tl;dr history
Dragons ruled, once. They filled the sky, lorded their power over lesser beings, and generally had exactly everything they ever could have wanted. It was an unfortunate time to be a human. It was either an evil dragon devouring your children or a good dragon doing battle with an evil dragon and crushing your barn. This went on for a tiresomely long time, until the tension between evil and good dragons escalated into a full-out war. Famous heroes were born, famous weapons were forged, and the patron goddess of the evil dragons struck a deal with the Forces of Good. In exchange for her life, she would be sealed into the Abyss, and all of her children sent into a deep sleep beneath the earth. It was foretold that they would wake again when she'd gathered her forces for another strike at that goody two-shoes Goodness, and so, predictably, this was what the black dragon Khisanth assumed was happening when she awoke. Imagine her dismay to discover it was two measly nymphids, waking her with some sob story about the last female of their species being captured and held captive by humans, instead of her Queen, calling her to battle.
Kadagan and Joad were two of the last three remaining nymphids on Krynn. The third one, Dela, Kadagan's fiance and Joad's daughter, had recently been captured by humans. After failing to get her back themselves, the two decided to enlist the help of a third party. As Kadagan put it to Khisanth, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." There was really no more logical a choice for an ally for two two-foot-tall fairy-like creatures than a 30-foot dragon, even if that dragon had recently (in her memory) been a hatchling, and woken suddenly to find herself full-grown and not sure what to do with her sudden strength and power. Khisanth initially refused to help them, but of course the nymphids had known she wouldn't lend assistance for free. They offered to teach her qhen, the mental discipline that would allow her to shapechange. Greed being the number one motivator of black dragons like Khisanth, she promptly agreed. "Anger will defeat thee in battle as well as in life," were lessons that were often taught to her, and grudgingly taken to heart. Joad took her once, after she'd mastered shapechanging, to a quiet grove filled with fireflies. The elderly nymphid fondly explained that these little creatures collected energy, expending it each night to light the darkness for others. It was a life well spent, he said. Khisanth didn't understand, but for the first time was content to wait for experience to catch up and provide comprehension rather than demand immediate answers.
It took a month or so for Khisanth to learn to fly, fight, and control herself with the use of qhen well enough to satisfy the nymphids. They still weren't entirely convinced that she was well trained enough to recapture Dela from the humans, especially after a greedy display of destruction in front of Kadagan of the massacre of a band of ogres, but it came to their attention that Dela was being relocated. The time for the rescue mission was now or never. Khisanth had made progress from when the two nymphids had found her, though. Where as she was once impulsive, brash, and entirely self-serving, she was now slightly less impulsive and brash, only mostly self-serving, and occasionally able to control her rage and greed through the calming techniques of qhen. And so, lessons in hand, Khisanth took the shape of a human and the name "Onyx", just outside the town that held the imprisoned nymphid. After a short while spent learning the strange rules and customs of her new shape (you must wear clothes, eat with utensils and not your face, and shaking your breasts at males will almost always get you what you want), Onyx was hired by a traveling merchant, Led, to be part of his mercenary guard. She impressed the man with her use of magic, as magic in the world was currently all but unheard of. She, in turn, was enchanted by his smooth manners and not-totally-unpleasant face. Eager to fully experience the human form, and utterly overwhelmed by the tangle of emotions that didn't usually effect her as a dragon, Onyx allowed herself to be seduced by him- both figuratively and literally.
