Hatchling's Hollow

“Here she be, crowned pearl of the sea.” The shuttle merchant waved a leathery hand, his voice rougher than the barnacles fused to the skiff.

They’d passed sturdier vessels on the way in—retired pirate ships, grumbling tugboats, even a nimble catamaran. An ocean of choices, yet the humbling row boat—the Sea Patch—was all that waited for Aethylweiz’s journey.

He gulped, accepting the splintered hand fate had dealt. The patched boat wheezed to right itself against the churn.

The other boats clapped the water nearby, as if applauding his poor judgment.

The sea was the last place Aethylweiz wanted to be, and yet he pressed a reluctant toe on the boat’s floorboards. His eyes flickered at the warped wood. Had it shifted under his foot? Or was the boat still tethered by some unseen mercy?

The deck under the merchant groaned, his silence betraying the laughter that didn’t quite reach his face.

Aethylweiz looked up from the rocking waters, a flicker of hope clinging to his face. “And this is all you have? Truly?”

The merchant folded his arms—thick, sun-split, unmoved. “Aye. You may try in the off-season, when the tides have slowed with frost.”

The cursed sea in winter. Swollen with death’s pets and waves sharp as knives. Aethylweiz cringed. No. It was now or never.

He’d tried dodging them, the endless stream of desperate villagers. But they’d pressed, pleaded, followed him through towns until he’d caved. They had his word now. A wizard’s word—unshakable, even when dragged from him by sheer persistence.

So be it. He would go where this stitched-together raft of splinters and sea glue dared to float.

“Fine…fine. I’ll take it. But I can’t say when I’ll return.”

The anchor cracked loose and the merchant chuckled. “Oh, I not be worried. She’s used for fetching strays—loose lines, boats that forget where home is. Where ye bound, then?”

“The Dread Waters. Something’s been whispering curses around the island,” Aethylweiz said. A wry smile tugged at his mouth. It was always the most peculiar, rumor-riddled quests that kindled the flames of his soul.

The merchant’s face lit red. Tears spilled through the creases. He wheezed, staggered, then turned tail into the salt-bitten hut. The howling wind against the sun-bleached planks muffled the merchant and his wife’s laughter. The silent docks were the only dignity between them and the watching wizard.

“Don’t you fret,” Aethylweiz said, glancing back at the Sea Patch. “With a little… lot of magic, we’ll have you  sailing as smooth as any ship.”

His eyes drifted toward the catamaran. “Most ships.”

Aethylweiz breathed and the world waited. Magic bound it still, like the spine of an empty book. His spells the ink, the boat the pages. Boards straightened and hardened. The oars spun back, swirling at the flick of a wrist. Aethylweiz claimed his seat at the stern. His staff knotted into the frame and slid its gnarled head into the water, clinging to the rudder like a starved root. The boat lurched and with daring hope the wizard and rowboat were off — looking far too proud for what they were.

It took the rest of the day, a blood-curdling sleepless night, and half the morning before the island finally crept into view.

It was a boorish thing — a graveyard of ships, crowned in fog, its edges bristling with rocks that jutted like teeth from some long-dead leviathan.

“Looks the place,” Aethylweiz muttered. “Either that, or these waters hold more than one island that look to rob you of your very soul.”

There was no mistaking the sense of foreboding. He felt like one of those giddy knights. Dogged and determined to take the dragon’s gold—all the while literally trouncing on the creature’s snout.

He’d seen tales grow teeth before — had dismissed plenty, only to find claws buried in the truth.

Missing ships — clearly stuck in the harbor. The missing men, never returned? Well, the island was damned near impregnable. To leave was even bleaker. The singing sirens — most likely the wind catching a whistle from a rock. Although the sirens bit he had been wrong before. Nonetheless, the time was near to bring all to light.

The mist hit first — sharp, salt-laced, flung from waves battering the rocks. Still, the Sea Patch slid forward, too steady for comfort. Like it had sailed this path before.

Then came the jerk. Sudden. Taut. Aethylweiz nearly toppled face-first over the bow.

