Post by Arrowbid on Aug 22, 2007 17:52:39 GMT -5
All hail the dominant primordial beast
It was a sad day… as I remember it now, the two of us looking out from the broken castle of grey brick and stone. The dreariness of it all sickened me and worked darkness on our hearts, twisting them and foiling them as to punish our very essence and dreams. Oh, how I recall it all with horrifying precision, how I wish to forget that day. If it could be called that, as the clouds blanketed the sky, turning day to dusk. So much so that the wolves would think the moon had risen and would howl their wonderful songs to the hungry sky. A world of twilight it seemed, perfect for such creatures as the wolves. But alas the wolves had gone, left this world long ago, to sing their ballads and songs of light elsewhere. They left, as my mother would say, to find their paradise, to run from the darkness that now plagued the world. I asked her in my arrogance, if their songs would continue to be filled with the sadness that they had become so renowned for. But at this she laughed, so heartily that it made the stone walls of our cave shake. Feeling like the tower itself would finally give way to the years of toil it had endured, and would crumble in upon itself. “No”, she told me, “their songs will be pure again. No longer filled with hopelessness and falling bodies, but filled with light and rising; rising, like the sun, or how the great black water rises against the rocks. For like the tide, the songs that fill the wind, will be filled and whole once more and we shall once again join them in their relevance and join in with our own voices. For as we long to call out to them, they long to do the same…”
How I spat at that then, in the mist of the storm. Our mother was dead! As well as our foolish father; and I then knew why they never told us what had sent the wolves and stags running. The great bane, as the creatures called it, something with the power to forge for itself a great destruction; weapons and insidious tools that would pierce your heart and cleave it in two. So deadly they could stop a ram from butting its rival in midair, kill it and end its line. This was the bane that had sent the wolves and stags running, a strange thing indeed, which knew nothing of the sorrow it had sown. Even now they didn’t stop with just the world’s creatures, harvesting and exploiting them. But they must also burn and tear away the very forests in which they shelter, to drive the last of them out and kill them as well.
As the two brothers reflected on this, they recalled that the same day, was the dawn their last ties died. How they looked out through the small stone rubble opening; made when lightning blasted the tower open, and open to the elements. This they knew as they padded in circles on the cave floor, scuffing it up and leaving their prints in the dust and ash. And the rain, which had come too late to extinguish the fires, poured into the towers small opening, mixing with the dirt thus muddying the floor. The same rain also dripped in droplets from the cracks in the rusted stone bricks, falling from the creaking ceiling onto their cold scales and aching leather wings. The brothers in turn had become pale from a sickness, not a sickness of health but one of heart. For like their wings their hearts had ached with a deep sadness, not for the wolves, stags or themselves in particular, but for the world they had come to know. So once more they turned to the towers rubble entrance that they took shelter in like a bear would a cave. They gazed out over the long grassy moor and hillside that the castle was placed upon, like a crown atop the world it seemed. The moor itself was blanketed with dead dry grass and was laid out beneath a great thundering sky; still busy drowning the world with its hopeless rain. The whole scene itself was surrounded with forests and a copse of blackened dead trees. The brothers rested their golden eyes up and down the gnarled and twisted branches… they seemed to be tearing the sky, ripping it open, daring any creature of the wind to just try and fly through such a place.
Their sister tried… they thought solemnly. As their gaze shifted to the cold ground, far below the tall haunted building, her body lay dead and crumpled in the shadow of the tower. The storm had turned against her and put all its force into a single bolt of lighting that struck through her spine and heart, sending her body falling from the sky. Her life passed from her before it ever really began, and how they had envied her. She was the only one with a strong enough heart to dare and fly through such a torrent of rain. The rain had served its own part in carrying her down, its chilled nature and empty meaning weighed on her heart as well as her wings. At that point all the lightening had to do was strike and the deed was done. So now she lay, far below in the castles shadow, but not alone for there were two more small bodies beside her. A doe and her fawn had fled from the burning forest, and with their heads held high, had also been stopped by the cursed lightning. It was as if the whole world was in despair, thus turning on itself. Releasing an evil into the sky, that had forbidden any form of hope to survive; even something as innocent as a mothering red deer.
But behold! As if to make amends, the huntress now protected the hunted. For when the fleeting deer fell, they fell not on the stone and dead grass of the cold moor. But instead lay cradled in the protective claws of the mighty dragon.
Wynd, the younger brother of the two, smiled at this. His sister was happy now, just like their parents, not only because they were now safe in the dragons’ heaven, but because he could see the peaceful smile that now rested on their sister’s face. He looked up to the star speckled sky; night had truly fallen now. Wynd sought out one star cluster in particular, Draco. “With night comes the stars, with the stars the heavens are visible, seek your brethren in the sky, and you shall always find us”, Wynd repeated the ancient verse. Upon speaking it, he wondered if all the dragons rested in the same heaven, not just those of the west but those of the east as well. Their mother always told us stories of our eastern cousins, twisting their long lithe bodies in the skies, being carried by the wind and drifting in the morning clouds. Moreover how they protected the tigers like how their kind protected the wolves, yet he fathomed why the dragons protected those they competed with. He knew one must earn their place in that beautiful paradise, but wondered sitting their, if their places were secure. “Streke”, he called to his elder brother.
“Yes, what is it?” growled Streke, he was rather impatient. But then again he was always impatient with his younger sibling.
