Enlightenment has come at a price, I fear. Though I no longer feel the pangs of hunger, or even the need to sleep, I am yet bound by my past. I hold no grudges, but never over the course of my long life will I forget what was done to me. However, this has nothing to do with the newest problem set before me: the sun. In the time before my awakening, I had thought of the sun as something natural, something to be accepted if not embraced. I'd lived my life in the shadows, yes, but shadow cannot exist without light. Now, however, that lifegiving orb blazing across the sky brings me only discomfort - even pain. being crippled for half of every day is no way to live, so I shall need to rectify my situation with all haste. I had originally thought need for glasses was ended, but I could not have been more wrong; I must find a pair of sunglasses that I can wear in any form, not an an easy task. There are a few options I could look into, but I feel this is a problem mere humans, nay, even others of my own kind can't truly comprehend. Until such a time where I've mastered my new, unexpected handicap, I shall have to respect my limitations...
The scorpion's tail impales the man from behind, sticking in his back and holding him in place. Its Simvan master's work has already weakened him, and he can do nothing to stave off the inevitable. As the edges of his vision begin to fade, he hears the voice of his own master, the Lord of the Edge: "To die as a human is to understand true humility. Though the body survives, the hubris shall fade from this earth. Now, go forth, my son." Suddenly, understanding surges to the front of his mind, and he knows why he was sent on this mission - this exile. He begins to laugh, his breath growing ragged as the lifeblood drains from his body. The Simvan looks at him, slightly bemused, but his eyes betray his surprise as the man's color begins to drain from his body, following his blood into the earth. As hues and shades become mere blacks and whites, the man's laughter finally cuts out, and then even white forsakes him, leaving a black husk of what once was. A slight pause, then the husk shatters, the pieces disintegrating into the shadows of the night. The Simvan makes to leave, but the laughter suddenly returns, coming from...below? He turns to the sound, and realizes the man's shadow never faded. In fact, it's grown far larger in the instant he'd looked away. He freezes in place, already preparing a counter-spell, but even he could never have prepared for the dragon that rose from the shadow before him. Faster than even his reflexes can match, the dragon's great maw snaps shut over his head and torso, and he is bitten clean in half. In his final moments, he finds his mind wandering. Funny, he had always thought he'd die in battle, but this was-
As the man - the dragon - swallows his first true meal, the scorpion fades away into the aether. A construct, then. A shame, he would have liked to taste that as well. He could not recall a single instance of his time sealed into human form where he was ravenous, he realized. Fortunately, his training and discipline from that time seemed not to fade (if anything, they were better-tempered by his heightened senses of both self-and outer awareness), and he was able to drive the hunger to the back of his mind. There was no point in reveling in his newfound freedom if he was just going to get himself killed by a bloodthirsty tribe of Simvan. Strangely, thoughts of his master - or more accurately, his captor - brought him no feelings of ill-will. 40 years was an extremely small number to a dragon - some, he knew, had taken longer naps - and he was treated well during his time in the Edge Lord's service. No, he has enough wisdom to see the value of growing up among men, and knows that otherwise he'd have been just another jealous, solitary dragon, doomed to spend eternity chasing petty desires and whims. As he is now, however, he can do things many of his kind would never have even considered. Not necessarily virtuous things, of course, but he doesn't have to go out of his way to hurt the world. Fortunately, he was in among perfect company to enact a bit of First, of course, he will have to convince Mason not to throw a potentially fatal tantrum when he tells everyone of his liberation. He thinks for a moment, then takes a form more suitable to diplomacy. The identity he'd known during his formative years was familiar, comfortable even. As he begins to change, however, a singular ramification dawns on him, and he adjusts his metamorphosis ever so slightly. Soon enough, there's no longer a dragon standing over the bottom-half of a Simvan corpse. Neither, however, is there a middle-aged butler standing in the cold of the desert night. The man walking back to Ptolemy and their charge looks much as he had twenty years gone, before he had even left the Magic Zone. As the young man steps forward, he removes the glasses he no longer needs and tosses them into the night, adjusts his tie, and begins working on a passable explanation. |
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