The bonding that happens, between Rider and mount, is a perilous one. Confession is the most important part of the bonding. Gazing deeply into someone's eyes and baring one's soul makes one as vulnerable as a creature can possibly be. To lose the affection of someone so deeply bonded to one's heart is a truly deadly poison, and one can even die from it alone. Therefore, as Karyu's heart sickened, his body became incredibly ill as well.
After several nights wracked with rage followed by tears followed by nausea followed by profuse vomiting, Karyu realized that, in spite of the putative immortality of a demon, he just might die. To try to cool his parched throat, he lapped up a huge quantity of water from out of a deep drainage ditch, not caring for himself enough that it mattered to him that this water might be unsanitary for consumption. After leaving his head slumped under the filthy water for a moment to ponder drowning himself then and there, he reluctantly pulled his head out. He knew that he was running a fever, and he knew that something he had picked up from that contaminated water would eventually take root and make him worse, if not kill him outright.
"Anija," he said to the empty air around him. He knew that only the angelic dragoness could heal him in this state. Although he hated every footstep that he continued to live, then, he limped weakly to the place where Vaestro, Vrackie, and Anija now lived. It was a long way outside of town, but Karyu's only thought was "good." He used every pain-stricken step he took, on his pilgrimage, to punish himself. A paw descended in front of him. He shifted his weight to it. CRACK! Like a whip, pain shot through his muscles, and as he shifted his weight onto it further, the pain rippled into his ribs, sending poison into his heart. In spite of his hope that he would just fall peacefully dead in the deep forest, though, he finally collapsed right outside of the country cottage.
At this point, Anija was extremely far along in her first pregnancy, and her feathered body was curled up on a wicker seat in front of the small domicile in which the trio had made their home. Because Anija was not truly a human but merely a dragoness in anthro form, she abstained from wearing any attire at all, so her pregnant body lay out in full naked, beautiful glory as she peacefully gazed into a scroll. Because of her angelic nature, pregnancy had only enhanced Anija's sense of virginal innocence and purity, and there even seemed to be a sense of holiness about her. And there lay Karyu, a demon lying humbled and broken before the image of angelic beauty, sapped of all strength and pride.
"Karyu!" Anija shouted as she ran over to Karyu, almost stumbling as her milk-filled breasts pendulously overbalanced her for an instant. Just as Karyu's spirit began to depart from his dying body, Anija fell to a kneeling position next to Karyu. She reached out with her power, and she tethered it to the general premises, so Karyu's body could remain alive long enough for her to heal it. "What happened to you, Karyu? Are you alright?"
"I don't want to be," Karyu mumbled weakly, "but I knew that you would be disappointed in me if I let go without coming to you, first. I will not stop you from keeping me alive, but Anija, it makes me hurt so much, I can't stand it."
"This is not like you, Karyu," Anija scolded. "You have so much to live for, especially now that you have the power to do so much good!"
Karyu sneered. "I am a monster, Anija. I am evil itself. I am destruction. I am wrath. The only good that I can ever do is to turn that wrath on myself, so it can't be turned on others. The only way the world can be set right is to give up my spirit. Let me be purged from this world, Anija. I make this world so unclean. I am an abomination. I don't want this."
Anija's old sharp-tongued self came in, at this point, and her face twisted in annoyance. "Oh, Karyu, you are going to be the end of me. Didn't we have this conversation?"
"What conversation?" asked Karyu.
"About there being both an evil and a divine interpretation of all three of us, including myself, Vrackie, and you," Anija explained.
"But what could be evil about you?" Karyu whined. "You are so pure."
"But what if I became obsessed with purity in the wrong way, Karyu?" Anija pointed out. "What if I hoped to create a pure-blooded master race? What if I chose to love Adam's kingdom in such a way that I would destroy everything else in order to glorify it? What if I loved the Goddess--who has been called, by different peoples, Inanna, Ishtar, Venus, Aphrodite, the Virgin Mary, and Aset--in such a self-righteous manner that I would murder anybody that worshiped other gods or goddesses? Hate can only happen where love is possible, Karyu. Love is not a tame thing. Love is not a truly safe thing. Love, in the form of hate, can turn into the most toxic and vile thing of all, even more toxic than what you have become."
"But what can I be, besides what I am?" Karyu said through dry lips. "All I can see in myself is a monster. All I can see in myself is something that ought to be immolated in its own horror to keep its filth from spreading any further."
"Sacrifice," Anija said. "You are saying it, yourself, Karyu. You are doing it in a horrible, self-defeating, and ugly way, right now, which makes me ashamed of you, but think clearly, you stupid fool. For the first time in your life, would you just think clearly? You have it in you to give without asking anything in return. You have it in you to suffer for others. You would live forever in torment, taking on the sins of the entire world upon yourself, if you thought it would absolve the world. It really wouldn't. In the long-run, martyrdom is demonic and foul. Every religion that has raised martyrdom up as a virtue has brought about dark ages, terrorism on epidemic proportions, and other horrors. Making yourself a martyr is, in the long-run, selfish and ugly. But it still alludes to a potential...just a potential...to truly do something special."
"So this means..." Karyu started to say, but he paused on that, not daring to really say it.
Anija nodded. "You have the power to destroy. You have the power to create. You have the power to condemn. You have the power to forgive. You will bring destruction or salvation to this world. You could not possibly be a devil, Karyu, if you did not have a god sleeping inside you.”
A god dragon. A shen lung.