildfire given shape.
"Come to scold me, Father?" Velkarion grinned.
Luke chuckled. "No. Only to understand."
He looked into the sky as dragons danced across the horizon.
"There is no structure. No cities. No shaping of civilization."
Velkarion's eyes burned brighter.
"Structure is your song. Balance is Aion's whisper. But me? I birth instinct."
"They do not need temples to worship me. Their flight is worship."
Luke nodded slowly.
"Will they destroy?"
"Some."
"Will they love?"
"Many."
"And will they rule?"
Velkarion bared his fangs. "If the skies are empty, why not?"
The Scaled Covenant
Not all dragons remained wild.
Some—like Kaeryn and Thrumgar—returned often, seeking to guide younger broods.
Others, like Pyrrak, challenged lesser gods and Titans to tests of strength, not for conquest but for pride.
Zephyrae, curious and wind-touched, began mapping the hidden skies, tracing storms to their source.
Velkarion gathered his most willful, most feral, most curious dragons.
He spoke to them in a voice that was flame and thunder.
"We are not a kingdom."
"We are not a race."
"We are a Covenant—bound by freedom."
"Let none claim to lead you without first proving they can fly faster than your hunger, burn hotter than your desire, and endure your truth."
"Let us be chaos given scale, instinct born with flame."
"Let us be Dragon."
The Breath of Elemental Wyrms
Each dragon bore a Breath, not merely of fire, but of their elemental soul.
Pyrrak breathed magma that burned even godbone.
Skelvra exhaled frost that froze thought before flesh.
Zephyrae's breath became wind-blades, able to slice time-waves.
Volmerion's exhalation summoned storm spirits who whispered mad truths.
And from these breaths came the first elemental storms, which shaped valleys, carved mountains, and birthed entire biomes.
Their very presence reshaped the world.
Where Titans built with hands, dragons shaped with passage.
Divergence
But freedom breeds division.
A young dragon, Vaeryn, born of a fractured Wind-Storm core, began questioning Velkarion.
Not with words.
With absence.
He left.
Did not return.
He began circling the Realms Between Realms.
He observed mortals rising.
And he began crafting his own followers—lesser wyrmlings, not from the Crucible, but from dreams, storms, and shadows of what dragons might be if they did not belong.
Velkarion noticed.
And said nothing.
For to forbid Vaeryn would be to betray the Covenant.
But his claws tightened, and his throne cracked.
Rumblings of Philosophy
Luke returned to Eidryn.
Aion greeted him with furrowed brow.
"They breathe freedom," the Titan god said, "but they carry destruction."
"They also carry wonder," Luke replied.
"And when one burns a city?"
"I will mourn it," Luke said, "but I will not erase their flame."
Kael stood in shadow nearby and added, "Let them burn. Only ash teaches some to build."
Liora watched a dragon cradle a dying storm and sing to it.
Her eyes glistened.
"They will break hearts," she whispered, "and still be beautiful."
In the Deep Beyond
Eryxis stirred once more.
Not in flame.
But in the hunger beneath flame.
It whispered to Vaeryn.
It showed him a sky where dragons ruled gods.
Where choice meant no consequence.
Where instinct was all.
Vaeryn smiled in his dream.
And began shaping a realm of his own—
One no one could trace, where fire burned backward and skies did not end.