“Again”, I whispered softly to myself with firm direction. As if I needed the personal encouragement to keep tirelessly practicing.

Sand swirled around rear hocks and crept along until it came to the bottom half of my thighs. If a stranger saw this in the distance and didn’t know my talent personally, they might think that hordes of slithering creatures were encircling to do harm. In appearance the lashes of soil looked very similar to thousands upon thousands of tiny snakes climbing the limbs of a tree. Golden serpents without heads or emotion, they lived only to be moved by my will. Their hunger feed from earth, and their mother was a perfect supplier.

For her unrestricted caverns never seemed to run dry.

I could keep pulling as selfishly as I might and still have more than this power could ever wield. It shimmered to and fro. Contouring to the muscles that time and work had built to this body before sliding off to my right and rising as a solid mass into heaven. Sweat slicked my barrel and neck, brows furrowed together irritably and with hardened edge. Breathe came fast from a heaving chest, but in controlled manageable gasps. Levitating the cloud took concentration and as one might have guessed it…energy.

After a few moments the mass of swirling earth began to fall, I struggled to levitate its pressing weight; but with a final gasp I could hold on no longer, and was forced to relinquish my control of it. The granules collapsed back to the ground from whence it had sprung. I couldn’t let these efforts go to waste. It was a job, my duty as both father and General to dozens of loyal soldiers to be physically, emotionally, and magically fit for our coming battle.

Blinking back beads of sweat that threatened to cloud gaze, I shook muzzle and rubbed my eyes across knees. Shuffling forward with another crestfallen groan, these talents were called upon again; but they fell short because something had drawn notice. A figure was what caught my eye.

A stranger. Fresh blood.

The dusty bay stands as a pillar, tall and muscular even at this distance. A man that didn’t go easily missed, he towered over my compact frame easily, but this wasn’t at all daunting when having fought a beast the size of a mountain before; quite the opposite in fact. Limbs carry me forward, closing the short gap between us, “Welcome brother,” I call out when close enough for ears to catch sound, “I’m afraid I don’t recognize you, are you new to Dragons Throat?” Stopping short, I pause a stone’s throw away, judging kindly and allowing face to curve into a natural smile.