”Do you think we will be punished for letting our sister go out into the storm…?” Wynd was looking down at his feet, feeling almost guilty.
“No, I do not. You know how hardheaded she was, once Drazil makes up her mind there’s no changing it. That’s what mother always said.”
“…yes, I suppose so…” Wynd, feeling uncomfortable at the talk of their parents, shuffled through the ash and debris that lay on the towers crumbling floor. When he lifted his forepaw and shifted his gaze to the livened stone there was a perfect footprint staring back at him. Maybe that’s why they hate us so, thought Wynd, as he stared at the hominid like print. It was clearly dragon born yet resembled that of a man, with four fingers and a clawed thumb. So similar yet so strange, and those bred of the unknown were always feared by the young, naive races. Stories of interactions with mankind had deep roots in the dragons’ culture, especially those of the west, - long drawn out, horrifying and bloody battles.
It wasn’t always like that, thought Wynd humbly.
Their ancestors once gathered and made a decision to protect man kind, even joining them in ranks of partnership, helping to restore peace to the lost lands. That was before though, before the horrible outbreak of man. Soon the humans were many; they had grown from a feeble race to one of violence and strategy: building great civilizations and kingdoms, soon losing their understanding of the beasts that had once befriended them, forgetting them all together. Except for small fragments of the past, left behind and preserved in myth and legend. There they found new roots and once again became unknown, mysterious things, strange creatures, things to be feared? So as man progressed, they began searching for something, a symbol, as humans always felt the need to seek out and symbolize some evil in the world, something they could put all their bad traits in to fight off as the proclaimed servant of the evil one. They did this to many creatures’, wolves, serpents, black cats, and the most famous of all dragons. For in the forgotten creature they found a vessel they could fill up and put all their beliefs, evils and superstitions in, something they could use to symbolize as the evil which must be vanquished in their stories of heroes. Well into the dark ages were men, bloody tyrants, sects and religion were all at war, knights hoping to make a name for themselves would remember the stories of so called evil dragons with their hoards of treasure and rush off to find and slay one of the beasts, they would then behead it, take its trove, and return to the king and villagers to collect their reward. The age of knights had arrived and many were now interested in the popular and honorable service of dragon slaying. Stories spread far and wide, with the dragons becoming more notorious each time, things had gotten out of control. But soon, after all the great dragon lords had gone into hiding, and knights could no longer find them no matter how hard they tried. The Dragons had been left; left to be forgotten and tossed aside in the over bearing and seemingly endless mists of eternity, leaving the western worlds memories of them being those of chaos and treachery and lies. Soon the whole of the land was once again tossed into the turmoil of war, with the dragons being considered nothing more than passing monsters to be destroyed if found, in the worlds endless concerns.
The remembering caused much pain in Wynd, who then let out a great and mighty bellow. It carried on forever threw the cloud and storm strewn sky, falling off into the forever of nothingness. But not as much so as to be missed by the waking man of the dark aged world. Who would draw his sword and leap from bed, thinking a monstrous dragon was at his door.
“Will we ever be allowed to leave!?” roared Wynd aloud; as it was impossible for anything to survive unprotected in this massacre of a storm. If they so much as set foot outside, the cursed thunder was sure to unsheathe its sword and strike them down with the full power of its tempest. Allowing the gale to commence and blow their bodies away into the darkness, never to find a resting place. Streke raised his reptilian swan neck and fumed at Wynd, his brother’s cries only reminded him that even a dragon could not predict everything. For who could see the passage of a goddess, unless she wished his mortal eyes aware. And in spite of everything they were known for, even the deity like dragon was not immortal, or invulnerable to the rage and torrent of nature’s brilliant force. For if their fragile leather and skin wings, which they prized so dearly were to touch that hurricanes gale, it would wrench them apart and rip them from their lithe bodies, sending them crashing to the far ground below.
Streke fumed once more and clenched his fists along the ground releasing them and scratching the stone floor. “Shut up!” he howled, “Wynd, instead of wailing your anger at the sky, crouch down and be silent. We cannot leave this tower and if it falls we fall with it! Your’ pounding and crashing only worsens this sad castles plight!”
“But Streke, you’re the one who always tells me to take action! How can I do anything locked away up here?” said Wynd angrily, and he faced his brother, back arched.
Streke frowned, and looked beyond his brother and out at the world, his golden eyes clouded over and his cat like pupils hardened into thin vertical slits. He was searching the black blanketed skies for any sign of the storms denouement. Then he rested once more folding his clawed hands underneath him like a great cat, and made his conclusion known. “This storm isn’t an unnatural one, it will yield soon enough, and we will have no choice but to wait it out.” At that Streke ended the argument and flicked his arrowhead tail to signal to his brother that it was resolved.
Wynd grumbled at that but made no further remorse or squall. So the two of them stayed in that tower for twenty days and twenty nights, enduring the worst of it, and though the castle crumbled and moaned, and the tower swayed and threatened to give way. They never made attempt to leave but instead huddled together in the corner, surrounded by cobwebs, ash and the like. Living off of their energy reserves, drinking from puddles formed of rain leaking from the ceiling and feasting on rats whenever they could catch them. Then… on the twentieth night, when the storm had left, certain it had fulfilled its dark task of stealing away all the lands life. Two dark figures appeared climbing down the side of a crumbling tower, headed for their homeland.