“Half-Dragon.”

“Still a dragon.”

“No.”

“Explain it to me then; I have time.”

The half-dragon glared at the sacrifice, and then started.

“Biologically, half-dragons have nothing to do with actual dragons. We’re about as far apart from each other evolution-wise as animals of one planet to animals in the next galaxy over.

“Why did you pick that as an example?”

“Because that is the actual half-dragon relation to actual dragons.”

“Oh.”

The woman didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Bhara, short for Bharananus Theranaus, sat on the ledge overlooking the valley with his newest virgin sacrifice. Her name was Franceskera, blonde hair with dark roots, greenish-blue eyes, tall for a woman, slim, womanly, feminine, and fair skin. She was beautiful, pretty, and gorgeous. The city selected her to be their sacrifice in order to placate the nearby dragon. Aka, him.

Only, Bhara wasn’t an actual dragon. He was a half-dragon, which was the name that stuck to his species. He was a humanoid and close enough biologically to interbreed with other humanoid species, like humans, elves, and orcs.

Half-dragons were characterized by reptilian features; they had a reptilian tail, raptor feet and lower legs, reptilian hands and lower arms, horns growing out of their head, and a set of draconic wings on their back. Their skin was somewhere between actual lizard scales and human skin, which gave them a distinct appearance.

They were still human, descended from something close to a mammal on the evolutionary tree. They had all the usual human features: forward facing eyes, large brain, opposable thumbs, and walked upright. Even all their organs were in the same place as a “regular” human. Bhara hated that term too. “Regular” human. As if he wasn’t human as well?

Half-dragons didn’t breathe fire but they had a number of magical abilities and physical characteristics beyond their appearance. Half-dragons were born with what was called a Magical Purity Boon. This was an aspect on their soul that allowed them to choose specialize in one elemental school, giving them significant acceleration of training and boosts to the power and accuracy of the school. It only worked on one school and it would lock in on the one school used most before adulthood, which was the same age as other human species, age twenty-five.

Half-dragons had access to draconic magic, which was a school of a type of natural magic that dealt physical alterations rather than magical alterations. Spells cast from this school would ignore magical wards but bounce off metal shields. It was a useful ability for confrontations with mages, because mages don’t carry physical equipment like swords and shields and armor.

Most of them, at least.

Frenceskera, after what felt like ten minutes but was closer to one, spoke, “Really?”

Bhara nodded. Bhara wished to be regarded as normal, but never managed to achieve that goal. As a half-dragon, people were superstitious and generally wary if not outright afraid of him. His days before, most of them were spent running from the guards or outlawed by politicians. Few places offered him refuge, usually at great cost in the form of restless civilians or declarations of war from neighboring kingdoms.

Bhara never forgot their hospitality.

During his travels, Bhara came across this valley. It was an unusual shape, as if a divine giant took an oval ball shaped chunk of rock out of the mountain and created a valley in its place.

The valley was the main feature of this large but isolated mountain range. The ridges of the valley hung over it. Rivers coming down from the mountain peaks created spectacular waterfalls that fell into the valley. The water formed a series of lakes, which through more rivers, carried the water out of the valley into a greater system that left the region into a vast grassy plain.