My story doesn't begin with a heart-wrenching cry of the name of the newest warlord as he plunders small, innocent villages. My story doesn't have much of a beginning, come to think about it. But I never liked beginnings—they're so open to change and altered details from forgetfulness.
My first vivid memory, my earliest unchanged by the seasons passed, was of my own mother. She was a beautiful creature, her eyes as yellow as the setting sun on a winter snowfall. Her scales shimmered like topaz and bronze.
Their shields were of bronze as well.
Mother was teaching us to hunt. She had shown us our meal, a dead shrew. She explained to us that these shrews were living beings as well, and that we were not to make them suffer. One quick bite to the neck, and they'd be dead, she cooed. There was no need of theatrics.
They certainly didn't give Mother a painless death.
I found a shrew fairly easily for a beginner. They certainly made enough noise, those little beasts. Before I managed to take it down, the creature bloodied my snout with a miniscule dart.
It angered me to see such a tiny thing could hurt me! Mother calmed me with her soothing voice. She said that all beings are equal, but some choose different paths. She used an abbey as an example. She said, her lilting speech entrancing me, that the abbey beasts lived alone in their merely physical protection, a simple four walls of stone and mortar, believing themselves to be the highest of all. These poor 'good beasts' as they dubbed themselves, refused to see what lived just outside their own fortification. While they lived in constant alert and what they considered peace, the trees lived in a sort of harmony with all.
While a beast will be born, and eventually die having contributed little to the world, the tree will stand for a thousand life-times. The tree offers shelter to the weary and weak. On a cool night, it offers itself for use to save others from freezing. It allows its fruit to be harvested to feed the creature it has sheltered and warmed.
Yet, with all the good the tree does for the abbey beasts, they see it as only an object. They do not feel the spirit pulsing within, my son, they only take what they desire.
Mother's words live with me longer than she did, and they rest eternally by the burned image of her face in my mind. The shimmering plate armour she wears so gracefully, her all-seeing portals into the world of mortals.
I remember more clearly still they day They came. Their torches were lit and the flame danced like my mother's caring soul.
They screamed of monsters, and Mother hid me away with my brothers and sisters. We curled together in the darkness of the nest, the only movement the beating of our frightened hearts. We could hear Mother outside…alone…reasoning with savages.
The killers screamed that she was trying to control their minds, that she was hypnotising them.
Such weak creatures they were. To prove what strength they had, they killed. They never realised that true strength lives deeper than swords and shields. True strength lay inside my mother as she spoke to them. Tears rolled down my scaly cheeks and poured like the rain to the warm dirt ground. I felt the tears of my siblings mingle with mine, and we were one. We felt for our mother, and knew we could do nothing.
The first slices shook our hearts. We heard the metal ringing all too clearly. A few screams later, They struck again. I never heard a word from Mother.
They didn't know we existed, or we'd be dead as well. Mother hid us well.
Seasons later I had children of my own. They were bright-eyed younglings, with scales of bright bronze and topaz, and eyes brighter than the setting sun. In a way, they reminded me of my own mother in their naïve beauty.
I taught them to hunt, like my mother had taught me.
They looked up to me, up until that final day.
I knew it was coming—it always did. They were coming.
I didn't tell my children. I hid them in the same cavern as I had been hidden in. I realised that I was reliving my mother's fate, and I felt that each thought running through my miserable head must have run through her own when she was in the same situation.
I wondered then if all my siblings went through the same thing wherever they had wandered to. I hope they had better, longer lives, but I think that perhaps I died for the greatest cause.
They told me I could live if I admitted my sins, if I revealed the children they knew I had.
"No," I replied serenely. Inside, the tears, the sadness, the utter despair welled like nothing I'd experienced since my own mother's murder.
A mouse, his round shield emblazoned with a large "M" screamed obscenities at me, lunging forward with his sword. I let the tears fall from my eyes as the blows shredded my hide.
I felt the pain, yes, but I knew a deeper cause to it all.
While these beasts killing me would merely die, and their bodies rot, my soul would be a part of eternity itself. I'd die for a reason, while these petty beasts would slowly fade away in their beds accompanied by their closest companions.
As I died, a final thought entered my mind.
I loved my mother, I thought. But then again, in some twisted way, I loved these creatures too. It must have been Mother's final gift upon me—I felt no hatred as my soul detached itself from my limp corpse.
So this is harmony. Utter peaceful darkness.
Mother…?