Speaker 1: He Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world.
I'm Martin and you are listening to dad's bedtime stories. Tonight,
we're going to be headed back into the Dragon Knights
series for another episode that could honestly stand by itself,
or it'll kind of fit in with the other episodes
you've heard about. This one will be the origin story
for the Water Dragon General. In the last episode of
the Dragon Knights, I asked people to write in if
they had ideas for backstories for some of the other generals,
as we've done a story for the Fire General and
you came through with this idea. Let's check it out.
Speaker 2: My name is Millie, and if a suggestion for the
Dragon Knights series for the Water Dragon and Nature general.
A water dragon in General's called Splash and her mother
was a Dragon Knight, but she was a bit mean,
so that's why she wanted to go with the Dragon Tife.
Thank you. I love your podcast. I will give it
ten out of ten stars, and I think this is
the best podcast in the world.
Speaker 1: You flatter me, Millie. That's a really nice of you
to say, and it's a great suggestion for the Dragon
Knight series. I feel like it's almost a challenge that
you gave me here to write a story about a
person who joins the Dragon Thief because their parent was
a dragon Knight and wasn't very nice to them. So
I took that challenge on. I hope you like what
I came up with, because I think it made for
some pretty cool characters that we can use in the
future here, especially when it's time to, you know, take
on the water dragons in the next episode. If you
have any other ideas for this podcast, I really love
getting voice messages and ideas on the Google form. Maybe
about dragon Knights, maybe about something else, maybe about a
brand new series. You really can't do it wrong. I
can only pick two or three of them a week
to make, and I get more than that. But I
really love getting them and I listen to every single one.
I actually take notes on every single one and kind
of write down what it's about for when I'm looking
in the future. And aside from that, I just want
to remind everyone that I just started another podcast, Dad's
Anytime Stories, which will be going season by season. Each
season will be an entire novel, read chapter by chapter,
starting with the Cards of Power. But I imagine that
the Dragon Knights series, once I polish it up and
turn it into a novel, will also be added to
that podcast anyway. You can find it anywhere you get podcasts, YouTube, Apple, Spotify,
that sort of thing, And if you to head over
there and listen to it and give me a rating
on it, that would really help other people find the podcast,
maybe people who have never heard Cards of Power before.
And yeah, if you want something to listen to on
a road trip or some other time where it's not
necessarily bedtime, though you can listen at bedtime if you
want to. There's really nothing against it. Head on over
to Dad's Anytime Stories. I think the logo will look
pretty familiar, honestly, but now it's that time again, after
a possible word from a possible sponsor, because sponsors are
how podcasts are funded. Sarah, guys, close your eyes, get
as comfy as you can in that bed, and imagine
yourself doing what the kid in the story does. The
water Fortress was beautiful from far away. It looked like
a frozen sort of crown rising from the cliffs, all
bright ice and white snow towers shaped like jagged spears,
and ice bridges. Carving back and forth between them. Up close, though,
it was cold in a way that went far beyond
the weather. It was always windy, The floors bit through boots.
The walls seemed to hold no warmth at all. Even
voices sounded colder there. Splash had grown up inside those walls.
She was born there, raised there, and trained there. As
far as she knew, the whole world was made of ice, discipline,
and people telling her to do better. Her mother was
a true water dragon Knife, one of the defenders of
the fortress in the seas beyond it. She was powerful, respected,
and always busy. Splash admired her more than anyone else.
She also feared disappointing her. From the time Splash was little,
her mother trained her relentlessly. Again, her mother would say,
Splash would lunge, her mother would redirect her with a
twist of the wrist, turn her momentum against her, and
send her sliding across the hard packed snow. Your balance
was off.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: Splash would get up and try again, and again and again.
When she was seven, her mother began making her train
with wooden blades, starting at dawn. When she was eight,
she had to spar older students. When she was nine,
she was told she was wasting her motion, wasting her breath.
She worked hard, harder than anyone else, honestly, and she
learned fast too. She became one of the best young
fighters in the fortress. She was quick with her hands,
impossible to corner, and unusually good at reading other people's
movement before it happened. Other children her age started out stronger,
but Splash always won in the end because she simply
never stopped improving. And still it never seemed to be enough.
You dropped your shoulder before the strike, you planted too
heavily on the tad. You won, but not cleanly enough.
Splash would nod, swallow the hurt and push herself harder.
What she wanted was simple. She wanted her mother to
smile and say good job. But it never happened. The
other kids noticed, of course, they saw how good Splash
was and how much attention the instructors gave her. That
should have made them admire her, but instead most of
them resented her. She acts like she's already a knight.
