The Earth Dragon General - Dragon Knights #22 - Dragon Bedtime Stories

0:05 Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world. My Martin and you are listening to Dad's bedtime stories. Tonight, we'll be continuing with the Dragon Knights series and finally learning about the Earth Dragon General. Our idea for this one comes from Luna, who actually just commented on Spotify, and the general idea is that the Earth Dragon General is actually Bennett's dad, and his name is Basalt, I believe, and he had to infiltrate the Rebels at one point and ended up falling in love and having Bennett. I think it makes an excellent idea, even though I really had to go back in the story to figure out what I even said about Bennett in the first place, because he did actually have a mother and fun the story.

1:01 So guess what I guess His father was a step father, A nice a nice step father of course.

1:09 Yeah.

1:10 Anyways, these Dragon Knight series are taking me a lot longer to get out, partially because they take a really long time to write these days. I guess there's so much lower and so many things that have happened before that I really can't just improvise them like I sometimes do with stories. I have to write them in advance and often I have to reread what I've written before.

1:30 So yeah, hopefully this summer we will finish up with the series. After this will sort of do the story of the Earth Dragon Kingdom being taken over than the Air Dragons, and then hopefully the Dragon King or Dragon Thief as I like to call him himself. And for those of you looking for Cards of Power, don't worry, I'm also working on those. We're still in the Deity level tournament, just figuring out what creatures I want, and there should be another Cards of Power next week. Don't forget.

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2:43 Now it's time to get as comfy as you can in that bed, close your eyes and imagine yourself doing what the kid in the story does. I call this one the Salt and the Earth Dragon.

2:58 General.

3:01 Basalt grew up surrounded by dragons. Not stories of dragons, or just pictures of dragons and old books, but real dragons, Earth dragons. They lived in the mountains, in the valleys and the deep stone halls beneath the earth, and in the wide open training grounds where true dragon knights practiced their craft. When Basalt was a little boy, the Earth Dragon Kingdom was still free. Of course, back then, the world was different. Dragons and humans worked together, not because one controlled the other, but because they'd chosen each other.

3:47 A dragon would find its rider, and a rider would find their dragon, and the bond between them would become something more powerful than either one could be alone. Basalt's parents were dragon knights, real dragon knights. His father was bonded to a massive earth dragon named Obsidian, a dragon with scales like black mountain glass and eyes like polished silver.

4:20 His mother was bonded to a smaller and quicker earth dragon named Slate, who could move through tunnels and caves as if the entire thing had been built just for her. Basalt grew up watching them train. He watched his father stomp one boot into the ground and send a line of stone pillars shooting up across a field. He watched his mother lift her hand and turn loose sand into solid rock. He watched earth dragons carved tunnels, raise walls, shaped bridges, and build entire halls for the bones of the mountain. To Basalt, it was the most incredible thing in the world, and every night, when he lay in bed, he imagined the day it would happen for him, The day he would feel the pull, the day an egg would call his name, the day a dragon would hatch

5:22 look up at him and say.

5:25 You are my rider.

5:29 Everyone assumed it would happen. His parents assumed it. Other dragon knights assumed it. Even Basalt assumed it. After all, both his parents were dragon knights. He grew up among dragons. He knew more about earth dragon traditions than most grown ups. He could name the different kinds of stone by touch.

5:52 He knew where to dig for clay, where to find iron in the rocks, and how to hear the difference between a hollow and a solid one. Surely an egg would choose him, but none did. The first time he was brought to the egg chamber he was still quite young. He walked past rows of earth dragon eggs, each one gray brown, silver, black, or speckled like granite. He placed his hand near them, hoping to feel something, a warmth, a poll, a glow, anything, but the eggs remained silent.

6:38 That's all right, his mother told him gently. Sometimes the bond takes time. His father placed a strong hand on his shoulder. You don't choose the egg, son, the egg chooses you, and when the right one is ready, you'll know. Basalt nodded, because that was what he was supposed to do, but inside something twisted. Years past, other children were chosen, some younger than him. Basalt watched a girl from the lower caverns bond with a little earth dragon that immediately began eating pebbles from her hand. He watched a boy who barely knew anything about dragons place one hand on an egg and laugh as it cracked open with golden light.

