“... how many generations has it been?”

“Five, Six, including me”

The dragon in front of him sighed. Or seemed to.

“I knew I shouldn’t have skipped, they’ve forgotten everything”

“So ... I’m not a sacrifice?”

The human watched the dragon carefully, waiting for a response.

It rolled its eyes. “No, gods, no. What did they tell you?”

“Nothing”

The human stared at his own feet. “Nothing. Not your name. Not what will happen.”

The dragon made another sigh.

“Let me begin. I am the guardian of your local kingdom. A few thousand years ago, the emperor, nice boy, I took him under my wing. This island is my nest, you see. I gave that boy two conditions, that I might ask for an assistant each generation, and that they would look after my guests when I asked.”

The dragon wobbled on its feet, stretching out.

“As you can see, I’m a little too big for a castle. That’s where you come in”

The young man stared back, taking in the full length of the beast in front of him. A mouth large enough to consume him whole.

“These old bones don’t move as quickly as they used to, and I need someone I can send in my place”

“So.. I’m not a sacrifice?”

“You seem obsessed with that, young man”

It was the only piece of information he had: He was the offering.

He gave the dragon a rough outline of his life so far: Taken away from his family as a young child, he’d been confined to the church. A minimal education, little or no social life, and dumped outside the dragon’s lair without any notice.

“... I woke up in the carriage, heard you ask ‘Come over here’, and well”

The young man shook his head. “They told me I would never come back.”

“I won’t lie to you young man. Your old life is over. When we enter into a contract, I will give you a new name, a new role. That is, assuming you want to. ”

“Haaaaa”, he forced a laugh, “What life. This is the first time i’ve been outdoors since I turned six. Really outdoors. Not under a barrier. Not wrapped up. Outside.”

The dragon snorted. “I may be old but I have plenty of time to spare. Take a little while to explore, and I can go back to sleeping.”

“Really? I’m not...”

The dragon nodded. “Yes yes young man not a sacrifice. Assistant. Like you do with those little creatures”

“Familiars?”

“Yes young man, Familars. That’s the word. It will be so much easier once the contract is in place, but I will need to rest first. “

The dragon yawned. Slowly and loudly reverberating across the valley

“If you’re still here when I wake up, we’ll speak again.”

The dragon slumped into a ball and closed its eyes. The ground shook as it stomped the ground into a comfortable shape.

The young man began to shake, collapsing onto his back. His thoughts raced.

‘... Stay? Leave? A dragon! Where could I go?...’

A grin crept across his face.

“I have a choice”

He chose to spend a good hour lying on his back, enjoying the new sights and sounds. A grumble from his stomach was enough to send him in search of food. The carriage he’d arrived in had a few supplies. Dried food, water, bedding, and very little else.

Apart from him, the dragon, and the carriage, the only other feature of note was a small stone hut. Wooden roof, no windows, and a slab for a bed. A large fireplace with a small shelf for cooking, but no sign of water.

It would be enough for now. Feeling settled, and hearing the dragon snore, it would be a good time to explore.

“Young man?”

A voice boomed out over the valley. It took him an hour to return to the lair.

“You decided to stay?”

“Not much of a choice”

“I am sorry about that, but I can promise you a more interesting life now”

He nodded.

“So, young assistant. What skills do you bring?”

“Uh....”, he stalled

“Sword? Magic? Scribe? Artisan? Cook? Anything?”, he shook his head as the dragon rattled through the list.

“I can read, write, not good with numbers, no combat, no magic, I was the offering and I had to be kept pure.”

He pulled a necklace chain out from under his shirt. “Untainted, Sealed”, he sighed.

“Oh come on. Really?”, the dragon snorted, “they were meant to send me some general, or a scribe, only for a decade or so and then around then they want to return home”

“... what have they been doing for six generations”, the dragon bitterly complained.

“After the third offering was ignored, the church took over. They stopped teaching them mana, and by number six, they sealed me off. “

“Well take it off already, I have no need for such a worthless contraption”

“I can’t”

A long deep sigh.

“It needs magic to break?”. He nodded

“You have no magic, cannot do spells, or, enter into a contract”

He began to nod but stopped at the last statement.

Fear. He began to worry that he’d be sent back to the church.

“Oh stop that. I’m thinking out loud. We can try the obvious but”, it waved a claw over his head, “might be a bad idea”

He sighed.

“I guess I’ll have to skip ahead a few steps, that’s all”, the dragon explained, “you can still bleed, right? Oh don’t make a face like that, I mean blood magic. Do you have something sharp? A literal drop”

He nodded, and went to the hut in search of the one sharp knife he’d found. Returning to the dragon, he found it busy scratching lines into the ground.

“Stand over there”

The dragon sighed, “This might hurt, but you might also consider this a repayment for how you have been treated so far. It was done in my name after all”

“What are you doing?”

“The normal spell is just to mark you as my agent, giving you a new name, but you have to have *some* mana to accept. Blood will work instead, and bypass the seal. Are you ready?”

He nodded. Tightly gripping the blade, trying not to chicken out of what was to follow.

“Taking a name from me will allow you to borrow my power. As everything was taken from you, I’ll be a little more generous. This is normally my departing gift”

The dragon smirked. It had finished the inscription. A large circle surrounded them, with a smaller circle inside for the young man to sit in. Numerous scratches linked up parts, and the man could make out some runic glyphs around the edges.