She only trains that all the time because she wants
everyone to notice her. She thinks she's better enough. They
would say behind her back. Splash heard those whispers often
enough that eventually she stopped trying to make friends at all.
The only one who seemed to understand her was ice Thorn.
Ice Thorn was her mother's dragon, a massive water dragon
with pale blue scale and long icy spines running down
his neck. He was powerful in battle, but when he
was resting in the lower caverns, he was calm in
a way that no one else was. Splash often sat
beside him when her mother was away. Ice Thorn would
lower his head to her level and let her lean
against his cool scales. Sometimes he would watch her practice
with the wooden blade. Sometimes he would show her small
things her mother never had time to explain. Your mother
fights like a storm, he told her once, after watching
her spa an older kid.
Speaker 4: Fast, direct, overwhelming. But that is not your way.
Speaker 1: Splash wiped sweat from her forehead. Then what is Ice
Thorn's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. You fight like deep water, quiet, patient,
You pull people where you want them before they know
them moving. Splash liked that. Another time, when she'd lost
her temper during practice and thrown her blade across the yard,
Ice Thorn nudged it back toward her with one claw.
Strength is not the same as worth, he said in
his deep, steady voice. Splash frowned. You've said that before,
because you still do not believe it. She didn't, not really,
but she remembered it when her mother was a fighting ice.
Thorn was the one who made the fortress feel less lonely.
He was the one who noticed when she was upset,
the one who listened. He was the one who told
her she was doing well. And because of that, Splash
loved him. The day the dragon Thief attacked, the skies
turned red. At first, Splash thought the sunset was strange.
Then the alarm sounded. She ran from the training yard
to the outer wall, just in time to see fire
raining down from the clouds. Not ordinary fire. The fire, somehow,
burned hotter than anything the fortress had ever faced. It
hit the outer towers and melted ice that had stood
for generations. Snow turned to steam. Defensive walls cracked and sagged.
Water dragons surged upward to meet the attack, blasting arcs
of water and freezing power into the shields. But the
fire punched through. Splash had never seen anything like it.
No one had The sky was full of dragons, fired dragons,
elemental dragons, and a few Earth dragons, all with riders
in black and red armor. The fortress shook under the impact.
Inside one of the instructors shouted, but Splash was already
running the other way. She needed to find her mother.
She found her near the western gate, already armed in
her dragon Knight armor, standing beside ice Thorn. Her mother's
armor looked like it was coated with frost and sea water.
Ice Thorn roared as a blast of fire hit the
wall behind them, sending up a cloud of steam. Stay back,
her mother shouted. The moment she saw Splash, I can help,
Splash yelled, no, get below the wall. Another dragon screamed overhead.
Ice Thorn turned and blasted a wave of seawater upward,
freezing at mid air into a jagged shield. A second later,
the shield shattered under a blast of blazing fire. Splash
stumbled backward. The heat was almost unbearable. Now huge chunks
of the fortress were melting. Water dragons circled through the
clouds of steam while defenders shouted to each other across
collapsing bridges. Then saw something worse. One of the water
dragons stopped mid flight, not frozen in ice, but frozen
all the same. Its wings still beat, but awkwardly, as
if someone else had taken hold of them. Its head
jerked sideways, Its eyes went blank. The rider on its
back screamed and then stopped screaming. The dragon turned and
blasted a jet of freezing water at its own allies.
No Splash whispered. They'd heard rumors of the Dragon Thief's
control spell, but now she was sure she'd seen it
with her own eyes. One dragon after another faltered as
they came in contact with the Dragon Thief. Some thought
it for a moment, moment twisting wildly in the air,
but the spell took them anyways. The sky became chaos.
Dragons turned on their own nights, Water slammed into ice
walls from the wrong direction. Defences shattered from within. Splash
saw her mother look up, sharply run. Her mother shouted.
Ice Thorn shifted, moving protectively in front of Splash. Then
the spell reached him. Splash saw the exact moment had happened.
His body stiffened, his eyes widened. He let out a deep,
pained sound she'd never heard before. Then it was gone.
The warmth in his face was gone. He stood still, silent, waiting.
No Splash ran toward him. A blast struck the platform nearby,
knocking her off her feet. Snow and shattered ice rained
down around her. By the time she looked up again,
her mother was gone and all of the chaos. All
Splash could see was ice Thorn, standing there with empty
eyes as enemy riders closed in around him. The fortress
fell that day. By nightfall, the dragon Thief had taken
the stronghold. The dragon Knights and other loyal warriors were
rounded up and dragged away. Some dragon stood under new control,
soldiers wearing black and red armor. The dragon Thief didn't
take everyone, though, he left anyone willing to swear loyalty
to him.