7:34 He watched nights celebrate, parents cheer, dragons roar, and new riders summon their armor for the first time, and still no egg chose Basalt. At first, he told himself that it didn't matter. Then he told others it didn't matter. Then he told it so often that he he almost believed it. Almost but not quite, because when he watched those other children flying on dragons, shaping the earth, summoning armor from the bond in their chest, something inside him burned.

8:17 And it was not a good kind of fire. It was resentment. It was the feeling of being left outside a door that everyone else seemed to walk through easily. It was the feeling of being told that Destiny had a plan, only to discover that perhaps Destiny had forgotten him. His parents noticed, of course, his parents usually do. His mother tried to remind him that a person didn't need a dragon to matter. His father told him that strength came in many forms. Basalt wanted to believe them, but that was easy for them to say. They had dragons, They had power, They had armor that appeared when they needed it. They had stone and metal and sand answering their call. They had the respect of every person in the Earth Dragon Kingdom. Basalt had nothing but a name

9:22 and a promise that maybe someday things would be different. Then the Dragon King came, although back then many still called him the dragon thief. Of course, at first, Basalt didn't understand what was happening. He remembered alarms ringing through the mountains. He remembered earth dragons roaring in the distance.

9:49 He remembered his mother grabbing his arm and pulling him through a tunnel while his father showed orders to the other knights. The earth Dragon Kingdom was built to win stand attacks. Its walls were not walls in the usual way, they were mountains. Its gates were not made of wood that could be burned or metal that could be melted.

10:13 They were slabs of solid stone, thicker than houses. The earth Dragon knights knew every tunnel, every cave, every hidden passage. They should have been impossible to defeat. But the Dragon Thief did not fight like an ordinary enemy. He had dragons of his own, controlled dragons, dragons with glowing eyes, and riders who didn't share their power but commanded it like a stolen tool. Basalt watched from a narrow crack and a stone shelter as fire dragons blasted flames into the mountain entrances. Water dragons froze doors shut, trapping knights inside.

11:06 Nature dragons sensed roots through the cracks and stone, splitting walls from the inside, and worst of all, elemental dragons came. Not many, only a few, But a few elemental dragons were enough. Basalts saw one land on the central training yard, its veins flashing with every color, every elemental power. Its rider lifted a hand, and the Earth itself betrayed the earth dragon knights, opening beneath their feet and throwing them inside.

11:48 Basalt's father and Obsidian fought like heroes from the old stories. Obsidian lifted a section of the mountain and hurled it towards the invaders. Basalt's father rode atop the dragon's back, commanding metal from the ground to wrap around the legs of the controlled dragons. His mother and Slate moved like shadows through the stone, appearing from one tunnel and disappearing into another, breaking enemy formations, pulling riders from their saddles, protecting children and others where they could. For a while, Basalt thought they might actually win. Then he saw the dragon thief himself. He stood on the back of an elemental dragon, wearing robes darker than a cave, with no torch.

12:47 He looked calm, not angry, not excited, just calm, as if the battle was nothing more than a problem he'd already solved. He lifted both hands, and a strange wave of magic pulsed through the battlefield. The dragons screamed. Basalt would never forget that sound. It wasn't pain, exactly, It was confusion, fear loss. One by one, the true bonds between dragons and riders began to flicker. Basalt's father shouted something, but Basalt couldn't hear the words through the roar. Obsidian staggered, slate crashed into the ground, and then the controlled dragons moved in. My son, sid the earth Dragon kingdom had fallen.

13:50 The true dragon knights were dragged away in chains made from their own earth and metal. Basalt saw his parents only once more. Or standing among the captured knights, his mother spotted him hiding behind a broken stone pillar. For a moment their eyes met. She shook her head slightly, do not come. That was what the look meant. His father saw him too. He didn't wave, he didn't call out.

14:26 He simply looked at Basult with pride and sadness, as if trying to say everything he couldn't say aloud. Then they were taken away. Basalt was left behind. Maybe the soldier thought he was too young to matter. Maybe they didn't realize who he was. Maybe in the chaos, he simply slipped through the cracks. For three days, he hid in the ruins of the earth dragon kingdom. He ate with the little food he could find. He slept and collapsed tunnels. He waited for his parents to come back.

