A Dragon's Pride is the writing I'm most proud of to date. I was becoming displeased with various Lunar fanfics I had seen. I was tired as the dragons being treated as tools to be "beaten by the bad guy and rescued" or had their power stolen or killed. Or, of course, people made up their new dragons to be the sidekick of their new Dragonmaster.
I wanted to do a story that had the dragons solving their own problems. I wanted to show that the dragons were people, not just plot devices, or magical beasts. But beings that have their own feelings, emotions and lives, even if they did get into ruts.
When we started, we sort of merged our "worlds." Nall and Ruby were, of course, there first. Ebony was "my" character, from the Middleground RPG. Jia was Rune's character, and Twyla was what we got when we put our heads together. Truthfully when we started I was a bit intimidated at working with Rune, after all, she was rather more famous and such than I. I was also nervous about writing characters that weren't "mine." But as I learned the characters, I knew how they felt, it became easier. The first few chapters I had to talk through Rune with all my ideas, I was nervous. But then, as things flowed, I ended up writing with just asking her about main points.
Perhaps I added a lot of references to Middleground, but I tried to explain them. But the events of Middleground, focused who Ebony was in many ways. The people he lost, the adventures he had. Ebony is a character that has effected enough people to have people asking me to use him in stories and RPGs. Some people might find it odd that I feel and understand the characters as if they are alive to me, but if you read this far I must have been doing something right.
I've had people telling me they hate Twyla and she needs to die. Maybe not the understanding I hoped for. But if I can create such emotions in people, I suppose my writing can't be too bad.
It's odd to think how much has changed since I started writing this. I'm glad to see it's finally done. I'm not sure if I'll continue anything more in Lunar, though I was thinking of a story about Twyla's new life. But I can't force writing, it has to be inspired.
I thank all my readers, and of course, Rune, the story wouldn't have existed without her.
It's taken an embarrassingly long amount of time for A Dragon's Pride to be finished, and for that I apologize. I never expected it to go on for so long, both in length of the actual story or the length of time for the writing of the story. The germ of A Dragon's Pride began some years ago when Blake came up with the idea of collaborating on a story about the four dragons and making them the heroes for a change. The idea sounded intriguing enough, so I agreed.
Almost immediately we decided that he would write first draft and I would write second. Since he was the one who came up with the premise and I'm better at editing and revising, it made for a natural fit. But since I was writing second draft and had the busier schedule of the two of us, that also meant that most of the delay was my fault. Blake finished his part of A Dragon's Pride long before I did, much to my embarrassment.
It is probably worth mentioning the origin of some of the references in this story. The timeline of A Dragon's Pride is built off of one of the Lunar IRC RPGs, actually the original one, called Lunar: Middleground. While I did not participate, Blake had as the baby black dragon named Ebony. That RPG was the origin of the Crystal Palace locale. The reference to the Crest of Venus and the adventurers who went there with Ebony to get it was a nod to the heroes of the Middleground gaming group and their own story. The character of Azura and her untimely death also originated in Middleground, though Jia being her daughter was a later addition, since Jia had been introduced in my Summons fanfic a year before work on A Dragon's Pride even started.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the story. I really had a lot of fun, especially fleshing out Twyla's character later in the story. (Though it's bothered me a bit that throughout the writing of this entire fanfic no one's ever asked me why it's called A Dragon's Pride.) This ends my involvement with the affairs of Lunar's dragons, but Blake has talked about doing a sequel story on his own about Twyla training to be the new Star Dragon. So go pester him! ;) Make him write! He's faster than me!
I'd like to thank all our readers, especially those who've been following this story since the first three chapters cropped up on the web. I'd also would like to thank Hahn, the GM of Lunar: Middleground, who probably will never read this fic but I like him anyway. Lastly, I would like to thank Blake, for putting up with me and also for the rare opporunity to collaborate and finish a fanfic together. It's been fun, everyone!