“You see the scratch in front of you. When I tell you, cut your palm and place it firmly into the ground. Then, I can begin the naming ceremony.”

The dragon yawned, “I am so tired, so I will only ask once. Are you ready?”

“Yes”.

It smiled.

Using a claw, it cut open an arm, bleeding across the magical circuit. Small white dots began to gather and flow around it, gently illuminating them.

“Your turn”

He fidgeted with the knife. Clumsy and too slowly, he slashed open his palm and plunged into the light beneath him.

It was a sharp electrical pain, firing across his body. Not too painful, but as if he was stretching muscles for the first time. He could suddenly feel the mana around him and it was a little overwhelming.

The dragon began to speak in its own tongue. He couldn’t understand but could feel something pushing inside of him, through his open wound.

“Do you accept”

“YES”, it was hard not to shout.

Another word in the dragon tongue, and the feeling of something pushing inside him intensified. He could feel a large current roaring against him and the occasional splash of mana spilling over into him.

“It isn’t working... but can you try taking the seal off.”

He said nothing, but using his free hand, he pulled against the chain around his neck.

“You have to push mana into it”

The dragon had a huge smile across its face.

“Harder”

He kept pulling at it, feeling the chain beginning to weaken.

It snapped, finally. It crumbled in his hands, fragmenting into tiny shards.

He had a quick moment of victory. It felt like he was coming up for air, mana began rushing into his system. It felt incredible. The pain from before had turned into bliss, he could feel his entire body vibrate, shaking as the contract took hold.

“Thirsty, eh? Well”, the dragon cackled, “One more time. Do you accept, young man?”

“Yes!”

He could feel his new name being carved into his body, as torrents of mana flooded his body. The pain returned and he began to lose focus. Despite feeling on the brink of explosion, his body found a way to keep absorbing the power washing over him, pulling faster and faster.

Shaking, Convulsing. He was no longer aware of the world around him. He could see and feel the ambient mana, the currents and streams, and he couldn’t keep up with all of the new information.

The inscription around him glowed brighter until it blinded him. He was just holding on but knew it would be moments before he passed out. The last thing he heard was a quiet growl from the dragon.

He was awakened by a kick to the forehead.

“Wake up trouble maker”

“Urrhghhhh”

Picking himself off the ground, it took him a few moments to realise something had happened.

“You’re small?”

“Yes. I am small.”

Its voice was a few octaves higher. The dragon was small enough to pick up. He took a seat back down on the ground, to avoid looming over them.

“You’re small?”

“Again. Yes. I gave you some of my mana, you took the rest. Two thousand years of growth gone in an instant. What are you?”

“Me?”

“Yes You. Let me take a proper look at you.” It paced around him, peering at parts of his body with a determined glare.

“Is there anything left of the seal?” “Just this plate, but the chain broke into smithereens”

“Hold it up so I can see it”, the dragon snorted

“What did they do to you”, it sighed, “how long were you under a barrier for?”

“Since I was five, a year before my core formed. The chain came afterwards.”

“Did anyone else live under the barriers”

“Not for long. An hour, maybe two. My sister could only last five minutes by the end”

The dragon sighed, and began muttering to itself

“I shouldn’t have rushed. Take another nap next time. Those fools”

“What’s going on?”

“You. Young man. You are a freak of nature. Those fools brought you up in a low mana environment. When you broke the chain, your body started to absorb all of the mana it could. Gods. They must have drained your mana repeatedly for this”

He thought back. The chain had been replaced several times. On his sixth and seventh birthday, then every 6 or seven months, until now where it was a daily practice. He had felt a little better once he had left the barrier but had put it down to excitement.

“I had to take some rather drastic measures to prevent you from exploding. That, and the drain on my system is why I could fit on your shoulder now”

The dragon paused, then leaped onto the young man. “Your first duty as my assistant will be to carry me. I am exhausted.”

“You’re not mad...?”

“Of course I’m mad”

“... but I’m still your assistant?”

“You took the name and two millennia of mana from me. The most expensive assistant i’ve ever had. Why wouldn’t you be my assistant after going through so so much trouble?”

“Er. Ok. So, what now?”

“I was planning to teach you a bit of magic, fly over to see a friend and drop you off for training”

“Can’t we do that?”

“Climb on my back then, young man”

“Oh”

“Yes”, the dragon snorted, “I may be on your back, but the rest of the plan is the same. We travel to see my friend, and ask them to teach you. ”

“Where are we going”

“The next island over, or is it two. I can never remember your names for things. The old temple, urgh, there’s four of them and they’re in a line”

His eyes widened. “The next island over”

The dragon pointed with its tail “That way, and I guess by foot it might take a year.”

“A year”

“We can speed it up perhaps but I do need to regain my strength a little”

“A year!”

“Oh?”

“A year of travelling?! Crossing over to the other islands? Yes!”

The dragon yawned, and curled its tail around his neck, sprawling out across his shoulder.

It pointed one last time “That way”, and yawned again.

“I’m going to bed, troublemaker... and don’t tell anyone your name. Not that I expect you to be able to pronounce it yet”

The dragon croaked out a few words.

“It means ... it’s an allegory ... the one who is best friends with trouble. Now let grandma sleep. I’m tired”