A/N:
So, I had mentioned that each chapter will contain a little Easter egg pop culture reference. In Ch. 1, when the black dragon was spying on the village, I narrated my rendition of how I imagined a dragon would perceive a Viking wedding. So… the dragons are wedding crashers. "You may now kiss the- Odin's beard! Nevermind! Kill the dragons!" Well, kissing wasn't really a thing in that culture, I think.
I also included a quote from the Wedding Crashers movie, "A friend in need is a pest."
True to form, this chapter also has some Easter eggs (four, including the title). At least one should be more readily recognizable.
Life… Loathe it Or Ignore it, You Can't Like it
Ugh! What… happened? It's so dark, save for a tiny sliver of light that's painfully stabbing at my eyes. The stars are no longer swimming around on the ground. In fact, they're gone. It's like all those land-striders surrounding me suddenly transformed into… into…
Where am I, anyway?
I crack my eyelids open a little more. Darkness and stone walls all around. It's actually kinda soothing. Headache aside, I guess that's an improvement, right?
Then again, maybe not. I mean, last night, there were some bits that are kinda fuzzy in my head, but I sorta liked having those little, hairy land-striders around. We were playing this fun game where I would kill them and they would die. Oh the fun we had. Good times.
And then, I would… take them back to…
The queen!
Oh no! She needs me!
I snap my eyes open, bringing all the nothingness around me into sharp focus.
Where is she? She's gone! I need her! I cannot hear her! Ever since I cracked my egg, I could always sense her presence in my mind. Now, though, I can't… sense… hear… she's just… Where is she?!
I scrabble about in the darkness, frantically searching for a way out. There's nothing here. Nothing! Just stone walls everywhere. Feeling around with the tips of my wings, it soon becomes horrifyingly clear that there is no way out of this cave.
How did I get here? Why am I here? Wait, that's sunlight peeking through the crack in the wall to burn out my dilated pupils… I was sleeping? How could I allow myself to sleep when there is so much work to be done? The queen is hungry! I have never failed to bring her tribute in any past raid and I don't plan to start now. She's always pleased with the tribute I bring back to her and praises my strength and boldness.
Now, though, she's just… gone! How can this be?
Wait, now that I've calmed my whirling thoughts, I can sense the passive emotional hum of four, maybe five other dragons nearby. They're close. I'm not alone! Together, we can break out of this tiny cave!
Yes!
There's a mink dragon I don't recognize, but I can recognize a female boulder dragon who disappeared quite some time ago. The leaves have grown and fallen a few times since then, but I would recognize the signature of her mental hum anywhere.
Once, she gave me some fish for tribute after a particularly terrible raid when I came back to the nest empty-taloned. The queen knew I took nothing from the land-striders, but she still didn't eat me.
The queen is so merciful and gracious!
I can also recognize that pest of a Deadly Adder who tried to steal my tribute before she was… captured… by the land-striders…
But if she's here… and I'm here… that would mean… no… this is not happening. I refuse to believe it!
Oh no! Nononononononooooo!
NO! NO! NO!
I am not as weak and stupid as her. I cannot be conquered like a lesser dragon. I am strong! I am hunter! I am killer! I bring our beloved queen the most delightful morsels.
I don't belong here. I shouldn't be here. I cannot be trapped here like this!
Think! Think! Don't panic. I've been in worse situations before. I just need to think. Oh, why can't the walls just be made of wood or land-striders instead of stone? I can't burn my way out. Maybe...
Ah! Maybe this hunter can stoop down a little and… help these other dragons escape? After all, beggars can't be choosers. Since I can't get out here by myself at the moment, I might as well try.
{Fellow dragons, hear me. We need to escape this tiny cave. I was killing land-striders as tribute for the queen, but they escaped. Help me break out so I can get back to her.}
For the longest time, nothing but awkward silence. I can even sense that the other dragons are trying to suppress their passive hum as though hiding from me. I realize I can be quite intimidating without even trying, but something is off.
What is wrong with them?