He caught himself, thanks to the rope cinched around his waist and staff — an old precaution for cursed waters.

The boat rocked. Beneath the frothing tide, something green writhed and snapped.

Seaweed. Or so it seemed. He leaned in for a better look—

The vines lurched. The boat twisted, dragged backward toward the rocks.

“No, no. There will be no boat-crushing kelp today,” Aethylweiz muttered.

A fireball snapped from his palm, blasted a chunk from the stone — useless. The seaweed still held.

With a sigh, he rolled his wrists. The oars spun to life, blades of water slapping against the tide.

The boat strained forward.

Then came the wind spell — precise, narrow, flicked from his fingers like an afterthought.

A storm of blades tore through the green. Vines snapped. Water hissed.

The boat hit sand, and Aethylweiz’s toes touched shore with all the dignity of a man who refused to be bested by sea plants.

“Ah, that’s better. I’d say the worst is behind me, but…”

The beach looked like a village torn up and spat out — debris and splinters strewn like bones. The forest beyond wasn’t much kinder. Trees twisted into one another like limbs mid-scream, their foliage dense, pointed, and eager to hide anything worth fearing.

Something shifted behind him — a slither, a spray of sand. Just loud enough to turn… and miss.

He grabbed the nearest heavy rock, looped a vine of seaweed through the boat’s frame, and yanked his staff from the rudder.

“I’ll be taking this back, thank you… Sea Patch.”

A green fin sliced through the sand behind him. It swam. Then vanished.

“No, no, no! Sharks are of the sea, not of the land! Go away!”

He bolted for the forest.

“Go away! Go away!” echoed before him — hundreds of voices, not his.

He skidded to a stop, panting, sand trickling off his robes. “Sweet Lyria, I’ve let this cursed place get the better of me.”

Staff raised, he blasted the sand with a focused pulse of air.

The green fin flopped loose — a vine, thin as thread, curled at its base.

“Mhm. And for my next trick—silly sirens singing salt worts!” he shouted to the treeline.

“Siren…worts. Siren…worts,” the voices mimicked back.

Aethylweiz laughed. Of course. He knelt beside the plants — small succulents with puckered lips and reed-like stems, buried among the brush.

“Thought so. Clever little charmers.”

“Can’t believe it got me so well,” he muttered, glancing over the mimic plants. “If the sea hadn’t already pickled my senses, I might’ve spotted the trick sooner.”

He scanned the beach again. The pattern. The placement. Too tidy for wild growth. Too clever for coincidence.

He shook his head. “No. There were no coincidences in a world of magic. That was a warning system — and a damned good one.”

A pause. Then a snort. “Aethylweiz, you fool. Whoever doesn’t want you here, by now, definitely knows you are.”

He stepped off the sand and into the forest’s gnarled clutch.

With a flick, a kite spell puffed to life — a lazy swirl of wind cradling a pale orb above him, brushing aside branches like a butler clearing a path.

The rich soil squished with every step, dark and eager.

And something rode the air beneath the scent of earth — not rot, not magic. Something else. He couldn’t place it.

But the odd feeling stalked him as he walked deeper into the dark.

By what he guessed was midday, the kite spell began to sputter. The canopy had thickened—branches clawing at every inch of light, oaks doubling down like they’d made a pact with the darkness.

“Hm. I’d hoped the kite could handle this,” he said, settling on a fallen log. “Suppose it’s time for something a little less polite.”

With a flick of his hand, he drew minerals from the soil. They spiraled together into a white crystal star. A twist of his finger lit a cold white flame inside it — steady, quiet, and sharp enough to cut a path ahead.

The new light revealed a stretch of blue mushrooms carpeting the trail. Hundreds. Thousands.

The forest here wasn’t woods anymore — it was fungus masquerading as forest.

Aethylweiz crouched. Deep blue caps flecked with orange. Fins underneath like pressed pills. Stems the color of twilight.

He flipped one, and a thin mist drifted from the underside — pale, spectral, unsettling.

