The Silver Dragon

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"Zia." The voice was deep and powerful, yet gentle and kind, like she imagined a large man with a soft heart might speak. "Zia," it said again.

Zia's eyes fluttered open, and she immediately closed them again. A blindingly white light filled the room, and the sudden brightness was painful to her eyes.

"Zia, open your eyes," the voice said firmly.

Blinking rapidly, Zia did as she was told. What she saw when her eyes finally adjusted to the light surprised her.

She was lying on the floor, but it was not the floor of the room where she had fallen unconscious. In fact, she was not in a room at all. There was neither walls nor ceiling, just a flat, white floor that seemed to stretch for miles. The light seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. There was no sky above her and no sun. It was as if the world was light itself.

"Am I dead?" she wondered aloud. The place around her definitely fit the descriptions she had heard of heaven.

The voice chuckled. "No, you are still very much alive." Zia looked around for the source of the voice, but she couldn't see anyone.

"Who are you?" she asked the voice. "Show yourself." She looked around for her sword to defend herself with, but it was not there. She scrambled to her feet, surprised to find that there was no pain from her wounds.

The voice chuckled again, and then the most amazing thing happened.

A shadow fell over Zia and she looked up toward the endless white sky, but was blinded by a brightness that exceeded that of the place she was in. She threw up an arm to block the brilliant light.

The great shadow descended upon her. A great whoosh of air blew her hair back as it landed in front of her and shook the ground.

"Here I am," the voice said.

Once her eyes adjusted to the added glow, she removed her hand and felt her jaw slacken as she saw the form before her. A pair of reptilian legs with scales as silver as the moon were planted firmly on the ground in front of her. Attached to those legs was a long, serpentine body with large, broad wings protruding from its back, a long, scaly tail, and a head shaped to closely resemble the head of a crocodile. The whole thing was covered from snout to talon in pure silver scales.

"The Silver Dragon," Zia breathed. Her eyes were wide as she looked the dragon over top to bottom, soaking in every detail. He was impossibly huge, and he cast a large shadow over her, despite the light coming from everywhere. He seemed to glow with an impossibly bright light, as if he were reflecting the light of a thousand suns. Zia knew she wasn't hallucinating because her imagination wasn't vivid enough to think up something so detailed.

Zia strained her neck as she tried to look at the dragon's face, and she gasped when she saw a pair of brilliant gold eyes staring back at her, exactly the same color as her own. But the dragon's eyes seemed sharper, clearer, as if he could see straight into her mind and fish out her darkest thoughts.

"You've done well, my child," the Silver Dragon said in the same voice that had woken Zia. Had she not still been in shock at seeing such a magnificent creature suddenly appear, her heart would have stopped at hearing it speak. "I have observed you and your behavior since your birth, and I must say you surprised me. You've done spectacularly well."

"I-I-I can't believe it," Zia said to herself. "What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Where are my friends? Are they safe? Where are we? Are my friends here?"

"Patience, my child," the Silver Dragon said. "I am not unaware of the many questions in your mind, all of which shall be answered. But let me start off by congratulating you. You've handled your task magnificently."

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