{I know you're there. You can stop pretending you don't exist. Stupid dragons.}
…
Hmm, still nothing. Alright, maybe a more direct approach.
{Dragons, we must work together to escape from these miserable land-striders and return to our queen. She needs us! If you do not cooperate with me and help me escape, then she will surely eat you and you will deserve it.}
That should scare them straight. Nothing gets results like a death threat!
Finally, a chirp from the Adder. It sounds distant to my ears, but the strength of the projected thoughts I receive from her tell me she's close, even if we're separated by stone. Ire pours out of her, but tinged with sorrow and a most unwanted sympathy.
{You were not so eager to accept my help before. However, the sun has risen twice since then. I see you have endured much suffering and the worst is yet to come, so I will put that beneath me.}
My jaw smacks against the ground. Two days?! I suppose that would explain why my injuries are mostly healed over, but how… why… when… Well, it doesn't matter. I need to free myself from this tiny cave.
My queen needs me!
{Adder, we must escape. Can you get to me? Perhaps, together, we can break out of this cave. I'll even give you one of my prey to claim as your own tribute if you help me. Boulder dragon, do what you were hatched to do and chew your way out. We both know you can!}
I would go on, but I can sense hesitation and a strong disapproval – not just from her, but from all the other dragons present.
What is the meaning of this?
Did the land-striders change them, somehow? Break their minds? Find some way to control them? Well it won't work on me; I can say that for sure! I will not be so easily subdued as these lesser dragons. I will kill the land-striders or die trying before they can do anything else to me!
Come and get me, little land-striders. You failed to kill me in our last encounter and I won't be so gentle this time.
Adder's projected thoughts cut through my own.
{You do not want to escape, Nightmarish Monster. Life is better, here. One may even say you have never lived until today. To escape from here is to lose your mind to the queen. To stay is to be free from her.}
Excuse me? I'm absolutely, positively, without any room for a shadow of a doubt, certain of the exact opposite. I need to get back to my queen now!
But… where is the queen? I cannot hear her passive hum. I cannot feel her tug on my mind, directing me to the safety of her haven. It's like there's suddenly a void in my mind that she has always filled.
She's just… gone!
Why do I feel relief? Why do I feel lighter for this? What is wrong with me?! The queen loves us! She protects us! She asks for nothing more than tribute from the various land-strider inhabited islands every couple days. She lets us share our memories with her of our most exciting fights with the land-striders.
She… she…
{She used us.}
What?! No! Stupid Adder. Idiot! That cannot be. She would never do that. She loves us! This must be some sort of land-strider trickery. They broke her mind.
Yes! That's it! I am not some weak, simple-minded fool. To doubt that the queen is so benevolent and noble… Ha!
I let out an amused warble. {Alright, you gave me a scare for a moment, Adder. Great. You can take comfort in knowing that before the queen asks me to kill you and feed you to her. It looks like you will be my tribute to her after all.}
Once again, the Adder's projected thoughts cut through my pondering.
{You feel it, don't you? It's like a fog that was trapped inside your mind, hindering your thoughts, has lifted. It's as if you just flew above a great, dark cloud to see the sun for the first time. It is hard to accept, I know, but we were nothing more than disposable entertainment to her. She used us as simple fetchers of food. She made us fight the land-striders for the entertainment of seeing us struggle and suffer and die. We could have flown anywhere and taken food from the ocean or any forest, but she sent us on raids to fetch her food from land-strider nests because she enjoyed the sport of it all. She takes pleasure in watching us suffer.}
No! No! Simpleton! Weak-minded lizard! That cannot be! I'll prove it to myself!
{You don't believe me, Nightmarish Monster, and I cannot blame you. Why should you trust me? Maybe I am spewing blasphemous lies. The answer lies inside your own mind, though. Think back. Think deep. It's not like you're going anywhere anytime soon.}
As tempting as it is to do the exact opposite just to spite her, this situation really is gnawing at my sanity. I close my eyes and dig deep into my memories. Like all dragons, I can recall every single moment I've experienced ever since the day I cracked my egg. Every sight, every sound, every impression I have picked up from another dragon, every thought that has ever crossed my mind.