15:08 They did not. On the fourth day, the Dragon King found him. Basalt was sitting beside one of the old egg chambers. The eggs were gone, now taken hidden. The Dragon King stepped into the chamber alone.

15:30 You are the.

15:31 Son of dragon knights, he said. Basalt did not answer, And yet no dragon chose you. Basalt's hands curled into fists.

15:49 I know that feeling.

15:52 The Dragon King continued to stand near power, to watch others receive it, to be told that you should be patient, that you should be grateful, that destiny has simply chosen differently. Basalt looked up. Then the Dragon King smiled. It was not a kind smile, but it was an understanding one. They told you that the egg would choose you one day, didn't they. Basalt still said nothing, but it never did.

16:36 The words hit harder than they should have. The Dragon King stepped closer. I can give you would they would not? Basalt frowned. What a dragon? Basalt's breath caught. The Dragon King turned and gestured toward the doorway. Outside, in the ruined training yard stood an Earth dragon. Its scales were dark gray, almost black, and its eyes glowed with the same strange yellow light Basalted scene in the controlled dragons during the battle. This dragon has no rider now, the Dragon King said, no true rider anyways, but I can link it to you. Not did the old way. The old way was messy, unfair. It chooses one child and rejects another. But my way is better. My way allows power to go where it is deserved. Basalt stared at

17:59 the dragon. He knew something was wrong with it, of course he did. He'd seen free Earth dragons his entire life. They laughed, they grumbled, they argued, They teased their riders and knocked over training targets when they fell dramatic. This dragon stood silent, waiting, almost empty, But it was still a dragon, and Bassault wanted a dragon more than anything else he'd ever wanted. My parents, he began. Your parents fought for a broken system, the Dragon King said, a system that left you behind. Basalt hated him for seeing it.

18:52 He hated him because it was cruel, and he hated him even more because some small, angry part of him thought it might be true. The Dragon King extended a hand, Come with me, be Salt, serve me, and you will never be powerless again. Basalt should have said no. Somewhere deep down he knew that. But he thought of the eggs that had never called to him. He thought of every child who had been chosen while he stood watching.

19:31 He thought of his parents writing dragons while telling him he mattered without one. And then he looked at the controlled Earth dragon waiting in the yard. Basalt took the Dragon King's hand. That was the first choice, not the last, but perhaps the one that changed everything. The Dragon King kept his promise in a way. The link he gave Basalt was not like the true bond Basalt had always imagined.

20:07 It didn't feel warm, or natural or alive. It didn't feel like a second heart beat in his chest. It felt more like holding chains. The dragon obeyed him because magic forced it to obey. Still, when Basalt lifted his hand and the Earth dragon stomped, stone pillars rose from the ground. When Basalt pointed, The dragon hurled boulders. When Basalt focused, the dragon shaped the earth itself. The power was not inside basalt, not really. He didn't share the dragon's magic the way true dragon knights did. But through the control link, he could command the dragon to use its power, and that was enough. At least that's what he told himself. He trained harder than anyone. He learned to fight from the back of a dragon. He learned

21:14 to read battlefields. He learned how earth could be used in a thousand different ways. Stone walls for defense, boulders for attack, metaled chains to restrain enemies, sand to blind them, dust to hide movements, spikes from below, caves collapsed from above. The earth was not flashy like fire. It didn't dance like water or fly like wind. But it endured. It pressed, it crushed, it waded. But salts understood that he rose quickly through the ranks. The other soul respected him because he was useful. The dragon king trusted him because he had already chosen power. Once over the old ways, and Basault told himself that he'd done what he needed to do to survive. He told himself that his parents were

22:19 gone anyways, he told himself that the old dragon Knights had lost. He told himself many things, But at night, when the controlled Earth Dragon slept outside his quarters, Basalt sometimes wondered what its real voice had sounded like before the spell took it away. And sometimes, though he tried not to, he wondered where his parents were. Years passed, the Dragon King's rule spread farther and further. The Earth Dragons were the fourth group of dragons to fall, and finally, after a long and difficult campaign, even the Air Dragons were defeated. The true dragon Knights were gone, or imprisoned, or hiding so well they might as well have been legends.