After confirming that Dela was indeed the precious cargo Led was traveling with, Onyx knew she ought to free the nymphid right then. But that would mean killing Led, to whom she'd grown a little attached. Fortunately, an unexpected battle took the choice out of her hands. She was still looking for a way to recover Dela without having to betray Led when the mercenary group encountered a band of knights. When the knights demanded to see what Led was shipping and he refused, a fight broke out. In the course of it, the wagon housing Dela was broken open, and the nymphid was killed. Onyx and Led managed to win, but just as the battle was winding down, Oynx spotted a young knight dragging himself from the carnage. She ran after him, still high on killing and glad for the chance to finish off the group. Of course, casting spells at a group of knights from behind an able fighter is one thing, taking on a knight on your unarmed lonesome was another. The knight promptly punched her out and took off. When Onyx came to, it was to find herself with a broken nose and abandoned by Led. He and the rest of the group had assumed her dead and taken off without her. She was, as you might guess, a little peeved. It was then that she encountered Kadagan, who informed her calmly that Joad had died, he would shortly follow, and he was sorry she hadn't performed better. She insisted that she'd done all she could to rescue Dela, and Kadagan merely countered with a sad, "Did you?" ("Didst thee", really, but who's counting) before expiring himself. Three out of season fireflies floated off through the evening.
Once again in the shape of a dragon, Khisanth preferred to feel anger at her failure and Kadagan's forgiving accusation rather than guilt, and so she wasted no time in tracking Led's band down. She killed all of them but Led in one fell swoop, breathing acid down on them as they slept from the cover of darkness. One ogre managed to survive, whom Khisanth took great pleasure in slowly dismembering for Led's benefit. When she finally turned on him, she took just a little time to turn back into a human and mock him. She wanted him to understand why he was being killed, after all. His cowering fear was instantly replaced by charm to see that hot little number he'd tapped and ditched suddenly naked in front of him, and it almost looked like he might convince her to join with him as a dragon. Right up until she changed back and bit his face off, of course. Khisanth decided then that she'd been human for the last time, and would never again let herself be manipulated by a human or the ridiculous emotions that went with being one.
Suddenly freed of both lessons and obligations, Khisanth promptly settled down in what her instincts told her was the best place to make a lair: a dingy, bleak swamp. She lived happily enough, killing wildlife some days and turning into it other days, until she began to feel watched. The feelings built until one day a black dragon showed. It dive-bombed her lair, set her tree dissolving with acid, and took off again. Finding that to be a little rude, Khisanth promptly tracked him down to what she thought was his lair - only to find an elderly black dragon, blinking and perplexed at this intrusion. Pteros, as he introduced himself, was a victim of this mysterious dragon as well. Once it was established that neither bore the other animosity, Khisanth and Pteros got to talking. They agreed to coexist. Pteros would tell Khisanth stories of the glorious war that had gotten them all sent away, and teach her magic, while Khisanth would train Pteros and get his flabby old self back in shape. It was mutually beneficial, right up until the two dragons began to examine the bauble that the nymphids had left with Khisanth. Called the maynus, it seemed to be nothing more than wish-granting magic, and that was all Khisanth wanted out of it. But when Pteros gave it the poorly-worded command "take us home", it brought the two of them to a different plane. The plane of lightning, from which it, a sentient being, had originated. It offers to send them home in exchange for their having freed it, but all Khisanth could do was uncomprehendingly demand her maynus returned to her, and she cost them the chance to return when the maynus saw an old enemy and wandered off to do battle.
Unfortunately, the winner of the battle was none too friendly. A creature named Fraz approached the two dragons, claiming to be the strongest thing on the plane, and demanded that they do battle for it. They had little choice but to agree or be killed, so it turned them into feathery snakes and sent them after a giant. It cost Khisanth a wing and permanent damage, but she saw through Fraz's illusion before long. She turned herself back into a dragon again, whole and uninjured, and Fraz seemed ready to play more games with her -- until a voice neither she nor Pteros could hear seemed to command it to send the two of them back. Fraz obliged, but mischievously transported them directly into the middle of Talon's lair. Recovering quickly, Khisanth outlined a plan for the two of them to take Talon down, involving Pteros disappearing for a sneak attack from behind - only to discover Talon had company. Pteros never upheld his part of the plan to attack, leaving Khisanth to fight Talon alone. The second, unnamed dragon went to attack Pteros, while Khisanth fought and killed Talon. Pteros managed to kill his dragon, but crashed to the ground shortly after. Finding him lethally wounded, and angry at having been betrayed by his cowardice, Khisanth would have left him to die slowly. But pity took precedence, and she finished him off.