I tear through all my memories, my perfectly ingrained past, like a pack of desperate, ravenous mink dragons shredding through a pile of fish. My first day alive, blind and nearly deaf as my eyes and ear canals were still forming. My first flight. The first fight I lost, the first I won. My first land-strider kill. My tributes to the queen. The fire, the blood, the death, the fight for survival and the tireless flying back and forth to bring tribute to the queen.
The more I remember, the more it hurts. Why does it hurt?!
My whole life was wrapped around serving and pleasing the queen who never cared for us. No, not just that. She hated us! We were nothing but fodder to her - vessels of food. She would even make us fight each other for no actual reason than her own entertainment and then eat the loser who dies and, if the winner is too injured to fly, him as well. Sure, we dragons normally put on territorial displays and fight for mates, nesting grounds, and food, but we usually just assert our dominance. To fight to the death for someone else's entertainment is nothing short of degrading!
And the dragons that were captured by the land striders would never respond to us. We would call out with our projections, but receive nothing in return, even though we could tell from their hum that they were alive. The queen never wanted us to hear them. She never wanted us to recognize that there could be any existence outside the clutches of her… mind snare. There were so many things I saw and heard and felt, but never noticed because she told me to forget… to become blind to that which she did not want me to see. She didn't want me to recognize or question or think for myself.
For my whole life, she was always controlling me so thoroughly I didn't even know I was being controlled! I was so helpless. Just a mindless thrall until… I just want to crawl back into the egg that hatched me!
Then, there were the dragons she commanded me to chase down, kill, and haul back to feed her. It always happens whenever a dragon grows too old for her to… control…
Oh… oh no. Tickle me scaleless, this cannot be! No dragon has seen the leaves grow and fall from the trees more than thirty times. Now that I look back on it, it's so obvious. How did I not see it before?
How did I not see?!
She… I… she just… No! I… it can't be… No no no! It's like a dragon's head mounted on a stick - I don't want to stare, but I can't look away. Why am I still thinking? Why am I still questioning and analyzing? It hurts so much!
Why can't I stop?!
Now that my mind is free to wander, I can't help but wonder how old a dragon can grow before dying of some more natural cause. I'll never know because, when a dragon reaches a certain age, the queen makes him feed himself to her. It is a well-known fact that older dragons start to become more brazen and less loyal to the queen; the grip she can exert on our minds must weaken as we age. She would eat them before they cross a certain threshold by commanding them to simply fly right into her massive, awaiting maw. In the rare event when they would not comply, dragons like me would be there as the queen's loyal, unthinking thralls to kill the old ones.
I was among those who killed any rebellious old ones and fed them to the queen. Me! My own fellow dragons! I even chased down and killed the very Nightmarish Monster that spawned my own egg. The queen made me… kill…
We're nothing to the queen. Nothing! We crack our eggs, grow up, raid, feed her, spawn some eggs, and repeat until she just eats us!
All my life… this was my whole life!
A farce!
A lie!
An exercise in futility and shame! To whimper and cower before her in the endless pit of depravity!
No! This cannot be! I refuse to believe it. I don't want to believe it. The pain is too great! I can't take it!
Why does it hurt so much?!
I must escape. Yes! That will fix things! I need to get out of here and clear my mind. It can't be healthy to be thinking so freely like this. Remembering is agony. Questioning so much is so discomforting. I… I can't…
What am I supposed to do with this?!
Alright alright. I just need to stop thinking. Yes! That's it! Thinking is remembering. Thinking hurts. Thinking is bad. What would a dragon do if he was not thinking? No! Don't think about it! Just… do it.
I launch myself at the stone wall. My head smacks hard against it and I stumble back, dazed.
OW!
Yes! I think I'm making progress! No, there I go, thinking again. Don't think about it - don't think about not thinking - just do it!
