Short Story: The Legend of Zxerou

 

In a land called Merp, rested upon an unusually small island was a village filled with dragons. (Of course, from the human point of view, the island was enormous!) There, living among these dragons was a somewhat long, silver, (albeit “wimpy” according to dragon standards) dragon called Zxerou (pronounced zero). Zei* was neither she, he, nor it because zei was genderless and not technically a dragon… I won’t get into that because that would be a whole other story. 

     On this particular day, Zxerou was at "training lessons" along with a number of peculiar dragons who all seemed to have major attitude issues. One was quite large and muscular, one was round and lumpy, one was lean and haughtily posed, one had an eternal sly smirk, and one other was quite wimpy, just like Zxerou. Zxerou was in full armor along with everyone else. Huir helm was crooked and zei dragged huir shield upon the floor. Huir friend, Birch, was the wimpy dragon like Zxerou, but much better off than en for nei had notable muscles. 

     "ALRIGHT!" Master screamed. (Huir voice was always a scream...) "Today is FLIGHT TRAINING!!!”

     "But sir..." started another dragon named Meep, who was most incredibly strong, but too shy for huir brawn.

     "YEAH, YEAH, I KNOW! We have trained like that ever since you were little maggots, BUT THIS IS BASIC TRAINING!!!" Master distracted.

     "But I thought this was major fighting class," said Mudlash, the lean and haughtily posed dragon who was also clever and could beat anyone in a fighting contest.

     Master crossed huir big brawny arms over huir chest. "Yes, quite, but YOU LAME DRAGONS CAN'T EVEN PICK UP A SWORD!!!"

     Oh, gurgling glacksticks. I hope this doesn't turn into another ‘Master and Mudlash mess,’ Zxerou thought with a great glare of agony to the sky. Birch, who was patiently sitting beside Zxerou was nodding off to sleep. (Obviously, that was known as "patience" to the dragons. Dragons slept when bored, even at the dinner table and that was considered a compliment). Zxerou nudged nem awake.

     Get up, zei said through huir mind to Birch with a strange double voice—one a little higher and one a little lower. Get up before Master blasts us to the infinites…

     Master was pacing back and forth, observing the dragon's wings. The little dragon's wings amused en, and zei chuckled.

     "TERRIBLE WINGS!" he said with a grunt when zei got to the end of the line of dragons. "All of you will FAIL!!!"

     "Especially you, Zxerou," Mudlash hissed under huir breath towards Zxerou. "You will never be the God of the Dragons."

     The other dragons chuckled at this. Zxerou only stared ahead blankly as Master lifted huir oversized tail and gave a big, loud fart to silence the dragons. When that didn't work, he began to erupt.

     "SILENCE YOU LITTLE MAGGOTS, BEFORE I EAT ALL THE LIVING CARPFLEAS FROM THOSE LITTLE BRAINS OF YOURS!!!" he thundered with a great shake of huir great, overhanging belly. 

     Still, the room did not fall silent.

     "Not before I roast you and eat you," Zxerou managed to say in a snarky manner.

     Birch laughed at this in an overly exaggerated manner until Zxerou gave nem another nudge. 

     Finally, after twenty whole minutes, the dragons became silent. At last, Master gave the orders.

     "ALRIGHT!" he boomed. "Now, go and do twenty laps around Merp!!!"

     Everyone moaned and groaned and began filing out of the main training hall.

     "Unless you want me to stick FIFTY FIREBALLS UP YOUR BUTTS!" Master continued.

     "No, no!" everyone cried in discorded unison. They immediately became silent.

     Zxerou was pushed and mauled by the hefty dragons as they all attempted to fit though the door at once. (Not to mention, the door was more made for long dragons like Zxerou or Birch or their dreaded enemy, Mudlash). When Zxerou and Birch were finally outside, they came to find that all the other dragons had taken off and were already halfway around Merp. 

     "Come on," said Zxerou, flapping once with huir wings and lifting off the ground.

     "Oh, joy," Birch groaned close behind Zxerou. "I absolutely, definitely, positively, seriously... Well, I kind of forgot what I was going to say, but I think I was about to say that... I HATE THE FACT MASTER MAKES US RUN LAPS!!!"

     "Hmmm..." Zxerou said, hardly surprised. "Quite so, since we are supposedly training to protect stupid jewels from knights who want to slay us…and you mean fly laps.”

     "It's all myth!" howled Birch. "They're training us for MYTH!"

     And so they both flew on as Zxerou managed to hold back huir temper while Birch complained and complained. (And even though one wing beat brought all the dragons practically halfway around the island of Merp, they still took an hour to finish. How lame).

 

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*Zei is a pronoun declination in a new third person pronoun system I’ve been trying out. This system includes categorizing people into proximate and obviative categories, the proximate person being the one more in focus, otherwise doing an action, whereas the obviative person is the one less in focus, otherwise the person being acted upon. Categories are also further split into masculine, feminine, and neuter genders. However, gendered versions of the obviative/proximate pronouns are only used at first mention of a subject and reintroduced when the subject to which is being referred is unclear. Otherwise, the genders turn neutral. I will list out the pronouns:

Proximate neutral: zei, en, huir, huirs, enself

Proximate masculine: he, him, his, his, himself

Proximate feminine: she, her, her, hers, herself

Obviate neutral: nei, nem, neir, neirs, nemself

Obviate masculine: ve, vir, vis, vis, virself

Obviate feminine: sie, sier, sier, siers, sierself

I know, it is a lot but I wanted to try it out.