The dragon stirred and raised her head. Golden eyes opened to a soft, dawn light entering the cave. Delicate wings rustled as a gentle breeze blew through her den.

She had existed for barely a minute and she was already alone.

Yet she understood.

She was aware that she hadn't forced her way through the tough membrane and shell of a dragon's egg as was common for her kind. She evidently had no parents...no ties.

Her first emotion - sadness that she was aloof from her kin.

Yet she was...she lived.

She pushed herself up and edged towards the opening, watching in curiosity as her scales - white and irridescent as abalone - shifted to the midnight hue, and magical sheen of a black pearl as she moved into the light. Her wings remained as silver as a lake reflecting moon and starshine.

Yet she knew.

Her name was revealed - Shadow of Light, something that was nothing...or something that was everything? For if Chaos represented darkness and Order stood for illumination, she was a creature of Balance.

Yet she wondered.

Words came unbidden to her young mind and she knew them for what they were - language of the Void...prophecy of the Avatar.

"One will arise who possesses the strength of an army, the vision of a prophet and the heart of a saint. This Great One will bring about and end to the struggle between the darkness and the light."

It didn't say who would win, who was right or wrong. Who exactly was this Avatar? How could this one decide the fate of all?

Perhaps her own destiny lay not with dragons, but with humans.

Shadow of Light looked out from the cave towards the immense, powerful home of all dragons called the Weyrmount. Would she be welcomed there? Would she belong? Would they understand as she did?

Or should she remain apart from them and aid this Avatar? Instinct told her that most dragons would argue against that - at first anyway. The Avatar had killed dragons! Slain hatchlings, stolen treasures and magic and artifacts and...most shocking of all...cinnabons!

But few had considered, much less tried speaking to the Avatar. The human was little more than a thieving murderer.

She berated herself for that thought. Enough dragons had killed humans, unintentionally or not.

Yet she decided.

Wings unfurled and she launched herself into the air, her voice used for the first time in a cry of triumph and joy as flight took her higher into the sky's blue expanse. Flames leapt from her jaws in a golden cloud and she gazed down on Britannia...the castle winking on the edge of Britanny Bay like a jewel, the Serpent Spine reaching up like jagged daggers...the names came easily. The land itself had birthed her, was the only parent she would ever know.

She would travel, learn more, find things that were hidden, seek where the True Path lay and led.

She would find the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom.

The Void beckoned...

Yet she remained.
She wanted to see what this Avatar was like first. Maybe after she understood that one, she could brave the Ethereal Void.

As sudden as thunder booming from a storm, a baleful, frightening laugh echoed across the land. Shadow of Light's only other impression was of eyes like fire.

She descended, wary, and a-lit on a rocky crag. The one whom had laughed was not from this world, and therefore unknown to her. She would have to learn about it, and quickly.

She sensed that time was ebbing away, running out.

Taking to the air again, she wondered what the other dragons knew about this being that she didn't.

Yet she didn't turn back...her quest began.