Epilogue

She was small and helpless. A tiny hybrid dragonet, carried from her home in the north to the mountains. She had watched her parents die, the life drain out of the only dragons she'd ever loved, and the only dragons who had loved her.

Someone poked her not-so-gently with a spear, and she moved fearfully. Metal chains clamped around her wrists, and she squirmed uncomfortably. "Why are you doing this to me?" she pleaded.

"Silence, hybrid," the guard snarled.

"What's that?" Pelican asked, her voice hushed. Her eyes flooded with tears as she looked down at her chained talons. "Help me, help me, please!" she begged.

The guard laughed, a cold, cruel sound. He narrowed his eyes and poked at her again with his spear. "That's what you get for talking after I instructed you not to," he snapped.

Pelican flinched backwards, her eyes widening at the sight of her own blood. "Ow!"

He stabbed her again, more roughly this time, and let out another wicked laugh.

"You hybrids. Think you're so dangerous, but you're pathetic."

He turned and exited the cave.

Pelican shivered, looking up when she felt eyes glaring into her again. Three other dragons- one fiercely thin, with pale orange scales and spikes; one glittery and iridescent; one muscular and brawny, with golden scales.

"Why am I here?" Pelican whispered through her tears.

The pale orange dragon narrowed his yellow eyes. "Because you're one of us."

"And who- who are you?" She blinked furiously; wings aching, heart hurting.

"We're the hybrids."

Twenty years later...

Pelican was sitting by the seashore.

Her lilac eyes were settled on an indefinite point in the distance. The water, cool and clear, seemed to go on for an infinite distance, but Pelican knew it didn't- because she had seen the world for herself, years ago.

Would it ever be safe to return to Pyrrhia? Pelican didn't know. But what she did know was that she was no longer in the confines of her dragonethood prison, and that was something.

She could hear her dragonets, laughing and playing in the shallows. She turned, her eyes meeting those of her daughters, and her smile was weary but loving. Two dragonets, one pale blue, one purple-gray.

"Hey, Mama."

"Hello, Misty." Pelican curved her wing around the purple dragonet, who snuggled closer to her and hummed contentedly. She felt another wing wrap around hers, the familiar warmth of someone that she had grown to love.

Pelican rested her snout on Falcon's shoulder, and the water lapped at their talons as they looked up at the setting sun. Pale oranges and pinks streaking across the sky in a magnificent array. Twelve years ago, this would be something Pelican only could have dreamed of.

Their second dragonet bounded over, a ball of energy as always. In her movements, Pelican could see something resembling a dragon she used to know.

Pelican bit down, feeling pinpricks sting at the corners of her eyes. Iceberg.

It didn't stop hurting, the dragons she'd lost in her lifetime; and the memory, standing in front of an assembly of dragons, fiercely fighting back tears, hoping that her kind would not be forgotten.

And would they? Eel was dead, but would the cruel prejudices of dragonkind ever end?

Pelican closed her eyes.

Whatever happened, she knew that she would be okay. She had Falcon, and their dragonets, and Bloodspiller, and Salamander, and Treejumper...

She swallowed.

Someone out there, anyone, would remember the hybrids.