23:15 But the dragon Kings still had one problem. Rebels dragon knights sympathizers, pesky little groups of farmers, miners, former servants, escaped prisoners, and ordinary families who refused to accept that the Dragon Knight's rule would last forever. They lived on the outskirts, in forests and caves and mountain valleys and places where the King's patrols had trouble reaching. They stole supplies, they hid fugitives, they warned villagers when soldiers were coming, and sometimes they even freed prisoners to the Dragon King.

24:00 They were insects, but annoying insects, and insects the Dragon King believed had to be crushed before they could become a storm. One day, he summoned Basult to the throne room. By then, Basult was no longer a frightened boy in ruined halls. He was a young man, a skilled soldier, and one of the most promising earth riders in the King's army. Not a true rider, but no one said that part outloud. The Dragon King sat on his throne, looking down at him with that same calm expression he'd warn during the fall of the Earth Dragon Kingdom Besult, He said, I have a special mission for you, Basult knelt.

24:56 I serve the kingdom. Yes, the Dragon King replied, and now you will serve it in a way few others could. He explained the problem. A rebel camp hidden deep in the outer forest had become more than a nuisance. It had started organizing other small camps. They'd had spies in nearby towns, but had helped several wanted families disappear. The king could attack blindly, but the rebels would scatter. He needed someone on the inside, someone with a believable story, someone he could pass as a displaced citizen of the Earth Dragon kingdom, someone who could tell the truth well enough to hide the lie. You will leave your dragon behind, the Dragon King said, You will go as an ordinary man, refugee, a victim. You will tell them your parents were dragon

26:06 knights taken away during the conquest. Basalt looked up sharply. The Dragon King's expression didn't change. That is true, is it not. Basalt swallowed.

26:23 Yes.

26:25 Truth is useful, the Dragon King said. People believe truth. Tell them enough of it and they won't notice the lie. Basalt understood. He did not like it, but he understood. When you are accepted, you will send information back by messenger, pigeon, numbers, defenses, supply routes, names, anything useful, and when you have enough, Basalt asked, then we end the problem. The words settled heavily.

27:08 Basalt bowed his head, as you command. A week later, Basalt walked alone into the forest, without armor, without dragon, and without anything that made him look like one of the Dragon King's soldiers. For the first time in years, he looked powerless. He hated how familiar that felt. It took him three days to find the rebel camp, or rather, it took him three days for the rebel camp to find him. That was how good they were. Basalt had been walking through the forest, pretending to limp more than he really needed to, when a voice suddenly called from behind him, that's far enough. Basult stopped. He slowly raised his hands. I am not here to cause trouble, he said.

28:05 Then why are you here? The voice asked, Because I have nowhere else to go. That part was not entirely a lie. Two people stepped from the trees. One held a bow, the other held a short spear. They didn't look like soldiers, but they carried themselves like people who knew how to survive. The woman with the bow looked him up and down. Name, Basalt, where from the Earth Kingdom?

28:42 That changed their expressions for a moment, the forest seemed quieter. What happened to you, the woman asked. Basalt looked down. My parents were dragon knights.

28:58 True ones.

29:00 When the Dragon King took the Earth dragons, my parents were captured and taken away.

29:07 I escaped.

29:09 I've been trying to survive ever since, all true, every word. The rebels brought him into their camp. It was hidden in a valley surrounded by thick forest and rocky cliffs. There were small homes made from logs and mud, gardens tucked beneath the trees, and watch posts so well hidden that even Basalt only spotted half of them. Children ran between shelters, Adults carried water, sharpened tools, patched clothing, and prepared meals. It wasn't an army camp exactly. It was a village, a village made of people who'd refused to give up. At first. They watched Basalt carefully. They asked questions, many questions. He answered them well, because his story was true enough. He told them about the fall of the

30:08 Earth Kingdom. He told them about his parents being taken. He told them about hiding in the ruins. He did not tell them about the Dragon King finding him, of course, And he did not tell them about the controlled Earth Dragon. And he did not tell them that Every few nights, when the camp slept, he crept out beyond the trees and tied small notes to messenger pigeons hidden in a hollow stump numbers, guard rotations, paths through the forest, food stores, names.

