Rainbow Dragonesque

In the land of Noranda, there are dragons. There are ‎also dragon riders, the Dragonesque, as they call ‎themselves. Long ago, when the Sorcerers attacked, the ‎dragons and their riders saved Noranda from being ‎overrun.‎
But that was a long time ago, and these days, the ‎dragons and the Dragonesque tend mostly to keep to ‎their own territory, Dracos in the high mountains. Truth ‎be told, they’re not terribly welcome in the Lowlands, ‎where normal humans live. ‎
That’s because everyone knows that dragons are ‎venomous, and if you’re bitten by one, you’ll die. ‎Dragons may choose humans to ride them and live ‎closely with the dragon rider folk, but they’re still ‎essentially wild beasts and they can be unpredictable. ‎Best not to tempt fate.‎
When Aralaiah Sentin is bitten, everyone expects her ‎to die. But she doesn’t. She survives, but she has patches ‎of what look like dragon skin on her body. At first, she ‎thinks that they’re just a leftover of the bite, a different ‎kind of scar, perhaps.‎
But her markings aren’t the only change. As time ‎goes on, she finds that other things are changing, too. ‎Some of her senses are greatly enhanced, for one thing. ‎She can hear and speak telepathically to dragons, for ‎another. Terrified that she is losing her humanity, ‎Aralaiah tries to pretend that the changes aren’t ‎happening.‎
The dragons themselves are fascinated by Aralaiah ‎and they hang around the town where she lives in ‎droves, much to the consternation of the other residents. ‎The eight Queens of Dragondom send a Dragonesque, a ‎man named Draken, to Aralaiah, to explain to her what ‎has happened. Like some viruses, dragon DNA has an ‎affinity for human DNA. Aralaiah is no longer fully ‎human. She has become a Dragonesque, someone who is ‎part human, part dragon, just like the dragon rider folk. ‎She is now one of them. Her new, enhanced senses are ‎dragon senses, and she is informed that she now has ‎magic powers, too, or will have when she learns to use ‎them.‎
Draken and the dragons want her to move to Dracos, ‎where her new abilities can be assessed and she can learn ‎to make the most of them. Aralaiah refuses. Leave her ‎home and her friends and move to a place she knows ‎nothings about peopled by strange dragon people at the ‎behest of the very beasts that were responsible for ‎ruining her life in the first place? Not very likely.‎
But, as time goes on, she finds that she can’t go on ‎denying that she has changed. Her life, she realises ‎bitterly, now falls into two parts; before the dragon and ‎after the dragon. She is no longer the person she was, ‎and as her best friend points out, she needs to go to ‎Dracos and embrace what she now is. ‎
But, Dracos is a world of its own. More or less ‎shunned by the Lowlands, it is insular and inward-‎looking. The first Dragonesque were made, in much the ‎same way that Aralaiah was, but Dragonesque nowadays ‎are born. Also, every Dragonesque has markings of one ‎dragon colour, and one only. Aralaiah is unique in that ‎she shows all eight. In both her origin and her markings, ‎she’s a freak. Will they even accept her? Is there any ‎place at all for her now that her whole life, her whole ‎being, has changed?‎
Join Aralaiah Sentin, Rainbow Dragonesque, as she ‎struggles to find a place for herself in a world where she ‎no longer fits. Can she make a place for herself in the ‎strange world of the Dragonesque, or is she doomed to ‎live as an outcast forever?‎