dragon fall

I used to be a dragon.

On the last day of my existence, before the peopled masses crushed me underfoot, I was black-winged, graceful, with a flowing mane that rippled in the tearing winds beyond the rock face. I stood there, grey eyes closed to the dying sun, thirty meters of wingspan open, and fluttering like the jagged sails of ocean craft. There was a chill, a thin, biting wind upon my back, and I should have recognised its call. But I was inflamed and full, an alpha dragon amidst the soaring rage above.

I was a male, like none other, or so

I thought.

We were hot-blooded beasts, we dragonkind. The Others believed us to be outsized lizards, but it was never so. We burned with passion that frightened them, but our flames were never for violence, even though our cries were stark. Alone was our fire for love, for love, for love, and sex and love

and love, once more.

We were never what you painted us to be. And when the skies would open, and our Mother’s breath took us heavenward, we would soar, all rage and thunderclaps, all fire and love. And dance, we would, above them all.

And dance we would,

and dance.

But on the last night, before I ceased to be my dragon self, she came beside me, bid me take the leap, and whispered, “Go the way that you go, and I will meet you there.”

I leapt, I did, for faith abounded. The soft fur that covered me rippled in the frigid night. The air, you see, was far too cold, and so, I did not rise, but plummet ‘neath the scissored cliffs. And above, she stood there watching, but did not catch me,

falling.

So crash, I did, and crash and fall and burned the night air in my impotence. For in folly did I believe that should she see the brightness of my flames, she would fall there, with me, and together would we burn the night with such intensity that we would join the circling rage above.

But she did not. Another caught her eye, and so she left me to despair. And crash, did I, but crash. And to the bottom fallen, I saw the others’ bodies there, so did I join them,

dying.

And now, I’m here, no webeast, I, but empty man, despairing. For falling is a wondrous thing, but never is the

pairing.