&& wretches and KINGS..

[[[ jak ]]]

The ragged tunic worn by the equally rough boy did almost nothing to combat the gusts of wind that occasionally blasted him from around trees and boulders. Jak scowled and quickened his pace, seeking to leave the area as quickly as possible.

Some might have thought him reckless had they witnessed his trek through the chilly and hazardous terrain. It certainly was not a pleasant and cozy evening; the sun, while still visible above the peaks of the smaller mountains, provided little warmth, and whatever comfort it did lend was negated by the harsh winds that howled through the towering pines and chilled the stones until they felt like ice. But Jak, who scrambled over a cluster of boulders that barred his path and vaulted over a fallen tree with ease, was accustomed to discomfort, and adapted to the difficult environment without much trouble.

But this windstorm, while still free of clouds and hardly a chance of rain, was still rather bothersome, and the night would undoubtedly only drop the temperature even further. Jak pushed his way through a tangle of brambles and paused on the other side, glancing back the way he came. Somewhere past the waving branches and dangerous crags of the Spine's forest lay the tiny village of Faymere, several miles away. If he turned back and started retracing his steps immediately, he would be able to make it back before nightfall. He could return to the shack that he and his father shared and treat the excursion as nothing more than a simple walk.

With a scowl crossing his face, Jak turned back to the path ahead and resumed his hike. There was no way he was going back to that place -- at least, not for a few days. Not two hours before, he had come to on the floor of the shack with blood streaming from fresh cuts all over his body and bruises painting patches of his flesh purple and black. When he had amassed the strength to stand, he found his father sprawled across the ancient and broken cot in the corner, clutching a cracked bottle of spirits in one fist and the knuckles of the other raw from beating his son, who had been quickly overpowered by the drunk man when he initially attempted to defend himself. Jak had left as soon as the fog in his mind had cleared.

From that point, he had undergone his usual preparations: stalking into the small local tavern without being seen, grabbing as much food as he could fit into the tattered rucksack that he toted over one shoulder, and fled into the woods before anyone had noticed anything. Jak had gone about this routine many times in the past, and his actions were nearly automatic and without any need for thought or contemplation. As usual, everything had gone smoothly.

He could envision the chain of events that would be set in motion if he chose to return to the shack: his father would take the stolen food from Jak's pack, eat until he was full, throw a scrap or two his son's way, maybe take a swing or two at him before returning to his cot, leaving Jak to lie on the floor, which was hardly any warmer than the outdoors. It all seemed so unpleasant and undesirable in comparison to a few quiet and peaceful nights spent undisturbed in the wilderness.

But, of course, all good things would have to come to an end eventually, and his trips were among that number. After a few days, he would run out of food, and with his extremely limited knowledge of edible flora and the lack of any weaponry save for a stolen knife to hunt wild animals with, he would eventually be forced to return to the village, where he would remain until he received another undeserved beating or got caught taking someone's possessions from them. Such was the life he led: always fleeing, always hiding from those that he should have been closest to. But it was the only way of living that he knew, and so he was able to cope without any other lifestyle to compare it to.

After jumping lightly upon a rock, balancing for a moment, and then leaping over a low shrub, Jak found himself back in a familiar clearing. A ring of stones in the center of the space marked the glade as the one he frequented. The ground was coated in a layer of pine needles that felt springy beneath his feet and let off a fresh scent that Jak breathed in deeply, savoring the atmosphere. With a relieved sigh, he dropped his bag of food beside the makeshift fire pit and dropped to the ground beside it, rubbing his hands together to generate some warmth.

He allowed himself a few minutes of rest from the hours of hiking he had undertaken before forcing himself to stand up and wander out of the clearing to search for firewood. A few paces into the thicket earned him a few dry branches, but nothing more. He returned to his camp with what he had found before setting out once more.

The area seemed to be picked clean from his last trip, which had been only a few days before. Jak shivered and hunched against a howling gust that whipped between the pine trees. Once it had passed, he straightened up and peered around in the half light. If he was going to get a fire blazing, he needed to try looking in some places he had never explored before, for the entire area had pretty much been cleared of dead wood. But in the dim light of the evening, was it really safe to survey unknown territory?

