A/N: Shade here.

Recently, I've been studying Shakespeare's sonnets for the rhetoric course I am currently taking in school. While at times analyzing these can be a little tiring, once you fully understand them, you get to appreciate their art. Shakespeare is, indeed, a masterful poet, and his sonnets have something very sexy about them.

So, as a way to study, and to show my appreciation for these 400+ year old writings, I've decided to start Spyro-fying these. Just so you know, the writing style I'm working with here is a bit experimental; it's not what I normally do when I write, but I like the way it sounds. Basically what I do is translate the poem to modern English, and then write a background story for why Cynder would write it. I don't really take the time to stay completely true to the line-by-line structure of the originals, but I do keep the general form of it -you'll find the original poem below the story.

Tell me what you think about the style. Your feedback is appreciated tenfold. I'll be posting more in the near future, with perhaps 2 or 3 sonnets per chapter.

Anyway, enjoy.

Sonnet I.

Cynder did not know she had a poet in her; not until a deep desire to express her truest thoughts and emotions surged. The necessity came to her like a raging fire when one Ice Season day, early in the morning, she woke and saw the purple dragon standing outside on the balcony, under the eastern sunlight. The dragon stretched his form: His figure spread like a flowered wall vine, showing its features like all things beautiful do, while the birds sung their morning prayers to the dragon god of all things fair. The roses in the room blessed Spyro's ever lasting charm with their aroma, sweet and delicate, and their blush.

The image was picturesque, and dragoness could not help but to keep her eyes fixed on the dragon, mesmerized by what she considered his perfect grace.

...

But the moment only lasted for a minute or two, and soon the dragon marched back into the room. Closing her eyes, the dragoness pretended to be asleep, only to hear the dragon head for the door. Once he stepped out, Cynder felt a bitter pain of solitude like she never had before. Suddenly, she felt like the world was devoid of all its beauty, and, little by little, all crumbled until she was the only thing left.

Opening her eyes, a thought crept into her mind, odd in its nature. As she got up on her haunches, this seed of a thought grew roots and a whispering mouth that spoke strange but urgent words.

'Spyro must procreate,' it said. 'Spyro has to give fruit, or else his beauty will die.'

…

Once she was at her writing table, she knew what she had to do. Putting the feathered end of the quill to her lips, she thought of an adequate pen name; a character that could embody the urge she had to whisper beautiful desires to the dragon she loved ever so deeply. Putting her quill to the blank paper before her, she wrote the first name that came to mind.

Dabégo

At first, she loved the name, but with the passing of every second, it aged in her mind, and grew dull. Dabégo, name of the goddess of love in Mole-ish lore, was all but too cliché. It sounded redundant... imperfect.

Dabégo

...

She took a long break on the balcony, looking down towards the city of Warfang. The metropolis was a mixed mesh of the grotesque and alluring: The ugly fought the perfect on every building -built with the most beautiful design, but stained with grime, every plaza -decorated like gardens worthy of kings, but soiled by the trash on its walkways-, and even every creature -smiling, yet tattered on the inside-. Yet Cynder knew there was true beauty, and it was Spyro.

Soon she was at her table again, and she thought of another name.

Pearl

After adding the last letter, she looked at her scribbles, but immediately despised them. Pearl was fake, like plastic or a cheap brothel. It was not worthy.

Pearl

An hour later a name worthy finally came while she was playing with the letters of her name.

C

C

Y

N

D

E

R

...

Yrecydn

Yes… Yrecydn, meaning 'eternal' in old dragonspeak, was perfect… She simply felt it was…

She could finally write.

…

And so she wrote for what seemed hours unending. Her quill, paper, paws, and face were stained with the black ink of her work as she wrote, scratched off, and rewrote her words over and over again. Once she finished, the sun had climbed far into the sky, and she had missed much of the day. But she was done: her first sonnet was ready.

And, like the strange seed growing in her mind, it said:

Offspring we wish from that which is fair,
To protect beauty from death's grip;
While one gets closer to Fathem's dark lair.
One's decedents protect beauty from being stripped.

But you, drawn to your worldly duties
Help men with your love, but leave bare
The realm of its greatest beauty,
Oh male, cruel but ever fair.

You are world's fresh ornament,
And call, with you grace, the spring;
But your flower bud's precious content,
You keep within in your own being.

Have mercy on the world, or your gluttony
Will rid the world of its truest beauty.

Dabégo: Pronounched [dah-baí-go]

Yrecydn: Pronounced [ee-ré-sid]

Fathem: God of death in dragon lore.

The Original Sonnet:

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

(This sonnet is made by Shakespeare, and I obviously take no credit AT ALL for making it)