~ 17 ~

The Dragon Within

I didn't waste the day.

I spent it hunting across the island. Snapping cattle within my claws and tearing apart mammoths to feel my talons slicing through meat. To cut through coat and skin and flesh, a toughness slashed through, feeding the beast with a craving to be washed in blood.

Don't lose yourself.

I lowered to one such dying mammoth and feasted. I closed my eyes and ate, blowing flames as I chewed, warming the flesh and making it tender. Feeding the abyss inside my stomach, I felt strength return to my muscles. Once more, I was becoming whole.

Rearing my head back, I roared once more, feeling the blood wash down my face. I was drowning in the stuff. Morals were like whispers that became ever quieter. Bathing in the desire to hunt and kill. Restrictions. Restraints. All of that buzzing nonsense—it faded as life flushed through me instead.

I was on a beach when I came back to active consciousness, the sands were all red, the water, bloodied, when the wave rolled on. I tore the flesh from the neck of something deformed. There'd been cattle in the forest, keeping in a pack. Without warning, my mouth had snatched them all, from above the trees.

But when did that happen? Earlier in the day? Oh... it doesn't matter...

I gobbled more of the monster at my feet, slurping the rest of the whole inside, trusting my stomach big enough to handle it. Hoofsteps tickled across the sand, creaking wood and squeaking wheels. What was that? Those sounds. They were close. Nearing.

My head rolled from the taste in my mouth, a long drool of scarlet leaking from my maw. I looked over to see a spread of horses and carriages, chariots and men mounted on them all. Cries shouted at my presence. The convoy slowed.

They're looking for her...

The blotch of blood dropped from my mouth, splashing onto the ground, drunk by the sands. The moonlight glistened across my form. Fires crinkled in the silence. Flesh stretched and snapped from inside my claw.

Thinking they stand a chance against him...

A word growled from my mouth. "Leave."

"It's the d-dragon!" the men called and shouted, some stunned, others shuddering. "A-Attack! For the princess!" My eyes narrowed as my fist clenched, two halves of something dropping from either side, squeezed at its middle. That halted some from charging forward. "Together now!"

I knew nothing of hesitation.

I blew forward emerald flames, creating a spread that formed a wall, scaring the horses into rising in place. I pulled back as the fire caught across the sea of blood. My flames carried back toward me, engulfing the mess, the feast that I had left.

The fire caught to my scales, a harmless display of setting myself on fire, burning the blood that had coated me. Once more I looked at the humans, a demon in the body of a dragon. My eyes burned like green suns as I looked at them a final time.

"Leave."

It did not matter if they would heed me or not. My wings flared as I felt set for the fight. Something caught me before I took flight, though. A man ahead of the rest, dressed in a cloak, still carrying a sword on his back.

He looked at me and I looked at him. Despite my frenzy, I blinked like a human, and he did the same in return. Despite the bloodshed, it didn't seem like he saw murder inside of me. It was as though he searched my soul for an answer to an unasked question.

The cloaked man watched me ascend, the flaps of my wings, the winds they cast fanning the flames. None dared brave the fire—and not out of fear. The man held up a fist, not speaking, which commanded the rest to stay.

I left for the sky, putting out the flames, feeling watched.

I circled around the mountain bathed in moonlight, the night, incredibly dark, save the rays of shining silver. It'd been my home some time ago—before As'gar flew and whipped me out. I wasn't sure if he had changed anything about it. If there were any traps or anything like that to beware of.

A dragon like that, envious and dastardly, doesn't put that much effort into a land such as this.

That seemed to be a constant theme. It'd felt like everyone was too weak to make it out in the world, for one reason or another, wound up on this island—or somewhere like here. Were the defeated meant to join together? No... it left most of them bitter.

The war of the Ancasters on the Laleens was proof of that.

There is a truth, one buried beneath your thoughts, that's better left undiscovered.

I blinked as the voice sounded familiar—similar to one I heard long ago. Before I had entered this world? As I entered it? Or shortly afterward? I tried to pinpoint the memory carrying the answer... but shook my head at those attempts. The princess was still in danger, and that dragon enjoyed inflicting misery.

I flared my wings into a wall and slowed my speed, flapping to catch myself, beginning a hover near the top of the mountain. Through the natural foliage that had grown over the decades, the shadowy entrance of the cave loomed. The glare of fire spread across the ground, the only source of light proving that anyone was inside.

He's there. He knew I'd come. But below here...