30:42 He told himself he was only doing what he had to do. He told himself. These people were rebels, and rebels broad danger wherever they went. He told himself the Dragon King would crush them sooner or later. Anyways, each day he spent there, the words became harder and harder to believe. The rebels were not monsters. They were farmers whose crops had been taken, Miners who fled the quarries, parents hiding children who had spoken too loudly against the king, old soldiers who still remembered the true dragon knights. And then there was Bennett's mother. Her name was Mirah. Basalt met her by a stream while carrying two buckets of water back to camp, or to be more accurate, he tripped over a root while trying to look more tired

31:42 than he was, dropped both buckets and sent water spilling everywhere. Mira burst out laughing, not politely, not quietly. She laughed like the whole force had just told the world's funniest joke. Basalt sat in the mud, staring at the empty buckets. I suppose that went well, he said, It depends what you were trying to do. Mira replied, if you were trying to water the path, you did beautifully. Basalt tried not to smile, but he failed. Mira helped him up, handed him one of the buckets, and walked with him back to the stream. She was clever, kind and stubborn, and the way that forest people often were. She knew which berries to eat, which mushrooms were, you know, not poisonous, and exactly how to insult a person while making them

32:42 feel better at the same time. At first, Basult told himself that he should probably avoid her. Then he told himself that getting close to someone in the camp might help his mission. Then he told himself he was only asking to sit beside her at dinner because she knew useful information. He told himself many things, but none of them were really true. The truth was he loved her.

33:10 He didn't mean to, he didn't plan to, but it happened, and for the first time since the fall of the earth Dragon Kingdom, Basalt felt like he wasn't just surviving, he was living. The rebel camp accepted him more fully after that. Mirah trusted him, and others trusted Mira. That meant they trusted him too. Over time, he stopped feeling like an outsider pretending to belong and began to feel like a man who accidentally found a home that made the messenger pigeon thing harder. Each note felt heavier than the last, Each piece of information seemed less like strategy and more like betrayal. But he kept sending them because by then he was trapped. If he stopped, the dragon king would know if he confessed, the rebels would hate him.

34:11 If he ran, soldiers would come anyways. So he stayed, and then Bennett was born. Basalt had thought he understood love when he met Mirah, but he was wrong. The first time he held his son, something inside him changed, not softly, not gently. It cracked like stone under pressure. The baby was tiny and wrinkled and angry about being cold.

34:43 He had Mirah's eyes and Basalt's serious frown, which everyone found funny except Bennett himself, who seemed deeply offended by the entire world. What should we call him, Mira asked. Basalt looked down at the little boy in his arms. He'd spent most of his life chasing power, wanting a dragon, wanting respect, wanting to be chosen. But this child had chosen him, without knowing anything about him, without caring what he'd done, without caring what he'd failed to become Bennett, ba Sault said softly. Mirah smiled Bennett. For a short time, life was wonderful. Danger still existed beyond the forest, of course, the Dragon King still ruled, patrols, still searched, rebels, still whispered about supply lines and safe routes. But inside that

35:41 small hidden camp, but Salt had something he'd never expected to have a family. He held Bennett while Mira slept. He fixed roofs. He carried water without spelling it. Most of the time. He taught some of the younger children how to tell the different kinds of stone apart. And each time he looked at his son, he felt the truth pressing harder against his chest. He couldn't keep doing this, He couldn't keep sending messages. He couldn't keep feeding the Dragon King information that might one day bring soldiers to Bennett's door. Then the order came. The message arrived by pigeon just before dawn. Basalt opened the tiny scroll with shaking hands. The Dragon King had enough information. The camp would be attacked in three days. Earth dragons would seal

36:40 the exits, fire dragons would burn the shelters. Wind dragons would stop anyone from escaping through the trees, the rebels would be captured. Basalt read the message three times, then he burned it. For the rest of the day, he moved like a man and made of stone. He helped repair of fens. He carried wood. He smiled when Mira spoke.

37:07 He held Bennett, but inside the earth itself seemed to be splitting open beneath him. That night, when Bennett was asleep, Basaul told Mira the truth, not all at once. He tried to begin gently. He failed. I have something to tell you, he said. Mirah looked at him, immediately, knowing it was bad.

37:34 What is it?