Having previously discussed the slowly growing armies of the Dark Queen with Pteros, Khisanth decided after his death to join one. The idea that dragons in the army took riders was absolutely inconceivable to her, and she vowed never to take a rider. However, the Highlord Maldeev allowed to join, despite refusing to carry a human, solely because of her impressive skills and ability. She outshone every other dragon in the wing, although she was kept at the lowest rank because of her refusal. Despite that, she became fast friends with the Highlord's dragon, Jahet. Two years were spent in the service Black Wing until Khisanth began to suspect treachery from the second ranked dragon, Khoal. There had been an outpost of Solamnic knights nearby, the champions of Good with which the Queen's armies, by default, were in opposition. Khoal repeatedly reported that their numbers were paltry and hardly worth bothering with, right up until an entire regiment marched to launch a surprise attack on the Wing. Khisanth and Jahnet were trapped by unknown magic in their lairs and unable to see what the klaxons were sounding for, until Khisanth managed to free them with her own magic. Begrudgingly changing into a human to go undercover, she realized that Khoal and the other two dragons were all in on the treachery, betraying their comrades in exchange for choice pieces of Solamnic land from the knights. She managed to trick two of the traitor dragons into leaving the battlefield. Khoal, though, called her on her human shape and had to be fought and killed. Khisanth managed to do this, and then turned her attention on the invading knights.
She squared off against their leader, ready to pick him apart or melt him with acid - right up until she recognized him. Sir Tate, this opposing general, was unmistakably that young knight that had punched her out all those years ago. Before she got a chance to rip him apart for having wounded her pride so sorely so long ago, he was rescued and pulled away by his subordinates. The armies parted ways, and Khisanth began to understand why it was humans and not dragons that currently ruled the world. Enraged that three dragons had so easily been turned against their own kind, she sent a general demand to know why up gods-wards. Strangely enough, a god answered. It was the Dark Queen herself that pulled Khisanth into the Abyss for an audience, and explained that the betrayal had been in her plans all along. By thwarting the scheme and killing Khoal, Khisanth had disobeyed the god's wishes. She was sent back to the material plane with a warning and an order: don't screw up again, and take a human rider. The Queen added that Khisanth would find her rider in an unlikely place, and know him when she saw him.
It wasn't long before the Black Wing had mounted their counterattack. The knights were ready with solid defenses and griffins to fight against the dragons, though. Maldeev asked Khisanth to fly wing to him and Jahet; an unexpected honor. Khisanth accepted, and just as the three of them were closing on Tate and his griffin, Jahet unexpectedly seized up, died, and fell out of the air. Khisanth snatched Maldeev up before he could fall as well, then finally got her chance to end her feud with Tate. She didn't hesitate to send a claw through his brain, but then immediately wondered if it hadn't been a mistake. She'd felt a strange draw to him since first meeting him, and the Dark Queen had told her she'd find her rider somewhere she wasn't expecting him... Glancing at Maldeev, who, by the death of Jahet, would become her rider, she wondered if she hadn't killed the wrong human. After the battle she returned for Jahet's corpse, only to find obvious signs of death by magic. It had to have been treachery, though she wasn't sure who could have done it.
During the ceremony to bond the two of them, Khisanth asked Maldeev to participate in a ritual that Pteros had shown her. Bloodmingling was an old dragon tradition, wherein both parties would clearly see the thoughts and motivations of the other for an instant. Pteros had told her never to trust anyone she hadn't bloodmingled with. Maldeev agreed, and Khisanth discovered that it had been he that had arranged Jahet's murder. She knew immediately that he was hateful, afraid of anything more powerful than he, and basically a despicable person not at all to be trusted. And so she didn't. She worked carefully with him, right up until the day that he asked a new dragon, unexpectedly, to fly wing to him and Khisanth. Remembering this as the exact scene that had lead to Jahet's death, Khisanth snapped and clawed his face off. She was again pulled to the Abyss for an audience with the Queen, and again berated for screwing up her plans. But she would be given one more chance, and so she was sent into boredom and exile to guard a staff. The book, a prequel, ends with her about to encounter the heroes of the original book - an encounter that goes none too well for her.
