In the early days of humanity, Emperor Volesus–looking to find and save the woman he loved–marched armies across most of Enayra, uniting all of the disparate, far-flung human settlements, city-states and kingdoms under a single banner, forming the Enayran Empire.

While the Empire did not last very long after Volesus passed, it’s legacy has enthralled and inspired many copy-cats throughout Enayra history, most notably the Gerovian Empire before the War of the Grand Coalition.

But what about the dragons? The dragons had been here for millennia before humans arrived, and while their numbers have dwindled since the war against Tenebrae (known by the dragons as the Ulaar ad Kha id Vellu Botahr, or the War of Blood and Many Tears, and by humans as the War of the Enayran Alliance), they will likely outlive humanity the continent.

Even Volesus and his vast wealth of military experience, tactical cunning and sprawling armies could not hope to conquer the dragons at the zenith of their power and numbers, and Volesus himself knew as much.

It was early on in his campaigns that Volesus understood the roles dragons played in Enayra, their sheer size and power, and that even against small numbers of dragons humanity had no chance of matching their raw power–not even with newly learned magic.

Shortly after conquering the city-state of Gerovia (which had recently been diminished in might as a kingdom during rebellion and political upheaval from the other city-states it had conquered), Volesus published the Gerovian Declaration.

In this document, still enshrined in Malatrion’s Royal Library, Volesus declared many things. Primarily he gave the nations, kingdoms, city-states and settlements of Enayra a chance to reveal to him any information regarding Zosime, his love who had been stolen away to parts unknown. But he also presented them with a choice, join him willingly, and become part of a great age of humanity, and contribute to a greater future for Enayra, or resist, and be conquered as so many before.

Volesus also announced the creation of a single common tongue, known today as Common, that would unite all of Enayra under a single language that would allow for easier trade and diplomacy.

But more importantly, to the topic of the question at hand, Volesus dedicated several sections to affirming his respect for the dragons of Enayra, and that he would uphold and honour the ancient borders of the dragon clans across Enayra. Volesus declared that no humans should suffer entry into these borders and lands claimed by dragons, and that he himself would post guards and sentries at common contact points between humanity and the borders of these draconic territories to ensure humans did not violate this declaration.

The dragons appreciated the gesture, and the enforcement of it, for while they had come to accept that humanity could not be simply turned back to the sea from whence they came. In fact many dragons had originally attempted to co-exist with humans, and that Enayra was big enough for both species to cohabit and live their lives unperturbed.

Despite their attempts to cohabit Enayra, humans mistrusted and feared dragons. Some actively hunted them, some chose to embrace and worship them, some treated them with ambiguity and ambivalence, others settled in lands that had once been set aside for dragons as part of their territory.

Volesus could not move the settlements and cities that had already been built and founded, and he could not turn back the wheel of time, but he could prevent things from getting worse, and that was what he sought to do in his declaration.

He could not protect and safeguard his empire from dragons, and he could not fight dragons and all of Enayra at the same time.

By the end of Volesus’s conquest of Enayra, he had conquered most of modern Enayra, except for Anglum–which he saw as a vast frozen expanse that would cost nothing but time, money and precious lives for very little reward–and the enclaves of the eleven dragon clans.

Over time, Volesus was able to prove his words as truth, and he upheld his enforcement of the declaration, protecting dragons and their territories from humans who would do them ill. The emperor even converted from the Old Way Aspectism to Dragomancy (causing many in his empire to follow suit).

For his proven kindness and friendship towards dragons, the Metallic Dragons themselves went to Xiar–a respected place of learning–to establish the first magical college in Enayra.

While some humans had been able to befriend and learn magic from dragons, magic was new and unknown to most humans at the time, and the most advanced magic was kept secret from all humans.

Volesus’s promise and his upkeep of said promise, while not erasing the wrongdoings of the past, was able to endear the dragons towards him, and even help warm humans to the dragons, if not at least cool the hostilities.

While Volesus’s declaration would die with his empire, and draconic-human relations would continue to suffer setbacks and issues until the creation of the first Khaleeshir six-hundred years later, and even afterwards into today, it is believed by many human scholars, and even many dragons who were alive to remember the Enayran Empire, that the Gerovian Declaration did much to better relations between the two races of Enayra.

Volesus and his Gerovian Declaration laid the groundwork for much of the human-dragon relations to this day, and while relations aren’t perfect, the borders of the draconic enclaves have not changed–for the clans that still remain–even long after the collapse of the empire.