I ram the wall again. It remains immobile, unlike my head.
This is good. Yes, very good. I just need to free myself. I can't be here anymore in this tiny cave, with dragons who are content with their captivity and my own thoughts and memories that hurt so much. I can tell the other dragons are trying to talk to me. I can sense their projections, but I don't even care anymore. Why won't they just shut up?
I must escape now! Nothing else matters!
I squeeze some fuel out of the pores all around my body and light myself ablaze. Fire flares out from my hide, illuminating the cave walls. They're all so smooth and flat. It's almost… unnatural. I frantically look about for a way out. Nothing! I can go nowhere!
I ram the wall again and suddenly notice the smell and taste of my own blood through the broken scales and hide.
I don't care! I ram the wall again and again. I want to get out! I need to get out! I cannot be in here anymore with all this hatred and regret and shame and loss!
I ram the wall as hard as I can. Good, I felt that one even in my tail! Next time, I'll hit it even harder. Yes, that will work. If I can just figure out which way is up so I can… stand up… again…
It's about now that I realize the liability of starting a massive fire inside the tight confines of this small cave. The air has become thick with smoke. I can't breathe.
Good! Breathing is overrated, anyway. Who even needs air? It certainly isn't removing my humiliating past!
I just need everything to… stop.
It's just too much too bear. Too much! All my life has been nothing! I have been nothing! Every accomplishment, every fight, every struggle and triumph… all for the queen. All for nothing! There is nothing! I have nothing! I am nothing!
Why does it hurt so much?!
Because I'm thinking. Bad dragon! Thinking is bad!
By now, blood is dribbling down my snout from impacting the cave walls and splashing into a puddle on the ground. I don't care! I slam into the walls again and again. Either the stone will break or my body will!
Without any air left to breathe, I collapse to the ground, my strength completely expended. The red swimming in my vision gives way to a sea of black. My lungs and throat burn from so much smoke and my whole torso is heaving in futile desperation for any breathable air.
This is good. Yes, I think it is enough. No! Don't think about how good it is, just know that it is good. No thinking, no feeling, no pondering and digging into the past. The past is evil. It is lined with teeth that will eat me if I go there.
Like the queen's maw that eats dragons for food.
Argh! Stop thinking!
Stupid land-striders. Stupid queen. Stupid me for allowing myself to simply be dominated by her mind like that. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
At least the pain will end. Goodbye, cruel world. It's been fun. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Just as I'm ready to let go of this miserable life, a piece of the cave wall directly in front of my snout swings out. It's hardly large enough to squeeze my maw through, but I don't even budge. A piece of the ceiling disappears and light filters in as smoke pours out.
A gust of wind is drawn from the hole in front of my snout, bringing in fresh air. I never gave my body permission to inhale the fresh air, but it does anyway.
Just great! If the queen isn't controlling me, my instincts are.
Outside my cave, through this little opening, I can tell there are some land-striders. I can smell them and sense their passive hum. How they removed a part of the cave wall is a mystery to me, but they… they… saved me. The land-striders actually saved my life when my smoke was about to kill me.
Stupid, stupid land-striders! Insipid animals! I was doing just fine until you came barging in and forced me to live this miserable life a little longer!
As if to add insult to injury, some large, delicious-smelling fish fly through the hole to land with a tantalizing plop just in front of my snout.
Stupid, ignorant land-striders! You don't even know what I'm going through. You have no clue what it's like!
I collapse to the ground and let out a long-winded groan. I can hear Adder trilling and warbling a soothing song. She's actually sympathetic and is trying to comfort me, even to the end of projecting some memories of her first day after her capture, when I was still unconscious. She went through the same sort of depression. They all did. It seems every dragon that is freed from the queen's mind snare arrives at the same realization.
However, the higher you are, the farther you fall. I have no doubt it wasn't as bad for them as it is for me. I think it's because I'm the best of all the dragons and I know it that this realization hit me so hard.