“Ah… of course.” He let the mist run over his fingers. There it was — the sense of dread, creeping in without cause. A warning. A deterrent.

“Nature’s own trespass magic,” he murmured. “Fear in a mushroom cap.”

He pocketed a few specimens. “I could make something of these. One day, maybe.”

He stood and glanced around, the faint weight of the mushrooms still tickling his thoughts.

“One thing at a time, Aethylweiz.”

The ground shifted beneath him, fungi pulling back as he sat cross-legged in the clearing.

“I’ll say this,” he muttered, watching the dark sway of branches above, “I can’t wait to meet whoever’s behind all this.” A beat. “Can’t imagine they’ll feel the same though.”

The forest answered with a low tremor. Hooves. Snorts. Snapping underbrush.

A herd of boars emerged through the gloom — three in all. The smallest was twice his size. The largest was the size of a cart, tusks curved like sickles.

Aethylweiz didn’t move. Just let the hum settle around him — the tone of calm, coaxed from the air like a song only the trees could hear.

The lead boar stepped forward. He offered his hand. “Hail, brother boar.”

The snout met his palm. Warm. Damp. Heavy with breath.

The beast bowed. The others followed suit.

“Thank you for heeding my call,” Aethylweiz said softly. The air still shimmered with his altered frequency — not command, not spellwork. Just suggestion. Peace.

“If you’re willing, I’d be grateful for your guidance. I seek a clearing, inland. I offer light, warmth, protection.”

The boar turned and knelt.

Aethylweiz climbed aboard like a man who had done this before — or at least decided he had.

Together, they trampled a path through the woods, hooves clearing what branches the wizard’s spells could not.

Dawn found them at the forest’s edge. The oaks thinned, then parted altogether, spilling into a quiet valley soaked in morning light.

Aethylweiz dismounted, giving the lead boar a gentle pat. “Now this, is what I was looking for. I thank you, brothers. May your trails be full of shade… and shrooms.”

The boars vanished into the trees without a sound.

He turned to take in the valley — and sighed. “Yes. This is very much the place.”

Mountains cupped it from every side but the woods, their ridgelines jagged and watchful. The meadow below stretched wide and even, perfect for spotting anything that dared approach from afar. Too perfect.

At its center, a nest sat like a crown — massive, coiled, constructed from exotic plants Aethylweiz couldn’t name. Beauty and utility woven into one. A brook wound lazily around it, threading water through the valley like embroidery.

Then he saw the mound.

Green, rounded, suspiciously content under the sun.

He released his grip of magic, letting the air settle — no sudden moves.

A single yellow eye opened. Large. Unblinking. Watching.

The moss slid. The mound coiled.

With the crack of a whip and the weight of a falling oak, the dragon unfurled. Dandelion and daisy brushed the air as it moved, scenting the valley with a fragrance too gentle for something so dangerous.

Aethylweiz didn’t flinch. This wasn’t his first dragon.

“What do you seek… fae—”

The dragon paused, tasting the air with a violet tongue. “Not fae. Nor human. What walks into my valley?”

Aethylweiz kept his hands at his sides. No wards. No spells. Just breath.

“I am the wizard, Aethylweiz. The locals outside this island have grown concerned of the dangers that circle it—”

“—then, perhaps, they should let it rest,” the dragon interrupted.

“I’m afraid they are slow to learn, and they are many. I simply seek a solution. Is it you that has. . .curated this island?”

A thick mist swirled around Aethylweiz. “They are who trespass, yet they ask you to help them?”

The folding of the dragon’s green wing flamed the mist hotter. Aethylweiz looked for the other to do the same, but found the knob of an old wound in its place.

“Great dragon, it is not my place to act for or against you. . .or these people. I am a servant and friend to all. If you help me, I will help you take your place among the sky once more.”

The dragon rumbled and scales clattered. Aethylweiz had stirred the dragon, one way or another. It continued to circle until its mind was made.

“Heal my wind and I will show you a path. If you are as you speak, now or later, makes no difference.”

Aethylweiz bowed, then motioned toward the dragon’s side.

Verdanrook hesitated. Then turned.