Speaker 3: He gave them a choice.
Speaker 1: Train serve and be free, Refuse and we'll be taken.
Splash wasn't proud of it, but she chose to be trained.
After all, saying you were loyal to someone didn't actually
mean you were. And well, she figured she could do
more if she was free than she could if she
was locked up. At first, she was determined to hate
every minute of it. She hated the new banners and
the new commanders and the dragon thief that now called
himself the Dragon King. She hated watching controlled dragons obeys strangers,
and most of all, she hated seeing ice Thorn still alive,
still powerful, but utterly silent unless commanded. But something strange happened.
The Dragon King's officers actually treated the young trainees well.
They were fed well, they were trained, they were given structure,
and for the first time in her life, Splash found
adults who didn't just tell her what she'd done wrong.
They noticed what she'd done right. She excelled quickly. She
beat the other trainees in nearly every martial test. She
moved through the drills with sharp, fluid, precision, and sparring
tournaments she won cleanly and then one again when challenged
by the older recruits. During one of those tournaments, the
Dragon King himself came to watch the whole training yard
when quiet. When he entered, Splash fought three opponents in
a row that day. She didn't lose once she redirected
the first opponent's charge, trapped his arm, and threw him.
She slipped underneath the second one's attack and ended the
match with a strike to the chest. The third lasted longest,
forcing her backwards across the ring. But Splash had justed.
She parried his attack, shifted her weight, and sent him
flying into the corner instead with a sweep of her foot.
The Dragon King stood and applauded. Well done, he said
two words, that was all. But they hit harder than
any training strike her mother ever landed. The Dragon King
studied her for a long while. Moment, you have discipline,
control precision. Now what is it you want? Splash swallowed
to be a dragon knight, she answered. The king smiled,
I can give you that. He raised one hand and
the guards brought ice thorn forward. Splash's breath caught the
dragon she'd grown up beside.
Speaker 3: Was right there.
Speaker 1: He looked exactly as she remembered, and at the same
time he looked completely changed. He looked at her, but
he didn't seem to know her at all. This dragon
obeys the spell. He can be assigned to any knight.
Speaker 4: I chew.
Speaker 1: Splash's stomach tightened. Any knight, some cruel stranger could have him.
Then some fool who knew nothing about him. He used
to belong to your mother, I'm told, the dragon King continued.
Now he can belong to you splash, looked at as
Thorn again. She knew this was wrong. She knew the
control spell was well a mockery of the true bond
that humans and dragons were supposed to have. She wouldn't
share his power as she was supposed to, but she
would be able to command him. She almost refused, but
then she imagined another rider on his back, another rider
shouting careless orders, another rider using him like a weapon.
Her hands clenched, she took one step closer to ice
Thorn and laid a trembling hand against his scales. I'm sorry,
she whispered, so only he would hear. But if this
is the only way to keep you with me, I'm
taking it. Then she straightened, do it, I accept The
Dragon King placed a hand against her forehead, and the
spell hit like freezing water. She gasped, and suddenly she
felt the connection. Not warmth, not trust, but command. She
thought of the dragon lifting his head, and he did.
She thought of him drawing water from the sea, and
the sea outside surged upward in a twisting column. She
thought of the water freezing, and the column hardened instantly
into ice. She stared at it. She'd done it, or
rather she'd made ice Thorn do it. She turned to
ice Thorn again, she felt the hollowness. No voice greeted her,
no quiet reassurance, no rumbling words about strength and worth.
Speaker 3: He just waited.
Speaker 1: At least you're with me, she said softly. He didn't answer,
but when she told him to follow, he did, and
for now that was enough. She rose quickly through the
water dragon ranks. She was already an excellent fighter, the
best there was, and now she had a dragon she
knew almost as well as she knew herself. She understood
his range, his speed, his possibilities. She knew the kinds
of attacks he could give, the openings he'd leave. She'd
watched him battle with her mother hundreds of times, and
well she didn't share his connection to the water like
a true dragon knight would have. She could command him
to do the things that needed to be done, and
that made her dangerous and slowly it made her forget
the promise she'd made to herself about not truly giving loyalty.