I should be glad to be free from her mind snare, but to think that, for my entire past, I was just a simple, groveling, pathetic worm. This is me we're talking about!
Every dragon in the queen's nest cannot think for himself. We're all mindless thralls to feed her and fight and die for her own entertainment. So it has been and so it will always be. Forever without end. Or, at least, until the queen dies of old age, because if dragons can't stop her, then what other creature in this world can?
No. She's not my queen. She is no longer my master. She is scum! She is filth! She is a demon! Yes, a demonic queen! She needs to die a horribly painful and humiliating death. Yes! That is what I will do! I now have something to live for!
Hmmm…
Doing so would seem to be slightly impossible at the moment in this tiny cave, though.
Well, nothing else to do, so I stick out my tongue to brush it against the fish and flick it into my mouth. It's actually not that bad. A few days old, but that doesn't make the flavor much less desirable.
I lift up my head and look at the stone that separates me and Adder.
{Since you've been awake for the past couple days, Adder, what options do we have? I would gladly kill the queen or die trying, but we're trapped here.}
The adder croons in response. {If you were not trapped in this cave of stone and metal, you would be trapped in the queen's mind snare again. It is ironic that we have the freedom to fight her only within these confines. I have learned what all dragons end up doing when they are captured and freed from the demonic queen's mind snare and you will see for yourself, soon. By the way, I hope you don't mind if this plan involves you dying to a land-strider.}
Wait, what? Ha! She must be joking. Me, die to a land-strider? How could that even happen? It took a solid twenty of them to take me down and more than a few died or were injured in the process. Then again, I had simply accepted my pending death only a moment ago when they saved me.
I still haven't forgiven them for that.
Still, though, I am far too powerful to be subdued by a single land-strider. I'm about to really lay into that insolent sack of scales when an overbearingly cheerful dragon cuts in.
{Welcome to a freedom you have never known!}
{I was going to say that.}
{Well, you didn't so I did.}
{I was waiting for the right moment!}
{You're always waiting for the right moment. That's why I'm the one who is always starting our fires. I'm a dragon of action, unlike you.}
{Don't make me bite you!}
Great. Just great. A two-headed dragon. Goodbye, sanity. Hello, madness. Please kill me now!
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CLANG!
I snap my eyes open and look around. Darkness greets me. I guess I drifted off to sleep and it must be night again as I can hardly see any light coming through the narrow, vertical slit in the wall of this little cave.
I hear a loud, rumbling, groaning sound of something large grinding along, then a loud clunk and all is silent. Well, not all sounds have ceased. I can still hear the whistling of the wind and pitter-patter-plop-plop of rain slapping the stone outside in a heavy downpour.
In the dim light filtering into my cave, my jaw drops to the ground at an impossible sight. The stone wall in front of me is… alive. It's moving, pulsating, breathing like a living creature in tempo with the gusts of wind. I experimentally reach a wingtip forward and press against the wall and it moves a little, just as if it's as light as… well, suffice to say it's moving freely in much the same way that boulders don't.
{This is the part where you leave your little cave. Don't let the wall swing shut on your tail on your way out.}
I haven't heard that dragon speak, yet, but I have a fairly solid suspicion who it is. All the other dragons are currently sleeping. I can tell because I'm projecting something like a gentle tap on the snout with my thoughts, but eliciting no response. This one, though, has been quiet until now.
{You are the little mink dragon?}
It is a common enough imagery used to refer to one of those little ones… the terrors that are terrible. It must be a male, judging by the nuances of his passive hum.
{Yes, I am a scaly, winged mink.} There was a certain air of satire and humor in his projected thoughts. {My name is Nose. You can leave your cave, by the way. The land-striders are letting you out.}
Wait, he has a name?
It doesn't matter. This stone wall is quite intriguing. I cautiously push a wingtip against it and it moves out. Actually, it's two stone walls that swing out like… like… my wings when I fly, but these stones are moving sideways instead of up and down.
As I push through the opening, a crack of lightning fills the sky with white light, revealing just how free I am not.
