I shrugged the doubt from my thoughts and allowed the terminable inklings of self-destruction pass by me. But, if you could believe me, I wanted very much to die in that moment. To let the end of what I knew become the end of me; it would have been comforting to let all my debts and disappointments and supposed responsibilities be carried away with me, as they were stripped clean. Seems so childish to me now, to beg for new life only to take pleasure in letting the opportunities slip away.
No, I reached out and touched the flame, as it were. I felt the utter conviction that this new, wonderful life that had found me and challenged me...she...might truly believe in me. Neglect how or why; I wanted simply to believe in what could be.
I inhaled the hot air and let its careless charm overcome me; taking Yuna's hand, I united our belief together and focused on us becoming one.
The fire in my hut responded, by congregating to me. The very flames pulled at the rafters and all else that held the frames together and pushed their power into us. Like a God clenching his fist to crumble Its creation, my home encircled and collapsed into me and my lover.
The last thing I remember before oblivion first overtook me, is the warmth of Yuna's befurred hand holding onto mine, her eyes unwavering in their hope for me. Even as fire engulfed us, it was all I could think of as I summoned all that power and tried to give it shape. "Please," I cried to a restless and unceasing new void within me, "Don't let me fail her. I would overturn all I knew to give her belief in me, just the smallest reason to continue. Please, let her look at me like that one more time."
The change I felt over me, into her, over Us: it was not the enkindling, enticement and seduction of the magic that she had used on me. Oh no, it was a roaring declaration; a yell into darkness that I would not yield. Not for the sake of her. No, not yet.
We exploded from the rubble of that hut. The center held no longer, and we blasted past rubble and hell-storm into open and free air.
Wings. Powerful wings, that first gave us altitude and then gained us an absolute command of the skyline. Long, robust; expanding so great, I at once thought they could both touch the tip of the advancing dawn, and overturn it by a careless flutter. Our body was too big for flight but yet did advance, with scales the color of an impossible burning dream. I cut the air with my claws; I waved them uselessly as if I needed to swim the sky. But I devoured the air with my teeth, a new and sudden understanding of proper breathing (of all things) encouraging me to partake better. Thoughts, actions, beliefs, this universe was suddenly clearer to me. My eyes saw the markings of mysterious powers in the sky: the fading stars, yes, but also a grand and harmonious curvature of the celestial heavens. There was power there. Why hadn't I seen it before? It was more sure than I...We- were, but I hadn't noticed it when I had been...
And I knew what I was. There had been stories and terrifying speculations of their return since before the aeon of their departure. Such fear it should have turned within me, but We held perhaps the first key to the existence of a supreme being; We were a Grand Wyrm, and that meant We held A Power Undisputed.
I would have fallen into an almighty avarice if I did not notice that our massive frame was not beginning to toddle and fluctuate ungracefully in the air. I felt her head as it moved against mine. Pushing into me, I understood then what I had seemed to grasp so readily: she was my other head, and we had become one. Had I seen it in a story book before? We were a Wyrm with two heads???
I keened my neck to look at my other half, and I saw a glimpse of her knowing smile hidden behind the audacity of a serpentine face, as she spied me with a sideways glance. A deft eyebrow raise alerted me, just as our frame veered uneasily in an odd tilt. I tried speaking to Yuna, to query her advice, when she suddenly turned and bit down with teeth into the horns on my head pushing my head into a fully forward alignment. I wondered why she bit me, and tried to turn my head to see her. Instead, she pushed my head to face forward again. And then I understood; from the horns in my head, to the protruding scales in my belly, our body was designed to maintain flight, so long as I kept its shape.
I let go of something then, a dominating need to maintain a specific control, and felt a pervasive change come over us. I focused on pointing us true into the furthering sky, and I felt Yuna's influence over the body increase. Our claws forced themselves either forward or back, so that we no longer exerted ourselves so greatly when our wingspan carried us along. I stopped gulping air and began breathing again; she must have been exhaling for the both of us, because (isn't it so obvious?) we share the same lungs. Lastly, she influenced us to rise over the clouds and circle, because a new understanding began to emerge: We were Dragon. We weren't supposed to exist.
A prognostication began then, with a surety that I had never felt before, that I knew was no paranoia. Someone was alerted to the presence of a dragon in the sky and were going to act immediately. But then a new resolute thought emerged, and one that I did not recognize until I heard her confidence in it: for now, We did not care.
A roaring burst out of Yuna's mouth that could have, and I knew should have, caused me to quake. But I was whole in the face of a new infinite. I saw her eye flash at me, daring me, and I bellowed (more mewling against her impressive sound). I felt something connect inside our gut and We desired to speak a challenge to ignite an entire world. The flame that We had devoured charged out of our mouths with the celerity of lightning, and reverberated against mountain tops that I could not have known existed until our words echoed from them.
And at last I saw before (what I should have noticed before), We were above the terra, above the cloudscape, even. Was I even mortal anymore, that I got to see all that was below. As I saw Yuna's head dip down to point toward the ground, I followed her, and descended mightily toward the mountains beneath us. She had guided me away from man, and I could see no signs of their civilizations near us, though I was certain of the actions a party would take against us.
Somehow, (somehow) we landed heavily amongst the rocky spires and the frost. As I turned to face her, the gust of our landing tinkling the protruding beard of her scales only slightly, I saw her look into me with those eyes again. She believed in me.
Or she… believed there was something I could do. To...counteract.
A doubt I had not known creeped into me, and I felt a sudden departure from myself. The ground at my feet was firm and real (had I even been upon these mountains once with father long ago?), but somehow none of this was enough for me. Had not I - We just held the sky in our claws? Were we not just the unlimited source to end all pain and illusion? Were we not far greater than even…
“Man…” I said, turning my head back toward the one my prophetic inkling described, the withering word dripping like a language of malice. I turned us back, back to face a great evil, back to take on a forceful tyranny, it’s family, it's people, and all it knew. From that one word, came a magic that spoke in the language of fire: like the flame that escaped into the world, I knew what and where to go set them aflame. All of them would burn.
‘Even our old families?’ said a twinkling thought. And I knew it was her, and, to the Pit, did I hate us for thinking it. What were man to us, that we would have ever needed them? That they had educated or held us, even encouraged meant…
And We paused.
Were they not a destructive species, their avarice even greater than…
And I turned to face her. To face us. The crisp, frosty air bore into us gently and our eyes captivated mine.
“Ynette,” she said. And the magic of that language entranced me, and I understood the disconnect I sensed within me. Who were We that we hated on an instinctive level? It confused me, and uprooted part of mindscape that I had not known previous to myself. It rebelled and spurned me. Something within the mind of the dragon knew then, that I was not They and it fought against me with a new vicious intent.
It sent my head and jaws snapping against Yuna, and I, while committing that action, was terrified for her and my sake.
But she was ever deft, and seized my throat within her jaws and pushed Us down into the icy ground and the dragon within me sensed its demise by its own means. I felt Yuna’s sense of regret as a thought came into us, in which she begged us to change into something calm, to allow this madness to escape us.
I reached out to her and became
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Thanks for reading as Yuna and Ynette’s journey continues. Feel free to add parts as desired, and contact me if you have any comments or suggestions.