37:36 Basault took a long breath. I wasn't a refugee when I came here. Mira didn't speak. I was sent here. Still, she said nothing. The silence was worse than shouting. Basaul told her everything. He told her about the Dragon King finding him. He told her about the controlled earth dragon, about being linked to it. He told her about becoming a soldier. He told her about the pigeons. Mirah's face changed with every sentence, confusion, hurt anger. By the time he finished, she looked at him like he was a stranger, wearing the face of someone she loved. You gave them our names, she whispered. Basalt didn't answer, But that was an answer itself. I was wrong, Basalt said, I know I was wrong, but I can still save you. The

38:43 Dragon King is coming three days from now. You need to leave tonight. You and Bennett. Mirah's eyes narrowed. You're not coming.

38:57 I can't.

38:59 You mean you won't. Basalt flinched. Maybe she was right, Maybe he was still a coward. Maybe he was still that resentful boy in the ruined egg chamber, taking the king's hand because power was easier than pain. But there was one thing he knew for sure. If I go with you, he will hunt us. He'll search every forest, every mountain, every village. But if I return, if I tell him what he expects to hear, if I stay inside the army, I can keep him away from you.

39:40 Mira shook her head. You expect me to believe that, no, Basalt said, I don't, but I need you to go anyways. He took a small stone from his pocket. He was smooth and dark, polished by years of worry. Between his fingers. My father gave me this when I was young. Give it to Bennett when he's older, or throw it into a river if you'd rather. I don't deserve to ask anything of you. Mira stared at the stone for a moment, then she took it. Before dawn, Mira left with her son.

40:22 She didn't say goodbye. Basalt watched from the trees as she disappeared into the forest, carrying Bennett wrapped against her chest. Then he walked the other way back to the Dragon King. The rebel camp fell two days later. Basalt made sure many of the people escaped, not obviously, of course, never obviously.

40:49 The Dragon King considered the mission a success. The camp was destroyed, several rebel leaders were captured, supplies were seized and besie well. He was rewarded. Over time, he rose higher and higher in the army. Eventually he became the earth Dragon General. He had more soldiers under his command than he'd ever imagined, He had a powerful controlled earth Dragon, and he had the Dragon King's trust. He also had nightmares.

41:27 He did many things he wasn't proud of. He crushed rebel supply lines, he broke mountain hideouts, but he kept his promise. He kept soldiers away from Mirah and Bennett through spies scouts and carefully placed lies, but assault watched from a distance. He learned that Mira had traveled far beyond the ordinary patrol routes. He learned that she'd eventually remarried, a good man of four worst rebel, who knew how to survive, and who loved Bennett as his own. That hurt, but it also helped, because by all reports, the man was kind. Bennett grew strong. He learned the forest, He learned to hunt, to build fires, to read tracks, to survive.

42:22 Basalt heard stories of him from time to time, and one day a very interesting story arrived. Bennett had found an earth dragon, a real one, a free one. He'd become a true dragon Knight. For a long time after reading that report, Basalt couldn't move. His son had been chosen. The thing Basalt had wanted his entire childhood had come to Bennett, and to Basult's surprise, he didn't feel resentment.

43:02 He was happy for his son, but also worried because a true dragon Knight wouldn't be able to hide forever, not with the dragon kings searching, not with strongholds being taken back and the fire dragons being freed, and the water dragons rising up, and that whole nature dragon thing he just heard about recently. And now, according to every report coming through Basalt's spy network, Bennett and the new Dragon Knights were coming for the Earth Kingdom Stronghold, his stronghold, the place where controlled Earth dragons waited and rose, their glowing eyes fixed ahead, their riders ready for war. Basalt stood at the highest balcony of the stronghold, looking out over the mountains. Everything was prepared, Everything was ready except Basult,

44:09 because soon his son would come. Bennett would come wearing true dragon Earth armor, riding a dragon that had chosen him freely, and Basult would have to decide what kind of man he really was. Was he the resentful boy who took the Dragon King's hand. Was he the soldier who betrayed a rebel camp. Was he the general who served the dragon thief? Or was he still somewhere deep beneath all that stone, the father who had once held a tiny baby in his arms and named him Bennett.

44:53 He went to sleep that night slightly uneasily, because he knew that tomorrow would likely be the day he'd have to decide.

45:07 Good Night everyone, m.

50:04 M M

55:02 M