Outside of my cave, I'm greeted by an even larger cave. Well, I suppose it's not really a cave, but an unnaturally round depression in the ground. It, too, has unnaturally smooth walls, but these are completely littered with fire scars from what must have been dragons fighting. Up above, A large spider web that smells of iron is sprawled out to prevent me from flying out of here.
The web looks sturdy, but I know from having played around with land-striders' shiny claws that my fire could weaken it. Maybe, I can break out. Maybe, if I were to escape from here, but stay near the land-striders, I would still be safe. Maybe, it would be somehow possible to escape from here without losing my mind again to demonic queen.
Maybe…
No. To escape from here is to go back to her. Earlier today, before I nodded off, the other dragons explained it all. It's only a theory, really.
The land-striders exhibit an amusing ability to create thoughts. They can see that which has never passed before their eyes and hear sounds that have never reached their ears. They can think thoughts they never learned and create from nothing within their own minds. It is the only explanation of how they can conceive the artifacts they make that allow creatures so small and frail and flammable to survive even a single dragon raid.
That, combined with how vastly inferior their intelligence is compared to us dragons and how incapable they are of projecting clearly defined thoughts or even hearing our projected thoughts, could explain why I am no longer under the demonic queen's control. Often enough, we can glean at least a sense of what land-striders are saying, but that only exhibits the disorder within. All their projections are so disorganized, disjointed… chaotic.
Simply being near these little critters and their messy thought projections is what's preventing the queen from claiming our minds again. What other explanation is there, after all? We can rule out the idea that the queen simply stopped controlling us because it's not like she can single us out. That's just not how projections work. Sure, just like the black dragon, she can channel her projections into narrow, far-reaching bands, but anyone within range would hear her. The land-striders must be interfering with her projections in some way.
That could also explain why the queen never allowed us to stay near land-striders for too long. She would always call us back after a certain duration into a raid no matter how much or little food we had collected by then. She did that so she wouldn't lose her grasp on our minds. If she lost her dragons, then she would lose her source of easy food and entertainment.
Foul demon! Beneath my scorn!
Another flash of lightning draws my attention to two land-striders standing above me, on a ledge, out of reach behind the iron web and safe from my fire with all this water pouring down on me. One is large and ungainly and I recognized its - no, I think it must be a he from the timbre of his emotional hum - his wooden leg with my new tooth marks in it. The other is that little fish bone I almost roasted at the very start of the raid.
Huh. Small world.
The big one has distrustful eyes on me, but there's something very attention-grabbing about the little one. I slowly rise up and wrap the talons of my wings and legs around the thick strands of the iron web above and cautiously crawl towards them, upside down, cutting an angle past them instead of straight towards them so as to avoid spooking them.
The larger land-strider extends a protective front leg in front of the smaller one, using some sort of curved, dull iron claw to hold him back. During the raid, he had a much different shiny claw, but this one seems to be suited more for pulling things in close to him in a non-lethal manner instead of slicing through scales and hide.
Are their claws interchangeable? Can they shed them and grow them back at will?
The little one doesn't have any sort of claws at the ends of his talons. Maybe they haven't grown, yet? He must be a hatchling for how small he is and… and… his eyes…
I can't recall any other land-strider or even dragon ever staring at me like this. They always look at my body, my fangs and wings and claws, judging how to fight me. This Fishbone, though, he's looking right into my eyes… not to see if I will strike from the left or the right… he's looking into me, through me. Wonder and awe waft off of him, not the usual hatred and derision. The passive hum I can pick up, the way he's reaching with his front paw… it's as if he's not even afraid of me.
He's not speaking with his lips, but everything about him is saying one thing very clearly. {What are you, really? Could it be that you are not what I was raised to believe you should be? I see the same dragon everyone else sees, but you're different. How? Why?}
It's as if both of us are trying to come to terms with what the other is. Now that land-striders aren't tribute to the queen, what are they? Are they really as cruel as I have been led to believe? Their thoughts are quiet and scattered, but this little one has a certain boldness and sincere, confident insistence that does not fit his appearance.