I glanced down to the spread of a kingdom below, occupying east of the island, a scale that sprawled beyond the mountain. It was the place of the Ancasters. They seemed to have grown steadily, becoming more powerful, a slew of boats docked at its private harbour.

I looked to the ships to see them stacked with cargo and cannons, fully decked for months at sea. It wasn't normal for so many of them to be docked. Had they decided to leave the island? But why marry their families, uniting each other, only to sail away and vacate the land sought and fought between them for decades?

You're losing focus.

My focus wasn't on their history, but rather a building connection between the kingdom below and the hostile dragon above. As'gar had never attacked them when he decided to take his slumber, recovering from the wounds inflicted at the Mainland, which worsened during his flight here.

If I had struck him then, when he first arrived, where he was weakest...

Take the lesson but begone with the memory. Such weights do nothing to aid you.

It seemed like As'gar only lived to someday piss me off. Did he leave the village alone out of weakness—or to hear the stories and gossip across the lands? I blinked as everything clicked. After the wedding, when I stole the princess... is that how he heard of it? The news would have swept across the people below. Did he hear of it, come to know of my sudden activity, and choose then to strike?

What is the point of all these questions? What good does it do you to know better of your foe? You must defeat him with whatever borrowed strength you now possess. Nothing beyond that will make any difference.

But that was how my mind worked.

And now you need to let it work in another way—listen to me well, for what I tell you will decide life and death. No matter what happens, death will stake its claim inside that cave. The only mutable factor is who it will claim.

Even though neverending nothingness scared me, the lack of any consciousness at all scared me—I was prepared to face it, to embrace it, to accept it if it meant the princess could escape and be okay.

Nobility isn't your novelty. What good will come from your death—if you do not take another with you? Even the most tremendous injury won't stop As'gar's spite—it will only slow it. He'll chase that woman down for the fun of it. You seem to care for her. In a world without you to serve as her protection, what are her chances at life?

I faltered at that critical moment. I had thought about sacrificing myself first... before ever killing the beast. Murder... wasn't in me. It wasn't my go-to. Killing an animal for food wasn't the same. It'd been no different to me than ordering a hamburger back home.

But to take another's life? Did I have that in me? Even though As'gar was an evil son-of-a-bitch that lived for the pleasure his misery inflicted onto others... did I have the right to take his life? I doubted I could reason with him; I doubted a monster like that could ever change.

This isn't a matter of morals, if you have or don't have the right. This is you doing what has to be done. If you do not kill him here, he will kill you, and your princess after that. He will hunt you, if you somehow win, and you'll be on guard for the rest of your life, and your protection of her will eventually falter.

I froze.

It takes one bite, one slash, for Astria to die.

I lifted my claw and stared into it, seeing the dots of blood across my green scales, that which had not been burned away. Blood was blood, no matter the source. What I would take away from As'gar was his consciousness. His life.

Cattle existed, whereas As'gar lived, and I would take that life from him.

As As'gar does to all of his prey.

My claw curled on its own, the sharpness of my talons, captured in a silver glint. I focused on my breathing, on readying myself for whatever came next—to be willing to do what came next. It wasn't that I feared the battle, anymore. Or whatever could become of me. But to kill another? Could I slash out his heart when the moment came?

Silence your mind and heed my words, for this is the last I will speak to you. The human in you has a weakness for words. It is not that words are weak, for, with your uniqueness with them, there are many in this world that you can be convinced of many great things. However, some monsters are beyond reason. Even though they speak within a span of logic, it is all but a ploy, a distraction for the gullible.

I continued to listen.

As'gar will use your weakness for words against you. He knows that you do not want to fight, that you do not want to kill, that you want to reason and joke your way out of conflict. He's prepared to settle on common lines of logic to bait you, trick you, and attack you when the moment seems most desired. You must turn against your nature to listen and reason. He is a beast, and there is no goodness worth saving within him.

I nodded with a great weight upon it.

Lose yourself to your own insanity. Develop a taste for his blood even if it makes you sick. Burn your consciousness within the lava of frenzy, and erupt from it melted but victorious. Rip out his heart and feast upon it before his very eyes. Listen not to his words, and embrace the beast within.

I bent forward, entering a dive, feeling the winds slash at my face. The moon loomed closer to me than it had any other night in my life. Bigger, rounder, brighter. Had it always been so large? So beautiful and powerful? Or did I only now notice its full extent, really took it in—because I may never see it again?

I silenced my mind and focused on the princess, diving toward the cave, without losing speed, not daring to give up my momentum—in every considered way. I flew into the darkness, but came with my own light.