Kadagan and Joad were two of the last three remaining nymphids on Krynn. The third one, Dela, Kadagan's fiance and Joad's daughter, had recently been captured by humans. After failing to get her back themselves, the two decided to enlist the help of a third party. As Kadagan put it to Khisanth, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." There was really no more logical a choice for an ally for two two-foot-tall fairy-like creatures than a 30-foot dragon, even if that dragon had recently (in her memory) been a hatchling, and woken suddenly to find herself full-grown and not sure what to do with her sudden strength and power. Khisanth initially refused to help them, but of course the nymphids had known she wouldn't lend assistance for free. They offered to teach her qhen, the mental discipline that would allow her to shapechange. Greed being the number one motivator of black dragons like Khisanth, she promptly agreed. "Anger will defeat thee in battle as well as in life," were lessons that were often taught to her, and grudgingly taken to heart. Joad took her once, after she'd mastered shapechanging, to a quiet grove filled with fireflies. The elderly nymphid fondly explained that these little creatures collected energy, expending it each night to light the darkness for others. It was a life well spent, he said. Khisanth didn't understand, but for the first time was content to wait for experience to catch up and provide comprehension rather than demand immediate answers.
It took a month or so for Khisanth to learn to fly, fight, and control herself with the use of qhen well enough to satisfy the nymphids. They still weren't entirely convinced that she was well trained enough to recapture Dela from the humans, especially after a greedy display of destruction in front of Kadagan of the massacre of a band of ogres, but it came to their attention that Dela was being relocated. The time for the rescue mission was now or never. Khisanth had made progress from when the two nymphids had found her, though. Where as she was once impulsive, brash, and entirely self-serving, she was now slightly less impulsive and brash, only mostly self-serving, and occasionally able to control her rage and greed through the calming techniques of qhen. And so, lessons in hand, Khisanth took the shape of a human and the name "Onyx", just outside the town that held the imprisoned nymphid. After a short while spent learning the strange rules and customs of her new shape (you must wear clothes, eat with utensils and not your face, and shaking your breasts at males will almost always get you what you want), Onyx was hired by a traveling merchant, Led, to be part of his mercenary guard. She impressed the man with her use of magic, as magic in the world was currently all but unheard of. She, in turn, was enchanted by his smooth manners and not-totally-unpleasant face. Eager to fully experience the human form, and utterly overwhelmed by the tangle of emotions that didn't usually effect her as a dragon, Onyx allowed herself to be seduced by him- both figuratively and literally.
After confirming that Dela was indeed the precious cargo Led was traveling with, Onyx knew she ought to free the nymphid right then. But that would mean killing Led, to whom she'd grown a little attached. Fortunately, an unexpected battle took the choice out of her hands. She was still looking for a way to recover Dela without having to betray Led when the mercenary group encountered a band of knights. When the knights demanded to see what Led was shipping and he refused, a fight broke out. In the course of it, the wagon housing Dela was broken open, and the nymphid was killed. Onyx and Led managed to win, but just as the battle was winding down, Oynx spotted a young knight dragging himself from the carnage. She ran after him, still high on killing and glad for the chance to finish off the group. Of course, casting spells at a group of knights from behind an able fighter is one thing, taking on a knight on your unarmed lonesome was another. The knight promptly punched her out and took off. When Onyx came to, it was to find herself with a broken nose and abandoned by Led. He and the rest of the group had assumed her dead and taken off without her. She was, as you might guess, a little peeved. It was then that she encountered Kadagan, who informed her calmly that Joad had died, he would shortly follow, and he was sorry she hadn't performed better. She insisted that she'd done all she could to rescue Dela, and Kadagan merely countered with a sad, "Did you?" ("Didst thee", really, but who's counting) before expiring himself. Three out of season fireflies floated off through the evening.
