Advisor(s)

Kerry Madden-Lunsford

Committee Member(s)

James Braziel
Margret Jessee

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

6-1-2026

Degree Name

Master of Arts in English (MAE)

School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Arts & Humanities

Abstract

There Be a Dragon is set in a roughly medieval era world named Aleovion. Evren is the protagonist of the story, a young woman freshly seventeen on the cusp of what should be amazing things. She’s in her last year of schooling and will be on her way to escaping the misery her school has brought her, and on top of that, this is the year she should finally ‘manifest’. Evren’s a part of a sect of beings in this world called ‘Embodied’, people whose ancestry is touched by a mystical creature. This allows them to act as conduits for the creature’s abilities even so far as the ability to shift fully into the creature itself. However, this is only fully achieved once a decedent has reached majority, the year before spent slowly gaining and mastering smaller traits. On a decedent’s eighteenth birthday, they ‘manifest’ into their abilities, fully able to shift. The only issue is Evren might not be able to manifest at the end of the year or have access to her creature traits, having given them up in a deal with Ma Cray. As a result, Evren’s become a hollowed-out version of who she was before, and it’s going to take a lot for her to find herself again if she ever wants to manifest when she turns eighteen.

Keywords

Coming-of-Age;Dragons;Fantasy;Young-Adult

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