Tripping and twisting my ankle is far more desirable than becoming some wild animal's next meal or freezing to death, he reasoned. With that reassuring thought at the forefront of his mind, he turned westward and headed a bit deeper into the Spine.

He was careful to keep track of his path so as not to lose himself, but in the faint light of the rapidly sinking sun, he found the task to become increasingly more difficult. Along the way to his current location, he had amassed a respectable armful of branches and twigs, and felt confident that it was enough to keep a fire going for most of the night. But just to be safe, he moved a little bit farther into the woods, hoping that he might spot one last good branch for the fire.

Instead, he found a stream. But he saw it a second too late, and with a startled yelp he stumbled and pitched forward. The sticks that he had been carrying broke his fall and blocked the jagged stones in the water from digging into his skin, but they still jabbed at his stomach like blunt knives. Gasping from the shock and pain, Jak staggered to his feet with a muttered string of curses. He groaned at the sight of some of his choice twigs floating away from him, and as he scrambled after them, a bright object beside the stream bed caught his eye.

He paused when he spotted it, momentarily forgetting the firewood that was now drenched and escaping from him. At first glance, he thought it was a chunk of glowing ice, but he quickly dismissed that initial impression; it was not nearly that cold in the Spine yet, and the object was far too smooth. He stepped toward it, cautious but curious, and investigated it more closely.

It appeared to be a rock of some sort, but unlike any kind he had seen before: it was a perfectly smooth oval of a white-blue color with lighter veins stretched across it like a spiderweb. But what really caught his attention was how it seemed to glow, as if by some kind of magic, illuminating the bush that it was nestled beneath.

Still wary but undeniably interested, Jak picked himself up out of the stream and reached forward to touch the stone. He had expected it to be freezing, like touching a chunk of ice, but instead it was actually rather warm against his fingertips, as if it had been sitting in the sunlight rather than in the shadow of a bush. His fingers slid over its polished surface as smoothly as over a new pane of glass. The object was unlike anything he had ever seen before or even heard described.

His breath quickening, Jak grasped the stone in his hands and hefted it. Unlike its texture and temperature, its weight did not come as much of a surprise to him, and although he was able to heft it easily enough it was still quite heavy. He drew it closer to his face in order to inspect it more closely. The warmth rolled forth from it as if it were heated by a little flame from the inside.

Fire. Jak swore again and spun around to see that while most of the large branches had remained hooked against rocks in the stream, the majority of the smaller twigs had drifted away. Muttering under his breath, he set about gathering what he could, as wet as it all was, and with the peculiar stone tucked under one arm, he set off back towards his campsite.

The sun dipped behind the mountains a few minutes later, and the forest was plunged into darkness. The wind intensified shortly thereafter, screaming through the trees and whipping at Jak's clothes. He shivered so harshly that he almost dropped the armful of wet branches and the stone. But when he paused to confirm his location, he realized that his camp was only a few more paces onward. Managing a strained grin, he pushed forward.

When he fell into the clearing at last, he allowed the firewod to drop from his hands with a sigh of relief, but he kept the blue stone tucked under his arm. If it really was worth something, he would want to sell it later when he returned to Faymere, and if he was going to follow that path, he wanted it to come to as little harm as possible so as to maximize its value.

Instead of dropping it on the ground as carelessly as he had with the branches and sticks, Jak placed the stone carefully beside his pack before he set to work arranging the sticks in a neat pile on top of the ashes of his previous campfire. As he worked, he noted with relief that while a few had been dampened by the stream, most of them were relatively dry and would most likely burn. Even so, it took him a few minutes to work a suitable spark out of two sharp rocks, and another solid half hour to get the twigs and dried grass to catch flame. By the time he finally managed to coax a steady blaze out of the assortment of wood, his legs were sore from squatting and his hands were numb from the repetitive striking that they had endured for almost an hour.