Once again in the shape of a dragon, Khisanth preferred to feel anger at her failure and Kadagan's forgiving accusation rather than guilt, and so she wasted no time in tracking Led's band down. She killed all of them but Led in one fell swoop, breathing acid down on them as they slept from the cover of darkness. One ogre managed to survive, whom Khisanth took great pleasure in slowly dismembering for Led's benefit. When she finally turned on him, she took just a little time to turn back into a human and mock him. She wanted him to understand why he was being killed, after all. His cowering fear was instantly replaced by charm to see that hot little number he'd tapped and ditched suddenly naked in front of him, and it almost looked like he might convince her to join with him as a dragon. Right up until she changed back and bit his face off, of course. Khisanth decided then that she'd been human for the last time, and would never again let herself be manipulated by a human or the ridiculous emotions that went with being one.
Suddenly freed of both lessons and obligations, Khisanth promptly settled down in what her instincts told her was the best place to make a lair: a dingy, bleak swamp. She lived happily enough, killing wildlife some days and turning into it other days, until she began to feel watched. The feelings built until one day a black dragon showed. It dive-bombed her lair, set her tree dissolving with acid, and took off again. Finding that to be a little rude, Khisanth promptly tracked him down to what she thought was his lair - only to find an elderly black dragon, blinking and perplexed at this intrusion. Pteros, as he introduced himself, was a victim of this mysterious dragon as well. Once it was established that neither bore the other animosity, Khisanth and Pteros got to talking. They agreed to coexist. Pteros would tell Khisanth stories of the glorious war that had gotten them all sent away, and teach her magic, while Khisanth would train Pteros and get his flabby old self back in shape. It was mutually beneficial, right up until the two dragons began to examine the bauble that the nymphids had left with Khisanth. Called the maynus, it seemed to be nothing more than wish-granting magic, and that was all Khisanth wanted out of it. But when Pteros gave it the poorly-worded command "take us home", it brought the two of them to a different plane. The plane of lightning, from which it, a sentient being, had originated. It offers to send them home in exchange for their having freed it, but all Khisanth could do was uncomprehendingly demand her maynus returned to her, and she cost them the chance to return when the maynus saw an old enemy and wandered off to do battle.
Unfortunately, the winner of the battle was none too friendly. A creature named Fraz approached the two dragons, claiming to be the strongest thing on the plane, and demanded that they do battle for it. They had little choice but to agree or be killed, so it turned them into feathery snakes and sent them after a giant. It cost Khisanth a wing and permanent damage, but she saw through Fraz's illusion before long. She turned herself back into a dragon again, whole and uninjured, and Fraz seemed ready to play more games with her -- until a voice neither she nor Pteros could hear seemed to command it to send the two of them back. Fraz obliged, but mischievously transported them directly into the middle of Talon's lair. Recovering quickly, Khisanth outlined a plan for the two of them to take Talon down, involving Pteros disappearing for a sneak attack from behind - only to discover Talon had company. Pteros never upheld his part of the plan to attack, leaving Khisanth to fight Talon alone. The second, unnamed dragon went to attack Pteros, while Khisanth fought and killed Talon. Pteros managed to kill his dragon, but crashed to the ground shortly after. Finding him lethally wounded, and angry at having been betrayed by his cowardice, Khisanth would have left him to die slowly. But pity took precedence, and she finished him off.