It was during the campaign against the Earth Dragon's stronghold
that she truly distinguished herself. The Earth Dragons had retreated
into the mountains their fortress was monstrous, thick walls of
stone reinforced with steel towers, carved directly out of the
mountain side gates, so large that three dragons could stand
between them shoulder to shoulder. The Dragon King had already
taken some Earth dragons and the earlier fighting against the
fire dragons, but the main stronghold held the rest. The
army tried attacking from above first, but it failed. Fire
scorched the walls but couldn't break them fast enough, and
the uh Earth dragons were able to turn the earth
into bullet like projectiles that shot out in every direction.
The Dragon King grew impatient. He called a war council.
Splash stood among the officers and generals while a map
of the mountain fort lay spread across a table. We
need a breach, the Dragon King said, a real one.
Splash studied the map, and memories from her mother started
to pour back into her. Memories about her battles against
other Earth dragons. Her mother once explained that she learned
if she saturated the earth itself and froze permafrost directly
into it, that well, it sort of gave her control
of the earth too. When Earth dragons or knights attempted
to use the earth against her, She would have control
over it as well, at least in part, she could
fight against their control redirect their attacks. She remembered her
mother's explaining that water had the power to erode almost anything.
Speaker 3: And an idea.
Speaker 1: Came in to Splash his head, an idea so great
that well, she just wanted to share it, even if
she didn't fully think about the consequences. What if we
attack from below, she said, Explain the dragon king answered,
Splash pointed, from the coast of the base to the mountains.
We use the controlled earth dragons to tunnel from the
ocean deep enough that the defenders won't feel it. Then
we bring the water dragons through the tunnels and flood
the ground beneath the fortress. Water under rock won't break
a fortress, one of the fire officers said, not at first,
Splash said, but saturated ground will lose stability. Eventually the
fortress will collapse into a giant sinkhole. And at the
same time, we'll seep the water into the earth above
saturated completely and freeze it into permafrost. That way, when
the dragon's attempt to counterattack, will be able to have
control over the earth as well. With the ice inside it,
we can deflect the attacks, break apart more of the ground.
Perhaps the room went quiet, and the dragon king thought,
then smiled, I say we do it, he responded. The
tunnels took days. Earth dragons and elemental dragons dug huge
tunnels all the way from the ocean to the underside
of the fortress. Then the water dragons followed the tunnels inside.
Led by Splash, they used the power of water to
see bend the ground above them to erode it into
a giant sink, coal and well underground lake of sorts.
They seeped the water into the earth above, getting it
as wet as they possibly could, and then freezing it
solid into permafrost. When it was time to invade, Splash
gave the command, and they broke apart the rest of
the ground. Water dragons and earth dragons tugging at the
now frozen earth until a catastrophic collapse began. It sent
the earth dragons into a panic as the fortress below
their feets began to sink. At the same time, fire
dragons surged from above. Water dragons burst upward through the
broken stone and rock and flooded into the halls. The
Earth dragon knights fought back. Of course, they were powerful
and they knew the terrain better than any invader, but
they weren't expecting the earth underneath their feet to be
compromised by water and ice. They attempted to fire bits
of the earth at their attackers, but the Water Dragons
simply deflected it around them. They pulled water from the
underground lake they'd created and blasted the Earth dragons with it,
freezing them in place. At the same time, the dragon
thief made the rounds, connecting to dragon after dragon and
turning it on the others. It didn't take long before
the defenders broke, before every single one of the Earth
dragons and riders were either captured and frozen water or
turned against their brethren. When the fighting finally stopped, Splash
stood at the edge of the fortress on ice Thorn's back.
The Dragon King landed beside her on his gigantic elemental dragon.
You have done what my Ahmi could not, he said.
Splash said nothing, Her hands rested lightly on ice Thorne's neck.
The Dragon King turned to the assembled officers and raised
his voice.
Speaker 4: From this day forward, Splash will be the Water Dragon
General the army knelt splash, looked out over the ruined
fortress and felt something she'd wanted for years.
Speaker 1: Recognition, praise, status. She'd earned it all, and yet when
the army dispersed and the cheering faded, she felt empty inside.
Something about this just wasn't right. Was this what she
really wanted? That night, she laid in bed, She closed
her eyes, pulled the covers up over top of herself,
and did her best to drown out the thoughts. The
secret was to focus her mind on something simple instead
of the whole thinking thing that she did too often.
She focused on her breath, She noticed as her stomach
rose and fell with each one, and she let go
of the tension and her muscles, starting with her legs,
her arms, her shoulders, her neck, and even her face,
until she lay silently in bed, sinking down deeper with
each breath, and she allowed her mind to wander off
to thoughts of new dreams and new adventures to come.
Speaker 3: Night. Everyone, mhm.
Speaker 5: Union name in the New York More Union No no no,
no assas