Satisfied with his work, Jak sat down and massaged feeling back into his hands before he rummaged in his pack for a loaf of slightly stale bread. He bit into it savagely and savored his first bite, relishing the sensation as he swallowed and felt the food go down. As he took another bite, he twisted around to grab the stone from where it lay beside his rucksack.

By the light of the fire, he was able to inspect the object more closely. It was a perfect oval, and smoother than anything he had ever touched before in his life. The surface was the color of ice, and it glittered like frost when it caught the light. White lines were drawn over it in an intricate web. He followed one with a finger, mouth slightly agape in wonder.

His best guess was that it was some sort of precious gem, but how had it ended up in a bush in the middle of uncharted wilderness that Jak was certain none save for him had ever dared to explore? Maybe it's magic, he thought as he swallowed the last of his bread and reclined back, still holding the stone above his head so he could observe it against the backdrop of the night sky. But then again, does magic even exist? I've never seen it done... Probably just made up for old stories...

As he drifted off to sleep beside the fire with the stone cradled in his arms, a series of peeps could be heard from within its core. But the sound failed to reach Jak's ears, as he had already lost himself in the comfortable embrace of sleep.

When the sun reappeared in the eastern sky and flooded the forest with fresh light, Jak was roused suddenly from his slumber by movement, although it was not his own. Before the clouds of sleep in his head had even dispersed completely, he was on his feet, whipping his head back and forth in anticipation of some wild animal's attack. But the clearing was void of any life save for the crumbling embers that still smoldered in the fire pit and Jak himself.

He glanced down at the stone that still lay on the ground. His eyes locked on to it as it twitched, as if something was nudging it gently. No thoughts cycled through his mind; all he did was stare, waiting for something else to happen. The stone was still for a moment longer, then wobbled again, this time more noticeably.

As if the motion had jostled him into action, Jak staggered back on unsteady legs and uttered a small gasp, confused and unnerved by the side. The stone responded to the sound with a chorus of peeps and chirps, almost as if a little bird was trapped inside and fighting its way out.

It was no bird. There was no bird in the world that could have so much as scratched the diamond-like surface of the stone, but nonetheless, it splintered with a crack like a falling tree. Jak yelped and leaped backward, almost losing his balance in the process. Another crack followed the first, and another, and another, until the entire gem was covered in a spiderweb of jagged scars. It was still for a moment, and then it shook once more. A section of the stone broke away from the rest and fell away.

The entire stone collapsed. The fragments of the mysterious rock dropped to the ground to reveal a small creature sitting on the ground, blinking and gazing around sleepily as if it had just awoken from an interminable slumber. It looked like some sort of reptile, its scales glimmering in the same shade as the stone -- or was it an egg? -- that had contained it. Batlike wings stretched out from its shoulders, waving slightly in the gentle breeze that was all that remained of the night's windstorm.

One word came to Jak's mind at that point: Dragon.

Everyone in Alagaesia was familiar with the old tales of dragons. There had been a war long ago between the elves and the wild dragons, ending in an alliance and the founding of an elite group called the Dragon Riders. When humans landed on the continent, they, too, joined the organization. Dragons hatched from eggs when they had found someone worthy of being bonded to them for the rest of their lives, and the pair would then defend Alagaesia and its inhabitants from danger, keeping order within the world. But the Dragon Riders had been killed off over a hundred years ago, and dragons were all but extinct save for King Galbatorix's partner. No eggs were supposed to exist anymore. So why had this one shown up, and why was a dragon emerging from it?

Jak was at a complete loss for what to say or do. He dropped numbly to his knees, mouth working but unable to form any words appropriate for the situation. It was then that the hatchling noticed him kneeling a few feet away, and with an eager squeak it started towards him. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Jak extended his left hand to touch its head, just to confirm that it really was there and not a hallucination of some sort.

A searing pain exploded in his hand, but he could not scream, could not clutch at it, for he had been paralyzed, rendering him unable to do anything but fall down, completely stiffened, while the skin on his palm crawled and burned.