An oak split behind them — not from spell or wind, but pain.

Aethylweiz lifted his hands. His magic threaded outward — deliberate, refined, woven like muscle.

Bone reformed first, cracking through scar tissue. Tendons followed, then cords of muscle, pulled taut and humming with new life. Scales flowed last — overlapping, iridescent, sealing flesh in armor.

“May the spirit of skies brush your back, and the sun warm your wings, Verdanrook,” he murmured.

The dragon’s eyes widened. Yellow turned to gold.

A gust split the valley. Leaves fled. Stones rolled.

Aethylweiz gripped his staff as the wind surged — not wild, but willful.

Verdanrook launched.

The earth shuddered. The sky split open.

He soared — vast, terrible, and right.

A blur of green over the mountain peaks, and then… gone.

Aethylweiz stood in the stillness that followed, like the earth itself was deciding whether to move again.

Once the wind subsided and Aethylweiz thought Verdanrook to have left, he slowly walked toward the nest bundled in the valley’s center.

“It was a boy? No older than seven…” he muttered, spotting the child asleep in a makeshift hammock of living vines. Plant-like lips framed the cradle like tassels, each one humming a faint lullaby.

Before he could step closer, Verdanrook landed—quiet but immovable—blocking his path.

“I lost my wing to those very peaks,” the dragon said. “An old magic dwelled here — a forest licht. It found the boy. Used my wing to grow its power into that of a queen. She raised him as her own. What he knows, he learned from her… including what dangers near this island.”

“Someone got to her?” he asked.

Verdanrook nodded. “I watched from afar. As the boy grew, so did his despair. I’ve watched over him ever since.”

Aethylweiz’s shoulders sank. He scanned the nest — vines still alive, but fading. The verdant magic within ran slow, sluggish.

“This magic will not last, Verdanrook. It will fade, like the queen.”

“It is true,” the dragon replied, his voice low and waning.

Aethylweiz stepped forward. “If you’re willing, I have an offer.”

Verdanrook stretched his wing—the good one—then lay down, calm in the knowledge that the boy was protected. Aethylweiz would go no further unless permitted.

“I’ve founded a kingdom,” he said, “built on magic and curiosity. There are thousands like him—living, learning, thriving. If I could speak with the boy, and he agrees, he would be welcomed. I’ll see to it myself he grows into a wizard worthy of legend. And of course… you would be free to visit anytime you wish.”

The dragon’s sunflower eyes blinked once. “A dragon among men?”

Aethylweiz chuckled. “You would not be the first. I’m afraid Lady Selyne already claims that honor.”

Verdanrook’s scales clicked as his neck coiled, scenting the air for lies. He found none. Slowly, the dragon rose and stepped aside.

“If you know Selyne,” he said, “that is enough for me. I would not be the one fool dragon to doubt the Dragon Queen.”

Aethylweiz grinned. “Then you’re already wiser than I, Verdanrook. I’ll be just a moment.”

Verdanrook dipped his head, though his tail swayed slow and heavy—less a threat, more a quiet reminder. A dragon’s trust is its rarest treasure. Don’t waste it.

Aethylweiz stopped just outside the nest and conjured a golden butterfly to rouse the boy gently.

It fluttered down and tickled the boy’s nose. He stirred, lifted the butterfly onto one finger, and blinked once at Aethylweiz. Then he walked past him without a word and tucked himself behind Verdanrook’s wing.

“Does he speak?” Aethylweiz asked quietly.

“In the way dragons do,” Verdanrook answered. Not with words.

A pulse of willful, primal magic shimmered from Aethylweiz to the boy.

I am Aethylweiz. What is your name, friend?

The boy’s mind reached out to meet his, strong enough to jolt the wizard in place. His thoughts were everywhere at once—wild and vast—and yet they hummed with uncanny calm. The kind of calm born only from unshakable mastery.

Verdannis, the boy replied, his eyes on the dragon, full of pride.

Aethylweiz beamed.

It’s a pleasure, Verdannis. I have a wondrous offer for you…