[ words hiss between teeth of onyx,   gaze  resentful    &&    tail  writhing  with  seething  malice. indeed. a great wyrm does not forget —— HE, SHALL NEVER FORGET what was lost. ]

pray, t’would behoove thee to leave this wyrm be

(( it’s bc he’s behemoth kin

STILL you live. blessing. curse. it matters not. for life must go on.

And yet, it still peaks between your shoulder blades and crawls up your spine. Still drives your worn wings in unforeseen ways.

In many ways you find yourself unable to allow your return to that who you once were. You are undeserving of it now.

In some dim lights, in some stagnant corners and brittle glimpses, that dragon still lives beneath the shell of your agony. Buried amongst your memories alongside the hundreds of those that once looked to you, driven to an insanity incurable but in death.

The heat of your emotions was described as ZEAL and PRIDE.

Once, your wings were made for shielding the sun from your companions eyes in the early morning rays, claws made for cradling your clutches with a gentleness unfitting for your size.

You were once described by the dragonlings of your brood as a gruff but warm presence. A hearth, always lit. A stern exterior softened as you dig your way beyond the layers.

Once, you were a figure others looked to for guidance and care. For YOU are many things; a father; a guardian; a protector; a bleeding heart.

Once upon a time, you were more then the permanence of grief. When your claws weren't stained with the ichor and ivory of a sadness eons deep, tying you eternal to your siblings and their hauntings.

But time is not an OROBOROUS, it cycles ever onwards, a constant march towards the blinding end when all returns to dust.

Perhaps, for a time, they were right.

One might not regard THE DREAD WYRM of the Dragonsong war to be anything less then the ever churning flames of rage. That ANGER is the only color you bleed. Stitched together between scales with little more then the threads of FURY and FIRE.

                             And you have never spilled enough.