If you are a Dragon Werewolf, this is could be your moon. The Dragon Moon rises every year at this time in the Northern Hemisphere, bringing with it not just new Dragon Wolves but new dragons too.
Dragon Wolves have a special bond with dragons.
The alliance between dragons and the werewolves we now know as Dragon Werewolves is a long and ancient friendship about which conflicting histories are told.
Some date this friendship back to the dragon known as Niohoggr or Nio for short. Nio became known as one of the first Wood Dragons. Before Nio, the rest of Earth decided that dragons should stay in the mountains or oceans, where their fiery breath could not cause any fires.
Unfortunately, nobody told this to little Nio who hatched on the Dragon Moon eons ago in the foot of a giant ash tree. How did Nio get from his mountain top cave to the heart of the forest? There are differing accounts, but it is generally agreed upon that a certain eagle took a dragon’s egg – Nio’s egg – and transported it there. Depending on who you talk to, you may hear that the egg was stolen, as the dragons like to report, or you may hear that the dragons abandoned little Nio because his egg was too small and an ugly brown colour and besides it didn’t hatch on schedule.
(Dragons as everyone knows are famously punctual and fastidious about their time.)
Whatever the case, when Nio hatched at the base of the ash tree in the heart of the forest, all the animals were surprised and impressed at first. Here was a little bird who could climb trees and spit funny sparks as well as fly. Baby Nio was a lot of fun to have around and everybody loved him, especially the wolves, who sometimes let him ride around on their backs and especially one wolf in particular, the werewolf Fenrir whose mother was a human giantess.
But as Nio grew and grew and grew, the animals began to wonder. Why doesn’t he have feathers anymore? And why does he have such a long tail, like a snake? And where once, they thought his sparky breath was really cute, now Nio was spitting flames and burning down some of their favourite trees and plants.
A meeting was held and it was decided that Nio must go home. The eagle who knew Nio’s family was sent back to the mountain with a message. But Nio didn’t want to go home. To him, the forest was his home. So Nio asked Fenrir to help him build a secret cave under the ash tree where he could hide and still be a part of the forest. Fenrir immediately agreed. Of anyone in creation, Fenrir could understand how it felt to be bigger and different. The gods were always busy plotting the best way to chain Fenrir but to this point they had not been successful.
So Fenrir helped Nio dig a secret cave and Nio hid among the ash tree roots. When the eagle came back with a message from the dragons for Nio, they couldn’t find him. Poor Nio though just kept growing and growing beneath the earth and got tangled in the roots of the tree in his sleep. He was also bored. His only amusement was shaking the tree from below and seeing if he could make the animals fall out. Some of the animals started to wonder if it was him shaking the tree and they didn’t find it very funny. They started to make up scary stories about him to keep young animals away from the tree.
Nio was starting to wonder if he should burn down the forest and run away after all. The only problem was, to where? The tree was the only home he had known.
Fortunately, Fenrir came to visit him just in the nick of time with a gift from the human side of the family – a spell to help Nio learn how to assume his human form, like a werewolf.
Once he learned it, you can guess how this knowledge changed Nio’s life. Once he could assume human form at will, he and Fenrir became fast friends. To this day you can’t read a story about Ragnarok that doesn’t mention them both.
When the gods finally succeeded in chaining Fenrir, Nio vowed that he and all of his descendants would serve as guardians for Fenrir’s descendants. It’s a promise the dragons keep to this day to all true Dragon Werewolves.