It went on like that for several minutes: Jak lay motionless on the ground, staring up through the branches at the wispy clouds overhead as they drifted through the sky, while the dragon hatchling licked itself clean and poked around the shattered remains of its egg curiously. When the relief from the paralysis finally came, it was not slow, seeping into his limbs and granting them the ability to function once more steadily; rather, it occurred all at once, and left him gasping from the shock of it.

Immediately upon regaining command over his body, his right hand flew to his left and scratched at the irritated skin, which no longer burned but was still rather itchy. He moved his fingers out of the way to take a look at what had happened to his palm, blinked, and looked again, uncomprehending. A silver light seemed to emanate from his left hand, forming a glowing oval upon his palm. As he watched, the glow faded, leaving only a rather plain silver marking.

It was at that point that he became conscious of a strange sensation, although he could not place it upon a physical part of his body. Rather, it felt as though his mind was open and exposed, and he suddenly felt naked and vulnerable. The feeling was quite unlike any other; it was suddenly as if he was welcoming the world to touch upon his mind, and he could not quite seem to close himself up once more.

Something brushed against his mind, like a finger lightly touching upon his flesh. Jak shivered, confused by what was going on and what was invading his thoughts. But when he looked down and his gaze fell upon the dragon, sudden realization dawned in his head: the dragon was touching his mind.

Similar accounts had cropped up now and again in the old tales. Riders were said to rely as heavily upon their minds as they did their bodies, if not more so, and they became mentally linked to their dragons, which was what formed their powerful bonds. Is that what's happening? he wondered, almost a little bit hysterical. Have I become partnered with this... this dragon? Does this mean I have to be a Rider now?

Jak was not sure how he knew it, but the dragon responded to his thoughts enthusiastically. It was almost as if the emotion was leaking from its mind into his; it was a curious feeling, and as startled and disconcerted as he was by what was happening, Jak could not say that he was displeased.

So this dragon hatched for me for whatever reason, and now I'm bonded to it, he thought to himself, trying to make sense of the events that had transpired over the course of less than ten minutes. Does that mean that I'm a Dragon Rider now?

In Faymere, hardly anyone kept track of what was going on in the rest of the Empire and Alagaesia. All that was known was that the rebels known as the Varden had allied themselves with Surda and waged war with King Galbatorix and his forces. There had been rumors from the occasional traveler of a new Dragon Rider back in the winter, but recently, there had been even more talk of new dragon eggs hatching for other people. So this places me among their number, then? he thought.

For some reason, the idea that he was special in some way drew a laugh from his lips, drawing the dragon's curiosity again, who had been snuffling at his bag of food. Here he was, not even a man, living in a shack with an abusive, drunk father and stealing from his neighbors just to stay alive. It all seemed totally ridiculous.

How would he return to the village now, though? For one thing, there was no way he would be able to hide a baby dragon anywhere, and it would undoubtedly grow quickly in its months of adolescence. And besides, he had always dreamed of taking his meager possessions -- which were packed into his rucksack alongside the stolen food -- and leaving Faymere forever. Never before had he possessed the confidence and skill to survive on his own in the vast, unknown world, but now, he was a Dragon Rider. And with a dragon on his side -- young as it may be -- how could he lose?

The decision was reckless, and he knew that by accepting his fate he would be bound to a path in life that could very well be the death of him. But anything was better than suffering beatings on a daily basis and being despised by almost everyone around him. And besides, he had a sack full of food and a knife to defend himself. There was nothing to keep him back.

With that thought fresh in the forefront of his mind, Jak set about extinguishing the smoldering remains of his campfire with a handful of dirt and hoisted his pack onto his shoulder. Finally, he stooped down and gathered the dragon into his arms, anticipating another shock of pain but instead feeling nothing but its warm scales. It stretched its neck upward to lick his chin once with a forked tongue, then nestled into his chest and fell asleep. With nothing left to keep him, Jak cast one last glance around at his campsite, then turned and set off southward into unfamiliar lands.