Meandering in a drone-like trance, a steady stream of human pilgrims, nomads, and thrill-seekers proceeded along a deceptively glowing tunnel which ended where the gaping maw began. It was at this very point that several serenely visaged guardians - descendants of Adam like the others and yet bound to the drake’s will by their livelihood - regarded their guests with a false warmth… encouraging them to continue through the monster’s gullet.
Even in the depths of the dragon’s stomach, the illusion remained unbroken. Pre-dawn light filtered in from a series of transparent plates in the dragon’s armor, deflecting the reality of every visitor’s cornered state. Consulting a shred of parchment given by strangers, these victims sluggishly settled into their own portion of the dense enclosure. Immaculate white scales across the organ’s ceiling swallowed each person’s possessions, while a row of dark, leathery glands underneath relaxed, then absorbed their temporary hosts.
The travelers assumed they had arrived of their own volition, and not by fate-- the first of three arrogant follies.
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Once the appointed number of captives made their way inside, the dragon pivoted his massive ivory form away from the cavern and toward the open, bare field of sparse shrub and fractured rock humanity yielded. With the gradual pace possessed in every patient predator, the drake began his charge across the barren stretch and beyond.
A single human whelp within, aroused from the general stupor by a surge of anxiety, tightened his grip against the fifteenth dragon rib that held him in place and darted two very dilated eyes to consider an escape. It ultimately didn’t matter. The boy’s caretakers, positioned on either side of him, were strategically sedated with vile vials offered by the stomach’s stewards. Whether by the tranquil atmosphere maintained throughout the beast’s innards, or a crushing social pressure of the beguiled majority against any would-be dissenters... submission was inevitable, and there would be no fleeing from the dragon’s desired destination.
The mythic creature’s mad rush summoned a volatile sort of exhilaration—the kind that fed on its own multiplying momentum. Reflecting this escalating intensity, a terrible tremor grew; the prisoners in their reclined state mistook such dampened discomfort for uneven terrain, when in truth it was the thudding of a titanium heart.
Subtlety took its leave of the absurdly tragic scene. First as an ominous hum but finishing in an air-rending scream, the drake consumed air through chrome-coated lungs to release a furiously infernal roar. By now, the helpless humans could sense an essence within them pulling from behind their shoulders, as if invisible soul meant to tear away from body for avoiding the dreadful path ahead. Beaten ground below melted to a blur. Monstrous eyes lifted their focus heavenward. Ebon claws pulled close to the beast’s smooth underside, after making a final push against the earth that had formerly bound it. Carrying men, women, and children to a new expanse – an endless field of indigo, gold, and crimson sky – the dragon seized freedom at last.
This world, in all its jaded and modernized pride, believed it had buried the last of the dragons beneath its brittle mountainous brow—the second of three follies.
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In that distant age preceding the great flood, behemoth lumbered across the multitude of landscapes he ruthlessly reigned, while leviathan lurked unchallenged among ocean kingdoms... but these dominions pale in comparison to the dragon's triumphant transcendence above all elements: earth, water, and sky. Even time seemed subjugated from this vantage point; the sun sat suspended in that final instant before the gloaming, as the drake’s outspread wings enveloped winds in a persistent pursuit westward.
Concealing that tainted world below, a roiling sea of cobalt blue clouds assured the dragon overhead of how this realm had never felt the blight of human civilization. Wispy continents of angelic substance swept by, portraying a heavenly host of towering mountains, sprawling wetlands, and gaping canyons in the warm rosy hue of coral and island sands. Save for the drake’s perpetual and primal cry, undisturbed tranquility filled the air.
Such sights were more than enough to captivate even a dragon to dwell within the present. However, in that cruel paradox of relative time, this full appreciation also caused the moment to slip away; and once awareness made its rude return, the world had already changed.
The horizon engulfed the citrine solar disc. Azure sky turned blood crimson at the waning light of its edge, and coagulated to sanguine overhead. The sudden shift in setting was enough to boil the dragon’s black blood… or rather, to ignite it to flames.
Fire... so there was one element of creation that did not offer unwavering fealty to the drake.
In the same way as his initial thrill ascending fed on itself, this rage searing through his veins began a relentless cycle to incinerate the last of his vigor. The same power that carried the dragon so high is what demanded him to again be brought low.
The drake’s mighty will thrashed against the inevitable, but his pale form fell from the sky all the same. As earth reared its sin-scarred face to meet the dragon, his widened eyes desperately searched for a way to erase his shame. If only his strength had lasted him until the next ocean, for he would without hesitation bury the captives beneath waves to protect his own honor; crashing to the ground would only bare his failure to this generation and the next.
Begrudgingly, the dragon swooped down toward the lair he felt a compulsion to land in, but not before gliding above in the calculating circle of a predator (more to convince himself, than anyone else). Once he finally descended, the passengers felt that same unearthly inner tug... only this time spiraling downward rather than backwards, and not out of their own fear or relief but a tangible empathy-- even the noble dragon must one day be humbled.
Chunks of sapphire, ruby, and jade dotted the plains where the he landed, but no precious stone could console the creature who would again be shackled to dust with mere men. Mustering those few final remnants of his physical endurance and dignity, the drake lumbered at a gradually slowing pace that ceased at the mouth of a cavern. Here the dragon drew wide metallic jaws once more for spewing forth his hostages, and it is of special note that he did not shut them once upon his foes, due to a rarely expressed merciful facet of his personality.
The dragon considered the pinnacle of his glory to be in overshadowing humanity, when in truth his very being and memory depended on them in a symbiotic relationship-- the third of three arrogant follies.
The wanderers who departed from that disgraced drake would soon forget the whole ordeal in the distraction of their next destination. Several might comment on the minor vibrations felt, and one would complain of discomfort in the manner they were absorbed... but to the recently regurgitated mass of men, women, and children, the whole event was too ordinary to be told as a tale.
That is, these people would forget and move on from that strange journey with the exception of one-- a member of mankind of that particularly pesky breed known as "writers". To him, facts and machines would never explain away what his perceptions discerned as adventure and magic, for the legacy of the draconic passage would live on within this peculiar individual's imagination... and perhaps through the words passed on to trusted others.
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