...I lost control of it halfway. This took 1.5 hours approx, and I wasn't feeling right while writing it... Nevertheless I hope you like it. I'm bound to edit it later.
I'm sorry for being MIA so long. New school, new demands, and a coming examination whose score will decide what I do with my life. This is my...apology story? Not a very good apology at all.
Carabella
The beautiful face of the dragon. This sword is mine. Its encrusted hilt, the dust trapped between the gemstones, the crevasses across the blade that could be wider than canyons beneath the sky—they are almost like the lines across my palm; perhaps too they are a map to a far and forgotten glory.
You have no inkling as to how hard I have fought for this sword—how much I gave, merely to hold it. The blood of the dragons of Leafre still sprays its stains darkly across the pages of my mind, the claws that might have ripped me to pieces, tossed me across stalagmite teeth. Who could forget, the breaking of thunder ten miles overhead, the wyverns circling in a spiral downwards from where the clouds collided? Who could forget, the thick musk of blood as it dripped from the ceiling, adorning the deadly dance—blood, gushing from my side and from my palms as I fought the monsters down with a sword so much smaller than the one I desired? Who can forget the pierce of blade through scaly hide and the hisses, the spilling of black blood, the way the crimson and black made a rusty painting in its trails across the floor?
A pilgrimage for a sword. I went on a journey with no food but desire, no drink but hope—for an object. A single sword, imprisoned in crystals and gold, entombed deep in a mountain of stone, guarded by a fearsome three-headed dragon who loved its own treasure too much. A material treasure, dressed in greed and lust and sorrow.
I guess I was no different from the hundreds of others who tried, crossing those mountains and endless plains for that something twinkling in the distance. But then it was not for the sword, for the sparkle of rubies and jades. It was perhaps more honourable—or no more honourable: for the glory, the fame, the public eye—when I wielded that sword for the city and heard them roar.
It is here now. I hold it in my hands—and weighing it with my palms, I wonder if these bloodstains have grown a little darker, these jewel-eyes a little dimmer.
I tossed my old sword aside for this one, so much grander. Then, with it, there came danger, fear, paranoia. Everyone was in search of this very sword. Many would have killed to take it from me. I became a diva on the pedestal, the diamond cameras upon me; I became an enemy. I sheathed it, and guarded it with my life, and ran.
You have no inkling as to how hard I have fought for this sword. Who could forget, the assassins within shadows of restless nights, restful nights, the shifting branches outside that I thought were covetous criminals in search of this weapon of mine? Who could forget those jealous little imps, wingless wyverns that waited to ensnare me when I was looking away, to wring me around the neck so I would breathe no more, so the life of the great Victor, who won the sword, would gutter and vanish at last?
Take my sword. It is yours now.
I became just as jealous for the sword as everyone else was, as if knowing I had it was not enough. I needed to see it, remember it, so I not only held it in my hands, but in my heart. I studied its lines, the pattern of its jewels, perhaps the glimmer of Horned Tail's shadow across the spotless blade—I drank in the distant memory of the blood that runs through the tale of its winning. In singing twilights when the sun cast long indigo shadows, I sighed and held it to the light—but there was almost no light, for I hid it deep in my cavernous inner chamber, amidst a field of glass shards—afraid to bring the weapon beyond its confines, afraid for it to be seen.
This chamber is almost as tall as a canyon, almost as deep, almost as dark. It became my treasure. I became a dragon.
Take this sword from me—you, my murderer.
It seems vaguely strange, now, that I am so freely giving up the sword that I guarded madly for a decade of my life. It seems almost wrong, that I would not fight to hold it, just a little longer.
These years of blood are scattering now from me, little by little. This sword has not seen sunlight for years, nor been swung in battle for that same length of time.
You fought well; you fought better. I snatched about for a weapon in your wake, only to find this precious sword—and mortally afraid to mar its beauty by staining it, I resorted instead to my hands. You took me down with your own little weapon, landing deep blows however swiftly I flitted about, slowed and hindered by the weight of the golden sword on my belt.
How foolish of me! I thought that this sword would grant me prowess.
Your blade, which lies embedded now in my heart, draining my thoughts away, is testament to your deserving. Even now, as I recall the blood spilt by Horned Tail's claws as I crawled towards the light amongst the rocks of a faraway cave, the wyvern wings that came to thunder uselessly upon me, I feel my grip upon it all loosening—the glory, the fame, the public eye. The danger, the fear, the paranoia.
The sword falls out of my hands, across the rocks, between the stalactites.
I killed so I could take it as my own. Thus you kill so you may do the same. You leave me in my own blood, the way I left Horned Tail in his, pooling at the heart of this endless room.
Take my sword. It is yours now. With it, take everything that it has engendered, the past it carries, the death I knew it would summon.
A slender maiden stands at the heart of the cavern, dressed in gold and a mist of mistakes, illusions, lies. The beautiful face of the dragon. She is cruel; she scorns the people with those set eyes of hers.
This sword, this simple object—smithed by the kentauri for Horned Tail, a metre long, five kilograms heavy—it speaks of a thousand years past and a thousand years to come. It sings of glory, conquest, bloodshed, bloodlust, violence, rage, greed, fear, victory. It confers the same. How many millions of drops of blood have been shed for this lethal beauty, the gold and gemstones that a thousand eyes seek? Blood pools at the bottom of the cave. The sword's murders grow.
And yet, it has never battled. Always it has lain, hidden from the sun, hidden from eyes, protected like something fragile, a snowdrop waiting to die. It has never tasted blood. The red stains on its blade are but desirous reflections of the flames above.
You snatch the weapon from my weakening grip. The cycle starts again. Do you feel the dying wyverns screaming, distantly, in the patterns of its hilt? Do you feel the blood, dripping from the ceiling, and the chandelier that was never lit?
And do you know her name? Her name is Dragon Carabella: the sword that killed a thousand, without killing anyone at all.