Lyra was the youngest daughter of famous Dragon Tamer and Warrior, Lord Azariel. Lord Azariel had three children and they were all girls. He wished he had a son sometimes to share his battle stories and stories of his days of glory. His oldest girls were more into being ladies and dressing up than anything else and as they grew older they lost interest on his stories...that was until Lyra was born. She was not as beautiful and graceful as her older sisters but she was pretty...and she was so different from them. She was quite the tomboy. Lord Azariel was content with Lyra's interest in his stories and she even learned swordsmanship and cavalry tactics from her father. She also went hunting for boars and elk with him a few times...her mother though looked at this with disapproval. Lord Azariel, back in the day, had gone to war and had been part of an Elite group called the "Dragon Tamers". These warriors had dragons that they went to battle with. The Dragon Tamers were the only ones that could communicate with dragons and they were born with such gift. When the Great War had started, the Dragon Tamers had been called to battle. If it had not been for them, the war would not have been won...The King had recognized this and so did his cabinet of politicians. The King's adviser told the King to banish all dragons from the land and to exterminate the wild ones because even though they were great weapons for war, they could be turned against the King. Then the people also felt the same way about the dragons and pressured the King to get rid of the dragons...they even started killing and hunting down the wild ones and these intelligent and powerful creatures, in return, had attacked and destroyed some villages. The King had no choice but to banish the dragons from his army and also issue an order to hunt down any rogue dragon in the wild. Lord Azariel asked his dragon, Sapphire, to warn the wild dragons about the extermination order and to ask them to leave to order lands. No doubt, the people would abuse the order to hunt dragons down even when they were not harmful in any way. Sapphire and many other dragons left the kingdom and were never heard of again. The ones that stayed, were hunted down and some of them hid in the wildest places of the land in which the hunters cannot reach or have not explored.
Lyra had gone in another hunting trip with her father and had separated from the hunting party (they were hunting elk and deer) when she heard a growl coming from a cave. She found a very badly hurt dragon..it was a very young one for it was maybe twice as big as she was.
"I'm not going to hurt you" she whispered as she came close to it. It was bleeding very badly, it had cuts, bruises and arrows everywhere.
The dragon was a soft brown and her eyes were green as Jade. The dragon looked into Lyra's eyes and looked into Lyra's heart and found no evil in it. Lyra started to hear a soft voice in her head "Child...my life is ending...and the dragon hunters will come for me...but do not let them harm my baby...please...I'm entrusting you with my greatest treasure...". A white and small baby dragon was curled up next to older dragon. The baby dragon opened its eyes, green as her mother's, and looked at Lyra curiously. It was no bigger than Lyra's arm. The dragon gasped for air deeply and closed her eyes and said into her head "Please take good care of her...her name is Jade..." and with that, the dragon died. Lyra picked up the baby dragon and put her inside her cloak. She didn't know how she was supposed to keep the baby dragon hidden but she would do it. She would not let anyone kill this baby dragon. She had always felt it was wrong to kill such wonderful creatures...as she left the cave behind, she heard her father's voice looking for her and she joined the group. Jade was a smart dragon, she kept still and quiet the whole time. "You are a Dragon Tamer..." a tiny voice said in her head "My mother used to tell me about them. I know you can hear my voice...others cannot...".
For many months, Lyra kept Jade hidden and fed her and took care of her. Jade was very smart for her age. Lyra worried about her growth because one day she was going to get too big to hide. But for now, she worried only about keeping Jade happy and well looked after.