This Fishbone is an odd one for sure. I have a feeling that his lack of fear is because he knows better than to feel threatened by a dragon that just had his soul smashed, burned, and drowned in a sea of sorrow. Then again, land-striders aren't the brightest. Maybe he's just too dense to recognizing mortal danger when he sees it?
Could he, too, have a queen that tells him what to think and what not to think? Could he be coming to terms with the understanding which comes from shaking free from his own mind snare?
It's almost as if he's the first land-strider ever to see a dragon as something other than a mindless killer.
A rude shove from the large, stick-legged one sends the Fishbone stumbling backward and the moment is past.
Oh well. I guess that's that.
This heavy rain falling on my underside is nice, though. I extend one wing out while using the other to cling to the iron web to slowly lower myself down. I might as well take advantage of this rain, so I wriggle around on the flat, stone ground, then roll over again to wash off any blood or other grime that had dried onto my scales.
Much better! Right, before this whole land-strider staring contest, I was... Ah! The mink dragon.
{So, little mink dragon, you have a name, then? You must think yourself to be very important.}
A high-pitched snort drifts out from one of the little caves.
{I suppose we have imitated the land-striders in some ways. Spending so much time around them can do that to even a dragon. It sounds haughty to have a name, I know. Only the queen gets some sort of name or title. However, land-striders give a name to everything. Every land-strider, every island, every star in the sky. They even name their shiny claws. So, we gave each other names. The other dragons call me Nose because I have a fascination with biting down on those large, squishy, chewy things whenever it's my turn to train the land-striders.}
Great. More answers that only lead to more questions.
I walk over to where I can smell the mink dragon - excuse me, Nose - and gently tap on the stone wall of his cave with my snout.
OUCH! Still sensitive!
The land-striders could be named Nose as well for how much of a disturbing fascination they have for hitting my snout with their stones on a stick. However, that was nothing compared to the abuse I inflicted upon myself not too long ago by ramming my head into the stone wall repeatedly. To suddenly realize that, for my entire past, I was nothing more than a groveling worm to that demonic queen, was a roaring inferno of agony I have never felt before. Now, though, it has cooled off to a somber depression of ash.
{Why am I here, Nose?}
{I suppose the answer to that question starts with you cracking the egg that spawned you. Then again, if you are referring to this specific location, I think you were part of that last raid and were captured by the land-striders.}
{I am officially threatening to eat you!}
From the other side of the stone wall, I hear a tittering warble.
{Look around and I think you will find your answer.}
I suppose I might as well. As I scan the area, I reach out with my mind to Nose again.
{You said you have been here for a while. Just how old are you?}
{I am probably the oldest dragon you have ever encountered aside from the queen.} There was a sort of sad acceptance to his projections. {I have seen the leaves grow and fall twelve times since I was captured. Were I not captured, I was old enough that the queen would have eaten me soon after that raid. The land-striders keep me around because I don't eat much and I teach their young ones an important lesson about judging a dragon by appearance alone.}
For how freely dragons can share thoughts with each other, it's anyone's guess what knowledge or wisdom we have lost in the queen's nest that other dragons in far-flung lands would take for granted. Thirty is about the age a dragon is typically fed to the queen before he becomes too rebellious for her liking. Maybe Nose has gathered some knowledge in his time on this world that the other dragons from the nest haven't had the time to gain?
Nose's projected thoughts include memories of his time here. It was all routine. Eat, sleep, try to survive another round of young land-striders trying to kill him, then repeat. Forever. It was far from a fulfilling life.
So, no, then. He has gained absolutely nothing in his old age.
Despite all his attempts to reach out to the land-striders and show that dragons are not simple, mindless, hateful creatures that are always seeking to kill, he has seen no progress. Many times in the past, he has demonstrated familiarity with their fighting tactics that he gained from experience and has even manipulated the young land-striders into fighting each other. He even had opportunities where he would pounce on a hapless land-strider, but let him go in a show of mercy, but even that was not recognized by anyone.
