A rough, tangled voice made of dust and age crawls in through the woodwork, nipping away with a gut wrenching laugh. "It's easy, child, just find the throat and tear it open – easy as wrenching the head off a chicken."
Faint, scrabbled breaths, bright, stormy grey blues weeping into golden dust as the ungainly mop of blackened hair obscures a gargling voice down on the cold stone floor, struggling to rise. It is not unlike cutting the throat of a goat, something he has done in sport or jest before, the antics of a much younger child innocently learning the way of silencing the already dead – you just grip horns instead of hair, digging your heels in against the inevitable kickback and let the edge slide across an upturned, white throat, shimmering jewels staining a blackened waistcoat while the inverted eyes cross and bulge -
Wait. Goats, not...
A strangled noise and the young man empties the contents of his stomach for yet the second time in the past five minutes, bitter tears stinging his eyes. He doesn't remember quite why he is crying, just that it hurts to now stare at ragdolls on the floor, their lopsided mouths gleaming in red smiles.
Crawling to his feet, he watches the red seep into the silvery green dragon, obscuring it like it does his still young hands.
A cracking, snapping noise makes him whirl his head, and out the sword comes again.
I will not -
His father is at the other end, smiling, hands making gunshots that make his head ache and cause his chest to pound with life irregularly. "You have saved us, Vayne Carudas Solidor."
Uneven feet seek to sink into the face of the earth – approval. A job well done as the weight of the room falls back under the suffocatingly well placed words.
His bloodied fingers won't stop shaking as he brushes the crimson lines of sticky locks from his face. A hoarse, childish voice speaks from the hole in his face. "Such treason begets death." A pause as he licks red lights from the corners of his mouth. "Emperor Gramis."
An arm flaps out, draped in rich, golden yellows layered upon translucent greens and purples, shimmering and glimmering in the afternoon sun, rustling words spoken and reflecting in beady eyes. The young man is drawn into his father's nest. "My name is father, my son, come – let us to the table to have our fill until you call me such."
"As you wish, m'lord."
He dreams of brothers squealing like animals as they are stuck and roasted over a blazing, mist fire, bare flesh curdling to ugly purple and green and smelling like the cook's latest accomplishment while a rustling bird cries out his name, screaming like a peahen in the darkness where he cannot see.
Slithering, waiting, the ring of red diamonds around his neck weigh him down.
"You must save us."
"You must."
"Get up."
Everyone needs you.
But I hate you for needing me – you are weak!
Yes. You are.
The smell of flesh burning is his own and he smiles as he slithers away from the warbling screams of the dying bird calling out to be saved, shedding its scales and feathers before it collapses to ash.
Where is your lover now, fowl?