Having previously discussed the slowly growing armies of the Dark Queen with Pteros, Khisanth decided after his death to join one. The idea that dragons in the army took riders was absolutely inconceivable to her, and she vowed never to take a rider. However, the Highlord Maldeev allowed to join, despite refusing to carry a human, solely because of her impressive skills and ability. She outshone every other dragon in the wing, although she was kept at the lowest rank because of her refusal. Despite that, she became fast friends with the Highlord's dragon, Jahet. Two years were spent in the service Black Wing until Khisanth began to suspect treachery from the second ranked dragon, Khoal. There had been an outpost of Solamnic knights nearby, the champions of Good with which the Queen's armies, by default, were in opposition. Khoal repeatedly reported that their numbers were paltry and hardly worth bothering with, right up until an entire regiment marched to launch a surprise attack on the Wing. Khisanth and Jahnet were trapped by unknown magic in their lairs and unable to see what the klaxons were sounding for, until Khisanth managed to free them with her own magic. Begrudgingly changing into a human to go undercover, she realized that Khoal and the other two dragons were all in on the treachery, betraying their comrades in exchange for choice pieces of Solamnic land from the knights. She managed to trick two of the traitor dragons into leaving the battlefield. Khoal, though, called her on her human shape and had to be fought and killed. Khisanth managed to do this, and then turned her attention on the invading knights.
She squared off against their leader, ready to pick him apart or melt him with acid - right up until she recognized him. Sir Tate, this opposing general, was unmistakably that young knight that had punched her out all those years ago. Before she got a chance to rip him apart for having wounded her pride so sorely so long ago, he was rescued and pulled away by his subordinates. The armies parted ways, and Khisanth began to understand why it was humans and not dragons that currently ruled the world. Enraged that three dragons had so easily been turned against their own kind, she sent a general demand to know why up gods-wards. Strangely enough, a god answered. It was the Dark Queen herself that pulled Khisanth into the Abyss for an audience, and explained that the betrayal had been in her plans all along. By thwarting the scheme and killing Khoal, Khisanth had disobeyed the god's wishes. She was sent back to the material plane with a warning and an order: don't screw up again, and take a human rider. The Queen added that Khisanth would find her rider in an unlikely place, and know him when she saw him.
It wasn't long before the Black Wing had mounted their counterattack. The knights were ready with solid defenses and griffins to fight against the dragons, though. Maldeev asked Khisanth to fly wing to him and Jahet; an unexpected honor. Khisanth accepted, and just as the three of them were closing on Tate and his griffin, Jahet unexpectedly seized up, died, and fell out of the air. Khisanth snatched Maldeev up before he could fall as well, then finally got her chance to end her feud with Tate. She didn't hesitate to send a claw through his brain, but then immediately wondered if it hadn't been a mistake. She'd felt a strange draw to him since first meeting him, and the Dark Queen had told her she'd find her rider somewhere she wasn't expecting him... Glancing at Maldeev, who, by the death of Jahet, would become her rider, she wondered if she hadn't killed the wrong human. After the battle she returned for Jahet's corpse, only to find obvious signs of death by magic. It had to have been treachery, though she wasn't sure who could have done it.
During the ceremony to bond the two of them, Khisanth asked Maldeev to participate in a ritual that Pteros had shown her. Bloodmingling was an old dragon tradition, wherein both parties would clearly see the thoughts and motivations of the other for an instant. Pteros had told her never to trust anyone she hadn't bloodmingled with. Maldeev agreed, and Khisanth discovered that it had been he that had arranged Jahet's murder. She knew immediately that he was hateful, afraid of anything more powerful than he, and basically a despicable person not at all to be trusted. And so she didn't. She worked carefully with him, right up until the day that he asked a new dragon, unexpectedly, to fly wing to him and Khisanth. Remembering this as the exact scene that had lead to Jahet's death, Khisanth snapped and clawed his face off. She was again pulled to the Abyss for an audience with the Queen, and again berated for screwing up her plans. But she would be given one more chance, and so she was sent into boredom and exile to guard a staff. The book, a prequel, ends with her about to encounter the heroes of the original book - an encounter that goes none too well for her.