The bonds between a human and dragons are worth the effort to forge them.
Lord Hogan Bight stood on the balcony of his palace, watching the sun set over the city of Sanction. The words of the long dead dragon overlord Iyesta echoed in his head, as if mocking him. He closed his amber eyes and bowed his head in a very humanly gesture of sorrow.
"You always knew she would die long before you, if everything went right…" a raspy voice said quietly.
"If everything went right," lord Bight snarled angrily, "I would have died with her! I would have found a way to save her, to make her remain young, if only I had worked harder I could have…" He shook his head in frustration. The small owl Varia landed on his upheld wrist, looking at him worriedly.
"Humans... are not mean to live for more than a bit over half a century… 80 years at most," Varia said, her voice gentle and soothing.
Lord Bight ran a hand through his dark golden hair, staring silently into the horizon for a long moment. "I should have chosen mortality," he said finally, so quietly that Varia hardly heard him. "I should have… but she always managed to talk me out of it. She said I would forget the pain in time, and remember only the happy memories…" A single tear rolled down his cheek. "Even with her last words she wanted to make me swear I would live…"
"She loved you very much," the owl said.
"And I loved, and still love her." Lord Bight met the owl's gaze. "I'm sorry, Varia… Wallowing in self-pity while you must miss her just as much as I do…"
"Nothing to be sorry about," Varia said quickly. "Actually… I should be the one apologising to you." There was something in the owl's voice that awoke an undefined sense of fear in lord Bight.
"What are you talking about?" he asked sharply.
The owl's eyes seemed full of sorrow and regret. "I'm so sorry to be leaving you now, when you need a friend more than ever…" she said softly, avoiding his eyes. "But I am old… Much older than any normal owl would live, and older than one of my kind usually lives… I came here tonight, to say goodbye."
"Varia…" lord Bight started, but didn't continue. What could he possibly say? Beg the owl to stay? Beg his one remaining friend not to die? Varia saw the feelings reflect in his eyes, and flew to his shoulder, trying her best to comfort him with her presence.
"I'm so sorry, Crucible…" she whispered. He said nothing. For a long while they stayed there, a still picture of a man and an owl silhouetted against the crimson golden sky, both staring at the setting sun. Then Varia took flight. "Goodbye," she said quietly, too quietly for any normal human to hear. But lord Bight, the bronze dragonlord Crucible, heard well enough.
"Varia, wait…" he said quickly. The owl turned in the air, looking at him expectantly. Lord Bight seemed to be searching for the right words. "When you go… to the world where the souls of the dead live… Tell Linsha I will keep my promise. I will live." He closed his eyes briefly, before meeting the owl's gaze again. "She was wrong when she said that the grief will go away with time… It will not. But I will keep my promise to her, and remember the happy memories, and those memories will help me bear through the rest of my life… until I will be ready to join her again. Tell Linsha I said that."
The owl said nothing, but lord Bight had the vague impression that the bird smiled. Then she was gone in the night, leaving him on the balcony in the ever darkening night.