No matter what, the land-striders will always see what the queen has turned dragons into under her mind snare - mindless beasts.
If there was no queen, we would live our own lives in seclusion. Sure, isolated conflicts may break out between dragons and land-striders, but a dragon would sooner avoid unnecessary conflict if he can find good land for hunting, sleeping, and mating. There are plenty of islands in the sea and very few of them are actually hospitable to land-striders. A dragon would love to nest among the mountainous crags and caves that land-striders seem to detest while the little critters love the wide-open flatlands we deem unsafe.
We could actually coexist peacefully. Ya know, as long as they don't go out of their way to hunt us down or something like that.
If wishes were fishes…
Ah! There. Through the dim of night, I can spot another little cave in the walls that surround me. Despite how dark it is outside, the fact that I can see one part of the wall that doesn't have the torrential downpour of rain running down is a helpful clue as to what I'm looking at. As I step closer, I can see and smell a pile of fish.
All for me? Don't mind if I do!
As I set into inhaling the fish, I ask Nose, {Why do the land-striders make me come out here to feed me? They tossed fish into my cave earlier.}
As if in answer to my question, I suddenly hear a loud, deep groaning, like a rotten tree falling down a hill. I flick my head around to see that there are stone walls closing me in.
I probably could have reacted in time to escape, but I just don't care anymore. I may not be the smartest dragon in the raid, but I'm no fool. I know that the land-striders actually saved me from the demonic queen. I may yet forgive them for having stopped me from killing myself earlier, but now that the heat of the moment has passed, I can see that all that's left now is to make the best of what I have. The other dragons here have shared their plans for using the land-striders to strike out at the queen and I figure it'd be best to play nice and follow along.
Besides, it's not so bad to follow someone else's lead if it's by my own free will for once.
Through the stone walls, I can still hear Nose. {I owe you an apology. I should have warned you about that, but they closed you in a lot sooner than the other nightmares that are monstrous. Take it as a compliment. They must really fear you. They will have you move to another small cave again in a few days. Take your time, run and fly around below the iron web. It is the only opportunity to move about like that and they will not hurry you along unless you take all day. There are four of us here, after all, and we all need to get our turn, too. Well, five, depending on how you count Spit and Sputter. That's the two-headed dragon, by the way.}
I snort derisively at that last part. Leave it up to a two-headed dragon to claim to be twice as important as anyone else. Of course it would receive two names because two heads surely means something… of any importance… at all…
{Nose, do I have a name, yet?}
{The adder wanted to call you Spite because you never share your tribute. I want to call you Loud because I could hear your roar from very far away, even through these stone walls. How about Spite Loud?}
Wow. Just… wow. Those are some amazing thought processes that went into that. I was actually afraid they'd target the fact that my fuel is so viscous and green it looks like snot and name me something like Snot Loud. I think that would be even worse.
I think no response is the best response to being given such a name. The ire in my passive projection should suffice. Looking and feeling around my new cave sounds a lot more interesting at the moment, anyway.
It's nicer here. There was a certain corner of my old cave in which I… marked my territory. Very thoroughly. Repeatedly. It was the one and only spot that had something that wasn't just hard stone and also happened to be at the lowest point. There was a matting of some sort of long, fibrous, dead, dry plant matter that seemed to have no nutritional benefit to any living creature. At least it was on the far side of the cave from the pool of water from which I drank, which was fed by a little trickle from the rain pouring outside.
This cave, though, is free from my own excrements, has another clean pile of that plant matter, and doesn't smell so rank, so that's a marked improvement. It even has a similar spot in the center where the stone is worn very smooth - probably from the countless previous draconic occupants - for a very comfortable sleep.
Maybe the land-strider's captivity won't be so bad. Anything is better than the demonic queen's mind snare. Literally anything. Maybe I'll come to like it here.
Maybe.
Either way, I'm promised an interesting show tomorrow as Adder trains her first batch of land-striders.